Up at the Villa

Up at the Villa
Up at the Villa is a taut psychological novella by W. Somerset Maugham set in the idyllic hills of Florence before World War II. The story follows Mary Panton, a young English widow living in a borrowed villa, who is courted by the older, respectable diplomat Sir Edgar Swift, soon to be appointed governor of Bengal. On the eve of her decision to accept or refuse his marriage proposal, Mary makes a spontaneous, compassionate choice to comfort a desperate young Austrian refugee. The night ends in tragedy when he takes his own life in her villa, plunging her into moral peril and social danger. Desperate to conceal the scandal, she turns to the cynical but resourceful Rowley Flint for help. Maugham explores themes of morality, impulse, and the thin veneer of respectability. Up at the Villa is both a moral parable and a portrait of emotional recklessness cloaked in charm.