The Blithedale Romance | Chapter 17 Summary

Arriving in town, Coverdale settles into a hotel that is "...situated somewhat aloof from (his) former track in life".  Desiring some time for solitude, he has chosen his lodgings so as to avoid running into people he knows.  Coverdale discovers that the clamor of the city is a welcome change from the quiet environs of Blithedale Farm where he had spent the summer, the proximity of "the entangled (lives) of many men together" as comforting as "the sighing of the breeze among the birch-trees, that overshadowed Eliot's pulpit".  Quite enchanted with his new situation, the narrator spends the first day relaxing and enjoying a novel.

After a while, Coverdale takes a short respite from his reading by looking out the window.  He notices, about 40 or 50 yards away, a number of buildings that appear to be spacious, modern, and comfortable. He is told by a waiter who enters his room that the dwellings in question are essentially upscale boarding houses, and that the people who live there "do things in very good style".  As he examines the house more closely, Coverdale sees a young man in a dressing gown in an upper window, and two children with a middle-aged gentleman at the window of the floor below.  His eye is then caught by a dove on one of the windows, looking  "dreary and forlorn".