Sealed Lips — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

SHALED LIPS. Rie had sacrificed so much to follow him into a desert which to all apppearances would be their tomb. Patrice could not help smiling at the thought that a human creature beside himself could pretend to know what love and suffering were. For with the same false balance we weigh sorrow or iniquity according as it concerns others or ourselves. The mote in a prevaricating neighbor’s eyes becomes the crushing beam. When it concerns pain it is the thorn that we have hardly drawn blood with, which assumes the proportions of a double-edged sword. Patrice did not smile for long, a thought passed through his mind that was, at this time, more over- excited than calm, owing to the fatigue of his journey. “Who can say,” thought he, “whether I am a hero or a monster, large-hearted or a fool? Whois right, I or Coralie’s husband? He took his wife away without any scruples. A woman gave him her love, he took it, without any uneasiness as to the sacrifice he exacted, sure of paying her. They are happy. Not once has she reproached him for ~ having taken her away from her friends and her fashions. They are happy! What matters the rest of the world to them? If Jenny could see them at this moment would she not envy them? Alas! per- haps she would say that I should have done better to have brought her here as this soldier did Coralie.” The quiet which surrounded him brought about EoOmichboo KH |