Moths by Ouida — page 352: what you’re looking at

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

845 MOTHS. <‘Love! for the wolves, or for the Poles?” e ‘‘Itis love,” said his friend. ‘‘It is the same love that makes Correzs live like an anchorite in the midst of Paris, which makes your wife live like a saint at Szarisla. It is their idea of love; it is not mine or yours. It is dissipation of the soul, Have you never heard of it? ‘ Aux ivresses meme impunies Vous preferez un deuil plus beau, Et vos levres meme au tombeau Attendent le droit d’etre unies.’ When our poet wrote that, he saw, or foresaw, the tragic and frigid loves of your wife and Correze. Whatcan youdo? Itis of no use toswear. You cannot cite them aux tribunaux for a merely spiritual attraction, for a docile and mournful passion that is en deuil.” Then she laughed, and made a little grimace at him. ‘‘ You cannot keep your wife in Poland all the same,” she said, seriously. ‘‘It becomes ridiculous. It is not she and Correze who are so; it is you.” He knew that she meant what she had meant at Arcachon. She was that day in his house: she had called there, she had little Claire with her, whom she had sent to play in the garden under the budding lilacs; she was about to fetch Duc Paul from the Union, being a woman who was always careful to be seen often with her husband. Meanwhile, she was in her friend’s own suite of rooms in the Hotel Zouroff; she was going about them, to and fro, as she talked. ‘¢T must write a note to leave for Nadine,” she said, as she went to his bureau. ‘*‘ Why have you quarreled with Nadine? It is so stupid to quarrel. If one has an enemy, one should be more intimate with him, or her, than with any oneelse; and your sister is your friend, though she has an exaggerated adoration of Vera—sympathy through dissimilarity, the metaphysicians call it. Ciel! what have you here? All women’s letters! Iwill bet you the worth of your whole entries for Chantilly that the only woman whose letters are absent from this coffer is your wife!” She had seen a large old casket of tortoise-shell and gilded bronze. The key was in the lock. The casket was full of notes and letters; she had pulled it toward her, turned the key, and was now tossing over its contents with much entertainment and equal recklessness. ‘‘It is too scandalous!” she cried, as she ran her eye “ver one here and there. ‘‘If there are not one-half of my acquaintances in this box! How imprudent of you to keep such things as these! I never wrote to you; I never write. None but mad women ever write to any man except their tailor. I shall take this box home——” Zouroff, who only slowly awoke to the perception of what she was doing, strode to the bureau withacry of remonstrance. * Jeanne! what are you about?” he said, as he strove to get the casket from her. ‘‘ There is nothing that concerns you; they are old letters, those, very old: you must not do that.” —~Comicbooks. co