A Room with a View

Entering Santa Croce Alone

At the church steps, Miss Lavish suddenly spots her “local-colour box”—an old man with white whiskers—and rushes off to speak with him, leaving Lucy waiting. After nearly ten minutes, Lucy descends into the piazza to rejoin her, only to see Miss Lavish disappear down a side street with the man, both gesticulating. Lucy feels tears of indignation—not only has Miss Lavish abandoned her, but she has taken Lucy’s Baedeker. Without the guidebook, Lucy fears she cannot find her way home or navigate Santa Croce. Her first morning seems ruined. She enters the church depressed and humiliated, unable even to remember whether Santa Croce was built by Franciscans or Dominicans. Initially disdainful of the church’s barn-like appearance and cold interior, Lucy begins to find pleasure in watching the tourists, reading Italian notices about dogs and spitting, and observing an Italian family begin their devotions at the Holy Water and Machiavelli memorial. The children perform elaborate rituals touching the memorial with fingers, handkerchiefs, and heads, apparently hoping to acquire virtue. When the smallest boy stumbles over a tombstone admired by Mr. Ruskin, falling heavily against a recumbent bishop’s upturned toes, Lucy rushes forward but is too late.

Meeting the Emerson Family

Lucy helps the fallen child just as old Mr. Emerson does the same, and together they dust him off and tell him not to be superstitious. Mr. Emerson curses the bishop, declaring it “hard in life, hard in death,” and tells the child to “kiss your hand to the sun.” The Italian mother comes to the rescue and imparts strength to the boy’s knees. Mr. Emerson compliments the woman, saying she has “done more than all the relics in the world.” When Lucy mentions the Emersons’ kind gift of their rooms the previous evening, Mr. Emerson suggests Lucy join them since she has no Baedeker. Lucy takes refuge in her dignity, declaring she could not think of joining them and thanking them for the rooms. Mr. Emerson calls her “tiresome,” suggesting she is “repeating what you have heard older people say” and offering to show her whatever part of the church she wants to see. George, his son, invites Lucy to the Peruzzi Chapel, where a clergyman is lecturing on Giotto’s frescoes, praising their majestic, pathetic beauty and truth. Mr. Emerson interrupts loudly, declaring the frescoes show no truth and mocking a figure “shooting into the sky like an air balloon.” The lecturer falters, and the congregation shifts uneasily. Lucy feels “spellbound” by these serious, strange men. When asked if the Ascension happened, George replies he would “rather go up to heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs,” while Mr. Emerson believes they will “lie at peace in the earth” with their work surviving. The lecturer leaves frigidly with his flock, including the two Miss Alans from the pension. Mr. Emerson pursues him to apologize, leaving Lucy with George, who explains his father’s effect on people—causing them to be offended or frightened. George has a rugged, hard face that softens in shadow, reminding Lucy of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel. He carries “a burden of acorns,” and Lucy feels a fleeting sense of tragedy that passes quickly. When Mr. Emerson returns, he reveals George’s unhappiness despite his strength and health, asking Lucy to help him understand his son. George suffers from “things won’t fit”—the things of the universe don’t fit together. Mr. Emerson quotes Swinburne about life coming from the winds and returning to them, saying all life is “a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness.” He urges Lucy to let herself go and help George by understanding him. Lucy laughs at the idea of a young man melancholy because the universe is a tangle, and suggests George needs employment, hobbies, or the piano like she uses. She thinks Mr. Emerson is “a kind thing, but quite silly.” George approaches with the news that Miss Bartlett is in the nave, and Lucy rushes to meet her cousin, declaring “A delightful morning! Santa Croce is a wonderful church.”