Sublime

Le 24 avril, dans une très longue lettre, il analyse aussi lucidement que possible les espoirs immenses qu’il avait placés en elle, et la terrible déception qui est la sienne. Jeanne était à ses yeux « une promesse, une virtualité, un vivant chef-d’œuvre “en puissance” ». Mais son goût du luxe et des mondanités ainsi que le temps énorme consacré

She was keenly offended, but the signs she made of this were such as only Lydgate was used to interpret. She became suddenly quiet and seated herself, untying her hanging bonnet and laying it down with her shawl. Her little hands which she folded before her were very cold.

My mother had been carrying on an affair with the husband of the family with whom we had originally stayed when we visited California for the first time during the summer before Pearl Harbor. Only recently did I learn from my brother that the affair started then, and that when my father eventually discovered it, this led to the divorce.

‘She’s a bit of a coquette, you know.’ ‘Don’t say that – don’t say that!’ Mrs Marden murmured. ‘The nicest girls always are – just a little,’ I was magnanimous enough to plead. ‘Then why are they always punished?’ The intensity of the question startled me – it had come out in a vivid flash. Therefore I had to think a moment before I put to her:

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs Willard’s kitchen mat.

have just reread The Age of Innocence. Poor Countess Olenska, so much more alive than everyone in New York. She was better than Newland Archer, to whom she couldn’t give herself because she was married. It didn’t matter to society that she had been wronged by her husband. They felt her life was over.

averred.