p>Wharton Edith
The Age of Innocence
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
For the rich and the fashionable, New York society in the 1870s was a world full of rules: rules about when to wear a black tie, or the correct time to pay an afternoon visit; rules about who you could invite to your evening parties or sit next to at the opera; rules about who was an acceptable person, and who was not.
Countess Ellen Olenska, who has lived for many years in Europe as the wife of a Polish Count, returns alone to her family in New York. She hopes to leave the pain of her unhappy marriage behind her, but she does not understand the rules of New York society. Newland Archer, however, understands them only too well, and the girl he is engaged to marry, young May Welland, lives her life by the rules, because she cannot imagine any other way of living.
Newland, May, and Ellen are caught in a battle between love, honour, and duty – a battle where strong feelings hide behind polite smiles, where much is left unsaid, and where a single expressive look across a crowded room can carry more meaning than a hundred words.
PEOPLE IN THIS STORY
Newland Archer’s family
Newland Archer
Janey Archer, Newland’s sister
Adeline Archer, Newland’s mother
Louisa van der Luyden, Adeline’s cousin
Henry van der Luyden, Louisa’s husband
the Misses du Lac, Newland’s aunts
the Duke of St Austrey, Louisa’s English cousin
May Welland’s family
May Welland
Mr Welland, May’s father
Mrs Welland, May’s mother
Countess Ellen Olenska, May’s cousin
Count Olenski, Ellen Olenska’s husband
Mrs Manson Mingott, grandmother to May and Ellen
Medora Manson, Ellen’s aunt
Mr Lovell Mingott, uncle to May and Ellen
Mrs Lovell Mingott, Mr Mingott’s wife
Regina Beaufort, niece to Mrs Manson Mingott
Julius Beaufort, Regina’s husband
Other people in the story
Lawrence Lefferts} New Yorkers,
Sillerton Jackson} and friends of Newland Archer
Sophy Jackson, Sillerton Jackson’s sister
Mrs Lemuel Struthers, a friend of Julius Beaufort
Monsieur Rivière, Count Olenski’s French secretary
Mr Letterblair, a lawyer, and Newland Archer’s employer
the Carfrys, English friends of Mrs Archer
the Blenkers, friends of Ellen Olenska
Fanny Ring, Julius Beaufort’s mistress, later wife
Dallas, Mary, and Bill Archer, Newland Archer’s children
Fanny Beaufort, daughter of Julius Beaufort and Fanny Ring
CHAPTER 1
A STRANGER IN NEW YORK
When Newland Archer arrived at the New York Academy of Music, one January evening in the early 1870s, the opera had already begun. There was no reason why the young man should not have come earlier. He had had dinner at seven, alone with his mother and sister, and then sat unhurriedly smoking his cigar in his private library. But fashionable young men did not arrive early at the opera. That was one of the unwritten rules of society, and in Newland Archer’s New York these rules were as important as life and death.
Another reason for the young man’s delay was that he enjoyed looking forward to pleasures just as much as actually experiencing them, and Gounod’s Faust was one of his favourite operas. As he opened the door at the back of his box, he felt he had chosen just the right moment to arrive. Christine Nilsson, the Swedish singer whom all New York had gathered to hear, was singing, ‘He loves me – he loves me not – he loves me!’
She sang in Italian, of course, not in English, since an unquestioned law of the musical world demanded that the German words of French operas sung by Swedish singers should be translated into Italian, for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland as all the other laws that governed his life, like never appearing in society without a flower in his buttonhole, and having two silver-backed brushes for his hair.
He turned his eyes away from the singer and looked at the audience. Directly opposite him was the box of old Mrs Manson Mingott, who was now so fat that she was unable to attend the opera,
