A Room with a View

Mr. Eager’s Critique of Superficial Tourists

Mr. Eager embarks on a pointed critique of superficial Anglo-Saxon tourists as the carriage climbs toward Fiesole. He pities travellers “handed about like a parcel of goods,” living in pensions and consulting only Baedeker, mixing up towns and rivers in inextricable confusion, and caring only to get “done” or “through.” Miss Lavish adds that their narrowness is “nothing less than a menace.” Mr. Eager contrasts them with the English colony at Florence, genuine students of art such as Lady Helen Laverstock, whose villa they pass and whose hedge he points out. He also mentions an American neighbor who writes monographs and hears, over the garden wall, the electric tram carrying hot, dusty, unintelligent tourists who will “do” Fiesole in an hour. While he lectures, the figures on the box continue to sport disgracefully, provoking a spasm of envy in Lucy.

Dispute Over Separating the Young Lovers

When the carriage stops because Phaethon has at last succeeded in kissing Persephone, a dispute erupts over whether the young lovers should be separated. Mr. Eager insists they must be parted, declaring that Phaethon is a liar and threatening to withhold the pourboire, while Miss Lavish cries that she has always flown in the face of conventions and calls the episode an adventure. Mr. Emerson, suddenly awake, declares that the lovers must on no account be separated and pats them on the back in approval. Mr. Beebe calls out that after this warning the couple will behave themselves, but Mr. Emerson pleads that happiness should not be turned off the box, and that to part them would be sacrilege. Mr. Eager delivers an acid stream of Italian to the driver, but Persephone, appealed to by Lucy, quietly gets down from the box, and Mr. Eager claims a hollow victory that Mr. Emerson insists is really defeat.