A Room with a View: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

A young English woman named Lucy is vacationing in Italy with her significantly older cousin Charlotte. They are staying together at the Bertolini Pension in Florence, and the novel opens with the two at dinner, complaining that they had been promised rooms with a view, but have been put in rooms looking into a courtyard. Lucy adds disappointedly that the Signora in charge of the Pension is English, and remarks, “It might be London.”

Lucy and Charlotte talk back and forth about which of them will take the first room to open up with a view, and are interrupted by a man at another dinner table. The man, named Mr. Emerson, says that he and his son George are willing to exchange their rooms (which have a view) with Lucy’s and Charlotte’s. Lucy and Charlotte are taken aback at the evidently lower-class man’s boldness in interrupting their conversation, and politely decline the offer.

Charlotte tells Lucy that they will find another place to stay, but just then a young clergyman named Mr. Beebe enters. He has worked in Lucy’s parish, and Lucy recognizes him excitedly and tells Charlotte that they must stay. The two cousins talk with Mr. Beebe, who advises Lucy on what to see in Florence, and then a number of other guests at dinner offer their own advice on the subject.

Charlotte and Lucy leave dinner and talk with Mr. Beebe in another room. Charlotte asks about the Emersons, and says that she could not put Lucy and herself under any obligation to them by accepting their offer of the rooms, and adds that she is acting as Lucy’s chaperon. Mr. Beebe agrees with Charlotte’s decision to decline the offer, but says that Mr. Emerson likely had no ulterior motive and was simply being polite. He says that the Emersons are nice, but socialists, and says that he differs from Mr. Emerson “on almost every point of any importance.”

Charlotte worries that she was rude in rejecting the Emersons’ offer and asked Mr. Beebe if she should apologize, but he says she doesn’t need to, and then leaves. Lucy tells Charlotte that she thinks Mr. Beebe is nice and sees “good in everyone.” She says that he seems like “an ordinary man,” not a clergyman. An old lady comes and sits where Mr. Beebe was to “chatter gently about Italy.” The old lady says that Mr. Emerson ought to have been “more tactful” at dinner, and says she felt sorry for Lucy and Charlotte’s embarrassment.

Slightly defending Mr. Emerson’s kind offer, Lucy agrees that he is not tactful but asks, “yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?” Mr. Beebe enters the room and informs Charlotte that he has spoken to Mr. Emerson and has encouraged him to make the offer about the rooms again, so that Lucy and Charlotte can accept. Charlotte tells Mr. Beebe to tell Mr. Emerson that she will accept the offer, and Mr. Beebe goes and brings back George Emerson, who says that his father is bathing, but promises to relay the information.

Lucy and Charlotte move into the Emersons’ rooms, and Charlotte explains to Lucy that she has taken the room George was in, so that if Lucy is under any obligation it is to Mr. Emerson, and not to his young son. Lucy does not entirely grasp the significance of this, and goes to her room, where she admires her new view. Charlotte looks around her new room and finds a sheet of paper with a huge question mark written on it. She wonders what it could mean, and it gradually seems to become “menacing, obnoxious, portentous with evil.” She almost throws it away, but realizes that it belongs to George Emerson, and goes to bed.