The Age of Innocence Chapters 28 - 34
Archer goes to the telegram office to send word about her grandmother’s condition and her request to have Ellen at her side. He returns home to May and her mother with the information that Ellen will be returning to New York, the following evening. Both of the ladies are against the notion of having Ellen visit, and they vent their displeasure by musing over the inconvenience of having someone receive her at the train station. Newland offers his presence and May counters that he will be leaving for Washington. He makes an excuse that the hearing has been postponed, but May is aware that his partner will also be traveling to Washington and that his trip has not been postponed. Newland makes an excuse but he has the impression that May understands the situation better than he suspects.
Newland eagerly goes to receive Ellen at the station, and he is instantly mesmerized at the very sight of her face. He kisses her hand and they begin their journey to Catherine’s home. When Newland shares the depth of emotion he experiences at the mere sight of her, Ellen reciprocates the emotion. They renew their expressions of love for one another, and she leans to kiss him as a jerk of the carriage brings her to his arms. He is frustrated with their situation, but the only alternative for Ellen would be that she would become his mistress. He wishes for them to elope and live elsewhere, but she assures him that no such world exists for them if they were to leave behind their families in ruin. The only way for them to be together is to remain disengaged from one another. The closeness is too much for him to handle, and he gets out of the carriage. He returns to his home and is joined there by May. He cannot stand her presence and opens a window to experience a form of escape. She chides him for risking a cold, and Newland is struck by the thought that he would be free to be with Ellen if May were to find an early grave. She notices the change in his expression.
Newland is summoned for a meeting with Catherine, and she tells him that she has decided that Ellen will not return to Washington but stay with her until the end of her days. Newland is delighted by the news, and he takes it to understand that Ellen has decided to be near him. However, Catherine forewarns him that her family still believed that Ellen should return to her husband. She wishes for Newland to help her keep the family off her in this regard. Newland enquires about May’s whereabouts and learns that she is currently visiting the wife of Julius Beaufort, with the empathy of a wife married to a scoundrel. Newland contemplates making Ellen his mistress, although he had been quite averse to this notion at first, he has now begun to believe that their situation was truly unique. He finds Ellen exiting Regina Beaufort’s residence, and he asks her to meet him at the Metropolitan Museum. She agrees with reluctance, but assents. Newland and Ellen have a long discussion about their situation. She attempts to reinforce the idea of remaining loyal to their families and insists that if they were to be together then she would go be forced to go back to her husband. Newland does not wish to besmirch their love, but he believes it would be better for them to be together once than never at all.
May comes to Newland that evening and tells him that she has had a long discussion with Ellen. Newland believes that Ellen is trying to overcome her dislike for Ellen, and at the end of their conversation, she asks him to kiss her. The New York society has come together to decry Ellen’s eccentric behavior yet again by visiting Regina Beaufort. Newland cannot stand their company, and he cannot abide living the double life. He decides that he is going to confess his true feelings to May and so feigns a headache to take her home early. Just as he is building to confess, May interrupts him and informs him that Ellen’s situation has been resolved. She has decided that she is going to return to Europe and her grandmother is going to help her with a generous allowance. She confirms this with a letter that Ellen had sent to May informing her of the decision.
May and Newland organize their first dinner as a couple to send Ellen off to Europe. Newland hasn’t attempted to contact or dissuade Ellen from her decision but he has secretly resolved to leave his life behind and follow her to Europe. Catherine Mingot is quite displeased with the new arrangement of her granddaughter, but she believes that Ellen may be moving back to Europe because America did not quite have the culture that Ellen so admired. Newland escorts Ellen to dinner on his arm and begins to believe that the whole of New York society were aware of the true feelings that they shared for one another and secretly conspiring to keep them apart. After the dinner, he tells May that he will be going off for a long trip on his own, but May tells him that she is pregnant. She had already told Ellen and their mothers. Newland wonders how May could have told Ellen about her pregnancy a fortnight ago when she hadn’t yet been certain of it.
Several years later, Newland’s son Dallas takes him to Paris to visit Ellen, who had helped his soon-to-be fiancé, Fanny Beaumont, when she had known no one. Over the years, Newland and May had built themselves a good life and parented three children. May had passed after their third child, and he had honestly mourned the loss of his wife while Ellen had retreated in his memory. Dallas talks to Newland as they journey to Ellen’s home. His mother had told him that Newland had loved Countess Olenska, but he had given her up for the family’s sake. Dallas goes in to speak to Ellen, but Newland cannot bring himself to meet her. He returns to his hotel without meeting her.
Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Newland and Ellen are outmaneuvered by May and her family. During Ellen’s going away dinner, Newland has the unique sense that all of the people of his society are aware of his relationship with Ellen and are keeping them apart. Ellen can also be seen as the primary reason why the affair between Newland and she doesn’t materialize. Ellen is aware that the consequences of the affair are largely going to be focused on her and her family since she is the woman. Old New York society is consistently depicted to be deeply misogynistic, given how different the standards of morality are for men and women. Ellen understands this aspect of her society and resists the temptation of being with Newland.
May shines with a different light in the final chapters of the novel, and what Newland has been perceiving as innocence is just a shroud. She expertly manipulates both him and Ellen with the news of her pregnancy precisely when she needs it. In the final chapters, Newland describes how May had forcibly held onto the values of the past even as the world around her was changing at a staggering pace. Meanwhile, Newland has internalized the very values that he had sought to fight against and this is evidenced through his inability to walk into Ellen’s house and meet her. Finally, Ellen is said to have created a peaceful and respectable position for herself with a little salon in Paris. The fact that she aided Fanny Beaumont, the daughter of the infamous Beaufort couple, communicates her transformation from a social pariah to a respectable member of a community
