Una dama extraviada

Por Willa Cather

Una dama extraviada apareció en 1923 y, dos años después, su autora recibió una carta de Francis Scott Fitzgerald, que acababa de publicar El gran Gatsby y estaba preocupado por ciertas similitudes entre ambas novelas que podían alimentar la sospecha de «un caso de plagio». Willa Cather le respondió que no veía motivos para sentirse plagiada, y Scott Fitzgerald respiró aliviado; aunque lo cierto es que Una dama extraviada era la obra que tenía en la cabeza mientras escribía su novela, y la causa directa de ciertos cambios en el proceso de su composición. Pero ¿qué podía tener que ver el mundo del glamour y el dinero que pintaba Scott Fitzgerald con el Oeste heroico, aun en sus últimos reflejos, de Willa Cather? Quizá esta historia de fascinación sostenida y sueños traicionados, vista por un joven que se abre a la vida, nos dé la respuesta. Marianne Forrester, esposa de un pionero del ferrocarril, anfitriona de la única casa elegante de la triste población de Sweet Water, siempre alegre en la riqueza y siempre resistente en la penuria, pasa de ser una gran señora a una mujer señalada por todas las habladurías. Un joven que la adora acaba despreciándola, y sobre su relación construye la autora un espléndido ejercicio sobre los entresijos de toda idealización.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Alba Editorial
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 21 sept 2022
• ISBN: 9788490659366

Willa Cather

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia and raised on the Nebraska prairie. She worked as a newspaper writer, teacher, and managing editor of McClure's magazine. In addition to My Ántonia, her books include O Pioneers! (1913) and The Professor's House. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours.

Vista previa del libro

NOTA AL TEXTO

Una dama extraviada se publicó por entregas en la revista Century de abril a junio de 1923. En septiembre apareció en forma de libro (Alfred A. Knopf, Nueva York) y en diciembre iba ya por la sexta edición (50.000 ejemplares). La presente traducción se basa en el texto de la primera edición.

Para Jan Hambourg

¡Que venga mi coche! ¡Adiós, señoras, buenas noches! Adiós, amables damas, adiós.¹

PRIMERA PARTE

I

Hace treinta o cuarenta años, en una de esas poblaciones grises –aún más grises hoy que entonces– que jalonan la línea del ferrocarril de Burlington, se alzaba una casa cuya fama alcanzaba de Omaha a Denver en virtud de su particular atmósfera de elegancia. Una fama que se extendía, para ser exactos, entre la aristocracia del ferrocarril de la época: entre todos los caballeros directamente vinculados al ferrocarril o relacionados con alguno de los negocios «de tierras» que habían surgido al abrigo de éste. En aquellos tiempos bastaba con decir de alguien que «estaba conectado» con la Burlington. Entre los privilegiados se contaban los administradores, directores generales, vicepresidentes, superintendentes, cuyos nombres todos conocíamos; los sobrinos o hermanos menores de éstos eran los interventores, representantes, ayudantes de departamento. Todo aquel que «estaba conectado» con la ferroviaria, incluso los transportistas de reses y de grano, disponía de pases anuales; los afortunados y sus familias se dedicaban a recorrer la línea de un extremo a otro. En los estados rurales de aquel entonces convivían dos estratos sociales muy diferenciados: los colonos y peones que habían emigrado para ganarse la vida, y los terratenientes y banqueros procedentes de la costa atlántica, quienes habían venido a hacer inversiones y a «desarrollar nuestro inmenso Oeste», según nos decían.

Entre viaje y viaje por la línea, y si no les urgía el negocio, el pasatiempo predilecto de los hombres de la Burlington era apearse del expreso y pasar la noche en algún hogar atento donde su importancia fuese reconocida con finura; y no había hogar más atento que el del capitán Daniel Forrester, en Sweet Water. El capitán Forrester también estaba conectado con el ferrocarril: como contratista, había tendido cientos de kilómetros de vía para la Burlington, que cruzaban las praderas de artemisa y las tierras ganaderas y llegaban hasta Black Hills.

El hogar de los Forrester, como todos lo llamaban, no era en absoluto vistoso; eran sus habitantes quienes le conferían un tamaño y una elegancia mayores de los que tenía. La casa se asentaba sobre una colina baja y uniforme, a más de un kilómetro al este del pueblo: era una casa blanca dotada de un ala, con tejados en pendiente pronunciada para que resbalase la nieve. Tenía dos porches, de una angostura contraria a la idea moderna de comodidad, que se alzaban sobre las típicas columnitas frágiles y delicadas que se empleaban en aquel entonces, una edad en que hasta el más sencillo tablón sufría indecibles torturas en el torno hasta convertirse en algo espantoso. Aunque se hubiese limpiado de enredadera y desbrozado la maleza, es improbable que el aspecto de la casa hubiese podido mejorar significativamente. Comunicaba con una hermosa plantación de algodón, que abría sus brazos protectores a derecha e izquierda y que se extendía libremente tras ella, colina abajo. Debido a su emplazamiento en la colina, y a la vegetación movediza que la hacía resaltar, la casa era lo primero que uno veía cuando el ferrocarril se aproximaba a Sweet Water, y lo último que contemplaba al marcharse.

Para llegar a la propiedad del capitán Forrester había que cruzar un arroyo ancho y arenoso que discurría por el límite oriental del pueblo. Tras pasarlo por el puentecillo o por el vado, se llegaba al camino que llevaba a la casa, bordeado por álamos de Lombardía, y con grandes prados a ambos lados. Precisamente al pie de la colina sobre la que se levantaba la casa era necesario vadear un segundo arroyo por un recio puente de madera, más ancho que el primero. Este riachuelo iba describiendo arcos y curvas sin gracia mientras surcaba los anchos prados, que eran mitad dehesa y mitad marjal. Cualquiera que no fuese el capitán Forrester habría drenado el marjal para convertirlo en terrenos de elevado rendimiento. Pero desde hacía mucho tiempo, el capitán había escogido aquel lugar como residencia porque le parecía hermoso; además, resulta que le gustaba el zigzag del arroyo entre sus pastos salpicados de hierbabuena y de grama de agua, circundados por sauces que despedían destellos de luz al moverse sus hojas. El capitán aún gozaba por aquel entonces de una situación desahogada, y no tenía hijos. Podía permitirse sus caprichos.

Cuando iba a la estación en su coche de punto, poco ostentoso, a recoger amigos procedentes de Omaha o Denver, le complacía que estos caballeros expresasen admiración por el selecto ganado que pastaba en sus prados, a ambos lados del camino. Cuando alcanzaban la cima de la colina, más le complacía ver cómo aquellos hombres mayores que él en edad se apeaban de un ágil salto, subían los escalones y corrían al encuentro de la señora Forrester, que en ese instante salía al porche a recibirlos. Hasta el más malhumorado y distante de sus amigos, cierto banquero de Lincoln de rostro inexpresivo, parecía animarse cuando ésta le tendía la mano y él intentaba responder al reto juguetón de sus ojos y hallar una réplica ingeniosa al chispeante saludo de sus labios.

La señora Forrester siempre estaba allí, en el umbral de la puerta, para recibir a los que llegaban, de cuya proximidad la avisaba el retumbar de las herraduras y el runrún de las ruedas al pasar por el puente de madera. Si en ese momento se encontraba en la cocina, ayudando a la cocinera bohemia, salía con el mismo delantal, blandiendo una cuchara de hierro impregnada de mantequilla, y puede incluso que le ofreciera al recién llegado unos dedos manchados de cereza. Nunca se detenía a recogerse los rizos: resultaba encantadora sin arreglar, y ella lo sabía. En más de una ocasión había salido corriendo a la puerta sin otro atavío que la bata, cepillo en mano, con el largo y negro cabello cayendo ondulado sobre los hombros, para recibir a Cyrus Dalzell, el presidente de la Colorado & Utah: aquel caballero nunca se sentía mejor distinguido que con ese recibimiento. A su juicio –igual pensaban todos los admiradores de cierta edad que se detenían a visitarla–, cualquier cosa que le diese por hacer a la señora Forrester resultaba «refinada» por el mero hecho de hacerla ella. Eran incapaces de imaginársela sin encanto, llevase lo que llevase o estuviese donde estuviese. El propio capitán Forrester, que era hombre de pocas palabras, había confesado en una ocasión al juez Pommeroy que nunca había estado su esposa más arrebatadora que un día en que la vio correteando por la hierba perseguida por un toro que acababan de adquirir: a la dama se le había olvidado que el toro andaba por allí y había ido al prado a recoger un ramo de flores. De pronto, el capitán oyó que gritaba, pero cuando echó a correr medio ahogado por la colina se la encontró dando saltitos al borde del marjal, como una liebre, desternillada de la risa, sin dejar de sujetar con tozudez el parasol encarnado que había causado todo el incidente.

La señora Forrester tenía veinticinco años menos que su marido, para el que éste era su segundo matrimonio. Se había casado con ella en California y recién desposados se instalaron en Sweet Water. Incluso en aquellos días lejanos, cuando apenas pasaban en ella unos meses al año, el matrimonio tenía aquella casa por su hogar. Más tarde, tras la terrible caída del caballo que sufrió el capitán en la montaña, y que lo dejó tan incapacitado que le fue imposible seguir organizando el tendido de líneas, marido y mujer se establecieron en la casa de la colina. El capitán empezó a envejecer allí. Pero también ella, desgraciadamente, iba cumpliendo años.

II

Pero pondremos el comienzo a esta historia una mañana de verano de hace mucho tiempo; la señora Forrester aún era una mujer joven, y Sweet Water, una localidad de la que se esperaban grandes cosas. Aquella mañana estaba junto a la enorme ventana del salón, disponiendo al estilo tradicional unas pálidas rosas en un recipiente de cristal. Cuando levantó la vista, vio a unos chiquillos que se aproximaban por el borde de la carretera; iban descalzos, llevaban cañas de pescar y cestas de comida. Los conocía prácticamente a todos: entre ellos iba Niel Herbert, el sobrino del juez Pommeroy, un apuesto muchacho de doce años por el que sentía predilección; también estaba George Adams, muy educado, hijo de un terrateniente procedente de Lowell, Massachusetts. El resto del grupo lo componían unos cuantos chicos del pueblo: el hijo pelirrojo del carnicero, los gemelos morenos y rollizos del tendero principal, Ed Elliott (cuyo anciano progenitor tenía una zapatería y era el donjuán de los bajos fondos de Sweet Water) y los dos hijos del sastre alemán. Estos últimos, unos muchachos pálidos y llenos de pecas, de ropas harapientas y sucio cabello pajizo, iban a veces a venderle caza menor o pesca del arroyo: surgían en silencio, como dos apariciones, ante la puerta de la cocina, donde preguntaban con sus vocecillas si «a la señora le interesaría esa mañana pescado fresco».

Cuando ya iban ganando la colina, vio que se paraban y discutían algo:

–Pregúntaselo tú, Niel.

–No, George, hazlo mejor tú. va mucho a tu casa, a mí casi no me conoce y no me va a hacer caso.

Se detuvieron delante de los tres escalones que llevaban al porche de entrada. La señora Forrester salió a la puerta y los recibió con un grácil ademán. En una mano llevaba una de las pálidas rosas.

–Buenos días, muchachos. ¿Vais de excursión?

George Adams dio un paso adelante y se quitó con solemnidad el enorme sombrero de paja.

–Buenos días, señora Forrester. ¿Nos permitiría ir al marjal a pescar y bañarnos? Luego querríamos almorzar bajo los árboles.

–Pues claro. Hace un día estupendo. ¿Lleváis mucho tiempo de vacaciones? ¿Echáis de menos la escuela? Seguro que Niel sí. El señor juez siempre me cuenta lo estudioso que es.

Los muchachos rompieron a reír, y Niel parecía desdichado.

–Hale, corred, y que no se os olvide cerrar la cancela del prado. Al señor Forrester no le gusta nada que se le metan las reses en el jardín.

Dieron la vuelta a la casa muy calladitos; en cuanto llegaron a la puerta del prado echaron a correr por los verdes campos, vociferando a la sombra de los altos árboles. La señora Forrester se quedó mirándolos hasta que se los tragó la pendiente de la colina. Entonces se dirigió a su cocinera

Comentarios para Una dama extraviada

[bragan_8 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This short novel was published in 1923, but it begins several decades earlier, in the American West. The lady of the title is Mrs. Forrester, the wife of a man who amassed considerable wealth in the railroad business, but who, in the course of the story, finds himself in what such folks might call "reduced circumstances." It's told from the point of view of a young friend of the family, who idolizes her as having all the virtues considered most fitting to a woman of her social class: beauty and charm and a certain air of purity. But, through his eyes, we also see tiny glimpses of the woman behind that exterior, someone flawed, and much more complicated, and sadder.I'm really impressed by Willa Cather's ability to make a character like Marian Forrester feel so much like a real, complex person in such a surprisingly minimalist way. Everything about her is more suggested than explored, and it doesn't feel like that should work remotely as well as it does.This is also an interesting glimpse into a small piece of American history. A history, it must be said, that invites judgment from 21st-century readers with its causal racism, its ingrained classism, and its musings on the whole Manifest Destiny thing as a lovely, idealistic dream, albeit one now giving way to a sort of degraded banality. Such things can sometimes be uncomfortable to read, but in this case I felt mostly a sort of anthropological fascination with it all.

[bookworm12_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Cather’s writing is beautiful and this short novel gives just enough of the tragic Marian Forrester to pull the reader in. She’s married to an older man who has been badly injured. The story is told from the point of view of Niel, a young man who fell in love with her. She has become little more than a caregiver for her husband and then she takes a lover. Apparently, her character partly inspired Daisy’s in The Great Gatsby. The book includes one of the most disturbing scenes of animal cruelty I’ve ever read, which almost put me off it completely. I’m glad I read it, so I could gain a deeper appreciation for Cather’s skill. It reminded me a bit of Madame Bovary and of The Angle of Repose.

[leslie398 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I found this a melancholy book. Mrs. Forrester, though a lovely lady to Niel and all of Mr. Forrester's friends, is indeed lost. She is impatient with social conventions and she drinks, at times too much, and is probably unfaithful to her husband, none of which matter when things are going well but are enough to tip the scales against her when they aren't. The scene early in the book with Ivy Peters and the woodpecker is shocking. I kept thinking that even in 1923 there were psychopaths! This event, unknown to the Forresters, colors both Niel and the reader's view of later events involving Mrs. Forrester's connections with Ivy Peters.

[rdra1962 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A very short, very well written timeless novel.

[jwhenderson_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This novella is barely more than a character sketch. The brilliance of Cather’s prose is demonstrated in her portrayal of Marian Forrester, the high-spirited wife of one of the great pioneers and railroad builders. There are also historical implications of Cather’s fable. These are enhanced by the enigmatic and ambiguous elements in Mrs. Forrester’s portrait. On the surface, Marian Forrester belongs to Cather’s long line of restless, magnetic, intelligent women, like Alexandra Bergson, who grows wealthy farming the virgin land in O Pioneers! (1913), Thea Kronborg, the Swedish girl who becomes a famous opera singer in The Song of the Lark (1915), and Ãntonia Shimerda, the heroine of My Ãntonia (1918), who survives tragedy and abandonment to become the mother of many children, “a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”One may view A Lost Lady as a brilliant epilogue to Cather’s famous pioneer novels; however, it has a different tone, not heroic and optimistic like the Whitmanesque O Pioneers! but bittersweet and retrospective like Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence. As one who loves Cather's beautiful writing style I found this a touching taste from her pen.

[randymetcalfe · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

The lost lady of Willa Cather’s novella is Marian Forrester, wife to Captain Forrester who of late was instrumental in the building of the railway. She is the very breath of light and spring to many a young boy in Sweet Water. In particular, Niel Herbert falls under Mrs. Forrester’s spell as a boy when she tends him after he has fallen and broken his arm. But her charms captivate one and all, not least the Captain’s many powerful friends. Yet hers is a free spirit and, in some senses, even from the outset she is already a lost lady. However, her losses only become apparent years later after the Captain first loses his fortune and then, following a stroke, much of his mobility. His infirmity traps her in Sweet Water, preventing her from joining with her friends in Colorado for the winters. And that is when Niel begins to really notice her changing.Along with a vividly painted portrait of a woman very much of her own mind, this story treads through both the beautiful meadows and the marshy backwater of the American hinterland. Early in the story we witness perhaps the most awful example of wanton cruelty I have ever encountered in a story. It is so startling that it makes it hard to even focus on what Cather is doing here. But I suppose that, since nothing much comes of that act at the time or later, it must be meant to serve as a caution on how we ought to treat of Marian’s own actions. Fate, it seems, can be as cruel as the cruelest of young boys.Cather’s writing is never less than riveting. She seems to evoke a prairie locale with the mere wave of her hand, but it is surely the work of a great artist. Her central characters are as complex as any imaginable: full of contrary actions, missteps, magnanimity, and baseness. Almost too much for such a slight work. But gently recommended, as ever.

[mamashepp · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Love Cather's writing, her characters, her quiet way.

[lucybrown_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This is, although less known, one of Cather's masterworks. I read too long ago to justice to it in a review. I remember it as a compelling and unflinching survey of a woman determined to live life onher own terms, one who is both admirable and tragic

[paulagraph · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

prose is wonderful. couldn't quite get into the Mme Bovary on the frontier story nor the mourning for the Pioneer era & its titans.

[becky221_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I love this book for its insights into human nature. Niel finds that Marian Forrester is not faithful to the trustworthy and admirable Captain and yet she is ultimately charming and irresistible. She does what she must to survive.

[marthal_5424 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A compelling and intriguing story with well developed characters and setting. Like other Cathers well worth the reading effort.

[lauralkeet · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Captain Daniel Forrester and his younger wife, Marian, live in a prairie town with tight connections to the Burlington railway. Mrs. Forrester maintains a distant relationship with most people, but her charm and good looks still have them eating out of her hand. Early in the story, Mrs. Forrester gives a group of schoolboys permission to play on her property, and she brings them food. One of the boys, Niel, develops a crush on her and Mrs. Forrester's story is then told largely through his eyes.Niel is a studious young man, reading classics and working to overcome his humble origins. Captain Forrester, a self-made man, counsels Niel that he need only work hard to get what he deserves in life:All our great west has been developed from such dreams; the homesteader's and the prospector's and the contractor's. We dreamed the railroads across the mountains, just as I dreamed my place on the Sweet Water. (p. 55)As Niel matures he watches the Forresters, and pines for Mrs. Forrester who of course sees him as nothing more than a nice schoolboy. Niel's illusions are shattered when Mrs. Forrester shows her own human weaknesses. Unfortunately, I failed to develop an emotional connection to these characters. The novel was improved by Cather's beautiful descriptions of the landscape:The sky was burning with the soft p[ink and silver of a cloudless summer dawn. The heavy, bowed grasses splashed him to the knees. All over the marsh, snow-on-the-mountain, globed with dew, made cool sheets of silver, and the swamp milk-week spread its flat, raspberry-coloured clusters. There was an almost religious purity about the fresh morning air, the tender sky, the grass and flowers with the sheen of early dew upon them. There was in all living things something limpid and joyous -- like the wet, morning call of the birds, flying up through the unstained atmosphere. (p. 84)This was a decent novel, just not one of Cather's best.

[ncgraham_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Thirty or forty years ago, in one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad, which are so much greyer today than they were then, there was a house well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere.Mm. I knew from the very first sentence that I was going to enjoy this book. Cather’s writing is a delight throughout. Her prose is simple, direct, elegant, evocative.I went into the book knowing next to nothing about it—something I rarely do—and found that made for an extremely freeing experience. The story takes place near the end of America’s great push west, as the old pioneers are gradually giving way to a generation of young men who take life on the Great Plains for granted. This is a subject about which Cather was very passionate, and on which she touches numerous times over the course of the novella, but her scope here is much narrower than that. Mostly, A Lost Lady is a character study. It is an examination of one Marian Forrester, the young wife of one of those old pioneers, as seen through the eyes of young Niel Herbert.Cather, to say the least, does an eerily good job of writing from a young man’s point of view. Few female authors have captured the male psyche this well. (Daphne du Maurier, in My Cousin Rachel, is the only name that comes to mind at the moment.) I personally saw quite a lot of myself in him.But it is not Niel, finally, that this story is about. When I was halfway through the book, I told my grandmother I was reading it. Her comment was, “Oh, that Mrs. Forester, she’s such a … nice lady, isn’t she?”I was shocked. “Nice” is not exactly the word I would use to describe the old railway man’s wife. Fickle, manipulative, shallow, false? Yes. Strong, independent, charming, loyal? Yes, all those as well. She is a tremendously complex character, the kind one cannot exactly put one’s finger on. And those are, of course, the very best kind.I cannot say I was wowed by A Lost Lady, but then, I don’t think that was Cather’s intention. It is a book of modest pretensions, beautifully executed. Because of the quality of the writing, and the fact that it is a s short and easy read, this gets a solid recommendation from me; Cather, meanwhile, has moved to the top of my list of American authors whose works I wish to explore.

[wendyrey · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

An elegantly written novella set in the mid-west of the USA. A young woman is married to a much older man and her life and her loves and deceits are observed by a boy and later young man who is besotted by her and though he becomes aware of her faults and folies never loses his affection for her.

[klarusu · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This was my first foray into Willa Cather's writing and I found this a thoughtful and engaging novel that works on several levels. It is a character study of a woman at a time of change in the American west; a character study of America at the time of the railroad boom as it evolves alongside changing ideas of morality and social convention; a study of a complex web of relationships: friendship, love, loyalty rooted in respect, gratitude or feudal class-based tradition. I was left under no illusions, Cather was obviously a supporter of the old ways.Mrs Forrester, the 'Lost Lady' of the title is married to an ageing Captain in a small, backwoods town in the transitional America of the railroad era. This work deals with her complex relationship with her husband, her lovers and a youth of the town, Neils, who idolises the image of her and reveres her husband and his old fashioned morals and conventions. The new, crude manners of the upcoming generation contrasts with Neils' old-school outlook. Cather shows him as outdated, left behind by his compatriots. As you follow this trio of characters through to the death of the Captain, we see Neils' polarised idea of right and wrong in the light of the complexities of the emotional and moral ties that bind the other characters. Ultimately, Neils' innocence dies with Captain Forrester as his illusions are shattered by the realisation that all live with some kind or moral compromise and none of his idols fit into his succinct categories of morality. As for the 'Lady' herself, on the one hand, the reader is tempted to dislike her for her perceived disloyalty. However, ultimately it becomes clear that, in her own way, she was as loyal to her husband as others and that loyalty and faithfulness are not necessarily synonymous and in some ways this redeems her.It is an interesting and beautifully crafted novel and the characterisation is very competently realised. Criticism has been levelled at Cather's work, implying that she was over-reliant on her devotion to the old America of a time that was passing and that she refused to accept the newer world; that she was wasting her obvious talent by not turning it loose on the modern world. However, for me, it is exactly this viewpoint that makes the novel so poignant. I would certainly recommend this. It is a very engaging and fast read but definitely a pleasureable one too.

[wilfgehlen · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

A toast--Happy Days! / The wild roses of summer / Their bloom, quick to fade.In A Lost Lady, Willa Cather presents the complementary side of prairie life to the "homesteaders and hand-workers" who populate O Pioneers! and My Antonia. This is the story of "the bankers and gentlemen ranchers who came from the Atlantic seaboard to invest money and to 'develop our great West.'" Especially one such banker, Captain Daniel Forrester, who lived in the prairie town of Sweet Water with his young, beautiful, charming wife, the former Marian Ormsby.Captain Forrester made his fortune building the railroad and many railroad VIPs made a point of stopping at "the Forrester place" on their business trips back and forth on the railway. In those "happy days" Mrs. Marian Forrester presided over this remote outpost of Denver and San Francisco society. It was the image of Mrs. Forrester as the perfect wife and hostess that captivated Niel Herbert, a boy growing up in Sweet Water. But bank failure and crop failure turned Sweet Water into "one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad" and drained the fortune of Captain Forrester. The VIP visits grew fewer and fewer.Neil is another of Cather's emasculated male characters and it is through his eyes that we see the decline of Mrs. Forrester. Unfaithful as wife, a clandestine affair with the notorious Frank Ellenger. Abandoned by Ellenger, a drunken telephone call to him overheard by the town gossip. Putting her business affairs in the hands of the shylock, Ivy Peters. Later allowing those hands familiar access to her person. Niel is first appalled and ultimately contemptuous of his fallen goddess. His judgment: "she was not willing to immolate herself . . . she preferred life on any terms."Of course she preferred life--she was a survivor, as much as Alexandra and Antonia were survivors. At age 19 she survived the murder of her millionaire fiance and the ensuing scandal; the fall off a mountain cliff that killed her guide; the isolated life of a prairie town with no indigenous social peers. She did what she had to do, suffered what she must. Her talent was not tilling the earth, but tilling society. She had a charm that brought admirers from across the country, and when those admirers no longer came to Sweet Water, she knew she had to go to them. She mortgaged herself to Ivy Peters until she had the means to leave. She did leave then, found another millionaire and lived out her life in her own grand style. She remained true to herself, if not always to others. She was a lost lady only to the jejune Niel Herbert.

[cobrien1250 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Recently reread this classic by Cather. She's a wonderful writer, but I didn't like this as much the second time around.

[beckyclayton · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A Lost Lady shares a similar narrative device as Cather's My Antonia -- a young man who has gone East for his education reminisces about a woman he was in love with as a child growing up in the frontier Mid West. The women are different -- Antonia is a farm girl, Mrs. Forrester is a polished lady -- but Cather evokes the same feeling of nostalgia.Cather's direct, spare language is perfect for the setting. She draws a nuanced portrait of a Niel, a sensitive young man, a little out of place among his peers and drawn to the fine manners and beauty of Mrs. Forrester. The reader discovers Mrs. Forrester through the Niel's own realization of her character. This little novella is the perfect thing to take on your next short flight. Cather's calm, straightforward prose is the perfect way to tune out a plane full of screaming toddlers -- "The room was cool and dusky and quiet.... The windows went almost down to the baseboard, like doors, and the closed green shutters let in streaks of sunlight that quivered on the polished floor and the silver things on the dresser. The heavy curtains were looped back with thick cords, like ropes. The marble-topped washstand was as big as a sideboard. The massive walnut furniture was all inlaid with pale-coloured woods."