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402 The twentieth century: 1900–45
‘May I have half a minute before I reply to that, Mr McBryde?’
‘Certainly.’
Her vision was of several caves. She saw herself in one, and she
was also outside it, watching its entrance, for Aziz to pass in.
She failed to locate him. It was the doubt that had often visited
her, but solid and attractive, like the hills. ‘I am not –’ Speech
was more difficult than vision. ‘I am not quite sure.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Superintendent of Police.
‘I cannot be sure . . .’
‘I didn’t catch that answer.’ He looked scared, his mouth shut with a
snap. ‘You are on that landing, or whatever we term it, and you have
entered a cave. I suggest to you that the prisoner followed you.’
She shook her head.
‘What do you mean, please?’
‘No,’ she said in a flat, unattractive voice.
Contrasts are central to Forster’s novels. In Where Angels Fear to
Tread (1905) and A Room with a View (1908) he contrasts refined
English gentility and sensuous Italian vitality. In this scene from A
Room with a View, Lucy is in the square in Florence, hoping for
something to happen:
Then something did happen.
Two Italians by the Loggia had been bickering about a debt.
‘Cinque lire,’ they had cried, ‘cinque lire!’ They sparred at each
other, and one of them was hit lightly upon the chest. He frowned;
he bent towards Lucy with a look of interest, as if he had an
important message for her. He opened his lips to deliver it, and
a stream of red came out between them and trickled down his
unshaven chin.
That was all.
Howards End (1910) also explores contrasts in relationships. The overt
contrasts are drawn between two families, the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes.
The Wilcoxes represent material values and the effective management of
the outer life; the Schlegels represent the inner life and the importance of
spiritual values. The heart of the novel is Forster’s attempt to explore the
relationship between these two kinds of reality. On a symbolic level, the