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THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE EDITH WHARTON Book I
I.
On a January evening of the early seventies Christine
Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of
Music in New York.
Though there was already talk of the erection in
remote metropolitan distances "above the Forties" of
a new Opera House which should compete in costliness
and splendour with those of the great European capitals
the world of fashion was still content to reassemble
every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of
the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it
for being small and inconvenient and thus keeping out
the "new people" whom New York was beginning to
dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung
to it for its historic associations and the musical for its
excellent acoustics always so problematic a quality in
halls built for the hearing of music.
It was Madame Nilsson's first appearance that
winter and what the daily press had already learned to
describe as "an exceptionally brilliant audience" had
gathered to hear her transported through the slippery
snowy streets in private broughams in the spacious
family landau or in the humbler but more convenient
"Brown coupe" To come to the Opera in a Brown
coupe was almost as honourable a way of arriving
as in one's own carriage; and departure by the same
means had the immense advantage of enabling one
(with a playful allusion to democratic principles) to
scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line
instead of waiting till the cold-and-gin congested nose
of one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of
the Academy. It was one of the great livery-stableman's
most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans
want to get away from amusement even more
quickly than they want to get to it.
When Newland Archer opened the door at the back
of the club box the curtain had just gone up on the
garden scene. There was no reason why the young man
should not have come earlier for he had dined at
seven alone with his mother and sister and had lingered
afterward over a cigar in the Gothic library with
glazed black-walnut bookcases and finial-topped chairs
which was the only room in the house where Mrs.
Archer allowed smoking. But in the first place New
York was a metropolis and perfectly aware that in
metropolises it was "not the thing" to arrive early at
the opera; and what was or was not "the thing" played
a part as important in Newland Archer's New York as
the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies
of his forefathers thousands of years ago.
The second reason for his delay was a personal one.
He had dawdled over his cigar because he was at heart
a dilettante and thinking over a pleasure to come often
gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realisation. This
was especially the case when the pleasure was a delicate
one as his pleasures mostly were; and on this
occasion the moment he looked forward to was so rare
and exquisite in quality that--well if he had timed his
arrival in accord with the prima donna's stage-manager
he could not have entered the Academy at a more
significant moment than just as she was singing: "He
loves me--he loves me not--HE LOVES ME!--" and
sprinkling the falling daisy petals with notes as clear as
dew.
She sang of course "M'ama!" and not "he loves
me" since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the
musical world required that the German text of French
operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated
into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-
speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland
Archer as all the other conventions on which his life
was moulded: such as the duty of using two silver-
backed brushes with his monogram in blue enamel to
part his hair and of never appearing in society without
a flower (preferably a gardenia) in his buttonhole.
"M'ama . . . non m'ama . . . " the prima donna sang
and "M'ama!" with a final burst of love triumphant
as she pressed the dishevelled daisy to her lips and
lifted her large eyes to the sophisticated countenance of
the little brown Faust-Capoul who was vainly trying
in a tight purple velvet doublet and plumed cap to
look as pure and true as his artless victim.
Newland Archer leaning against the wall at the back
of the club box turned his eyes from the stage and
scanned the opposite side of the house. Directly facing
him was the box of old Mrs. Manson Mingott whose
monstrous obesity had long since made it impossible
for her to attend the Opera but who was always
represented on fashionable nights by some of the younger
members of the family. On this occasion the front
of the box was filled by her daughter-in-law Mrs.
Lovell Mingott and her daughter Mrs. Welland; and
slightly withdrawn behind these brocaded matrons sat
a young girl in white with eyes ecstatically fixed on the
stagelovers. As Madame Nilsson's "M'ama!" thrilled
out above the silent house (the boxes always stopped
talking during the Daisy Song) a warm pink mounted
to the girl's cheek mantled her brow to the roots of her
fair braids and suffused the young slope of her breast
to the line where it met a modest tulle tucker fastened
with a single gardenia. She dropped her eyes to the
immense bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley on her knee
and Newland Archer saw her white-gloved finger-tips
touch the flowers softly. He drew a breath of satisfied
vanity and his eyes returned to the stage.
No expense had been spared on the setting which
was acknowledged to be very beautiful even by people
who shared his acquaintance with the Opera houses of
Paris and Vienna. The foreground to the footlights
was covered with emerald green cloth. In the middle
distance symmetrical mounds of woolly green moss
bounded by croquet hoops formed the base of shrubs
shaped like orange-trees but studded with large pink
and red roses. Gigantic pansies considerably larger
than the roses and closely resembling the floral pen-
wipers made by female parishioners for fashionable
clergymen sprang from the moss beneath the rose-
trees; and here and there a daisy grafted on a rose-
branch flowered with a luxuriance prophetic of Mr.
Luther Burbank's far-off prodigies.
In the centre of this enchanted garden Madame
Nilsson in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin
a reticule dangling from a blue girdle and large yellow
braids carefully disposed on each side of her muslin
chemisette listened with downcast eyes to M. Capoul's
impassioned wooing and affected a guileless incomprehension
of his designs whenever by word or glance he
persuasively indicated the ground floor window of the
neat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing.
"The darling!" thought Newland Archer his glance
flitting back to the young girl with the lilies-of-the-
valley. "She doesn't even guess what it's all about."
And he contemplated her absorbed young face with a
thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine
initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for
her abysmal purity. "We'll read Faust together . . . by
the Italian lakes . . ." he thought somewhat hazily
confusing the scene of his projected honey-moon with
the masterpieces of literature which it would be his
manly privilege to reveal to his bride. It was only that
afternoon that May Welland had let him guess that she
"cared" (New York's consecrated phrase of maiden
avowal) and already his imagination leaping ahead of
the engagement ring the betrothal kiss and the march
from Lohengrin pictured her at his side in some scene
of old European witchery.
He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland
Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his
enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact
and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with
the most popular married women of the "younger set"
in which it was the recognised custom to attract masculine
homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had
probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he sometimes
nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his
wife should be as worldly-wise and as eager to please
as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy
through two mildly agitated years; without of course
any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that
unhappy being's life and had disarranged his own
plans for a whole winter.
How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created
and to sustain itself in a harsh world he had never
taken the time to think out; but he was content to hold
his view without analysing it since he knew it was that
of all the carefully-brushed white-waistcoated button-
hole-flowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in
the club box exchanged friendly greetings with him
and turned their opera-glasses critically on the circle of
ladies who were the product of the system. In matters
intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself
distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old
New York gentility; he had probably read more thought
more and even seen a good deal more of the world
than any other man of the number. Singly they betrayed
their inferiority; but grouped together they represented
"New York" and the habit of masculine solidarity
made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called
moral. He instinctively felt that in this respect it would
be troublesome--and also rather bad form--to strike
out for himself.
"Well--upon my soul!" exclaimed Lawrence Lefferts
turning his opera-glass abruptly away from the stage.
Lawrence Lefferts was on the whole the foremost
authority on "form" in New York. He had probably
devoted more time than any one else to the study of
this intricate and fascinating question; but study alone
could not account for his complete and easy competence.
One had only to look at him from the slant of
his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful fair
moustache to the long patent-leather feet at the other
end of his lean and elegant person to feel that the
knowledge of "form" must be congenital in any one
who knew how to wear such good clothes so carelessly
and carry such height with so much lounging grace. As
a young admirer had once said of him: "If anybody can
tell a fellow just when to wear a black tie with evening
clothes and when not to it's Larry Lefferts." And on
the question of pumps versus patent-leather "Oxfords"
his authority had never been disputed.
"My God!" he said; and silently handed his glass to
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