Up At The Villa: by W, Somerset Maugham.

The young Englishwoman who is centre of attention of the English and locals alike in prewar Italy, with fascism established but yet unable to convey its horrors to the visiting or permanent resident English diaspora, has little money but excellent gentle bringing up and is ready to be a proper wife to a suitable candidate. With her lack of dowry however the number of eligible bachelors around her is as limited as the general interest in her by males not quite suitable for marriage (without loss of class, certainly, that is). There is one, though, a prize catch - one that is older but still in prime and a certainty for a very high post in colonial British empire. The town is abuzz with his arriving in town only to ask her hand in marriage.

The older woman who befriends the younger one understands the dilemma of the young one and relates a tale about her giving herself to a poor man from sheer exhilaration of being a dream beyond dream to him. This is an impossibly romantic fantasy, and there is no sane person around to advise the younger woman against it - it is only affordable when a woman has nothing to lose thereby.

And what with the black shadow of fascism spreading over Europe, there is no dearth of handsome young poor males who are fugitives in Italy from Austria, newly occupied. There are some that are not merely poor but desperate, fleeing in fear for life from the beast and nowhere to go, starving, and all too set to see in her an angel of mercy when she acts from a natural kindness in providing a meal with human kindness rather than acting aloof suitable to a class difference.

Soon the train of events gets out of hand and the young woman finds herself in tight spots, intrigues and adventures which taken together are entirely unsuitable for wife of a man with a high level position the Empire, especially with times being so difficult - Caesar's wife and so forth. He would have to give it up before he can accept, since he is a gentleman and moreover loves her since she was young girl, and the proposal is a word of a gentleman.

The whole dilemma of a poor young woman in upper class circumstances who needs to marry well and has no prospects, and nevertheless has not only a code of conduct to follow but a heart yearning for more than staid life in public eye, is dealt with delicacy.


Amazingly parallel to the world stage and Europe in particular, this unlikely tale portrays the dilemma and the travails and the release from the old order of the world and people enslaved in various very different forms in the story of the young woman personified - there is the staid old order with security and code of conduct and secure future in public sight, the yearning for more and travails and nightmare lived through that the world lived via wars and the young woman in her romance and horrors, and the release of the world and the woman from old secure order and a secure future into a liberation with uncertainties but freedom.

Amazing and unlikely parallel, because the sanctimonious are likely to see merely a sordid scandal in the story of the young woman - and yet, it is a parable for the history of the war years, releasing people into liberation and uncertain freedom.