("Roman Fever") is as deceptive as one of its characters. What appears to be a story about long friendship turns out to be about long enmity; resignation turns out to be resentment; one character's apparent dominance is completely overturned.
....Grace does not take the bait: she will not meet Mrs Slade's eye, but looks "straight out at the great accumulated wreckage of passion and splendor at her feet." In that one phrase, Wharton brings in a mighty sense of all the conquests, triumphs and betrayals that make a great civilisation, and of their passing: the two women's lives, set in this context, seem tiny and ephemeral; but the "wreckage of passion" may be just as great. This is the hinge on which the story turns....
- Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton
descensus Averno facilis est