The Pagans

A fine drizzle hides the Charles River as young artist Arthur Fenton announces he is to marry—then calls marriage “a crime.”

In a tastefully arranged Boston sitting room, Fenton and sculptor Helen Greyson spar over art, love, and the conventions neither can quite escape. He is preparing to wed Edith Caldwell, though he mocks marriage as a social necessity and admits that, given the right inducement, he might sell himself to the “Philistines.” Helen’s wit cuts through his pose; her faith in love’s power to make even a desert island paradise meets his conviction that passion soon grows tedious. Beneath their teasing lies a question neither can safely treat as abstract: what happens when desire collides with duty? Arthur insists he knows where he stands—but does he?

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