In which Lucy Honeychurch wrestles with her uneasy thoughts beside the conspicuous beauty of Florence’s Piazza Signoria, encountering the bustling interplay of art, society, and intrigue that characterise her English compatriots and their acquaintances. It is a morning of shifting impressions, punctuated by the peculiar mingling of the tragic and the mundane, as plans for country drives and social calls compete with the pressing, often discomfiting realities gathered from the city’s shadowed corners.