20 Room With A View - Guided Literature

In E.M. Forster's classic novel A Room with a View, the 'view' symbolises personal freedom and authentic living, while the 'room' represents the rigid social expectations of Edwardian society. This chapter marks the start of Part Two. The chapter features Lucy accepting Cecil's marriage proposal, Cecil's arrival at Windy Corner, and his snobbish views on society.
In this episode, all's well that ends well.
Music by Jean-Miles Carter
All rights reserved. This audio file contains a hidden watermark. Individual use only. Copyright Neworld Books.

Transcript

Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast. That offers you a calm and relaxing transition into sleep. Into a great night's sleep. It is time to relax and fully let go. There is nothing you need to be doing now. And know where you need to go. Close your eyes. And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you. And let all the worries of the day go. Drift away. This is your time. And your space. Take a deep breath in through your nose. And let it out with a long sigh. That's it! There is nothing you need to be doing now. And know where you need to go. Happy listening. Chapter 19 Continued Mr Emerson looked at Lucy. Do you remember in that church when you pretended to be annoyed with me and weren't? Do you remember before when you refused a room with a view? Those were models, Lucy. Little but ominous. I'm fearing you're in one now. Lucy was silent. Don't trust me, Miss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, It is difficult. Life, Wrote a friend of mine, Is a public performance on the violin in which you must learn the instrument as you go along. I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along, Especially the function of love. Then he burst out excitedly. That's it. That's what I mean. You love George. And after this long preamble, The three words burst against Lucy like waves from the open sea. But you do, He went on, Not waiting for contradiction. You love the boy body and soul, Plainly, Directly, As he loves you. And no other word expresses it. You won't marry the other man for his sake. How dare you? " gasped Lucy with roaring of water in her ears. How like a man to suppose that a woman is always thinking about a man. But you are. Lucy summoned physical disgust. No, You're shocked, But I mean to shock you, " said Mr Emerson. It's only hope at times. I can only reach you in this way. You must marry or your life will be wasted. You've gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness and the comradeship and the poetry and the things that really matter and for which you must marry. I know that with George you will find them and kill them. That you love him. So be his wife. He's already part of you. Though you fly to Greece and never see him again or forget his very name, George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish it was. You can transmute love. Ignore it. Muddle it. But you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience the poets are right. Love is eternal. Lucy began to cry with anger, And though her anger passed away soon, Her tears remained. I only wish poets would say this too. Love is of the body. Not THE body, But OF the body. Ah, The misery that will be saved if we confess that. Ah, For a little directness to liberate the soul. Your soul, Dear Lucy. I hate the word now because of all the cart with which superstition has wrapped it round. But we all have souls. I cannot say how they came, Or whither they go, But we have them, And I see you ruining yours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in. It is hell. Then Mr. Emerson checked himself. What nonsense I've talked, How abstract and remote. And I've made you cry. Dear girl, Forgive my prosiness. Marry, My boy, When I think what life is and how seldom love is answered by love. Marry him. It's one of the moments for which the world was made. Lucy could not understand him. The words were indeed remote. Yet as he spoke, The darkness was withdrawn, Veil after veil, And she saw to the bottom of her soul. Then Lucy. You frightened me, " she moaned. Cecil, Mr Bean, The tickets, Board, Everything. She fell sobbing into the chair. I'm caught in the tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break the whole of life. For his sake, They trusted me. A carriage drew up at the front door. Give George my love only. Tell him. Then she arranged her veil while the tears poured over her cheeks in sighs. Lucy. No, They're in the hall. Please not, Mr. Emerson. They trust me. But why should they when you've deceived them? Mr Beave opened the door saying, Here's my mother. You're not worthy of their trust. What's that? " said Mr B sharply. I was saying, Why should you trust her when she deceived you? One minute, Mother. Mr. Bean came in and shut the door. I don't follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom? I mean, She's pretended to you she did not love George. They have loved one another all along, " said Mr Emerson. Mr B looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet and his white face with its ruddy whiskers seemed suddenly inhuman. A long black column, He stood and awaited her reply. I shall never marry him. Quavered Lucy. A look of contempt came over him and he said, Why not? Mr. Beeb, I've misled you. I've misled myself. Rubbish, Miss Honeychurch. It is not rubbish. Said Mr Emerson hotly. It's the part of people you don't understand. Mr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man's shoulder pleasantly. Lucy Lucy cried voices from the carriage Mr. B, Could you help me? Mr. Beebe looked in amazement at Lucy and said in a low, Stern voice, I am more grieved than I can possibly express. It's lamentable. Incredible. What's wrong with the boy? Fired up Mr Emerson again. Nothing mr emerson except he no longer interests me marry george miss honeychurch he will do admirably Then he walked out and left them. They heard him gazing his mother upstairs. Lucy, The voice is called. Lucy turned to Mr Emerson in despair, But his face revived her. It was the face of a saint who understood. Ah dear, He said, If I were George and gave you one kiss it would make you brave. You have to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, Out into the muddle that you've made yourself, And your mother and all your friends will despise you. And rightly, If it is ever right to despise, George Stilldark, Or the tussle and the misery without a word from him. Am I justified? Yes, For we fight for more than love or pleasure. There is truth. Truth counts, Lucy. Truth does count. Chapter 20 The end of the Middle Ages. The Missallons did go to Greece, But they went by themselves. They alone, Of this little company, Will double Melilla and plough the waters of the Saronic Gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, And I the shrine of intellectual song, That upon the Acropolis encircled by blue seas, Where the eagles build and the bronze charioteer drives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, Anxious, Cumbered with much digestive bread, They did proceed to Constantinople. They did go round the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair but less arduous goal. Italian Petimus, We return to the pension Bertolini. George said it was his old room. No it isn't, Said Lucy, Because it's the room I had. And I had your father's room. I forget why. Charlotte made me for some reason. George knelt on the tiled floor and laid his face in her lap. Told you, Baby, Get up! Why shouldn't I be a baby? Mama George. Unable to answer this question, Lucy put down his sock, Which he was trying to mend, And gazed out of the window. It was evening and again the spring. Oh bother Charlotte, She said thoughtfully, What can such people be made of? Same stuff Parsons are made of. Nonsense! Quite right, It is nonsense. Now you get up off the cold floor or you'll be starting rheumatism next and you stop laughing and being so silly. Why shouldn't I laugh? " he asked, Pinning her with his elbows and advancing his face to hers. What's there to cry at? Kiss me here. He indicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome. He was a boy, After all. When it came to the point, It was she who remembered the past. She into whose soul the iron had entered. She who knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her strangely that he should be sometimes wrong. Any letters? He asked. Just a line from Freddie. Now kiss me here, Then here. Threatened again with rheumatism, He strolled to the window, Opened it as the English will, And lent out. There was the parapet, There the river, There to the left the beginnings of the hills. The cab driver who had once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent might be that very Vuitton who had set his happiness in motion 12 months ago. A passion of gratitude, Or feelings grow to passions in the South, Came over the husband, And he blessed the people and the things who had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself, It is true. But how stupidly. All the fighting that mattered had been done by others. By Italy, By his father. By his wife. Lucy, Come and look at the cypresses and the church, Whatever its name is. I'll just finish your socks. Anything good in Freddy's letter? Not yet. His own content was absolute, But hers held bitterness. The Honey Churches had not forgotten them. They were disgusted at her past hypocrisy. She had alienated Windy Corner, Perhaps forever. What does he say? Silly boy, He says he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in the spring, He's known it for six months, That if a mother would give her consent, We should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair warning and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy. But it'll all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from the beginning again. I wish though that Cecil had not turned so cynical about women. He has for the second time quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish, Too, That Mr. B. . . You may well wish that. He will never forgive us, I mean. Lucy continued. He will never be interested in us again. I wish he did not influence them so much a windy corner. But if we act the truth, The people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run. Perhaps. Then George said more gently, Well, I acted the truth. The only thing I did do. And you came back to me. So possibly you know. He turned back into the room. Nonsense with that sock. He carried her to the window so that she too saw all the view. They sank upon their knees. Invisible from the road, They hoped and began to whisper one another's names. Ah, It was all worthwhile. It was the great joy they had expected and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. Look at the lights going over the bridge. But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way. To think that evening in the rectory she should have heard your father was in the house for she would have stopped me going in and he was the only person alive could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me, George. When I'm happy. She kissed him. I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, She would have stopped me going in and I should have gone to silly Greece and become different forever. But she did know, Said George, She did see my father, Surely, He said so. No, She didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mr. Beeb. Don't you remember? Then she went straight to the church. She said so. George was obstinate again. My father saw her and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire and he opened his eyes and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. You didn't speak to her. Then they spoke of other things, The desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett, But when they did, Her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, Who disliked any darkness, Said, It's clear she knew. Then why did she miss the meeting? She knew he was there and yet she went to church. They tried to piece the thing together. As they talked, An incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She rejected it and said, How like Charlotte to undo her work by feeble muddle at the last moment. But something in the dying evening, In the roar of the river. In their very embrace, Warned them her words fell short of life, George whispered. Or did she mean it? Being what? Is it possible? Said George I'll put a marvel to you that your cousin has always hoped that from the very first moment we met she hoped far down in her mind we should be like this that she fought us on the surface and yet she hoped. I can't explain her any other way, Can you? Look how she kept me alive in you all the summer. How she gave you no peace. How month after month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted her, Or she couldn't have described it. Us as she did to her friends. There are details. I read the book afterwards. She's not frozen, Lucy. She's not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice. But in the rectory that evening, She was given one more chance to make us happy. You can never make friends with her or thank her, But I do believe. . . Far down in her heart. Far below all speech and behaviour, She's glad. It's impossible, Mermaid Lucy. Then, Remembering the experiences of her own heart, She said, No, It is just possible. At that moment, Youth enwrapped them. The Song of Phaeton announced passion, Requited, Love attained. But the two were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. And when the song died away. They heard the river. Bearing down the snows of winter. Into the Mediterranean.