One of the things I love about this story is that the
resolution that Edith Wharton gives us seems not to represent a resolution at all in
terms of the external conflict that Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade exhibit. Mrs. Slade of
course feels aggrieved at the love that her husband had for her friend, and during the
course of this story resurrects their old animosities and jealousies. However, if we
look back we note that Mrs. Ansley is strangely silent until the very end, when finally
she is able to give an answer to the torrent of her emotion that Mrs. Slade expresses
towards her. In response to Mrs. Slade's saying that she "had everything" for twenty
five years and that Mrs. Ansley had nothing in return, because she didn't marry Mrs.
Slade's husband, Mrs. Ansley ends the story by surprising both us and Mrs. Slade by
telling us what precisely she did receive from her relationship with Mr.
Slade:
"I had
Barbra," she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the
stairway.
Thus it is that the
daughter that Mrs. Ansley had was Mr. Slade's child, bringing to light yet another
secret in the plot of this excellent story, but, as I pointed out, hardly resolving the
conflict between the two central protagonists.
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