Bertram Cope’s Year · Chapter
XIII: Cope Dines Again—and Stays After explained
Medora Phillips hosts a formal dinner for high society, inviting Bertram Cope as the featured young man.
What happens
Medora Phillips hosts a formal dinner for high society, inviting Bertram Cope as the featured young man. Overwhelmed by the excess of food, flowers, and wine, Cope faints and is put to bed. The next morning, he recovers and walks to campus with Amy Leffingwell, while Hortense Dunton recounts the evening's events to Joe Foster.
Themes in this chapter
Social Manipulation and Patronage
Mrs. Phillips orchestrates the dinner to display Cope to her high-society circle, but her patronage fails to produce the desired impression.
Performance and Artifice
Cope's careful demeanor at dinner and the planned musical performance highlight the artificiality of social expectations.
Class and Provincialism
The dinner contrasts Churchton's provincial standards with the 'liberal' aspirations of Mrs. Phillips' entertaining.
Characters to notice
- Bertram Cope
The young man faints at Mrs. Phillips' formal dinner due to overindulgence and fatigue, then recovers to walk to campus with Amy.
- Medora Phillips
Hosts the formal dinner, hoping to showcase Cope to her high-society friends, and is concerned when he collapses.
- Amy Leffingwell
Walks with Cope to campus the morning after the dinner, expressing concern and enjoying the brief time together.
- Hortense Dunton
Details the events of the previous evening to Joe Foster, with a satirical tone.
- Joe Foster
Listens to Hortense's account of Cope's fainting, reacting with a dark 'Hum!'
- Carolyn Thorpe
Inquires civilly after Cope's condition at breakfast.
Key passages
“Most of us, at one time or another, have thrust forward our preferences in the same confident way.”
Many people have confidently promoted their favorites just as Mrs. Phillips did with Cope.
Reflects on the universal tendency to showcase one's chosen protégé.
“He took—interestingly—a few sips of burgundy—for he was now in Rome, and no longer a successful Protestant in some lesser town of the empire.”
Cope drank a little wine because he was adapting to the local customs, unlike his more abstemious past.
Uses the 'when in Rome' idiom to justify Cope's departure from his usual habits.
“For him the walk had been a nothing in particular—he would a little have preferred taking it alone. For her it had been—despite the low level of expressiveness reached on either side—a privilege which had been curtailed much too soon.”
Cope found the walk unremarkable and would have preferred solitude, while Amy treasured the time together and wished it had lasted longer.
Highlights the asymmetry in their feelings about the shared walk.