A Room With a View by E. M. Forster (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

across the spot where the man had been. How very odd! Across something. Even as she caught sight of him he grew dim; the palace itself grew dim, swayed above her, fell on to her softly, slowly, noiselessly, and the sky fell with it.

She thought: “Oh, what have I done?”

“Oh, what have I done?” she murmured, and opened her eyes.

George Emerson still looked at her, but not across anything. She had complained of dullness, and lo! one man was stabbed, and another held her in his arms.

They were sitting on some steps in the Uffizi Arcade. He must have carried her. He rose when she spoke, and began to dust his knees. She repeated:

“Oh, what have I done?”

“You fainted.”

“I⁠—I am very sorry.”

“How are you now?”

“Perfectly well⁠—absolutely well.” And she began to nod and smile.

“Then let us come home. There’s no point in our stopping.”

He held out his hand to pull her up. She pretended not to see it. The cries from the fountain⁠—they had never ceased⁠—rang emptily. The whole world seemed pale and void of its original meaning.

“How very kind you have been! I might have hurt myself falling. But now I am well. I can go alone, thank you.”

His hand was still extended.

“Oh, my photographs!” she exclaimed suddenly.

“What photographs?”

“I bought some photographs at Alinari’s. I must have dropped them out there in the square.” She looked at him cautiously. “Would you add to your kindness by fetching them?”

He added to his kindness. As soon as he had turned his back, Lucy arose with the running of a maniac and stole down the arcade towards the Arno.

“Miss Honeychurch!”

She stopped with her hand on her heart.

“You sit still; you aren’t fit to go home alone.”

“Yes, I am, thank you so very much.”

“No, you aren’t. You’d go openly if you were.”

“But I had rather⁠—”

“Then I don’t fetch your photographs.”

“I had rather be alone.”

He said imperiously: “The man is dead⁠—the man is probably dead; sit down till you are rested.” She was bewildered, and obeyed him. “And don’t move till I come back.”

In the distance she saw creatures with black hoods, such as appear in dreams. The palace tower had lost the reflection of the declining day, and joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he returned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her, “Oh, what have I done?”⁠—the thought that she, as well as the dying man, had crossed some spiritual boundary.

He returned, and she talked of the murder. Oddly enough, it was an easy topic. She spoke of the Italian character; she became almost garrulous over the incident that had made her faint five minutes before. Being strong physically, she soon overcame the horror of blood. She rose without his assistance, and though wings seemed to flutter inside her, she walked firmly enough towards the Arno. There a cabman signalled to them; they refused him.

“And the murderer tried to kiss him, you say⁠—how very odd Italians are!⁠—and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that Italians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my cousin and I were at the Pitti yesterday⁠—What was that?”

He had thrown something into the stream.

“What did you throw in?”

“Things I didn’t want,” he said crossly.

“Mr. Emerson!”

“Well?”

“Where are the photographs?”

He was silent.

“I believe it was my photographs that you threw away.”

“I didn’t know what to do with them,” he cried, and his voice was that of an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time. “They were covered with blood. There! I’m glad I’ve told you; and all the time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with them.” He pointed downstream. “They’ve gone.” The river swirled under the bridge, “I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed better that they should go out to the sea⁠—I don’t know; I may just mean that they frightened me.” Then the boy verged into a man. “For something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting muddled. It isn’t exactly that a man has died.”

Something warned Lucy that she must stop him.

“It has happened,” he repeated, “and I mean to find out what it is.”

“Mr. Emerson⁠—”

He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some abstract quest.

“I want to ask you something before we go in.”

They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying:

“I have behaved ridiculously.”

He was following his own thoughts.

“I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what came over me.”

“I nearly fainted myself,” he said; but she felt that her attitude repelled him.

“Well, I owe you a thousand apologies.”

“Oh, all right.”

“And⁠—this is the real point⁠—you know how silly people are gossiping⁠—ladies especially, I am afraid⁠—you understand what I mean?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“I mean, would you not mention it to anyone, my foolish behaviour?”

“Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right⁠—all right.”

“Thank you so much. And would you⁠—”

She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say to him, “And would you⁠—” and hope that he would complete the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the