Roman Fever

Edith Wharton (or Edith Newbold Jones) was born on January 24,
1862 in New York. She was an american author best known for her
stories and novels. Edith Jones came of a distinguished and extremely
wealthy family. She was educated by private tutors and governesses at
home and in Europe, where the family resided for six years after the
American Civil War. Edith married Edward Wharton, a wealthy Boston
banker, in 1885. Her first novel, The Valley of Decision, was published in
1902. She wrote such novels as The Reef, The Custom of the Country,
Summer, and The Age of Innocence, which won a Pulitzer Prize. The Age
of Innocence presents a picture of upper-class New York society in the
1870s. She lived in France after 1907, visiting the United States only at
rare intervals. She was divorced from her husband in 1913 and was a
close friend of novelist James in his later years.

“The Roman fever” is a great story which reveals the problem of

women’s friendship, envy, and betrayal.

Alida Slade and Grace Ansley are the main characters of the story,
whose friendship turned out not to be as sincere as it seemed at first.
In the beginning two middle-aged American women were sitting on a
terrace overlooking the Roman Forum when their daughters left them
and went for a walk. After a while Grace and Alida started discussing
their lives and daughters, Barbara and Jenny. While recalling the past
Alida revealed that in order to humiliate Grace in their youth, she had
wroten a letter inviting Grace to a romantic rendezvous with Alida's
future-husband, Delphin. Alida expected Grace to be left alone and
humiliated. The woman was jealous of Grace all her life and that’s why
she had written the letter. But Grace said that she had responded to the
letter and that she and Delphin did meet. Alida scoffed, but Grace had a
proof: her daughter, Barbara was Delphin’s daughter as well.
 To my mind, this story is really worth reading since it could be
extremely useful for most women to teach them not to be jealous and
don’t judge a book by its cover.