Moths by Ouida — page 191: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MOTHS, 30 eT *¢T am glad to see the sea,” answered Vere. **ButI am tired ef moving from house to house. We have no home. "We have enly a number of hotels.” ‘1 think you will be happier than in Paris,” said the Princess Nadine. ‘You will have the trouble of a house: party, it is true; but your mornings you can spend in your garden, your hot- houses, with your horses, or on the sea: you will be freer.” ‘“‘Yes,” assented Vere. She did not hear; she was looking through the great telescope on the terrace down along the line of the shore: she was trying to discern among the broken con- fused indentations of the rocky beach the place where Correze had sung to her and to the lark. But the sea and land were blent in one golden glow as the sun went down behind the black cliffs of western Calvados, and she could discern nothing that she knew. The dressing-bell was ringing, and she hurried to her rooms, Her husband was intolerant of any excuses of fatigue or indispo- sition, and always expected to see her in full toilet whether there was no one, or whether there were fifty persons, at his ta- ble. Sometimes it seemed to her as if all her life were consumed in the mere acts of dressing and undressing; the paradise of other women was her purgatory. They dined alone, only enlivened by the ironies of the Princess Nadine, who when she chose could be exceedingly amusing, if very acid in her satires; when dinner was over they went out on to the terrace, where the moonlight was brilliant. Some gen- tlemen from the Chateau Villiers had ridden over to congratu- late Prince Zouroff on the achievement of his.racer. They were old friends of his, heroes and disciples of ‘‘le sport.” After a while they talked only of that idol. Vere sat looking. at the moonlit channel. Madame Nelaguine, within the room, was playing quaint mournful melodies of old German composers, andsad Russian folk-airs. Felicite was very peaceful, very lovely; on the morrow the glittering noisy feverish life of the great world would begin under its roof, with its house-party of Parisians and Russians. ‘‘ What a pity, what a pity! One has not time’ to breathe,” thought Vere, as she leaned her head against the marble balus- trade and rested her eyes on the sea. ‘What a pity!” she thought, ‘‘ the loveliest things in all crea- tion are the sunrise and moonlight; and who has time in our stupid life, that is called pleasure, to see either of them?’ | A full moon made the narrow sea a sheet of silver; a high tide had carried the beach up to the edge of the black rocks; in the white luminous space one little dark sail was slowly drifting be- fore the wind, the sail of a fishing or dredging-boat. The calm- ‘ ness, the silence, the luster, the sweet, fresh, strong, sea scent, so familiar to herin her childhood, filled her with an infinite melancholy. Only three years, and how changed she was! All her youth had been burnt up in her; all hope was as dead in her heart as if she were already old. SNe . She sat and thought, as the dreamy musie from within united i a! : ad Z | : ~< comicboo ‘S co a4 AT