E. M. Forster

“ Think of mother; did she send you out for THEM?"
"Think of mother and don't straddle across the stairs. Let the cabman and the landlady come down, and let me go up and choose rooms."
"I shan't."
"Harriet, are you mad?"
"If you like. But you will not come up till you have seen the Italian."
"La signorina si sente male," said Philip, "C' e il sole."
"Poveretta!" cried the landlady and the cabman.
"Leave me alone!" said Harriet, snarling round at them. "I don't care for the lot of you. I'm English, and neither you'll come down nor he up till he goes for the baby." ”

“ Harriet was fretful and insular. Miss Abbott was pleasant, and insisted on praising everything: her only regret was that she had no pretty clothes with her.
"We do all right," said Philip, amused at her unwonted vanity.
"Yes, I know; but pretty things pack as easily as ugly ones. We had no need to come to Italy like guys."
This time he did not reply, "But we're here to rescue a baby." For he saw a charming picture, as charming a picture as he had seen for years--the hot red theatre; outside the theatre, towers and dark gates and mediaeval walls ”

“ But the young men in the adjacent box were imploring Lucia to extend her civility to them. She refused, with a humorous, expressive gesture. One of them hurled a bouquet at her. She spurned it with her foot. Then, encouraged by the roars of the audience, she picked it up and tossed it to them. Harriet was always unfortunate. The bouquet struck her full in the chest, and a little billet-doux fell out of it into her lap.
"Call this classical!" she cried, rising from her seat. "It's not even respectable! Philip! take me out at once." ”

“ The hotel smelt, two puppies were asleep on her bed, and her bedroom window looked into a belfry, which saluted her slumbering form every quarter of an hour. Philip left his walking-stick, his socks, and the Baedeker at Bologna; she only left her sponge-bag. Next day they crossed the Apennines with a train-sick child and a hot lady, who told them that never, never before had she sweated so profusely. "Foreigners are a filthy nation," said Harriet. "I don't care if there are tunnels; open the windows." He obeyed, and she got another smut in her eye. Nor did Florence improve matters. ”

“ This admirable change in Philip proceeds from nothing admirable, and may therefore provoke the gibes of the cynical. But angels and other practical people will accept it reverently, and write it down as good.
"The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset," he murmured, more to himself than to her.
"And he never mentioned the baby once," Miss Abbott repeated. But she had returned to the window, and again her finger pursued the delicate curves. He watched her in silence, and was more attracted to her than he had ever been before. She really was the strangest mixture. ”

“ There's no earthly reason why we shouldn't do the business pleasantly. He's a perfectly charming person, and so are his friends. I'm his friend now--his long-lost brother. What's the harm? I tell you, Miss Abbott, it's one thing for England and another for Italy. There we plan and get on high moral horses. Here we find what asses we are, for things go off quite easily, all by themselves. My hat, what a night! Did you ever see a really purple sky and really silver stars before? Well, as I was saying, it's absurd to worry; he's not a porky father. He wants that baby as little as I do. ”

“ Some of them stood and gazed at the advertisements on the tower.
"Surely that isn't an opera-bill?" said Miss Abbott.
Philip put on his pince-nez. " 'Lucia di Lammermoor. By the Master Donizetti. Unique representation. This evening.'
"But is there an opera? Right up here?"
"Why, yes. These people know how to live. They would sooner have a thing bad than not have it at all. That is why they have got to have so much that is good. However bad the performance is tonight, it will be alive. Italians don't love music silently, like the beastly Germans. The audience takes its share--sometimes more." ”

“ The Italians are essentially dramatic; they look on death and love as spectacles. I don't doubt that he persuaded himself, for the moment, that he had behaved admirably, both as husband and widower."
"You may be right," said Miss Abbott, impressed for the first time. "When I tried to pave the way, so to speak--to hint that he had not behaved as he ought--well, it was no good at all. He couldn't or wouldn't understand."
There was something very humorous in the idea of Miss Abbott approaching Gino, on the Rocca, in the spirit of a district visitor. Philip, whose temper was returning, laughed. ”

“ Violent waves of excitement, all arising from very little, went sweeping round the theatre. The climax was reached in the mad scene. Lucia, clad in white, as befitted her malady, suddenly gathered up her streaming hair and bowed her acknowledgment to the audience. Then from the back of the stage--she feigned not to see it--there advanced a kind of bamboo clothes-horse, stuck all over with bouquets. It was very ugly, and most of the flowers in it were false. Lucia knew this, and so did the audience ”

“ She was standing by the little Gothic window as she spoke--the hotel had been a palace once--and with her finger she was following the curves of the moulding as if they might feel beautiful and strange. "Spy," she repeated, for Philip was bewildered at learning her guilt so easily, and could not answer a word. "Your mother has behaved dishonourably all through. She never wanted the child; no harm in that; but she is too proud to let it come to me. She has done all she could to wreck things; she did not tell you everything; she has told Harriet nothing at all ”

“ Caroline did not contradict her.
"You see him tomorrow at ten, Philip. Well, don't forget the blank cheque. Say an hour for the business. No, Italians are so slow; say two. Twelve o'clock. Lunch. Well--then it's no good going till the evening train. I can manage the baby as far as Florence--"
"My dear sister, you can't run on like that. You don't buy a pair of gloves in two hours, much less a baby."
"Three hours, then, or four; or make him learn English ways. At Florence we get a nurse--"
"But, Harriet," said Miss Abbott, "what if at first he was to refuse?" ”

“ It's of no real value; but this is our only chance. Don't ask for it; but if you see it lying about, just say--"
"No, Harriet; I'll try for the baby, but for nothing else. I promise to do that tomorrow, and to do it in the way you wish. But tonight, as we're all tired, we want a change of topic. We want relaxation. We want to go to the theatre."
"Theatres here? And at such a moment?"
"We should hardly enjoy it, with the great interview impending," said Miss Abbott, with an anxious glance at Philip. ”

“ Those who think her life was unpractical need only think of the victories upon Poggibonsi, San Gemignano, Volterra, Siena itself--all gained through the invocation of her name; they need only look at the church which rose over her grave. ”

“ But, as I told you, I thought the man I met on the Rocca a strange, difficult man."
"He's insolent to ladies, we know. But my brother can be trusted to bring him to his senses. That woman, Philip, whom you saw will carry the baby to the hotel. Of course you must tip her for it. And try, if you can, to get poor Lilia's silver bangles. They were nice quiet things, and will do for Irma. ”

“ Then he remembered that it was Lilia's. She had brought it "to hack about in" at Sawston, and had taken it to Italy because "in Italy anything does." He had rebuked her for the sentiment.
"Beautiful as an angel!" bellowed Perfetta, holding out something which must be Lilia's baby. "But who am I addressing?"
"Thank you--here is my card." He had written on it a civil request to Gino for an interview next morning. But before he placed it in the basket and revealed his identity, he wished to find something out. "Has a young lady happened to call here lately--a young English lady?" ”

“ Herriton!" she exclaimed. "How could you believe her? Do you suppose that I would have entered that man's house, knowing about him all that I do? I think you have very odd ideas of what is possible for a lady. I hear you wanted Harriet to go. Very properly she refused. Eighteen months ago I might have done such a thing. But I trust I have learnt how to behave by now."
Philip began to see that there were two Miss Abbotts--the Miss Abbott who could travel alone to Monteriano, and the Miss Abbott who could not enter Gino's house when she got there. ”

“ It seemed to approve his remark.
"It's the supreme test. The man who is unchivalrous to a woman--"
"Oh, stow it! Take it to the Back Kitchen. It's no more a supreme test than anything else. The Italians never were chivalrous from the first. If you condemn him for that, you'll condemn the whole lot."
"I condemn the whole lot."
"And the French as well?"
"And the French as well."
"Things aren't so jolly easy," said Philip, more to himself than to her.
But for Harriet things were easy, though not jolly, and she turned upon her brother yet again. "What about the baby, pray? ”

“ She is a trustworthy guide. She is my
daughter." cousin." sister." Philip knew these relatives well: they ramify, if need be, all over the peninsula.
"Do you chance to know whether Signor Carella is in?" he asked her.
She had just seen him go in. Philip nodded. He was looking forward to the interview this time: it would be an intellectual duet with a man of no great intellect. What was Miss Abbott up to? That was one of the things he was going to discover. While she had it out with Harriet, he would have it out with Gino. He followed the Dogana's relative softly, like a diplomatist. ”