The Valley of Decision

The Valley of Decision Summary

The Valley of Decision is Edith Wharton's first full-length novel, set in late 18th-century Italy. It follows Odo Valsecca, a young nobleman who inherits a dukedom and grapples with implementing Enlightenment ideals amidst political and social upheaval.

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The Valley of Decision Excerpt

Short Summary: Odo Valsecca, a young Italian nobleman, inherits a dukedom during the Enlightenment era. He strives to implement progressive reforms but faces resistance from traditionalists, leading to personal and political conflicts.

"Life at Pontesordo was in truth not very pleasant for an ardent and sensitive little boy of nine, whose remote connection with the reigning line of Pianura did not preserve him from wearing torn clothes and eating black bread and beans out of an earthen bowl on the kitchen doorstep. 'Go ask your mother for new clothes!' Filomena would snap at him, when his toes came through his shoes and the rents in his jacket-sleeves had spread beyond darning. 'Your mother gives all she has to the poor,' Don Gervaso would interpose, with a sigh; 'and the saints themselves go in rags.' And he would add, in response to Odo's questioning glance: 'I dare say the saints could get new clothes if they chose, but they think more of their souls than of their bodies.' 'I wish my mother didn't think so much of her soul,' Odo murmured; and Don Gervaso shook his head and answered that he was a child and could not understand. 'Your illustrious mother, the Donna Laura,' he went on, 'is a great woman—a very great woman. She spends her time in prayer and good works, and the poor bless her for the bread she gives them.' 'She might give me some of the bread she gives the poor,' Odo remarked; at which Don Gervaso groaned and said that the child was lost. The boy's happiest hours were those spent in the company of the old chaplain. Don Gervaso had a smattering of letters, and from him Odo learned the rudiments of reading and writing. The priest was a gentle soul, with a taste for music and poetry, and under his guidance the child discovered the wonders of Tasso and Ariosto. Together they would sit for hours in the sunny loggia overlooking the valley, the boy's head bent over his book, the priest's eyes fixed on the shimmering landscape, while the bees hummed in the lavender and the pigeons dozed on the roof. Sometimes, when the heat grew oppressive, they would descend to the cool depths of the chestnut-grove, where a spring bubbled up among the rocks, and Don Gervaso would tell of the hermits who had lived there in old days, and of the miracles they had wrought. These tales filled the boy's mind with visions of a world in which the supernatural and the actual were strangely blended, and where the saints and angels were as real as the peasants who tilled the vineyards. One day, as they sat by the spring, the priest unfolded a plan that had long been maturing in his mind. He proposed to teach Odo Latin. The boy's quick intelligence and eagerness to learn had fired him with a desire to impart all the knowledge he possessed; and though that was but scanty, it opened a new world to his pupil. They began their lessons the next day; and as Odo's Latin gained strength, he was admitted to the intimacy of Virgil and Horace, and led by them into a realm of beauty and order. These studies were often interrupted. Filomena had no sympathy with book-learning. She had small patience with a child who preferred a corner by the hearth to the open hills and the company of his kind; and Don Gervaso's remonstrances were met with the retort that the boy would be none the better for knowing more than his neighbors. 'Do you want to make a monk of him?' she would ask, with a sneer; and the priest's answer, 'God forbid!' was an admission that left him powerless. Odo's chief resource at such times was the society of the poor half-witted lad known as 'the Count's fool.' This youth, whose name was Bruno, was the son of a farmer on the Valsecca estates. He had been injured in infancy by a fall from his nurse's arms, and though he grew to be a tall handsome fellow, with the strength of an ox, his wits remained childish. He had a sweet voice, and a wonderful skill on the pipe; and Odo never wearied of hearing him sing the folk-songs of the country, or of watching him fashion his instruments out of a reed or a bit of bark. Bruno was devoted to the little boy, and would go miles at his bidding, to fetch him a bird's egg or a curious stone; and many an expedition they made together to some remote village festival, or to the shrine of a miracle-working saint. These wanderings led Odo into regions unknown to Filomena and Don Gervaso. Sometimes they took their chance of a meal in the kitchen of a roadside inn, where Bruno's music served as an introduction, and where the host's daughter would bring a plate of polenta to the shy handsome lad with the gypsy boy’s eyes. Sometimes they spent the night on the hay in a stable-loft, or under a pile of dry leaves in the forest; and in this way the child came to know the life of the fields and villages, the talk of the charcoal-burner and the shepherd, the stories of the old women who sat spinning in the doorways. These experiences quickened his childish wits, and planted in him that sympathy with the life of the poor which was later to shape his fate. They also developed a faculty of observation that turned to immediate account the lessons learned from Don Gervaso. He began to connect the sufferings of the peasants with the extortions of their masters, and to wonder why God, who was so good, should let a few live in plenty and pleasure while the many toiled in poverty and hardship. Don Gervaso’s explanations failed to satisfy him. 'It is God’s will,' the priest would say, 'and we must not question His decrees.' But Odo dared to question them. The Latin he had learned gave him the key to the church’s teachings; but it also gave him access to other teachings, to books of poetry and philosophy that set his mind moving in dangerous directions. He was already beginning to dream of a world in which reason should take the place of blind faith, and justice of arbitrary rule. The valley in which he had been born was widening before him, revealing distant peaks that beckoned him to unknown heights. He longed to escape from the narrow life of Pontesordo, to breathe the air of larger liberties, to see men think and act for themselves. And so, while Filomena and Don Gervaso thought him still a child, he was already on the threshold of manhood, with the great world waiting to receive him."