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Trenor had married young, and since hismarriage his intercourse with women had not taken the form of thesentimental small-talk which doubles upon itself like the paths in amaze. He was first puzzled and then irritated to find himself always ledback to the same starting-point, and Lily felt that she was graduallylosing control of the situation. In spite of his understanding with Rosedale he had been somewhatheavily “touched” by the fall in stocks; his household expenses weighedon him, and he seemed to be meeting, on all sides, a sullen opposition tohis wishes, instead of the easy good luck he had hitherto encountered.
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Mrs. Peniston (Julia)—Lily's wealthy, widowed Aunt –sister to Lily's father. Mrs. Peniston embodies "old school" morality and has a family pedigree that goes back to the industrious and successful Dutch families of early New York. Although she maintains an opulent residence on fashionable Fifth Avenue, she does not follow fashion or renovate constantly to maintain a chic appearance. Mrs. Peniston's "Old New York" lifestyle requires keeping her drawing room neat, eating well and dressing expensively. She harbors a passive attitude and does not actively engage in life. Although she spends time in the country during the first part of the book, by the last half of the book she is a shut-in with significant heart problems.
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When the tea came he watched her in silent fascination while her handsflitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine and slender in contrastto the coarse china and lumpy bread. It seemed wonderful to him that anyone should perform with such careless ease the difficult task of makingtea in public in a lurching train. He would never have dared to order itfor himself, lest he should attract the notice of his fellow-passengers;but, secure in the shelter of her conspicuousness, he sipped the inkydraught with a delicious sense of exhilaration. She signalled to that official, and in a moment, with the ease thatseemed to attend the fulfilment of all her wishes, a little table hadbeen set up between the seats, and she had helped Mr. Gryce to bestow hisencumbering properties beneath it. She steadied herself with a laugh and drew back; but he was enveloped inthe scent of her dress, and his shoulder had felt her fugitive touch. Mr. Rosedale, it will be seen, was thus far not a factor to befeared—unless one put one’s self in his power.
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“Goodnight,” said Selden, turning sharply down the side street withoutseeing the other’s extended hand. The walking-stick which Van Alstyne swung in demonstration dropped to astartled “Hallo! ” as the door opened and two figures were seensilhouetted against the hall-light. At the same moment a hansom halted atthe curb-stone, and one of the figures floated down to it in a haze ofevening draperies; while the other, black and bulky, remainedpersistently projected against the light. Selden rose, and she drew a deep breath, feeling that soon she couldyield to the blessed waves. Reaching town, he was driven direct to his club, where he hoped a notefrom Miss Bart might await him.
Lily spends the night there and, the next day, returns to her aunt Mrs. Peniston’s house, where she lives. After calculating what she owes Gus Trenor, she resolves to ask her aunt for money, but Mrs. Peniston refuses to help her niece when she discovers that some of her debts are related to gambling. She scolds Lily for her rash behavior and privately condemns her for allowing rumors about accepting romantic advances from Gus Trenor and George Dorset to circulate about her. Lily’s social popularity reaches its climax when she performs in a party organized by Mr. and Mrs. Wellington Bry, a couple desperate for social climbing. Lily appears on stage on her own as a tableau vivant and impresses everyone with her striking beauty and grace. After the performance, she spends some time alone with Selden in the garden.
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A rustle of weeds and quick turning of heads hailed the opening of thedoor, and Lily Bart appeared, tall and noble in her black dress, withGerty Farish at her side. The women’s faces, as she pausedinterrogatively on the threshold, were a study in hesitation. One or twomade faint motions of recognition, which might have been subdued eitherby the solemnity of the scene, or by the doubt as to how far the othersmeant to go; Mrs. Jack Stepney gave a careless nod, and Grace Stepney,with a sepulchral gesture, indicated a seat at her side. But Lily,ignoring the invitation, as well as Jack Stepney’s official attempt todirect her, moved across the room with her smooth free gait, and seatedherself in a chair which seemed to have been purposely placed apart fromthe others. And why should Bertha Dorset haveturned into an enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed thesupport of her sex? Even while his nerves raged at the subjection ofhusbands to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind,reason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between smoke andfire.
The fact that the money freed her temporarily from all minorobligations obscured her sense of the greater one it represented, andhaving never before known what it was to command so large a sum, shelingered delectably over the amusement of spending it. In the first leap of heranger she was about to ring and order the woman out; but an obscureimpulse restrained her. Bertha Dorset’s letters were nothing to her—they mightgo where the current of chance carried them! Men do not, at worst, suffer much from suchexposure; and in this instance the flash of divination which had carriedthe meaning of the letters to Lily’s brain had revealed also that theywere appeals—repeated and therefore probably unanswered—for the renewalof a tie which time had evidently relaxed. Nevertheless, the fact thatthe correspondence had been allowed to fall into strange hands wouldconvict Selden of negligence in a matter where the world holds it leastpardonable; and there were graver risks to consider where a man ofDorset’s ticklish balance was concerned.
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In her inmost heart Lily knew it was not by appealing to the fraternalinstinct that she was likely to move Gus Trenor; but this way ofexplaining the situation helped to drape its crudity, and she was alwaysscrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself. Her personalfastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour ofinspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did notopen. She took one with an unsteady hand, and putting it to her lips, leanedforward to draw her light from his. In the indistinctness the little redgleam lit up the lower part of her face, and he saw her mouth trembleinto a smile. Selden, following her glance, perceived a party of people advancingtoward them from the farther bend of the path. Lady Cressida hadevidently insisted on walking home, and the rest of the church-goers hadthought it their duty to accompany her.
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The surrounding atmosphere waspropitious to this scheme of courtship. Mrs. Trenor, true to her word,had shown no signs of expecting Lily at the bridge-table, and had evenhinted to the other card-players that they were to betray no surprise ather unwonted defection. In consequence of this hint, Lily found herselfthe centre of that feminine solicitude which envelops a young woman inthe mating season. A solitude was tacitly created for her in the crowdedexistence of Bellomont, and her friends could not have shown a greaterreadiness for self-effacement had her wooing been adorned with all theattributes of romance. In Lily’s set this conduct implied a sympatheticcomprehension of her motives, and Mr. Gryce rose in her esteem as she sawthe consideration he inspired. Today, however, it renewed the sense of servitude which the previousnight’s review of her cheque-book had produced.
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The House of Mirth movie review ( .
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He views the comings and goings of New York's high society with the detachment and the objectivity of an outsider —a characteristic that Lily not only admires but also that allows her to view those people in her surroundings in an objective, critical and a not-so-flattering way. She becomes fascinated and envies his independence from the "tribe" and the freedom that has given him.[n] Her encounters with Selden underscore the conflict between her inner voice —her self-hood at its core— and the outer voices of her reference group. It is from Selden's description, assessment and admiration of Lily's outward characteristics that we glean those attributes that contribute to New York high society's perception and misperceptions of who she is. He can be brutally honest about Lily's superficiality and artificiality and simultaneously appreciate the sparks of freedom and spontaneity that temper these negatives. These mutual admirable qualities give way to their romantic regard for one another.
Believing that Lily is having an affair with Gus, Selden abruptly leaves, angry and hurt. Set in New York at the end of the 19th century, The House of Mirth describes Lily Bart’s efforts to maintain her elevated position in high society. Despite being born into an important, wealthy New York family, Lily, a beautiful twenty-nine-year-old woman, remains impoverished after her father goes bankrupt during her teenage years.
Miss Stepney, in the beginning, had not meant to bring up this point; butMrs. She was like thestiff-necked unbelievers of Scripture, who must be annihilated to beconvinced. She felt that the moment was tremendous, and remembered suddenly thatMrs. Peniston’s black brocade, with the cut jet fringe, would have beenhers at the end of the season.
Whence the strength came to her she knew not; butan insistent voice warned her that she must leave the house openly, andnerved her, in the hall before the hovering care taker, to exchange lightwords with Trenor, and charge him with the usual messages for Judy, whileall the while she shook with inward loathing. —which, as she entered thehansom, turned from the opposite corner and vanished in the obscurity ofthe side street. It might have afforded him some consolation could he have known that MissBart had really meant to go to church. She had even risen earlier thanusual in the execution of her purpose. She had an idea that the sight ofher in a grey gown of devotional cut, with her famous lashes droopedabove a prayer-book, would put the finishing touch to Mr. Gryce’ssubjugation, and render inevitable a certain incident which she hadresolved should form a part of the walk they were to take together afterluncheon.
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