Albergo Empedocle

Albergo Empedocle by E.M. Forster

Harold, engaged to Mildred Peaslake, writes from Naples that the party is abandoning their tired sightseeing of Pompeii for a whirlwind tour of Sicily, and invites his friend Tommy (the narrator) to join them; Tommy declines. Travelling from Palermo to Girgenti, the exhausted party — Harold, Mildred, her parents Sir Edwin and Lady Peaslake, and her sister Lilian — discuss Harold's odd habit of falling asleep by pretending he is "someone else" lying awake, a trick he had promised Tommy he would stop after Tommy once found him nearly impossible to wake. Sir Edwin disapproves and insists Harold break the habit. Mildred, fascinated by imagination and the classical past, lectures on Girgenti's Greek history as Acragas, birthplace of Empedocles, and urges Harold to "be a Greek" for the day. They lodge at the Albergo Empedocle, whose landlord extravagantly praises its beds. At the Temple of Zeus the next day, Harold slips away from Mildred and falls asleep among the ruins. She finds him and watches him sleep, trying mentally to enter his dreams. When he wakes, he calmly announces "I've lived here before," insisting he was once "greater" than now, without recalling specific details. Swept up, Mildred declares she believes him and then convinces herself she too has memories of ancient Acragas — vivid, romantic ones. Harold gently corrects her: "No, Mildred darling, you have not." Meanwhile Sir Edwin, resting with Lady Peaslake among the temples, grows irritated with Harold's uncharacteristic slowness and mysteriousness, resolving that such "queerness" is unacceptable in a son-in-law. That evening at the albergo, alone and ashamed, Mildred convinces herself her own vision of Acragas was empty invention, and grows increasingly resentful of Harold, suspecting first that he was equally self-deceived, then that he deliberately tricked her to humiliate her. When Harold enters and playfully insists she kiss him, lifting her up, she screams and calls him a "charlatan" and a "cad" before storming out. Left alone, Harold breaks down sobbing in front of Lady Peaslake and Lilian, bewildered and repeating "Why did she call me a charlatan?" He tells them of his past-life belief; Lady Peaslake is horrified, Lilian denies believing him, and he nearly faints, cared for by a passing lady and a stranger with a black beard. Mildred, chastened by her father's rebuke, returns to apologize, but when Harold holds a lamp to see her face, something breaks: he declares "This is the end," repeats his own name uncomprehendingly ("What is Harold?... Who is Harold?"), and collapses, seemingly sunstruck. That night, as they undress him for bed, Harold speaks in a strange new voice, referring to a banquet, wine, a flute-girl, porters, and a litter to carry him home — apparently living entirely within an ancient identity, mistaking the hotel room's window and darkness for another place and time. He falls asleep completely absorbed in this persona. By morning Harold has forgotten how to dress himself and cannot speak intelligibly. The family gets him onto the train with difficulty; he is examined by an English doctor in Palermo and sent back to England with a keeper, while the Peaslakes return home via Naples once Mildred recovers. His speech becomes wholly unintelligible, and he is committed to an asylum. Doctors, testing him with Greek dress, alphabets, and books, conclude he merely has a mania for imagining himself Greek, since he cannot use ancient or modern Greek and tears up a Greek book given to him. The narrator, Tommy, closes by affirming his own belief that Harold has genuinely become — or returned to being — a Greek from over two thousand years ago, unable to communicate with them only because the pronunciation of Greek has been lost, and that he lives a life he himself deemed greater than his English one. Tommy states he will never forgive Mildred. He notes Harold seems content, gazing at the sky and sea and perceiving things others have forgotten, indifferent to everyone around him — except that on Tommy's most recent visit, Harold rose and kissed him on the cheek, which Tommy takes as a sign that Harold still knows and loves him.

By E.M. Forster · First published 1925 · Genre: Literary Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Travel Fiction · 4 chapters · 11,394 words

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The last letter I had from Harold was from Naples.

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Albergo Empedocle is listed on Textopian as a novel by E.M. Forster, dated 1925 CE.

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Italian Setting · Philosophical Themes · Existentialism · Alienation · Loneliness · Disillusionment · Critique of Modernity · Social Commentary · Psychological Insight · Stream-of-Consciousness Narrative · Inner Turmoil · Crisis of Identity

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