Edith Wharton

Name: The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI
Author: Edith Wharton

The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

Summary

“The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI”, published in 1913, is a work by Edith Wharton. It explores elements such as Ralph, Clare and Laura.

Quotes from The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (Edith Wharton)

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ Ralph laughed, and his laugh sounded in his own ears like an echo of the dreary mirth with which he had filled Mr. Spragg's office the day he had learned that Undine intended to divorce him. But now his wrath was seasoned with a wholesome irony. The fact of his wife's having reached another stage in her ascent fell into its place as a part of the huge human buffoonery.
"Besides," Laura went on, "it's all perfect nonsense, of course. How in the world can she have her marriage annulled?"
Ralph pondered: this put the matter in another light. "With a great deal of money I suppose she might." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ People left him to his sorrow as a man is left to an incurable habit, an unfortunate tie: they ignored it, or looked over its head if they happened to catch a glimpse of it at his elbow.
These glimpses were given to them more and more rarely. The smothered springs of life were bubbling up in Ralph, and there were days when he was glad to wake and see the sun in his window, and when he began to plan his book, and to fancy that the planning really interested him. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ One May evening, however, as they sat alone in the verandah, he suddenly told her that he was writing. As he spoke his heart beat like a boy's; but once the words were out they gave him a feeling of self-confidence, and he began to sketch his plan, and then to go into its details. Clare listened devoutly, her eyes burning on him through the dusk like the stars deepening above the garden; and when she got up to go in he followed her with a new sense of reassurance. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ But she achieved the feat of not answering him, or turning her steady eyes from the dancing mid-summer water at the foot of Laura's lawn. Ralph leaned a little nearer, and for an instant his hand imagined the flutter of hers. But instead of clasping it he drew back, and rising from his chair wandered away to the other end of the verandah...No, he didn't feel as Clare felt. If he loved her--as he sometimes thought he did--it was not in the same way. He had a great tenderness for her, he was more nearly happy with her than with any one else ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ He kept his secret with the beginner's deadly fear of losing his hold on his half-real creations if he let in any outer light on them; but he went about with a more assured step, shrank less from meeting his friends, and even began to dine out again, and to laugh at some of the jokes he heard.
Laura Fairford, to get Paul away from town, had gone early to the country; and Ralph, who went down to her every Saturday, usually found Clare Van Degen there. Since his divorce he had never entered his cousin's pinnacled palace; and Clare had never asked him why he stayed away. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ Ralph felt his son all the while, and all through his other feelings; but he could not think about him actively and continuously, could not forever exercise his eager empty dissatisfied mind on the relatively simple problem of clothing, educating and amusing a little boy of six. Yet Paul's existence was the all-sufficient reason for his own; and he turned again, with a kind of cold fervour, to his abandoned literary dream. Material needs obliged him to go on with his regular business ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ Meanwhile he was beginning to show a presentable face to the world, and to be once more treated like a man in whose case no one is particularly interested. His men friends ceased to say: "Hallo, old chap, I never saw you looking fitter!" and elderly ladies no longer told him they were sure he kept too much to himself, and urged him to drop in any afternoon for a quiet talk. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (1913)

“ Ralph picked one up, and was absently unfolding it when his eye fell on his own name: a sight he had been spared since the last echoes of his divorce had subsided. His impulse was to fling the paper down, to hurl it as far from him as he could; but a grim fascination tightened his hold and drew his eyes back to the hated head-line.
NEW YORK BEAUTY WEDS FRENCH NOBLEMAN MRS. UNDINE MARVELL CONFIDENT POPE WILL ANNUL PREVIOUS MARRIAGE MRS. MARVELL TALKS ABOUT HER CASE
There it was before him in all its long-drawn horror--an "interview"--an "interview" of Undine's about her coming marriage! ”

Edith Wharton

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Quotes from The Custom of the Country — Chapter XXXI (Edith Wharton)

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