The Age of Innocence

The young woman is May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska. Ellen escaped a marriage to Count Olenski, a cruel and unfaithful man, with the help of his secretary. She is now in the socially precarious position of being a separated woman. Although Archer admires Ellen’s looks and believes that Lowell Mingott did the right thing in recovering her and bringing her to safety in New York, he views the Mingotts’ bringing her to the opera a crime against taste. Archer finds Ellen’s strikingly provocative dress especially confronting. He has the urge to publicly announce his engagement to May and goes over to the Mingotts’ box. Once he is there, Ellen reminds Archer that they used to play together as children and that he once kissed her, although she was in love with his cousin. Archer is shocked at Ellen’s irreverent attitude towards New York and her sarcastic joke that she has died and gone to heaven by returning here. 

The opera attendees move on to the Beauforts’ home for a ball. Although banker Julius Beaufort has obscure social origins (coded anti-Semitic language that implies Beaufort has Jewish origins he is trying to obscure), high society tolerates him because he is the only one who has a ballroom in his house. When May announces her engagement to Archer at the ball, Archer feels as though the declaration was made to detract from Ellen’s appearance at the opera. While May and Archer are dancing, May asks him if he has shared the story of how they got engaged with Ellen. She beseeches him to do it, worried that Ellen will think she has been slighted. May euphemistically explains that Ellen is “one of the family, and she’s been away so long that she’s rather—sensitive” (Location 314). May claims that Ellen is not at the Beauforts’ ball because her opera dress was not nice enough for it. Archer promises that he will tell Ellen, thinking all the while that what he admires most in May is her adherence to propriety—in this case, May does not mention the scandal Ellen is involved in.

Archer and May visit old Mrs. Mingott, Ellen and May’s grandmother and the family matriarch. To Archer’s relief, Ellen Olenska is out. Still, he judges it bold and daring for a “compromised woman” to be out in glaring sunlight during the “shopping hour” (Location 359).

Ellen comes in with Julius Beaufort, whom she met in Madison Square. When Archer tells Ellen about his engagement, Ellen retorts playfully that she knows, and that one does not make such private announcements in a crowd. She bids him goodbye and asks him to “come and see me some day” (Location 394). Archer thinks that Ellen ought to know that a man who has just gotten engaged cannot spend his time visiting married women. However, he conjectures that the custom may be different in the society she has been used to in Europe. Archer is grateful to be a New Yorker and to be marrying someone who will reinforce this status.

Sillerton Jackson comes to dine with Archer, his mother, and his sister Janey. They gossip about Ellen Olenska’s arrival and her bold inroads into society despite her past. Mrs. Archer and Janey are both shy and unfashionable; they are known for their frugal lifestyle and preference for culture and reading. They idolize Archer and are glad he is engaged to May, “especially after that silly business with Mrs. Rushworth” (Location 462), the married woman he had an affair with. They feel that he is now respectable and safe from temptation.

Jackson shares the news of Ellen’s newest misdeeds: For instance, she has been seen on a walk with Julius Beaufort. Mrs. Archer and Janey are both fascinated and appalled by Ellen. Mrs. Archer declares that Ellen was overindulged in her youth—for example, she was allowed to wear black satin to her coming out ball. Archer suddenly and unexpectedly defends Ellen: Just because she had the misfortune to make a “wretched marriage” it is unfair to expect her to “slink about as if it were she who had disgraced herself” (Location 507). When Jackson alludes to the rumor that Ellen ran off with her husband’s secretary to Lausanne, Switzerland, Archer is indignant, saying that women ought to be free as men and it is pure hypocrisy to punish them for life for having a bad husband.

Jackson adds that Count Olenski has not moved to reclaim his wife and that Ellen is looking for a house. Janey speculates that Ellen will get a divorce, a shocking prospect in their conservative society.

Alone, Archer contemplates why he said that he thought that women should be free as men. In his thoughts, he qualifies his argument: “‘nice’ women, however wronged, would never claim the kind of freedom he meant” (Location 547). As he thinks about his approaching marriage to May, Archer rues that they cannot really get to know each other or talk honestly. The customs of the time dictate that he should conceal his past from her and that she should have no past of her own (coded language that refers to sexual experience—Archer cannot tell May about his previous relationships, and she must be a virgin). Still, he wants a marriage that is passionate, tender, and intimate, rather than the typical “dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on one side and hypocrisy on the other” (Location 557). He wonders whether May’s innocence is natural or an artificial product of the social system that has nurtured her. The more rebellious part of him wonders why May should not have been free to have a sexual and romantic past before marriage like he did.

The Mingotts plan a dinner to formally present Ellen Olenska to society. Only Jackson and the Beauforts accept the invitation, an insult that indicates that New York society does not accept Ellen. Mrs. Archer decides to visit social doyenne Louisa van der Luyden to remedy the slight and persuades Archer to accompany her.

Archer and his mother visit the van der Luydens, a retiring, old-fashioned couple, who are nevertheless arbiters of good taste in Old New York. Mrs. Archer tells them that the slight to Ellen Olenska is a slight on all of them, as Ellen is May’s cousin and Archer will be marrying into the family. Mrs. Archer tries to persuade the couple to accept the Mingotts’ dinner invitation. They decline, as Louisa van der Luyden’s health does not permit her to dine out; however, they agree to invite Ellen to a reception for Louisa’s relative, the Duke of St. Austrey—a gesture that should restore Ellen from her pariah status.

Ellen Olenska was born Ellen Mingott to parents who liked to travel. When Ellen was orphaned, Marchioness Medora Manson, a serially widowed continental wanderer, adopted her. As a child, Ellen was pretty and vivacious, possessing unconventional talents such as dancing a Spanish shawl dance and singing Neapolitan love songs. She later married the fabulously wealthy and famous Polish nobleman Count Olenski, after which “she disappeared in a kind of sulphurous apotheosis” (Location 764). The next society heard of her, she was separated and returning to her family.

At the van der Luyden’s reception for the Duke of Austrey, Archer cannot agree with the general consensus that Ellen has lost her looks. Although she looks older than 30 and is thin and worn, she is attractively self-possessed, with striking eyes. The Duke immediately engages her in conversation. Afterwards, in defiance of social custom, Ellen walks boldly up to Archer and sits by his side. She delights Archer with her frankness about finding the Duke the dullest man alive. Entreating him to speak of his love for May, she asks whether the match was natural or arranged. Archer reminds her that in America, arranged marriage has fallen out of fashion. Ellen blushes, explaining that she has forgotten American customs and their superiority to European ones. She wants to be reincorporated into New York Society.

May arrives and is forced to speak to the Duke, so Ellen entreats Archer to sit by her a while longer. She playfully touches his knee with her fan and “it thrilled him like a caress” (Location 831). Ellen entreats Archer to visit her the next day. 

Archer visits the house Ellen has rented in an unfashionable, bohemian district of Manhattan. He has had a tiresome day of making socially expected engagement visits and bemoans that his wedding must be delayed until all the customs have been performed. He feels trapped by the suggestion that he and May purchase a house on East 39th Street, which heralds a gloomily predictable future. He has not told May about this visit to her cousin Ellen but tells himself that it is part of his promise to her to be kind to Ellen.

At Ellen’s house, a Sicilian maid who speaks only Italian greets him. Waiting for Ellen, he looks around at the spoils from Ellen’s travels. Ellen finally emerges out of Julius Beaufort’s carriage, unapologetic for being late. She is proud of her home and enjoys living alone, although she wants to also be part of society. As they discuss New York’s mores, Ellen questions what Archer takes for granted. He has to concede that she is “opening my eyes to things I’d looked at so long that I’d ceased to see them” (Location 961). He is drawn to “the atmosphere of the room, which was her atmosphere” (Location 966). Ellen says that only Archer and Julius Beaufort can honestly advise her about the city. Archer dislikes having his name joined with Beaufort’s, advising Ellen that associating with women will offer her protection. Ellen bursts into tears. Women who ask her to pretend that things are different from the truth make life lonely and unbearable. Archer holds her hand and calls her by her first name (at the time, a gesture of deep intimacy).

Then, the Duke from yesterday’s party comes in with Mrs. Struthers, another social aspirant. Archer leaves. He stops by his florist to send May a customary bouquet of lilies of the valley. However, a bunch of yellow roses catches his eye; considering them unsuitable for May, he sends them to Ellen.