-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
eval_book2.txt
9101 lines (6758 loc) · 397 KB
/
eval_book2.txt
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Room With A View, by E. M. Forster
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
using this eBook.
Title: A Room With A View
Author: E. M. Forster
Release Date: May, 2001 [eBook #2641]
[Most recently updated: October 8, 2022]
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROOM WITH A VIEW ***
[Illustration]
A Room With A View
By E. M. Forster
CONTENTS
Part One.
Chapter I. The Bertolini
Chapter II. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
Chapter III. Music, Violets, and the Letter “S”
Chapter IV. Fourth Chapter
Chapter V. Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
Chapter VI. The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them
Chapter VII. They Return
Part Two.
Chapter VIII. Medieval
Chapter IX. Lucy As a Work of Art
Chapter X. Cecil as a Humourist
Chapter XI. In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat
Chapter XII. Twelfth Chapter
Chapter XIII. How Miss Bartlett’s Boiler Was So Tiresome
Chapter XIV. How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely
Chapter XV. The Disaster Within
Chapter XVI. Lying to George
Chapter XVII. Lying to Cecil
Chapter XVIII. Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The Servants
Chapter XIX. Lying to Mr. Emerson
Chapter XX. The End of the Middle Ages
PART ONE
Chapter I
The Bertolini
“The Signora had no business to do it,” said Miss Bartlett, “no
business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close
together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a
courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!”
“And a Cockney, besides!” said Lucy, who had been further saddened by
the Signora’s unexpected accent. “It might be London.” She looked at
the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the
row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between
the English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late
Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at
the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.),
that was the only other decoration of the wall. “Charlotte, don’t you
feel, too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all
kinds of other things are just outside. I suppose it is one’s being so
tired.”
“This meat has surely been used for soup,” said Miss Bartlett, laying
down her fork.
“I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her
letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to
do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!”
“Any nook does for me,” Miss Bartlett continued; “but it does seem hard
that you shouldn’t have a view.”
Lucy felt that she had been selfish. “Charlotte, you mustn’t spoil me:
of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first
vacant room in the front—” “You must have it,” said Miss Bartlett, part
of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy’s mother—a piece of
generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.
“No, no. You must have it.”
“I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy.”
“She would never forgive _me_.”
The ladies’ voices grew animated, and—if the sad truth be owned—a
little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness
they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one
of them—one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad—leant
forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He
said:
“I have a view, I have a view.”
Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them
over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that
they would “do” till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was
ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy
build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something
childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility.
What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her
glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was
probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the
swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then
said: “A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!”
“This is my son,” said the old man; “his name’s George. He has a view
too.”
“Ah,” said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.
“What I mean,” he continued, “is that you can have our rooms, and we’ll
have yours. We’ll change.”
The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with
the new-comers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little as
possible, and said “Thank you very much indeed; that is out of the
question.”
“Why?” said the old man, with both fists on the table.
“Because it is quite out of the question, thank you.”
“You see, we don’t like to take—” began Lucy. Her cousin again
repressed her.
“But why?” he persisted. “Women like looking at a view; men don’t.” And
he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,
saying, “George, persuade them!”
“It’s so obvious they should have the rooms,” said the son. “There’s
nothing else to say.”
He did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed
and sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in
for what is known as “quite a scene,” and she had an odd feeling that
whenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened
till it dealt, not with rooms and views, but with—well, with something
quite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the
old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not
change? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half
an hour.
Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was
powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any
one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as
much as to say, “Are you all like this?” And two little old ladies, who
were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs
of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating “We are not; we are
genteel.”
“Eat your dinner, dear,” she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with
the meat that she had once censured.
Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite.
“Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. To-morrow we will
make a change.”
Hardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The
curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout
but attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table,
cheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired
decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: “Oh, oh! Why, it’s Mr.
Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now,
however bad the rooms are. Oh!”
Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint:
“How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss
Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you
helped the Vicar of St. Peter’s that very cold Easter.”
The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember
the ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward
pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by
Lucy.
“I _am_ so glad to see you,” said the girl, who was in a state of
spiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if her
cousin had permitted it. “Just fancy how small the world is. Summer
Street, too, makes it so specially funny.”
“Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street,” said Miss
Bartlett, filling up the gap, “and she happened to tell me in the
course of conversation that you have just accepted the living—”
“Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn’t know that I knew you
at Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: ‘Mr. Beebe
is—’”
“Quite right,” said the clergyman. “I move into the Rectory at Summer
Street next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming
neighbourhood.”
“Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner.” Mr. Beebe
bowed.
“There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it’s not
often we get him to ch—— The church is rather far off, I mean.”
“Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner.”
“I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it.”
He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than
to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the
girl whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length
that she had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a
newcomer, and he was first in the field. “Don’t neglect the country
round,” his advice concluded. “The first fine afternoon drive up to
Fiesole, and round by Settignano, or something of that sort.”
“No!” cried a voice from the top of the table. “Mr. Beebe, you are
wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato.”
“That lady looks so clever,” whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. “We
are in luck.”
And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People
told them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams,
how to get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter,
how much the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had
decided, almost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way
they looked, kind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose
the voice of the clever lady, crying: “Prato! They must go to Prato.
That place is too sweetly squalid for words. I love it; I revel in
shaking off the trammels of respectability, as you know.”
The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then
returned moodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do.
Lucy, in the midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave
her no extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when
she rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous
little bow.
The father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow,
but by raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across
something.
She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the
curtains—curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with
more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing
good-evening to her guests, and supported by ’Enery, her little boy,
and Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this
attempt of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South.
And even more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival
the solid comfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really
Italy?
Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which
had the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr.
Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and
forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some
invisible obstacle. “We are most grateful to you,” she was saying. “The
first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a
peculiarly _mauvais quart d’heure_.”
He expressed his regret.
“Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us
at dinner?”
“Emerson.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“We are friendly—as one is in pensions.”
“Then I will say no more.”
He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.
“I am, as it were,” she concluded, “the chaperon of my young cousin,
Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation
to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate.
I hope I acted for the best.”
“You acted very naturally,” said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after a
few moments added: “All the same, I don’t think much harm would have
come of accepting.”
“No _harm_, of course. But we could not be under an obligation.”
“He is rather a peculiar man.” Again he hesitated, and then said
gently: “I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor
expect you to show gratitude. He has the merit—if it is one—of saying
exactly what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks
you would value them. He no more thought of putting you under an
obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficult—at
least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.”
Lucy was pleased, and said: “I was hoping that he was nice; I do so
always hope that people will be nice.”
“I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every
point of any importance, and so, I expect—I may say I hope—you will
differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When
he first came here he not unnaturally put people’s backs up. He has no
tact and no manners—I don’t mean by that that he has bad manners—and he
will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about him
to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of
it.”
“Am I to conclude,” said Miss Bartlett, “that he is a Socialist?”
Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching
of the lips.
“And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?”
“I hardly know George, for he hasn’t learnt to talk yet. He seems a
nice creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his
father’s mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a
Socialist.”
“Oh, you relieve me,” said Miss Bartlett. “So you think I ought to have
accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and
suspicious?”
“Not at all,” he answered; “I never suggested that.”
“But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent
rudeness?”
He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary,
and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room.
“Was I a bore?” said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. “Why
didn’t you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I’m sure. I do hope I
haven’t monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as
well as all dinner-time.”
“He is nice,” exclaimed Lucy. “Just what I remember. He seems to see
good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman.”
“My dear Lucia—”
“Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally
laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man.”
“Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will
approve of Mr. Beebe.”
“I’m sure she will; and so will Freddy.”
“I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable
world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind
the times.”
“Yes,” said Lucy despondently.
There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval
was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy
Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not
determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss
Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added “I am
afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion.”
And the girl again thought: “I must have been selfish or unkind; I must
be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor.”
Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been
smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed
to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to
chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the
gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister’s
health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of
thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her
subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention
than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was
proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real
catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when
she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea,
though one better than something else.
“But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so
English.”
“Yet our rooms smell,” said poor Lucy. “We dread going to bed.”
“Ah, then you look into the court.” She sighed. “If only Mr. Emerson
was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner.”
“I think he was meaning to be kind.”
“Undoubtedly he was,” said Miss Bartlett.
“Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of
course, I was holding back on my cousin’s account.”
“Of course,” said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could
not be too careful with a young girl.
Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No
one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not
noticed it.
“About old Mr. Emerson—I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have
you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?”
“Beautiful?” said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. “Are not beauty
and delicacy the same?”
“So one would have thought,” said the other helplessly. “But things are
so difficult, I sometimes think.”
She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking
extremely pleasant.
“Miss Bartlett,” he cried, “it’s all right about the rooms. I’m so
glad. Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing
what I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me
come and ask you. He would be so pleased.”
“Oh, Charlotte,” cried Lucy to her cousin, “we must have the rooms now.
The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be.”
Miss Bartlett was silent.
“I fear,” said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, “that I have been officious. I
must apologize for my interference.”
Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett
reply: “My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with
yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at
Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to
turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,
Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and
then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?”
She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the
drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The
clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with
her message.
“Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the
acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events.”
Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:
“Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead.”
The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the
floor, so low were their chairs.
“My father,” he said, “is in his bath, so you cannot thank him
personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to
him as soon as he comes out.”
Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came
forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to
the delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.
“Poor young man!” said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.
“How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do
to keep polite.”
“In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready,” said Mr. Beebe. Then
looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own
rooms, to write up his philosophic diary.
“Oh, dear!” breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the
winds of heaven had entered the apartment. “Gentlemen sometimes do not
realize—” Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand
and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly
realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was
reduced to literature. Taking up Baedeker’s Handbook to Northern Italy,
she committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History.
For she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the
half-hour crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a
sigh, and said:
“I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will
superintend the move.”
“How you do do everything,” said Lucy.
“Naturally, dear. It is my affair.”
“But I would like to help you.”
“No, dear.”
Charlotte’s energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her
life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So
Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet—there was a rebellious spirit in
her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less
delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room
without any feeling of joy.
“I want to explain,” said Miss Bartlett, “why it is that I have taken
the largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you;
but I happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure
your mother would not like it.”
Lucy was bewildered.
“If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under
an obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in
my small way, and I know where things lead to. However, Mr. Beebe is a
guarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this.”
“Mother wouldn’t mind I’m sure,” said Lucy, but again had the sense of
larger and unsuspected issues.
Miss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as
she wished her good-night. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and
when she reached her own room she opened the window and breathed the
clean night air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to
see the lights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato,
and the foot-hills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon.
Miss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the window-shutters and locked the
door, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards
led, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was
then that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on
which was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more.
“What does it mean?” she thought, and she examined it carefully by the
light of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing,
obnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to
destroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so,
since it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it
carefully, and put it between two pieces of blotting-paper to keep it
clean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed
heavily according to her habit, and went to bed.
Chapter II
In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright
bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are
not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini
sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too,
to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar
fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees
and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling
against the embankment of the road.
Over the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the sandy
foreshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently employed for
some mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the
window. No one was inside it, except one tourist; but its platforms
were overflowing with Italians, who preferred to stand. Children tried
to hang on behind, and the conductor, with no malice, spat in their
faces to make them let go. Then soldiers appeared—good-looking,
undersized men—wearing each a knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a
great-coat which had been cut for some larger soldier. Beside them
walked officers, looking foolish and fierce, and before them went
little boys, turning somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar
became entangled in their ranks, and moved on painfully, like a
caterpillar in a swarm of ants. One of the little boys fell down, and
some white bullocks came out of an archway. Indeed, if it had not been
for the good advice of an old man who was selling button-hooks, the
road might never have got clear.
Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away, and
the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of
Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing
but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it. So it was as
well that Miss Bartlett should tap and come in, and having commented on
Lucy’s leaving the door unlocked, and on her leaning out of the window
before she was fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself, or the
best of the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her cousin
had done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady among the
crumbs.
A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett was,
after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the
morning settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy
would rather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but,
of course, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of
course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy
would stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!
At this point the clever lady broke in.
“If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you
can neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch will be
perfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of mine, Contessa
Baroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot send a maid to
school with them, she lets them go in sailor-hats instead. Every one
takes them for English, you see, especially if their hair is strained
tightly behind.”
Miss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa Baroncelli’s
daughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself, her head not being
so very bad. The clever lady then said that she was going to spend a
long morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy would come too, she would be
delighted.
“I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and if you
bring me luck, we shall have an adventure.”
Lucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the Baedeker, to
see where Santa Croce was.
“Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from
Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true
Italy—he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found
by patient observation.”
This sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her breakfast, and
started with her new friend in high spirits. Italy was coming at last.
The Cockney Signora and her works had vanished like a bad dream.
Miss Lavish—for that was the clever lady’s name—turned to the right
along the sunny Lung’ Arno. How delightfully warm! But a wind down the
side streets cut like a knife, didn’t it? Ponte alle
Grazie—particularly interesting, mentioned by Dante. San
Miniato—beautiful as well as interesting; the crucifix that kissed a
murderer—Miss Honeychurch would remember the story. The men on the
river were fishing. (Untrue; but then, so is most information.) Then
Miss Lavish darted under the archway of the white bullocks, and she
stopped, and she cried:
“A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has
its own smell.”
“Is it a very nice smell?” said Lucy, who had inherited from her mother
a distaste to dirt.
“One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness,” was the retort; “one comes
for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!” bowing right and left. “Look at
that adorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple
soul!”
So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence,
short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten’s
grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so
cheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears,
only increased the sense of festivity.
“Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy: you will never
repent of a little civility to your inferiors. _That_ is the true
democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now you’re
shocked.”
“Indeed, I’m not!” exclaimed Lucy. “We are Radicals, too, out and out.
My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful
about Ireland.”
“I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy.”
“Oh, please—! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote Radical
again now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the glass over our
front door was broken last election, and Freddy is sure it was the
Tories; but mother says nonsense, a tramp.”
“Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose?”
“No—in the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking over
the Weald.”
Miss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot.
“What a delightful part; I know it so well. It is full of the very
nicest people. Do you know Sir Harry Otway—a Radical if ever there
was?”
“Very well indeed.”
“And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist?”
“Why, she rents a field of us! How funny!”
Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured: “Oh, you
have property in Surrey?”
“Hardly any,” said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. “Only thirty
acres—just the garden, all downhill, and some fields.”
Miss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of her
aunt’s Suffolk estate. Italy receded. They tried to remember the last
name of Lady Louisa someone, who had taken a house near Summer Street
the other year, but she had not liked it, which was odd of her. And
just as Miss Lavish had got the name, she broke off and exclaimed:
“Bless us! Bless us and save us! We’ve lost the way.”
Certainly they had seemed a long time in reaching Santa Croce, the
tower of which had been plainly visible from the landing window. But
Miss Lavish had said so much about knowing her Florence by heart, that
Lucy had followed her with no misgivings.
“Lost! lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we have
taken a wrong turning. How those horrid Conservatives would jeer at us!
What are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown town. Now, this is
what _I_ call an adventure.”
Lucy, who wanted to see Santa Croce, suggested, as a possible solution,
that they should ask the way there.
“Oh, but that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not, _not_
to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan’t let you carry it. We
will simply drift.”
Accordingly they drifted through a series of those grey-brown streets,
neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the
city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady Louisa,
and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy
appeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the
living terra-cotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can
ever stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from
the garments of charity, and their strong white arms extended against
circlets of heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more
beautiful; but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her
forward, declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a
mile.
The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or
rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste
out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly of
the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the
great unknown. But it gave them strength to drift into another Piazza,
large and dusty, on the farther side of which rose a black-and-white
façade of surpassing ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It
was Santa Croce. The adventure was over.
“Stop a minute; let those two people go on, or I shall have to speak to
them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they are going into
the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad!”
“We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us their
rooms. They were so very kind.”
“Look at their figures!” laughed Miss Lavish. “They walk through my
Italy like a pair of cows. It’s very naughty of me, but I would like to
set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who
couldn’t pass it.”
“What would you ask us?”
Miss Lavish laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy’s arm, as if to suggest
that she, at all events, would get full marks. In this exalted mood
they reached the steps of the great church, and were about to enter it
when Miss Lavish stopped, squeaked, flung up her arms, and cried:
“There goes my local-colour box! I must have a word with him!”
And in a moment she was away over the Piazza, her military cloak
flapping in the wind; nor did she slacken speed till she caught up an
old man with white whiskers, and nipped him playfully upon the arm.
Lucy waited for nearly ten minutes. Then she began to get tired. The
beggars worried her, the dust blew in her eyes, and she remembered that
a young girl ought not to loiter in public places. She descended slowly
into the Piazza with the intention of rejoining Miss Lavish, who was
really almost too original. But at that moment Miss Lavish and her
local-colour box moved also, and disappeared down a side street, both
gesticulating largely. Tears of indignation came to Lucy’s eyes partly
because Miss Lavish had jilted her, partly because she had taken her
Baedeker. How could she find her way home? How could she find her way
about in Santa Croce? Her first morning was ruined, and she might never
be in Florence again. A few minutes ago she had been all high spirits,
talking as a woman of culture, and half persuading herself that she was
full of originality. Now she entered the church depressed and
humiliated, not even able to remember whether it was built by the
Franciscans or the Dominicans. Of course, it must be a wonderful
building. But how like a barn! And how very cold! Of course, it
contained frescoes by Giotto, in the presence of whose tactile values
she was capable of feeling what was proper. But who was to tell her
which they were? She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be
enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was
no one even to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved
the nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful, the one
that had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin.
Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of
acquiring information, she began to be happy. She puzzled out the
Italian notices—the notices that forbade people to introduce dogs into
the church—the notice that prayed people, in the interest of health and
out of respect to the sacred edifice in which they found themselves,
not to spit. She watched the tourists; their noses were as red as their
Baedekers, so cold was Santa Croce. She beheld the horrible fate that
overtook three Papists—two he-babies and a she-baby—who began their
career by sousing each other with the Holy Water, and then proceeded to
the Machiavelli memorial, dripping but hallowed. Advancing towards it
very slowly and from immense distances, they touched the stone with
their fingers, with their handkerchiefs, with their heads, and then
retreated. What could this mean? They did it again and again. Then Lucy
realized that they had mistaken Machiavelli for some saint, hoping to
acquire virtue. Punishment followed quickly. The smallest he-baby
stumbled over one of the sepulchral slabs so much admired by Mr.
Ruskin, and entangled his feet in the features of a recumbent bishop.
Protestant as she was, Lucy darted forward. She was too late. He fell
heavily upon the prelate’s upturned toes.
“Hateful bishop!” exclaimed the voice of old Mr. Emerson, who had
darted forward also. “Hard in life, hard in death. Go out into the
sunshine, little boy, and kiss your hand to the sun, for that is where
you ought to be. Intolerable bishop!”
The child screamed frantically at these words, and at these dreadful
people who picked him up, dusted him, rubbed his bruises, and told him
not to be superstitious.
“Look at him!” said Mr. Emerson to Lucy. “Here’s a mess: a baby hurt,
cold, and frightened! But what else can you expect from a church?”
The child’s legs had become as melting wax. Each time that old Mr.
Emerson and Lucy set it erect it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately an
Italian lady, who ought to have been saying her prayers, came to the
rescue. By some mysterious virtue, which mothers alone possess, she
stiffened the little boy’s back-bone and imparted strength to his
knees. He stood. Still gibbering with agitation, he walked away.
“You are a clever woman,” said Mr. Emerson. “You have done more than
all the relics in the world. I am not of your creed, but I do believe
in those who make their fellow-creatures happy. There is no scheme of
the universe—”
He paused for a phrase.
“Niente,” said the Italian lady, and returned to her prayers.
“I’m not sure she understands English,” suggested Lucy.
In her chastened mood she no longer despised the Emersons. She was
determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate, and,
if possible, to erase Miss Bartlett’s civility by some gracious
reference to the pleasant rooms.
“That woman understands everything,” was Mr. Emerson’s reply. “But what
are you doing here? Are you doing the church? Are you through with the
church?”
“No,” cried Lucy, remembering her grievance. “I came here with Miss
Lavish, who was to explain everything; and just by the door—it is too
bad!—she simply ran away, and after waiting quite a time, I had to come
in by myself.”
“Why shouldn’t you?” said Mr. Emerson.
“Yes, why shouldn’t you come by yourself?” said the son, addressing the
young lady for the first time.
“But Miss Lavish has even taken away Baedeker.”
“Baedeker?” said Mr. Emerson. “I’m glad it’s _that_ you minded. It’s
worth minding, the loss of a Baedeker. _That’s_ worth minding.”
Lucy was puzzled. She was again conscious of some new idea, and was not
sure whither it would lead her.
“If you’ve no Baedeker,” said the son, “you’d better join us.” Was this
where the idea would lead? She took refuge in her dignity.
“Thank you very much, but I could not think of that. I hope you do not
suppose that I came to join on to you. I really came to help with the
child, and to thank you for so kindly giving us your rooms last night.
I hope that you have not been put to any great inconvenience.”
“My dear,” said the old man gently, “I think that you are repeating
what you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy;
but you are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead
what part of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a
real pleasure.”
Now, this was abominably impertinent, and she ought to have been
furious. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one’s temper as it is
difficult at other times to keep it. Lucy could not get cross. Mr.
Emerson was an old man, and surely a girl might humour him. On the
other hand, his son was a young man, and she felt that a girl ought to
be offended with him, or at all events be offended before him. It was
at him that she gazed before replying.
“I am not touchy, I hope. It is the Giottos that I want to see, if you
will kindly tell me which they are.”
The son nodded. With a look of sombre satisfaction, he led the way to
the Peruzzi Chapel. There was a hint of the teacher about him. She felt
like a child in school who had answered a question rightly.
The chapel was already filled with an earnest congregation, and out of
them rose the voice of a lecturer, directing them how to worship
Giotto, not by tactful valuations, but by the standards of the spirit.
“Remember,” he was saying, “the facts about this church of Santa Croce;
how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism, before
any taint of the Renaissance had appeared. Observe how Giotto in these
frescoes—now, unhappily, ruined by restoration—is untroubled by the
snares of anatomy and perspective. Could anything be more majestic,
more pathetic, beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge
and technical cleverness against a man who truly feels!”
“No!” exclaimed Mr. Emerson, in much too loud a voice for church.
“Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply means
the workmen weren’t paid properly. And as for the frescoes, I see no
truth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must weigh as much as I
do, and he is shooting into the sky like an air balloon.”
He was referring to the fresco of the “Ascension of St. John.” Inside,
the lecturer’s voice faltered, as well it might. The audience shifted
uneasily, and so did Lucy. She was sure that she ought not to be with
these men; but they had cast a spell over her. They were so serious and
so strange that she could not remember how to behave.
“Now, did this happen, or didn’t it? Yes or no?”
George replied:
“It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to
heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs; and if I got there I should
like my friends to lean out of it, just as they do here.”
“You will never go up,” said his father. “You and I, dear boy, will lie
at peace in the earth that bore us, and our names will disappear as
surely as our work survives.”
“Some of the people can only see the empty grave, not the saint,
whoever he is, going up. It did happen like that, if it happened at
all.”
“Pardon me,” said a frigid voice. “The chapel is somewhat small for two
parties. We will incommode you no longer.”
The lecturer was a clergyman, and his audience must be also his flock,
for they held prayer-books as well as guide-books in their hands. They
filed out of the chapel in silence. Amongst them were the two little
old ladies of the Pension Bertolini—Miss Teresa and Miss Catherine
Alan.
“Stop!” cried Mr. Emerson. “There’s plenty of room for us all. Stop!”
The procession disappeared without a word.
Soon the lecturer could be heard in the next chapel, describing the
life of St. Francis.
“George, I do believe that clergyman is the Brixton curate.”
George went into the next chapel and returned, saying “Perhaps he is. I
don’t remember.”
“Then I had better speak to him and remind him who I am. It’s that Mr.
Eager. Why did he go? Did we talk too loud? How vexatious. I shall go
and say we are sorry. Hadn’t I better? Then perhaps he will come back.”
“He will not come back,” said George.
But Mr. Emerson, contrite and unhappy, hurried away to apologize to the
Rev. Cuthbert Eager. Lucy, apparently absorbed in a lunette, could hear
the lecture again interrupted, the anxious, aggressive voice of the old
man, the curt, injured replies of his opponent. The son, who took every
little contretemps as if it were a tragedy, was listening also.
“My father has that effect on nearly everyone,” he informed her. “He
will try to be kind.”
“I hope we all try,” said she, smiling nervously.
“Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to people
because he loves them; and they find him out, and are offended, or
frightened.”
“How silly of them!” said Lucy, though in her heart she sympathized; “I
think that a kind action done tactfully—”
“Tact!”
He threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the wrong
answer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down the chapel.
For a young man his face was rugged, and—until the shadows fell upon