The Age of Innocence

Archer takes May’s brougham to meet Ellen in Jersey City. As he kisses her hand, they declare their love for each other. Ellen confesses that Olenski’s envoy is the secretary who rescued her from her husband the first time. A carriage lurch flings them together and they kiss. Archer cannot abide only furtive embraces between long absences; Ellen chastises him for coming in the first place. She refuses to dally—she must get to her grandmother as fast as possible. She confronts Archer directly: “is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your mistress—since I can’t be your wife?” (Location 3731). He wants them to run away to a place where such categories do not matter. She, who has seen more of the world, replies that such places do not exist and again stresses that they can be “near each other only if we stay far from each other” (Location 3749). Otherwise, they will merely be having a sordid affair behind their family’s backs. Only the grimmest of futures awaits such outcasts. He is so overcome that he gets out of the carriage and goes home.

When May returns home that evening, Archer feels stifled by her presence and throws open the windows, although it is snowing. When she complains that he will catch his death, he has a perverse thought that if she dies first, he will be free. Instinctively, she feels his psychic aggression and asks him if he is ill.

A few days later, May summons Archer to her grandmother’s bedside. Mrs. Mingott immediately informs him that Ellen will stay with her and nurse her until her death. She adds that Ellen should have married Archer and spared them all the trouble. Ellen’s visit has made Mrs. Mingott change her mind about returning Ellen to her abusive husband. Archer conjectures that Ellen’s decision to live with her grandmother means that she will not give him up. Mrs. Mingott urges Archer to fight Ellen’s case against the rest of the family, using his influence as Letterblair’s partner to help. When Archer asks to see Ellen, Mrs. Mingott replies that she is visiting Regina Beaufort to offer her company as the fellow wife of a scoundrel.

Archer still entertains the thought that he and Ellen should run off together. He contemplates his earlier wish that he should not be a married adulterer, but decides that a love affair with Ellen would be an entirely “individual case” because “Ellen Olenska was like no other woman, he was like no other man: their situation, therefore, resembled no one else’s, and they were answerable to no tribunal but that of their own judgment” (Location 3946). Outside Beaufort’s Fifth Avenue house he sees Ellen, who has been comforting Regina. Archer entreats Ellen to join him at the Metropolitan Museum.

He believes she came to New York because she was frightened of his coming to Washington. She wants them to be safe from doing harm to those who trust them; she does not want them to be just another common adulterous couple. Ellen says that if she becomes Archer’s mistress, she will have to go back to her husband in Europe, as she will not be able to stay in New York and lie to her family. While he would prefer her to run away with him, having sex once is better than never.

Later, May claims that she had a good long talk with Ellen, who is making her way back into her favor. Archer conjectures that May hates Ellen and is trying to get him to help her overcome the feeling. May is almost in tears because Archer has not kissed her today.

At dinner, the van der Luydens express their disapproval of Ellen’s going to visit Regina Beaufort in her grandmother’s carriage. The sight of her grandmother’s carriage on this disgraced doorstep threatens the entire family’s respectability. Possibly Ellen’s foreign upbringing precipitated such an imprudent, if kind, act.

Later, at the opera, Archer has the urge to tell May the truth about himself and Ellen. He feigns a headache and they take the carriage home. However, when he tries to tell her the truth, May interrupts him, stating “what does it matter, now it’s all over?” (Location 4188). Archer is bemused and shocked when May tells him that it is all arranged: Grandmother Mingott will pay Ellen an allowance to live independently in Europe. May learned this when she saw Ellen the previous evening; she even has a note from Ellen confirming it. After this, May feigns a headache and retreats to her own room.

May and Archer throw their first big dinner as a married couple for Ellen’s departure for Europe. Archer has heard no word from her, although she returned a key he gave her. He interprets this as Ellen fighting against her fate; however, he hopes that he can follow her to Europe and that she will not send him away. His confidence in the future makes him play his role of host dutifully. He does not attempt to contact her and compromise them both.

Mrs. Mingott complains that Ellen is deserting her. Her relatives surmise that this is because Europe is more entertaining than New York, but she is uneasy.

At the dinner, Archer is charged with guiding Ellen in on his arm and he feels that he would go all the way to Europe just to see her hand again. He feels that everyone is conspiring to keep him and Ellen apart for decency’s sake. Towards the end of the evening, Archer tells May that he is tired and wants to take a very long trip, to Japan or India. May replies that he cannot go—she is pregnant. May has already told his mother, her mother, and Ellen. When Archer is surprised she’s told so many people, May confesses that although she was not sure of her pregnancy a fortnight ago, she told Ellen the news to claim a victory over her.

Archer and May build a respectable life together. They are content enough. They have three children: Dallas, who is artistic and adventurous like his father; and Mary and Billy, who are sporty like their mother. May dies after nursing Billy’s pneumonia and Archer honestly mourns her. He has been faithful to May, with Ellen Olenska becoming “the composite vision of all that he had missed” (Location 4490).

Later, when his son Dallas announces his engagement to Fanny Beaumont, Julius and Regina Beaufort’s eldest daughter, he encourages Archer to come to Paris, where Ellen lives, still separated from her husband. In Paris, Dallas reveals that May told him on her dying day that her father had loved Countess Olenska and had given her up. In Paris, Ellen was kind to Fanny Beaumont, taking her in when Fanny knew no one. While Dallas eagerly visits Countess Olenska, Archer finds that he cannot and walks alone back to his hotel.