"…just as Archer concealed his"

[Archer and May sit in separate chairs near the fire]

ARCHER: Since you're not tired and want to talk, there's something I have to tell you. I tried the other night.

MAY: Oh yes, dear. Something about yourself?

ARCHER: About myself, yes. You say you're not tired. But I am. I'm tired of everything. I want to make a break….

MAY: You mean give up the law?

ARCHER: Well, maybe. To get away, at any rate. Right away. On a long trip. Go somewhere that's so far. . .

MAY: How far?

ARCHER: I don't know. I thought of India. Or Japan.

[She stands up and walks toward him]

MAY: As far as that? But I'm afraid you can't, dear….(unsteady voice) not unless you take me with you. That is, if the doctors will let me go. . . but I'm afraid they won't.

[He stares at her, his eyes nearly wild]

MAY:I've been sure of something since this morning and I've been longing to tell you..

ARCHER: Oh.

MAY: You didn't guess?

ARCHER: No. Of course, I mean, I hoped, but. . .

[He looks away from her]

ARCHER: (quietly) Have you told anyone else?

MAY: Only Mama, and your mother. And Ellen. You know I told you we'd had a long talk one afternoon. . . and how wonderful she was to me.

ARCHER: Ah.

MAY: Did you mind my telling her, Newland?

ARCHER: Mind? Why should I? But that was two weeks ago, wasn't it? I thought you said you weren't sure till today.

MAY: (face flushed) No. I wasn't sure, then. But I told her I was. And you see. . .

[She looks up at him, moving closer]

MAY: I was right.
[She is very close to him now, expecting to be kissed. Her eyes are wet with VICTORY. Newland is speechless. He desperately looks around the room]

NARRATOR

It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had happened. Their eldest boy, Theodore, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter, had been christened there. It was here that Ted took his first steps. And it was here that Archer and his wife always discussed the future of all their children. Bill's interest in archaeology. Mary's passion for sport and philanthropy. Ted's inclinations toward "art" that led to a job with an architect, as well as some considerable redecoration. It was in this room that Mary had announced her engagement to the dullest and most reliable of Larry Lefferts' many sons. And it was in this room, too, that her father had kissed her through her wedding veil before they motored to Grace Church. He was a dutiful, loving father, and a faithful husband. When May died of infectious pneumonia after nursing Bill safely through, he had honestly mourned her. The world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever noticing. This hard bright blindness, her incapacity to recognize change, made her children conceal their views from her, just as Archer concealed his….''

(Aποσπασμα απο το σεναριο της ταινιας "The Age Of Innocence", συγγρ. Edith Wharton, σκηνoθεσια Martin Scorsese).