The Age of Innocence: Chapter 34 Summary & Analysis

Archer is sitting in his library. He’s just gotten back from a reception at the Metropolitan Museum, where he had a flash of memory of his meeting there with Ellen. Now he sits thinking about everything that has happened in this library over the thirty years he’s lived here. It’s been twenty-six years since May told him she was pregnant. This is where their eldest boy, Dallas, was christened, and where he said his first words. This is where their daughter Mary announced her engagement and prepared for her wedding. Archer and May have always discussed their children’s futures here. The young men now are going into all sorts of professions, including politics, archaeology, and architecture, which Dallas is pursuing.

Archer’s most important memory of the library is the Governor of New York telling him to go into politics. Archer glowed at his praise and couldn’t resist doing as he said. In retrospect, Archer isn’t sure that he was the right type for politics; he spent a year in the State Assembly, but was not reelected. He then worked in city politics and wrote articles. As little as it is, he’s proud of his contribution to changing the expectations for young gentlemen. He has been a good citizen, and every charitable or artistic movement in New York has been consulting him for many years. His days are full.

Archer knows that he has missed “the flower of life,” but it seems so unattainable that he hardly mourns it. Only Ellen Olenska could have provided this happiness. She now represents everything he has missed throughout his life. He was faithful to May, and when she died, he grieved with real feeling. He learned that it didn’t matter if marriage was dull, as long as it maintained its dignity. He mourns for the past, as the traditional ways had value.

Archer’s first photograph of May still sits on his desk. She remained always the way she was in St. Augustine, generous and faithful but so without imagination that she never even noticed the changes happening around her. Archer and the children always hid their opinions from her, and she died thinking that the same principles that she had grown up with would go on governing the world and her family. Opposite May’s picture is their daughter Mary’s. She’s even more athletic than her mother was, and just as conventional, but she’s more tolerant.

Archer receives a phone call from Dallas, who’s in Chicago on business. He invites Archer to sail to Europe with him the next week, as he has some business there. Archer marvels at how close Dallas sounds when he laughs, even though long-distance telephoning has become as normal as electric lights. Dallas’s laugh means that he has to be back in time for his wedding to Fanny Beaufort. He quickly convinces Archer to come with him. When Archer hangs up, he thinks that this will be the last time he and Dallas will be together before his marriage. He can tell that Fanny Beaufort, whom he likes, won’t harm their closeness, but it will still be different after.

Archer hasn’t traveled much, as May didn’t like to travel unless there was a specific reason to do so. When Dallas graduated from college, the family traveled through England, Switzerland, and Italy. Dallas wanted to see the French architecture, but Mary and Bill wanted to go climb mountains. May suggested that Archer could go to Paris, but he said they should stick together. Since May died two years before, he could have begun to travel, but he felt bound to habit.

The worst part about doing one’s duty is that it doesn’t let one do anything else. The traditional divisions between right and wrong don’t leave any room for unexpected situations. Archer suddenly regards his life with a broad view and wonders what’s left of the world that shaped him as a young man. He remembers Lawrence Lefferts suggesting that one day their children would marry Beaufort’s bastards. Dallas is marrying one of Beaufort’s bastards, but everyone approves. Janey even gave Fanny Beaufort Mrs. Archer’s jewelry.

Fanny Beaufort came to New York at eighteen, after her parents’ deaths. Everyone accepted her as charming and accomplished, and no one cared about her origins. After Mrs. Beaufort died, Mr. Beaufort had married Fanny Ring and traveled all around the world. When they died, Fanny Beaufort came under the guardianship of May’s brother and his wife, which made her almost a cousin to the Archer children. Everyone is now too busy with reforms and fads to care about people’s pasts, particularly since society is far more equal now.

Archer looks at Paris out his hotel window and feels young and eager. He wonders whether Dallas gets as thrilled as this in Fanny Beaufort’s presence, but Dallas never worried that his family wouldn’t approve of his engagement. Archer realizes that the younger generation is confident they’ll get what they want, whereas his generation was confident they wouldn’t.

Archer insisted that he and Dallas stay in what Dallas considers an old-fashioned hotel. After Ellen left, Archer often imagined going to Paris, or imagined her life there. Now that he’s actually here, he feels inadequate compared to the person he imagined himself being. Dallas appears, saying carelessly that Ellen Olenska expects them at half-past five. He explains that Fanny made him promise to see Ellen while in Paris, because Ellen was very kind to her when Beaufort sent her to school there. That morning, he called Ellen and told her that he and Archer wanted to see her. Archer is astonished.

Dallas asks what Ellen was like, as he’s heard that she and Archer were close. Archer says she was different. Dallas says it’s always like that; that’s what he feels about Fanny. Archer pretends not to understand, but Dallas insists that Ellen was once Archer’s Fanny. Dallas has always been extremely straightforward. He perceives that Ellen was the woman Archer would have sacrificed everything for, but didn’t. He reveals that the day before May died, she told him the family was safe with Archer because he had once given up what he most wanted when she asked him to. Archer is silent, then says that May didn’t ask him. Dallas agrees that Archer’s generation would only ever guess what each other were thinking. He hopes Archer isn’t angry with him.

Archer spends the afternoon roaming Paris alone. He’s relieved and moved to know that May guessed how he felt and pitied him. Dallas probably sees the situation as a waste of effort, and Archer wonders whether that’s all it was. Ellen never went back to her husband, and he’s now dead. Nothing stands between them anymore. He walks to the Louvre and wanders through its beauty, thinking of her spending time here. He realizes that he’s only fifty-seven, but he tells himself it’s too late for anything but friendship.

Archer meets Dallas at the hotel and they walk towards Ellen’s house. Dallas talks enthusiastically about Versailles, where he’s been that day. Archer thinks that Dallas’s generation is very confident and has swept away all the old rules and fears. They emerge at the dome of Mansart, and Dallas exclaims at its beauty. Archer has known that Ellen lived near the Invalides, but he had forgotten how beautiful and rich the area is. She has lived this whole time in an atmosphere filled with art and knowledge. He remembers M. Rivière exclaiming over the value of good conversation. Ellen has been living a life that Archer can hardly guess at, and surely has not thought often of him.

The neighborhood is quiet, and the daylight is fading. Dallas stops before Ellen’s building and puts his arm through Archer’s. He speaks to the porter to find out which floor Ellen lives on, while Archer gazes up at the windows. Archer says that he’ll sit on a bench for a moment, and Dallas should go up without him. Dallas is bewildered and says that Ellen won’t understand if he doesn’t come up. Archer says to tell her that he’s old-fashioned. Dallas goes inside.

Archer sits on the bench and thinks of Dallas going up to Ellen’s floor and entering her drawing room. He imagines the other guests who will be there along with Ellen herself. He realizes that the scene is more real to him in his mind than if he had actually gone up, and he remains sitting so as not to lose that reality. He sits watching Ellen’s balcony as it gets dark out, and finally a servant comes out to close the shutters. Then Archer gets up and walks back to his hotel.