Here’s some of what she wrote him:
And I’m so afraid that the treasures I long to unpack for you, that have come to me in magic ships from enchanted islands, are only, to you, the old familiar red calico & beads of the clever trader, who has had dealing with every latitude, & knows just what to carry in the hold to please the simple native—I’m so afraid of this, that often & often I stuff my shining treasures back into their box, lest I should see you smiling at them!
Well! And what if you do? It’s your loss, after all! And if you can’t come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple of flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don’t speak, it’s because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses, & all my thoughts are a great golden blur—why should I be afraid of your smiling at me, when I can turn the beads & calico back into such beauty—?
I’ve been familiar with that letter for years, and have always wondered what Wharton meant, exactly, in that final line: ” . . . when I can turn the beads & calico back into such beauty.” I like to think that she was confident she would make her beads and calico into great fiction. Before her affair with Fullerton, she had written just two novels. But once the affair was done and gone she wrote many more, including The Age of Innocence. The heroine of that novel, the knowing and spirited Countess Olenska, lives out the remaining decades of her life an independent woman in Paris . . . as did she.
By the way: Martin Scorcese’s movie of The Age of Innocence, produced in 1993, is faithful to the novel and, by every measure, perfect. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis in the shot, above.
Ted the Cat (1994-present) is a domestic shorthair blogger and vers libre poet. He also enjoys sleeping, eating, and lurking. Ted the Cat co-habits with Kaze,
also a blogger at 317am.net.
