The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)
characters:
Lily Bart – 29 years old, unmarried
Lawrence Selden – bachelor, lawyer, lives at the Benedict, detached observer of New York society but drawn to Lily
Bertha Dorset – Mrs. George Dorset, history of extramarital affairs including with Lawrence Selden. Invites Lily on cruise around Mediterranean so that Lilly will distract George from her affair with Ned, then spreads rumor that Lily and George have an affair.
Gerty Farish – Lawrence Selden’s cousin. Independent but not wealthy. Generous hearted and involved in charity – one of Lily’s only remaining friends in Book Two.
Simon Rosedale – Jewish, wealthy owner of stocks and real estate, social climber. Uses his knowledge of Lily’s blunders to his advantage to increase his closeness to her. Asks to marry Lily and visits her when she is poor and sick.
Judy Trenor – Lily’s close friend who invites Lily to her estate Bellomont and tries to facilitate Lily’s efforts to find a husband.
Gus Trenor – overweight, boring, moody, sometimes drunk husband of Judy Trenor. Invests money for Lily and pays her the profits, but expects intimacy in return. When she understands that the money is not hers and the consequences of her transactions with Gus, she wants to pay him back in despite his protest that he does not expect repayment “in kind.”
Percy Gryce – rich but boring young bachelor with a penchant for collecting Americana. Religious, obedient to his mother, and disapproving of women who smoke or play cards for money. Lily rebels against her own resolve to marry him and just as she comes back around to the idea she hears of his engagement to Evie Can Osburgh.
Cary Fisher – brings new people like the Brys into Lily’s social circle. Kind to Lily and offers assistance after Lily is excluded from that world.
George Dorset – Bertha Dorset’s husband. Always somewhat jealous of his wife, and eventually discovers her affair with Ned Silverton. Attracted to Lily, but she refuses to see him after Mrs. Dorset spreads rumors that the two have an affair.
Ned Silverton – rich young bachelor. Comes on a Mediterranean cruise with the George Dorsets and Lily, and has an affair with Bertha Dorset that he tries to conceal.
Julia Peniston – Lily’s wealthy aunt, who takes Lily in to her Fifth Avenue home after her mother’s death. Loyal to her husband’s memory and committed to furniture and decor that Lily finds ugly and oppressive. Does not go out much in the circles where Lily must be seen if she is to find a husband. Practically disinherits Lily after hearing of Lily’s entanglement with Gus Trenor, and dies at start of Book Two.
Jack Stepney – Lily’s cousin, member of high society. Lily stays with him for the night after Bertha ejects her from the yacht.
Gwen Stepney – Jack Stepney’s wife, formerly Gwen Van Osburgh.
Grace Stepney – Lily’s cousin, who refuses when Lily asks for money.
setting:
America’s Gilded Age (1876-1901) when rich get richer and poor get poorer – industrial expansion, stock market growth
New York
Book 1, Chapter 1
characters:
Selden
Lilly Bart
Mr. Rosedale
setting:
Grand Central Station, Madison Avenue, Sheldon's flat in The Benedick
plot:
Selden runs into Lilly Bart at Grand Central Station, where she has just missed her train and will have to wait two hours for the next. He offers to take her to Sherry's but she wants something quieter, and they go for a walk. Lilly admires a garden in a particular street and mentions that she is thirsty - this happens to be where Sheldon lives in the Benedick, and he invites her up. She admires his flat and the freedom it represents, and laments that a woman cannot have such things. He disagrees and she clarifies that governesses and widows can, but not marriageable girls (a category in which she does not include Selden's cousin Gerty Farish, because she is not marriageable and because her flat is small and dreary). They smoke a cigarette and Lilly asks Sheldon what he knows about Americana. Sheldon likes his work and although he would love to have money to travel whenever he wants and buy books, he says he would not marry for money. Lilly muses, "Ah, there's the difference - a girl must, a man may if he choses . . . Your coat's a little shabby - but who cares? It doesn't keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they don't make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants adingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop - and if we can't keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership." It's nearly time for Lilly's train, and she leaves, encountering a rude charwoman on her way out. As she leaves the building, she is approached by Mr. Rosedale and says that she has just been to see her dressmaker. Mr. Rosedale says he did not know there were dressmakers in the Benedick, and mentions that Benedick is an old word for bachelor - someting he knows because he owns the building. He wants to escort her to the train but she hails a hansom and departs alone over his protestations.
Book 1, Chapter 2
characters:
Lilly Bart
Percy Gryce
Bertha Dorset
setting:
train from New York to Bellomont
plot:
Mr. Rosedale, Lilly knows, wanted to be seen with her for the possibility of being mistaken for one of the Trenors' guests at Bellemont, and she should have let him after his catching her in the lie about her dressmaker. Mr. Rosedale (with the assistance of LIlly's cousin Jack Stepney) is just trying to break into the inner circles of society, and Lilly's mistake is compounded by the fact that she has always snubbed him. Sitting on the train, Lilly is pleased to recognize Percy Gryce on his way to Bellomont. She contrives to bump into him as the train lurches, and then invites him to sit beside her and have some tea. He is favorably impressed by her grace in serving it and Lilly knows that she is doing well, but her companion is dull and lacks imagination. She resorts to her plan of inquiring about his collection of Americana. The collection is Gryce's one area of expertise and the source of any egoism he has, and Lilly exploits that to create an exciting and agreeable conversation for him that complements a sense of well-being he receives from her flawless preparation of the tea. At Garrisons, the train stops and Mrs. George Dorset (Bertha) enters and displaces another passenger in order to sit with Percy and Lilly. Bertha asks Lilly for a cigarette and because Percy Gryce would not approve of such a habit, Lilly insists to her friend that she is mistaken and that Lilly never smokes.
Book 1, Chapter 3
characters:
Lilly Bart
Bertha Dorset
Percy Gryce
Judy Trenor
Ned Silverton - gambles too much
Mrs. Fisher - divorcee, Ned likes her
Mrs. Hudson Bart - Lilly's mother, beautiful, passed away years earlier
Mr. Bart - Lilly's father, stooped and old looking although just two years older than her mother
setting:
Bellomont - as Lilly returns to her room and prepares for bed in the evening
plot:
Lilly is returning to her room having been bored by Percy Gryce all afternoon, but knows that she must not ignore him the next day, "she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life." Bertha Dorset is flirting with Percy Gryce and Lilly is not so much worried about the competition as she is bothered that Bertha can just pick men up and throw them away if she likes. Lilly has begin to be conscious of having to pay her way in the world of luxury she moves about in - whereas before she had refused to play bridge, afraid of becoming too entranced by it like Ned Silverton had - she now finds that her hostesses expect her to play. The passion for gambling has snuck up on Lilly along with gambling debts, and on this night Lilly is left with just $20 in her purse while Mrs. Trenor leaves the table with a great wad of bills she has no need of. Lilly thinks of her childhood as she gets ready for bed - her taste for luxury and aversion to "living like pigs" are instilled in her by a mother who is confident even after they lose their money that Lilly will get it back with her face. Lilly and her mother had lived in luxury until her father had come home one day, laughed at Lilly's idea that they spend $12 eachday on flowers for the luncheon table, announced that he was ruined, and then died slowly and difficultly. Mrs. Bart had "died of a deep disgust" after two years of living in what she considered donginess. Her hopes for Lilly's marriage had faded after the first year because of the impossibility of Lilly being seen by the right people given their situation. After Mrs. Bart's death, her widowed sister Mrs. Peniston takes Lilly in. Mrs. Peniston leads a retired life but does not entirely expect that LIlly will do the same, and gives her occasional presents meant to pay for Lilly's clothing and other accessories "Beyond this, Mrs. Peniston had not felt called upon to do anything for her charge: she had simply stood aside and let her take the field. Lily had taken it, at first with the confidence of assured possessorship, then with gradually narrowing demands, till now she found herself actually struggling for a foothold on the broad space which had once seemed her own for the asking. How it happened she did not yet know. Sometimes she thought it was because Mrs. Peniston had been too passive, and again she feared it was because she herself had not been passive enough. Had she shown an undue eagerness for victory? Had she lacked patience, pliancy and dissimulation? Whether she charged herself with these faults or absolved herself from them, made no difference in the sum-total of her failure. Younger and plainer girls had been married off by dozens, and she was nine-and-twenty, and still Miss Bart."
Book 1, Chapter 4
characters:
Lilly Bart
Judy Trenor
Carry Fischer - twice divorced, makes herself useful by amusing Mr. Trenor and other boring husbands
The Wetheralls - don't like Carry Fischer
Lady Skiddaw
the Van Osburghs
Lady Cressida Raith - a disappointing guest of Judy Trenor's - the moral one in her family, and overly interested in gardening
Percy Gryce
Gwen Van Osburgh - large and unattractive but wealthy, Jack Stepney pursuing
Jack Stepney - Lilly's cousin
Lawrence Selden
setting:
Lilly's first morning at Bellomont, in Judy's office
three days later, on the Bellamont terrace in the afternoon
plot:
There is a note on Lilly's breakfast tray from Mrs. Trenor asking her to help out with writing notes and other "social drudgery" that morning. The secretary, Ms. Pragg, is away for the birth of a niece of nephew, and Lilly is expected to fill in in such emergencies. Judy Trenor is upset because she invited a guest, Lady Cressida Raith, who she didn't know and who turns out to be a bore, because the Weatherlls can't stand Carry Fischer, and because Bertha Dorset, who still has a thing for Selden after an affair he has ended, expected to see Selden at Bellomont and believes it's Judy's fault that he hasn't come. Judy reveals that she invited Percy Gryce for Lilly, and Lilly shares with her friend the story of her progress so far. Judy warns Lilly against going to fast, against smoking and against a particular dress, and Lilly begs off of bridge since Percy disapproves of that as well. Lilly does take things slow for the next three days, and her friends contrive to leave her in a solitude that lends itself to Percy Gryce's admiration of her. On one afternoon, Mr. Gryce is being harranged by Carry Fischer about her latest passion municipal reform and Lilly, seated at a distance, is pleased to present her own quiet and repose in flattering contrat to the other woman's volubility. Jack Stepney, meanwhile, is in hot persuit of the large and unattractive but wealthy Gwen Van Osburgh, and not wanting to make enemies Lilly gracefully agrees to have tea with them. She is performing perfectly and feels quite sure of her success in marrying Percy Gryce when, turning to greet him after his escape from Mrs. Fischer, she is surprised to see Lawrence Selden approaching her instead.
Book 1, Chapter 5
characters:
Lilly Bart
Percy Gryce
Murial Trenor
Hilda Trenor
Mrs. Wetherall
Lady Cressida Raith
Miss Corby - the comic woman of the company
George Dorset
Bertha Dorset
Lawrence Selden
setting:
Bellomont
plot:
The omnibus that carries worshipers from Bellomont to church on Sunday mornings often leaves without Judy Trenor or either of her daughters, and Lilly indicates to Percy Gryce that this situation is disagreeable to her and that she generally accompanies Murual and Hilda to church when at Bellomont. Mr. Gryce is the first in the omnibus that Sunday, but is disappointed to find himself accompanied not by Miss Bart but by Mrs, Wetherall, Lady Cressida Raith and Murial and Hilda Trenor instead. At dinner the night before, Lilly had been favorably impressed by Selden when she saw him in comparisson with Mr. Gryce, and had wondered at the reason for her sudden interest in him. "How alluring the world outside the cage appeared to Lily, as she heard its door clang on her! In reality, as she knew, the door never clanged: it stood always open; but most of the captives were like flies in a bottle, and having once flown in, could never regain their freedom. It was Selden's distinction that he had never forgotten the way out. How alluring the world outside the cage appeared to Lily, as she heard its door clang on her! In reality, as she knew, the door never clanged: it stood always open; but most of the captives were like flies in a bottle, and having once flown in, could never regain their freedom. It was Selden's distinction that he had never forgotten the way out." The next morning, Lilly Bart is thinking about going to church with Percy Gryce every Sunday morning for the rest of her life when she hears the omnibus drive away. She goes doenstairs expecting to find Selden waiting for her, but finds him in conversation with Bertha Dorset instead. She asks about the omnibus and, Selden telling her that it has gone, begins walking toward the church. She walks slowly and stops at a bench, where Seldon finds her an hour later and teases her about her skilled pursuit of Mr. Gryce. As the churchgoes approach and she goes to meet them, Selden suggests that they take a walk together that afternoon.
Book 1, Chapter 6
characters:
Lilly Bart
Lawrence Selden
setting:
the same afternoon, on a walk at Bellomont
plot:
Lilly begs off of an engagement to walk with Percy Gryce, saying that she doesn't feel well and encouraging him to go on a drive with the others instead. She spends her afternoon walking with Lawrence Selden instead, and their banter leads them into a more serious discussion of how they define success. For Selden, it is freedom from poverty, ease and anxiety - "a kind of republic of the spirit" to which Lilly admits that she too wants to gain admittance. He says that it will be difficult for her given her aspirations and they discuss the difference between people who see money and society as means and those who see them as ends. Lilly acuses Selden of making the things she aspires to hateful to her without offering anything else in their place. Selden points out that it is natural in him to belittle those things which he cannot offer her, and she thinks he bilittles her by thinking that wealth and social standing are all that she cares about. In the ensuing conversation each accuses the other of cowardice by turns, he for making an apparent offer of marriage only because he is sure of her answer, she for appearing to decline as anticipated. They are becoming more earnest and appear to be drawing toward some commitment - she says "I shall look hideous in dowdy clothes; but I can trim my own hats." The narrator says, "They stood silent for a while after this, smiling at each other like adventurous children who have climbed to a forbidden height from which they discover a new world." They are in this attitude then the sound of a speeding motor startles Lilly into realization of the time and she sees that the other party will be back by the time she and Selden return. "'Were you serious?' she asked, with an odd thrill of gaiety which she might have caught up, in haste, from a heap of stock inflections, without having time to select the just note. Selden's voice was under better control. 'Why not?' he returned. 'You see I took no risks in being so.' And as she continued to stand before him, a little pale under the retort, he added quickly: 'Let us go down.'"
Book 1, Chapter 7
characters:
Judy Trenor
Lilly Bart
Bertha Dorset
Cary Fisher
Miss Van Osburgh
Gus Trenor
setting:
luncheon the day after Gryce and Selden's departure
train station and prolonged drive with Gus Trenor
plot:
Judy Trenor is in despair about Lilly having lost her chance with Percy Gryce, and chides her friend for having angered Bertha Dorset by walking off with Selden. Bertha responds to the snub by telling stories to Percy about Lilly, and he leaves Bellomont early to get away from her. Mrs. Dorset comes down for luncheon the next morning to gloat. Miss Van Osburgh protests the general disdain for Percy Grice at the table and comments that a girl who married him would at least have enough to be comfortable - this from the mouth of a wealthy heiress drives home to Lilly the magnitude of what she has lost. Judy Trenor pulls Lilly away from lunch and asks her to pick Gus up from the train station - Cary Fisher could pick him up, but Judy mentions that Cary is always squeezing money out of other people's husbands. Lilly is stung by having had to suffer for borrowing money for a few hours from an elderly cousin (one of the stories Bertha Dorset tells Percy Gryce about her) while a woman who had been married could live on the good-nature of her male friends without reproach. Lilly resolves to return to her aunt in Richfield to save money. As she is in the buggy with Gus Trenor, she tells him what has happened with Gryce and asks him to make peace with Judy for her because she will need to go back to her aunt's for the season. As they continue driving, Gryce endeavors to explain to her how by investing a small amount of her money in the stock market, he can make Lilly plenty of money without endangering her investment. "Again she felt the lightening of her load, and with it the release of repressed activities. Her immediate worries conjured, it was easy to resolve that she would never again find herself in such straits, and as the need of economy and self-denial receded from her foreground she felt herself ready to meet any other demand which life might make. Even the immediate one of letting Trenor, as they drove homeward, lean a little nearer and rest his hand reassuringly on hers, cost her only a momentary shiver of reluctance. It was part of the game to make him feel that her appeal had been an uncalculated impulse, provoked by the liking he inspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling men, while it consoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure the thought of the claim at which his manner hinted. He was a coarse dull man who, under all his show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for which his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold him by his vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side."
Book 1, Chapter 8
characters:
Lily Bart
Judy Trenor
Gus Trenor
Jack Stepney
Grace Stepney
Miss Van Osburgh
Evie Van Osburgh - engaged to Percy Gryce
Percy Gryce
Lawrence Selden
Sim Rosedale
Mrs. Van Osburgh
setting:
Jack Stepney and Miss Van Osburgh's wedding
plot:
Lily's first check of $1000 from Gus Trenor eases her anxieties, and her payments to her creditors are accompanied by fresh orders for dresses, etc. Judy Trenor is glad to see Lily take an interest in Gus, and tells her its a relief to have him away from Cary Fisher, who is always getting Gus to play the stock market for her and never pays when she loses. Lily sees Gertrude Farish at the wedding, and reflects on the other girl's dinginess. Lily Bart does not approve of the clothes that seem to admit that Gertie knows she's ugly and is sometimes irritated by her friend's acceptance of her dinginess, even as she recognizes her sentimental and unenvious interest in all the details of the wedding. Today Gertie's "chirping enthusiasms" do not annoy Lily because she likes the way they throw her own exceptionalness into becoming relief. Gertie chatters while they look at the presents, and on seeing a nice saphire from Percy Gryce she says she is not surprised and that Mr. Gryce is devoted to Evie Van Osburgh. Gus approaches Lily and tells her that he has $4,000 for her from the sale of a stock that was on the rise. He reproaches her for a protracted absence from Bellomont, and when he asks that she be nice to Sim Rosedale since it may help Gus to get a tip she agrees, reflecting that she had intended to try to be civil to Rosedale anyway. She runs into Selden while Gus is gone, and they refer to their previous conversation, "The appeal of her helplessness touched in him, as it always did, a latent chord of inclination. It would have meant nothing to him to discover that his nearness made her more brilliant, but this glimpse of a twilight mood to which he alone had the clue seemed once more to set him in a world apart with her." Gus brings Rosedale over and with Selden watching, Lily holds back the trivial phrase of politeness and receives her punishment when Rosedale complements her dress and asks whether it is from her dressmaker at the Bellomont, and she propitiates him with a remark that clearly implies that they are friends. They talk and then Lilly looks for Gryce. Mrs. Van Osburgh approaches her and says that the announcement is not to be made for another week, but that since she and Gryce are such good friends he and Evie want her to be the first to know of their engagement.
Book 1, Chapter 9
characters:
Lily Bart
Mrs. Peniston
Mrs. Haffen - charwoman from the Benedick
setting:
trian home from wedding
Mrs. Peniston's home
plot:
The rumor about Elvie and Percy Gryce is making its rounds on the train home, and Lily is aware of her own part in the gossip. She returns home to find her aunt's home in an unnatural state of cleanliness at the culmination of an anual two-week cleaning, and is disgusted to find the rude charwoman from the Benedick cleaning the stairs. That night, Mrss Haffen (the charwoman from the Benedick) comes to see Lily and, assuming that she is the author of some letters to Lawrence Selden which she has taken from his wastebasket, she demands that Lily pay a bribe to get them back. The letters are from Bertha Dorset, and Lily thinks of how she might use them to reconcile things with Bertha but ultimately buys them because she is thinking of Selden - the carelessness the letters evinced on his part would have been considered unconscionable. Lily buys the letters after some dueling over the price, and is about to take them up to her room when Mrs. Peniston enters filled with second hand news of the wedding and hoping that Lily might ad to the detailed account she already has. She finds LIly a disappointing informant, and when she mentions Cornelia Van Alstyne's surprise that Gryce was not to mary Lily, Lily says she is tired and goes to her room. Bertha Dorset has played the part of matchmaker for Elvie and Gryce, and after her aunt's words Lily loses her resolve to burn the incriminating letters.
Book 1, Chapter 10
characters:
Lily Bart
Gerty Farish
Mrs. Bry
Carry Fisher
Sim Rosedale
Gus Trenor
George Dorset
setting:
Autumn, Lily living with Miss Peniston
plot:
Lily has just been debating over whether to buy a dressing case when she runs into Gertie Farish, who is just returning from the meeting of a charitable organization that works to provide lodging for working women who are out of work or need a rest. She gives Gertie a liberal donation and leaves feeling that this moment of generosity justifies her recent extravagance. Lily spends Thanksgiving week at a camp in the Adirondacks as the guest of Mrs. Bry, a woman with social aspirations who has wisely put herself under the guidance of Carry Fisher. She returns rejuvinated but is annoyed by a visit from Rosedale, who invites her to join him in his opera box and says that one of his other guests, Gus Trenor, is going to come on purpose to see Lily. Lily joins Rosedale, Cary Fisher and Gus Trenor at the opera opening night and is disturbed to find Gus demanding, overly familiar, and possibly somewhat drunk. She answers his repeated complaints with a promist to feed the squirrels and ride the gondola in the park the next day, and is relieved when George Dorset arrives in the box and extends an invitation from Bertha Dorset to come to their place the next Sunday.
Book 1, Chapter 11
characters:
Mrs. Peniston
Grace Stepney
setting:
after the holidays, as the season is beginning
plot:
While most are losing money on Wallstreet, Sim Rosedale and Welly Bry do well. Mr. Rosedale sees in Lily the complement he needs to round off his social personality. Mrs. Peniston keeps track of financial and other developments in society from season to season from the comfort of her home, but manages not to pay attention to her niece's progress even when she knows the details of Mrs. Fisher finding a cook for the Welly Brys. Grace Stepney stores up all manner of facts about Lily's doings, and although Lily doesn't know it presents a danger to Miss Bart in that she knows so much about her and also resents her (a feeling she experiences as the belief that Lily dislikes her). Her resentment grows when, on the return of the Jack Stepneys from their honeymoon, a family dinner of which she was to be a guest becomes instead, at Lily's urging, a fashionable dinner from which she is excluded. After the dinner, Grace mentions to Mrs. Peniston that people are talking about a flirtation between Lily and Gus Trenor and saying that he pays her bills. In attempting to explain why Lily has bills, Grace further brings up Lily's gambling debts. Mrs. Peniston (not wanting to tax her own nerves after the dinner party) does not confront her niece about what Grace has said but resents her, whether it is true or not, for having had it said about her. "It was horrible of a young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded the charges against her, she must be to blame for their having been made. Mrs. Peniston felt as if there had been a contagious illness in the house, and she was doomed to sit shivering among her contaminated furniture" (Ch. 11).
Book 1, Chapter 12
characters:
Lily Bart
Judy Trenor
Gus Trenor
"poky people" - for Mrs. Trenor, people who don't play bridge (regardless of their other characteristics)
Paul Morpeth - portrait painter who organizes the " tableaux vivants for the Welly Brys' party
Welligton Brys
Gertie Farish
Lawrence Selden
Lily Bart
Mr. Van Alstyne
setting:
Bellomont
Wellington Bry house, a general entertainment
plot:
Lily spends a week at Bellomont hoping to shore up her friendship with Judy Trenor, but Judy seems somewhat cold. The guests are what Judy describes as "poky people" (people who don't play bridge) and do not have other shared characteristics designed to help them enjoy one another. Lily tries to ease the situation, but has trouble doing to because the guests make snide remarks toward her about "your friends the Wellington Brys" or the "little Jew" Rosedale whom she knows. The Welly Brys, with Mrs. Fisher's help, organize a general entertainment including tableaux vivants organized by the portrait painter Paul Morpeth. Lily is one of the fashionable women chosen to participate in the tableaux vivants, and is a hit as Reynolds' "Mrs. Lloyd." Gertie admires all of the tableaux volubly, commenting on who is in each, while Selden loses himself in the illusion of each. She is much admired after the tableaux, and Selden is the last admirer to approach her before supper. They walk to a quiet place together, and when she reminds him that he once promised to help her he says that the only way he can help her is by loving her. She says to love her but not to tell her so, and disappears, and Selden goes to the coat room where he sees Mr. Van Alstyne and Gus Trenor. Van Alystyne admires his niece's unadorned beauty from the tableaux, while Gus Trenor is annoyed that her figure was so thoroughly put on display. He is frustrated, apparently because he could not talk to Lilly in the crowd, and preparing to leave.
Book 1, Chapter 13
characters:
Lily Bart
setting:
Lily's room at Mrs. Peniston's house
Mrs. Fisher's house
Trenor house on Fifth Avenue
plot:
Lily wakes to a note from Judy Trenor requesting that she come dine with her and another from Lawrence Selden asking to see her the next day. She is cheered by the reconciliation that seems to be promised by the familiar tone of Judy's note, and replies to Selden that he may come the next day at 4 PM, even though she thinks that she should refuse him and so let him know that they cannot continue the kind of intimacy he showed the night before. Lily plans to dine with Mrs. Fisher, but send Judy a note that she will come to see her at that evening at ten. When she arrives at ten, her surprise at the slowness of the butler to answer the door is matched by her astonishment at not seeing Judy in her usual chair in the den. Gus says that his wife has a headache and cannot see anyone, and offers her a drink several times. Lily says that she must go because it is past eleven, and when Gus refuses to ring her a cab Lily threatens to go upstairs to Judy. Gus informs her that his wife is in Bellomont and had called that afternoon to have Gus say she would not come. Gus feels that Lily has led him on and says that she has to pay up. When Lily asks whether she owed him money he says, "Oh, I'm not asking for payment in kind. But there's such a thing as fair play--and interest on one's money--and hang me if I've had as much as a look from you----" (Ch. 13). Trenor finally calms down and Lily instructs him to call a servant to get a cab, and to put her in it. She exchanges the usual formalities in the presence of the care taker, and gets into the cab on a Fifth Avenue empty of all but a vaguely familiar looking figure. Lily is in shock and unable to think and, unable to face the loneliness of Mrs. Peniston's house, she has the cab take her to Gertie Farish instead.
Book 1, Chapter 14
characters:
Gertie Farish
Lawrence Selden
Gus Trenor
Mrs. Fisher
Jack Stepney
Mrs. Jack Stepney
Mr. Van Alstyne
setting:
the night of Lily's visit to the Trenor house, and the morning after
Gertie's flat
Selden's club
Mrs. Fisher's
walk from Mrs. Fisher's to the Trenor house
plot:
Gertie is happy because of the increasing affectionateness in her relationship with Selden, and unselfishly glad that their mutual interest in Lily Bart should apparently be an occasion for their growing closer. Selden comes to dine with Gertie on the night of his return from Albany, and when he does so he has been thinking with a part of his mind of Lily, whose attractiveness the narrator suggests may be related to Selden's own elegant if not entirely practical mother. On his way home, Selden had stopped at his club hoping for a note from Lily and had seen Trenor, who says he is dining alone because his wife has stayed on at Bellomont that day, and who is already somewhat drunk. Selden thinks with discuss of how he has heard Lily's name paired with Trenor's. Selden notices that Gertie seems to shine during dinner, and he urges her that she ought to marry, thinking to himself that some good fellow might do worse than Gertie. He doesn't bring up Lily until after dinner, and when he does Gertie soon learns that there has been a third person in the perfect feeling of that night, and that Lily has taken the spot Gertie thought was her own. Gertie has told Selden that Lily is dining at Mrs. Fisher's, and he goes there to find her. She is absent, but after a little talk he finds from Jack that she has gone to the Trenor address (information that Stepney then says he is not certain of once he hears that the house is closed and sees the smile that circles the room). Selden leaves and, he meeting Vn Alstyne at the corner of Fifth Avenue, they walk together, and Van Alstyne describes the various architectures of the houses they pass as representing stages in development of taste and social standing. As they stand looking at the dark Trenor place, Lily and Gus emerge for Lily's hansom and Van Alstyne remarks, "A--hem--nothing of this, eh, Selden? As one of the family, I know I may count on you--appearances are deceptive--and Fifth Avenue is so imperfectly lighted----" (Ch. 14). Gertie blames Lily for her loss of Selden, and that evening as she prepares for bed she hates her friend. When Lily arrives shivering and in shock, Gertie's instinctive compassion makes her light a fire and begin to take care of her friend. Trying to help Lily begin her story, Gertie says that she has been at Mrs. Farish's and than Selden went to see her. Seeing Lily's dispair at this, Gertie sees that she loves him in return and loses her last hope for herself. "Men pass through such superhuman loves and outlive them: they are the probation subduing the heart to human joys. How gladly Gerty would have welcomed the ministry of healing: how willingly have soothed the sufferer back to tolerance of life! But Lily's self-betrayal took this last hope from her. The mortal maid on the shore is helpless against the siren who loves her prey: such victims are floated back dead from their adventure" (Ch. 14). Gertie's test comes when Lily asks her friend whether, if she goes to Selden and tells him what has happened, he will forgive her. She wants to say no, but "to do so would have been like blaspheming her love. She tells Gertie, "Yes: I know him; he will help you," and Lily falls asleep that night in Gertie's arms (Ch. 14).
Book 1, Chapter 15
characters:
Lily Bart
Gertie Farish
Mrs. Peniston (Julia)
Grace Stepney
Rosedale
setting:
Gertie's flat
Mrs. Peniston's house
plot:
Lily wakes in the morning and, after a less emotional exchange with Gertie, returns home to Mrs. Peniston's. She says that she feels weak, and goes to lay down. She realizes that to regain her self-respect she must return all of the money she has borrowed from Gus, and after luncheon when Grace Stepney has gone she tells her aunt that she believes last night's illness was brought on by anxious thoughts. Her Aunt Julia offers to pay her dressmaker's bill if it's under a thousand, and Lily says that she owes much more than a thousand and, instead of admitting her debt to Trenor, says that she has gambling debts. Mrs. Peniston disapproves of gambling and tells her niece that if her friends have persuaded them to play cards with her then they must learn a lesson to, and that she does not intend to pay any gambling debts. Mrs. Peniston informs Lily that the interview has been painful to her, and asks her niece to leave her in consideration for her health. Lily sees Selden's love as her last possible refuge, and she waits sure that he will come to her that afternoon and help her. "She was sure that Gerty knew Selden's feeling for her, and it had never dawned upon her blindness that Gerty's own judgment of him was coloured by emotions far more ardent than her own" (Ch. 15). Selden does not appear at four and Lily thinks that he must have mistaken the writing on her note to say five. Just before five Mr. Rosedale shows up and proposes marriage, telling Lily that he has the money to support a first class social life and needs a woman like her to preside over it. She turns him down very gently and, when she sees an announcement in the evening paper that Selden has departed on a ship for Havana and the West Indies on the Windward Liner Antilles, is on the point of writing Rosedale a note when she sees a message from Bertha Dorset inviting her for a cruise in the Mediterranean the next day.
Book 2, Chapter 1
characters:
Lawrence Selden
Mrs. Fisher
Mrs. Jack Stepney
Mrs. Wellington Bry (Louisa)
Mr. Wellington Bry
Jack Stepney
Lord Hubert Dacey
Duchess of Beltshire
setting:
Monte Carlo
mid-April
plot:
Selden is in Monte Carlo and runs into Mrs. Fisher, Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Wellington Bry as they are debating where to eat. They see the Dorsets' boat the Sabrina, which has just returned from Sicily, and Mrs. Fisher observes that Sicily was Ned Silverton's idea but that Mr. Dorset and Lily Bart must be terribly bored. The party is cheered by Lily's arrival because it means they may get to dine with the Duchess, who admires Lily. After luncheon Mrs. Bry retires and Mrs. Fisher tells Selden of her recent experience - he trouble getting the Brys accepted by riviera society because Louisa insists on subduing her husband's amusing slang and blunders, and her attempts to be slender and queenly when she does best with fat and vulgar, and how when the Dorsets arrived and everyone made a fuss about Lily, Mrs, Bry thought that if she'd had Lily instead of Mrs. Fisher, she would be hanging out with royalty by now. Talking about Lily leads Mrs. Fisher to reflect that at heart, she thinks Lily must despise the things she works for. Selden rushes for a train to Nice and is reflecting on what leads him to flee from Lily Bart when Lily, Ned Silverton, Lord Herbert Dacey and the Dorsets appear in his train car. In a short conversation with Ned Silverton, Selden finds that he is very much against Lily, and walking later with an acquaintance he sees Silverton enter a carriage with Bertha Dorset. When Selden runs into Lord Hubert Dacey later that evening, he finds that this man is also worried about Lily because of her friend the Duchess of Beltshire, whose education he feels is too liberal, and because of the whole nature of Lily's situation. Lily tries to minimize the damage while she sits wih him in sympathy, but after an hour he says that he plans to speak with Selden (in his capacity as lawyer) before dinner. Lily returns to the Sabrina expecting to find Bertha Dorset a wreck and in need of support, and is surprised to see her tranquilly serving tea to the Duchess and Lord Hubert. Once they leave, Bertha reproaches Lily for having left the station too early (she says that she and Ned waited for the last train to see whether they would come) and says that George has had an attack that morning brought about by the heavy responsibility of having had Lily "so conspicuously on his hands in the small hours" (Book 2, Ch. 2). They disagree over who has made the mistake, but Bertha remains firm and Lily returns to her cabin.
Book 2, Chapter 2
characters:
Lily Bart
setting:
plot:
Lily wakes up that morning and enjoys the view from the deck of the Sabrina. She has felt more at ease on this trip: "Moral complications existed for her only in the environment that had produced them; she did not mean to slight or ignore them, but they lost their reality when they changed their background. She could not have remained in New York without repaying the money she owed to Trenor; to acquit herself of that odious debt she might even have faced a marriage with Rosedale; but the accident of placing the Atlantic between herself and her obligations made them dwindle out of sight as if they had been milestones and she had traveled past them" (Book 2, Ch. 2). Lily's only anxiety is that her funds are low and she knows no irreproachable way of replenishing them. Bertha is put out with her because of an invitation from the Duchess whose invitation had not included her. Mrs. Fisher parts with the Brys because the Duchess backs out of a dinner with them and they think it's Mrs. Fisher's fault, and Mrs. Fisher plans to go on with the Sam Gormers (who are just beginning their social ascent) to Paris. Mrs. Fisher offers management of the Brys to Lily and cautions her about a rumor that she and George Dorset returned alone from a party in Nice. They had only done so because Bertha had not showed up at the station, but Mrs. Fisher says she only hopes Lily won't have to pay for it and encourages her to join the Brys. Lily runs into George Dorset who is distraught and tells her that Bertha and Ned had not returned to the Sabrina until seven that morning. He is intent on seeing a lawyer, and she agrees that he should go see Lawrence Selden and sends Selden a telegram preparing him.
Book 2, Chapter 3
characters:
Lawrence Selden
George Dorset
Bertha Dorset
Lily Bart
Duchess
Lady Skidaw
Lord Hubert
Mrs. Bry. (Louisa)
Mr. Bry
Jack Stepney
Gwen Stepney
setting:
Selden's office in Nice
onboard the Sabrina
a restaurant in Nice
plot:
Selden encourages George Dorset to bide his time, avoid a scandal and try to leave room for a reconciliation. He telegrams Lily to assume that all is as usual. Bertha is distant toward Lily as is George, and Ned Silverton is absent. The next day George leaves the yacht early, and Lily goes ashore herself. When she sees Selden he does his best to reassure her, and he sees her again that night at a dinner with the Duchess, Lady Skidaw, Lord Hubert, the Brys, the Stepneys and the Dorsets. As the Stepneys are leaving, intending to cary the Dorsets and Lily back to the yacht, Mrs. Dorset says that Lily will not be joining them. Everyone is shocked and Lily pales but shows less reaction than anyone else. She explains to Mrs. Bry that she is meeting the duchess in the morning and so it is more convenient for her to stay on land, and turns to Seldon saying that he had promised to show her to a cab. Selden is sympathetic but also wonders what truth there might be to Bertha's insinuation. She and Selden walk, and Selden advises Lily to go to the Stepneys immediately. Lily is reluctant because Gwen dislikes her, but Selden asks her to trust him and accompanies her to their hotel. Stepney agrees but says that Lily must leave by the early train the next day and that his wife is asleep and cannot be disturbed.
Book 2, Chapter 4
characters:
the Van Alstynes
the Stepneys
the Melsons
some Penistons
Grace Stepney
Lily Bart
Gertie Farish
Judy Trenor, Ms. Fisher, Rosedale & others
setting:
Mrs. Peniston's drawing room, two weeks after Lily's return from Europe
Gertie's flat
a restaurant
plot:
Contrary to the general expectation, Mrs. Peniston leaves only $10,000 to Lily, and the bulk of her estate to Grace Stepney. Lily is courteous in congratulating Grace, and as she and Gertie leave she hears that the will replaced an earlier one in response to an urgent summons. She is struck by the fact that the sum is so close to the amount she owes Gus Trenor. Lily makes some surmise about what has been said about her and what Mrs. Peniston hears that makes her change the will, and when Gertie says that she doesn't listen to such talk Lily says that she has to know what people say about her in order to know her situation. When Gerty urges Lily to tell her friends her side of the story, and says that she does not know the story herself, Lily replies, ""From the beginning?" Miss Bart gently mimicked her. "Dear Gerty, how little imagination you good people have! Why, the beginning was in my cradle, I suppose--in the way I was brought up, and the things I was taught to care for. Or no--I won't blame anybody for my faults: I'll say it was in my blood, that I got it from some wicked pleasure-loving ancestress, who reacted against the homely virtues of New Amsterdam, and wanted to be back at the court of the Charleses!" And as Miss Farish continued to press her with troubled eyes, she went on impatiently: "You asked me just now for the truth--well, the truth about any girl is that once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks.--My good Gerty, you don't happen to have a cigarette about you?"" (Book 2, Ch. 4). On leaving the Stepneys, Lily had been taken under the protection of the Duchess and had accompanied her to London before (in obeyance of Selden's advice and her own knowledge that the Duchess's companionship was not the best road to social rehabilitation) departing for America. By the time she arrives it is too late - the Dorsets, Stepneys and Brys have all preceeded her with their own versions of what happened, and a mixture of pride, humiliation and realization of the futility of doing so prevent her from defending herself. After her disinheritance, Lily's hopes are mainly centered on Judy Trenor, but that falls apart when Mrs. Trenor and a party of others see Lily at a restaurant and Judy's polite greetings contain certain ommisions that make it clear the two are nolonger on friendly terms. Lily attributes Judy's coldness to an awareness of her debt to Gus, and she knows she must pay back the $9000 even though it means she will be left with only $1000 and her small income. Lily appeals to Grace Stepney to advance her the amount of her inheritance and is rebuffed. Grace herself has not recieved her part of the inheritance, and informs Lily that she is indeed paying rent for the priviledge of living in a house that belongs to her. When Lily suggests that Grace could borrow ten times the amount she requests, Grace is appalled and says, "Why, Lily, if you must know the truth, it was the idea of your being in debt that brought on her illness--you remember she had a slight attack before you sailed. Oh, I don't know the particulars, of course--I don't want to know them--but there were rumours about your affairs that made her most unhappy--no one could be with her without seeing that. I can't help it if you are offended by my telling you this now--if I can do anything to make you realize the folly of your course, and how deeply she disapproved of it, I shall feel it is the truest way of making up to you for her loss" (Book 2, Ch. 4).
Book 2, Chapter 5
characters:
Lily Bart
Mrs. Fisher
Sam Gromer
Mattie Gromer
Audrey Anstell - actress
Paul Morpeth - portrait painter
the Dick Bellingers
Kate Corby
setting:
outside Mrs. Peniston's house
plot:
Mrs. Fisher sees Lily from a hansom outside Mrs. Peniston's house and stops to apologize for snubbing her when she was with Judy Trenor. The Sam Gromers, after trying the usual social scene with some success, have started off on their own - "what they want is to have a good time, and to have it in their own way" - and Ms. Fisher invites Lily to join her at their place for a week. Lily goes with Ms. Fisher and finds, in a social scene she has avoided, "more of each thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, more familiarity--but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a fresher capacity for enjoyment" (Book 2, Ch. 5). When the week is up, Mrs. Fisher is planning to accompany the Brys in Newport and suggests that Lily take her place with the Gormers on their car trip to Alaska. Lily makes the trip, and although she finds some things about the Gormers she dislikes which make it harder on her pride for her to use them, she decides to stick with them after the trip. She continues her intimacy with Mrs. Fisher, who she values for her frankness and lack of curiosity about Lily's inwardness, and soon Mrs. Fisher tells Lily that she should mary. The two candidates she offers are George Dorset and Sim Rosedale. Lily dismisses the Dorset idea immediately, but she lingers after the conversation on Rosedale. She realizes that although she dislikes Rosedale, she nolonger despises him. "[f]or he was gradually attaining his object in life, and that, to Lily, was always less despicable than to miss it. With the slow unalterable persistency which she had always felt in him, he was making his way through the dense mass of social antagonisms. Already his wealth, and the masterly use he had made of it, were giving him an enviable prominence in the world of affairs, and placing Wall Street under obligations which only Fifth Avenue could repay." (Book 2. Ch. 5). The problem as LIly sees it, is that while he had seen in her the thing he needed to perfect his ascent a year ago, he had risen higher since then while she had sunk. "She had never even tried to please him--he had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if she now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive state, he had felt so strongly? What if she made him marry her for love, now that he had no other reason for marrying her?" (Book 2, Ch. 5).
Book 2, Chapter 6
characters:
Lily Bart
George Dorset
Mattie Gormer
Bertha Doset
Carry Fisher
Sim Rosedale
setting:
autumn
The Gormers' Long Island estate.
a hotel on the edge of the fashionable district in New York
Carry Fisher's house at Tuxedo
plot:
Lily has accompanied Mrs. Gormer to her Long Island estate and is taking a walk in a lane when she comes across George Dorset. He apologizes to her for what has happened and asks her to forgive him and be his friend or to at least let him explain, but she says the situation is perfectly clear to her and that they can't be friends after the use Bertha has made of her. George is insistent, and says that Lily is the only one who knows him and can help him, and she thinks that Carry Fisher has been right to think that George would mary her. She feels tempted by the opportunity for revenge and rehabilitation at once, but resists it and leaves George suddenly. On her return to Mattie, she finds that her hostess has just been visited by Bertha Dorset. Bertha does not mix with newcomers unless with some ulteriour motive, and so this does not bode well for Lily. Lily goes to visit some friends, and when she returns Bertha and Mattie have seen eachother a few more times and are planning a dinner which Mrs. Gormer clearly does not wish to dicuss before Lily. Lily returns to New York where she moves into a hotel on the edge of the fashionable district and which she cannot really afford. Lily is more and more convinced by her intolerable surroundings that she must try to mary Rosedale, and thi becomes even clearer to her after an unexpected visit from George Dorset to her hotel, where she tells him they cannot see one another again. Lily is invited to stay at Mrs. Fisher's rented house in Tuxedo where Rosedale is the only other guest, and sees him kneeling before a child as she enters. Lily's first night in Tuxedo, Mrs. Fisher tells her that Mattie Gormer had stopped by with Bertha Dorset, and that it looks as if Mrs. Gormer intends to sacrifice Lily to become an intimate of Bertha's. Mrs. Fisher says that the only reason Bertha is still striking out againt Lily is that she is still afraid of her, and Mrs. Fisher thinks Lily could mary George Dorset any time she wanted. Since Lily doesn't seem interested in that form of retlalitation, the only way to make herself safe is to mary someone else.
Book 2, Chapter 7
characters:
Lily Bart
Sim Rosedale
setting:
Mrs. Fisher's house in Tuxedo
plot:
Lily takes a walk with Rosedale near Mrs. Fisher's house, and when she chooses her moment to say that she is ready to marry him now, he balks and says that he had not intended to renew his suit after the previous rejection. She makes as if to go and when he asks whether they can't be friends she asks whether his idea of friendship is making love to her without any idea of asking her to marry him. Rosedale says that he is more in love with her than the last year, but that the situation has changed. He says that he doesn't believe the stories about her, and when she asks whether the stories not being true would alter the situation he says, ""I believe it does in novels; but I'm certain it don't in real life. You know that as well as I do: if we're speaking the truth, let's speak the whole truth. Last year I was wild to marry you, and you wouldn't look at me: this year--well, you appear to be willing. Now, what has changed in the interval? Your situation, that's all. Then you thought you could do better; now----"" (Book 2, Ch. 7). Lily understands that before Rosedale thought she could help him and that he nolonger does, and says she likes him for his frankness. As she is about to leave again, he asks Lily why she has never used the letters from Bertha to Selden which she had bought the year before. Lily can use the letters to force a reconciliation with Bertha and then marry Rosedale and be preotected from any future attacks. Lily tells Rosedale that he is mistaken "both in the facts and in what you infer from them" and, refering to Selden, retorts, "I suppose it's because the letters are to him, then? Well, I'll be damned if I see what thanks you've got from him!" (Book 2, Ch. 7).
Book 2, Chapter 8
characters:
Lily Bart
Mattie Gormer
Lawrence Selden
setting:
Winter
plot:
Lily attends the Horse Show with Mattie Gormer, but it is clear that as social life shifts back to the city Mattie will drift away from her under the influence of her new social discrimination ushered in by her friendship with Bertha Dorset. Lily goes to see Gertie Farish one day and finds that Miss Jane Silverton has just been to see her for advice about what she and Annie Silverton can do to make some money. Ned Silverton has returned from his cruise with a debt that is ruining them, and they hope to make enough to send him away and let him get back to his poetry. Lily says that she can understand how Ned came away with such a big debt, and talks of the expenses of living among the rich and of the anxiety that doing so is causing her now that she is so nearly broke and yet terrified of leaving that world. She has been having trouble sleeping at night and takes strong tea during the day to say awake, and Gertie thinks she looks ill. Lily tells Gertie not to worry about her, that Mrs. Fisher has found a position for her as a social secretary, and that she will come to see Gertie again soon. Not hearing from her for a while, Gertie goes to see Selden about Lily and, surprised to hear that he has not seen Lily at all since her return from Europe, suggests that he might help her just by showing her his sympathy. "I am thinking of the fact that you and she used to be great friends--that she used to care immensely for what you thought of her--and that, if she takes your staying away as a sign of what you think now, I can imagine its adding a great deal to her unhappiness" (Book 2, Ch. 8). Selden goes to Lily's hotel and finds that she has left. The clerk gives her a forwarding address "care of Mrs. Norma Hatch, Emporium Hotel" and he tears the paper in two in disgust.
Book 2, Chapter 9
characters:
Lily Bart
Mrs. Fisher
Mrs. Norma Hatch - divorced, from the West, wealthy, unplaced
Mr. Melville Stancy - a lawyer, forms social link between Gormer world and the one Lily enters into through her employment by Mrs. Norma Hatch
Ned Silverton
Freddy Van Osburgh
Lawrence Selden
setting:
Emporium Hotel
plot:
Waking to a sense of physical comfort stifles any criticism Lily might have of Mrs. Hatch. "The environment in which Lily found herself was as strange to her as its inhabitants. She was unacquainted with the world of the fashionable New York hotel--a world over-heated, over-upholstered, and over-fitted with mechanical appliances for the gratification of fantastic requirements, while the comforts of a civilized life were as unattainable as in a desert. Through this atmosphere of torrid splendour moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity from restaurant to concert-hall, from palm-garden to music-room, from "art exhibit" to dress-maker's opening. High-stepping horses or elaborately equipped motors waited to carry these ladies into vague metropolitan distances, whence they returned, still more wan from the weight of their sables, to be sucked back into the stifling inertia of the hotel routine. Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives, there was doubtless a real past, peopled by real human activities: they themselves were probably the product of strong ambitions, persistent energies, diversified contacts with the wholesome roughness of life; yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo" (Book 2, Ch. 9). Lily' duties for her tend more toward picking out the right hat or the right order for courses in a meal, as Mrs. Hatch as yet does not have many for a social secretary to write to. Lily is surprised to see first Ned Silverton and then Freddy Can Osburgh form a part of this hotel crowd. "Compared with the vast gilded void of Mrs. Hatch's existence, the life of Lily's former friends seemed packed with ordered activities. Even the most irresponsible pretty woman of her acquaintance had her inherited obligations, her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the great civic machine; and all hung together in the solidarity of these traditional functions" (Book 2, Ch. 9). Lily Notices that Ned Silverton and Mrs. Stancy seem to be trying to increase Freddy Van Osburgh's attachment to Norma Hatch. Selden comes to see Lily and urges her to leave Mrs. Hatch and stay with Gertie until she can regain her independence. When Lily informs Selden that she owed every penny of her inheritance he is taken aback but suggests that cohabitation with Gertie might be beneficial to both of them and would relieve her of the necessity of having to work. Lily counters that there are reasons why it would be neither beneficial for herself not kind to Gertie to enter such an arrangement and asks him to excuse her from naming those reasons. He warns her against being in a false position and she assures him that she has everything under control and may do credit to her early training yet.
Book 2, Chapter 10
characters:
20 other girls working at the milliner's
Gertie Farish
Mr. Stancy
Miss Haines - Lily's supervisor at Mme. Regina's
Miss Kilroy - another girl in the workroom, sympathetic to Lily
setting:
work room of Mme. Regina's millinery establishment
plot:
Despite her Gertie's hope that Lily might find employment as a fashionable young lady adding finishing touches to hats, Lily finds herself in a back room sewing on bangles without any particular skill. Lily lacked the money to buy a place in a milliner's, and the sympathy that might have drawn her friend to patronize her shop had dwindled though her association with Mrs. Hatch. Lily had left Mrs. Hatch a week after Selden's visit, spurred to action by Mr. Stancy's promise that she would be rewarded if she "saw them through." "Once again, Lily had withdrawn from an ambiguous situation in time to save her self-respect, but too late for public vindication" (Book 2, Ch. 10). Gertie and then Carry Fisher try to find backing for Lily, but do not find it, and eventually place her in the work room of Mme. Regina's millinery establishment. Mme. Regina wants to employ Lily showing hats, but she and Gertie both resist this and Carry acquiesces so that Lily winds up in the work room, where she meets the initial disapproval of Miss Haines the supervisor and does nothing to mitigate that feeling through her clumsiness over the next months. On one afternoon, Lily has a headache and has to go home. She stops at a chemist's on her way for a vial of a sleep drug, and meets Mr. Rosedale who sees that she is unwell and asks her to have tea. Over tea, Rosedale inquires into her situation and, "An uncontrollable impulse was urging her to put her case to this man, from whose curiosity she had always so fiercely defended herself" (Book 2, Ch. 10). Lily tells Rosedale about the money she owed Trenor and how she came to owe it, with a vague hope that it will be known that she intends to repay it. He offers to back her in a millinery establishment but she thanks him and says that she is alright, and he walks her home. She can see that he is disgusted by the neighborhood and the shaby building where she boards, but he asks to come by and see her there, and she thanks him sincerely. Gertie and Mrs. Fisher think that Lily can use her inheritance from Mrs. Peniston to start a milliner shop, and Lily is somtimes tempted to do so and to pay the debt back gradually. This ould take years though, and Lily is afraid that the obligation might become less onerous to her as time goes on. She is further tempted, after Rosedale's kindness, by the thought that she might use Bertha Dorset's letters and marry him on the conditions that she had rejected before. That night she uses the medicine from the chemist to sleep.
Book 2, Chapter 11
characters:
setting:
plot:
Book 2, Chapter 12
Book 2, Chapter 13
Book 2, Chapter 14
Thoughts
"Higher up, the lane showed thickening tufts of fern and of the creeping glossy verdure of shaded slopes; trees began to overhang it, and the shade deepened to the checkered dusk of a beech-grove. The boles of the trees stood well apart, with only a light feathering of undergrowth; the path wound along the edge of the wood, now and then looking out on a sunlit pasture or on an orchard spangled with fruit.
Lily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for the appropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which was the fitting background of her own sensations. The landscape outspread below her seemed an enlargement of her present mood, and she found something of herself in its calmness, its breadth, its long free reaches. On the nearer slopes the sugar-maples wavered like pyres of light; lower down was a massing of grey orchards, and here and there the lingering green of an oak-grove. Two or three red farm-houses dozed under the apple-trees, and the white wooden spire of a village church showed beyond the shoulder of the hill; while far below, in a haze of dust, the high-road ran between the fields." (Ch. 6)
"As was always the case with her, this moral repulsion found a physical outlet in a quickened distaste for her surroundings. She revolted from the complacent ugliness of Mrs. Peniston's black walnut, from the slippery gloss of the vestibule tiles, and the mingled odour of sapolio and furniture-polish that met her at the door." (Ch. 8)
"What a contrast to the subtle elegance of the setting she had pictured for herself--an apartment which should surpass the complicated luxury of her friends' surroundings by the whole extent of that artistic sensibility which made her feel herself their superior; in which every tint and line should combine to enhance her beauty and give distinction to her leisure! Once more the haunting sense of physical ugliness was intensified by her mental depression, so that each piece of the offending furniture seemed to thrust forth its most aggressive angle." (Ch. 9)
"All means seemed justifiable to attain such an end, or rather, by a happy shifting of lights with which practice had familiarized Miss Bart, the cause shrank to a pin-point in the general brightness of the effect. But brilliant young ladies, a little blinded by their own effulgence, are apt to forget that the modest satellite drowned in their light is still performing its own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate. If Lily's poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base thought that her gown and opera cloak had been indirectly paid for by Gus Trenor, the latter had not sufficient poetry in his composition to lose sight of these prosaic facts. He knew only that he had never seen Lily look smarter in her life, that there wasn't a woman in the house who showed off good clothes as she did, and that hitherto he, to whom she owed the opportunity of making this display, had reaped no return beyond that of gazing at her in company with several hundred other pairs of eyes." (Ch. 10)
"Rosedale, in particular, was said to have doubled his fortune, and there was talk of his buying the newly-finished house of one of the victims of the crash, who, in the space of twelve short months, had made the same number of millions, built a house in Fifth Avenue, filled a picture-gallery with old masters, entertained all New York in it, and been smuggled out of the country between a trained nurse and a doctor, while his creditors mounted guard over the old masters, and his guests explained to each other that they had dined with him only because they wanted to see the pictures. Mr. Rosedale meant to have a less meteoric career. He knew he should have to go slowly, and the instincts of his race fitted him to suffer rebuffs and put up with delays. But he was prompt to perceive that the general dulness of the season afforded him an unusual opportunity to shine, and he set about with patient industry to form a background for his growing glory. Mrs. Fisher was of immense service to him at this period. She had set off so many newcomers on the social stage that she was like one of those pieces of stock scenery which tell the experienced spectator exactly what is going to take place. But Mr. Rosedale wanted, in the long run, a more individual environment. He was sensitive to shades of difference which Miss Bart would never have credited him with perceiving, because he had no corresponding variations of manner; and it was becoming more and more clear to him that Miss Bart herself possessed precisely the complementary qualities needed to round off his social personality." (Ch 11)
"Lily was in her element on such occasions. Under Morpeth's guidance her vivid plastic sense, hitherto nurtured on no higher food than dress-making and upholstery, found eager expression in the disposal of draperies, the study of attitudes, the shifting of lights and shadows. Her dramatic instinct was roused by the choice of subjects, and the gorgeous reproductions of historic dress stirred an imagination which only visual impressions could reach. But keenest of all was the exhilaration of displaying her own beauty under a new aspect: of showing that her loveliness was no mere fixed quality, but an element shaping all emotions to fresh forms of grace." (Ch. 12)
"But he enjoyed spectacular effects, and was not insensible to the part money plays in their production: all he asked was that the very rich should live up to their calling as stage-managers, and not spend their money in a dull way. This the Brys could certainly not be charged with doing. Their recently built house, whatever it might lack as a frame for domesticity, was almost as well-designed for the display of a festal assemblage as one of those airy pleasure-halls which the Italian architects improvised to set off the hospitality of princes. The air of improvisation was in fact strikingly present: so recent, so rapidly-evoked was the whole mise-en-scène that one had to touch the marble columns to learn they were not of cardboard, to seat one's self in one of the damask-and-gold arm-chairs to be sure it was not painted against the wall." (Ch. 12)