Introduction

The countess olenska had said, after five and at half after the hour, newland. Archer rang the bell of the pealing stucco house with a giant wisteria throttling its feeble cast iron balcony. It was certainly a strange quarter to have settled in. Small dressmakers, bird stuffers and people who wrote were her nearest neighbors. And as archer mustered its modest front he said to himself that the polish count must have robbed her of her fortune as well as of her illusions. He concluded that she was less simple than she seemed.