The Glimpses of the Moon

Name: The Glimpses of the Moon
Author: Edith Wharton

The Glimpses of the Moon opens on Lake Como, where Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are honeymooning in the villa lent by their friend Charlie Strefford. Their marriage rests on a frank bargain: both are attractive, penniless fixtures of a wealthy, rootless set, and they have agreed to marry on borrowed houses and wedding cheques, freeing each other the moment either gets the chance of a richer match. Susy recalls how she and Nick met at the Fulmers' shabby, happy New Hampshire household and conceived their plan there. A small quarrel over Susy pilfering Strefford's cigars for their journey foreshadows the gap between her expedient morality and Nick's stricter code. They move on to the Vanderlyns' Venice palace, lent by Ellie Vanderlyn, who leaves her small daughter Clarissa in Susy's care while secretly using Susy to post letters to her husband Nelson concealing an affair. Susy, increasingly attached to Clarissa and to Nick's earnest work on his book (a "philosophic romance" called The Pageant of Alexander), hides this compromising errand from Nick. Their circle drifts through Venice: Strefford; the wealthy, well-meaning Hickses and their intense daughter Coral; and eventually Fred Gillow, whose lingering attentions to Susy needle Nick. When Nelson Vanderlyn briefly visits, Ellie's careless gratitude — thanking Nick for help with "the letters" and giving him a valuable pearl pin — exposes the scheme. Nick, learning Susy took payment (in hospitality) for hiding Ellie's adultery from her husband, is devastated less by the act than by Susy's willingness to compromise her honesty for their comfort. He accuses her of treating their marriage as another transaction; she defends herself as doing what their whole world does. That night, after Susy goes out with friends, Nick leaves her a note invoking their original pact and departs alone for Milan. Traveling on to Genoa, Nick drifts into despair and self-justification, then learns Strefford has unexpectedly inherited an earldom after a fatal yachting accident. Concluding Susy is better off free to marry Strefford, Nick writes her a letter releasing her from their bargain — then, before posting it, is intercepted by Coral Hicks and drawn onto the Hicks family yacht, the Ibis, for a cruise. Susy, devastated, retreats first to Violet Melrose's house near Versailles (finding it occupied by the now-successful painter Nat Fulmer, whom Violet has taken up), then to a dreary London hotel, having heard nothing from Nick and having learned via the papers that he did not immediately write. She visits Grace Fulmer, moved by her friend's uncomplicated joy in her husband's belated success despite years of poverty. Strefford, now Earl of Altringham, proposes marriage to Susy in Paris, offering wealth and freedom from dependence on rich friends; she does not accept outright but agrees to see him again in London. Meanwhile aboard the Ibis, Nick — never having sent his letter — drifts into an ambiguous, unresolved companionship with Coral Hicks, who offers him the post vacated by a lovesick secretary, Mr. Buttles. Nick learns from a society paper that Susy and the new Lord Altringham are being named together as expected guests at the Gillows' rented Scottish castle. The narrative leaves Susy in London awaiting Strefford's arrival, and Nick at sea near Crete, neither having communicated directly with the other since their parting, the text breaking off as Susy sets out by taxi from her hotel.

By Edith Wharton · First published 1922 · Genre: Romance, Social Commentary, Drama · 30 chapters · 99,065 words

First lines

IT rose for them -- their honey-moon -- over the waters of a lake so famed as the scene of romantic raptures that they were rather proud of not having been afraid to choose it as the setting of their own.

"It required a total lack of humour, or as great a gift for it as ours, to risk the experiment," Susy Lansing opined, as they hung over the inevitable marble balustrade and watched their tutelary orb roll its magic carpet across the waters to their feet.

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The Glimpses of the Moon is listed on Textopian as a novel by Edith Wharton, dated 1922 CE.

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Work type: Novel
Author: Edith Wharton
Date: 1922 CE
Language: English
Genres: Romance, Social Commentary, Drama
Length: 99,065 words
Structure: 30 chapters, 1,646 paragraphs
Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

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Similar titles

Genres

Romance — The story revolves around the romantic relationship between the two main characters, their marriages, and their love affairs.
Social Commentary — The narrative provides a critique of the social and economic disparities of the time, particularly within the upper class.
Drama — The plot involves emotional conflicts, personal struggles, and dramatic turns of events.