Adultery and Suicide

"His Wife had said: 'If you don't give her up, I'll throw myself from the roof.' He had not given her up, and his wife had thrown herself from the roof."

--Edith Wharton, "The Day of the Funeral" 

Leave it to Wharton to treat two taboo subjects with dry humor in the opening sentences of this short story which reflects on adultery and its aftermath.

What Not to Wear

     "On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A.  It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony....It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
     'She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain,' remarked one of her female spectators; 'but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it!' "

----Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)

Longing

Take note of Edith Wharton's use of punctuation marks and italics in this quote which captures the sharpness of intense longing and reunion:


"Do you know-- I hardly remembered you?"


"Hardly remembered me?"


"I mean: how shall I explain? I--it's always so. Each time you happen to me all over again.

--Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (1920)