Crucial Instances

by Edith Wharton

CRUCIAL INSTANCES

BY

EDITH WHARTON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[The Duchess At Prayer] [The Angel At The Grave] [The Recovery] [“Copy”] [The Rembrandt] [The Moving Finger] [The Confessional]

THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER

Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors....