The Age of Innocence · Parallel

01

Easy English

Newland Archer sat at the writing table in his library. His house still stood in East Thirty-ninth Street.

Source English

Newland Archer sat at the writing-table in his library in East Thirty-ninth Street.

02

Easy English

He just returned from a great official event. The Metropolitan Museum opened several grand new rooms. Great treasures from many ages filled them.

Fashionable crowds moved through those wide spaces. Each old object now had a careful scientific name. Suddenly, one small remark opened a door in Newland's memory.

Source English

He had just got back from a big official reception for the inauguration of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, and the spectacle of those great spaces crowded with the spoils of the ages, where the throng of fashion circulated through a series of scientifically catalogued treasures, had suddenly pressed on a rusted spring of memory.

03

Easy English

"This was once one of the old Cesnola rooms," someone said.

The new museum disappeared. Newland sat again on a hard leather bench beside a steam heater. A small woman in a long dark fur coat moved away.

The old museum passage looked poor and almost empty. Ellen was leaving him there.

Source English

"Why, this used to be one of the old Cesnola rooms," he heard some one say; and instantly everything about him vanished, and he was sitting alone on a hard leather divan against a radiator, while a slight figure in a long sealskin cloak moved away down the meagrely-fitted vista of the old Museum.

04

Easy English

That clear picture woke many others. Newland looked around his library with new eyes. For more than thirty years, he came here to think alone.

Source English

The vision had roused a host of other associations, and he sat looking with new eyes at the library which, for over thirty years, had been the scene of his solitary musings and of all the family confabulations.

05

Easy English

The family also held all its serious talks here. Most real events in his life seemed to happen inside this room.

Almost twenty-six years earlier, May told him about their first child. She became red and spoke around the fact before naming it. Young women now would smile at such care.

Their oldest child was Dallas. He was too weak for church during his first winter. So their old friend, the Bishop of New York, came here.

He baptized Dallas in this room. Baptism welcomed a person into the church with water. That large and splendid Bishop once gave pride to all New York.

Later, Dallas took his first weak steps across this floor. He shouted, "Dad!" May and the nurse laughed behind the door.

Their second child, Mary, also brought her news here. She planned to marry one of Reggie Chivers's many sons. He was the dullest son, but also the safest.

Newland kissed Mary through her wedding veil in this room. Then they went downstairs to the waiting motor car. It carried them to Grace Church.

The rest of society changed under their feet. But a Grace Church wedding remained the same.

Source English

It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had happened. There his wife, nearly twenty-six years ago, had broken to him, with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young women of the new generation to smile, the news that she was to have a child; and there their eldest boy, Dallas, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter, had been christened by their old friend the Bishop of New York, the ample magnificent irreplaceable Bishop, so long the pride and ornament of his diocese. There Dallas had first staggered across the floor shouting "Dad," while May and the nurse laughed behind the door; there their second child, Mary (who was so like her mother), had announced her engagement to the dullest and most reliable of Reggie Chivers's many sons; and there Archer had kissed her through her wedding veil before they went down to the motor which was to carry them to Grace Church--for in a world where all else had reeled on its foundations the "Grace Church wedding" remained an unchanged institution.

06

Easy English

Newland and May always discussed their children's future in the library. They planned the studies of Dallas and his younger brother Bill.

Mary never cared for the fine skills expected from young ladies. But she loved sports and work for people in need. Her parents spoke often about both interests.

Dallas showed a loose interest in art. He was restless and wanted to know everything. At last, he joined the office of a rising architect.

Source English

It was in the library that he and May had always discussed the future of the children: the studies of Dallas and his young brother Bill, Mary's incurable indifference to "accomplishments," and passion for sport and philanthropy, and the vague leanings toward "art" which had finally landed the restless and curious Dallas in the office of a rising New York architect.

07

Easy English

An architect designed buildings. Such work showed how much young men changed.

Young men now escaped from law and business. They entered many new fields. Some worked in state politics or tried to improve city government.

Others studied archaeology, the search for old human objects and buildings. Some designed houses, parks, and wide areas of land.

They studied American buildings from before the Revolution. They learned the fine shapes used in the Georgian period. They also fought careless words.

People called every old-looking house "Colonial." These young experts strongly objected. Only rich food sellers outside the city seemed to own such false homes now.

Source English

The young men nowadays were emancipating themselves from the law and business and taking up all sorts of new things. If they were not absorbed in state politics or municipal reform, the chances were that they were going in for Central American archæology, for architecture or landscape-engineering; taking a keen and learned interest in the prerevolutionary buildings of their own country, studying and adapting Georgian types, and protesting at the meaningless use of the word "Colonial." Nobody nowadays had "Colonial" houses except the millionaire grocers of the suburbs.

08

Easy English

One library memory stood above almost all the others. The Governor of New York once came from Albany. He ate dinner and spent the night.

During their talk, he turned suddenly toward Newland. His closed hand struck the table. His glasses shook as his face grew fierce.

"Forget men who make politics their private business," Theodore Roosevelt said. "The country needs men like you, Archer."

Politics was like a dirty horse house, he said. Good men must help clean it.

Source English

But above all--sometimes Archer put it above all--it was in that library that the Governor of New York, coming down from Albany one evening to dine and spend the night, had turned to his host, and said, banging his clenched fist on the table and gnashing his eye-glasses: "Hang the professional politician! You're the kind of man the country wants, Archer. If the stable's ever to be cleaned out, men like you have got to lend a hand in the cleaning."

09

Easy English

"Men like you." The words filled Newland with light. He quickly answered the call.

Years before, Ned Winsett gave him a similar message. Ned wanted him to lift his sleeves and enter the dirt. But Roosevelt cleaned with his own hands.

Source English

"Men like you--" how Archer had glowed at the phrase! How eagerly he had risen up at the call! It was an echo of Ned Winsett's old appeal to roll his sleeves up and get down into the muck; but spoken by a man who set the example of the gesture, and whose summons to follow him was irresistible.

10

Easy English

Following such a man felt impossible to refuse.

Now Newland was not sure the country needed men like him. At least, it did not need him in active public office.

He served one year in the New York State Assembly. Voters did not choose him again. He thankfully returned to quieter but useful city work.

Later, he sometimes wrote for weekly papers that supported change. Those papers tried to wake the country from its deep sleep.

His public record looked small. Yet young men from his old circle once expected almost nothing. Their lives offered money, sports, and society.

Beside that narrow road, Newland's work had some value. One brick mattered inside a strong wall.

He knew that he liked thought more than action. Fine objects and ideas always drew him. But he had important things to think about.

Great work gave him joy. A great man's friendship gave him strength and pride.

Source English

Archer, as he looked back, was not sure that men like himself were what his country needed, at least in the active service to which Theodore Roosevelt had pointed; in fact, there was reason to think it did not, for after a year in the State Assembly he had not been re-elected, and had dropped back thankfully into obscure if useful municipal work, and from that again to the writing of occasional articles in one of the reforming weeklies that were trying to shake the country out of its apathy. It was little enough to look back on; but when he remembered to what the young men of his generation and his set had looked forward--the narrow groove of money-making, sport and society to which their vision had been limited--even his small contribution to the new state of things seemed to count, as each brick counts in a well-built wall. He had done little in public life; he would always be by nature a contemplative and a dilettante; but he had had high things to contemplate, great things to delight in; and one great man's friendship to be his strength and pride.

11

Easy English

People now called him a good citizen. For many years, each new city, art, or charity plan asked for his opinion. Organizers wanted his name beside their work.

"Ask Archer," people said.

They asked him about the first school for children with damaged bodies. They asked him to improve the Museum of Art. He helped create the Grolier Club for lovers of fine books.

His advice supported New York's new public Library. It also helped begin a group for music played by a few people.

Source English

He had been, in short, what people were beginning to call "a good citizen." In New York, for many years past, every new movement, philanthropic, municipal or artistic, had taken account of his opinion and wanted his name. People said: "Ask Archer" when there was a question of starting the first school for crippled children, reorganising the Museum of Art, founding the Grolier Club, inaugurating the new Library, or getting up a new society of chamber music. His days were full, and they were filled decently. He supposed it was all a man ought to ask.

12

Easy English

His days were full. He filled them with good, decent acts. Perhaps a man should ask for nothing more.

Still, Newland knew he missed something. He missed the one perfect flower of life.

Now it seemed almost impossible for him to win it. Feeling endless pain would be like mourning a lost game of chance. His game held one hundred million tickets.

Only one ticket won the great prize. The chance was always against him.

When he thought about Ellen Olenska, his thoughts were calm and far away. She seemed like a loved woman in a book or painting. She became the shape of everything he missed.

That weak, thin picture stayed with him. Because of it, he never truly wanted another woman.

People called Newland a faithful husband. He remained one.

Then May died suddenly. Their youngest child became sick with pneumonia.

May cared for Bill through the illness. It passed from him to her and took her life.

Newland mourned May honestly. Their long marriage taught him something. A marriage could be a dull duty and still hold honor.

Without honor, it became only a fight between ugly wants.

Newland looked around the library. He respected his own past and felt its loss. The old ways held real good after all.

Source English

Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery. There were a hundred million tickets in his lottery, and there was only one prize; the chances had been too decidedly against him. When he thought of Ellen Olenska it was abstractly, serenely, as one might think of some imaginary beloved in a book or a picture: she had become the composite vision of all that he had missed. That vision, faint and tenuous as it was, had kept him from thinking of other women. He had been what was called a faithful husband; and when May had suddenly died--carried off by the infectious pneumonia through which she had nursed their youngest child--he had honestly mourned her. Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of a duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites. Looking about him, he honoured his own past, and mourned for it. After all, there was good in the old ways.

13

Easy English

Dallas changed much of the room. He hung fine English prints on the walls. He brought graceful English wood cabinets and chosen blue-and-white dishes.

Soft electric lamps now gave a pleasant light.

But Newland never allowed Dallas to remove his old Eastlake writing table. May's first photograph still stood beside his ink.

Source English

His eyes, making the round of the room--done over by Dallas with English mezzotints, Chippendale cabinets, bits of chosen blue-and-white and pleasantly shaded electric lamps--came back to the old Eastlake writing-table that he had never been willing to banish, and to his first photograph of May, which still kept its place beside his inkstand.

14

Easy English

There she was in the Mission garden. May looked tall, full, and light. Her white summer dress held its hard, clean shape.

A wide straw hat moved above her hair. Orange trees stood behind her. Newland still saw the young woman from that day.

In many ways, May stayed at that same height through life. She sometimes fell below it, but never far. She was giving, faithful, and never tired of duty.

Yet she had almost no imagination. She could not grow with a changing world. The world of her youth broke apart and formed again.

May never truly saw the change.

Her bright blindness kept everything near her looking the same. The children learned to hide their ideas from her. Newland hid his own ideas too.

From the beginning, father and children shared a gentle falsehood. They all pretended that nothing changed. None of them planned this family act.

May died believing that the world was good. She imagined many loving and peaceful homes like her own.

She could leave it without fear. Newland would teach Dallas the same values and limits. Those ideas shaped both parents' lives.

After Newland's death, Dallas would teach them to little Bill. May trusted Mary as fully as she trusted herself.

May pulled Bill back from death. Then she gave her own life.

She entered the Archer family tomb at St. Mark's in peace. Mrs. Archer already rested there. She was safe from every frightening new change.

Source English

There she was, tall, round-bosomed and willowy, in her starched muslin and flapping Leghorn, as he had seen her under the orange-trees in the Mission garden. And as he had seen her that day, so she had remained; never quite at the same height, yet never far below it: generous, faithful, unwearied; but so lacking in imagination, so incapable of growth, that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever being conscious of the change. This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered. Her incapacity to recognise change made her children conceal their views from her as Archer concealed his; there had been, from the first, a joint pretence of sameness, a kind of innocent family hypocrisy, in which father and children had unconsciously collaborated. And she had died thinking the world a good place, full of loving and harmonious households like her own, and resigned to leave it because she was convinced that, whatever happened, Newland would continue to inculcate in Dallas the same principles and prejudices which had shaped his parents' lives, and that Dallas in turn (when Newland followed her) would transmit the sacred trust to little Bill. And of Mary she was sure as of her own self. So, having snatched little Bill from the grave, and given her life in the effort, she went contentedly to her place in the Archer vault in St. Mark's, where Mrs. Archer already lay safe from the terrifying "trend" which her daughter-in-law had never even become aware of.

15

Easy English

May never even noticed most of those changes.

Across from May's picture stood one of Mary. Mary Chivers was tall and fair like her mother. But current fashion gave her a very different shape.

Her waist looked wide, and her chest looked flat. Her shoulders fell forward a little. Mary performed great acts of strength in sports.

May could never do them inside her narrow dress. A blue band once went easily around May's tiny waist.

The difference between the women meant more than fashion. May's life was held as tightly as her body.

Mary followed custom as much as her mother did. She was no more clever. Yet her life was larger, and her opinions were kinder.

The new ways held real good too.

Source English

Opposite May's portrait stood one of her daughter. Mary Chivers was as tall and fair as her mother, but large-waisted, flat-chested and slightly slouching, as the altered fashion required. Mary Chivers's mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the twenty-inch waist that May Archer's azure sash so easily spanned. And the difference seemed symbolic; the mother's life had been as closely girt as her figure. Mary, who was no less conventional, and no more intelligent, yet led a larger life and held more tolerant views. There was good in the new order too.

16

Easy English

The telephone made a small sound. Newland turned from the pictures. He lifted the speaking part beside him.

How far New York had come. Once, only a boy in a coat with metal buttons carried quick messages. His running legs were the city's fastest link.

Source English

The telephone clicked, and Archer, turning from the photographs, unhooked the transmitter at his elbow. How far they were from the days when the legs of the brass-buttoned messenger boy had been New York's only means of quick communication!

17

Easy English

"Chicago wants you," a voice said.

Source English

"Chicago wants you."

18

Easy English

The call must be Dallas. His building office sent him to Chicago. He needed to discuss a palace beside the lake.

A young man with millions wanted it built. He also had strong ideas. Dallas's office always sent him to such people.

Source English

Ah--it must be a long-distance from Dallas, who had been sent to Chicago by his firm to talk over the plan of the Lakeside palace they were to build for a young millionaire with ideas. The firm always sent Dallas on such errands.

19

Easy English

"Hello, Dad. Yes, it is Dallas. Can you sail next Wednesday?"

Dallas named the Mauretania. He meant the coming Wednesday. His client wanted him to study Italian gardens before choosing a plan.

Dallas must cross on the next ship. He also needed to return by June first.

His voice broke into a joyful, knowing laugh. They must move quickly.

"Dad, I need your help. Please come."

Source English

"Hallo, Dad--Yes: Dallas. I say--how do you feel about sailing on Wednesday? Mauretania: Yes, next Wednesday as ever is. Our client wants me to look at some Italian gardens before we settle anything, and has asked me to nip over on the next boat. I've got to be back on the first of June--" the voice broke into a joyful conscious laugh--"so we must look alive. I say, Dad, I want your help: do come."

20

Easy English

Dallas sounded as if he sat in the library. He might be resting in his favorite chair near the fire.

Usually, that closeness would not surprise Newland. Long-distance calls were now common. Electric light also seemed ordinary.

Even a five-day trip across the Atlantic caused little wonder.

But Dallas's laugh still felt like a miracle. It crossed forests, rivers, mountains, and wide grasslands. It passed loud cities and millions of busy strangers.

The laugh carried a message across all those miles. Dallas must return by June first. He would marry Fanny Beaufort on June fifth.

Dallas's voice began again.

Source English

Dallas seemed to be speaking in the room: the voice was as near by and natural as if he had been lounging in his favourite arm-chair by the fire. The fact would not ordinarily have surprised Archer, for long-distance telephoning had become as much a matter of course as electric lighting and five-day Atlantic voyages. But the laugh did startle him; it still seemed wonderful that across all those miles and miles of country--forest, river, mountain, prairie, roaring cities and busy indifferent millions--Dallas's laugh should be able to say: "Of course, whatever happens, I must get back on the first, because Fanny Beaufort and I are to be married on the fifth."

21

Easy English

"Think about it? No, sir. You must say yes now. Give me one reason against it."

Newland had none.

"I knew it," Dallas said. "Then we agree. Please call the Cunard ship office tomorrow morning."

Newland should book the journey home from Marseilles. Dallas then gave the true reason for his hurry.

"Dad, this will be our last time together like this."

Newland agreed.

"Good," Dallas cried. "I knew you would."

Source English

The voice began again: "Think it over? No, sir: not a minute. You've got to say yes now. Why not, I'd like to know? If you can allege a single reason--No; I knew it. Then it's a go, eh? Because I count on you to ring up the Cunard office first thing tomorrow; and you'd better book a return on a boat from Marseilles. I say, Dad; it'll be our last time together, in this kind of way--. Oh, good! I knew you would."

22

Easy English

The Chicago call ended. Newland rose and walked around the library.

Source English

Chicago rang off, and Archer rose and began to pace up and down the room.

23

Easy English

Dallas was right. It would be their last journey of this kind. Father and son would share other times after the wedding.

They were close friends by nature. Fanny Beaufort would probably not stand between them. Newland expected her to join their friendship.

Still, change remained change. Newland liked his future daughter-in-law. Yet he wanted this last chance alone with his son.

Source English

It would be their last time together in this kind of way: the boy was right. They would have lots of other "times" after Dallas's marriage, his father was sure; for the two were born comrades, and Fanny Beaufort, whatever one might think of her, did not seem likely to interfere with their intimacy. On the contrary, from what he had seen of her, he thought she would be naturally included in it. Still, change was change, and differences were differences, and much as he felt himself drawn toward his future daughter-in-law, it was tempting to seize this last chance of being alone with his boy.

24

Easy English

Nothing stopped him except one deep fact. He lost the habit of travel.

May disliked leaving home without a proper reason. The children might need the sea or mountains. Those purposes made sense to her.

She saw no other reason to leave East Thirty-ninth Street. Their comfortable rooms at the Wellands' Newport home offered enough change.

After Dallas finished his studies, May decided on six months abroad. The whole family made the old tour. They crossed England, Switzerland, and Italy.

For no clear reason, their time felt limited. So they left France out.

Dallas became angry. He wanted Rheims and Chartres, with their great old churches. Instead, the family made him stare at Mont Blanc.

Mary and Bill wanted to climb mountains. They already followed Dallas through many English churches. During those visits, they could hardly stop themselves from sleeping.

May always tried to treat the children equally. She balanced their love of action against Dallas's love of art.

She did suggest a private choice for Newland. He could spend two weeks in Paris. Then he could meet them beside the Italian lakes.

Newland refused.

"We will stay together," he said.

May's face grew bright. He set a good example for Dallas.

May died almost two years before the telephone call. Afterward, no reason held Newland to his old routine.

Source English

There was no reason why he should not seize it, except the profound one that he had lost the habit of travel. May had disliked to move except for valid reasons, such as taking the children to the sea or in the mountains: she could imagine no other motive for leaving the house in Thirty-ninth Street or their comfortable quarters at the Wellands' in Newport. After Dallas had taken his degree she had thought it her duty to travel for six months; and the whole family had made the old-fashioned tour through England, Switzerland and Italy. Their time being limited (no one knew why) they had omitted France. Archer remembered Dallas's wrath at being asked to contemplate Mont Blanc instead of Rheims and Chartres. But Mary and Bill wanted mountain-climbing, and had already yawned their way in Dallas's wake through the English cathedrals; and May, always fair to her children, had insisted on holding the balance evenly between their athletic and artistic proclivities. She had indeed proposed that her husband should go to Paris for a fortnight, and join them on the Italian lakes after they had "done" Switzerland; but Archer had declined. "We'll stick together," he said; and May's face had brightened at his setting such a good example to Dallas.

25

Easy English

His children urged him to travel. Mary believed foreign picture rooms would help him. She did not understand how, which made her trust the cure more.

But habit and memory held Newland firmly. New things now caused a quick, frightened movement inside him.

Source English

Since her death, nearly two years before, there had been no reason for his continuing in the same routine. His children had urged him to travel: Mary Chivers had felt sure it would do him good to go abroad and "see the galleries." The very mysteriousness of such a cure made her the more confident of its efficacy. But Archer had found himself held fast by habit, by memories, by a sudden startled shrinking from new things.

26

Easy English

As he reviewed his life, he saw a deep track. He walked inside it for years. Duty made him unable to do anything except more duty.

At least, men of his time accepted that result.

They drew hard lines between right and wrong. Honest and dishonest acts stood far apart. So did proper and improper people.

Those lines left almost no space for surprise.

Sometimes a man's imagination rises above daily life. It looks down on all the long turns of fate. Newland's mind rose that night.

Source English

Now, as he reviewed his past, he saw into what a deep rut he had sunk. The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else. At least that was the view that the men of his generation had taken. The trenchant divisions between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little scope for the unforeseen. There are moments when a man's imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level, and surveys the long windings of destiny. Archer hung there and wondered....

27

Easy English

He wondered about everything.

What remained of the small world that raised and tied him? He recalled Lawrence Lefferts's angry warning in this same room.

"Soon our children will marry Beaufort's children born outside marriage."

That was exactly what Dallas planned. Newland's oldest son was the pride of his life. Nobody expressed surprise or blame.

Source English

What was left of the little world he had grown up in, and whose standards had bent and bound him? He remembered a sneering prophecy of poor Lawrence Lefferts's, uttered years ago in that very room: "If things go on at this rate, our children will be marrying Beaufort's bastards."

28

Easy English

Even Aunt Janey accepted Fanny.

Janey still looked exactly like the older young woman she once was. She opened the soft pink cloth around her mother's jewels. Her hands shook as they always did.

She carried old green stones and tiny pearls to the future bride.

Fanny did not want a new set from a Paris shop. She cried out over the old jewels' beauty. Wearing them would make her feel like a small Isabey painting.

Source English

It was just what Archer's eldest son, the pride of his life, was doing; and nobody wondered or reproved. Even the boy's Aunt Janey, who still looked so exactly as she used to in her elderly youth, had taken her mother's emeralds and seed-pearls out of their pink cotton-wool, and carried them with her own twitching hands to the future bride; and Fanny Beaufort, instead of looking disappointed at not receiving a "set" from a Paris jeweller, had exclaimed at their old-fashioned beauty, and declared that when she wore them she should feel like an Isabey miniature.

29

Easy English

Fanny Beaufort came to New York at eighteen. Her parents were dead. She won the city's heart as Ellen did thirty years before.

But people did not fear or distrust Fanny. They accepted her with joy. She was pretty, amusing, and skilled.

What else could anyone want?

No one searched through her father's past. Few cared about the facts of her birth. Only older people remembered Beaufort's business failure.

They also remembered what followed Regina's death. Beaufort quietly married Fanny Ring. He left America with his new wife and their little girl.

The girl received her mother's beauty.

People later heard about Beaufort in Constantinople. After that, he lived in Russia. Twelve years later, American travelers met him in Buenos Aires.

He received them with great style. He worked there for a large insurance company. He and his wife died as rich and respected people.

One day, their daughter returned to New York without parents. Mrs. Jack Welland brought her. Mr. Jack Welland became the girl's legal guardian.

That link made Fanny almost a cousin to the Archer children. Nobody wondered when Dallas announced their engagement.

Source English

Fanny Beaufort, who had appeared in New York at eighteen, after the death of her parents, had won its heart much as Madame Olenska had won it thirty years earlier; only instead of being distrustful and afraid of her, society took her joyfully for granted. She was pretty, amusing and accomplished: what more did any one want? Nobody was narrow-minded enough to rake up against her the half-forgotten facts of her father's past and her own origin. Only the older people remembered so obscure an incident in the business life of New York as Beaufort's failure, or the fact that after his wife's death he had been quietly married to the notorious Fanny Ring, and had left the country with his new wife, and a little girl who inherited her beauty. He was subsequently heard of in Constantinople, then in Russia; and a dozen years later American travellers were handsomely entertained by him in Buenos Ayres, where he represented a large insurance agency. He and his wife died there in the odour of prosperity; and one day their orphaned daughter had appeared in New York in charge of May Archer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Jack Welland, whose husband had been appointed the girl's guardian. The fact threw her into almost cousinly relationship with Newland Archer's children, and nobody was surprised when Dallas's engagement was announced.

30

Easy English

Nothing showed the world's long journey more clearly.

People were too busy now to study their neighbors. They worked for public change and followed strange new ideas. They chased both serious plans and foolish pleasures.

The past of one person mattered little. Society now seemed like a great turning glass toy. All its colored pieces moved together on one level.

Source English

Nothing could more clearly give the measure of the distance that the world had travelled. People nowadays were too busy--busy with reforms and "movements," with fads and fetishes and frivolities--to bother much about their neighbours. And of what account was anybody's past, in the huge kaleidoscope where all the social atoms spun around on the same plane?

31

Easy English

Soon Newland looked from a Paris hotel window. The grand, happy streets spread below him. His heart beat with a young man's fear and hope.

Source English

Newland Archer, looking out of his hotel window at the stately gaiety of the Paris streets, felt his heart beating with the confusion and eagerness of youth.

32

Easy English

It had not moved that way for years. First it jumped hard under his wider coat. The next moment, his chest felt empty and his head hot.

Did Dallas's heart act this way near Fanny? Newland decided that it did not. The young heart worked just as strongly, but to another beat.

Dallas announced his engagement with easy calm. He never doubted his family's approval.

Source English

It was long since it had thus plunged and reared under his widening waistcoat, leaving him, the next minute, with an empty breast and hot temples. He wondered if it was thus that his son's conducted itself in the presence of Miss Fanny Beaufort--and decided that it was not. "It functions as actively, no doubt, but the rhythm is different," he reflected, recalling the cool composure with which the young man had announced his engagement, and taken for granted that his family would approve.

33

Easy English

Young people now expected to receive what they wanted. Newland's generation expected to lose it.

But he wondered about one thing. Could a joy promised in advance ever make the heart beat so wildly?

Source English

"The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder--the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?"

34

Easy English

It was their second day in Paris. Spring sunlight held Newland at the open window. The wide silver Place Vendôme lay below.

Newland made almost no demands about the trip. But he refused one of the huge new hotels in Paris.

Source English

It was the day after their arrival in Paris, and the spring sunshine held Archer in his open window, above the wide silvery prospect of the Place Vendôme. One of the things he had stipulated--almost the only one--when he had agreed to come abroad with Dallas, was that, in Paris, he shouldn't be made to go to one of the newfangled "palaces."

35

Easy English

"Of course," Dallas agreed. "I will find a pleasant old place. We can try the Bristol."

Newland could not answer. Kings and rulers lived at the Bristol for a hundred years. Now Dallas called it a charming old inn.

Visitors chose it for its small problems and old local feeling.

Source English

"Oh, all right--of course," Dallas good-naturedly agreed. "I'll take you to some jolly old-fashioned place--the Bristol say--" leaving his father speechless at hearing that the century-long home of kings and emperors was now spoken of as an old-fashioned inn, where one went for its quaint inconveniences and lingering local colour.

36

Easy English

During his first impatient years, Newland often imagined returning to Paris. Later, his personal dream faded. He pictured the city only as Ellen's home.

At night, he sat alone after the family slept. He imagined spring breaking into light along roads of chestnut trees. Flowers and white stone figures filled public gardens.

Flower carts carried lilacs, light purple spring flowers with a sweet smell. The great river rolled under its bridges. Art, study, and pleasure filled every wide street.

Now the real Paris opened before him. Its beauty made him shy. He felt old-fashioned and unequal to it.

He seemed like one small gray mark. The man in his old dreams looked great, brave, and without limits.

Source English

Archer had pictured often enough, in the first impatient years, the scene of his return to Paris; then the personal vision had faded, and he had simply tried to see the city as the setting of Madame Olenska's life. Sitting alone at night in his library, after the household had gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being....

37

Easy English

Dallas's hand came down warmly on his shoulder.

"Hello, Father. This is a real view, is it not?"

They watched the city together in silence.

Then Dallas spoke again. "I have a message. Countess Olenska expects us at half past five."

Source English

Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past five."

38

Easy English

He said it as lightly as a train time. They were leaving for Florence the next evening. Ellen's name seemed like another simple travel fact.

Newland looked at his son. A playful, sharp light moved in Dallas's eyes. It reminded Newland of old Catherine Mingott.

Source English

He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.

39

Easy English

"Did I forget to tell you?" Dallas asked.

Fanny made him promise three things in Paris. He must buy the music for Debussy's newest songs. He must visit the Grand-Guignol theater.

He must also see Madame Olenska.

Ellen was very kind to Fanny years before. Mr. Beaufort sent his daughter from Buenos Aires to the Assomption school. Fanny knew nobody in Paris.

Ellen took her out during school holidays. She was also a close friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort. And Ellen was family, of course.

Dallas called her that morning. He said that he and his father had two days in Paris. They wished to see her.

Source English

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I went out, and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her."

40

Easy English

Newland continued to stare. "You told Ellen that I am here?"

Source English

Archer continued to stare at him. "You told her I was here?"

41

Easy English

"Of course. Why not?"

Dallas's brows rose with a playful question. Newland gave no answer. Dallas placed one arm through his father's arm.

The gentle pressure invited trust.

Source English

"Of course--why not?" Dallas's eye brows went up whimsically. Then, getting no answer, he slipped his arm through his father's with a confidential pressure.

42

Easy English

"Father, what was she like?" Dallas asked.

Source English

"I say, father: what was she like?"

43

Easy English

Newland's face grew warm under his son's open look.

Source English

Archer felt his colour rise under his son's unabashed gaze. "Come, own up: you and she were great pals, weren't you? Wasn't she most awfully lovely?"

44

Easy English

"Tell me the truth. You and Ellen were great friends. Was she very beautiful?"

"Beautiful? I do not know. She was different."

"There it is," Dallas cried. "That is always the answer. She is different, and no one knows why."

Source English

"Lovely? I don't know. She was different."

45

Easy English

Dallas felt exactly that way about Fanny.

Source English

"Ah--there you have it! That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? When she comes, she's different--and one doesn't know why. It's exactly what I feel about Fanny."

46

Easy English

Newland stepped back and freed his arm. "About Fanny? My dear boy, I hope she is different. But I do not see the link."

Source English

His father drew back a step, releasing his arm. "About Fanny? But, my dear fellow--I should hope so! Only I don't see--"

47

Easy English

"Father, do not be ancient. Was Ellen once your Fanny?"

Source English

"Dash it, Dad, don't be prehistoric! Wasn't she--once--your Fanny?"

48

Easy English

Dallas belonged completely to the new age. He was May and Newland's first child. Yet they never taught him to hide his thoughts.

"Why create secrets?" Dallas always asked. "Secrets only make people search harder."

Now Newland saw love under his son's joking eyes.

Source English

Dallas belonged body and soul to the new generation. He was the first-born of Newland and May Archer, yet it had never been possible to inculcate in him even the rudiments of reserve. "What's the use of making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out," he always objected when enjoined to discretion. But Archer, meeting his eyes, saw the filial light under their banter.

49

Easy English

"My Fanny?" Newland repeated.

Source English

"My Fanny?"

50

Easy English

"The woman for whom you would have thrown everything away. But you did not."

Source English

"Well, the woman you'd have chucked everything for: only you didn't," continued his surprising son.

51

Easy English

"I did not," Newland said with serious weight.

Source English

"I didn't," echoed Archer with a kind of solemnity.

52

Easy English

"No, dear old Father. You belong to another time. But Mother said something."

Source English

"No: you date, you see, dear old boy. But mother said--"

53

Easy English

"Your mother?"

Source English

"Your mother?"

54

Easy English

Dallas spoke about the day before May died. She asked him to come alone. Newland remembered.

May said the children were safe with their father. They would always be safe. Once, she asked Newland to give up what he wanted most.

He gave it up for her.

Source English

"Yes: the day before she died. It was when she sent for me alone--you remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted."

55

Easy English

Newland received the strange news in silence. His eyes stayed on the crowded, sunny square.

At last, he spoke very softly. "She never asked me."

Source English

Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the window. At length he said in a low voice: "She never asked me."

56

Easy English

"No, I forgot," Dallas said. "People in your time never asked each other anything. You never told each other anything either."

They sat and watched. Then they guessed what moved under the surface.

"Your whole world was like a home where no one could hear or speak," Dallas joked. "Still, you knew more private thoughts than we do."

His generation was too busy to discover even its own thoughts.

Dallas stopped and studied his father. "You are not angry, are you? If you are, let us make peace over lunch at Henri's."

Source English

"No. I forgot. You never did ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum, in fact! Well, I back your generation for knowing more about each other's private thoughts than we ever have time to find out about our own.--I say, Dad," Dallas broke off, "you're not angry with me? If you are, let's make it up and go and lunch at Henri's. I've got to rush out to Versailles afterward."

57

Easy English

He had to hurry to Versailles after lunch.

Newland did not go with him. He chose to walk alone through Paris. A lifetime of closed memories and regrets broke open at once.

Source English

Archer did not accompany his son to Versailles. He preferred to spend the afternoon in solitary roamings through Paris. He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.

58

Easy English

After some time, he no longer blamed Dallas for speaking. A hard metal band seemed to leave his heart.

Someone guessed his pain after all. Someone felt pity for him.

The fact that May understood moved him beyond words. Dallas could not fully understand that part. To him, the story was only sad waste.

Newland wanted love and failed to take it. His strength went nowhere. Was that truly the whole meaning?

He sat for a long time on a bench in the Champs Élysées. The river of Paris life moved past him. He kept asking the question.

Source English

After a little while he did not regret Dallas's indiscretion. It seemed to take an iron band from his heart to know that, after all, some one had guessed and pitied.... And that it should have been his wife moved him indescribably. Dallas, for all his affectionate insight, would not have understood that. To the boy, no doubt, the episode was only a pathetic instance of vain frustration, of wasted forces. But was it really no more? For a long time Archer sat on a bench in the Champs Élysées and wondered, while the stream of life rolled by....

59

Easy English

Ellen waited only a few streets and hours away.

She never returned to her husband. Count Olenski died several years before. Ellen changed nothing in her way of life afterward.

Nothing now kept Ellen and Newland apart.

Source English

A few streets away, a few hours away, Ellen Olenska waited. She had never gone back to her husband, and when he had died, some years before, she had made no change in her way of living. There was nothing now to keep her and Archer apart--and that afternoon he was to see her.

60

Easy English

That afternoon, he would see her.

Newland rose and crossed the Place de la Concorde. He walked through the Tuileries gardens to the Louvre. Ellen once said she often visited that museum.

He wanted to spend the waiting hours where she recently might have stood.

For more than an hour, he moved from room to room. Afternoon light filled the great spaces. One old painting after another opened before him.

He half remembered their beauty. Now it returned with great power. Long sounds of beauty seemed to fill his heart.

His life was too hungry after all.

Source English

He got up and walked across the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries gardens to the Louvre. She had once told him that she often went there, and he had a fancy to spend the intervening time in a place where he could think of her as perhaps having lately been. For an hour or more he wandered from gallery to gallery through the dazzle of afternoon light, and one by one the pictures burst on him in their half-forgotten splendour, filling his soul with the long echoes of beauty. After all, his life had been too starved....

61

Easy English

He stopped before a bright painting by Titian. Suddenly, he heard his own thought.

"But I am only fifty-seven."

Then he turned away.

It was too late for the hot summer dreams of youth. But perhaps a quiet harvest still waited. Friendship and close understanding might grow beside Ellen.

He could rest inside the blessed quiet of her presence.

Source English

Suddenly, before an effulgent Titian, he found himself saying: "But I'm only fifty-seven--" and then he turned away. For such summer dreams it was too late; but surely not for a quiet harvest of friendship, of comradeship, in the blessed hush of her nearness.

62

Easy English

Newland returned to the hotel. Dallas met him there. Together, they crossed the Place de la Concorde again.

They walked over the bridge toward the Chamber of Deputies.

Source English

He went back to the hotel, where he and Dallas were to meet; and together they walked again across the Place de la Concorde and over the bridge that leads to the Chamber of Deputies.

63

Easy English

Dallas knew nothing about his father's thoughts. He talked quickly about Versailles. Before today, he saw it only once during a crowded holiday.

On that earlier trip, he tried to see everything May's Swiss plan denied him. Now praise and certain judgment raced from his mouth together.

Newland listened and felt less able to express himself. Dallas was not without feeling. But he moved through life with ease and trust.

Source English

Dallas, unconscious of what was going on in his father's mind, was talking excitedly and abundantly of Versailles. He had had but one previous glimpse of it, during a holiday trip in which he had tried to pack all the sights he had been deprived of when he had had to go with the family to Switzerland; and tumultuous enthusiasm and cock-sure criticism tripped each other up on his lips.

64

Easy English

He faced fate as an equal, not a master.

That was the difference. Young people felt equal to things. They knew their way.

Source English

As Archer listened, his sense of inadequacy and inexpressiveness increased. The boy was not insensitive, he knew; but he had the facility and self-confidence that came of looking at fate not as a master but as an equal. "That's it: they feel equal to things--they know their way about," he mused, thinking of his son as the spokesman of the new generation which had swept away all the old landmarks, and with them the sign-posts and the danger-signal.

65

Easy English

Dallas spoke for the new age. It removed all the old signs beside the road. It also removed the warning signs of danger.

Suddenly, Dallas stopped and caught his father's arm.

"Oh, look," he cried.

Source English

Suddenly Dallas stopped short, grasping his father's arm. "Oh, by Jove," he exclaimed.

66

Easy English

They entered the great open space before the Invalides. New leaves covered the trees. Above them floated Mansart's golden dome.

The long gray building lay beneath it. Every line of afternoon light seemed to rise into the dome. It hung like a clear sign of France's glory.

Source English

They had come out into the great tree-planted space before the Invalides. The dome of Mansart floated ethereally above the budding trees and the long grey front of the building: drawing up into itself all the rays of afternoon light, it hung there like the visible symbol of the race's glory.

67

Easy English

Newland knew Ellen lived near one of the roads from the Invalides. He imagined her area as quiet and dark. He forgot the great light at its center.

Now that gold became Ellen's light.

She lived in it for almost thirty years. Newland knew almost nothing about those years. The rich air already felt too strong for him.

Yet it also woke every part of his mind.

He thought of the theaters Ellen visited. He imagined the paintings she studied and the grand old houses she entered. What people shared her dinners?

What ideas moved without rest around her? French life mixed talk, images, questions, and ancient manners.

He remembered M. Rivière. The young Frenchman once praised good conversation above everything.

Newland did not see or hear about him for almost thirty years. That fact measured Newland's ignorance of Ellen's life.

More than half a lifetime stood between them. Ellen spent those years among unknown people. Newland could only weakly imagine their society.

He would never fully understand its rules.

During those years, Newland lived with his young memory of Ellen. But Ellen surely had real people beside her.

Source English

Archer knew that Madame Olenska lived in a square near one of the avenues radiating from the Invalides; and he had pictured the quarter as quiet and almost obscure, forgetting the central splendour that lit it up. Now, by some queer process of association, that golden light became for him the pervading illumination in which she lived. For nearly thirty years, her life--of which he knew so strangely little--had been spent in this rich atmosphere that he already felt to be too dense and yet too stimulating for his lungs. He thought of the theatres she must have been to, the pictures she must have looked at, the sober and splendid old houses she must have frequented, the people she must have talked with, the incessant stir of ideas, curiosities, images and associations thrown out by an intensely social race in a setting of immemorial manners; and suddenly he remembered the young Frenchman who had once said to him: "Ah, good conversation--there is nothing like it, is there?"

68

Easy English

Perhaps she kept a memory of him too. It might rest like a holy object in a chapel. A chapel was a small place for prayer.

She could not go there and pray every day.

Source English

Archer had not seen M. Rivière, or heard of him, for nearly thirty years; and that fact gave the measure of his ignorance of Madame Olenska's existence. More than half a lifetime divided them, and she had spent the long interval among people he did not know, in a society he but faintly guessed at, in conditions he would never wholly understand. During that time he had been living with his youthful memory of her; but she had doubtless had other and more tangible companionship. Perhaps she too had kept her memory of him as something apart; but if she had, it must have been like a relic in a small dim chapel, where there was not time to pray every day....

69

Easy English

They crossed the Place des Invalides. Then they followed a road beside the great building.

The area was quiet after all. Yet its rich history remained everywhere. Paris could leave such beauty to a few people who hardly noticed.

Source English

They had crossed the Place des Invalides, and were walking down one of the thoroughfares flanking the building. It was a quiet quarter, after all, in spite of its splendour and its history; and the fact gave one an idea of the riches Paris had to draw on, since such scenes as this were left to the few and the indifferent.

70

Easy English

Daylight softened into a golden mist. Yellow electric lights began to shine. Few people crossed the small square they entered.

Dallas stopped and looked up.

Source English

The day was fading into a soft sun-shot haze, pricked here and there by a yellow electric light, and passers were rare in the little square into which they had turned. Dallas stopped again, and looked up.

71

Easy English

"This must be the house," he said.

He put one arm through Newland's. This time, Newland did not pull away. Father and son stood together before the building.

Source English

"It must be here," he said, slipping his arm through his father's with a movement from which Archer's shyness did not shrink; and they stood together looking up at the house.

72

Easy English

It was modern and had no special beauty. Many windows crossed its wide cream face. Pleasant balconies opened above the street.

One high balcony hung above the round tops of chestnut trees. Its cloth sun covers were still down. The sun seemed to have left only moments before.

Source English

It was a modern building, without distinctive character, but many-windowed, and pleasantly balconied up its wide cream-coloured front. On one of the upper balconies, which hung well above the rounded tops of the horse-chestnuts in the square, the awnings were still lowered, as though the sun had just left it.

73

Easy English

"Which floor is hers?" Dallas wondered.

He went to ask the man at the entrance. Then he returned.

"The fifth floor. It must be the home behind those sun covers."

Source English

"I wonder which floor--?" Dallas conjectured; and moving toward the porte-cochère he put his head into the porter's lodge, and came back to say: "The fifth. It must be the one with the awnings."

74

Easy English

Newland did not move. He looked at the high windows. Their long journey seemed to end here.

Source English

Archer remained motionless, gazing at the upper windows as if the end of their pilgrimage had been attained.

75

Easy English

After some time, Dallas spoke. "It is almost six."

Source English

"I say, you know, it's nearly six," his son at length reminded him.

76

Easy English

Newland looked toward an empty bench under the trees.

Source English

The father glanced away at an empty bench under the trees.

77

Easy English

"I think I will sit there for a moment."

Source English

"I believe I'll sit there a moment," he said.

78

Easy English

"Are you ill?" Dallas asked.

Source English

"Why--aren't you well?" his son exclaimed.

79

Easy English

"No, I feel perfectly well. But please go upstairs without me."

Source English

"Oh, perfectly. But I should like you, please, to go up without me."

80

Easy English

Dallas stood before him in open confusion.

"Father, do you mean that you will not come at all?"

Source English

Dallas paused before him, visibly bewildered. "But, I say, Dad: do you mean you won't come up at all?"

81

Easy English

"I do not know," Newland said slowly.

Source English

"I don't know," said Archer slowly.

82

Easy English

"If you stay here, Ellen will not understand."

Source English

"If you don't she won't understand."

83

Easy English

"Go, my boy. Perhaps I will follow."

Source English

"Go, my boy; perhaps I shall follow you."

84

Easy English

Dallas studied him in the falling light.

Source English

Dallas gave him a long look through the twilight.

85

Easy English

"What can I possibly tell her?"

Source English

"But what on earth shall I say?"

86

Easy English

Newland smiled. "My dear boy, you always know what to say."

Source English

"My dear fellow, don't you always know what to say?" his father rejoined with a smile.

87

Easy English

"Very well. I will say that you are old-fashioned. You chose five flights of stairs because you dislike the lift."

Source English

"Very well. I shall say you're old-fashioned, and prefer walking up the five flights because you don't like lifts."

88

Easy English

Newland smiled again. "Say only that I am old-fashioned. That is enough."

Source English

His father smiled again. "Say I'm old-fashioned: that's enough."

89

Easy English

Dallas looked at him once more. Then he moved his hands in disbelief. He disappeared through the high covered doorway.

Source English

Dallas looked at him again, and then, with an incredulous gesture, passed out of sight under the vaulted doorway.

90

Easy English

Newland sat on the bench. He kept his eyes on the balcony and its cloth covers.

He counted the needed time. A lift would carry Dallas to the fifth floor. Dallas would ring, enter the hall, and walk into the drawing room.

Newland pictured his son's quick, sure step. He saw the young man's warm smile. People often said Dallas was like his father.

Was that true?

Source English

Archer sat down on the bench and continued to gaze at the awninged balcony. He calculated the time it would take his son to be carried up in the lift to the fifth floor, to ring the bell, and be admitted to the hall, and then ushered into the drawing-room. He pictured Dallas entering that room with his quick assured step and his delightful smile, and wondered if the people were right who said that his boy "took after him."

91

Easy English

Then Newland imagined the other people in Ellen's room. At this social hour, she probably had several visitors.

Among them sat a dark-haired woman with a pale face. She would look up quickly. She would half rise and offer a long, thin hand.

Three rings would shine on it.

Perhaps she sat in a sofa corner near the fire. Azaleas might rise behind her on a table. Azaleas were bright flowers from small bushes.

Source English

Then he tried to see the persons already in the room--for probably at that sociable hour there would be more than one--and among them a dark lady, pale and dark, who would look up quickly, half rise, and hold out a long thin hand with three rings on it.... He thought she would be sitting in a sofa-corner near the fire, with azaleas banked behind her on a table.

92

Easy English

"She is more real to me here than upstairs," Newland heard himself say.

He feared losing the last sharp edge of that reality. Going upstairs might weaken it. The fear held him to the bench.

One minute followed another.

Source English

"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard himself say; and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.

93

Easy English

Newland sat there for a long time. Evening thickened around the square. His eyes never left Ellen's balcony.

At last, light filled the high windows.

A moment later, a servant stepped onto the balcony. He raised the cloth covers. Then he closed the window shutters, the wooden covers over the glass.

Source English

He sat for a long time on the bench in the thickening dusk, his eyes never turning from the balcony. At length a light shone through the windows, and a moment later a man-servant came out on the balcony, drew up the awnings, and closed the shutters.

94

Easy English

Newland watched the final line of light disappear.

It seemed like the signal he waited for.

He rose slowly from the bench.

Then Newland Archer walked back alone to his hotel.

Source English

At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.

95

Easy English

No easy-English paragraph was aligned to this source anchor.

Source English

A Note on the Text

96

Easy English

No easy-English paragraph was aligned to this source anchor.

Source English

The Age of Innocence first appeared in four large installments in The Pictorial Review, from July to October 1920. It was published that same year in book form by D. Appleton and Company in New York and in London. Wharton made extensive stylistic, punctuation, and spelling changes and revisions between the serial and book publication, and more than thirty subsequent changes were made after the second impression of the book edition had been run off. This authoritative text is reprinted from the Library of America edition of Novels by Edith Wharton, and is based on the sixth impression of the first edition, which incorporates the last set of extensive revisions that are obviously authorial.