The Daunt Diana

The Daunt Diana by Edith Wharton

Ringham Finney tells the narrator, over dinner in Paris, what became of "the Daunt Diana." He recalls Humphrey Neave, a fastidious American expert on antiquities they had both known in Rome, a native of Mystic, Connecticut, who had walked to Rome from Switzerland as a young man and scraped together a collection through years of tutoring cultured travelers on "the antiquities." Neave developed an exceptionally refined instinct for identifying and valuing art, becoming a trusted authority even before he owned much himself. Finney recounts meeting Neave in London some fifteen years earlier, when Neave was summoned by the surly collector Daunt to appraise pieces in his collection, including a statue called the Diana. Neave was instantly and powerfully struck by the Diana, though he masked his reaction. Afterward he confessed to Finney his bitterness at never being able to own great things himself, comparing his cultivated taste to a delicate creature that, unfed, feeds on its owner instead. A year later, Neave unexpectedly inherited a fortune from an uncle who had made his money manufacturing corsets under the "Mystic Super-straight" brand. At almost the same time, Daunt went bankrupt, and Neave bought the entire Daunt collection, including the Diana. When Finney visited him in Rome afterward, in a grand new palazzo, Neave showed off the collection with expert pride but seemed strangely apathetic, blaming his mood on the burdens of his new grandeur and the tiresome visitors who came to view his treasures. A year after that, astonishingly, Neave put the whole Daunt collection up for auction. Rumors spread that he had found flaws in it, and the sale prices, including for the Diana, fell far below value due to market suspicion. Finney later learned Neave had actually begun secretly buying back, at inflated prices, the modest pieces from his own earlier, humbler collection that he had sold off to make room for Daunt's things. Confronted, Neave explained that owning the Daunt objects felt like a loveless marriage of convenience: they had no personal history with him, no story of discovery and struggle, unlike his own original finds, such as a small Venus Callipyge he had rescued from obscurity in a shop at Biarritz. He dismissed the Diana as merely a "professional beauty" and claimed indifference to her, admitting he was ruining himself financially buying back his old pieces one by one. Years later, Finney encounters Neave again, still buying back his originals, having recovered nearly everything except the Diana, who by then belonged to a Mrs. Willy P. Goldmark and was displayed harshly under electric light at her parties. Neave admits he still wants the Diana desperately and believes she now wants him too, though he cannot get her. Finally, on a visit to Rome after several years' absence, Finney tracks Neave down not in the old palazzo (now let to strangers) but in poor, shabby rooms in the Trastevere, where the collection is crowded intimately around him again. In an inner cell-like room by his bed stands the Daunt Diana. Neave reveals he lied before: he had always loved her, and had ruined himself financially to reclaim her at last. He says the setting is unworthy of her, but that beautiful things, like beautiful spirits, live in houses not made with hands, and Finney sees that Neave has finally found the fulfillment he sought.

By Edith Wharton · First published 1897 · Genre: Romance, Drama, Historical Fiction · 7,213 words

First lines

"WHAT'S become of the Daunt Diana? You mean to say you never heard the sequel?"

Ringham Finney threw himself back into his chair with the smile of the collector who has a good thing to show. He knew he had a good listener, at any rate. I don't think much of Ringham's snuff-boxes, but his anecdotes are usually worth while. He's a psychologist astray among _bibelots_, and the best bits he brings back from his raids on Christie's and the Hotel Drouot are the fragments of human nature he picks up on those historic battle-fields. If his _flair_ in enamel had been half as good we should have heard of the Finney collection by this time.

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The Daunt Diana is listed on Textopian as a short story by Edith Wharton, dated 1897 CE.

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Romance · Novel · Classic · Literary Fiction · Social Commentary · High Society · Marriage · Infidelity · Adultery · Love Triangle · Upper Class · Wealth

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