Madame de Treymes

Hey there, Edith...

Author: Edith Wharton

Category: This is one of those stories I’d always seen referenced in the Edith Wharton canon, but this is the first time I’ve read it.

My thoughts: While I think Edith Wharton is the bee’s knees, I have no problem admitting that I have met works of hers that I will never read again. Ethan Frome is at the top of this list. I didn’t like it, and I’m certain I’ll never have any desire to pick it up again (an aside: Ethan Frome was the first Edith Wharton novel I ever read, and I’m so glad that I didn’t form my opinion of her based on that novel.) Having said all of this, “Madame de Treymes” is somewhere in the middle of my Edith-Wharton-like-o’meter (Ethan Frome is on the “Didn’t care for it” side, while the brilliant trifecta of The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, and The Age of Innocence are on the “I will sing Edith Wharton’s praises forever” side of the spectrum). I didn’t love it, but it was pretty good. First, a little summary.

“Madame de Treymes” is the story of an American man, John Durham, who wants to help his American-born lover, Fanny de Malrive, obtain a divorce from her French husband so that the two (Durham and Fanny de Malrive) can marry. Fanny, whose title is Madame de Malrive is one of those dollar princesses that crossed the Atlantic Ocean and married Europeans in the late nineteenth century. I get the feeling that, during Wharton’s time in France, she met a lot of American dollar princesses, because it’s a theme that she explores this story, in The Custom of the Country, and in her unfinished novel, The Buccaneers. But Fanny is a more innocent soul than Undine Spragg from The Custom of the Country. And she, Fanny, faces some serious opposition from her husband’s family, who is steeped in tradition and refuses to consent to a divorce, despite Monsieur Malrive’s horrible behavior (it’s never explicitly said what he is guilty of, just as in The Age of Innocence, Count Olenski’s behavior is never revealed). The Malrive family is like the Corleone family (in fact, reading this story reminded me of a Mario Puzo quote: “The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.”) And the Malrive family is quite strong.

This story has elements of The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, and The Portrait of a Lady. Madame de Treymes, the titular character and Madame de Malrive’s sister-in-law, reminded me of Madame Merle from The Portrait of a Lady (there are a lot of “Madams” in the Edith Wharton/Henry James world). Madame de Treymes cut from the same cloth as those intriguing French women one reads about in articles about how to achieve Gallic allure and mystery. She isn’t necessarily beautiful, but she has personality, and she definitely has an air of mystery and intrigue.

“Madame de Treymes” exposes the differences between European and American cultures. Namely, how the American can-do spirit clashes with strong European traditions. If I remember correctly, Henry James also did this in The Europeans, which I read in graduate school, and he definitely did it in The Portrait of a Lady. Also, I’m not sure if "Madame de Treymes" should be categorized as a really short novel, or a long short story. I liked it because it explores themes that Edith Wharton is good at writing about (complicated relationships; Americans moving in European society), but I’m not sure I’ll read it again.

Great passage: She had moved in surroundings through which one could hardly bounce and bang on the genial American plan without knocking the angles off a number of sacred institutions; and her acquired dexterity of movement seemed to Durham a crowning grace. It was a shock, now that he knew at what cost the dexterity had been acquired, to acknowledge this even to himself; he hated to think that she could owe anything to such conditions as she had been placed in.

Up next: Call the Midwife