The Authentic Choice Paradox — A Room with a View

The Miss Alans do go to Greece, and they go alone. They will double Cape Malea, see Athens and Delphi, and, trembling under the weight of digestive bread, they will reach Constantinople and go round the world. George and Lucy have come back to the Pension Bertolini. He says it is his old room. It is not. It is the room she had. She had his father's, because Charlotte made her. He kneels on the tiles and lays his face in her lap while she tries to mend his sock. It is evening, and spring again. He asks what there is to cry at, and tells her where to kiss him. She is the one who remembers whose room this was. It endears him to her that he can be wrong.

He opens the window, as the English will. There is the parapet, the river, and the beginnings of the hills. The cabman hisses a greeting and might be the same Phaethon who set this in motion a year ago. George blesses the people who took so much trouble over a young fool. He helped himself, stupidly. The fighting that mattered was done by Italy, by his father, and by his wife. San Miniato still shows. The cabman is sure they will drive tomorrow. George says they have no money to throw away. Freddy's letter is dignified and silly. He has known for six months that if their mother would not consent they would take the thing into their own hands. Now he calls it an elopement. The Honeychurches have not forgiven her past hypocrisy. Cecil has turned cynical about women, for the second time. Mr Beebe will never be interested in them again. George says he acted the truth, the only thing he did do, and she came back. He carries her to the window. They kneel where the road cannot see them, and whisper each other's names.

She will not let him be rude to the cabman. She remembers the man who sold photographs. Then the room reminds her of Charlotte. If Charlotte had known Mr Emerson was in the study, she would have stopped Lucy going in, and Lucy would have gone to Greece and become different for ever. George is obstinate. His father saw her. He was dozing by the fire, opened his eyes, and Miss Bartlett was turning to go. He did not speak. A few minutes later Lucy came in. Charlotte went to church anyway. Why risk the meeting if she knew? Lucy's first answer is that it is like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble muddle at the last moment. The river and the embrace tell them that falls short. George asks whether she meant it. From the first moment, far down, she hoped they would be like this. On the surface she fought them. She kept him alive in Lucy all summer. She gave Lucy no peace. The sight of them burnt, or she could not have described them to her friend. At the Rectory she was given one more chance to make them happy. They can never thank her. But far below speech, she is glad. Lucy says it is impossible, and then, remembering her own heart, that it is just possible. She leans out and tells the cabman, gently, to leave them. They are married. He drives away singing. Youth wraps the two at the window. The song dies. They hear the river, bearing the snows of winter down into the Mediterranean.