The Quicksand

Mrs. Quentin sank down on the bench and reached a hand to the girl. “Sit by me,” she said. Miss Fenno dropped beside her. In both women the stress of emotion was too strong for speech. The girl was still trembling, and Mrs. Quentin was the first to regain her composure. “You say you’ve suffered,” she began at last. “Do you suppose I haven’t?”

New York at the turn of the century. In The Quicksand, Edith Wharton, author of the novel The Age of Innocence, gives us a glimpse of the aristocratic Manhattan of the time. Unfolding on a pre-summer day at the Upper East Side’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, this multi-layered short story brings unexpected twists and ironic consequences in a triangle drama between a distinguished mother, her passionate son, and his free-thinking lover.