Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast.
That offers you a calm and relaxing transition.
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 4 Fourth chapter.
Mr B 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 Allan.
Conversation was tedious.
She wanted something big and she believed it would have come to her on the windswept platform of an electric tram.
This she might not attempt.
It was unladylike.
Why?
Why were most big things unladylike?
Charlotte had once explained to her why.
It was not that ladies were inferior to men.
It was that they were different.
Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve it themselves.
Indirectly,
By means of tact and a spotless name,
A lady could accomplish much.
But if she rushed into the fray herself,
She would be first censured,
Then despised,
And finally ignored.
Poems had been written to illustrate this point.
There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady.
The dragons have gone and so have the knights,
But still she lingers in our midst.
She reigned in many an early Victorian castle and was queen of many early Victorians' soul.
It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business,
Sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well.
But alas,
The creature grows degenerate.
In her heart also there are springing up strange desires.
She too is enamoured of heavy winds and vast panoramas and green seas.
She has marked the kingdom of this world,
How full it is of wealth and beauty and war.
A radiant crest built around the central fires,
Spinning towards the receding heavens.
Men,
Declaring she inspires them to it,
Move joyfully over the surface,
Having the most delightful meetings with other men.
Happy not because they are masculine but because they are alive.
Before the show breaks up,
She would like to drop the August title of the Eternal Woman and go there as her transitory self.
Lucy does not stand for the medieval lady,
Who is rather an ideal to which she was bidden to lift her eyes when feeling serious.
Nor has she any system of revolt.
Here and there a restriction annoyed her particularly and she would transgress it and perhaps be sorry she had done so.
This afternoon she was peculiarly restive.
She would really like to do something of which her well wishes disapprove.
As she might not go on the electric tram.
She went to Eleanor's show.
There she bought a photograph of Botticelli's birth of Venus.
Venus,
Being a pity,
Spoiled the picture,
Otherwise so charming,
And Miss Bartlett had persuaded her to do it.
A pity in art,
Of course,
Signified the nude.
Georgion's Tempesta,
The Eidolini.
Some of the cysteine frescoes and the epoxy ominous were added to it.
She felt a little calmer then and brought Fra Angelica's Coronation,
Giotti's Ascension of St John,
Some Della Robbia babies,
Some Guido Reni Madonnas.
For Lucy,
Taste was Catholic and she extended uncritical approval to every well-known name.
But though she spent nearly seven lira,
The gates of liberty seem still unopened.
She was conscious of her discontent.
It was new to her to be conscious of it.
The world,
She thought,
Is certainly full of beautiful things,
If only I could come across them.
It was not surprising that Mrs.
Honeychurch disapproved of music,
Declaring it always left her daughter peevish,
Unpractical and touchy.
Nothing ever happens to me.
Lucy reflected as she entered the Piazza Signoria and looked nonchalantly at its marvels now fairly familiar.
The great square was in shadow.
The sunshine had come too late to strike it.
Neptune was already up and substantial in the twilight,
Half-god,
Half-ghost,
And his fountain plashed dreamily to the men and satyrs who idled together on its marge.
It was the hour of unreality.
The hour,
That is,
When unfamiliar things are real.
An older person at such an hour and in such a place might think that sufficient was happening to him and rest content.
Lucy desired more.
She fixed her eyes wistfully on the tower of the palace,
Which rose out of the lower darkness like a pillar of roughened gold.
It seemed no longer a tower,
No longer supported by earth,
But some unattainable treasure throbbing in the tranquil sky.
Its brightness mesmerised her,
Still dancing before her eyes when she bent them to the ground and started walking home.
Then something did happen.
Two Italians have been bickering about a debt.
Sancto Lira!
They had cried Sancto Lira!
They sparred at each other and one of them was hit lightly upon the chest.
He frowned.
He bent towards Lucy with a look of interest,
As if he had an important message for her.
He opened his lips to deliver it.
And a stream of red came out between them and trickled down his unshaven chin.
That was all.
The crowd rose out of the dusk.
Hid this extraordinary man from her and bore him away to the fountain.
Mr George Emerson happened to be a few paces away,
Looking at her across the spot where the man had been.
How very odd.
A cross something.
Even as she caught sight of him he grew dim,
The palace grew dim,
Swayed above her,
Fell on to her softly,
Slowly,
Noiselessly,
And the sky fell with it.
Oh,
What have I done?
She opened her eyes.
George Emerson looked at her.
And not across anything.
She had complained of dullness and lo and behold,
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.
Or what have I done?
You fainted.
I'm very sorry.
How are you now?
Perfectly well,
Absolutely well.
Lucy began to nod and smile.
Then let us come home.
There's no point in our stopping.
George Emerson 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've been.
I must have hurt myself falling,
But now I'm well,
I can go alone,
Thank you.
His hand was still extended.
Oh,
My photographs!
She exclaimed suddenly.
Or photographs.
I must have dropped them out there in the square.
Lucy looked at George cautiously.
Would you add to your kindness by fetching them?
George added to his kindness.
As soon as he turned his back,
Lucy arose with a 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.
.
.
I'd rather.
.
.
Then I don't fetch your photographs.
I had rather be alone.
George said in Paris League.
The man is dead.
The man is probably dead.
Sit down until you are rested.
Lucy was bewildered and obeyed him.
And don't move until I come back.
In the distance,
Lucy 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?
What have I done?
She thought.
She,
As well as the dying man,
Had crossed some spiritual boundary.
George returned and she talked of the murder.
Oddly enough,
She found it was an easy topic.
She spoke of the Italian character.
She came almost garrulous over the incident that had made her faint five minutes before.
Being strong physically,
She soon overcame the horror of blood,
And she rose without George's assistant,
And though wings seemed to flutter inside her,
She walked firmly enough towards the Arno.
They're a cabman's signal 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 Italians know everything,
But I think they're rather childish.
When my cousin and I were at the pity yesterday.
.
.
What was that?
George had thrown something into the stream.
What did you throw in?
Things I didn't want.
He said crossly.
Mr.
Empson?
Well.
.
.
Where are the photographs?
I believe it was my photograph she threw away.
I didn't know what to do with him,
He cried.
His voice was that of an anxious boy.
Lucy's 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.
George pointed downstream.
They don't.
The river swirled under the bridge.
I did mind them so,
And one is so foolish,
It seemed better they should go out to the sea.
I don't know.
I may just mean they frighten 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 she must stop him.
It has happened,
" he repeated,
And I mean to find out who it is.
Mr.
Emerson George turned towards her frowning as if she disturbed him in some abstract quest.
I want to ask you something before we go in.
They were close to their pension.
Lucy stopped and lent her elbows against the parapet of the embankment.
And George did likewise.
There is at times a magic in identity position.
It is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship.
She moved her elbows before saying.
I have behaved ridiculously.
George was following his own thoughts.
I was never so much ashamed of myself and my life.
I cannot think what came over me.
I nearly fainted myself.
He said.
But she felt that her attitude repelled him.
I owe you a thousand apologies.
Oh,
Right.
And that is the real point.
You know how silly people are gossiping,
Ladies especially.
I'm afraid.
Do you understand what I mean?
I'm afraid I don't.
Would you not mention it to anyone,
My foolish behavior?
Your behaviour.
Oh yes!
Alright!
Thank you so much,
And would you.
.
.
Lucy 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 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 George Emerson.
And would you?
And hope he would complete the sentence for himself,
Averting his eyes from her nakedness like the night in that beautiful picture.
She had been in his arms,
And he remembered it,
Just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she'd bought in Alinari's shop.
It was not exactly that a man had died.
Something had happened to the living.
They had come to a situation where character tells and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of youth.
Well,
Thank you so much.
She repeated.
How quickly these accidents do happen.
And then one returns to the old life.
I don't.
Anxiety moved Lucy to question him.
His answer was puzzling.
I should probably want to leave.
But,
Mr.
Emerson,
What do you mean?
I shall want to live,
I say.
Then leaning her elbows on the parapet,
Lucy contemplated the river Arno,
Whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody.
To her ears.
