At the last part of the story, when Newland Archer is in his fifties, he is already reduced to a man who is too old and weak to breathe in the atmosphere where Ellen lives. The thriving trees and the domes of the mansard go far, far beyond his imagination, which used to enable him to reach Madame Olenska once upon a time. Nevertheless, with the remnant of it, he can still picture "the theaters she must have been to, the pictures she must have looked at, the sober and splendid old houses she must have frequented, and the people she must have talked with..."(p.233). He has been left so far behind that he does not see the need to meet Ellen again. In the old days, when Ellen gave him the glimpse of the real life, he was so much restrained by one reason or another...