Moths by Ouida — page 309: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. 805. Yet a mist came over his eyes that obscured the torch-glare and the gathered multitudes and the buildings that were so white and so vast in the moonlight. He thought that he would have given all his triumphs, all his joys—nay, his very voice itself— to undo the thing that had been done, and make the wife of Fapieete Zouroff once more the child by the sweet-brier hedge on e cliff. Though for all the world he was a magician, he had no sor- cery for himself. He was but a man, like all the others, and te himself he seemed weaker than all the rest. The bonds of the, world bound him—the bonds of its conventions. of its calumnies, of its commonplaces. Hecould not strike a blow for her honor that the world would not construe to her shame. ‘* And who knows but that if she knew that I loved her she, too, might never forgive?” he thought, wearily; and the flowers flung to him through the frost seemed but weeds, the multitude fools, the rejoicing city a mad-house. When Fame stands by us all alone, she is an angel clad in light and strength; but when Love touches her she drops her sword and fades away, ghost-like and ashamed. But his sacrifice was of little use. There were too many women jealous of him, and envious of her, for the story of the Coupe d’Or not to be made the root and center of a million falsehoods. You may weep your eyes blind, you may shout your throat dry, you may deafen the ears of your world for half a lifetime, and you may never get a truth believed in, never have a simple fact accredited. But the lie flies like the swallow, multiplies itself like the caterpillar, is accepted everywhere, like the visits of a king; it is a royal guest, for whom the gates fly open, the red carpet is unrolled, the trumpets sound, the crowds applaud. i anaes de Sonnaz laughed a little, shrugged her shoulders, then said very prettily that every one knew there was nothing; Vere was asaint. And then the thing was done. Who said it first of all nobody ever knew. Who ever sées the snake spawn, the plague-mist gather? The snake-brood grows and comes out into the light, the plague-mist spreads and slays its thousands: that is enough to see. Who first whispered through the great world the names of the Princess Zouroff and the singer Correze together? No one could have told. Allin a moment it seemed as if every one in society were murmuring, hinting, smiling, with that damnable smile with which the world always greets the approach of a foul idea. | A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run. ‘¢ An old love, an early love,” so they muttered; and the fans and the cigarettes made little breaks and waves in the air, as much as to say it was always so. You could say what you liked, they murmured: when people were so very cold, so very proud, go very proper, there was always some cause. An old love, ah? that was why she was so fond of music! Then society laughed its inane cruel chirping laughter. ’ Comic 900 5 (E(0)