Louis Auchincloss reinvents Edith Wharton's "After Holbein."

In addition to his use of Edith Wharton as the model for each of the three women writers in three of his stories,(1) Louis Auchincloss, who has written a formal biography of her, also has made at least one raid on her fiction. In The Partners (1973-74), a novel composed of individual tales about members of a New York City law firm, Shepard, Putney and Cox, there is an episode entitled "The Diner Out" in Chapter 5, in which the author has adopted a section from Wharton's famous tale, "After Holbein," to flesh out his own highly inventive story. In his tale Burrill Hume, a member of the law firm, reacts to a loss of faith in him by many of his old clients. He is consoled--or almost consoled--by the fact that these betraying clients, all shortly after leaving for another firm, die. However, it has been suggested by Cox, the senior member of the firm, that Hume retire, since he is now 73 years old. When Hume asks what he is to do with his time since his work at the law firm has been his fife, Cox replies that he Arill always have his "dinner parties" (Partners 88) How seriously Hume takes his dinners can be seen when Cox asks him to dine that night with him. Hume tells Cox that he has already accepted a dinner engagement that he will not break, for to him these dinners are "sacred," once "you've accepted one!" (Partners 89).

It is at this point in the story that it seems that Auchincloss has plundered that part of "After Holbein" that is the most interesting section of the somewhat labored, although artfully crafted and embroidered tale published in Wharton's 1930 collection of stories, Certain People. Almost 50 years after the publication of "After Holbein," Auchincloss has rescued the story's best part to embellish his own tale. In Wharton's tale, Anson Warley, the 63-year-old diner-out, who only wants the best dinners and the best society, has contempt for old Mrs. Jaspar, once New York's leading hostess, but now a pathetic has-been. As he prepares to go out to dinner at somebody else's house, the expression on his valet's face tells us that Warley does not look well. But, after a moment of vertigo, he seems to feel all right. Auchincloss reminds us of this scene from Wharton's tale when he has Burrill Hume's housekeeper tell him that "that pasty face of yours says you're not going out" (Partners 90). Like Anson and his vertigo, Burrill has a short period of time when his "heart was pounding" (Partners 91), but he feels fine after a short rest.

Whereas then Mrs. Wharton's tale breaks in with a lengthy and complicated scene in which Mrs. Jaspar has been gotten into her evening clothes by her servants for the charade of her nightly fiasco of pretended dinner parties, Auchincloss moves on to section four of Wharton's tale, in which Anson tells his valet, Filmore, who wants him to take a taxi, that he prefers to walk to his dinner party. Then he suddenly forgets where he is to dine tonight. "Where the dickens was he going to dine? And with whom was he going to dine?" (Certain People 91). Auchincloss's Burrill also has a moment of forgetfulness when he asks himself "to dinner at--where was it? Mrs. Trane's?" (Partners 90).

Wharton's Anson walks along Fifth Avenue in the cold air and seems to feel very good. Yet, although he was to be dining at someone else's house, he finds himself walking in front of Mrs. Jaspar's house, which is all illuminated for one of her parodied, pseudo dinner parties. Then "he remembered it quite clearly now--it was just here, it was with Mrs. Jaspar that he was dining . . ." (Wharton, Certain People 91) It is at this point that Auchincloss changes the details in his own version but still depends on his aging hero's memory lapse. Burrill knows where he is dining out, but he has forgotten the correct address. Since, like Wharton's Anson, he is vain about his youthfulness in spite of his advanced years, he reads the address incorrectly and, unlike Anson, he takes a taxi, he drops off at 1065 Park Avenue, an address that his failing eyesight has incorrectly read. After many trials and exposure to "cold, stony Madison Avenue," he finds a telephone booth on East 86th Street and learns, by telephoning Mrs. Trane's apartment, that it is 1055, not 1065 Park Avenue where he is to dine.

Auchincloss is now on his own again. Arriving at the dinner party, which is a real one, Burrill sits next to his old client, Mrs. Fanny Bloxham. He learns from her that she, too, must leave his law firm as a client in order to go with her grandson's law firm, so he can, through her influence, become a partner. In revenge for this shock, he tells her how all the other clients who broke with him died shortly after their break. Since Mrs. Bloxham is over 80 years old, she is frightened by his statement. However, thinking it over and realizing that Mrs. Bloxham's daughter would make reprisals, this man with a weak heart himself decides that he should confess his strategy to his client. He tells her that, if he fires her, instead of the other way around, he will remove the jinx, especially since he must retire anyway. Since she herself has the problems of old age, she leaves the dinner party early and offers to take him with her.