A Room with a View

Lucy’s Confession to Miss Bartlett

Lucy pours out her soul to her cousin during the long drive. She confesses to having had “silly thoughts” about George, comparing him to gods and heroes from books, though she was not truly to blame. Miss Bartlett listens and draws her close, and they return to the city hand in hand. Back at the pension, Charlotte delays with a long story about lost luggage, and only at a late hour do they retreat to her room. There Lucy expects to describe her sensations in “divine confidence,” but Miss Bartlett immediately turns the conversation to practical damage control: how to silence George.

Decision to Flee to Rome

Pressed by her cousin, Lucy first insists she wishes to be truthful but then admits she no longer does. She resolves to speak to George herself, terrifying Miss Bartlett, who warns that men of his type boast of their exploits and that a woman unprotected by her sex may be insulted with impunity. Charlotte sighs for “a real man”—for Lucy’s brother, whose chivalry would avenge her. Then she announces the decision: they will take the morning train to Rome.

Packing and Miss Bartlett’s Remorse

They begin packing by candlelight. Lucy is seized by an impulse of human love and kneels to embrace her cousin, but Charlotte responds with a long, manipulative self-reproach: she has failed in her duty to Lucy’s mother, she should never have befriended Miss Lavish, the tour has been a disaster. Lucy protests that none of it is Charlotte’s fault, but the older woman’s martyrdom—struggling with the trunk straps while sighing over her own uselessness—casts a pall over their final evening in Florence. They continue to pack in silence, the hope that they love each other “heart and soul” still clinging between them.