Эдит Уортон – The House of Mirth (страница 2)
In some respects Wharton’s theme belongs to the same stable as those addressed by Jane Austen a century earlier in England. Austen’s stories, like Wharton’s, work within a behavioural framework of etiquette which is no longer relevant. Nevertheless, the drama, romance and tragedy is consequently heightened as a result of the limiting strict societal rules.
In 1911, the year that Wharton moved to Europe after the breakdown of her marriage, her novel
Set in New England, the eponymous Ethan Frome falls in love with his ill wife’s cousin, Mattie, whom they have employed as a carer. Yet the relationship is doomed, and tragedy ensues. The plot is intricately linked to the polite society in which they live; there are strict rules of behaviour that cannot be broken, and it is an adherence to these that informs the lovers’ actions.
Imposing unwritten rules of behaviour on the characters’ sense of morality allows the author to invent emotive situations to engage their readers. The turmoil of Ethan’s mind, full of infidelity, is only worth writing about in a world where such thoughts are deemed unacceptable by the society in which he lives.
Wharton lived in era that was characterized by a seismic shift in societal norms and attitudes, in part due to the turn of the century and the advent of world conflict that it brought. The new world that emerged began slowly to feel more egalitarian, so socially divisive and restrictive rules of etiquette were increasingly disregarded.
In
Conflicted between marrying for love and marrying for money, the central character, Lily Bart, reveals the precarious nature of the foundations on which the class system – and Lily’s own values – was based. During the course of the novel she makes a series of uncertain moves and tardy decisions that allow her intentions to be misinterpreted by others. The story can be perceived as a comedy of errors, as Wharton highlights the fragility of maintaining one’s respectability in a rarefied environment – after several ill-advised choices, one’s precious social status can be lost for ever.
On publication the
Despite this, one of Wharton’s greatest skills was her creation of believable characters and their behaviour and interactions with each other; even though the intricacies of the plot may be fundamentally unrealistic, the reader believes in Lily’s circumstances, actions, and ensuing loss of control.
The novel’s title comes from a line in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 7:4: ‘The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’ Using this reference, Wharton offers the reader a comment on the dichotomy between money and morality, frivolity and gravity.
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Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart.
It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she was waiting for someone, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door, and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her skill to the test.
“Mr. Selden—what good luck!”
She came forward smiling, eager almost, in her resolve to intercept him. One or two persons, in brushing past them, lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the suburban traveller rushing to his last train.
Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ballroom, and under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years, Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?
“What luck!” she repeated. “How nice of you to come to my rescue!”
He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form the rescue was to take.
“Oh, almost any—even to sitting on a bench and talking to me. One sits out a cotillion—why not sit out a train? It isn’t a bit hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osburgh’s conservatory—and some of the women are not a bit uglier.” She broke off, laughing, to explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to the Gus Trenors’ at Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen train to Rhinebeck. “And there isn’t another till half-past five.” She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces. “Just two hours to wait. And I don’t know what to do with myself. My maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was to go on to Bellomont at one o’clock, and my aunt’s house is closed, and I don’t know a soul in town.” She glanced plaintively about the station. “It is hotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh’s, after all. If you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath of air.”
He declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure struck him as diverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed Lily Bart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied.
“Shall we go over to Sherry’s for a cup of tea?”
She smiled assentingly, and then made a slight grimace.
“So many people come up to town on a Monday—one is sure to meet a lot of bores. I’m as old as the hills, of course, and it ought not to make any difference; but if I’m old enough, you’re not,” she objected gaily. “I’m dying for tea—but isn’t there a quieter place?”