This novella is about a young widow in Florence in the late 1930s. It's beautifully written, and the descriptions of the city and surrounding countryside will make you want to visit (or re-visit, in my case) tout de suite. The action of the story surrounds Mary Panton and three men - her significantly older suitor who has known her since she was a girl; an impoverished violin player; and a ne'er-do-well gentleman attracted by Mary's beauty. I don't want to say too much, as I can't figure out how to do so without spoilers; suffice it to say, I enjoyed the read. I went into it knowing nothing about it and was surprised by the fast pace and gorgeous writing.

3.75 stars ( )

This is a super-fast read, almost a play more than a novella. I selected it for a book club offering and look forward to lively discussion about relationships... The story begins with a marriage proposal. The man is highly respected and honorable, it would be a wise choice to accept. Our heroine is not in love with him, though she has known him for ages and respects him, likes him and is comfortable with him. He is going away; she has three days to consider the proposal and give him her answer.

A chance meeting in the moonlight...things will suddenly change...

Maugham has a peculiar gift for moving the story along quickly and yet giving the imagination the scope to go way beyond the words on the page.

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Period piece silliness but with some profundity. ( )

A young widow living in Florence in 1938 or '39 (after the Anschluss but before the invasion of Poland) becomes embroiled in a potentially dangerous and scandalous situation. Maugham's writing is elegantly descriptive as always in this novella. While the protagonist Mary isn't a woman whom I would like in real life, I could understand her and sympathize with her decisions even when I thought that they were dumb. ( )

A short bonbon from Maugham. Maugham himself calls it a novelette, but it's really a novella, 30,364 words (I counted them).

Anyway, a young and fabulously beautiful widow, Mary Panton, has gotten away from London and memories of a bad marriage and is living in the Italian villa of some friends, in the hills above Florence. It's a relatively idle life, filled with reading, hanging out in the garden, and parties.

Sir Edgar Swift, an ambitions "Empire builder" who is 24 years her senior, is about to be shipped off to India. He asks Mary to marry him and come along. She requests a few days to think things over.

While she is thinking, she runs into Rowley Flint, a notorious bounder. She successfully repels Rowley's attentions, multiple times, but still, apparently, some kind of bond is formed.

On the way home one night, she finds an impoverished Austrian refugee, Karl Richter, an art student. She thinks to give him one great gift, an evening of wining, dining, and herself. When Richter understands that she did it only out of compassion, and not love, he kills himself. Mary calls on Rowley to help dispose of the body and clean up the mess in her sitting room.

Naturally, there are a few more complications involving Rowley and Sir Edgar. A cute, engaging story, well worth one's time.
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