ROMAN FEVER - A TEMPORARY MATTER

Wharton’s “Roman Fever” was first published in 1935 and is set at about the same time.  Approximately when did Mrs. Slade (Alida) and Mrs. Ansley (Grace) first visit Rome, setting the current events in motion?

• 1880

• 1895

• 1910

• 1925

When Mrs. Slade observes that “it’s still the most beautiful view in the world,” Mrs. Ansley replies, “It always will be, to me.”  Mrs. Slade thinks she hears a slight stress on one of the words.  Which one?

• always

• will

• be

• me

Where did Grace end up meeting Delphin, unbeknownst to Alida?

• the Coloseum

• his hotel

• the Trevi Fountain

• the Spanish Steps

Grace is doing something with her hands virtually the whole time she is talking to Alida—what?

• tapping nervously

• knitting

• arranging flowers

• doodling

True or False?  The last paragraph of the story makes it absolutely clear (no doubt at all) that Babs is Delphin Slade’s child.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

The key word seems to be “had.”  Does she mean it in the sense, “I had a daughter to love and who loves me and who even you seem to recognize is superior to your own child”?  Or does she mean “I bore her; I ‘had’ a baby, your husband’s baby”?

How long before the present action of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “A Temporary Matter” did Shoba and Shukumar lose their child?

• one month

• six months

• one year

• two years

During this period, Shukumar has been doing (or not doing) his school work . . .

• at the kitchen table

• at his carrel at the University library

• in bed

• at a desk in what was supposed to have been the baby’s room

True or False?  The couple’s only houseguest since the tragedy was Shoba’s mother.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

I always think minor characters offer many subtle insights, and this one is no exception.  Does anyone remember the gift she gives Shukumar, “presenting it to him without the least bit of ceremony, as if he had only dropped it and hadn’t noticed”?

Which of the following is one of the secrets Shoba tells Shukumar?

• that she is having an affair

• that she doesn’t respect him for still being a student at 35

• that she never liked the one poem he had published

• that in college she once cheated on an exam she was taking

Which of the following does NOT happen on the fourth night, when Shoba and Shukumar make love “with a desperation they had forgotten”?

• she whispers his name

• she traces his eyebrows with her finger in the dark

• she weeps without sound

• she tells him that she is moving out