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She had stabbed at him with itThe girl at the sink was telling them thisThe other girl had run screaming out of the house, so there was just the one still in the kitchen to recount the story as best she could through her tearsOrcutt would not eat, the girl said, MrLevov had started to feed MrsOrcutt the pie himself, a bite at a timeHe was explaining to her how much better it was for her to drink milk instead of Scotch whiskey, how much better for herself, how much better for her husband, how much better for her childrenSoon she would be having grandchildren and it would be better for themWith each bite she swallowed he said, "Yes, Jessie good girl, Jessie very good girl," and told her how much better it would be for everybody in the world, even for MrLevov and his wife, if Jessie gave up drinkingAfter he had fed her almost all of one whole slice of the strawberry-rhubarb pie, she had said, "I feed Jessie," and he was so happy, so pleased with her, he laughed and handed over the fork, and she had gone right for his eye It turned out she'd missed it by no more than an inch"Not bad," Marcia said to everyone in the kitchen, "for somebody as drunk as this babe is Meanwhile Orcutt, appalled by a scene exceeding any previously contrived by his wife to humiliate her civic-minded, adulterous mate, who looked not at all invincible, not at all important to himself or anyone else, who looked just as silly as he had the morning the Swede had dumped him in the midst of their friendly football game--Orcutt tenderly lifted Jessie up from the chair and to her feetShe showed no remorse, none, seemed to have been stripped of all receptors and all transmitters, without a single cell to notify her that she had overstepped a boundary fundamental to civilized life "One drink chanel white watch less," Marcia was saying to the Swede's father, whose wife was already dabbing at the tiny wounds in his face with a damp napkin, "and you'd be blind, Lou And then this large, unimpeded social critic in a caftan could not help herselfMarcia sank into Jessie's empty chair, in front of the brimming glass of milk, and with her face in her hands, she began to laugh at their obtuseness to the flimsiness of the whole contraption, to laugh and laugh and laugh at them all, pillars of a society that, much to her delight, was going rapidly under--to laugh and to relish, as some people, historically, always seem to do, how far the rampant disorder had spread, enjoying enormously the assailability, the frailty, the enfeeblement of supposedly robust things Yes, the breach had been pounded in their fortification, even out here in secure Old Rimrock, and now that it was opened it would not be closed againThey'll never recoverEverything is against them, everyone and everything that does not like their lifeAll the voices from without, condemning and rejecting their life! And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs? The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at wwwet Title: The Age of Innocence Author: Edith Wharton Posting Date: August 12, 2008 [EBook #541] Release Date: May, 1996 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AGE OF INNOCENCE ** Produced by Judith Boss and Charles Keller lady dior bag HTML version by Al HThe Age of Innocence Book I I On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances "above the Forties," of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old AcademyConservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to