The Age of Innocence [antikvár]

ctiflpim flSTMnaKinntwrouK Fhen Newland Archer arrived at the New York Academy of Music, one January evening in the early 1870s, the opera had already begun. There was no reason why the young man should not have come earlier. He had had dinner at seven, alone with his mother and sister, and then sat unhurriedly smoking his cigar in his private library. But fashionable young men did not arrive early at the opera. That was one of the unwritten rules of society, and in Newland Archer's New York these rules were as important as life and death. Another reason for the young man's delay was that he enjoyed looking forward to pleasures just as much as actually experiencing them, and Gounod's Faust was one of his favourite operas. As he opened the door at the back of his box, he felt he had chosen just the right moment to arrive. Christine Nilsson, the Swedish singer whom all New York had gathered to hear, was singing, 'He loves me - he loves me not - he loves me!' She sang in Italian, of course, not in English, since an unquestioned law of the musical world demanded that the German words of French operas sung by Swedish singers should be translated into Italian, for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland as all the other laws that governed his life, like never appearing in society without a flower in his buttonhole, and having two silver-backed brushes for his hair.