Résumé de Chez les heureux du monde

The story in 7 parts

1. Key idea 1 · free to read

   A single tea party sets everything moving

   Lawrence Selden is crossing Grand Central Station when he sees Lily Bart standing alone. She has missed her train to the Trenors' country house, and the next one leaves in two hours. She laughs that people sit out a cotillion, so why not sit out a train, and Selden offers her tea.

   They walk up Madison Avenue after a brief shower. Selden admires the shape of her small ear and the thick fringe of her lashes. He feels that a fine glaze of beauty has been laid over common clay, then wonders if the clay was fine and merely shaped by circumstance into something useless. At the Benedick, where he lives, she admires his balcony, and he invites her upstairs.

   Over tea in his small library, Lily speaks with surprising honesty. She says she is poor and very expensive, that people are tired of her, and that they say she ought to marry. She adds that invitations depend as much on a woman's wardrobe as on her charm.

   Then she asks odd questions about Americana, the rare old books on American history. Selden laughs and explains that collectors prize rarity, not reading. He does not see that she is gathering facts for a rich young man she means to impress. On the way out she meets Simon Rosedale, who owns the building. She tells him a clumsy lie, and he smiles as if he knows better. One careless hour can become a debt that someone else collects.

2. 2

   Lily hunts a husband and tests her freedom

   On the train to Bellomont, the Trenors' country estate, Lily finds Percy Gryce.

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3. 3

   A friend's tip becomes a hidden debt

   After the Gryce disaster, Lily is short of money.

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4. 4

   Triumph at the tableaux, then a trap

   Mrs. Haffen, the cleaning woman from the Benedick, brings Lily a bundle of torn letters.

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5. 5

   Monte Carlo, a yacht and a public insult

   Selden, on a short holiday, runs into Carry Fisher and her wealthy clients, the Brys.

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6. 6

   Lily falls from the top of society

   Lily returns to New York to learn that her aunt has died.

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7. 7

   Money, freedom and the way Wharton tells it

   The title comes from a line about the house of mirth, where the foolish gather, and Wharton shows that world as a market.

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