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Chapter 1: What secret does Elizabeth reveal before starting the reading?
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Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player. Good evening. and welcome to the Sleepy Bookshelf, where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book. I'm your host, Elizabeth, and it is lovely to have you here with us. Tonight we'll be continuing with A Room with a View by E.M. Forster. Firstly though, Settle into a comfortable position and allow your eyes to close.
Imagine yourself beside a calm lake at sunset, the water smooth and still. Now with each breath, picture a gentle ripple Moving across the surface and fading away. Now just count slowly. One as you breathe in. Two as you breathe out. Three as you breathe in. Four as you breathe out. Notice the quiet around you. Thoughts may come and go like clouds in the sky. Just simply watch them pass.
The lake grows calmer with every breath, and so do you. Lucy felt that her experiences abroad had broadened her perspective and made her social divisions seem less significant than she had been raised to believe. In contrast, Cecil became increasingly critical of the narrowness of local society and sought to replace it with what he considered a more cultured circle.
Lucy, who had arranged for the Miss Allens to take Sissy Villa in Summer Street, was confused when it was revealed that Cecil had met the Emersons in the National Gallery while visiting his mother in town and had arranged an alternative tenancy with Sir Harry Otway, believing it would challenge the local snobbery.
Lucy felt betrayed, but could not admit the truth of her relationship with the Emersons. She stayed in London with Cecil and his mother while the Emersons moved in, and convinced herself that their arrival no longer mattered now that she was engaged.
Her cousin Charlotte, however, wrote and revived concerns about George Emerson, urging Lucy to reveal the secret rendezvous to her family and fiancé. Meanwhile, the Vices believed Lucy was becoming more refined and suited to their social world. Tonight, the Emersons are welcomed to Summer Street, so just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of A Room with a View.
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Chapter 2: How does Lucy's perspective change after her experiences abroad?
There you are. And yet you talk of coincidence and fate. You, naturally, seek out things Italian. And so do we and our friends. This narrows the field immeasurably. We meet again in it. It is fate that I'm here, persisted George. But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.
Mr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject, but he was infinitely tolerant of the young and had no desire to snub George. And so for this and for other reasons my history of coincidence is still to write. Silence. Wishing to round off the episode, he added, We are all so glad that you have come. Silence. Here we are, called Freddy. Oh, good, exclaimed Mr. Beeb, mopping his brow.
In there's the pond. I wish it was bigger, he added apologetically. They climbed down a slippery bank of pine needles. There lay the pond, set in its little alp of green. Only a pond, but large enough to contain the human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky.
On account of the rains, the waters had flooded the surrounding grass, which showed like a beautiful emerald path, tempting these feet towards the central pool. It's distinctly successful as ponds go, said Mr. Beeb. No apologies are necessary for the pond. George sat down where the ground was dry and drearily unlaced his boots, Aren't those masses of willow herb splendid?
I love willow herb in seed. What's the name of this aromatic plant? No one knew, or seemed to care. These abrupt changes of vegetation. This little spongous tract of water plants. And on either side of it, all the growths are tough or brittle. Heather, bracken, huts, pines. Very charming. Very charming. Mr. Beeb, aren't you bathing? Called Freddy as he stripped himself.
Mr. Beeb thought he was not. Water's wonderful, cried Freddy, prancing in. Water's water, murmured George, wetting his hair first, a sure sign of apathy. He followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were a statue, and the pond a pail of soap suds. It was necessary to use his muscles. It was necessary to keep clean and
Mr. Beeb watched them, and watched the seeds of the willow herb dance chorically above their heads. Apshoo! Apshoo! Apshoo! went Freddy, swimming for two strokes in either direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud. Is it worth it? Asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded margin. The bank broke away and he fell into the pool before he had weighed the question properly.
I've swallowed a polliwog. Mr. Boob, water's wonderful. Water's simply ripping. Water's not so bad, said George, reappearing from his plunge and sputtering at the sun. Water's wonderful, Mr. Beeb, dude. Mr. Beebe, who was hot and who always acquiesced where possible, looked around him.
He could detect no parishioners except the pine trees, rising up steeply on all sides and gesturing to each other against the blue. How glorious it was. The world of motor cars and rural deans receded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a wind, these things not even the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the intrusions of man. I may as well wash too.
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Chapter 3: What events unfold when the Emersons move into Summer Street?
Neither George nor Freddy was truly refined. Still, they did not hear Mr. Beebe's last warning or they would have avoided Mrs. Honeychurch, Cecil and Lucy, who were walking down to call on old Mrs. Butterworth. Freddy dropped the waistcoat at their feet and dashed into some bracken. George whooped in their faces, turned and scudded away down a path to the pond, still clad in Mr. Beeb's hat.
Gracious a life, cried Mrs. Honeychurch. ever were those unfortunate people. Oh, dears, look away. And poor Mr. Beebe, too. Whatever has happened? Come this way immediately, commanded Cecil, who always felt that he must lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though he knew not against what. He led them now towards the bracken where Freddy sat concealed and
Oh, poor Mr. Beeb. Was that his waistcoat we left in the path?
Cecil, Mr. Beeb's waistcoat. No business of ours, said Cecil, glancing at Lucy, who was all parasol and evidently minded.
Oh, I fancy Mr. Beeb jumped back into the pond.
This way, Mrs. Honeychurch, please, this way. They followed him up the bank, attempting the tense yet nonchalant expression that is suitable for ladies on such occasions. Well, I can't help it, said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared a freckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. I can't be trodden on, can I? Gracious me, dear. So it's you. What miserable management.
Why not have a comfortable bath at home with hot and cold laid on? Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow's got to dry. And if another fellow... Dear, no doubt you are right as usual, but you are in no position to argue. Come, Lucy.
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Chapter 4: How do the characters react to the arrival of the Emersons?
Don't look. Oh, poor Mr. Beeb. How unfortunate again. For Mr. Beeb was just crawling out of the pond, on whose surface garments of an intimate nature did float, while George, the world-weary George, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish. And me? I've swallowed one. answered he of the bracken. "'I've swallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall die, Emerson, you beast.
You've got on my bags.'" "'Hush, dears,' said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain shocked. "'And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first, or these colds come of not drying thoroughly.'" "'Mother, do come away,' said Lucy." Oh, for goodness sake, do come. Hello, cried George, so that again the ladies stopped.
He regarded himself as dressed, barefoot, bare-chested, radiant and personable against the shadowy woods he called. Hello, Miss Honeychurch. Hello.
Bow, Lucy, better bow, whoever it is. I shall bow.
Miss Honeychurch bowed. That evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the pool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a call to the blood and to the relaxed will. A passing benediction whose influence did not pass. A holiness. A spell. A momentary chalice for youth. Chapter 13 How Miss Bartlett's boiler was so tiresome.
How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview? But she had always rehearsed them indoors and with certain accessories, which surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George would meet in the root of a civilization amidst an army of coats and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth
She had imagined a young Mr. Emerson who might be shy, or morbid, or indifferent, or furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these, but she had never imagined one who would be happy and greet her with the shout of the morning star.
Indoors herself, partaking of tea with old Mrs. Butterworth, she reflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the scenery, a face in the audience, an eruption of the audience onto the stage and all our carefully planned gestures mean nothing or mean too much. I will bow, she had thought.
I will not shake hands with him. That will be just the proper thing. She had bowed, but to whom? To gods? To heroes? To the nonsense of schoolgirls? She had bowed across the rubbish that cumbers the world. So ran her thoughts while her faculties were busy with Cecil. It was another of those dreadful engagement calls. Mrs. Butterworth had wanted to see him, and he did not want to be seen.
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