ner near the
fire, with azaleas banked behind her on a table.
"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he
suddenly heard himself say; and the fear lest that last
shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted
to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.
He sat for a long time on the bench in the thickening
dusk, his eyes never turning from the balcony. At length
a light shone through the windows, and a moment later
a man-servant came out on the balcony, drew up the
awnings, and closed the shutters.
At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for,
Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone
to his hotel.
A Note on the Text
The Age of Innocence first appeared in four large
installments in The Pictorial Review, from July to
October 1920. It was published that same year in book
form by D. Appleton and Company in New York and in
London. Wharton made extensive stylistic, punctuation,
and spelling changes and revisions between the serial
and book publication, and more than thirty subsequent
changes were made after the second impression of the
book edition had been run off. This authoritative text
is reprinted from the Library of America edition of
Novels by Edith Wharton, and is based on the sixth
impression of the first edition, which incorporates the
last set of extensive revisions that are obviously authorial.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Age of Innocence by Wharton
Pages:
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434