A Companion to the American Short Story

by Alfred Bendixen

  Sellers, leaves Waythorn as the logical choice to negotiate a deal for Gus Varick,

  Alice ’ s second husband. In a pattern repeated in each section of the story, Waythorn ’ s

  sense of exclusive ownership is immediately undercut by a reference to one of her

  earlier two marriages. Wharton ’ s use of language in the story resonates with the sexual

  overtones of his bride ’ s previous intimacy with others, relationships that Waythorn

  cannot quite bring himself to admit. The “ softly - lighted room … full of bridal inti-

  macy ” that he notices with pride loses that quality as Alice tells him that Haskett

  must visit Lily at their home, saying “ I ’ m afraid he has the right ” – of access to Lily ’ s

  presence now, and, in years past, of access to Alice ’ s body ( Collected Short Stories I. 382).

  Waythorn once again begins to yield “ to the joy of possessorship ” as Alice serves him

  coffee, and once again his sense of possessorship suffers a blow when he sees that Alice

  pours cognac in his coffee without asking him, for this is the way that Varick, not

  Waythorn, takes his coffee. As Alice ’ s actions continue to remind him of her former

  husbands, Waythorn begins to put more effort into constructing the history of her

  past relationships than into building his current relationship with her. He envisions

  Haskett and Alice living in cheap small - town splendor, with a pianola and a copy of

  Ben - Hur in the parlor, and marvels, not altogether admiringly, at her adaptation to

  New York society and her “ studied negation ” of her past. Although Varick ’ s infi deli-

  ties had given Alice cause for a “ New York divorce, ” a sign of virtue, a chance allusion

  by Varick makes Waythorn realize that “ a lack of funds had been one of the determin-

  ing causes ” (387) of his and Alice ’ s divorce. Alice inadvertently confi rms this impres-

  sion when she reveals a vulgar interest in wealth and social advancement by disparaging

  Haskett: “ It ’ s not as if he could ever be a help to Lily ” (391). Waythorn realizes that

  despite the comic vulgarity of Haskett ’ s “ made - up tie attached with an elastic ” (389),

  the man himself is genuine precisely because of this vulgarity, a badge of his small -

  town roots. Alice ’ s ability to adapt to various environments, usually an admirable

  evolutionary advantage, is by contrast a kind of deception that masks her ambitious

  social climbing. With fl awless tact, she speaks to Haskett but lies to Waythorn about

  it, remembers Varick ’ s preferences in coffee - drinking, sits next to Varick unbidden

  without betraying any nervousness, and glides through each situation with a “ pliancy ”

  that begins to

  “

  sicken

  ”

  Waythorn (393). As is revealed through her mercenary

  comment, her manners derive from a conscious adaptation to her surroundings rather

  than from the spontaneous responses of the fi ner nature that Waythorn at fi rst attri-

  butes to her.

  Throughout the story Wharton juxtaposes three rhetorical registers: Waythorn ’ s

  private fl ights of fancy over his ownership of Alice, which he couches in the language

  of the stock market ( “ discounts ” and “ shares ” ); the scrupulously polite yet loaded

  language ( “ he has the right ” ) that he, Alice, and her former husbands use to converse

  with one another; and the unspoken language of gesture and the body. The language

  of the body undercuts the abstract language of the other registers with constant mate-

  rial reminders of Alice ’ s former intimacy with her husbands. She is, Waythorn decides,

  “ as easy as an old shoe – a shoe that too many feet had worn ” (393), a simile with

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  loaded overtones of sexual promiscuity. Despite his dismay at Alice

  ’

  s elasticity,

  Waythorn begins to adjust both his thinking and his rhetoric: in place of his primi-

  tive pride of ownership, he is now a modern “ member of a syndicate, ” a stockholder

  who “ held so many shares in his wife ’ s personality ” along with “ his predecessors ”

  (393). His complete acceptance occurs when, after returning home one day, he fi nds

  both Varick and Haskett in the library. Waythorn offers them cigars and even offers

  Varick a light from his own cigar, a gesture of intimacy, as Alice enters the room.

  Never losing her perfect composure, she offers them all a cup of tea, and as “ the two

  visitors … advanced to receive the cups she held out, ” Waythorn “ took the third cup

  with a laugh ” (396). Like Lizzie West of “ The Letters, ” who decides to accept her

  marriage as it is after learning that her husband has read none of the letters she sent

  him and has married her for her money, or Mr. Mindon, who accepts his wife ’ s infi -

  delity in “ The Line of Least Resistance, ” Waythorn decides to settle for the marriage

  he has instead of pining for the marriage that he thought he had. Confronted with a

  situation of multiple marriages that modern civilization has rendered acceptable,

  Waythorn chooses the civilized solution. He completes the repression of his primitive

  instincts of ownership and accepts that he can never have more than a one - third share

  of Alice, sexually, emotionally, or even socially, and he uses the modern tool of a sense

  of irony, which occasions his laugh, to seal the process.

  The stories of Wharton ’ s later career, from 1915 until her death in 1937, appeared

  in six collections: Xingu and Other Stories (1916), Here and Beyond (1926), Certain People

  (1930), Human Nature (1933), The World Over (1936), and Ghosts (1937). Among these

  are stories lampooning consumer culture ( “ Charm Incorporated ” and “ Permanent

  Wave ” ), social satires ( “ Xingu ” and “ After Holbein ” ), stories of empire ( “ A Bottle of

  Perrier, ” “ The Seed of the Faith ” ), and ghost stories ( “ Mr. Jones, ” “ All Souls ” ). One

  of the most frequently anthologized stories of this period, “ Roman Fever, ” may be

  Wharton ’ s defi nitive statement of women ’ s rivalry for the affection of another person,

  a theme most notable in The Age of Innocence, The Reef , and The Old Maid , although it

  occurs in other works as well. Like “ The Other Two, ” the story is structured in a series

  of progressive revelations by two New York society matrons, the imperious Mrs. Alida

  Slade and her quieter friend Mrs. Grace Ansley. The pair sit and talk on the terrace

  of a restaurant overlooking the Roman forum while waiting for their daughters, Mrs.

  Slade ’ s demure Jenny and Mrs. Ansley ’ s brilliant Barbara, who are rivals for the same

  eligible man, a piece of exposition that sets in motion the revelation of other rivalries

  between women in the past. The more dominant of the two, with “ high color and

  energetic brows ” ( Collected Short Stories II. 834), Mrs. Slade refl ects that the two have

  “ lived opposite each other – actually as well as fi guratively – for years ” (835). As the

  sun sets and the two gaze out on the ruins of the Roman past, Mrs. Slade begins to

  probe the less visible ruins of the past that she has shared with Mrs. Ansley when the

  two were rivals for the affections of Delphin Slade. Recalling that a jealous great - aunt

  of
Mrs. Ansley ’ s had sent her younger sister to the Colosseum at night and that the

  girl had died of “ Roman fever, ” Mrs. Slade reveals that she had played a similar trick

  on Mrs. Ansley in their youth. Wanting to be sure of Delphin Slade before their

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  marriage, Alida Slade had sent a note ostensibly from him to Grace Ansley asking

  that Grace meet him at the Colosseum.

  Thus far, the conversation has been Mrs. Slade ’ s one - sided attack on Mrs. Ansley,

  who metaphorically fends off the attack by keeping a set of knitting needles between

  herself and Mrs. Slade, as Alice Hall Petry has suggested; she keeps her emotions in

  check by knitting, and thus controlling, a skein of “ red silk ” that suggests the pas-

  sionate intensity of her feelings. When Mrs. Slade recites the letter that Delphin had

  supposedly sent and reveals that she had been its sender, Mrs. Ansley drops her knit-

  ting, and also her defenses, to engage in the fencing match of words that Mrs. Slade

  has provoked. The balance of power shifts as Mrs. Ansley reveals that she had answered

  the letter and had met Delphin at the Colosseum. Unable to bear Mrs. Ansley ’ s

  comment “ I ’ m sorry for you, ” Mrs. Slade tries once again to gain the upper hand,

  stating that she had had Delphin Slade for twenty - fi ve years and that Mrs. Ansley

  “ had nothing but that one letter that he didn ’ t write. ” “ I had Barbara, ” Mrs. Ansley

  replies, and “ move[s] ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the stairway ” (843) symbolically

  moving ahead in their ancient rivalry as well. Rachel Bowlby contends that the revela-

  tion in “ Roman Fever ” may actually be merely a statement of fact that Mrs. Ansley

  had the brilliant Barbara to sustain her while Mrs. Slade has had to make do with the

  angelic Jenny, but the clues that Wharton has scattered throughout the story point

  to a concealed pregnancy, including Mrs. Ansley ’ s illness and her sudden marriage to

  Horace Ansley two months after her visit to the Colosseum by moonlight. “ Girls are

  ferocious sometimes … [g]irls in love especially, ” Mrs. Slade admits, trying repeatedly

  to explain how she could expose Grace Ansley to possible death, and her incessant

  goading of Mrs. Ansley suggests that that ferocity is present even in “ ripe but well -

  cared - for middle age ” (833). Beneath the veneer of civilization and lack of passion

  implied by the women ’ s wealth, social status, manners, and age lurk the primitive

  emotions and drives that Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley display as they run the gamut

  of jealousy, competition for status, a drive toward dominance, and the impulse to

  protect their offspring and to see their genes survive. The story ’ s evocation of moder-

  nity – the Count whose attentions both daughters desire is an aviator – is merely a

  cover for the sexual rivalry that spans three generations.

  Wharton ’ s ghost stories also address the ferocity and primitive emotions inherent

  in human beings. Wharton had begun publishing ghost stories as early as “ The Lady ’ s

  Maid ’ s Bell ” (1902), and one of her fi nest stories, “ The Eyes ” (1910), is the product

  of her middle period, but the late period ghost stories are among the best examples

  of her theory of deriving signifi cance from an economical handling of material.

  According to Margaret McDowell, Wharton ’ s later ghost stories are more ambiguous

  and less intent on linking the appearance of a ghost to “ some recognizable breach of

  morality ” (McDowell 312) than her earlier ones. Another difference, however, is that

  the events in these late stories gain in force and terror as the supernatural element

  causes physical as well as psychological harm – the terrorizing of an elderly woman

  and the breaking of her ankle in “ All Souls, ” a husband ’ s disappearance in “ Pomegran-

  ate Seed, ” and the murder of a housekeeper in “ Mr. Jones. ” Moreover, several ghost

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  stories revisit situations from Wharton ’ s earlier career. The early New England stories

  lend their settings to some altogether darker stories, “ Bewitched ” and “ The Young

  Gentlemen, ” which question “ the nature of Americanness ” (Beer 132) and the nation ’ s

  unsavory history of ties to European imperialism, according to Janet Beer. Similarly,

  “ The Eyes ” recasts the artistic integrity theme of the earlier artist stories into a dark

  parable of predation. Culwin, a Jamesian fi gure with impeccable literary taste who

  likes young and “ juicy ” men ( Collected Short Stories II. 116), tells his attractive friend

  Phil Frenham about the vision of “ a man ’ s eyes ” with “ thick and red - lined lids ” (120);

  they are, he concludes, eyes that “ belong to a man who had done a lot of harm in his

  life, but had always kept just inside the danger lines ” (120). The visions occur on two

  occasions when Culwin is dishonest: the fi rst when he promises to marry his cousin

  Alice Nowell, primarily to inherit her fi ne house; and the second when he lies about

  the literary merit of the work of Gilbert Noyes, a young man with whom he is infatu-

  ated. The visions of the eyes cease when he behaves ethically by breaking off his

  engagement to Alice and telling Noyes the truth about his lack of talent. But Culwin ’ s

  vampiric attraction to handsome young men has not changed, and the eyes have not

  vanished for good. When Culwin lays his “ gouty hands ” (130) on Frenham ’ s shoul-

  ders, clutching the younger man with a gesture of grotesque eroticism, Frenham and

  the narrator see the eyes in the mirror and realize that they are, and were, Culwin ’ s.

  Culwin, however, “ scarcely ” recognizes his refl ection, gazing at the eyes not with

  remorse for the harm he has done but with “ a glare of slowly gathering hate ” (130).

  Far from accepting responsibility for the harm he has done, Culwin rejects the vision

  of himself in the mirror. A narcissist, he has for years sought his own refl ection in the

  eyes of the beautiful young men he cultivated and discarded, but a true refl ection of

  his character is abhorrent to him. Like the statue in “ The Duchess at Prayer ” or the

  portrait in “ The Portrait, ” the refl ection gives Culwin a picture of the truth: that he

  has been the artist of his own corrupt character and that his greatest work of art has

  been his own deceptive and destructive self - portrait.

  “ All Souls ” likewise revisits a theme from earlier stories. In its depiction of an

  elderly woman living alone who is beset by changes to her surroundings, it loosely

  resembles “ Mrs. Manstey ’ s View, ” yet the strong and vigorous Sara Clayburn seems

  at fi rst only a distant echo of the helpless Mrs. Manstey. As Sara goes for a walk on

  All Souls ’ Eve, she meets a mysterious woman who claims that she is going to visit

  a servant at Whitegates, Sara ’ s home; shortly thereafter, Sara falls, breaks her ankle,

  and is ordered to bed by the doctor. When she awakens, she is terrifi ed to fi nd that

  the house is deserted and the electricity is off. The next day, her loyal maidservant

  Agnes disclaims any knowledge of the deserted house, saying that Sara must have

  been feverish. On the next All Souls ’ Eve, Sara appears on the narrator ’ s doorste
p,

  claiming that she does not want to repeat the experience and will never live in the

  house again. The narrator hypothesizes that the woman whom Sara saw was a “ fetch ”

  who had come to summon the servants to a witches ’ coven. Critics have seen bio-

  graphical echoes in this story; as Annette Zilversmit notes, Wharton ’ s house The

  Mount, unlike most Berkshires estates, had white gates (Zilversmit 317), and Jenni

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  Donna Campbell

  Dyman and Karen J. Jacobsen see in the desertion of the servants Wharton ’ s own fears

  about such an event, with Jacobsen tying the issue to anxieties about class resentment.

  Reading the stories through the theory that Wharton was an incest victim, Barbara

  White considers the story as yet another example of the incest theme, with the dis-

  embodied and insinuating male voice coming from the crystal radio set evoking

  repressed memories of a sexual abuser. The story ’ s Gothic elements are also controver-

  sial, with Kathy Fedorko fi nding it a “ dark Gothic abyss ” of “ sexuality, death, [and]

  loss of control ” (Fedorko 160) and Janet Beer and Avril Horner judging the Gothic

  elements so excessive as to constitute a parody of the Gothic, using “ comedy and the

  supernatural to unsettle conventional values and beliefs ” (Beer and Horner 285).

  As Gianfranca Balestra points out, however, the story did not always end with the

  narrator ’ s explanation of witchcraft and the “ fetch, ” which some critics have thought

  a weakness in it. According to Balestra, the manuscript shows that Wharton had

  originally ended the story with Sara ’ s fl ight from the house and had added the witch-

  craft explanation later “ for the use of the magazine morons ” who presumably would

  not be satisfi ed with the indeterminate nature of the story ’ s events (Balestra 21). In

  fact, virtually all the events of the story can be explained by resorting to Agnes ’ s

  commonsense explanation that Sara had suffered a fever and become delirious; for

  example, the male voice coming from the crystal set would not have been loud enough

  to hear without electrical amplifi cation. But despite the narrator ’ s insistence on Sara ’ s

  reliability and his or her own (the narrator ’ s gender is never specifi cally stated), the