Orakel Classics
A Room with a View
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster, prepared as a public-domain Orakel edition with 20 chapter-aware companion links.
Chapters
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Chapter I: The Bertolini
Chapter I: The Bertolini from A Room with a View. “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,
Open2Chapter II: In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
Chapter II: In Santa Croce with No Baedeker from A Room with a View. 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
Open3Chapter III: Music, Violets, and the Letter “S”
Chapter III: Music, Violets, and the Letter “S” from A Room with a View. It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean
Open4Chapter IV: Fourth Chapter
Chapter IV: Fourth Chapter from A Room with a View. Mr. Beebe was right. Lucy never knew her desires so clearly as after music. She had not really appreciated the clergyman’s wit, nor the suggestive twitterings of Miss Alan. Conversation was tedious; she wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on the wind-swept platform of an electric tram. This she might not attempt. It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte
Open5Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing from A Room with a View. It was a family saying that “you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlett would turn.” She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy’s adventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Dazio coming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent and
Open6Chapter VI: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson,
Chapter VI: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, from A Room with a View. Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive
Open7Chapter VII: They Return
Chapter VII: They Return from A Room with a View. Some complicated game had been playing up and down the hillside all the afternoon. What it was and exactly how the players had sided, Lucy was slow to discover. Mr. Eager had met them with a questioning eye. Charlotte had repulsed him with much small talk. Mr. Emerson, seeking his son, was told whereabouts to find him. Mr. Beebe, who wore the heated aspect of a neutral, was bidden to collect the factions for the
Open8Chapter VIII: Medieval
Chapter VIII: Medieval from A Room with a View. The drawing-room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for the carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun. They were heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light that filtered through them was subdued and varied. A poet—none was present—might have quoted, “Life like a dome of many coloured glass,” or might have compared the curtains to sluice-gates, lowered against the
Open9Chapter IX: Lucy As a Work of Art
Chapter IX: Lucy As a Work of Art from A Room with a View. A few days after the engagement was announced Mrs. Honeychurch made Lucy and her Fiasco come to a little garden-party in the neighbourhood, for naturally she wanted to show people that her daughter was marrying a presentable
Open10Chapter X: Cecil as a Humourist
Chapter X: Cecil as a Humourist from A Room with a View. The society out of which Cecil proposed to rescue Lucy was perhaps no very splendid affair, yet it was more splendid than her antecedents entitled her to. Her father, a prosperous local solicitor, had built Windy Corner, as a speculation at the time the district was opening up, and, falling in love with his own creation, had ended by living there himself. Soon after his marriage the social atmosphere began to alter.
Open11Chapter XI: In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat
Chapter XI: In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat from A Room with a View. The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons to Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through the negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement, met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were duly offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held
Open12Chapter XII: Twelfth Chapter
Chapter XII: Twelfth Chapter from A Room with a View. It was a Saturday afternoon, gay and brilliant after abundant rains, and the spirit of youth dwelt in it, though the season was now autumn. All that was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer Street they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon dispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or of the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life’s amenities, leant over his
Open13Chapter XIII: How Miss Bartlett’s Boiler Was So Tiresome
Chapter XIII: How Miss Bartlett’s Boiler Was So Tiresome from A Room with a View. How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had always rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George would meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of coats and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She had imagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or indifferent or
Open14Chapter XIV: How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely
Chapter XIV: How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely from A Room with a View. Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior spare room—something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And, equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday
Open15Chapter XV: The Disaster Within
Chapter XV: The Disaster Within from A Room with a View. The Sunday after Miss Bartlett’s arrival was a glorious day, like most of the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up the green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of mist, the beech-trees with russet, the oak-trees with gold. Up on the heights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves unchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in
Open16Chapter XVI: Lying to George
Chapter XVI: Lying to George from A Room with a View. But Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now better able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the world disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by deep sobs. She said to Cecil, “I am not coming in to tea—tell mother—I must write some letters,” and went up to her room. Then she prepared for action. Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our
Open17Chapter XVII: Lying to Cecil
Chapter XVII: Lying to Cecil from A Room with a View. He was bewildered. He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but stood, with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what had led her to such a
Open18Chapter XVIII: Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The Servants
Chapter XVIII: Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The Servants from A Room with a View. Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred feet down the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great buttresses that supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow ravine, filled with ferns and pine-trees, and down the ravine on the left ran the highway into the
Open19Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson
Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson from A Room with a View. The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near Bloomsbury—a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books, mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for
Open20Chapter XX: The End of the Middle Ages
Chapter XX: The End of the Middle Ages from A Room with a View. The Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They alone of this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of the Saronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either shrine of intellectual song—that upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue seas; that under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze charioteer drives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious,
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