Roman Fever By Edith Wharton

Secrets and deceit leave their marks on even the closest, or most open of friendships. Often they may not know everything about one another, the friendship may even disguise feelings of resentment and jealously, an example of this is in the short story "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton. On a vacation in Rome with their daughters, two recently widowed lifelong friends, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, learn they do not know each other as well as they originally thought. From their original thoughts of one another, the unhappiness of their current lives, and from the real origins of a love letter written many years ago and its consequences, the women realize that their friendship is perhaps not at all a friendship, but a rivalry for acceptance and love. However, despite their differences in appearances, the way they act, and the lives they lead, both women are very similar.
As the ladies spend their afternoon on the terrace of a restaurant, a tension is quickly created with their dialogue. They both underhandedly badmouth each other with their catty banter and through the narration it is implied that neither thinks very highly of the other. Alida Slade describes Grace Ansley as, "Twenty-five years ago had been exquisitely lovely-no you wouldn't believe it would you!" From the same perspective Mrs. Ansley thinks that Alida Slade "Was disappointed, on the whole she had had a sad life. Full of failures and mistakes." From Grace's perspective Alida had led a very shallow and vain life, making her less of a person than her; they both share a mutual pity for each other and