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;