The House of Mirth

At first, Lily enjoys the physical satisfaction of luxury again when she takes on the role of educating Mrs. Norma Hatch in the social niceties. The strange new world of fashionable New York hotel life, with Mrs. Hatch’s strange hangers-on of manicurists, French teachers, and hairdressers, startles Lily with its irresponsible, disorderly atmosphere. Lily is accustomed to a society woman’s “inherited obligations, her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the great civic machine” (290). The wealthy Mrs. Hatch, a divorced woman of vague Western origins, formed her ideas from the theater, the sports world, and the fashion journals.

Lily is astonished to find Ned Silverton among the frequenters of the young Mrs. Hatch’s gatherings. Lily’s discomfort increases when she senses that Ned and Melville Stancy, Mrs. Hatch’s lawyer-advisor, are conspiring to unite Freddy Van Osburgh in marriage with Mrs. Hatch.

Selden surprises Lily with a visit on an errand for Gerty. Selden’s emphasis that he arrived only to be of use, without personal feelings for Lily, and his insistence that Lily leave Mrs. Hatch’s unsuitable employ hardens Lily’s resistance. Lily insists that Mrs. Hatch helps her earn a livelihood when her old friends would let her starve. Selden scoffs at Lily’s statement, asserting that she and Gerty could combine their incomes and reside together so Lily would not need to support herself. Lily rejects this alternative as neither kind to Gerty nor wise for herself. Lily will not confide in him because “his attitude of sober impartiality, the absence of all response to her appeal, turned her hurt pride to blind resentment of his interference” (295).

Lily chooses to part with Mrs. Hatch only a few weeks after Selden’s visit. When Mr. Stancy hinted that Lily would be rewarded for helping Mrs. Hatch to marry Freddy Van Osburgh, Lily fled to avoid any connection with such a transaction. Her former society friends still unfairly blamed Lily’s contrivance for Freddy’s risky situation. Freddy was rescued from the proposed unsuitable marriage by the efforts of Rosedale and Gus.

Gerty recalled how wonderfully Lily could trim hats and persuaded Lily that she could open a fashionable hat shop. However, no financial backing or customer patronage could be found to achieve this plan after Lily’s association with Mrs. Hatch. When Carry Fisher approached Judy Trenor on Lily’s behalf, she was shocked by Judy’s anger regarding money Lily received from Gus. Subsequently, Carry and Gerty arranged for Lily to be employed in the work room of Mme. Regina’s renowned millinery establishment. Mme. Regina did not want untrained assistance but Carry brought important customers to her shop, so she relented. Mme. Regina was willing to employ the beautiful Lily as a displayer of hats in the show room, but Lily did not want this publicity.

After two months of work, Lily is still being reprimanded by the forewoman for crookedly sewing spangles on a hat. Her untutored fingers blunder over this preparatory work, while she is not permitted to exercise her talent in the delicate art of trimming, reserved for more experienced workers. In the unwholesome hot air of the work room, where 20 women toil, Lily feels unwell and finds it strange to hear how her former society set is contemptuously discussed by the working girls.

In her distressed state, Lily increasingly desires privacy and independence. She rejected Gerty’s offer of hospitality; instead, she resides in a boarding house. Unable to sleep at night, Lily uses a copy of one of Mrs. Hatch’s prescriptions to purchase a drug. The chemist warns her not to increase the dose, since that might prove fatal. When Lily leaves the chemist’s shop, she stumbles against Rosedale who realizes that she is not well. He invites her to take tea with him at a hotel. Lily decides to tell the truth to Rosedale about her initial mistake: not understanding that Gus had not speculated with her money, but rather gave money to her. She tells Rosedale her aunt’s legacy to her will not be paid until next summer and she needs to use it to pay Gus back. Therefore, she must try to learn a trade.

Rosedale is still affected by Lily’s beauty. He insists on escorting her to her lodging, which he views with incredulous disgust. However, he heroically offers to visit again sometime. Touched, Lily thanks him “in the first sincere words she had ever spoken to him” (309). Lily takes the drug to sleep, obliterating her memories and temptations, and to have the illusion of renewal in the morning.

It is late April, the season for high society and, therefore, for expensive hat-making in New York City is over. A week earlier, Mme. Regina told Lily that her clumsy services were no longer required. Lily knows that “she had been brought up to be ornamental” (313) and that she cannot compete with professionals in earning a livelihood.

Rosedale visits her at her boarding house, disturbed that Lily resides in such a disgusting place. He offers to lend her money as a straightforward business arrangement so that Lily can pay back Gus. Lily refuses Rosedale’s offer, pointing out that Gus proposed the same thing to her; she can never again be sure of correctly understanding such an arrangement. For Rosedale, Lily’s inexplicable scruples add to her unique beauty, giving her “an air of being impossible to match” (315). Her rarity increases her value to him as if Rosedale is a collector seeking a long-coveted item, but he will only marry her if she reconciles with Bertha Dorset. Lily has difficulty resisting this temptation because her dislike of Rosedale is slowly being diminished by the pressure of circumstances: He had “a certain gross kindliness, a rather helpless fidelity of sentiment, which seemed to be struggling through the hard surface of his material ambitions” (315).

Lily takes no sleeping drug that night as she examines her situation. Lily muses that she was judged guilty by an unfair social order without a trial and she was innocent of the charge on which she was found guilty. She learned that her inherited tendencies and early training gave her a decorative purpose, not a utilitarian one. She was a highly specialized organism “as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock” (316).

Profoundly lonely in the city, Lily lunches in a little restaurant and makes a decision. Back in her room, she takes out the sealed packet of Bertha’s letters and writes a note that will gain her admission to Bertha’s home. She walks through the streets, trying to steady her nerves. It rains and she turns into a side street. A flood of recollections surge through Lily as she realizes that she strolled down this street two years ago with Selden. When she passes his house, she suddenly pictures her errand as Selden would see it and the idea that she must profit on his past secret to attain her goal fills her with shame. She realizes that he tried to help her by loving her, and she resisted. Although Lily comprehends that this part of her life has ended, she suddenly yearns to see Selden. When she sees a light in his window, she crosses the street and enters his building.