The Age of Innocence

On a snowy January evening in the 1870s, fashionable New York filled the old Academy of Music to hear a famous soprano sing in Faust.Newland Archer arrived late on purpose, since arriving late was one of the small rules by which his world lived.On the stage the singer pulled the petals from a daisy, one by one, singing softly, "He loves me — he loves me not."

Across the theatre, in old Mrs. Mingott's box, sat a girl in white with lilies of the valley at her breast.She was May Welland, and that night Newland's engagement to her was to be quietly made known to their families.He watched her with pride, glad that she was too innocent to follow the meaning of the opera.

Then he noticed a young woman he did not know, sitting a little behind May in the same box.Her dark blue velvet dress, cut low, and her loosely curled hair did not belong to the careful New York style.It was the Countess Ellen Olenska, May's cousin, just back from Europe after leaving a cruel husband.

A stir passed through the theatre, and in Newland's club box the men lowered their voices.It was one thing for the family to take the Countess back, they said, and quite another to show her off in a public opera box.To bring her out on this of all nights, they murmured, was a strange and awkward thing to do.

Newland felt a flash of annoyance that May's family had drawn her — and himself — so close to gossip.Yet he also felt that a man's first duty was to stand by the family he was about to enter.If they had decided to support the Countess, then he would support her too, and let everyone see it.

He rose, left his own box, and made his way around the crowded horseshoe of red and gold toward the Mingott box.He would take his place at May's side that very evening, in front of all of New York.