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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29220-8.txt b/29220-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56157a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/29220-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2307 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Monday or Tuesday, by Virginia Woolf + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Monday or Tuesday + +Author: Virginia Woolf + +Release Date: June 25, 2009 [EBook #29220] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONDAY OR TUESDAY *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +Monday or Tuesday + + +_By_ VIRGINIA WOOLF + + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + + +NEW YORK +HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY +1921 + + +COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY +HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. + + +PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY +THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY +RAHWAY, N. J. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +A HAUNTED HOUSE 3 + +A SOCIETY 9 + +MONDAY OR TUESDAY 41 + +AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL 45 + +THE STRING QUARTET 71 + +BLUE AND GREEN 81 + +KEW GARDENS 83 + +THE MARK ON THE WALL 99 + + + + +MONDAY OR TUESDAY + + + + +A HAUNTED HOUSE + + +Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they +went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly +couple. + +"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here too!" "It's +upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," +they said, "or we shall wake them." + +But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're +drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now +they've found it," one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the +margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, +the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons +bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from +the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My +hands were empty. "Perhaps it's upstairs then?" The apples were in the +loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had +slipped into the grass. + +But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see +them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves +were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple +only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was +opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the +ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the +carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its +bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat softly. +"The treasure buried; the room ..." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was +that the buried treasure? + +A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the +trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, +coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind +the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the +woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the +windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went +East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found +it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house +beat gladly. "The Treasure yours." + +The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. +Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp +falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. +Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake +us, the ghostly couple seek their joy. + +"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking +in the morning--" "Silver between the trees--" "Upstairs--" "In the +garden--" "When summer came--" "In winter snowtime--" The doors go +shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart. + +Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides +silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we +see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. +"Look," he breathes. "Sound asleep. Love upon their lips." + +Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. +Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. +Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain +the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers +and seek their hidden joy. + +"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years--" +he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs, "sleeping; in the +garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our +treasure--" Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. "Safe! +safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry "Oh, is +this _your_ buried treasure? The light in the heart." + + + + +A SOCIETY + + +This is how it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day +after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a +milliner's shop where the light still shone brightly upon scarlet +feathers and golden slippers. Others were idly occupied in building +little towers of sugar upon the edge of the tea tray. After a time, so +far as I can remember, we drew round the fire and began as usual to +praise men--how strong, how noble, how brilliant, how courageous, how +beautiful they were--how we envied those who by hook or by crook managed +to get attached to one for life--when Poll, who had said nothing, burst +into tears. Poll, I must tell you, has always been queer. For one thing +her father was a strange man. He left her a fortune in his will, but on +condition that she read all the books in the London Library. We +comforted her as best we could; but we knew in our hearts how vain it +was. For though we like her, Poll is no beauty; leaves her shoe laces +untied; and must have been thinking, while we praised men, that not one +of them would ever wish to marry her. At last she dried her tears. For +some time we could make nothing of what she said. Strange enough it was +in all conscience. She told us that, as we knew, she spent most of her +time in the London Library, reading. She had begun, she said, with +English literature on the top floor; and was steadily working her way +down to the _Times_ on the bottom. And now half, or perhaps only a +quarter, way through a terrible thing had happened. She could read no +more. Books were not what we thought them. "Books," she cried, rising to +her feet and speaking with an intensity of desolation which I shall +never forget, "are for the most part unutterably bad!" + +Of course we cried out that Shakespeare wrote books, and Milton and +Shelley. + +"Oh, yes," she interrupted us. "You've been well taught, I can see. But +you are not members of the London Library." Here her sobs broke forth +anew. At length, recovering a little, she opened one of the pile of +books which she always carried about with her--"From a Window" or "In a +Garden," or some such name as that it was called, and it was written by +a man called Benton or Henson, or something of that kind. She read the +first few pages. We listened in silence. "But that's not a book," +someone said. So she chose another. This time it was a history, but I +have forgotten the writer's name. Our trepidation increased as she went +on. Not a word of it seemed to be true, and the style in which it was +written was execrable. + +"Poetry! Poetry!" we cried, impatiently. "Read us poetry!" I cannot +describe the desolation which fell upon us as she opened a little volume +and mouthed out the verbose, sentimental foolery which it contained. + +"It must have been written by a woman," one of us urged. But no. She +told us that it was written by a young man, one of the most famous poets +of the day. I leave you to imagine what the shock of the discovery was. +Though we all cried and begged her to read no more, she persisted and +read us extracts from the Lives of the Lord Chancellors. When she had +finished, Jane, the eldest and wisest of us, rose to her feet and said +that she for one was not convinced. + +"Why," she asked, "if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers +have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?" + +We were all silent; and, in the silence, poor Poll could be heard +sobbing out, "Why, why did my father teach me to read?" + +Clorinda was the first to come to her senses. "It's all our fault," she +said. "Every one of us knows how to read. But no one, save Poll, has +ever taken the trouble to do it. I, for one, have taken it for granted +that it was a woman's duty to spend her youth in bearing children. I +venerated my mother for bearing ten; still more my grandmother for +bearing fifteen; it was, I confess, my own ambition to bear twenty. We +have gone on all these ages supposing that men were equally industrious, +and that their works were of equal merit. While we have borne the +children, they, we supposed, have borne the books and the pictures. We +have populated the world. They have civilized it. But now that we can +read, what prevents us from judging the results? Before we bring another +child into the world we must swear that we will find out what the world +is like." + +So we made ourselves into a society for asking questions. One of us was +to visit a man-of-war; another was to hide herself in a scholar's study; +another was to attend a meeting of business men; while all were to read +books, look at pictures, go to concerts, keep our eyes open in the +streets, and ask questions perpetually. We were very young. You can +judge of our simplicity when I tell you that before parting that night +we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good +books. Our questions were to be directed to finding out how far these +objects were now attained by men. We vowed solemnly that we would not +bear a single child until we were satisfied. + +Off we went then, some to the British Museum; others to the King's Navy; +some to Oxford; others to Cambridge; we visited the Royal Academy and +the Tate; heard modern music in concert rooms, went to the Law Courts, +and saw new plays. No one dined out without asking her partner certain +questions and carefully noting his replies. At intervals we met together +and compared our observations. Oh, those were merry meetings! Never have +I laughed so much as I did when Rose read her notes upon "Honour" and +described how she had dressed herself as an Ęthiopian Prince and gone +aboard one of His Majesty's ships. Discovering the hoax, the Captain +visited her (now disguised as a private gentleman) and demanded that +honour should be satisfied. "But how?" she asked. "How?" he bellowed. +"With the cane of course!" Seeing that he was beside himself with rage +and expecting that her last moment had come, she bent over and received, +to her amazement, six light taps upon the behind. "The honour of the +British Navy is avenged!" he cried, and, raising herself, she saw him +with the sweat pouring down his face holding out a trembling right hand. +"Away!" she exclaimed, striking an attitude and imitating the ferocity +of his own expression, "My honour has still to be satisfied!" "Spoken +like a gentleman!" he returned, and fell into profound thought. "If six +strokes avenge the honour of the King's Navy," he mused, "how many +avenge the honour of a private gentleman?" He said he would prefer to +lay the case before his brother officers. She replied haughtily that she +could not wait. He praised her sensibility. "Let me see," he cried +suddenly, "did your father keep a carriage?" "No," she said. "Or a +riding horse!" "We had a donkey," she bethought her, "which drew the +mowing machine." At this his face lighted. "My mother's name----" she +added. "For God's sake, man, don't mention your mother's name!" he +shrieked, trembling like an aspen and flushing to the roots of his hair, +and it was ten minutes at least before she could induce him to proceed. +At length he decreed that if she gave him four strokes and a half in the +small of the back at a spot indicated by himself (the half conceded, he +said, in recognition of the fact that her great grandmother's uncle was +killed at Trafalgar) it was his opinion that her honour would be as good +as new. This was done; they retired to a restaurant; drank two bottles +of wine for which he insisted upon paying; and parted with protestations +of eternal friendship. + +Then we had Fanny's account of her visit to the Law Courts. At her first +visit she had come to the conclusion that the Judges were either made +of wood or were impersonated by large animals resembling man who had +been trained to move with extreme dignity, mumble and nod their heads. +To test her theory she had liberated a handkerchief of bluebottles at +the critical moment of a trial, but was unable to judge whether the +creatures gave signs of humanity for the buzzing of the flies induced so +sound a sleep that she only woke in time to see the prisoners led into +the cells below. But from the evidence she brought we voted that it is +unfair to suppose that the Judges are men. + +Helen went to the Royal Academy, but when asked to deliver her report +upon the pictures she began to recite from a pale blue volume, "O! for +the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still. +Home is the hunter, home from the hill. He gave his bridle reins a +shake. Love is sweet, love is brief. Spring, the fair spring, is the +year's pleasant King. O! to be in England now that April's there. Men +must work and women must weep. The path of duty is the way to glory--" +We could listen to no more of this gibberish. + +"We want no more poetry!" we cried. + +"Daughters of England!" she began, but here we pulled her down, a vase +of water getting spilt over her in the scuffle. + +"Thank God!" she exclaimed, shaking herself like a dog. "Now I'll roll +on the carpet and see if I can't brush off what remains of the Union +Jack. Then perhaps--" here she rolled energetically. Getting up she +began to explain to us what modern pictures are like when Castalia +stopped her. + +"What is the average size of a picture?" she asked. "Perhaps two feet by +two and a half," she said. Castalia made notes while Helen spoke, and +when she had done, and we were trying not to meet each other's eyes, +rose and said, "At your wish I spent last week at Oxbridge, disguised as +a charwoman. I thus had access to the rooms of several Professors and +will now attempt to give you some idea--only," she broke off, "I can't +think how to do it. It's all so queer. These Professors," she went on, +"live in large houses built round grass plots each in a kind of cell by +himself. Yet they have every convenience and comfort. You have only to +press a button or light a little lamp. Their papers are beautifully +filed. Books abound. There are no children or animals, save half a dozen +stray cats and one aged bullfinch--a cock. I remember," she broke off, +"an Aunt of mine who lived at Dulwich and kept cactuses. You reached the +conservatory through the double drawing-room, and there, on the hot +pipes, were dozens of them, ugly, squat, bristly little plants each in a +separate pot. Once in a hundred years the Aloe flowered, so my Aunt +said. But she died before that happened--" We told her to keep to the +point. "Well," she resumed, "when Professor Hobkin was out, I examined +his life work, an edition of Sappho. It's a queer looking book, six or +seven inches thick, not all by Sappho. Oh, no. Most of it is a defence +of Sappho's chastity, which some German had denied, and I can assure you +the passion with which these two gentlemen argued, the learning they +displayed, the prodigious ingenuity with which they disputed the use of +some implement which looked to me for all the world like a hairpin +astounded me; especially when the door opened and Professor Hobkin +himself appeared. A very nice, mild, old gentleman, but what could _he_ +know about chastity?" We misunderstood her. + +"No, no," she protested, "he's the soul of honour I'm sure--not that he +resembles Rose's sea captain in the least. I was thinking rather of my +Aunt's cactuses. What could _they_ know about chastity?" + +Again we told her not to wander from the point,--did the Oxbridge +professors help to produce good people and good books?--the objects of +life. + +"There!" she exclaimed. "It never struck me to ask. It never occurred +to me that they could possibly produce anything." + +"I believe," said Sue, "that you made some mistake. Probably Professor +Hobkin was a gynęcologist. A scholar is a very different sort of man. A +scholar is overflowing with humour and invention--perhaps addicted to +wine, but what of that?--a delightful companion, generous, subtle, +imaginative--as stands to reason. For he spends his life in company with +the finest human beings that have ever existed." + +"Hum," said Castalia. "Perhaps I'd better go back and try again." + +Some three months later it happened that I was sitting alone when +Castalia entered. I don't know what it was in the look of her that so +moved me; but I could not restrain myself, and, dashing across the room, +I clasped her in my arms. Not only was she very beautiful; she seemed +also in the highest spirits. "How happy you look!" I exclaimed, as she +sat down. + +"I've been at Oxbridge," she said. + +"Asking questions?" + +"Answering them," she replied. + +"You have not broken our vow?" I said anxiously, noticing something +about her figure. + +"Oh, the vow," she said casually. "I'm going to have a baby, if that's +what you mean. You can't imagine," she burst out, "how exciting, how +beautiful, how satisfying--" + +"What is?" I asked. + +"To--to--answer questions," she replied in some confusion. Whereupon she +told me the whole of her story. But in the middle of an account which +interested and excited me more than anything I had ever heard, she gave +the strangest cry, half whoop, half holloa-- + +"Chastity! Chastity! Where's my chastity!" she cried. "Help Ho! The +scent bottle!" + +There was nothing in the room but a cruet containing mustard, which I +was about to administer when she recovered her composure. + +"You should have thought of that three months ago," I said severely. + +"True," she replied. "There's not much good in thinking of it now. It +was unfortunate, by the way, that my mother had me called Castalia." + +"Oh, Castalia, your mother--" I was beginning when she reached for the +mustard pot. + +"No, no, no," she said, shaking her head. "If you'd been a chaste woman +yourself you would have screamed at the sight of me--instead of which +you rushed across the room and took me in your arms. No, Cassandra. We +are neither of us chaste." So we went on talking. + +Meanwhile the room was filling up, for it was the day appointed to +discuss the results of our observations. Everyone, I thought, felt as I +did about Castalia. They kissed her and said how glad they were to see +her again. At length, when we were all assembled, Jane rose and said +that it was time to begin. She began by saying that we had now asked +questions for over five years, and that though the results were bound to +be inconclusive--here Castalia nudged me and whispered that she was not +so sure about that. Then she got up, and, interrupting Jane in the +middle of a sentence, said: + +"Before you say any more, I want to know--am I to stay in the room? +Because," she added, "I have to confess that I am an impure woman." + +Everyone looked at her in astonishment. + +"You are going to have a baby?" asked Jane. + +She nodded her head. + +It was extraordinary to see the different expressions on their faces. A +sort of hum went through the room, in which I could catch the words +"impure," "baby," "Castalia," and so on. Jane, who was herself +considerably moved, put it to us: + +"Shall she go? Is she impure?" + +Such a roar filled the room as might have been heard in the street +outside. + +"No! No! No! Let her stay! Impure? Fiddlesticks!" Yet I fancied that +some of the youngest, girls of nineteen or twenty, held back as if +overcome with shyness. Then we all came about her and began asking +questions, and at last I saw one of the youngest, who had kept in the +background, approach shyly and say to her: + +"What is chastity then? I mean is it good, or is it bad, or is it +nothing at all?" She replied so low that I could not catch what she +said. + +"You know I was shocked," said another, "for at least ten minutes." + +"In my opinion," said Poll, who was growing crusty from always reading +in the London Library, "chastity is nothing but ignorance--a most +discreditable state of mind. We should admit only the unchaste to our +society. I vote that Castalia shall be our President." + +This was violently disputed. + +"It is as unfair to brand women with chastity as with unchastity," said +Poll. "Some of us haven't the opportunity either. Moreover, I don't +believe Cassy herself maintains that she acted as she did from a pure +love of knowledge." + +"He is only twenty-one and divinely beautiful," said Cassy, with a +ravishing gesture. + +"I move," said Helen, "that no one be allowed to talk of chastity or +unchastity save those who are in love." + +"Oh, bother," said Judith, who had been enquiring into scientific +matters, "I'm not in love and I'm longing to explain my measures for +dispensing with prostitutes and fertilizing virgins by Act of +Parliament." + +She went on to tell us of an invention of hers to be erected at Tube +stations and other public resorts, which, upon payment of a small fee, +would safeguard the nation's health, accommodate its sons, and relieve +its daughters. Then she had contrived a method of preserving in sealed +tubes the germs of future Lord Chancellors "or poets or painters or +musicians," she went on, "supposing, that is to say, that these breeds +are not extinct, and that women still wish to bear children----" + +"Of course we wish to bear children!" cried Castalia, impatiently. Jane +rapped the table. + +"That is the very point we are met to consider," she said. "For five +years we have been trying to find out whether we are justified in +continuing the human race. Castalia has anticipated our decision. But it +remains for the rest of us to make up our minds." + +Here one after another of our messengers rose and delivered their +reports. The marvels of civilisation far exceeded our expectations, and, +as we learnt for the first time how man flies in the air, talks across +space, penetrates to the heart of an atom, and embraces the universe in +his speculations, a murmur of admiration burst from our lips. + +"We are proud," we cried, "that our mothers sacrificed their youth in +such a cause as this!" Castalia, who had been listening intently, looked +prouder than all the rest. Then Jane reminded us that we had still much +to learn, and Castalia begged us to make haste. On we went through a +vast tangle of statistics. We learnt that England has a population of +so many millions, and that such and such a proportion of them is +constantly hungry and in prison; that the average size of a working +man's family is such, and that so great a percentage of women die from +maladies incident to childbirth. Reports were read of visits to +factories, shops, slums, and dockyards. Descriptions were given of the +Stock Exchange, of a gigantic house of business in the City, and of a +Government Office. The British Colonies were now discussed, and some +account was given of our rule in India, Africa and Ireland. I was +sitting by Castalia and I noticed her uneasiness. + +"We shall never come to any conclusion at all at this rate," she said. +"As it appears that civilisation is so much more complex than we had any +notion, would it not be better to confine ourselves to our original +enquiry? We agreed that it was the object of life to produce good people +and good books. All this time we have been talking of aeroplanes, +factories, and money. Let us talk about men themselves and their arts, +for that is the heart of the matter." + +So the diners out stepped forward with long slips of paper containing +answers to their questions. These had been framed after much +consideration. A good man, we had agreed, must at any rate be honest, +passionate, and unworldly. But whether or not a particular man possessed +those qualities could only be discovered by asking questions, often +beginning at a remote distance from the centre. Is Kensington a nice +place to live in? Where is your son being educated--and your daughter? +Now please tell me, what do you pay for your cigars? By the way, is Sir +Joseph a baronet or only a knight? Often it seemed that we learnt more +from trivial questions of this kind than from more direct ones. "I +accepted my peerage," said Lord Bunkum, "because my wife wished it." I +forget how many titles were accepted for the same reason. "Working +fifteen hours out of the twenty-four, as I do----" ten thousand +professional men began. + +"No, no, of course you can neither read nor write. But why do you work +so hard?" "My dear lady, with a growing family----" "But _why_ does your +family grow?" Their wives wished that too, or perhaps it was the British +Empire. But more significant than the answers were the refusals to +answer. Very few would reply at all to questions about morality and +religion, and such answers as were given were not serious. Questions as +to the value of money and power were almost invariably brushed aside, or +pressed at extreme risk to the asker. "I'm sure," said Jill, "that if +Sir Harley Tightboots hadn't been carving the mutton when I asked him +about the capitalist system he would have cut my throat. The only reason +why we escaped with our lives over and over again is that men are at +once so hungry and so chivalrous. They despise us too much to mind what +we say." + +"Of course they despise us," said Eleanor. "At the same time how do you +account for this--I made enquiries among the artists. Now, no woman has +ever been an artist, has she, Poll?" + +"Jane-Austen-Charlotte-Brontė-George-Eliot," cried Poll, like a man +crying muffins in a back street. + +"Damn the woman!" someone exclaimed. "What a bore she is!" + +"Since Sappho there has been no female of first rate----" Eleanor began, +quoting from a weekly newspaper. + +"It's now well known that Sappho was the somewhat lewd invention of +Professor Hobkin," Ruth interrupted. + +"Anyhow, there is no reason to suppose that any woman ever has been able +to write or ever will be able to write," Eleanor continued. "And yet, +whenever I go among authors they never cease to talk to me about their +books. Masterly! I say, or Shakespeare himself! (for one must say +something) and I assure you, they believe me." + +"That proves nothing," said Jane. "They all do it. Only," she sighed, +"it doesn't seem to help _us_ much. Perhaps we had better examine modern +literature next. Liz, it's your turn." + +Elizabeth rose and said that in order to prosecute her enquiry she had +dressed as a man and been taken for a reviewer. + +"I have read new books pretty steadily for the past five years," said +she. "Mr. Wells is the most popular living writer; then comes Mr. Arnold +Bennett; then Mr. Compton Mackenzie; Mr. McKenna and Mr. Walpole may be +bracketed together." She sat down. + +"But you've told us nothing!" we expostulated. "Or do you mean that +these gentlemen have greatly surpassed Jane-Elliot and that English +fiction is----where's that review of yours? Oh, yes, 'safe in their +hands.'" + +"Safe, quite safe," she said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. "And +I'm sure that they give away even more than they receive." + +We were all sure of that. "But," we pressed her, "do they write good +books?" + +"Good books?" she said, looking at the ceiling. "You must remember," she +began, speaking with extreme rapidity, "that fiction is the mirror of +life. And you can't deny that education is of the highest importance, +and that it would be extremely annoying, if you found yourself alone at +Brighton late at night, not to know which was the best boarding house to +stay at, and suppose it was a dripping Sunday evening--wouldn't it be +nice to go to the Movies?" + +"But what has that got to do with it?" we asked. + +"Nothing--nothing--nothing whatever," she replied. + +"Well, tell us the truth," we bade her. + +"The truth? But isn't it wonderful," she broke off--"Mr. Chitter has +written a weekly article for the past thirty years upon love or hot +buttered toast and has sent all his sons to Eton----" + +"The truth!" we demanded. + +"Oh, the truth," she stammered, "the truth has nothing to do with +literature," and sitting down she refused to say another word. + +It all seemed to us very inconclusive. + +"Ladies, we must try to sum up the results," Jane was beginning, when a +hum, which had been heard for some time through the open window, drowned +her voice. + +"War! War! War! Declaration of War!" men were shouting in the street +below. + +We looked at each other in horror. + +"What war?" we cried. "What war?" We remembered, too late, that we had +never thought of sending anyone to the House of Commons. We had +forgotten all about it. We turned to Poll, who had reached the history +shelves in the London Library, and asked her to enlighten us. + +"Why," we cried, "do men go to war?" + +"Sometimes for one reason, sometimes for another," she replied calmly. +"In 1760, for example----" The shouts outside drowned her words. "Again +in 1797--in 1804--It was the Austrians in 1866--1870 was the +Franco-Prussian--In 1900 on the other hand----" + +"But it's now 1914!" we cut her short. + +"Ah, I don't know what they're going to war for now," she admitted. + + * * * * * + +The war was over and peace was in process of being signed, when I once +more found myself with Castalia in the room where our meetings used to +be held. We began idly turning over the pages of our old minute books. +"Queer," I mused, "to see what we were thinking five years ago." "We are +agreed," Castalia quoted, reading over my shoulder, "that it is the +object of life to produce good people and good books." We made no +comment upon _that_. "A good man is at any rate honest, passionate and +unworldly." "What a woman's language!" I observed. "Oh, dear," cried +Castalia, pushing the book away from her, "what fools we were! It was +all Poll's father's fault," she went on. "I believe he did it on +purpose--that ridiculous will, I mean, forcing Poll to read all the +books in the London Library. If we hadn't learnt to read," she said +bitterly, "we might still have been bearing children in ignorance and +that I believe was the happiest life after all. I know what you're going +to say about war," she checked me, "and the horror of bearing children +to see them killed, but our mothers did it, and their mothers, and their +mothers before them. And _they_ didn't complain. They couldn't read. +I've done my best," she sighed, "to prevent my little girl from learning +to read, but what's the use? I caught Ann only yesterday with a +newspaper in her hand and she was beginning to ask me if it was 'true.' +Next she'll ask me whether Mr. Lloyd George is a good man, then whether +Mr. Arnold Bennett is a good novelist, and finally whether I believe in +God. How can I bring my daughter up to believe in nothing?" she +demanded. + +"Surely you could teach her to believe that a man's intellect is, and +always will be, fundamentally superior to a woman's?" I suggested. She +brightened at this and began to turn over our old minutes again. "Yes," +she said, "think of their discoveries, their mathematics, their science, +their philosophy, their scholarship----" and then she began to laugh, "I +shall never forget old Hobkin and the hairpin," she said, and went on +reading and laughing and I thought she was quite happy, when suddenly +she drew the book from her and burst out, "Oh, Cassandra, why do you +torment me? Don't you know that our belief in man's intellect is the +greatest fallacy of them all?" "What?" I exclaimed. "Ask any journalist, +schoolmaster, politician or public house keeper in the land and they +will all tell you that men are much cleverer than women." "As if I +doubted it," she said scornfully. "How could they help it? Haven't we +bred them and fed and kept them in comfort since the beginning of time +so that they may be clever even if they're nothing else? It's all our +doing!" she cried. "We insisted upon having intellect and now we've got +it. And it's intellect," she continued, "that's at the bottom of it. +What could be more charming than a boy before he has begun to cultivate +his intellect? He is beautiful to look at; he gives himself no airs; he +understands the meaning of art and literature instinctively; he goes +about enjoying his life and making other people enjoy theirs. Then they +teach him to cultivate his intellect. He becomes a barrister, a civil +servant, a general, an author, a professor. Every day he goes to an +office. Every year he produces a book. He maintains a whole family by +the products of his brain--poor devil! Soon he cannot come into a room +without making us all feel uncomfortable; he condescends to every woman +he meets, and dares not tell the truth even to his own wife; instead of +rejoicing our eyes we have to shut them if we are to take him in our +arms. True, they console themselves with stars of all shapes, ribbons +of all shades, and incomes of all sizes--but what is to console us? That +we shall be able in ten years' time to spend a week-end at Lahore? Or +that the least insect in Japan has a name twice the length of its body? +Oh, Cassandra, for Heaven's sake let us devise a method by which men may +bear children! It is our only chance. For unless we provide them with +some innocent occupation we shall get neither good people nor good +books; we shall perish beneath the fruits of their unbridled activity; +and not a human being will survive to know that there once was +Shakespeare!" + +"It is too late," I replied. "We cannot provide even for the children +that we have." + +"And then you ask me to believe in intellect," she said. + +While we spoke, men were crying hoarsely and wearily in the street, and, +listening, we heard that the Treaty of Peace had just been signed. The +voices died away. The rain was falling and interfered no doubt with the +proper explosion of the fireworks. + +"My cook will have bought the Evening News," said Castalia, "and Ann +will be spelling it out over her tea. I must go home." + +"It's no good--not a bit of good," I said. "Once she knows how to read +there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in--and that is +herself." + +"Well, that would be a change," sighed Castalia. + +So we swept up the papers of our Society, and, though Ann was playing +with her doll very happily, we solemnly made her a present of the lot +and told her we had chosen her to be President of the Society of the +future--upon which she burst into tears, poor little girl. + + + + +MONDAY OR TUESDAY + + +Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his +way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and +distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, +moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, +perfect--the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or +white feathers, for ever and ever---- + +Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for +ever desiring--(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels +strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)--for ever +desiring--(the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is +midday; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)--for ever desiring +truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the +chimneys; bark, shout, cry "Iron for sale"--and truth? + +Radiating to a point men's feet and women's feet, black or +gold-encrusted--(This foggy weather--Sugar? No, thank you--The +commonwealth of the future)--the firelight darting and making the room +red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a +van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass +preserves fur coats---- + +Flaunted, leaf-light, drifting at corners, blown across the wheels, +silver-splashed, home or not home, gathered, scattered, squandered in +separate scales, swept up, down, torn, sunk, assembled--and truth? + +Now to recollect by the fireside on the white square of marble. From +ivory depths words rising shed their blackness, blossom and penetrate. +Fallen the book; in the flame, in the smoke, in the momentary sparks--or +now voyaging, the marble square pendant, minarets beneath and the +Indian seas, while space rushes blue and stars glint--truth? or now, +content with closeness? + +Lazy and indifferent the heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then +bares them. + + + + +AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL + + +Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one's +eyes slide above the paper's edge to the poor woman's +face--insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny +with it. Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn, +and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be +aware of--what? That life's like that, it seems. Five faces +opposite--five mature faces--and the knowledge in each face. Strange, +though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all +those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one of the five doing +something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; +a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of +the line framed opposite; and the fifth--the terrible thing about the +fifth is that she does nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my +poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game--do, for all our sakes, +conceal it! + +As if she heard me, she looked up, shifted slightly in her seat and +sighed. She seemed to apologise and at the same time to say to me, "If +only you knew!" Then she looked at life again. "But I do know," I +answered silently, glancing at the _Times_ for manners' sake. "I know +the whole business. 'Peace between Germany and the Allied Powers was +yesterday officially ushered in at Paris--Signor Nitti, the Italian +Prime Minister--a passenger train at Doncaster was in collision with a +goods train....' We all know--the _Times_ knows--but we pretend we +don't." My eyes had once more crept over the paper's rim. She shuddered, +twitched her arm queerly to the middle of her back and shook her head. +Again I dipped into my great reservoir of life. "Take what you like," I +continued, "births, deaths, marriages, Court Circular, the habits of +birds, Leonardo da Vinci, the Sandhills murder, high wages and the cost +of living--oh, take what you like," I repeated, "it's all in the +_Times_!" Again with infinite weariness she moved her head from side to +side until, like a top exhausted with spinning, it settled on her neck. + +The _Times_ was no protection against such sorrow as hers. But other +human beings forbade intercourse. The best thing to do against life was +to fold the paper so that it made a perfect square, crisp, thick, +impervious even to life. This done, I glanced up quickly, armed with a +shield of my own. She pierced through my shield; she gazed into my eyes +as if searching any sediment of courage at the depths of them and +damping it to clay. Her twitch alone denied all hope, discounted all +illusion. + +So we rattled through Surrey and across the border into Sussex. But with +my eyes upon life I did not see that the other travellers had left, one +by one, till, save for the man who read, we were alone together. Here +was Three Bridges station. We drew slowly down the platform and +stopped. Was he going to leave us? I prayed both ways--I prayed last +that he might stay. At that instant he roused himself, crumpled his +paper contemptuously, like a thing done with, burst open the door, and +left us alone. + +The unhappy woman, leaning a little forward, palely and colourlessly +addressed me--talked of stations and holidays, of brothers at +Eastbourne, and the time of year, which was, I forget now, early or +late. But at last looking from the window and seeing, I knew, only life, +she breathed, "Staying away--that's the drawback of it----" Ah, now we +approached the catastrophe, "My sister-in-law"--the bitterness of her +tone was like lemon on cold steel, and speaking, not to me, but to +herself, she muttered, "nonsense, she would say--that's what they all +say," and while she spoke she fidgeted as though the skin on her back +were as a plucked fowl's in a poulterer's shop-window. + +"Oh, that cow!" she broke off nervously, as though the great wooden cow +in the meadow had shocked her and saved her from some indiscretion. Then +she shuddered, and then she made the awkward angular movement that I had +seen before, as if, after the spasm, some spot between the shoulders +burnt or itched. Then again she looked the most unhappy woman in the +world, and I once more reproached her, though not with the same +conviction, for if there were a reason, and if I knew the reason, the +stigma was removed from life. + +"Sisters-in-law," I said-- + +Her lips pursed as if to spit venom at the word; pursed they remained. +All she did was to take her glove and rub hard at a spot on the +window-pane. She rubbed as if she would rub something out for ever--some +stain, some indelible contamination. Indeed, the spot remained for all +her rubbing, and back she sank with the shudder and the clutch of the +arm I had come to expect. Something impelled me to take my glove and rub +my window. There, too, was a little speck on the glass. For all my +rubbing it remained. And then the spasm went through me; I crooked my +arm and plucked at the middle of my back. My skin, too, felt like the +damp chicken's skin in the poulterer's shop-window; one spot between the +shoulders itched and irritated, felt clammy, felt raw. Could I reach it? +Surreptitiously I tried. She saw me. A smile of infinite irony, infinite +sorrow, flitted and faded from her face. But she had communicated, +shared her secret, passed her poison; she would speak no more. Leaning +back in my corner, shielding my eyes from her eyes, seeing only the +slopes and hollows, greys and purples, of the winter's landscape, I read +her message, deciphered her secret, reading it beneath her gaze. + +Hilda's the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh--Hilda the +blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as +the cab draws up, holding a coin. "Poor Minnie, more of a grasshopper +than ever--old cloak she had last year. Well, well, with two children +these days one can't do more. No, Minnie, I've got it; here you are, +cabby--none of your ways with me. Come in, Minnie. Oh, I could carry +_you_, let alone your basket!" So they go into the dining-room. "Aunt +Minnie, children." + +Slowly the knives and forks sink from the upright. Down they get (Bob +and Barbara), hold out hands stiffly; back again to their chairs, +staring between the resumed mouthfuls. [But this we'll skip; ornaments, +curtains, trefoil china plate, yellow oblongs of cheese, white squares +of biscuit--skip--oh, but wait! Halfway through luncheon one of those +shivers; Bob stares at her, spoon in mouth. "Get on with your pudding, +Bob;" but Hilda disapproves. "Why _should_ she twitch?" Skip, skip, till +we reach the landing on the upper floor; stairs brass-bound; linoleum +worn; oh, yes! little bedroom looking out over the roofs of +Eastbourne--zigzagging roofs like the spines of caterpillars, this way, +that way, striped red and yellow, with blue-black slating]. Now, Minnie, +the door's shut; Hilda heavily descends to the basement; you unstrap the +straps of your basket, lay on the bed a meagre nightgown, stand side by +side furred felt slippers. The looking-glass--no, you avoid the +looking-glass. Some methodical disposition of hat-pins. Perhaps the +shell box has something in it? You shake it; it's the pearl stud there +was last year--that's all. And then the sniff, the sigh, the sitting by +the window. Three o'clock on a December afternoon; the rain drizzling; +one light low in the skylight of a drapery emporium; another high in a +servant's bedroom--this one goes out. That gives her nothing to look at. +A moment's blankness--then, what are you thinking? (Let me peep across +at her opposite; she's asleep or pretending it; so what would she think +about sitting at the window at three o'clock in the afternoon? Health, +money, hills, her God?) Yes, sitting on the very edge of the chair +looking over the roofs of Eastbourne, Minnie Marsh prays to God. That's +all very well; and she may rub the pane too, as though to see God +better; but what God does she see? Who's the God of Minnie Marsh, the +God of the back streets of Eastbourne, the God of three o'clock in the +afternoon? I, too, see roofs, I see sky; but, oh, dear--this seeing of +Gods! More like President Kruger than Prince Albert--that's the best I +can do for him; and I see him on a chair, in a black frock-coat, not so +very high up either; I can manage a cloud or two for him to sit on; and +then his hand trailing in the cloud holds a rod, a truncheon is +it?--black, thick, thorned--a brutal old bully--Minnie's God! Did he +send the itch and the patch and the twitch? Is that why she prays? What +she rubs on the window is the stain of sin. Oh, she committed some +crime! + +I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly--in summer there are +bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A +parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows broken? Not Minnie's!... She +was faithful. How she nursed her mother! All her savings on the +tombstone--wreaths under glass--daffodils in jars. But I'm off the +track. A crime.... They would say she kept her sorrow, suppressed her +secret--her sex, they'd say--the scientific people. But what flummery to +saddle _her_ with sex! No--more like this. Passing down the streets of +Croydon twenty years ago, the violet loops of ribbon in the draper's +window spangled in the electric light catch her eye. She lingers--past +six. Still by running she can reach home. She pushes through the glass +swing door. It's sale-time. Shallow trays brim with ribbons. She pauses, +pulls this, fingers that with the raised roses on it--no need to choose, +no need to buy, and each tray with its surprises. "We don't shut till +seven," and then it _is_ seven. She runs, she rushes, home she reaches, +but too late. Neighbours--the doctor--baby brother--the +kettle--scalded--hospital--dead--or only the shock of it, the blame? +Ah, but the detail matters nothing! It's what she carries with her; the +spot, the crime, the thing to expiate, always there between her +shoulders. "Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it's the thing I did." + +Whether you did, or what you did, I don't mind; it's not the thing I +want. The draper's window looped with violet--that'll do; a little cheap +perhaps, a little commonplace--since one has a choice of crimes, but +then so many (let me peep across again--still sleeping, or pretending +sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed--a touch of obstinacy, more than +one would think--no hint of sex)--so many crimes aren't _your_ crime; +your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church +door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she +kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays. +All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It's +raised, it's red, it's burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point. +"Bob at lunch to-day"--But elderly women are the worst. + +Indeed now you can't sit praying any longer. Kruger's sunk beneath the +clouds--washed over as with a painter's brush of liquid grey, to which +he adds a tinge of black--even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That's +what always happens! Just as you've seen him, felt him, someone +interrupts. It's Hilda now. + +How you hate her! She'll even lock the bathroom door overnight, too, +though it's only cold water you want, and sometimes when the night's +been bad it seems as if washing helped. And John at breakfast--the +children--meals are worst, and sometimes there are friends--ferns don't +altogether hide 'em--they guess, too; so out you go along the front, +where the waves are grey, and the papers blow, and the glass shelters +green and draughty, and the chairs cost tuppence--too much--for there +must be preachers along the sands. Ah, that's a nigger--that's a funny +man--that's a man with parakeets--poor little creatures! Is there no +one here who thinks of God?--just up there, over the pier, with his +rod--but no--there's nothing but grey in the sky or if it's blue the +white clouds hide him, and the music--it's military music--and what they +are fishing for? Do they catch them? How the children stare! Well, then +home a back way--"Home a back way!" The words have meaning; might have +been spoken by the old man with whiskers--no, no, he didn't really +speak; but everything has meaning--placards leaning against +doorways--names above shop-windows--red fruit in baskets--women's heads +in the hairdresser's--all say "Minnie Marsh!" But here's a jerk. "Eggs +are cheaper!" That's what always happens! I was heading her over the +waterfall, straight for madness, when, like a flock of dream sheep, she +turns t'other way and runs between my fingers. Eggs are cheaper. +Tethered to the shores of the world, none of the crimes, sorrows, +rhapsodies, or insanities for poor Minnie Marsh; never late for +luncheon; never caught in a storm without a mackintosh; never utterly +unconscious of the cheapness of eggs. So she reaches home--scrapes her +boots. + +Have I read you right? But the human face--the human face at the top of +the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, +she looks out; and in the human eye--how d'you define it?--there's a +break--a division--so that when you've grasped the stem the butterfly's +off--the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower--move, +raise your hand, off, high, away. I won't raise my hand. Hang still, +then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Minnie Marsh--I, +too, on my flower--the hawk over the down--alone, or what were the worth +of life? To rise; hang still in the evening, in the midday; hang still +over the down. The flicker of a hand--off, up! then poised again. Alone, +unseen; seeing all so still down there, all so lovely. None seeing, none +caring. The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. Air +above, air below. And the moon and immortality.... Oh, but I drop to the +turf! Are you down too, you in the corner, what's your +name--woman--Minnie Marsh; some such name as that? There she is, tight +to her blossom; opening her hand-bag, from which she takes a hollow +shell--an egg--who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it +was you who said it on the way home, you remember, when the old +gentleman, suddenly opening his umbrella--or sneezing was it? Anyhow, +Kruger went, and you came "home a back way," and scraped your boots. +Yes. And now you lay across your knees a pocket-handkerchief into which +drop little angular fragments of eggshell--fragments of a map--a puzzle. +I wish I could piece them together! If you would only sit still. She's +moved her knees--the map's in bits again. Down the slopes of the Andes +the white blocks of marble go bounding and hurtling, crushing to death a +whole troop of Spanish muleteers, with their convoy--Drake's booty, +gold and silver. But to return---- + +To what, to where? She opened the door, and, putting her umbrella in the +stand--that goes without saying; so, too, the whiff of beef from the +basement; dot, dot, dot. But what I cannot thus eliminate, what I must, +head down, eyes shut, with the courage of a battalion and the blindness +of a bull, charge and disperse are, indubitably, the figures behind the +ferns, commercial travellers. There I've hidden them all this time in +the hope that somehow they'd disappear, or better still emerge, as +indeed they must, if the story's to go on gathering richness and +rotundity, destiny and tragedy, as stories should, rolling along with it +two, if not three, commercial travellers and a whole grove of +aspidistra. "The fronds of the aspidistra only partly concealed the +commercial traveller--" Rhododendrons would conceal him utterly, and +into the bargain give me my fling of red and white, for which I starve +and strive; but rhododendrons in Eastbourne--in December--on the +Marshes' table--no, no, I dare not; it's all a matter of crusts and +cruets, frills and ferns. Perhaps there'll be a moment later by the sea. +Moreover, I feel, pleasantly pricking through the green fretwork and +over the glacis of cut glass, a desire to peer and peep at the man +opposite--one's as much as I can manage. James Moggridge is it, whom the +Marshes call Jimmy? [Minnie, you must promise not to twitch till I've +got this straight]. James Moggridge travels in--shall we say +buttons?--but the time's not come for bringing _them_ in--the big and +the little on the long cards, some peacock-eyed, others dull gold; +cairngorms some, and others coral sprays--but I say the time's not come. +He travels, and on Thursdays, his Eastbourne day, takes his meals with +the Marshes. His red face, his little steady eyes--by no means +altogether commonplace--his enormous appetite (that's safe; he won't +look at Minnie till the bread's swamped the gravy dry), napkin tucked +diamond-wise--but this is primitive, and, whatever it may do the reader, +don't take me in. Let's dodge to the Moggridge household, set that in +motion. Well, the family boots are mended on Sundays by James himself. +He reads _Truth_. But his passion? Roses--and his wife a retired +hospital nurse--interesting--for God's sake let me have one woman with a +name I like! But no; she's of the unborn children of the mind, illicit, +none the less loved, like my rhododendrons. How many die in every novel +that's written--the best, the dearest, while Moggridge lives. It's +life's fault. Here's Minnie eating her egg at the moment opposite and at +t'other end of the line--are we past Lewes?--there must be Jimmy--or +what's her twitch for? + +There must be Moggridge--life's fault. Life imposes her laws; life +blocks the way; life's behind the fern; life's the tyrant; oh, but not +the bully! No, for I assure you I come willingly; I come wooed by Heaven +knows what compulsion across ferns and cruets, table splashed and +bottles smeared. I come irresistibly to lodge myself somewhere on the +firm flesh, in the robust spine, wherever I can penetrate or find +foothold on the person, in the soul, of Moggridge the man. The enormous +stability of the fabric; the spine tough as whalebone, straight as +oak-tree; the ribs radiating branches; the flesh taut tarpaulin; the red +hollows; the suck and regurgitation of the heart; while from above meat +falls in brown cubes and beer gushes to be churned to blood again--and +so we reach the eyes. Behind the aspidistra they see something: black, +white, dismal; now the plate again; behind the aspidistra they see +elderly woman; "Marsh's sister, Hilda's more my sort;" the tablecloth +now. "Marsh would know what's wrong with Morrises ..." talk that over; +cheese has come; the plate again; turn it round--the enormous fingers; +now the woman opposite. "Marsh's sister--not a bit like Marsh; wretched, +elderly female.... You should feed your hens.... God's truth, what's +set her twitching? Not what _I_ said? Dear, dear, dear! these elderly +women. Dear, dear!" + +[Yes, Minnie; I know you've twitched, but one moment--James Moggridge]. + +"Dear, dear, dear!" How beautiful the sound is! like the knock of a +mallet on seasoned timber, like the throb of the heart of an ancient +whaler when the seas press thick and the green is clouded. "Dear, dear!" +what a passing bell for the souls of the fretful to soothe them and +solace them, lap them in linen, saying, "So long. Good luck to you!" and +then, "What's your pleasure?" for though Moggridge would pluck his rose +for her, that's done, that's over. Now what's the next thing? "Madam, +you'll miss your train," for they don't linger. + +That's the man's way; that's the sound that reverberates; that's St. +Paul's and the motor-omnibuses. But we're brushing the crumbs off. Oh, +Moggridge, you won't stay? You must be off? Are you driving through +Eastbourne this afternoon in one of those little carriages? Are you the +man who's walled up in green cardboard boxes, and sometimes has the +blinds down, and sometimes sits so solemn staring like a sphinx, and +always there's a look of the sepulchral, something of the undertaker, +the coffin, and the dusk about horse and driver? Do tell me--but the +doors slammed. We shall never meet again. Moggridge, farewell! + +Yes, yes, I'm coming. Right up to the top of the house. One moment I'll +linger. How the mud goes round in the mind--what a swirl these monsters +leave, the waters rocking, the weeds waving and green here, black there, +striking to the sand, till by degrees the atoms reassemble, the deposit +sifts itself, and again through the eyes one sees clear and still, and +there comes to the lips some prayer for the departed, some obsequy for +the souls of those one nods to, the people one never meets again. + +James Moggridge is dead now, gone for ever. Well, Minnie--"I can face it +no longer." If she said that--(Let me look at her. She is brushing the +eggshell into deep declivities). She said it certainly, leaning against +the wall of the bedroom, and plucking at the little balls which edge the +claret-coloured curtain. But when the self speaks to the self, who is +speaking?--the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the +central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world--a +coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern +restlessly up and down the dark corridors. "I can bear it no longer," +her spirit says. "That man at lunch--Hilda--the children." Oh, heavens, +her sob! It's the spirit wailing its destiny, the spirit driven hither, +thither, lodging on the diminishing carpets--meagre footholds--shrunken +shreds of all the vanishing universe--love, life, faith, husband, +children, I know not what splendours and pageantries glimpsed in +girlhood. "Not for me--not for me." + +But then--the muffins, the bald elderly dog? Bead mats I should fancy +and the consolation of underlinen. If Minnie Marsh were run over and +taken to hospital, nurses and doctors themselves would exclaim.... +There's the vista and the vision--there's the distance--the blue blot at +the end of the avenue, while, after all, the tea is rich, the muffin +hot, and the dog--"Benny, to your basket, sir, and see what mother's +brought you!" So, taking the glove with the worn thumb, defying once +more the encroaching demon of what's called going in holes, you renew +the fortifications, threading the grey wool, running it in and out. + +Running it in and out, across and over, spinning a web through which God +himself--hush, don't think of God! How firm the stitches are! You must +be proud of your darning. Let nothing disturb her. Let the light fall +gently, and the clouds show an inner vest of the first green leaf. Let +the sparrow perch on the twig and shake the raindrop hanging to the +twig's elbow.... Why look up? Was it a sound, a thought? Oh, heavens! +Back again to the thing you did, the plate glass with the violet loops? +But Hilda will come. Ignominies, humiliations, oh! Close the breach. + +Having mended her glove, Minnie Marsh lays it in the drawer. She shuts +the drawer with decision. I catch sight of her face in the glass. Lips +are pursed. Chin held high. Next she laces her shoes. Then she touches +her throat. What's your brooch? Mistletoe or merry-thought? And what is +happening? Unless I'm much mistaken, the pulse's quickened, the moment's +coming, the threads are racing, Niagara's ahead. Here's the crisis! +Heaven be with you! Down she goes. Courage, courage! Face it, be it! For +God's sake don't wait on the mat now! There's the door! I'm on your +side. Speak! Confront her, confound her soul! + +"Oh, I beg your pardon! Yes, this is Eastbourne. I'll reach it down for +you. Let me try the handle." [But, Minnie, though we keep up pretences, +I've read you right--I'm with you now]. + +"That's all your luggage?" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." + +(But why do you look about you? Hilda won't come to the station, nor +John; and Moggridge is driving at the far side of Eastbourne). + +"I'll wait by my bag, ma'am, that's safest. He said he'd meet me.... Oh, +there he is! That's my son." + +So they walk off together. + +Well, but I'm confounded.... Surely, Minnie, you know better! A strange +young man.... Stop! I'll tell him--Minnie!--Miss Marsh!--I don't know +though. There's something queer in her cloak as it blows. Oh, but it's +untrue, it's indecent.... Look how he bends as they reach the gateway. +She finds her ticket. What's the joke? Off they go, down the road, side +by side.... Well, my world's done for! What do I stand on? What do I +know? That's not Minnie. There never was Moggridge. Who am I? Life's +bare as bone. + +And yet the last look of them--he stepping from the kerb and she +following him round the edge of the big building brims me with +wonder--floods me anew. Mysterious figures! Mother and son. Who are you? +Why do you walk down the street? Where to-night will you sleep, and +then, to-morrow? Oh, how it whirls and surges--floats me afresh! I start +after them. People drive this way and that. The white light splutters +and pours. Plate-glass windows. Carnations; chrysanthemums. Ivy in dark +gardens. Milk carts at the door. Wherever I go, mysterious figures, I +see you, turning the corner, mothers and sons; you, you, you. I hasten, +I follow. This, I fancy, must be the sea. Grey is the landscape; dim as +ashes; the water murmurs and moves. If I fall on my knees, if I go +through the ritual, the ancient antics, it's you, unknown figures, you I +adore; if I open my arms, it's you I embrace, you I draw to me--adorable +world! + + + + +THE STRING QUARTET + + +Well, here we are, and if you cast your eye over the room you will see +that Tubes and trams and omnibuses, private carriages not a few, even, I +venture to believe, landaus with bays in them, have been busy at it, +weaving threads from one end of London to the other. Yet I begin to have +my doubts-- + +If indeed it's true, as they're saying, that Regent Street is up, and +the Treaty signed, and the weather not cold for the time of year, and +even at that rent not a flat to be had, and the worst of influenza its +after effects; if I bethink me of having forgotten to write about the +leak in the larder, and left my glove in the train; if the ties of blood +require me, leaning forward, to accept cordially the hand which is +perhaps offered hesitatingly-- + +"Seven years since we met!" + +"The last time in Venice." + +"And where are you living now?" + +"Well, the late afternoon suits me the best, though, if it weren't +asking too much----" + +"But I knew you at once!" + +"Still, the war made a break----" + +If the mind's shot through by such little arrows, and--for human society +compels it--no sooner is one launched than another presses forward; if +this engenders heat and in addition they've turned on the electric +light; if saying one thing does, in so many cases, leave behind it a +need to improve and revise, stirring besides regrets, pleasures, +vanities, and desires--if it's all the facts I mean, and the hats, the +fur boas, the gentlemen's swallow-tail coats, and pearl tie-pins that +come to the surface--what chance is there? + +Of what? It becomes every minute more difficult to say why, in spite of +everything, I sit here believing I can't now say what, or even remember +the last time it happened. + +"Did you see the procession?" + +"The King looked cold." + +"No, no, no. But what was it?" + +"She's bought a house at Malmesbury." + +"How lucky to find one!" + +On the contrary, it seems to me pretty sure that she, whoever she may +be, is damned, since it's all a matter of flats and hats and sea gulls, +or so it seems to be for a hundred people sitting here well dressed, +walled in, furred, replete. Not that I can boast, since I too sit +passive on a gilt chair, only turning the earth above a buried memory, +as we all do, for there are signs, if I'm not mistaken, that we're all +recalling something, furtively seeking something. Why fidget? Why so +anxious about the sit of cloaks; and gloves--whether to button or +unbutton? Then watch that elderly face against the dark canvas, a moment +ago urbane and flushed; now taciturn and sad, as if in shadow. Was it +the sound of the second violin tuning in the ante-room? Here they come; +four black figures, carrying instruments, and seat themselves facing +the white squares under the downpour of light; rest the tips of their +bows on the music stand; with a simultaneous movement lift them; lightly +poise them, and, looking across at the player opposite, the first violin +counts one, two, three---- + +Flourish, spring, burgeon, burst! The pear tree on the top of the +mountain. Fountains jet; drops descend. But the waters of the Rhone flow +swift and deep, race under the arches, and sweep the trailing water +leaves, washing shadows over the silver fish, the spotted fish rushed +down by the swift waters, now swept into an eddy where--it's difficult +this--conglomeration of fish all in a pool; leaping, splashing, scraping +sharp fins; and such a boil of current that the yellow pebbles are +churned round and round, round and round--free now, rushing downwards, +or even somehow ascending in exquisite spirals into the air; curled like +thin shavings from under a plane; up and up.... How lovely goodness is +in those who, stepping lightly, go smiling through the world! Also in +jolly old fishwives, squatted under arches, obscene old women, how +deeply they laugh and shake and rollick, when they walk, from side to +side, hum, hah! + +"That's an early Mozart, of course----" + +"But the tune, like all his tunes, makes one despair--I mean hope. What +do I mean? That's the worst of music! I want to dance, laugh, eat pink +cakes, yellow cakes, drink thin, sharp wine. Or an indecent story, +now--I could relish that. The older one grows the more one likes +indecency. Hah, hah! I'm laughing. What at? You said nothing, nor did +the old gentleman opposite.... But suppose--suppose--Hush!" + +The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the +trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird +singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, +sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven +together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in +sorrow--crash! + +The boat sinks. Rising, the figures ascend, but now leaf thin, tapering +to a dusky wraith, which, fiery tipped, draws its twofold passion from +my heart. For me it sings, unseals my sorrow, thaws compassion, floods +with love the sunless world, nor, ceasing, abates its tenderness but +deftly, subtly, weaves in and out until in this pattern, this +consummation, the cleft ones unify; soar, sob, sink to rest, sorrow and +joy. + +Why then grieve? Ask what? Remain unsatisfied? I say all's been settled; +yes; laid to rest under a coverlet of rose leaves, falling. Falling. Ah, +but they cease. One rose leaf, falling from an enormous height, like a +little parachute dropped from an invisible balloon, turns, flutters +waveringly. It won't reach us. + +"No, no. I noticed nothing. That's the worst of music--these silly +dreams. The second violin was late, you say?" + +"There's old Mrs. Munro, feeling her way out--blinder each year, poor +woman--on this slippery floor." + +Eyeless old age, grey-headed Sphinx.... There she stands on the +pavement, beckoning, so sternly, the red omnibus. + +"How lovely! How well they play! How--how--how!" + +The tongue is but a clapper. Simplicity itself. The feathers in the hat +next me are bright and pleasing as a child's rattle. The leaf on the +plane-tree flashes green through the chink in the curtain. Very strange, +very exciting. + +"How--how--how!" Hush! + +These are the lovers on the grass. + +"If, madam, you will take my hand----" + +"Sir, I would trust you with my heart. Moreover, we have left our bodies +in the banqueting hall. Those on the turf are the shadows of our souls." + +"Then these are the embraces of our souls." The lemons nod assent. The +swan pushes from the bank and floats dreaming into mid stream. + +"But to return. He followed me down the corridor, and, as we turned the +corner, trod on the lace of my petticoat. What could I do but cry 'Ah!' +and stop to finger it? At which he drew his sword, made passes as if he +were stabbing something to death, and cried, 'Mad! Mad! Mad!' Whereupon +I screamed, and the Prince, who was writing in the large vellum book in +the oriel window, came out in his velvet skull-cap and furred slippers, +snatched a rapier from the wall--the King of Spain's gift, you know--on +which I escaped, flinging on this cloak to hide the ravages to my +skirt--to hide.... But listen! the horns!" + +The gentleman replies so fast to the lady, and she runs up the scale +with such witty exchange of compliment now culminating in a sob of +passion, that the words are indistinguishable though the meaning is +plain enough--love, laughter, flight, pursuit, celestial bliss--all +floated out on the gayest ripple of tender endearment--until the sound +of the silver horns, at first far distant, gradually sounds more and +more distinctly, as if seneschals were saluting the dawn or proclaiming +ominously the escape of the lovers.... The green garden, moonlit pool, +lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky, across +which, as the horns are joined by trumpets and supported by clarions +there rise white arches firmly planted on marble pillars.... Tramp and +trumpeting. Clang and clangour. Firm establishment. Fast foundations. +March of myriads. Confusion and chaos trod to earth. But this city to +which we travel has neither stone nor marble; hangs enduring; stands +unshakable; nor does a face, nor does a flag greet or welcome. Leave +then to perish your hope; droop in the desert my joy; naked advance. +Bare are the pillars; auspicious to none; casting no shade; resplendent; +severe. Back then I fall, eager no more, desiring only to go, find the +street, mark the buildings, greet the applewoman, say to the maid who +opens the door: A starry night. + + +"Good night, good night. You go this way?" + +"Alas. I go that." + + + + +BLUE & GREEN + + +GREEN + +The pointed fingers of glass hang downwards. The light slides down the +glass, and drops a pool of green. All day long the ten fingers of the +lustre drop green upon the marble. The feathers of parakeets--their +harsh cries--sharp blades of palm trees--green, too; green needles +glittering in the sun. But the hard glass drips on to the marble; the +pools hover above the dessert sand; the camels lurch through them; the +pools settle on the marble; rushes edge them; weeds clog them; here and +there a white blossom; the frog flops over; at night the stars are set +there unbroken. Evening comes, and the shadow sweeps the green over the +mantelpiece; the ruffled surface of ocean. No ships come; the aimless +waves sway beneath the empty sky. It's night; the needles drip blots of +blue. The green's out. + + +BLUE + +The snub-nosed monster rises to the surface and spouts through his blunt +nostrils two columns of water, which, fiery-white in the centre, spray +off into a fringe of blue beads. Strokes of blue line the black +tarpaulin of his hide. Slushing the water through mouth and nostrils he +sings, heavy with water, and the blue closes over him dowsing the +polished pebbles of his eyes. Thrown upon the beach he lies, blunt, +obtuse, shedding dry blue scales. Their metallic blue stains the rusty +iron on the beach. Blue are the ribs of the wrecked rowing boat. A wave +rolls beneath the blue bells. But the cathedral's different, cold, +incense laden, faint blue with the veils of madonnas. + + + + +KEW GARDENS + + +From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks +spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and +unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of +colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom +of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly +clubbed at the end. The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by +the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights +passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath +with a spot of the most intricate colour. The light fell either upon the +smooth, grey back of a pebble, or, the shell of a snail with its brown, +circular veins, or falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such +intensity of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one +expected them to burst and disappear. Instead, the drop was left in a +second silver grey once more, and the light now settled upon the flesh +of a leaf, revealing the branching thread of fibre beneath the surface, +and again it moved on and spread its illumination in the vast green +spaces beneath the dome of the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves. +Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was +flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk +in Kew Gardens in July. + +The figures of these men and women straggled past the flower-bed with a +curiously irregular movement not unlike that of the white and blue +butterflies who crossed the turf in zig-zag flights from bed to bed. The +man was about six inches in front of the woman, strolling carelessly, +while she bore on with greater purpose, only turning her head now and +then to see that the children were not too far behind. The man kept this +distance in front of the woman purposely, though perhaps unconsciously, +for he wished to go on with his thoughts. + +"Fifteen years ago I came here with Lily," he thought. "We sat somewhere +over there by a lake and I begged her to marry me all through the hot +afternoon. How the dragonfly kept circling round us: how clearly I see +the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle at the toe. All +the time I spoke I saw her shoe and when it moved impatiently I knew +without looking up what she was going to say: the whole of her seemed to +be in her shoe. And my love, my desire, were in the dragonfly; for some +reason I thought that if it settled there, on that leaf, the broad one +with the red flower in the middle of it, if the dragonfly settled on the +leaf she would say "Yes" at once. But the dragonfly went round and +round: it never settled anywhere--of course not, happily not, or I +shouldn't be walking here with Eleanor and the children--Tell me, +Eleanor. D'you ever think of the past?" + +"Why do you ask, Simon?" + +"Because I've been thinking of the past. I've been thinking of Lily, +the woman I might have married.... Well, why are you silent? Do you mind +my thinking of the past?" + +"Why should I mind, Simon? Doesn't one always think of the past, in a +garden with men and women lying under the trees? Aren't they one's past, +all that remains of it, those men and women, those ghosts lying under +the trees, ... one's happiness, one's reality?" + +"For me, a square silver shoe buckle and a dragonfly--" + +"For me, a kiss. Imagine six little girls sitting before their easels +twenty years ago, down by the side of a lake, painting the water-lilies, +the first red water-lilies I'd ever seen. And suddenly a kiss, there on +the back of my neck. And my hand shook all the afternoon so that I +couldn't paint. I took out my watch and marked the hour when I would +allow myself to think of the kiss for five minutes only--it was so +precious--the kiss of an old grey-haired woman with a wart on her nose, +the mother of all my kisses all my life. Come, Caroline, come, Hubert." + +They walked on past the flower-bed, now walking four abreast, and +soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as +the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling +irregular patches. + +In the oval flower bed the snail, whose shell had been stained red, +blue, and yellow for the space of two minutes or so, now appeared to be +moving very slightly in its shell, and next began to labour over the +crumbs of loose earth which broke away and rolled down as it passed over +them. It appeared to have a definite goal in front of it, differing in +this respect from the singular high stepping angular green insect who +attempted to cross in front of it, and waited for a second with its +antennę trembling as if in deliberation, and then stepped off as rapidly +and strangely in the opposite direction. Brown cliffs with deep green +lakes in the hollows, flat, blade-like trees that waved from root to +tip, round boulders of grey stone, vast crumpled surfaces of a thin +crackling texture--all these objects lay across the snail's progress +between one stalk and another to his goal. Before he had decided whether +to circumvent the arched tent of a dead leaf or to breast it there came +past the bed the feet of other human beings. + +This time they were both men. The younger of the two wore an expression +of perhaps unnatural calm; he raised his eyes and fixed them very +steadily in front of him while his companion spoke, and directly his +companion had done speaking he looked on the ground again and sometimes +opened his lips only after a long pause and sometimes did not open them +at all. The elder man had a curiously uneven and shaky method of +walking, jerking his hand forward and throwing up his head abruptly, +rather in the manner of an impatient carriage horse tired of waiting +outside a house; but in the man these gestures were irresolute and +pointless. He talked almost incessantly; he smiled to himself and again +began to talk, as if the smile had been an answer. He was talking about +spirits--the spirits of the dead, who, according to him, were even now +telling him all sorts of odd things about their experiences in Heaven. + +"Heaven was known to the ancients as Thessaly, William, and now, with +this war, the spirit matter is rolling between the hills like thunder." +He paused, seemed to listen, smiled, jerked his head and continued:-- + +"You have a small electric battery and a piece of rubber to insulate the +wire--isolate?--insulate?--well, we'll skip the details, no good going +into details that wouldn't be understood--and in short the little +machine stands in any convenient position by the head of the bed, we +will say, on a neat mahogany stand. All arrangements being properly +fixed by workmen under my direction, the widow applies her ear and +summons the spirit by sign as agreed. Women! Widows! Women in black----" + +Here he seemed to have caught sight of a woman's dress in the distance, +which in the shade looked a purple black. He took off his hat, placed +his hand upon his heart, and hurried towards her muttering and +gesticulating feverishly. But William caught him by the sleeve and +touched a flower with the tip of his walking-stick in order to divert +the old man's attention. After looking at it for a moment in some +confusion the old man bent his ear to it and seemed to answer a voice +speaking from it, for he began talking about the forests of Uruguay +which he had visited hundreds of years ago in company with the most +beautiful young woman in Europe. He could be heard murmuring about +forests of Uruguay blanketed with the wax petals of tropical roses, +nightingales, sea beaches, mermaids, and women drowned at sea, as he +suffered himself to be moved on by William, upon whose face the look of +stoical patience grew slowly deeper and deeper. + +Following his steps so closely as to be slightly puzzled by his +gestures came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and +ponderous, the other rosy cheeked and nimble. Like most people of their +station they were frankly fascinated by any signs of eccentricity +betokening a disordered brain, especially in the well-to-do; but they +were too far off to be certain whether the gestures were merely +eccentric or genuinely mad. After they had scrutinised the old man's +back in silence for a moment and given each other a queer, sly look, +they went on energetically piecing together their very complicated +dialogue: + +"Nell, Bert, Lot, Cess, Phil, Pa, he says, I says, she says, I says, I +says, I says----" + +"My Bert, Sis, Bill, Grandad, the old man, sugar, + + + Sugar, flour, kippers, greens, + Sugar, sugar, sugar." + + +The ponderous woman looked through the pattern of falling words at the +flowers standing cool, firm, and upright in the earth, with a curious +expression. She saw them as a sleeper waking from a heavy sleep sees a +brass candlestick reflecting the light in an unfamiliar way, and closes +his eyes and opens them, and seeing the brass candlestick again, finally +starts broad awake and stares at the candlestick with all his powers. So +the heavy woman came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower +bed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was +saying. She stood there letting the words fall over her, swaying the top +part of her body slowly backwards and forwards, looking at the flowers. +Then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their tea. + +The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal +without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. Let alone the +effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin +texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even +by the tip of his horns would bear his weight; and this determined him +finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved +high enough from the ground to admit him. He had just inserted his head +in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was +getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past +outside on the turf. This time they were both young, a young man and a +young woman. They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that +season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth +pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case, when the wings of +the butterfly, though fully grown, are motionless in the sun. + +"Lucky it isn't Friday," he observed. + +"Why? D'you believe in luck?" + +"They make you pay sixpence on Friday." + +"What's sixpence anyway? Isn't it worth sixpence?" + +"What's 'it'--what do you mean by 'it'?" + +"O, anything--I mean--you know what I mean." + +Long pauses came between each of these remarks; they were uttered in +toneless and monotonous voices. The couple stood still on the edge of +the flower bed, and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down +into the soft earth. The action and the fact that his hand rested on the +top of hers expressed their feelings in a strange way, as these short +insignificant words also expressed something, words with short wings for +their heavy body of meaning, inadequate to carry them far and thus +alighting awkwardly upon the very common objects that surrounded them, +and were to their inexperienced touch so massive; but who knows (so they +thought as they pressed the parasol into the earth) what precipices +aren't concealed in them, or what slopes of ice don't shine in the sun +on the other side? Who knows? Who has ever seen this before? Even when +she wondered what sort of tea they gave you at Kew, he felt that +something loomed up behind her words, and stood vast and solid behind +them; and the mist very slowly rose and uncovered--O, Heavens, what were +those shapes?--little white tables, and waitresses who looked first at +her and then at him; and there was a bill that he would pay with a real +two shilling piece, and it was real, all real, he assured himself, +fingering the coin in his pocket, real to everyone except to him and to +her; even to him it began to seem real; and then--but it was too +exciting to stand and think any longer, and he pulled the parasol out of +the earth with a jerk and was impatient to find the place where one had +tea with other people, like other people. + +"Come along, Trissie; it's time we had our tea." + +"Wherever _does_ one have one's tea?" she asked with the oddest thrill +of excitement in her voice, looking vaguely round and letting herself be +drawn on down the grass path, trailing her parasol, turning her head +this way and that way, forgetting her tea, wishing to go down there and +then down there, remembering orchids and cranes among wild flowers, a +Chinese pagoda and a crimson crested bird; but he bore her on. + +Thus one couple after another with much the same irregular and aimless +movement passed the flower-bed and were enveloped in layer after layer +of green blue vapour, in which at first their bodies had substance and a +dash of colour, but later both substance and colour dissolved in the +green-blue atmosphere. How hot it was! So hot that even the thrush chose +to hop, like a mechanical bird, in the shadow of the flowers, with long +pauses between one movement and the next; instead of rambling vaguely +the white butterflies danced one above another, making with their white +shifting flakes the outline of a shattered marble column above the +tallest flowers; the glass roofs of the palm house shone as if a whole +market full of shiny green umbrellas had opened in the sun; and in the +drone of the aeroplane the voice of the summer sky murmured its fierce +soul. Yellow and black, pink and snow white, shapes of all these +colours, men, women, and children were spotted for a second upon the +horizon, and then, seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass, +they wavered and sought shade beneath the trees, dissolving like drops +of water in the yellow and green atmosphere, staining it faintly with +red and blue. It seemed as if all gross and heavy bodies had sunk down +in the heat motionless and lay huddled upon the ground, but their voices +went wavering from them as if they were flames lolling from the thick +waxen bodies of candles. Voices. Yes, voices. Wordless voices, breaking +the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of +desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; +breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor +omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear; like a vast +nest of Chinese boxes all of wrought steel turning ceaselessly one +within another the city murmured; on the top of which the voices cried +aloud and the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into +the air. + + + + +THE MARK ON THE WALL + + +Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first +looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is +necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the +steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three +chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. Yes, it must +have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I +remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up and saw the +mark on the wall for the first time. I looked up through the smoke of my +cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals, and +that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came +into my mind, and I thought of the cavalcade of red knights riding up +the side of the black rock. Rather to my relief the sight of the mark +interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made +as a child perhaps. The mark was a small round mark, black upon the +white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantelpiece. + +How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little +way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it.... +If that mark was made by a nail, it can't have been for a picture, it +must have been for a miniature--the miniature of a lady with white +powdered curls, powder-dusted cheeks, and lips like red carnations. A +fraud of course, for the people who had this house before us would have +chosen pictures in that way--an old picture for an old room. That is the +sort of people they were--very interesting people, and I think of them +so often, in such queer places, because one will never see them again, +never know what happened next. They wanted to leave this house because +they wanted to change their style of furniture, so he said, and he was +in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it +when we were torn asunder, as one is torn from the old lady about to +pour out tea and the young man about to hit the tennis ball in the back +garden of the suburban villa as one rushes past in the train. + +But as for that mark, I'm not sure about it; I don't believe it was made +by a nail after all; it's too big, too round, for that. I might get up, +but if I got up and looked at it, ten to one I shouldn't be able to say +for certain; because once a thing's done, no one ever knows how it +happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; The inaccuracy of thought! +The ignorance of humanity! To show how very little control of our +possessions we have--what an accidental affair this living is after all +our civilization--let me just count over a few of the things lost in one +lifetime, beginning, for that seems always the most mysterious of +losses--what cat would gnaw, what rat would nibble--three pale blue +canisters of book-binding tools? Then there were the bird cages, the +iron hoops, the steel skates, the Queen Anne coal-scuttle, the bagatelle +board, the hand organ--all gone, and jewels, too. Opals and emeralds, +they lie about the roots of turnips. What a scraping paring affair it is +to be sure! The wonder is that I've any clothes on my back, that I sit +surrounded by solid furniture at this moment. Why, if one wants to +compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the +Tube at fifty miles an hour--landing at the other end without a single +hairpin in one's hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! +Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper +parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one's hair flying +back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the +rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so +haphazard.... + +But after life. The slow pulling down of thick green stalks so that the +cup of the flower, as it turns over, deluges one with purple and red +light. Why, after all, should one not be born there as one is born here, +helpless, speechless, unable to focus one's eyesight, groping at the +roots of the grass, at the toes of the Giants? As for saying which are +trees, and which are men and women, or whether there are such things, +that one won't be in a condition to do for fifty years or so. There will +be nothing but spaces of light and dark, intersected by thick stalks, +and rather higher up perhaps, rose-shaped blots of an indistinct +colour--dim pinks and blues--which will, as time goes on, become more +definite, become--I don't know what.... + +And yet that mark on the wall is not a hole at all. It may even be +caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf, left +over from the summer, and I, not being a very vigilant housekeeper--look +at the dust on the mantelpiece, for example, the dust which, so they +say, buried Troy three times over, only fragments of pots utterly +refusing annihilation, as one can believe. + +The tree outside the window taps very gently on the pane.... I want to +think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to +have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, +without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and +deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts. To steady +myself, let me catch hold of the first idea that passes.... +Shakespeare.... Well, he will do as well as another. A man who sat +himself solidly in an arm-chair, and looked into the fire, so--A shower +of ideas fell perpetually from some very high Heaven down through his +mind. He leant his forehead on his hand, and people, looking in through +the open door,--for this scene is supposed to take place on a summer's +evening--But how dull this is, this historical fiction! It doesn't +interest me at all. I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, +a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the +pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest +mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear +their own praises. They are not thoughts directly praising oneself; that +is the beauty of them; they are thoughts like this: + +"And then I came into the room. They were discussing botany. I said how +I'd seen a flower growing on a dust heap on the site of an old house in +Kingsway. The seed, I said, must have been sown in the reign of Charles +the First. What flowers grew in the reign of Charles the First?" I +asked--(but I don't remember the answer). Tall flowers with purple +tassels to them perhaps. And so it goes on. All the time I'm dressing up +the figure of myself in my own mind, lovingly, stealthily, not openly +adoring it, for if I did that, I should catch myself out, and stretch my +hand at once for a book in self-protection. Indeed, it is curious how +instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any +other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original +to be believed in any longer. Or is it not so very curious after all? It +is a matter of great importance. Suppose the looking glass smashes, the +image disappears, and the romantic figure with the green of forest +depths all about it is there no longer, but only that shell of a person +which is seen by other people--what an airless, shallow, bald, prominent +world it becomes! A world not to be lived in. As we face each other in +omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror; that +accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes. And +the novelists in future will realize more and more the importance of +these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an +almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those +the phantoms they will pursue, leaving the description of reality more +and more out of their stories, taking a knowledge of it for granted, as +the Greeks did and Shakespeare perhaps--but these generalizations are +very worthless. The military sound of the word is enough. It recalls +leading articles, cabinet ministers--a whole class of things indeed +which as a child one thought the thing itself, the standard thing, the +real thing, from which one could not depart save at the risk of nameless +damnation. Generalizations bring back somehow Sunday in London, Sunday +afternoon walks, Sunday luncheons, and also ways of speaking of the +dead, clothes, and habits--like the habit of sitting all together in one +room until a certain hour, although nobody liked it. There was a rule +for everything. The rule for tablecloths at that particular period was +that they should be made of tapestry with little yellow compartments +marked upon them, such as you may see in photographs of the carpets in +the corridors of the royal palaces. Tablecloths of a different kind were +not real tablecloths. How shocking, and yet how wonderful it was to +discover that these real things, Sunday luncheons, Sunday walks, +country houses, and tablecloths were not entirely real, were indeed half +phantoms, and the damnation which visited the disbeliever in them was +only a sense of illegitimate freedom. What now takes the place of those +things I wonder, those real standard things? Men perhaps, should you be +a woman; the masculine point of view which governs our lives, which sets +the standard, which establishes Whitaker's Table of Precedency, which +has become, I suppose, since the war half a phantom to many men and +women, which soon, one may hope, will be laughed into the dustbin where +the phantoms go, the mahogany sideboards and the Landseer prints, Gods +and Devils, Hell and so forth, leaving us all with an intoxicating sense +of illegitimate freedom--if freedom exists.... + +In certain lights that mark on the wall seems actually to project from +the wall. Nor is it entirely circular. I cannot be sure, but it seems to +cast a perceptible shadow, suggesting that if I ran my finger down that +strip of the wall it would, at a certain point, mount and descend a +small tumulus, a smooth tumulus like those barrows on the South Downs +which are, they say, either tombs or camps. Of the two I should prefer +them to be tombs, desiring melancholy like most English people, and +finding it natural at the end of a walk to think of the bones stretched +beneath the turf.... There must be some book about it. Some antiquary +must have dug up those bones and given them a name.... What sort of a +man is an antiquary, I wonder? Retired Colonels for the most part, I +daresay, leading parties of aged labourers to the top here, examining +clods of earth and stone, and getting into correspondence with the +neighbouring clergy, which, being opened at breakfast time, gives them a +feeling of importance, and the comparison of arrow-heads necessitates +cross-country journeys to the county towns, an agreeable necessity both +to them and to their elderly wives, who wish to make plum jam or to +clean out the study, and have every reason for keeping that great +question of the camp or the tomb in perpetual suspension, while the +Colonel himself feels agreeably philosophic in accumulating evidence on +both sides of the question. It is true that he does finally incline to +believe in the camp; and, being opposed, indites a pamphlet which he is +about to read at the quarterly meeting of the local society when a +stroke lays him low, and his last conscious thoughts are not of wife or +child, but of the camp and that arrowhead there, which is now in the +case at the local museum, together with the foot of a Chinese murderess, +a handful of Elizabethan nails, a great many Tudor clay pipes, a piece +of Roman pottery, and the wine-glass that Nelson drank out of--proving I +really don't know what. + +No, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at +this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really--what +shall we say?--the head of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundred +years ago, which has now, owing to the patient attrition of many +generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint, +and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a +white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain?--Knowledge? Matter for +further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. +And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of +witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, +interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars? And +the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for +beauty and health of mind increases.... Yes, one could imagine a very +pleasant world. A quiet, spacious world, with the flowers so red and +blue in the open fields. A world without professors or specialists or +house-keepers with the profiles of policemen, a world which one could +slice with one's thought as a fish slices the water with his fin, +grazing the stems of the water-lilies, hanging suspended over nests of +white sea eggs.... How peaceful it is down here, rooted in the centre of +the world and gazing up through the grey waters, with their sudden +gleams of light, and their reflections--if it were not for Whitaker's +Almanack--if it were not for the Table of Precedency! + +I must jump up and see for myself what that mark on the wall really +is--a nail, a rose-leaf, a crack in the wood? + +Here is nature once more at her old game of self-preservation. This +train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, +even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a +finger against Whitaker's Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of +Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High +Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows +somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to +know who follows whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature +counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can't be +comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on +the wall. + +I understand Nature's game--her prompting to take action as a way of +ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I +suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action--men, we assume, +who don't think. Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's +disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall. + +Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon it, I feel that I have +grasped a plank in the sea; I feel a satisfying sense of reality which +at once turns the two Archbishops and the Lord High Chancellor to the +shadows of shades. Here is something definite, something real. Thus, +waking from a midnight dream of horror, one hastily turns on the light +and lies quiescent, worshipping the chest of drawers, worshipping +solidity, worshipping reality, worshipping the impersonal world which is +a proof of some existence other than ours. That is what one wants to be +sure of.... Wood is a pleasant thing to think about. It comes from a +tree; and trees grow, and we don't know how they grow. For years and +years they grow, without paying any attention to us, in meadows, in +forests, and by the side of rivers--all things one likes to think about. +The cows swish their tails beneath them on hot afternoons; they paint +rivers so green that when a moorhen dives one expects to see its +feathers all green when it comes up again. I like to think of the fish +balanced against the stream like flags blown out; and of water-beetles +slowly raising domes of mud upon the bed of the river. I like to think +of the tree itself: first the close dry sensation of being wood; then +the grinding of the storm; then the slow, delicious ooze of sap. I like +to think of it, too, on winter's nights standing in the empty field with +all leaves close-furled, nothing tender exposed to the iron bullets of +the moon, a naked mast upon an earth that goes tumbling, tumbling, all +night long. The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June; +and how cold the feet of insects must feel upon it, as they make +laborious progresses up the creases of the bark, or sun themselves upon +the thin green awning of the leaves, and look straight in front of them +with diamond-cut red eyes.... One by one the fibres snap beneath the +immense cold pressure of the earth, then the last storm comes and, +falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground again. Even so, +life isn't done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still +for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, +lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It +is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like +to take each one separately--but something is getting in the way.... +Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? +Whitaker's Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can't remember a thing. +Everything's moving, falling, slipping, vanishing.... There is a vast +upheaval of matter. Someone is standing over me and saying-- + +"I'm going out to buy a newspaper." + +"Yes?" + +"Though it's no good buying newspapers.... Nothing ever happens. Curse +this war; God damn this war!... All the same, I don't see why we should +have a snail on our wall." + +Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monday or Tuesday, by Virginia Woolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONDAY OR TUESDAY *** + +***** This file should be named 29220-8.txt or 29220-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/2/29220/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Monday or Tuesday + +Author: Virginia Woolf + +Release Date: June 25, 2009 [EBook #29220] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONDAY OR TUESDAY *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>Monday or Tuesday</h1> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2>VIRGINIA WOOLF</h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/ititle.jpg" width='96' height='105' alt="Publisher's logo" /></div> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h4>NEW YORK</h4> + +<h3>HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY</h3> + +<h4>1921</h4> + +<hr /> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY<br />HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.</h4> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h4>PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY<br /> +THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY<br />RAHWAY, N. J.</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><a href="#A_HAUNTED_HOUSE"><span class="smcap">A Haunted House</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#A_SOCIETY"><span class="smcap">A Society</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#MONDAY_OR_TUESDAY"><span class="smcap">Monday or Tuesday</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#AN_UNWRITTEN_NOVEL"><span class="smcap">An Unwritten Novel</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#THE_STRING_QUARTET"><span class="smcap">The String Quartet</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#BLUE_GREEN"><span class="smcap">Blue and Green</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#KEW_GARDENS"><span class="smcap">Kew Gardens</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#THE_MARK_ON_THE_WALL"><span class="smcap">The Mark on the Wall</span></a></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h1>MONDAY OR TUESDAY</h1> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="A_HAUNTED_HOUSE" id="A_HAUNTED_HOUSE"></a>A HAUNTED HOUSE</h2> + +<p>Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they +went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure—a ghostly couple.</p> + +<p>"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here too!" "It's +upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," +they said, "or we shall wake them."</p> + +<p>But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're +drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now +they've found it," one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the +margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, +the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons +bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My +hands were empty. "Perhaps it's upstairs then?" The apples were in the +loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had +slipped into the grass.</p> + +<p>But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see +them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves +were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple +only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was +opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the +ceiling—what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the +carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its +bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat softly. +"The treasure buried; the room ..." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was +that the buried treasure?</p> + +<p>A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, +coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind +the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the +woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the +windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went +East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found +it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house +beat gladly. "The Treasure yours."</p> + +<p>The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. +Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp +falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. +Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake +us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.</p> + +<p>"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking +in the morning—" "Silver between the trees—" "Upstairs—" "In the +garden—" "When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> summer came—" "In winter snowtime—" The doors go +shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.</p> + +<p>Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides +silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we +see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. +"Look," he breathes. "Sound asleep. Love upon their lips."</p> + +<p>Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. +Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. +Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain +the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers +and seek their hidden joy.</p> + +<p>"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years—" +he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs, "sleeping; in the +garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our +treasure—" Stooping, their light lifts the lids<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> upon my eyes. "Safe! +safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry "Oh, is +this <i>your</i> buried treasure? The light in the heart."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="A_SOCIETY" id="A_SOCIETY"></a>A SOCIETY</h2> + +<p>This is how it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day +after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a +milliner's shop where the light still shone brightly upon scarlet +feathers and golden slippers. Others were idly occupied in building +little towers of sugar upon the edge of the tea tray. After a time, so +far as I can remember, we drew round the fire and began as usual to +praise men—how strong, how noble, how brilliant, how courageous, how +beautiful they were—how we envied those who by hook or by crook managed +to get attached to one for life—when Poll, who had said nothing, burst +into tears. Poll, I must tell you, has always been queer. For one thing +her father was a strange man. He left her a fortune in his will, but on +condition that she read all the books in the London <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>Library. We +comforted her as best we could; but we knew in our hearts how vain it +was. For though we like her, Poll is no beauty; leaves her shoe laces +untied; and must have been thinking, while we praised men, that not one +of them would ever wish to marry her. At last she dried her tears. For +some time we could make nothing of what she said. Strange enough it was +in all conscience. She told us that, as we knew, she spent most of her +time in the London Library, reading. She had begun, she said, with +English literature on the top floor; and was steadily working her way +down to the <i>Times</i> on the bottom. And now half, or perhaps only a +quarter, way through a terrible thing had happened. She could read no +more. Books were not what we thought them. "Books," she cried, rising to +her feet and speaking with an intensity of desolation which I shall +never forget, "are for the most part unutterably bad!"</p> + +<p>Of course we cried out that Shakespeare wrote books, and Milton and Shelley.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, yes," she interrupted us. "You've been well taught, I can see. But +you are not members of the London Library." Here her sobs broke forth +anew. At length, recovering a little, she opened one of the pile of +books which she always carried about with her—"From a Window" or "In a +Garden," or some such name as that it was called, and it was written by +a man called Benton or Henson, or something of that kind. She read the +first few pages. We listened in silence. "But that's not a book," +someone said. So she chose another. This time it was a history, but I +have forgotten the writer's name. Our trepidation increased as she went +on. Not a word of it seemed to be true, and the style in which it was +written was execrable.</p> + +<p>"Poetry! Poetry!" we cried, impatiently. "Read us poetry!" I cannot +describe the desolation which fell upon us as she opened a little volume +and mouthed out the verbose, sentimental foolery which it contained.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p><p>"It must have been written by a woman," one of us urged. But no. She +told us that it was written by a young man, one of the most famous poets +of the day. I leave you to imagine what the shock of the discovery was. +Though we all cried and begged her to read no more, she persisted and +read us extracts from the Lives of the Lord Chancellors. When she had +finished, Jane, the eldest and wisest of us, rose to her feet and said +that she for one was not convinced.</p> + +<p>"Why," she asked, "if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers +have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?"</p> + +<p>We were all silent; and, in the silence, poor Poll could be heard +sobbing out, "Why, why did my father teach me to read?"</p> + +<p>Clorinda was the first to come to her senses. "It's all our fault," she +said. "Every one of us knows how to read. But no one, save Poll, has +ever taken the trouble to do it. I, for one, have taken it for granted +that it was a woman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> duty to spend her youth in bearing children. I +venerated my mother for bearing ten; still more my grandmother for +bearing fifteen; it was, I confess, my own ambition to bear twenty. We +have gone on all these ages supposing that men were equally industrious, +and that their works were of equal merit. While we have borne the +children, they, we supposed, have borne the books and the pictures. We +have populated the world. They have civilized it. But now that we can +read, what prevents us from judging the results? Before we bring another +child into the world we must swear that we will find out what the world is like."</p> + +<p>So we made ourselves into a society for asking questions. One of us was +to visit a man-of-war; another was to hide herself in a scholar's study; +another was to attend a meeting of business men; while all were to read +books, look at pictures, go to concerts, keep our eyes open in the +streets, and ask questions perpetually. We were very young. You can +judge of our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>simplicity when I tell you that before parting that night +we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good +books. Our questions were to be directed to finding out how far these +objects were now attained by men. We vowed solemnly that we would not +bear a single child until we were satisfied.</p> + +<p>Off we went then, some to the British Museum; others to the King's Navy; +some to Oxford; others to Cambridge; we visited the Royal Academy and +the Tate; heard modern music in concert rooms, went to the Law Courts, +and saw new plays. No one dined out without asking her partner certain +questions and carefully noting his replies. At intervals we met together +and compared our observations. Oh, those were merry meetings! Never have +I laughed so much as I did when Rose read her notes upon "Honour" and +described how she had dressed herself as an Æthiopian Prince and gone +aboard one of His Majesty's ships. Discovering the hoax, the Captain +visited her (now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> disguised as a private gentleman) and demanded that +honour should be satisfied. "But how?" she asked. "How?" he bellowed. +"With the cane of course!" Seeing that he was beside himself with rage +and expecting that her last moment had come, she bent over and received, +to her amazement, six light taps upon the behind. "The honour of the +British Navy is avenged!" he cried, and, raising herself, she saw him +with the sweat pouring down his face holding out a trembling right hand. +"Away!" she exclaimed, striking an attitude and imitating the ferocity +of his own expression, "My honour has still to be satisfied!" "Spoken +like a gentleman!" he returned, and fell into profound thought. "If six +strokes avenge the honour of the King's Navy," he mused, "how many +avenge the honour of a private gentleman?" He said he would prefer to +lay the case before his brother officers. She replied haughtily that she +could not wait. He praised her sensibility. "Let me see,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> he cried +suddenly, "did your father keep a carriage?" "No," she said. "Or a +riding horse!" "We had a donkey," she bethought her, "which drew the +mowing machine." At this his face lighted. "My mother's name——" she +added. "For God's sake, man, don't mention your mother's name!" he +shrieked, trembling like an aspen and flushing to the roots of his hair, +and it was ten minutes at least before she could induce him to proceed. +At length he decreed that if she gave him four strokes and a half in the +small of the back at a spot indicated by himself (the half conceded, he +said, in recognition of the fact that her great grandmother's uncle was +killed at Trafalgar) it was his opinion that her honour would be as good +as new. This was done; they retired to a restaurant; drank two bottles +of wine for which he insisted upon paying; and parted with protestations +of eternal friendship.</p> + +<p>Then we had Fanny's account of her visit to the Law Courts. At her first +visit she had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> to the conclusion that the Judges were either made +of wood or were impersonated by large animals resembling man who had +been trained to move with extreme dignity, mumble and nod their heads. +To test her theory she had liberated a handkerchief of bluebottles at +the critical moment of a trial, but was unable to judge whether the +creatures gave signs of humanity for the buzzing of the flies induced so +sound a sleep that she only woke in time to see the prisoners led into +the cells below. But from the evidence she brought we voted that it is +unfair to suppose that the Judges are men.</p> + +<p>Helen went to the Royal Academy, but when asked to deliver her report +upon the pictures she began to recite from a pale blue volume, "O! for +the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still. +Home is the hunter, home from the hill. He gave his bridle reins a +shake. Love is sweet, love is brief. Spring, the fair spring, is the +year's pleasant King. O! to be in England now that April's there. Men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +must work and women must weep. The path of duty is the way to glory—" +We could listen to no more of this gibberish.</p> + +<p>"We want no more poetry!" we cried.</p> + +<p>"Daughters of England!" she began, but here we pulled her down, a vase +of water getting spilt over her in the scuffle.</p> + +<p>"Thank God!" she exclaimed, shaking herself like a dog. "Now I'll roll +on the carpet and see if I can't brush off what remains of the Union +Jack. Then perhaps—" here she rolled energetically. Getting up she +began to explain to us what modern pictures are like when Castalia stopped her.</p> + +<p>"What is the average size of a picture?" she asked. "Perhaps two feet by +two and a half," she said. Castalia made notes while Helen spoke, and +when she had done, and we were trying not to meet each other's eyes, +rose and said, "At your wish I spent last week at Oxbridge, disguised as +a charwoman. I thus had access to the rooms of several Professors and +will now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> attempt to give you some idea—only," she broke off, "I can't +think how to do it. It's all so queer. These Professors," she went on, +"live in large houses built round grass plots each in a kind of cell by +himself. Yet they have every convenience and comfort. You have only to +press a button or light a little lamp. Their papers are beautifully +filed. Books abound. There are no children or animals, save half a dozen +stray cats and one aged bullfinch—a cock. I remember," she broke off, +"an Aunt of mine who lived at Dulwich and kept cactuses. You reached the +conservatory through the double drawing-room, and there, on the hot +pipes, were dozens of them, ugly, squat, bristly little plants each in a +separate pot. Once in a hundred years the Aloe flowered, so my Aunt +said. But she died before that happened—" We told her to keep to the +point. "Well," she resumed, "when Professor Hobkin was out, I examined +his life work, an edition of Sappho. It's a queer looking book, six or +seven inches thick, not all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> by Sappho. Oh, no. Most of it is a defence +of Sappho's chastity, which some German had denied, and I can assure you +the passion with which these two gentlemen argued, the learning they +displayed, the prodigious ingenuity with which they disputed the use of +some implement which looked to me for all the world like a hairpin +astounded me; especially when the door opened and Professor Hobkin +himself appeared. A very nice, mild, old gentleman, but what could <i>he</i> +know about chastity?" We misunderstood her.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she protested, "he's the soul of honour I'm sure—not that he +resembles Rose's sea captain in the least. I was thinking rather of my +Aunt's cactuses. What could <i>they</i> know about chastity?"</p> + +<p>Again we told her not to wander from the point,—did the Oxbridge +professors help to produce good people and good books?—the objects of life.</p> + +<p>"There!" she exclaimed. "It never struck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> me to ask. It never occurred +to me that they could possibly produce anything."</p> + +<p>"I believe," said Sue, "that you made some mistake. Probably Professor +Hobkin was a gynæcologist. A scholar is a very different sort of man. A +scholar is overflowing with humour and invention—perhaps addicted to +wine, but what of that?—a delightful companion, generous, subtle, +imaginative—as stands to reason. For he spends his life in company with +the finest human beings that have ever existed."</p> + +<p>"Hum," said Castalia. "Perhaps I'd better go back and try again."</p> + +<p>Some three months later it happened that I was sitting alone when +Castalia entered. I don't know what it was in the look of her that so +moved me; but I could not restrain myself, and, dashing across the room, +I clasped her in my arms. Not only was she very beautiful; she seemed +also in the highest spirits. "How happy you look!" I exclaimed, as she sat down.</p> + +<p>"I've been at Oxbridge," she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>"Asking questions?"</p> + +<p>"Answering them," she replied.</p> + +<p>"You have not broken our vow?" I said anxiously, noticing something +about her figure.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the vow," she said casually. "I'm going to have a baby, if that's +what you mean. You can't imagine," she burst out, "how exciting, how +beautiful, how satisfying—"</p> + +<p>"What is?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"To—to—answer questions," she replied in some confusion. Whereupon she +told me the whole of her story. But in the middle of an account which +interested and excited me more than anything I had ever heard, she gave +the strangest cry, half whoop, half holloa—</p> + +<p>"Chastity! Chastity! Where's my chastity!" she cried. "Help Ho! The scent bottle!"</p> + +<p>There was nothing in the room but a cruet containing mustard, which I +was about to administer when she recovered her composure.</p> + +<p>"You should have thought of that three months ago," I said severely.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>"True," she replied. "There's not much good in thinking of it now. It +was unfortunate, by the way, that my mother had me called Castalia."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Castalia, your mother—" I was beginning when she reached for the mustard pot.</p> + +<p>"No, no, no," she said, shaking her head. "If you'd been a chaste woman +yourself you would have screamed at the sight of me—instead of which +you rushed across the room and took me in your arms. No, Cassandra. We +are neither of us chaste." So we went on talking.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the room was filling up, for it was the day appointed to +discuss the results of our observations. Everyone, I thought, felt as I +did about Castalia. They kissed her and said how glad they were to see +her again. At length, when we were all assembled, Jane rose and said +that it was time to begin. She began by saying that we had now asked +questions for over five years, and that though the results were bound to +be inconclusive—here Castalia nudged me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> and whispered that she was not +so sure about that. Then she got up, and, interrupting Jane in the +middle of a sentence, said:</p> + +<p>"Before you say any more, I want to know—am I to stay in the room? +Because," she added, "I have to confess that I am an impure woman."</p> + +<p>Everyone looked at her in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"You are going to have a baby?" asked Jane.</p> + +<p>She nodded her head.</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary to see the different expressions on their faces. A +sort of hum went through the room, in which I could catch the words +"impure," "baby," "Castalia," and so on. Jane, who was herself +considerably moved, put it to us:</p> + +<p>"Shall she go? Is she impure?"</p> + +<p>Such a roar filled the room as might have been heard in the street outside.</p> + +<p>"No! No! No! Let her stay! Impure? Fiddlesticks!" Yet I fancied that +some of the youngest, girls of nineteen or twenty, held back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> as if +overcome with shyness. Then we all came about her and began asking +questions, and at last I saw one of the youngest, who had kept in the +background, approach shyly and say to her:</p> + +<p>"What is chastity then? I mean is it good, or is it bad, or is it +nothing at all?" She replied so low that I could not catch what she said.</p> + +<p>"You know I was shocked," said another, "for at least ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"In my opinion," said Poll, who was growing crusty from always reading +in the London Library, "chastity is nothing but ignorance—a most +discreditable state of mind. We should admit only the unchaste to our +society. I vote that Castalia shall be our President."</p> + +<p>This was violently disputed.</p> + +<p>"It is as unfair to brand women with chastity as with unchastity," said +Poll. "Some of us haven't the opportunity either. Moreover, I don't +believe Cassy herself maintains that she acted as she did from a pure +love of knowledge."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p><p>"He is only twenty-one and divinely beautiful," said Cassy, with a +ravishing gesture.</p> + +<p>"I move," said Helen, "that no one be allowed to talk of chastity or +unchastity save those who are in love."</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother," said Judith, who had been enquiring into scientific +matters, "I'm not in love and I'm longing to explain my measures for +dispensing with prostitutes and fertilizing virgins by Act of Parliament."</p> + +<p>She went on to tell us of an invention of hers to be erected at Tube +stations and other public resorts, which, upon payment of a small fee, +would safeguard the nation's health, accommodate its sons, and relieve +its daughters. Then she had contrived a method of preserving in sealed +tubes the germs of future Lord Chancellors "or poets or painters or +musicians," she went on, "supposing, that is to say, that these breeds +are not extinct, and that women still wish to bear children——"</p> + +<p>"Of course we wish to bear children!" cried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> Castalia, impatiently. Jane +rapped the table.</p> + +<p>"That is the very point we are met to consider," she said. "For five +years we have been trying to find out whether we are justified in +continuing the human race. Castalia has anticipated our decision. But it +remains for the rest of us to make up our minds."</p> + +<p>Here one after another of our messengers rose and delivered their +reports. The marvels of civilisation far exceeded our expectations, and, +as we learnt for the first time how man flies in the air, talks across +space, penetrates to the heart of an atom, and embraces the universe in +his speculations, a murmur of admiration burst from our lips.</p> + +<p>"We are proud," we cried, "that our mothers sacrificed their youth in +such a cause as this!" Castalia, who had been listening intently, looked +prouder than all the rest. Then Jane reminded us that we had still much +to learn, and Castalia begged us to make haste. On we went through a +vast tangle of statistics. We learnt that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>England has a population of +so many millions, and that such and such a proportion of them is +constantly hungry and in prison; that the average size of a working +man's family is such, and that so great a percentage of women die from +maladies incident to childbirth. Reports were read of visits to +factories, shops, slums, and dockyards. Descriptions were given of the +Stock Exchange, of a gigantic house of business in the City, and of a +Government Office. The British Colonies were now discussed, and some +account was given of our rule in India, Africa and Ireland. I was +sitting by Castalia and I noticed her uneasiness.</p> + +<p>"We shall never come to any conclusion at all at this rate," she said. +"As it appears that civilisation is so much more complex than we had any +notion, would it not be better to confine ourselves to our original +enquiry? We agreed that it was the object of life to produce good people +and good books. All this time we have been talking of aeroplanes, +factories, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> money. Let us talk about men themselves and their arts, +for that is the heart of the matter."</p> + +<p>So the diners out stepped forward with long slips of paper containing +answers to their questions. These had been framed after much +consideration. A good man, we had agreed, must at any rate be honest, +passionate, and unworldly. But whether or not a particular man possessed +those qualities could only be discovered by asking questions, often +beginning at a remote distance from the centre. Is Kensington a nice +place to live in? Where is your son being educated—and your daughter? +Now please tell me, what do you pay for your cigars? By the way, is Sir +Joseph a baronet or only a knight? Often it seemed that we learnt more +from trivial questions of this kind than from more direct ones. "I +accepted my peerage," said Lord Bunkum, "because my wife wished it." I +forget how many titles were accepted for the same reason. "Working +fifteen hours out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> of the twenty-four, as I do——" ten thousand +professional men began.</p> + +<p>"No, no, of course you can neither read nor write. But why do you work +so hard?" "My dear lady, with a growing family——" "But <i>why</i> does your +family grow?" Their wives wished that too, or perhaps it was the British +Empire. But more significant than the answers were the refusals to +answer. Very few would reply at all to questions about morality and +religion, and such answers as were given were not serious. Questions as +to the value of money and power were almost invariably brushed aside, or +pressed at extreme risk to the asker. "I'm sure," said Jill, "that if +Sir Harley Tightboots hadn't been carving the mutton when I asked him +about the capitalist system he would have cut my throat. The only reason +why we escaped with our lives over and over again is that men are at +once so hungry and so chivalrous. They despise us too much to mind what we say."</p> + +<p>"Of course they despise us," said Eleanor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> "At the same time how do you +account for this—I made enquiries among the artists. Now, no woman has +ever been an artist, has she, Poll?"</p> + +<p>"Jane-Austen-Charlotte-Brontë-George-Eliot," cried Poll, like a man +crying muffins in a back street.</p> + +<p>"Damn the woman!" someone exclaimed. "What a bore she is!"</p> + +<p>"Since Sappho there has been no female of first rate——" Eleanor began, +quoting from a weekly newspaper.</p> + +<p>"It's now well known that Sappho was the somewhat lewd invention of +Professor Hobkin," Ruth interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, there is no reason to suppose that any woman ever has been able +to write or ever will be able to write," Eleanor continued. "And yet, +whenever I go among authors they never cease to talk to me about their +books. Masterly! I say, or Shakespeare himself! (for one must say +something) and I assure you, they believe me."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>"That proves nothing," said Jane. "They all do it. Only," she sighed, +"it doesn't seem to help <i>us</i> much. Perhaps we had better examine modern +literature next. Liz, it's your turn."</p> + +<p>Elizabeth rose and said that in order to prosecute her enquiry she had +dressed as a man and been taken for a reviewer.</p> + +<p>"I have read new books pretty steadily for the past five years," said +she. "Mr. Wells is the most popular living writer; then comes Mr. Arnold +Bennett; then Mr. Compton Mackenzie; Mr. McKenna and Mr. Walpole may be +bracketed together." She sat down.</p> + +<p>"But you've told us nothing!" we expostulated. "Or do you mean that +these gentlemen have greatly surpassed Jane-Elliot and that English +fiction is——where's that review of yours? Oh, yes, 'safe in their hands.'"</p> + +<p>"Safe, quite safe," she said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. "And +I'm sure that they give away even more than they receive."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>We were all sure of that. "But," we pressed her, "do they write good +books?"</p> + +<p>"Good books?" she said, looking at the ceiling. "You must remember," she +began, speaking with extreme rapidity, "that fiction is the mirror of +life. And you can't deny that education is of the highest importance, +and that it would be extremely annoying, if you found yourself alone at +Brighton late at night, not to know which was the best boarding house to +stay at, and suppose it was a dripping Sunday evening—wouldn't it be +nice to go to the Movies?"</p> + +<p>"But what has that got to do with it?" we asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing—nothing—nothing whatever," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, tell us the truth," we bade her.</p> + +<p>"The truth? But isn't it wonderful," she broke off—"Mr. Chitter has +written a weekly article for the past thirty years upon love or hot +buttered toast and has sent all his sons to Eton——"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p><p>"The truth!" we demanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the truth," she stammered, "the truth has nothing to do with +literature," and sitting down she refused to say another word.</p> + +<p>It all seemed to us very inconclusive.</p> + +<p>"Ladies, we must try to sum up the results," Jane was beginning, when a +hum, which had been heard for some time through the open window, drowned her voice.</p> + +<p>"War! War! War! Declaration of War!" men were shouting in the street below.</p> + +<p>We looked at each other in horror.</p> + +<p>"What war?" we cried. "What war?" We remembered, too late, that we had +never thought of sending anyone to the House of Commons. We had +forgotten all about it. We turned to Poll, who had reached the history +shelves in the London Library, and asked her to enlighten us.</p> + +<p>"Why," we cried, "do men go to war?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes for one reason, sometimes for another," she replied calmly. +"In 1760, for example——" The shouts outside drowned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> her words. "Again +in 1797—in 1804—It was the Austrians in 1866—1870 was the +Franco-Prussian—In 1900 on the other hand——"</p> + +<p>"But it's now 1914!" we cut her short.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I don't know what they're going to war for now," she admitted.</p> + +<p class="center">* * * * *</p> + +<p>The war was over and peace was in process of being signed, when I once +more found myself with Castalia in the room where our meetings used to +be held. We began idly turning over the pages of our old minute books. +"Queer," I mused, "to see what we were thinking five years ago." "We are +agreed," Castalia quoted, reading over my shoulder, "that it is the +object of life to produce good people and good books." We made no +comment upon <i>that</i>. "A good man is at any rate honest, passionate and +unworldly." "What a woman's language!" I observed. "Oh, dear," cried +Castalia, pushing the book away from her, "what fools we were! It was +all Poll's father's fault," she went on. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> believe he did it on +purpose—that ridiculous will, I mean, forcing Poll to read all the +books in the London Library. If we hadn't learnt to read," she said +bitterly, "we might still have been bearing children in ignorance and +that I believe was the happiest life after all. I know what you're going +to say about war," she checked me, "and the horror of bearing children +to see them killed, but our mothers did it, and their mothers, and their +mothers before them. And <i>they</i> didn't complain. They couldn't read. +I've done my best," she sighed, "to prevent my little girl from learning +to read, but what's the use? I caught Ann only yesterday with a +newspaper in her hand and she was beginning to ask me if it was 'true.' +Next she'll ask me whether Mr. Lloyd George is a good man, then whether +Mr. Arnold Bennett is a good novelist, and finally whether I believe in +God. How can I bring my daughter up to believe in nothing?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Surely you could teach her to believe that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> man's intellect is, and +always will be, fundamentally superior to a woman's?" I suggested. She +brightened at this and began to turn over our old minutes again. "Yes," +she said, "think of their discoveries, their mathematics, their science, +their philosophy, their scholarship——" and then she began to laugh, "I +shall never forget old Hobkin and the hairpin," she said, and went on +reading and laughing and I thought she was quite happy, when suddenly +she drew the book from her and burst out, "Oh, Cassandra, why do you +torment me? Don't you know that our belief in man's intellect is the +greatest fallacy of them all?" "What?" I exclaimed. "Ask any journalist, +schoolmaster, politician or public house keeper in the land and they +will all tell you that men are much cleverer than women." "As if I +doubted it," she said scornfully. "How could they help it? Haven't we +bred them and fed and kept them in comfort since the beginning of time +so that they may be clever even if they're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> nothing else? It's all our +doing!" she cried. "We insisted upon having intellect and now we've got +it. And it's intellect," she continued, "that's at the bottom of it. +What could be more charming than a boy before he has begun to cultivate +his intellect? He is beautiful to look at; he gives himself no airs; he +understands the meaning of art and literature instinctively; he goes +about enjoying his life and making other people enjoy theirs. Then they +teach him to cultivate his intellect. He becomes a barrister, a civil +servant, a general, an author, a professor. Every day he goes to an +office. Every year he produces a book. He maintains a whole family by +the products of his brain—poor devil! Soon he cannot come into a room +without making us all feel uncomfortable; he condescends to every woman +he meets, and dares not tell the truth even to his own wife; instead of +rejoicing our eyes we have to shut them if we are to take him in our +arms. True, they console<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> themselves with stars of all shapes, ribbons +of all shades, and incomes of all sizes—but what is to console us? That +we shall be able in ten years' time to spend a week-end at Lahore? Or +that the least insect in Japan has a name twice the length of its body? +Oh, Cassandra, for Heaven's sake let us devise a method by which men may +bear children! It is our only chance. For unless we provide them with +some innocent occupation we shall get neither good people nor good +books; we shall perish beneath the fruits of their unbridled activity; +and not a human being will survive to know that there once was Shakespeare!"</p> + +<p>"It is too late," I replied. "We cannot provide even for the children that we have."</p> + +<p>"And then you ask me to believe in intellect," she said.</p> + +<p>While we spoke, men were crying hoarsely and wearily in the street, and, +listening, we heard that the Treaty of Peace had just been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> signed. The +voices died away. The rain was falling and interfered no doubt with the +proper explosion of the fireworks.</p> + +<p>"My cook will have bought the Evening News," said Castalia, "and Ann +will be spelling it out over her tea. I must go home."</p> + +<p>"It's no good—not a bit of good," I said. "Once she knows how to read +there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in—and that is herself."</p> + +<p>"Well, that would be a change," sighed Castalia.</p> + +<p>So we swept up the papers of our Society, and, though Ann was playing +with her doll very happily, we solemnly made her a present of the lot +and told her we had chosen her to be President of the Society of the +future—upon which she burst into tears, poor little girl.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="MONDAY_OR_TUESDAY" id="MONDAY_OR_TUESDAY"></a>MONDAY OR TUESDAY</h2> + +<p>Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his +way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and +distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, +moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, +perfect—the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or +white feathers, for ever and ever——</p> + +<p>Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for +ever desiring—(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels +strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)—for ever +desiring—(the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is +midday; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)—for ever desiring +truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>chimneys; bark, shout, cry "Iron for sale"—and truth?</p> + +<p>Radiating to a point men's feet and women's feet, black or +gold-encrusted—(This foggy weather—Sugar? No, thank you—The +commonwealth of the future)—the firelight darting and making the room +red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a +van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass +preserves fur coats——</p> + +<p>Flaunted, leaf-light, drifting at corners, blown across the wheels, +silver-splashed, home or not home, gathered, scattered, squandered in +separate scales, swept up, down, torn, sunk, assembled—and truth?</p> + +<p>Now to recollect by the fireside on the white square of marble. From +ivory depths words rising shed their blackness, blossom and penetrate. +Fallen the book; in the flame, in the smoke, in the momentary sparks—or +now voyaging, the marble square pendant, minarets <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>beneath and the +Indian seas, while space rushes blue and stars glint—truth? or now, +content with closeness?</p> + +<p>Lazy and indifferent the heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then bares them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="AN_UNWRITTEN_NOVEL" id="AN_UNWRITTEN_NOVEL"></a>AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL</h2> + +<p>Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one's +eyes slide above the paper's edge to the poor woman's +face—insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny +with it. Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn, +and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be +aware of—what? That life's like that, it seems. Five faces +opposite—five mature faces—and the knowledge in each face. Strange, +though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all +those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one of the five doing +something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; +a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of +the line framed opposite; and the fifth—the terrible thing about the +fifth is that she does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my +poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game—do, for all our sakes, conceal it!</p> + +<p>As if she heard me, she looked up, shifted slightly in her seat and +sighed. She seemed to apologise and at the same time to say to me, "If +only you knew!" Then she looked at life again. "But I do know," I +answered silently, glancing at the <i>Times</i> for manners' sake. "I know +the whole business. 'Peace between Germany and the Allied Powers was +yesterday officially ushered in at Paris—Signor Nitti, the Italian +Prime Minister—a passenger train at Doncaster was in collision with a +goods train....' We all know—the <i>Times</i> knows—but we pretend we +don't." My eyes had once more crept over the paper's rim. She shuddered, +twitched her arm queerly to the middle of her back and shook her head. +Again I dipped into my great reservoir of life. "Take what you like," I +continued, "births, deaths, marriages, Court Circular, the habits of +birds, Leonardo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> da Vinci, the Sandhills murder, high wages and the cost +of living—oh, take what you like," I repeated, "it's all in the +<i>Times</i>!" Again with infinite weariness she moved her head from side to +side until, like a top exhausted with spinning, it settled on her neck.</p> + +<p>The <i>Times</i> was no protection against such sorrow as hers. But other +human beings forbade intercourse. The best thing to do against life was +to fold the paper so that it made a perfect square, crisp, thick, +impervious even to life. This done, I glanced up quickly, armed with a +shield of my own. She pierced through my shield; she gazed into my eyes +as if searching any sediment of courage at the depths of them and +damping it to clay. Her twitch alone denied all hope, discounted all illusion.</p> + +<p>So we rattled through Surrey and across the border into Sussex. But with +my eyes upon life I did not see that the other travellers had left, one +by one, till, save for the man who read, we were alone together. Here +was Three Bridges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> station. We drew slowly down the platform and +stopped. Was he going to leave us? I prayed both ways—I prayed last +that he might stay. At that instant he roused himself, crumpled his +paper contemptuously, like a thing done with, burst open the door, and left us alone.</p> + +<p>The unhappy woman, leaning a little forward, palely and colourlessly +addressed me—talked of stations and holidays, of brothers at +Eastbourne, and the time of year, which was, I forget now, early or +late. But at last looking from the window and seeing, I knew, only life, +she breathed, "Staying away—that's the drawback of it——" Ah, now we +approached the catastrophe, "My sister-in-law"—the bitterness of her +tone was like lemon on cold steel, and speaking, not to me, but to +herself, she muttered, "nonsense, she would say—that's what they all +say," and while she spoke she fidgeted as though the skin on her back +were as a plucked fowl's in a poulterer's shop-window.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that cow!" she broke off nervously, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> though the great wooden cow +in the meadow had shocked her and saved her from some indiscretion. Then +she shuddered, and then she made the awkward angular movement that I had +seen before, as if, after the spasm, some spot between the shoulders +burnt or itched. Then again she looked the most unhappy woman in the +world, and I once more reproached her, though not with the same +conviction, for if there were a reason, and if I knew the reason, the +stigma was removed from life.</p> + +<p>"Sisters-in-law," I said—</p> + +<p>Her lips pursed as if to spit venom at the word; pursed they remained. +All she did was to take her glove and rub hard at a spot on the +window-pane. She rubbed as if she would rub something out for ever—some +stain, some indelible contamination. Indeed, the spot remained for all +her rubbing, and back she sank with the shudder and the clutch of the +arm I had come to expect. Something impelled me to take my glove and rub +my window. There, too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> was a little speck on the glass. For all my +rubbing it remained. And then the spasm went through me; I crooked my +arm and plucked at the middle of my back. My skin, too, felt like the +damp chicken's skin in the poulterer's shop-window; one spot between the +shoulders itched and irritated, felt clammy, felt raw. Could I reach it? +Surreptitiously I tried. She saw me. A smile of infinite irony, infinite +sorrow, flitted and faded from her face. But she had communicated, +shared her secret, passed her poison; she would speak no more. Leaning +back in my corner, shielding my eyes from her eyes, seeing only the +slopes and hollows, greys and purples, of the winter's landscape, I read +her message, deciphered her secret, reading it beneath her gaze.</p> + +<p>Hilda's the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh—Hilda the +blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as +the cab draws up, holding a coin. "Poor Minnie, more of a grasshopper +than ever—old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> cloak she had last year. Well, well, with two children +these days one can't do more. No, Minnie, I've got it; here you are, +cabby—none of your ways with me. Come in, Minnie. Oh, I could carry +<i>you</i>, let alone your basket!" So they go into the dining-room. "Aunt Minnie, children."</p> + +<p>Slowly the knives and forks sink from the upright. Down they get (Bob +and Barbara), hold out hands stiffly; back again to their chairs, +staring between the resumed mouthfuls. [But this we'll skip; ornaments, +curtains, trefoil china plate, yellow oblongs of cheese, white squares +of biscuit—skip—oh, but wait! Halfway through luncheon one of those +shivers; Bob stares at her, spoon in mouth. "Get on with your pudding, +Bob;" but Hilda disapproves. "Why <i>should</i> she twitch?" Skip, skip, till +we reach the landing on the upper floor; stairs brass-bound; linoleum +worn; oh, yes! little bedroom looking out over the roofs of +Eastbourne—zigzagging roofs like the spines of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>caterpillars, this way, +that way, striped red and yellow, with blue-black slating]. Now, Minnie, +the door's shut; Hilda heavily descends to the basement; you unstrap the +straps of your basket, lay on the bed a meagre nightgown, stand side by +side furred felt slippers. The looking-glass—no, you avoid the +looking-glass. Some methodical disposition of hat-pins. Perhaps the +shell box has something in it? You shake it; it's the pearl stud there +was last year—that's all. And then the sniff, the sigh, the sitting by +the window. Three o'clock on a December afternoon; the rain drizzling; +one light low in the skylight of a drapery emporium; another high in a +servant's bedroom—this one goes out. That gives her nothing to look at. +A moment's blankness—then, what are you thinking? (Let me peep across +at her opposite; she's asleep or pretending it; so what would she think +about sitting at the window at three o'clock in the afternoon? Health, +money, hills, her God?) Yes, sitting on the very edge of the chair +looking over the roofs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> of Eastbourne, Minnie Marsh prays to God. That's +all very well; and she may rub the pane too, as though to see God +better; but what God does she see? Who's the God of Minnie Marsh, the +God of the back streets of Eastbourne, the God of three o'clock in the +afternoon? I, too, see roofs, I see sky; but, oh, dear—this seeing of +Gods! More like President Kruger than Prince Albert—that's the best I +can do for him; and I see him on a chair, in a black frock-coat, not so +very high up either; I can manage a cloud or two for him to sit on; and +then his hand trailing in the cloud holds a rod, a truncheon is +it?—black, thick, thorned—a brutal old bully—Minnie's God! Did he +send the itch and the patch and the twitch? Is that why she prays? What +she rubs on the window is the stain of sin. Oh, she committed some crime!</p> + +<p>I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly—in summer there are +bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A +parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> broken? Not Minnie's!... She +was faithful. How she nursed her mother! All her savings on the +tombstone—wreaths under glass—daffodils in jars. But I'm off the +track. A crime.... They would say she kept her sorrow, suppressed her +secret—her sex, they'd say—the scientific people. But what flummery to +saddle <i>her</i> with sex! No—more like this. Passing down the streets of +Croydon twenty years ago, the violet loops of ribbon in the draper's +window spangled in the electric light catch her eye. She lingers—past +six. Still by running she can reach home. She pushes through the glass +swing door. It's sale-time. Shallow trays brim with ribbons. She pauses, +pulls this, fingers that with the raised roses on it—no need to choose, +no need to buy, and each tray with its surprises. "We don't shut till +seven," and then it <i>is</i> seven. She runs, she rushes, home she reaches, +but too late. Neighbours—the doctor—baby brother—the +kettle—scalded—hospital—dead—or only the shock of it, the blame? +Ah,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> but the detail matters nothing! It's what she carries with her; the +spot, the crime, the thing to expiate, always there between her +shoulders. "Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it's the thing I did."</p> + +<p>Whether you did, or what you did, I don't mind; it's not the thing I +want. The draper's window looped with violet—that'll do; a little cheap +perhaps, a little commonplace—since one has a choice of crimes, but +then so many (let me peep across again—still sleeping, or pretending +sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed—a touch of obstinacy, more than +one would think—no hint of sex)—so many crimes aren't <i>your</i> crime; +your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church +door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she +kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays. +All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It's +raised, it's red, it's burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point. +"Bob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> at lunch to-day"—But elderly women are the worst.</p> + +<p>Indeed now you can't sit praying any longer. Kruger's sunk beneath the +clouds—washed over as with a painter's brush of liquid grey, to which +he adds a tinge of black—even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That's +what always happens! Just as you've seen him, felt him, someone +interrupts. It's Hilda now.</p> + +<p>How you hate her! She'll even lock the bathroom door overnight, too, +though it's only cold water you want, and sometimes when the night's +been bad it seems as if washing helped. And John at breakfast—the +children—meals are worst, and sometimes there are friends—ferns don't +altogether hide 'em—they guess, too; so out you go along the front, +where the waves are grey, and the papers blow, and the glass shelters +green and draughty, and the chairs cost tuppence—too much—for there +must be preachers along the sands. Ah, that's a nigger—that's a funny +man—that's a man with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> parakeets—poor little creatures! Is there no +one here who thinks of God?—just up there, over the pier, with his +rod—but no—there's nothing but grey in the sky or if it's blue the +white clouds hide him, and the music—it's military music—and what they +are fishing for? Do they catch them? How the children stare! Well, then +home a back way—"Home a back way!" The words have meaning; might have +been spoken by the old man with whiskers—no, no, he didn't really +speak; but everything has meaning—placards leaning against +doorways—names above shop-windows—red fruit in baskets—women's heads +in the hairdresser's—all say "Minnie Marsh!" But here's a jerk. "Eggs +are cheaper!" That's what always happens! I was heading her over the +waterfall, straight for madness, when, like a flock of dream sheep, she +turns t'other way and runs between my fingers. Eggs are cheaper. +Tethered to the shores of the world, none of the crimes, sorrows, +rhapsodies, or insanities for poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>Minnie Marsh; never late for +luncheon; never caught in a storm without a mackintosh; never utterly +unconscious of the cheapness of eggs. So she reaches home—scrapes her boots.</p> + +<p>Have I read you right? But the human face—the human face at the top of +the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, +she looks out; and in the human eye—how d'you define it?—there's a +break—a division—so that when you've grasped the stem the butterfly's +off—the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower—move, +raise your hand, off, high, away. I won't raise my hand. Hang still, +then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Minnie Marsh—I, +too, on my flower—the hawk over the down—alone, or what were the worth +of life? To rise; hang still in the evening, in the midday; hang still +over the down. The flicker of a hand—off, up! then poised again. Alone, +unseen; seeing all so still down there, all so lovely. None seeing, none +caring. The eyes of others our prisons; their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> thoughts our cages. Air +above, air below. And the moon and immortality.... Oh, but I drop to the +turf! Are you down too, you in the corner, what's your +name—woman—Minnie Marsh; some such name as that? There she is, tight +to her blossom; opening her hand-bag, from which she takes a hollow +shell—an egg—who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it +was you who said it on the way home, you remember, when the old +gentleman, suddenly opening his umbrella—or sneezing was it? Anyhow, +Kruger went, and you came "home a back way," and scraped your boots. +Yes. And now you lay across your knees a pocket-handkerchief into which +drop little angular fragments of eggshell—fragments of a map—a puzzle. +I wish I could piece them together! If you would only sit still. She's +moved her knees—the map's in bits again. Down the slopes of the Andes +the white blocks of marble go bounding and hurtling, crushing to death a +whole troop of Spanish muleteers, with their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> convoy—Drake's booty, +gold and silver. But to return——</p> + +<p>To what, to where? She opened the door, and, putting her umbrella in the +stand—that goes without saying; so, too, the whiff of beef from the +basement; dot, dot, dot. But what I cannot thus eliminate, what I must, +head down, eyes shut, with the courage of a battalion and the blindness +of a bull, charge and disperse are, indubitably, the figures behind the +ferns, commercial travellers. There I've hidden them all this time in +the hope that somehow they'd disappear, or better still emerge, as +indeed they must, if the story's to go on gathering richness and +rotundity, destiny and tragedy, as stories should, rolling along with it +two, if not three, commercial travellers and a whole grove of +aspidistra. "The fronds of the aspidistra only partly concealed the +commercial traveller—" Rhododendrons would conceal him utterly, and +into the bargain give me my fling of red and white, for which I starve +and strive; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>rhododendrons in Eastbourne—in December—on the +Marshes' table—no, no, I dare not; it's all a matter of crusts and +cruets, frills and ferns. Perhaps there'll be a moment later by the sea. +Moreover, I feel, pleasantly pricking through the green fretwork and +over the glacis of cut glass, a desire to peer and peep at the man +opposite—one's as much as I can manage. James Moggridge is it, whom the +Marshes call Jimmy? [Minnie, you must promise not to twitch till I've +got this straight]. James Moggridge travels in—shall we say +buttons?—but the time's not come for bringing <i>them</i> in—the big and +the little on the long cards, some peacock-eyed, others dull gold; +cairngorms some, and others coral sprays—but I say the time's not come. +He travels, and on Thursdays, his Eastbourne day, takes his meals with +the Marshes. His red face, his little steady eyes—by no means +altogether commonplace—his enormous appetite (that's safe; he won't +look at Minnie till the bread's swamped the gravy dry), napkin tucked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +diamond-wise—but this is primitive, and, whatever it may do the reader, +don't take me in. Let's dodge to the Moggridge household, set that in +motion. Well, the family boots are mended on Sundays by James himself. +He reads <i>Truth</i>. But his passion? Roses—and his wife a retired +hospital nurse—interesting—for God's sake let me have one woman with a +name I like! But no; she's of the unborn children of the mind, illicit, +none the less loved, like my rhododendrons. How many die in every novel +that's written—the best, the dearest, while Moggridge lives. It's +life's fault. Here's Minnie eating her egg at the moment opposite and at +t'other end of the line—are we past Lewes?—there must be Jimmy—or +what's her twitch for?</p> + +<p>There must be Moggridge—life's fault. Life imposes her laws; life +blocks the way; life's behind the fern; life's the tyrant; oh, but not +the bully! No, for I assure you I come willingly; I come wooed by Heaven +knows what compulsion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> across ferns and cruets, table splashed and +bottles smeared. I come irresistibly to lodge myself somewhere on the +firm flesh, in the robust spine, wherever I can penetrate or find +foothold on the person, in the soul, of Moggridge the man. The enormous +stability of the fabric; the spine tough as whalebone, straight as +oak-tree; the ribs radiating branches; the flesh taut tarpaulin; the red +hollows; the suck and regurgitation of the heart; while from above meat +falls in brown cubes and beer gushes to be churned to blood again—and +so we reach the eyes. Behind the aspidistra they see something: black, +white, dismal; now the plate again; behind the aspidistra they see +elderly woman; "Marsh's sister, Hilda's more my sort;" the tablecloth +now. "Marsh would know what's wrong with Morrises ..." talk that over; +cheese has come; the plate again; turn it round—the enormous fingers; +now the woman opposite. "Marsh's sister—not a bit like Marsh; wretched, +elderly female.... You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> should feed your hens.... God's truth, what's +set her twitching? Not what <i>I</i> said? Dear, dear, dear! these elderly women. Dear, dear!"</p> + +<p>[Yes, Minnie; I know you've twitched, but one moment—James Moggridge].</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear, dear!" How beautiful the sound is! like the knock of a +mallet on seasoned timber, like the throb of the heart of an ancient +whaler when the seas press thick and the green is clouded. "Dear, dear!" +what a passing bell for the souls of the fretful to soothe them and +solace them, lap them in linen, saying, "So long. Good luck to you!" and +then, "What's your pleasure?" for though Moggridge would pluck his rose +for her, that's done, that's over. Now what's the next thing? "Madam, +you'll miss your train," for they don't linger.</p> + +<p>That's the man's way; that's the sound that reverberates; that's St. +Paul's and the motor-omnibuses. But we're brushing the crumbs off. Oh, +Moggridge, you won't stay? You must be off? Are you driving through +Eastbourne this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> afternoon in one of those little carriages? Are you the +man who's walled up in green cardboard boxes, and sometimes has the +blinds down, and sometimes sits so solemn staring like a sphinx, and +always there's a look of the sepulchral, something of the undertaker, +the coffin, and the dusk about horse and driver? Do tell me—but the +doors slammed. We shall never meet again. Moggridge, farewell!</p> + +<p>Yes, yes, I'm coming. Right up to the top of the house. One moment I'll +linger. How the mud goes round in the mind—what a swirl these monsters +leave, the waters rocking, the weeds waving and green here, black there, +striking to the sand, till by degrees the atoms reassemble, the deposit +sifts itself, and again through the eyes one sees clear and still, and +there comes to the lips some prayer for the departed, some obsequy for +the souls of those one nods to, the people one never meets again.</p> + +<p>James Moggridge is dead now, gone for ever. Well, Minnie—"I can face it +no longer." If she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> said that—(Let me look at her. She is brushing the +eggshell into deep declivities). She said it certainly, leaning against +the wall of the bedroom, and plucking at the little balls which edge the +claret-coloured curtain. But when the self speaks to the self, who is +speaking?—the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the +central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world—a +coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern +restlessly up and down the dark corridors. "I can bear it no longer," +her spirit says. "That man at lunch—Hilda—the children." Oh, heavens, +her sob! It's the spirit wailing its destiny, the spirit driven hither, +thither, lodging on the diminishing carpets—meagre footholds—shrunken +shreds of all the vanishing universe—love, life, faith, husband, +children, I know not what splendours and pageantries glimpsed in +girlhood. "Not for me—not for me."</p> + +<p>But then—the muffins, the bald elderly dog? Bead mats I should fancy +and the consolation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> of underlinen. If Minnie Marsh were run over and +taken to hospital, nurses and doctors themselves would exclaim.... +There's the vista and the vision—there's the distance—the blue blot at +the end of the avenue, while, after all, the tea is rich, the muffin +hot, and the dog—"Benny, to your basket, sir, and see what mother's +brought you!" So, taking the glove with the worn thumb, defying once +more the encroaching demon of what's called going in holes, you renew +the fortifications, threading the grey wool, running it in and out.</p> + +<p>Running it in and out, across and over, spinning a web through which God +himself—hush, don't think of God! How firm the stitches are! You must +be proud of your darning. Let nothing disturb her. Let the light fall +gently, and the clouds show an inner vest of the first green leaf. Let +the sparrow perch on the twig and shake the raindrop hanging to the +twig's elbow.... Why look up? Was it a sound, a thought? Oh, heavens! +Back again to the thing you did,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the plate glass with the violet loops? +But Hilda will come. Ignominies, humiliations, oh! Close the breach.</p> + +<p>Having mended her glove, Minnie Marsh lays it in the drawer. She shuts +the drawer with decision. I catch sight of her face in the glass. Lips +are pursed. Chin held high. Next she laces her shoes. Then she touches +her throat. What's your brooch? Mistletoe or merry-thought? And what is +happening? Unless I'm much mistaken, the pulse's quickened, the moment's +coming, the threads are racing, Niagara's ahead. Here's the crisis! +Heaven be with you! Down she goes. Courage, courage! Face it, be it! For +God's sake don't wait on the mat now! There's the door! I'm on your +side. Speak! Confront her, confound her soul!</p> + +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon! Yes, this is Eastbourne. I'll reach it down for +you. Let me try the handle." [But, Minnie, though we keep up pretences, +I've read you right—I'm with you now].</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>"That's all your luggage?"</p> + +<p>"Much obliged, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>(But why do you look about you? Hilda won't come to the station, nor +John; and Moggridge is driving at the far side of Eastbourne).</p> + +<p>"I'll wait by my bag, ma'am, that's safest. He said he'd meet me.... Oh, +there he is! That's my son."</p> + +<p>So they walk off together.</p> + +<p>Well, but I'm confounded.... Surely, Minnie, you know better! A strange +young man.... Stop! I'll tell him—Minnie!—Miss Marsh!—I don't know +though. There's something queer in her cloak as it blows. Oh, but it's +untrue, it's indecent.... Look how he bends as they reach the gateway. +She finds her ticket. What's the joke? Off they go, down the road, side +by side.... Well, my world's done for! What do I stand on? What do I +know? That's not Minnie. There never was Moggridge. Who am I? Life's bare as bone.</p> + +<p>And yet the last look of them—he stepping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> from the kerb and she +following him round the edge of the big building brims me with +wonder—floods me anew. Mysterious figures! Mother and son. Who are you? +Why do you walk down the street? Where to-night will you sleep, and +then, to-morrow? Oh, how it whirls and surges—floats me afresh! I start +after them. People drive this way and that. The white light splutters +and pours. Plate-glass windows. Carnations; chrysanthemums. Ivy in dark +gardens. Milk carts at the door. Wherever I go, mysterious figures, I +see you, turning the corner, mothers and sons; you, you, you. I hasten, +I follow. This, I fancy, must be the sea. Grey is the landscape; dim as +ashes; the water murmurs and moves. If I fall on my knees, if I go +through the ritual, the ancient antics, it's you, unknown figures, you I +adore; if I open my arms, it's you I embrace, you I draw to me—adorable world!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_STRING_QUARTET" id="THE_STRING_QUARTET"></a>THE STRING QUARTET</h2> + +<p>Well, here we are, and if you cast your eye over the room you will see +that Tubes and trams and omnibuses, private carriages not a few, even, I +venture to believe, landaus with bays in them, have been busy at it, +weaving threads from one end of London to the other. Yet I begin to have my doubts—</p> + +<p>If indeed it's true, as they're saying, that Regent Street is up, and +the Treaty signed, and the weather not cold for the time of year, and +even at that rent not a flat to be had, and the worst of influenza its +after effects; if I bethink me of having forgotten to write about the +leak in the larder, and left my glove in the train; if the ties of blood +require me, leaning forward, to accept cordially the hand which is +perhaps offered hesitatingly—</p> + +<p>"Seven years since we met!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>"The last time in Venice."</p> + +<p>"And where are you living now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, the late afternoon suits me the best, though, if it weren't +asking too much——"</p> + +<p>"But I knew you at once!"</p> + +<p>"Still, the war made a break——"</p> + +<p>If the mind's shot through by such little arrows, and—for human society +compels it—no sooner is one launched than another presses forward; if +this engenders heat and in addition they've turned on the electric +light; if saying one thing does, in so many cases, leave behind it a +need to improve and revise, stirring besides regrets, pleasures, +vanities, and desires—if it's all the facts I mean, and the hats, the +fur boas, the gentlemen's swallow-tail coats, and pearl tie-pins that +come to the surface—what chance is there?</p> + +<p>Of what? It becomes every minute more difficult to say why, in spite of +everything, I sit here believing I can't now say what, or even remember +the last time it happened.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p><p>"Did you see the procession?"</p> + +<p>"The King looked cold."</p> + +<p>"No, no, no. But what was it?"</p> + +<p>"She's bought a house at Malmesbury."</p> + +<p>"How lucky to find one!"</p> + +<p>On the contrary, it seems to me pretty sure that she, whoever she may +be, is damned, since it's all a matter of flats and hats and sea gulls, +or so it seems to be for a hundred people sitting here well dressed, +walled in, furred, replete. Not that I can boast, since I too sit +passive on a gilt chair, only turning the earth above a buried memory, +as we all do, for there are signs, if I'm not mistaken, that we're all +recalling something, furtively seeking something. Why fidget? Why so +anxious about the sit of cloaks; and gloves—whether to button or +unbutton? Then watch that elderly face against the dark canvas, a moment +ago urbane and flushed; now taciturn and sad, as if in shadow. Was it +the sound of the second violin tuning in the ante-room? Here they come; +four black figures, carrying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>instruments, and seat themselves facing +the white squares under the downpour of light; rest the tips of their +bows on the music stand; with a simultaneous movement lift them; lightly +poise them, and, looking across at the player opposite, the first violin +counts one, two, three——</p> + +<p>Flourish, spring, burgeon, burst! The pear tree on the top of the +mountain. Fountains jet; drops descend. But the waters of the Rhone flow +swift and deep, race under the arches, and sweep the trailing water +leaves, washing shadows over the silver fish, the spotted fish rushed +down by the swift waters, now swept into an eddy where—it's difficult +this—conglomeration of fish all in a pool; leaping, splashing, scraping +sharp fins; and such a boil of current that the yellow pebbles are +churned round and round, round and round—free now, rushing downwards, +or even somehow ascending in exquisite spirals into the air; curled like +thin shavings from under a plane; up and up.... How lovely goodness is +in those who, stepping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> lightly, go smiling through the world! Also in +jolly old fishwives, squatted under arches, obscene old women, how +deeply they laugh and shake and rollick, when they walk, from side to side, hum, hah!</p> + +<p>"That's an early Mozart, of course——"</p> + +<p>"But the tune, like all his tunes, makes one despair—I mean hope. What +do I mean? That's the worst of music! I want to dance, laugh, eat pink +cakes, yellow cakes, drink thin, sharp wine. Or an indecent story, +now—I could relish that. The older one grows the more one likes +indecency. Hah, hah! I'm laughing. What at? You said nothing, nor did +the old gentleman opposite.... But suppose—suppose—Hush!"</p> + +<p>The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the +trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird +singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, +sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Woven +together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in sorrow—crash!</p> + +<p>The boat sinks. Rising, the figures ascend, but now leaf thin, tapering +to a dusky wraith, which, fiery tipped, draws its twofold passion from +my heart. For me it sings, unseals my sorrow, thaws compassion, floods +with love the sunless world, nor, ceasing, abates its tenderness but +deftly, subtly, weaves in and out until in this pattern, this +consummation, the cleft ones unify; soar, sob, sink to rest, sorrow and joy.</p> + +<p>Why then grieve? Ask what? Remain unsatisfied? I say all's been settled; +yes; laid to rest under a coverlet of rose leaves, falling. Falling. Ah, +but they cease. One rose leaf, falling from an enormous height, like a +little parachute dropped from an invisible balloon, turns, flutters +waveringly. It won't reach us.</p> + +<p>"No, no. I noticed nothing. That's the worst of music—these silly +dreams. The second violin was late, you say?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p><p>"There's old Mrs. Munro, feeling her way out—blinder each year, poor +woman—on this slippery floor."</p> + +<p>Eyeless old age, grey-headed Sphinx.... There she stands on the +pavement, beckoning, so sternly, the red omnibus.</p> + +<p>"How lovely! How well they play! How—how—how!"</p> + +<p>The tongue is but a clapper. Simplicity itself. The feathers in the hat +next me are bright and pleasing as a child's rattle. The leaf on the +plane-tree flashes green through the chink in the curtain. Very strange, very exciting.</p> + +<p>"How—how—how!" Hush!</p> + +<p>These are the lovers on the grass.</p> + +<p>"If, madam, you will take my hand——"</p> + +<p>"Sir, I would trust you with my heart. Moreover, we have left our bodies +in the banqueting hall. Those on the turf are the shadows of our souls."</p> + +<p>"Then these are the embraces of our souls." The lemons nod assent. The +swan pushes from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the bank and floats dreaming into mid stream.</p> + +<p>"But to return. He followed me down the corridor, and, as we turned the +corner, trod on the lace of my petticoat. What could I do but cry 'Ah!' +and stop to finger it? At which he drew his sword, made passes as if he +were stabbing something to death, and cried, 'Mad! Mad! Mad!' Whereupon +I screamed, and the Prince, who was writing in the large vellum book in +the oriel window, came out in his velvet skull-cap and furred slippers, +snatched a rapier from the wall—the King of Spain's gift, you know—on +which I escaped, flinging on this cloak to hide the ravages to my +skirt—to hide.... But listen! the horns!"</p> + +<p>The gentleman replies so fast to the lady, and she runs up the scale +with such witty exchange of compliment now culminating in a sob of +passion, that the words are indistinguishable though the meaning is +plain enough—love, laughter, flight, pursuit, celestial bliss—all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +floated out on the gayest ripple of tender endearment—until the sound +of the silver horns, at first far distant, gradually sounds more and +more distinctly, as if seneschals were saluting the dawn or proclaiming +ominously the escape of the lovers.... The green garden, moonlit pool, +lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky, across +which, as the horns are joined by trumpets and supported by clarions +there rise white arches firmly planted on marble pillars.... Tramp and +trumpeting. Clang and clangour. Firm establishment. Fast foundations. +March of myriads. Confusion and chaos trod to earth. But this city to +which we travel has neither stone nor marble; hangs enduring; stands +unshakable; nor does a face, nor does a flag greet or welcome. Leave +then to perish your hope; droop in the desert my joy; naked advance. +Bare are the pillars; auspicious to none; casting no shade; resplendent; +severe. Back then I fall, eager no more, desiring only to go, find the +street, mark the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>buildings, greet the applewoman, say to the maid who +opens the door: A starry night.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>"Good night, good night. You go this way?"</p> + +<p>"Alas. I go that."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="BLUE_GREEN" id="BLUE_GREEN"></a>BLUE & GREEN</h2> + +<h3>GREEN</h3> + +<p>The pointed fingers of glass hang downwards. The light slides down the +glass, and drops a pool of green. All day long the ten fingers of the +lustre drop green upon the marble. The feathers of parakeets—their +harsh cries—sharp blades of palm trees—green, too; green needles +glittering in the sun. But the hard glass drips on to the marble; the +pools hover above the dessert sand; the camels lurch through them; the +pools settle on the marble; rushes edge them; weeds clog them; here and +there a white blossom; the frog flops over; at night the stars are set +there unbroken. Evening comes, and the shadow sweeps the green over the +mantelpiece; the ruffled surface of ocean. No ships come; the aimless +waves sway beneath the empty sky. It's night; the needles drip blots of +blue. The green's out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<h3>BLUE</h3> + +<p>The snub-nosed monster rises to the surface and spouts through his blunt +nostrils two columns of water, which, fiery-white in the centre, spray +off into a fringe of blue beads. Strokes of blue line the black +tarpaulin of his hide. Slushing the water through mouth and nostrils he +sings, heavy with water, and the blue closes over him dowsing the +polished pebbles of his eyes. Thrown upon the beach he lies, blunt, +obtuse, shedding dry blue scales. Their metallic blue stains the rusty +iron on the beach. Blue are the ribs of the wrecked rowing boat. A wave +rolls beneath the blue bells. But the cathedral's different, cold, +incense laden, faint blue with the veils of madonnas.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="KEW_GARDENS" id="KEW_GARDENS"></a>KEW GARDENS</h2> + +<p>From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks +spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and +unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of +colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom +of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly +clubbed at the end. The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by +the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights +passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath +with a spot of the most intricate colour. The light fell either upon the +smooth, grey back of a pebble, or, the shell of a snail with its brown, +circular veins, or falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such +intensity of red, blue and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>yellow the thin walls of water that one +expected them to burst and disappear. Instead, the drop was left in a +second silver grey once more, and the light now settled upon the flesh +of a leaf, revealing the branching thread of fibre beneath the surface, +and again it moved on and spread its illumination in the vast green +spaces beneath the dome of the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves. +Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was +flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk +in Kew Gardens in July.</p> + +<p>The figures of these men and women straggled past the flower-bed with a +curiously irregular movement not unlike that of the white and blue +butterflies who crossed the turf in zig-zag flights from bed to bed. The +man was about six inches in front of the woman, strolling carelessly, +while she bore on with greater purpose, only turning her head now and +then to see that the children were not too far behind. The man kept this +distance in front of the woman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>purposely, though perhaps unconsciously, +for he wished to go on with his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Fifteen years ago I came here with Lily," he thought. "We sat somewhere +over there by a lake and I begged her to marry me all through the hot +afternoon. How the dragonfly kept circling round us: how clearly I see +the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle at the toe. All +the time I spoke I saw her shoe and when it moved impatiently I knew +without looking up what she was going to say: the whole of her seemed to +be in her shoe. And my love, my desire, were in the dragonfly; for some +reason I thought that if it settled there, on that leaf, the broad one +with the red flower in the middle of it, if the dragonfly settled on the +leaf she would say "Yes" at once. But the dragonfly went round and +round: it never settled anywhere—of course not, happily not, or I +shouldn't be walking here with Eleanor and the children—Tell me, +Eleanor. D'you ever think of the past?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you ask, Simon?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p><p>"Because I've been thinking of the past. I've been thinking of Lily, +the woman I might have married.... Well, why are you silent? Do you mind +my thinking of the past?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I mind, Simon? Doesn't one always think of the past, in a +garden with men and women lying under the trees? Aren't they one's past, +all that remains of it, those men and women, those ghosts lying under +the trees, ... one's happiness, one's reality?"</p> + +<p>"For me, a square silver shoe buckle and a dragonfly—"</p> + +<p>"For me, a kiss. Imagine six little girls sitting before their easels +twenty years ago, down by the side of a lake, painting the water-lilies, +the first red water-lilies I'd ever seen. And suddenly a kiss, there on +the back of my neck. And my hand shook all the afternoon so that I +couldn't paint. I took out my watch and marked the hour when I would +allow myself to think of the kiss for five minutes only—it was so +precious—the kiss of an old grey-haired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> woman with a wart on her nose, +the mother of all my kisses all my life. Come, Caroline, come, Hubert."</p> + +<p>They walked on past the flower-bed, now walking four abreast, and +soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as +the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling irregular patches.</p> + +<p>In the oval flower bed the snail, whose shell had been stained red, +blue, and yellow for the space of two minutes or so, now appeared to be +moving very slightly in its shell, and next began to labour over the +crumbs of loose earth which broke away and rolled down as it passed over +them. It appeared to have a definite goal in front of it, differing in +this respect from the singular high stepping angular green insect who +attempted to cross in front of it, and waited for a second with its +antennæ trembling as if in deliberation, and then stepped off as rapidly +and strangely in the opposite direction. Brown cliffs with deep green +lakes in the hollows, flat,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> blade-like trees that waved from root to +tip, round boulders of grey stone, vast crumpled surfaces of a thin +crackling texture—all these objects lay across the snail's progress +between one stalk and another to his goal. Before he had decided whether +to circumvent the arched tent of a dead leaf or to breast it there came +past the bed the feet of other human beings.</p> + +<p>This time they were both men. The younger of the two wore an expression +of perhaps unnatural calm; he raised his eyes and fixed them very +steadily in front of him while his companion spoke, and directly his +companion had done speaking he looked on the ground again and sometimes +opened his lips only after a long pause and sometimes did not open them +at all. The elder man had a curiously uneven and shaky method of +walking, jerking his hand forward and throwing up his head abruptly, +rather in the manner of an impatient carriage horse tired of waiting +outside a house; but in the man these gestures were irresolute and +pointless.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> He talked almost incessantly; he smiled to himself and again +began to talk, as if the smile had been an answer. He was talking about +spirits—the spirits of the dead, who, according to him, were even now +telling him all sorts of odd things about their experiences in Heaven.</p> + +<p>"Heaven was known to the ancients as Thessaly, William, and now, with +this war, the spirit matter is rolling between the hills like thunder." +He paused, seemed to listen, smiled, jerked his head and continued:—</p> + +<p>"You have a small electric battery and a piece of rubber to insulate the +wire—isolate?—insulate?—well, we'll skip the details, no good going +into details that wouldn't be understood—and in short the little +machine stands in any convenient position by the head of the bed, we +will say, on a neat mahogany stand. All arrangements being properly +fixed by workmen under my direction, the widow applies her ear and +summons the spirit by sign as agreed. Women! Widows! Women in black——"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p><p>Here he seemed to have caught sight of a woman's dress in the distance, +which in the shade looked a purple black. He took off his hat, placed +his hand upon his heart, and hurried towards her muttering and +gesticulating feverishly. But William caught him by the sleeve and +touched a flower with the tip of his walking-stick in order to divert +the old man's attention. After looking at it for a moment in some +confusion the old man bent his ear to it and seemed to answer a voice +speaking from it, for he began talking about the forests of Uruguay +which he had visited hundreds of years ago in company with the most +beautiful young woman in Europe. He could be heard murmuring about +forests of Uruguay blanketed with the wax petals of tropical roses, +nightingales, sea beaches, mermaids, and women drowned at sea, as he +suffered himself to be moved on by William, upon whose face the look of +stoical patience grew slowly deeper and deeper.</p> + +<p>Following his steps so closely as to be slightly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> puzzled by his +gestures came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and +ponderous, the other rosy cheeked and nimble. Like most people of their +station they were frankly fascinated by any signs of eccentricity +betokening a disordered brain, especially in the well-to-do; but they +were too far off to be certain whether the gestures were merely +eccentric or genuinely mad. After they had scrutinised the old man's +back in silence for a moment and given each other a queer, sly look, +they went on energetically piecing together their very complicated dialogue:</p> + +<p>"Nell, Bert, Lot, Cess, Phil, Pa, he says, I says, she says, I says, I +says, I says——"</p> + +<p>"My Bert, Sis, Bill, Grandad, the old man, sugar,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Sugar, flour, kippers, greens,</div> +<div>Sugar, sugar, sugar."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The ponderous woman looked through the pattern of falling words at the +flowers standing cool, firm, and upright in the earth, with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>curious +expression. She saw them as a sleeper waking from a heavy sleep sees a +brass candlestick reflecting the light in an unfamiliar way, and closes +his eyes and opens them, and seeing the brass candlestick again, finally +starts broad awake and stares at the candlestick with all his powers. So +the heavy woman came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower +bed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was +saying. She stood there letting the words fall over her, swaying the top +part of her body slowly backwards and forwards, looking at the flowers. +Then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their tea.</p> + +<p>The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal +without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. Let alone the +effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin +texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even +by the tip of his horns would bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> his weight; and this determined him +finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved +high enough from the ground to admit him. He had just inserted his head +in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was +getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past +outside on the turf. This time they were both young, a young man and a +young woman. They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that +season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth +pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case, when the wings of +the butterfly, though fully grown, are motionless in the sun.</p> + +<p>"Lucky it isn't Friday," he observed.</p> + +<p>"Why? D'you believe in luck?"</p> + +<p>"They make you pay sixpence on Friday."</p> + +<p>"What's sixpence anyway? Isn't it worth sixpence?"</p> + +<p>"What's 'it'—what do you mean by 'it'?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p><p>"O, anything—I mean—you know what I mean."</p> + +<p>Long pauses came between each of these remarks; they were uttered in +toneless and monotonous voices. The couple stood still on the edge of +the flower bed, and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down +into the soft earth. The action and the fact that his hand rested on the +top of hers expressed their feelings in a strange way, as these short +insignificant words also expressed something, words with short wings for +their heavy body of meaning, inadequate to carry them far and thus +alighting awkwardly upon the very common objects that surrounded them, +and were to their inexperienced touch so massive; but who knows (so they +thought as they pressed the parasol into the earth) what precipices +aren't concealed in them, or what slopes of ice don't shine in the sun +on the other side? Who knows? Who has ever seen this before? Even when +she wondered what sort of tea they gave you at Kew, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> felt that +something loomed up behind her words, and stood vast and solid behind +them; and the mist very slowly rose and uncovered—O, Heavens, what were +those shapes?—little white tables, and waitresses who looked first at +her and then at him; and there was a bill that he would pay with a real +two shilling piece, and it was real, all real, he assured himself, +fingering the coin in his pocket, real to everyone except to him and to +her; even to him it began to seem real; and then—but it was too +exciting to stand and think any longer, and he pulled the parasol out of +the earth with a jerk and was impatient to find the place where one had +tea with other people, like other people.</p> + +<p>"Come along, Trissie; it's time we had our tea."</p> + +<p>"Wherever <i>does</i> one have one's tea?" she asked with the oddest thrill +of excitement in her voice, looking vaguely round and letting herself be +drawn on down the grass path, trailing her parasol, turning her head +this way and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> way, forgetting her tea, wishing to go down there and +then down there, remembering orchids and cranes among wild flowers, a +Chinese pagoda and a crimson crested bird; but he bore her on.</p> + +<p>Thus one couple after another with much the same irregular and aimless +movement passed the flower-bed and were enveloped in layer after layer +of green blue vapour, in which at first their bodies had substance and a +dash of colour, but later both substance and colour dissolved in the +green-blue atmosphere. How hot it was! So hot that even the thrush chose +to hop, like a mechanical bird, in the shadow of the flowers, with long +pauses between one movement and the next; instead of rambling vaguely +the white butterflies danced one above another, making with their white +shifting flakes the outline of a shattered marble column above the +tallest flowers; the glass roofs of the palm house shone as if a whole +market full of shiny green umbrellas had opened in the sun; and in the +drone of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>aeroplane the voice of the summer sky murmured its fierce +soul. Yellow and black, pink and snow white, shapes of all these +colours, men, women, and children were spotted for a second upon the +horizon, and then, seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass, +they wavered and sought shade beneath the trees, dissolving like drops +of water in the yellow and green atmosphere, staining it faintly with +red and blue. It seemed as if all gross and heavy bodies had sunk down +in the heat motionless and lay huddled upon the ground, but their voices +went wavering from them as if they were flames lolling from the thick +waxen bodies of candles. Voices. Yes, voices. Wordless voices, breaking +the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of +desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; +breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor +omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear; like a vast +nest of Chinese boxes all of wrought steel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>turning ceaselessly one +within another the city murmured; on the top of which the voices cried +aloud and the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into the air.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_MARK_ON_THE_WALL" id="THE_MARK_ON_THE_WALL"></a>THE MARK ON THE WALL</h2> + +<p>Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first +looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is +necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the +steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three +chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. Yes, it must +have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I +remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up and saw the +mark on the wall for the first time. I looked up through the smoke of my +cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals, and +that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came +into my mind, and I thought of the cavalcade of red knights riding up +the side of the black rock. Rather to my relief the sight of the mark +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made +as a child perhaps. The mark was a small round mark, black upon the +white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little +way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it.... +If that mark was made by a nail, it can't have been for a picture, it +must have been for a miniature—the miniature of a lady with white +powdered curls, powder-dusted cheeks, and lips like red carnations. A +fraud of course, for the people who had this house before us would have +chosen pictures in that way—an old picture for an old room. That is the +sort of people they were—very interesting people, and I think of them +so often, in such queer places, because one will never see them again, +never know what happened next. They wanted to leave this house because +they wanted to change their style of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> furniture, so he said, and he was +in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it +when we were torn asunder, as one is torn from the old lady about to +pour out tea and the young man about to hit the tennis ball in the back +garden of the suburban villa as one rushes past in the train.</p> + +<p>But as for that mark, I'm not sure about it; I don't believe it was made +by a nail after all; it's too big, too round, for that. I might get up, +but if I got up and looked at it, ten to one I shouldn't be able to say +for certain; because once a thing's done, no one ever knows how it +happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; The inaccuracy of thought! +The ignorance of humanity! To show how very little control of our +possessions we have—what an accidental affair this living is after all +our civilization—let me just count over a few of the things lost in one +lifetime, beginning, for that seems always the most mysterious of +losses—what cat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> would gnaw, what rat would nibble—three pale blue +canisters of book-binding tools? Then there were the bird cages, the +iron hoops, the steel skates, the Queen Anne coal-scuttle, the bagatelle +board, the hand organ—all gone, and jewels, too. Opals and emeralds, +they lie about the roots of turnips. What a scraping paring affair it is +to be sure! The wonder is that I've any clothes on my back, that I sit +surrounded by solid furniture at this moment. Why, if one wants to +compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the +Tube at fifty miles an hour—landing at the other end without a single +hairpin in one's hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! +Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper +parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one's hair flying +back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the +rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard....</p> + +<p>But after life. The slow pulling down of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> thick green stalks so that the +cup of the flower, as it turns over, deluges one with purple and red +light. Why, after all, should one not be born there as one is born here, +helpless, speechless, unable to focus one's eyesight, groping at the +roots of the grass, at the toes of the Giants? As for saying which are +trees, and which are men and women, or whether there are such things, +that one won't be in a condition to do for fifty years or so. There will +be nothing but spaces of light and dark, intersected by thick stalks, +and rather higher up perhaps, rose-shaped blots of an indistinct +colour—dim pinks and blues—which will, as time goes on, become more +definite, become—I don't know what....</p> + +<p>And yet that mark on the wall is not a hole at all. It may even be +caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf, left +over from the summer, and I, not being a very vigilant housekeeper—look +at the dust on the mantelpiece, for example, the dust which, so they +say, buried Troy three times over, only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> fragments of pots utterly +refusing annihilation, as one can believe.</p> + +<p>The tree outside the window taps very gently on the pane.... I want to +think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to +have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, +without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and +deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts. To steady +myself, let me catch hold of the first idea that passes.... +Shakespeare.... Well, he will do as well as another. A man who sat +himself solidly in an arm-chair, and looked into the fire, so—A shower +of ideas fell perpetually from some very high Heaven down through his +mind. He leant his forehead on his hand, and people, looking in through +the open door,—for this scene is supposed to take place on a summer's +evening—But how dull this is, this historical fiction! It doesn't +interest me at all. I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, +a track <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the +pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest +mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear +their own praises. They are not thoughts directly praising oneself; that +is the beauty of them; they are thoughts like this:</p> + +<p>"And then I came into the room. They were discussing botany. I said how +I'd seen a flower growing on a dust heap on the site of an old house in +Kingsway. The seed, I said, must have been sown in the reign of Charles +the First. What flowers grew in the reign of Charles the First?" I +asked—(but I don't remember the answer). Tall flowers with purple +tassels to them perhaps. And so it goes on. All the time I'm dressing up +the figure of myself in my own mind, lovingly, stealthily, not openly +adoring it, for if I did that, I should catch myself out, and stretch my +hand at once for a book in self-protection. Indeed, it is curious how +instinctively one protects the image of oneself from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> idolatry or any +other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original +to be believed in any longer. Or is it not so very curious after all? It +is a matter of great importance. Suppose the looking glass smashes, the +image disappears, and the romantic figure with the green of forest +depths all about it is there no longer, but only that shell of a person +which is seen by other people—what an airless, shallow, bald, prominent +world it becomes! A world not to be lived in. As we face each other in +omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror; that +accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes. And +the novelists in future will realize more and more the importance of +these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an +almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those +the phantoms they will pursue, leaving the description of reality more +and more out of their stories, taking a knowledge of it for granted, as +the Greeks did and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>Shakespeare perhaps—but these generalizations are +very worthless. The military sound of the word is enough. It recalls +leading articles, cabinet ministers—a whole class of things indeed +which as a child one thought the thing itself, the standard thing, the +real thing, from which one could not depart save at the risk of nameless +damnation. Generalizations bring back somehow Sunday in London, Sunday +afternoon walks, Sunday luncheons, and also ways of speaking of the +dead, clothes, and habits—like the habit of sitting all together in one +room until a certain hour, although nobody liked it. There was a rule +for everything. The rule for tablecloths at that particular period was +that they should be made of tapestry with little yellow compartments +marked upon them, such as you may see in photographs of the carpets in +the corridors of the royal palaces. Tablecloths of a different kind were +not real tablecloths. How shocking, and yet how wonderful it was to +discover that these real things, Sunday <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>luncheons, Sunday walks, +country houses, and tablecloths were not entirely real, were indeed half +phantoms, and the damnation which visited the disbeliever in them was +only a sense of illegitimate freedom. What now takes the place of those +things I wonder, those real standard things? Men perhaps, should you be +a woman; the masculine point of view which governs our lives, which sets +the standard, which establishes Whitaker's Table of Precedency, which +has become, I suppose, since the war half a phantom to many men and +women, which soon, one may hope, will be laughed into the dustbin where +the phantoms go, the mahogany sideboards and the Landseer prints, Gods +and Devils, Hell and so forth, leaving us all with an intoxicating sense +of illegitimate freedom—if freedom exists....</p> + +<p>In certain lights that mark on the wall seems actually to project from +the wall. Nor is it entirely circular. I cannot be sure, but it seems to +cast a perceptible shadow, suggesting that if I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> ran my finger down that +strip of the wall it would, at a certain point, mount and descend a +small tumulus, a smooth tumulus like those barrows on the South Downs +which are, they say, either tombs or camps. Of the two I should prefer +them to be tombs, desiring melancholy like most English people, and +finding it natural at the end of a walk to think of the bones stretched +beneath the turf.... There must be some book about it. Some antiquary +must have dug up those bones and given them a name.... What sort of a +man is an antiquary, I wonder? Retired Colonels for the most part, I +daresay, leading parties of aged labourers to the top here, examining +clods of earth and stone, and getting into correspondence with the +neighbouring clergy, which, being opened at breakfast time, gives them a +feeling of importance, and the comparison of arrow-heads necessitates +cross-country journeys to the county towns, an agreeable necessity both +to them and to their elderly wives, who wish to make plum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> jam or to +clean out the study, and have every reason for keeping that great +question of the camp or the tomb in perpetual suspension, while the +Colonel himself feels agreeably philosophic in accumulating evidence on +both sides of the question. It is true that he does finally incline to +believe in the camp; and, being opposed, indites a pamphlet which he is +about to read at the quarterly meeting of the local society when a +stroke lays him low, and his last conscious thoughts are not of wife or +child, but of the camp and that arrowhead there, which is now in the +case at the local museum, together with the foot of a Chinese murderess, +a handful of Elizabethan nails, a great many Tudor clay pipes, a piece +of Roman pottery, and the wine-glass that Nelson drank out of—proving I +really don't know what.</p> + +<p>No, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at +this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really—what +shall we say?—the head of a gigantic old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> nail, driven in two hundred +years ago, which has now, owing to the patient attrition of many +generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint, +and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a +white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain?—Knowledge? Matter for +further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. +And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of +witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, +interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars? And +the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for +beauty and health of mind increases.... Yes, one could imagine a very +pleasant world. A quiet, spacious world, with the flowers so red and +blue in the open fields. A world without professors or specialists or +house-keepers with the profiles of policemen, a world which one could +slice with one's thought as a fish slices the water with his fin, +grazing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> stems of the water-lilies, hanging suspended over nests of +white sea eggs.... How peaceful it is down here, rooted in the centre of +the world and gazing up through the grey waters, with their sudden +gleams of light, and their reflections—if it were not for Whitaker's +Almanack—if it were not for the Table of Precedency!</p> + +<p>I must jump up and see for myself what that mark on the wall really +is—a nail, a rose-leaf, a crack in the wood?</p> + +<p>Here is nature once more at her old game of self-preservation. This +train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, +even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a +finger against Whitaker's Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of +Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High +Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows +somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to +know who follows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature +counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can't be +comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on the wall.</p> + +<p>I understand Nature's game—her prompting to take action as a way of +ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I +suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action—men, we assume, +who don't think. Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's +disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall.</p> + +<p>Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon it, I feel that I have +grasped a plank in the sea; I feel a satisfying sense of reality which +at once turns the two Archbishops and the Lord High Chancellor to the +shadows of shades. Here is something definite, something real. Thus, +waking from a midnight dream of horror, one hastily turns on the light +and lies quiescent, worshipping the chest of drawers, worshipping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +solidity, worshipping reality, worshipping the impersonal world which is +a proof of some existence other than ours. That is what one wants to be +sure of.... Wood is a pleasant thing to think about. It comes from a +tree; and trees grow, and we don't know how they grow. For years and +years they grow, without paying any attention to us, in meadows, in +forests, and by the side of rivers—all things one likes to think about. +The cows swish their tails beneath them on hot afternoons; they paint +rivers so green that when a moorhen dives one expects to see its +feathers all green when it comes up again. I like to think of the fish +balanced against the stream like flags blown out; and of water-beetles +slowly raising domes of mud upon the bed of the river. I like to think +of the tree itself: first the close dry sensation of being wood; then +the grinding of the storm; then the slow, delicious ooze of sap. I like +to think of it, too, on winter's nights standing in the empty field with +all leaves close-furled, nothing tender exposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> to the iron bullets of +the moon, a naked mast upon an earth that goes tumbling, tumbling, all +night long. The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June; +and how cold the feet of insects must feel upon it, as they make +laborious progresses up the creases of the bark, or sun themselves upon +the thin green awning of the leaves, and look straight in front of them +with diamond-cut red eyes.... One by one the fibres snap beneath the +immense cold pressure of the earth, then the last storm comes and, +falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground again. Even so, +life isn't done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still +for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, +lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It +is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like +to take each one separately—but something is getting in the way.... +Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>Whitaker's Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can't remember a thing. +Everything's moving, falling, slipping, vanishing.... There is a vast +upheaval of matter. Someone is standing over me and saying—</p> + +<p>"I'm going out to buy a newspaper."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Though it's no good buying newspapers.... Nothing ever happens. Curse +this war; God damn this war!... All the same, I don't see why we should +have a snail on our wall."</p> + +<p>Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monday or Tuesday, by Virginia Woolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONDAY OR TUESDAY *** + +***** This file should be named 29220-h.htm or 29220-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/2/29220/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Monday or Tuesday + +Author: Virginia Woolf + +Release Date: June 25, 2009 [EBook #29220] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONDAY OR TUESDAY *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +Monday or Tuesday + + +_By_ VIRGINIA WOOLF + + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + + +NEW YORK +HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY +1921 + + +COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY +HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. + + +PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY +THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY +RAHWAY, N. J. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +A HAUNTED HOUSE 3 + +A SOCIETY 9 + +MONDAY OR TUESDAY 41 + +AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL 45 + +THE STRING QUARTET 71 + +BLUE AND GREEN 81 + +KEW GARDENS 83 + +THE MARK ON THE WALL 99 + + + + +MONDAY OR TUESDAY + + + + +A HAUNTED HOUSE + + +Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they +went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly +couple. + +"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here too!" "It's +upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," +they said, "or we shall wake them." + +But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're +drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now +they've found it," one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the +margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, +the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons +bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from +the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My +hands were empty. "Perhaps it's upstairs then?" The apples were in the +loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had +slipped into the grass. + +But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see +them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves +were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple +only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was +opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the +ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the +carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its +bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat softly. +"The treasure buried; the room ..." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was +that the buried treasure? + +A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the +trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, +coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind +the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the +woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the +windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went +East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found +it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house +beat gladly. "The Treasure yours." + +The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. +Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp +falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. +Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake +us, the ghostly couple seek their joy. + +"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking +in the morning--" "Silver between the trees--" "Upstairs--" "In the +garden--" "When summer came--" "In winter snowtime--" The doors go +shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart. + +Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides +silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we +see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. +"Look," he breathes. "Sound asleep. Love upon their lips." + +Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. +Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. +Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain +the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers +and seek their hidden joy. + +"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years--" +he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs, "sleeping; in the +garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our +treasure--" Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. "Safe! +safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry "Oh, is +this _your_ buried treasure? The light in the heart." + + + + +A SOCIETY + + +This is how it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day +after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a +milliner's shop where the light still shone brightly upon scarlet +feathers and golden slippers. Others were idly occupied in building +little towers of sugar upon the edge of the tea tray. After a time, so +far as I can remember, we drew round the fire and began as usual to +praise men--how strong, how noble, how brilliant, how courageous, how +beautiful they were--how we envied those who by hook or by crook managed +to get attached to one for life--when Poll, who had said nothing, burst +into tears. Poll, I must tell you, has always been queer. For one thing +her father was a strange man. He left her a fortune in his will, but on +condition that she read all the books in the London Library. We +comforted her as best we could; but we knew in our hearts how vain it +was. For though we like her, Poll is no beauty; leaves her shoe laces +untied; and must have been thinking, while we praised men, that not one +of them would ever wish to marry her. At last she dried her tears. For +some time we could make nothing of what she said. Strange enough it was +in all conscience. She told us that, as we knew, she spent most of her +time in the London Library, reading. She had begun, she said, with +English literature on the top floor; and was steadily working her way +down to the _Times_ on the bottom. And now half, or perhaps only a +quarter, way through a terrible thing had happened. She could read no +more. Books were not what we thought them. "Books," she cried, rising to +her feet and speaking with an intensity of desolation which I shall +never forget, "are for the most part unutterably bad!" + +Of course we cried out that Shakespeare wrote books, and Milton and +Shelley. + +"Oh, yes," she interrupted us. "You've been well taught, I can see. But +you are not members of the London Library." Here her sobs broke forth +anew. At length, recovering a little, she opened one of the pile of +books which she always carried about with her--"From a Window" or "In a +Garden," or some such name as that it was called, and it was written by +a man called Benton or Henson, or something of that kind. She read the +first few pages. We listened in silence. "But that's not a book," +someone said. So she chose another. This time it was a history, but I +have forgotten the writer's name. Our trepidation increased as she went +on. Not a word of it seemed to be true, and the style in which it was +written was execrable. + +"Poetry! Poetry!" we cried, impatiently. "Read us poetry!" I cannot +describe the desolation which fell upon us as she opened a little volume +and mouthed out the verbose, sentimental foolery which it contained. + +"It must have been written by a woman," one of us urged. But no. She +told us that it was written by a young man, one of the most famous poets +of the day. I leave you to imagine what the shock of the discovery was. +Though we all cried and begged her to read no more, she persisted and +read us extracts from the Lives of the Lord Chancellors. When she had +finished, Jane, the eldest and wisest of us, rose to her feet and said +that she for one was not convinced. + +"Why," she asked, "if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers +have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?" + +We were all silent; and, in the silence, poor Poll could be heard +sobbing out, "Why, why did my father teach me to read?" + +Clorinda was the first to come to her senses. "It's all our fault," she +said. "Every one of us knows how to read. But no one, save Poll, has +ever taken the trouble to do it. I, for one, have taken it for granted +that it was a woman's duty to spend her youth in bearing children. I +venerated my mother for bearing ten; still more my grandmother for +bearing fifteen; it was, I confess, my own ambition to bear twenty. We +have gone on all these ages supposing that men were equally industrious, +and that their works were of equal merit. While we have borne the +children, they, we supposed, have borne the books and the pictures. We +have populated the world. They have civilized it. But now that we can +read, what prevents us from judging the results? Before we bring another +child into the world we must swear that we will find out what the world +is like." + +So we made ourselves into a society for asking questions. One of us was +to visit a man-of-war; another was to hide herself in a scholar's study; +another was to attend a meeting of business men; while all were to read +books, look at pictures, go to concerts, keep our eyes open in the +streets, and ask questions perpetually. We were very young. You can +judge of our simplicity when I tell you that before parting that night +we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good +books. Our questions were to be directed to finding out how far these +objects were now attained by men. We vowed solemnly that we would not +bear a single child until we were satisfied. + +Off we went then, some to the British Museum; others to the King's Navy; +some to Oxford; others to Cambridge; we visited the Royal Academy and +the Tate; heard modern music in concert rooms, went to the Law Courts, +and saw new plays. No one dined out without asking her partner certain +questions and carefully noting his replies. At intervals we met together +and compared our observations. Oh, those were merry meetings! Never have +I laughed so much as I did when Rose read her notes upon "Honour" and +described how she had dressed herself as an AEthiopian Prince and gone +aboard one of His Majesty's ships. Discovering the hoax, the Captain +visited her (now disguised as a private gentleman) and demanded that +honour should be satisfied. "But how?" she asked. "How?" he bellowed. +"With the cane of course!" Seeing that he was beside himself with rage +and expecting that her last moment had come, she bent over and received, +to her amazement, six light taps upon the behind. "The honour of the +British Navy is avenged!" he cried, and, raising herself, she saw him +with the sweat pouring down his face holding out a trembling right hand. +"Away!" she exclaimed, striking an attitude and imitating the ferocity +of his own expression, "My honour has still to be satisfied!" "Spoken +like a gentleman!" he returned, and fell into profound thought. "If six +strokes avenge the honour of the King's Navy," he mused, "how many +avenge the honour of a private gentleman?" He said he would prefer to +lay the case before his brother officers. She replied haughtily that she +could not wait. He praised her sensibility. "Let me see," he cried +suddenly, "did your father keep a carriage?" "No," she said. "Or a +riding horse!" "We had a donkey," she bethought her, "which drew the +mowing machine." At this his face lighted. "My mother's name----" she +added. "For God's sake, man, don't mention your mother's name!" he +shrieked, trembling like an aspen and flushing to the roots of his hair, +and it was ten minutes at least before she could induce him to proceed. +At length he decreed that if she gave him four strokes and a half in the +small of the back at a spot indicated by himself (the half conceded, he +said, in recognition of the fact that her great grandmother's uncle was +killed at Trafalgar) it was his opinion that her honour would be as good +as new. This was done; they retired to a restaurant; drank two bottles +of wine for which he insisted upon paying; and parted with protestations +of eternal friendship. + +Then we had Fanny's account of her visit to the Law Courts. At her first +visit she had come to the conclusion that the Judges were either made +of wood or were impersonated by large animals resembling man who had +been trained to move with extreme dignity, mumble and nod their heads. +To test her theory she had liberated a handkerchief of bluebottles at +the critical moment of a trial, but was unable to judge whether the +creatures gave signs of humanity for the buzzing of the flies induced so +sound a sleep that she only woke in time to see the prisoners led into +the cells below. But from the evidence she brought we voted that it is +unfair to suppose that the Judges are men. + +Helen went to the Royal Academy, but when asked to deliver her report +upon the pictures she began to recite from a pale blue volume, "O! for +the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still. +Home is the hunter, home from the hill. He gave his bridle reins a +shake. Love is sweet, love is brief. Spring, the fair spring, is the +year's pleasant King. O! to be in England now that April's there. Men +must work and women must weep. The path of duty is the way to glory--" +We could listen to no more of this gibberish. + +"We want no more poetry!" we cried. + +"Daughters of England!" she began, but here we pulled her down, a vase +of water getting spilt over her in the scuffle. + +"Thank God!" she exclaimed, shaking herself like a dog. "Now I'll roll +on the carpet and see if I can't brush off what remains of the Union +Jack. Then perhaps--" here she rolled energetically. Getting up she +began to explain to us what modern pictures are like when Castalia +stopped her. + +"What is the average size of a picture?" she asked. "Perhaps two feet by +two and a half," she said. Castalia made notes while Helen spoke, and +when she had done, and we were trying not to meet each other's eyes, +rose and said, "At your wish I spent last week at Oxbridge, disguised as +a charwoman. I thus had access to the rooms of several Professors and +will now attempt to give you some idea--only," she broke off, "I can't +think how to do it. It's all so queer. These Professors," she went on, +"live in large houses built round grass plots each in a kind of cell by +himself. Yet they have every convenience and comfort. You have only to +press a button or light a little lamp. Their papers are beautifully +filed. Books abound. There are no children or animals, save half a dozen +stray cats and one aged bullfinch--a cock. I remember," she broke off, +"an Aunt of mine who lived at Dulwich and kept cactuses. You reached the +conservatory through the double drawing-room, and there, on the hot +pipes, were dozens of them, ugly, squat, bristly little plants each in a +separate pot. Once in a hundred years the Aloe flowered, so my Aunt +said. But she died before that happened--" We told her to keep to the +point. "Well," she resumed, "when Professor Hobkin was out, I examined +his life work, an edition of Sappho. It's a queer looking book, six or +seven inches thick, not all by Sappho. Oh, no. Most of it is a defence +of Sappho's chastity, which some German had denied, and I can assure you +the passion with which these two gentlemen argued, the learning they +displayed, the prodigious ingenuity with which they disputed the use of +some implement which looked to me for all the world like a hairpin +astounded me; especially when the door opened and Professor Hobkin +himself appeared. A very nice, mild, old gentleman, but what could _he_ +know about chastity?" We misunderstood her. + +"No, no," she protested, "he's the soul of honour I'm sure--not that he +resembles Rose's sea captain in the least. I was thinking rather of my +Aunt's cactuses. What could _they_ know about chastity?" + +Again we told her not to wander from the point,--did the Oxbridge +professors help to produce good people and good books?--the objects of +life. + +"There!" she exclaimed. "It never struck me to ask. It never occurred +to me that they could possibly produce anything." + +"I believe," said Sue, "that you made some mistake. Probably Professor +Hobkin was a gynaecologist. A scholar is a very different sort of man. A +scholar is overflowing with humour and invention--perhaps addicted to +wine, but what of that?--a delightful companion, generous, subtle, +imaginative--as stands to reason. For he spends his life in company with +the finest human beings that have ever existed." + +"Hum," said Castalia. "Perhaps I'd better go back and try again." + +Some three months later it happened that I was sitting alone when +Castalia entered. I don't know what it was in the look of her that so +moved me; but I could not restrain myself, and, dashing across the room, +I clasped her in my arms. Not only was she very beautiful; she seemed +also in the highest spirits. "How happy you look!" I exclaimed, as she +sat down. + +"I've been at Oxbridge," she said. + +"Asking questions?" + +"Answering them," she replied. + +"You have not broken our vow?" I said anxiously, noticing something +about her figure. + +"Oh, the vow," she said casually. "I'm going to have a baby, if that's +what you mean. You can't imagine," she burst out, "how exciting, how +beautiful, how satisfying--" + +"What is?" I asked. + +"To--to--answer questions," she replied in some confusion. Whereupon she +told me the whole of her story. But in the middle of an account which +interested and excited me more than anything I had ever heard, she gave +the strangest cry, half whoop, half holloa-- + +"Chastity! Chastity! Where's my chastity!" she cried. "Help Ho! The +scent bottle!" + +There was nothing in the room but a cruet containing mustard, which I +was about to administer when she recovered her composure. + +"You should have thought of that three months ago," I said severely. + +"True," she replied. "There's not much good in thinking of it now. It +was unfortunate, by the way, that my mother had me called Castalia." + +"Oh, Castalia, your mother--" I was beginning when she reached for the +mustard pot. + +"No, no, no," she said, shaking her head. "If you'd been a chaste woman +yourself you would have screamed at the sight of me--instead of which +you rushed across the room and took me in your arms. No, Cassandra. We +are neither of us chaste." So we went on talking. + +Meanwhile the room was filling up, for it was the day appointed to +discuss the results of our observations. Everyone, I thought, felt as I +did about Castalia. They kissed her and said how glad they were to see +her again. At length, when we were all assembled, Jane rose and said +that it was time to begin. She began by saying that we had now asked +questions for over five years, and that though the results were bound to +be inconclusive--here Castalia nudged me and whispered that she was not +so sure about that. Then she got up, and, interrupting Jane in the +middle of a sentence, said: + +"Before you say any more, I want to know--am I to stay in the room? +Because," she added, "I have to confess that I am an impure woman." + +Everyone looked at her in astonishment. + +"You are going to have a baby?" asked Jane. + +She nodded her head. + +It was extraordinary to see the different expressions on their faces. A +sort of hum went through the room, in which I could catch the words +"impure," "baby," "Castalia," and so on. Jane, who was herself +considerably moved, put it to us: + +"Shall she go? Is she impure?" + +Such a roar filled the room as might have been heard in the street +outside. + +"No! No! No! Let her stay! Impure? Fiddlesticks!" Yet I fancied that +some of the youngest, girls of nineteen or twenty, held back as if +overcome with shyness. Then we all came about her and began asking +questions, and at last I saw one of the youngest, who had kept in the +background, approach shyly and say to her: + +"What is chastity then? I mean is it good, or is it bad, or is it +nothing at all?" She replied so low that I could not catch what she +said. + +"You know I was shocked," said another, "for at least ten minutes." + +"In my opinion," said Poll, who was growing crusty from always reading +in the London Library, "chastity is nothing but ignorance--a most +discreditable state of mind. We should admit only the unchaste to our +society. I vote that Castalia shall be our President." + +This was violently disputed. + +"It is as unfair to brand women with chastity as with unchastity," said +Poll. "Some of us haven't the opportunity either. Moreover, I don't +believe Cassy herself maintains that she acted as she did from a pure +love of knowledge." + +"He is only twenty-one and divinely beautiful," said Cassy, with a +ravishing gesture. + +"I move," said Helen, "that no one be allowed to talk of chastity or +unchastity save those who are in love." + +"Oh, bother," said Judith, who had been enquiring into scientific +matters, "I'm not in love and I'm longing to explain my measures for +dispensing with prostitutes and fertilizing virgins by Act of +Parliament." + +She went on to tell us of an invention of hers to be erected at Tube +stations and other public resorts, which, upon payment of a small fee, +would safeguard the nation's health, accommodate its sons, and relieve +its daughters. Then she had contrived a method of preserving in sealed +tubes the germs of future Lord Chancellors "or poets or painters or +musicians," she went on, "supposing, that is to say, that these breeds +are not extinct, and that women still wish to bear children----" + +"Of course we wish to bear children!" cried Castalia, impatiently. Jane +rapped the table. + +"That is the very point we are met to consider," she said. "For five +years we have been trying to find out whether we are justified in +continuing the human race. Castalia has anticipated our decision. But it +remains for the rest of us to make up our minds." + +Here one after another of our messengers rose and delivered their +reports. The marvels of civilisation far exceeded our expectations, and, +as we learnt for the first time how man flies in the air, talks across +space, penetrates to the heart of an atom, and embraces the universe in +his speculations, a murmur of admiration burst from our lips. + +"We are proud," we cried, "that our mothers sacrificed their youth in +such a cause as this!" Castalia, who had been listening intently, looked +prouder than all the rest. Then Jane reminded us that we had still much +to learn, and Castalia begged us to make haste. On we went through a +vast tangle of statistics. We learnt that England has a population of +so many millions, and that such and such a proportion of them is +constantly hungry and in prison; that the average size of a working +man's family is such, and that so great a percentage of women die from +maladies incident to childbirth. Reports were read of visits to +factories, shops, slums, and dockyards. Descriptions were given of the +Stock Exchange, of a gigantic house of business in the City, and of a +Government Office. The British Colonies were now discussed, and some +account was given of our rule in India, Africa and Ireland. I was +sitting by Castalia and I noticed her uneasiness. + +"We shall never come to any conclusion at all at this rate," she said. +"As it appears that civilisation is so much more complex than we had any +notion, would it not be better to confine ourselves to our original +enquiry? We agreed that it was the object of life to produce good people +and good books. All this time we have been talking of aeroplanes, +factories, and money. Let us talk about men themselves and their arts, +for that is the heart of the matter." + +So the diners out stepped forward with long slips of paper containing +answers to their questions. These had been framed after much +consideration. A good man, we had agreed, must at any rate be honest, +passionate, and unworldly. But whether or not a particular man possessed +those qualities could only be discovered by asking questions, often +beginning at a remote distance from the centre. Is Kensington a nice +place to live in? Where is your son being educated--and your daughter? +Now please tell me, what do you pay for your cigars? By the way, is Sir +Joseph a baronet or only a knight? Often it seemed that we learnt more +from trivial questions of this kind than from more direct ones. "I +accepted my peerage," said Lord Bunkum, "because my wife wished it." I +forget how many titles were accepted for the same reason. "Working +fifteen hours out of the twenty-four, as I do----" ten thousand +professional men began. + +"No, no, of course you can neither read nor write. But why do you work +so hard?" "My dear lady, with a growing family----" "But _why_ does your +family grow?" Their wives wished that too, or perhaps it was the British +Empire. But more significant than the answers were the refusals to +answer. Very few would reply at all to questions about morality and +religion, and such answers as were given were not serious. Questions as +to the value of money and power were almost invariably brushed aside, or +pressed at extreme risk to the asker. "I'm sure," said Jill, "that if +Sir Harley Tightboots hadn't been carving the mutton when I asked him +about the capitalist system he would have cut my throat. The only reason +why we escaped with our lives over and over again is that men are at +once so hungry and so chivalrous. They despise us too much to mind what +we say." + +"Of course they despise us," said Eleanor. "At the same time how do you +account for this--I made enquiries among the artists. Now, no woman has +ever been an artist, has she, Poll?" + +"Jane-Austen-Charlotte-Bronte-George-Eliot," cried Poll, like a man +crying muffins in a back street. + +"Damn the woman!" someone exclaimed. "What a bore she is!" + +"Since Sappho there has been no female of first rate----" Eleanor began, +quoting from a weekly newspaper. + +"It's now well known that Sappho was the somewhat lewd invention of +Professor Hobkin," Ruth interrupted. + +"Anyhow, there is no reason to suppose that any woman ever has been able +to write or ever will be able to write," Eleanor continued. "And yet, +whenever I go among authors they never cease to talk to me about their +books. Masterly! I say, or Shakespeare himself! (for one must say +something) and I assure you, they believe me." + +"That proves nothing," said Jane. "They all do it. Only," she sighed, +"it doesn't seem to help _us_ much. Perhaps we had better examine modern +literature next. Liz, it's your turn." + +Elizabeth rose and said that in order to prosecute her enquiry she had +dressed as a man and been taken for a reviewer. + +"I have read new books pretty steadily for the past five years," said +she. "Mr. Wells is the most popular living writer; then comes Mr. Arnold +Bennett; then Mr. Compton Mackenzie; Mr. McKenna and Mr. Walpole may be +bracketed together." She sat down. + +"But you've told us nothing!" we expostulated. "Or do you mean that +these gentlemen have greatly surpassed Jane-Elliot and that English +fiction is----where's that review of yours? Oh, yes, 'safe in their +hands.'" + +"Safe, quite safe," she said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. "And +I'm sure that they give away even more than they receive." + +We were all sure of that. "But," we pressed her, "do they write good +books?" + +"Good books?" she said, looking at the ceiling. "You must remember," she +began, speaking with extreme rapidity, "that fiction is the mirror of +life. And you can't deny that education is of the highest importance, +and that it would be extremely annoying, if you found yourself alone at +Brighton late at night, not to know which was the best boarding house to +stay at, and suppose it was a dripping Sunday evening--wouldn't it be +nice to go to the Movies?" + +"But what has that got to do with it?" we asked. + +"Nothing--nothing--nothing whatever," she replied. + +"Well, tell us the truth," we bade her. + +"The truth? But isn't it wonderful," she broke off--"Mr. Chitter has +written a weekly article for the past thirty years upon love or hot +buttered toast and has sent all his sons to Eton----" + +"The truth!" we demanded. + +"Oh, the truth," she stammered, "the truth has nothing to do with +literature," and sitting down she refused to say another word. + +It all seemed to us very inconclusive. + +"Ladies, we must try to sum up the results," Jane was beginning, when a +hum, which had been heard for some time through the open window, drowned +her voice. + +"War! War! War! Declaration of War!" men were shouting in the street +below. + +We looked at each other in horror. + +"What war?" we cried. "What war?" We remembered, too late, that we had +never thought of sending anyone to the House of Commons. We had +forgotten all about it. We turned to Poll, who had reached the history +shelves in the London Library, and asked her to enlighten us. + +"Why," we cried, "do men go to war?" + +"Sometimes for one reason, sometimes for another," she replied calmly. +"In 1760, for example----" The shouts outside drowned her words. "Again +in 1797--in 1804--It was the Austrians in 1866--1870 was the +Franco-Prussian--In 1900 on the other hand----" + +"But it's now 1914!" we cut her short. + +"Ah, I don't know what they're going to war for now," she admitted. + + * * * * * + +The war was over and peace was in process of being signed, when I once +more found myself with Castalia in the room where our meetings used to +be held. We began idly turning over the pages of our old minute books. +"Queer," I mused, "to see what we were thinking five years ago." "We are +agreed," Castalia quoted, reading over my shoulder, "that it is the +object of life to produce good people and good books." We made no +comment upon _that_. "A good man is at any rate honest, passionate and +unworldly." "What a woman's language!" I observed. "Oh, dear," cried +Castalia, pushing the book away from her, "what fools we were! It was +all Poll's father's fault," she went on. "I believe he did it on +purpose--that ridiculous will, I mean, forcing Poll to read all the +books in the London Library. If we hadn't learnt to read," she said +bitterly, "we might still have been bearing children in ignorance and +that I believe was the happiest life after all. I know what you're going +to say about war," she checked me, "and the horror of bearing children +to see them killed, but our mothers did it, and their mothers, and their +mothers before them. And _they_ didn't complain. They couldn't read. +I've done my best," she sighed, "to prevent my little girl from learning +to read, but what's the use? I caught Ann only yesterday with a +newspaper in her hand and she was beginning to ask me if it was 'true.' +Next she'll ask me whether Mr. Lloyd George is a good man, then whether +Mr. Arnold Bennett is a good novelist, and finally whether I believe in +God. How can I bring my daughter up to believe in nothing?" she +demanded. + +"Surely you could teach her to believe that a man's intellect is, and +always will be, fundamentally superior to a woman's?" I suggested. She +brightened at this and began to turn over our old minutes again. "Yes," +she said, "think of their discoveries, their mathematics, their science, +their philosophy, their scholarship----" and then she began to laugh, "I +shall never forget old Hobkin and the hairpin," she said, and went on +reading and laughing and I thought she was quite happy, when suddenly +she drew the book from her and burst out, "Oh, Cassandra, why do you +torment me? Don't you know that our belief in man's intellect is the +greatest fallacy of them all?" "What?" I exclaimed. "Ask any journalist, +schoolmaster, politician or public house keeper in the land and they +will all tell you that men are much cleverer than women." "As if I +doubted it," she said scornfully. "How could they help it? Haven't we +bred them and fed and kept them in comfort since the beginning of time +so that they may be clever even if they're nothing else? It's all our +doing!" she cried. "We insisted upon having intellect and now we've got +it. And it's intellect," she continued, "that's at the bottom of it. +What could be more charming than a boy before he has begun to cultivate +his intellect? He is beautiful to look at; he gives himself no airs; he +understands the meaning of art and literature instinctively; he goes +about enjoying his life and making other people enjoy theirs. Then they +teach him to cultivate his intellect. He becomes a barrister, a civil +servant, a general, an author, a professor. Every day he goes to an +office. Every year he produces a book. He maintains a whole family by +the products of his brain--poor devil! Soon he cannot come into a room +without making us all feel uncomfortable; he condescends to every woman +he meets, and dares not tell the truth even to his own wife; instead of +rejoicing our eyes we have to shut them if we are to take him in our +arms. True, they console themselves with stars of all shapes, ribbons +of all shades, and incomes of all sizes--but what is to console us? That +we shall be able in ten years' time to spend a week-end at Lahore? Or +that the least insect in Japan has a name twice the length of its body? +Oh, Cassandra, for Heaven's sake let us devise a method by which men may +bear children! It is our only chance. For unless we provide them with +some innocent occupation we shall get neither good people nor good +books; we shall perish beneath the fruits of their unbridled activity; +and not a human being will survive to know that there once was +Shakespeare!" + +"It is too late," I replied. "We cannot provide even for the children +that we have." + +"And then you ask me to believe in intellect," she said. + +While we spoke, men were crying hoarsely and wearily in the street, and, +listening, we heard that the Treaty of Peace had just been signed. The +voices died away. The rain was falling and interfered no doubt with the +proper explosion of the fireworks. + +"My cook will have bought the Evening News," said Castalia, "and Ann +will be spelling it out over her tea. I must go home." + +"It's no good--not a bit of good," I said. "Once she knows how to read +there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in--and that is +herself." + +"Well, that would be a change," sighed Castalia. + +So we swept up the papers of our Society, and, though Ann was playing +with her doll very happily, we solemnly made her a present of the lot +and told her we had chosen her to be President of the Society of the +future--upon which she burst into tears, poor little girl. + + + + +MONDAY OR TUESDAY + + +Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his +way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and +distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, +moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, +perfect--the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or +white feathers, for ever and ever---- + +Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for +ever desiring--(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels +strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)--for ever +desiring--(the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is +midday; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)--for ever desiring +truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the +chimneys; bark, shout, cry "Iron for sale"--and truth? + +Radiating to a point men's feet and women's feet, black or +gold-encrusted--(This foggy weather--Sugar? No, thank you--The +commonwealth of the future)--the firelight darting and making the room +red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a +van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass +preserves fur coats---- + +Flaunted, leaf-light, drifting at corners, blown across the wheels, +silver-splashed, home or not home, gathered, scattered, squandered in +separate scales, swept up, down, torn, sunk, assembled--and truth? + +Now to recollect by the fireside on the white square of marble. From +ivory depths words rising shed their blackness, blossom and penetrate. +Fallen the book; in the flame, in the smoke, in the momentary sparks--or +now voyaging, the marble square pendant, minarets beneath and the +Indian seas, while space rushes blue and stars glint--truth? or now, +content with closeness? + +Lazy and indifferent the heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then +bares them. + + + + +AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL + + +Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one's +eyes slide above the paper's edge to the poor woman's +face--insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny +with it. Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn, +and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be +aware of--what? That life's like that, it seems. Five faces +opposite--five mature faces--and the knowledge in each face. Strange, +though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all +those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one of the five doing +something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; +a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of +the line framed opposite; and the fifth--the terrible thing about the +fifth is that she does nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my +poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game--do, for all our sakes, +conceal it! + +As if she heard me, she looked up, shifted slightly in her seat and +sighed. She seemed to apologise and at the same time to say to me, "If +only you knew!" Then she looked at life again. "But I do know," I +answered silently, glancing at the _Times_ for manners' sake. "I know +the whole business. 'Peace between Germany and the Allied Powers was +yesterday officially ushered in at Paris--Signor Nitti, the Italian +Prime Minister--a passenger train at Doncaster was in collision with a +goods train....' We all know--the _Times_ knows--but we pretend we +don't." My eyes had once more crept over the paper's rim. She shuddered, +twitched her arm queerly to the middle of her back and shook her head. +Again I dipped into my great reservoir of life. "Take what you like," I +continued, "births, deaths, marriages, Court Circular, the habits of +birds, Leonardo da Vinci, the Sandhills murder, high wages and the cost +of living--oh, take what you like," I repeated, "it's all in the +_Times_!" Again with infinite weariness she moved her head from side to +side until, like a top exhausted with spinning, it settled on her neck. + +The _Times_ was no protection against such sorrow as hers. But other +human beings forbade intercourse. The best thing to do against life was +to fold the paper so that it made a perfect square, crisp, thick, +impervious even to life. This done, I glanced up quickly, armed with a +shield of my own. She pierced through my shield; she gazed into my eyes +as if searching any sediment of courage at the depths of them and +damping it to clay. Her twitch alone denied all hope, discounted all +illusion. + +So we rattled through Surrey and across the border into Sussex. But with +my eyes upon life I did not see that the other travellers had left, one +by one, till, save for the man who read, we were alone together. Here +was Three Bridges station. We drew slowly down the platform and +stopped. Was he going to leave us? I prayed both ways--I prayed last +that he might stay. At that instant he roused himself, crumpled his +paper contemptuously, like a thing done with, burst open the door, and +left us alone. + +The unhappy woman, leaning a little forward, palely and colourlessly +addressed me--talked of stations and holidays, of brothers at +Eastbourne, and the time of year, which was, I forget now, early or +late. But at last looking from the window and seeing, I knew, only life, +she breathed, "Staying away--that's the drawback of it----" Ah, now we +approached the catastrophe, "My sister-in-law"--the bitterness of her +tone was like lemon on cold steel, and speaking, not to me, but to +herself, she muttered, "nonsense, she would say--that's what they all +say," and while she spoke she fidgeted as though the skin on her back +were as a plucked fowl's in a poulterer's shop-window. + +"Oh, that cow!" she broke off nervously, as though the great wooden cow +in the meadow had shocked her and saved her from some indiscretion. Then +she shuddered, and then she made the awkward angular movement that I had +seen before, as if, after the spasm, some spot between the shoulders +burnt or itched. Then again she looked the most unhappy woman in the +world, and I once more reproached her, though not with the same +conviction, for if there were a reason, and if I knew the reason, the +stigma was removed from life. + +"Sisters-in-law," I said-- + +Her lips pursed as if to spit venom at the word; pursed they remained. +All she did was to take her glove and rub hard at a spot on the +window-pane. She rubbed as if she would rub something out for ever--some +stain, some indelible contamination. Indeed, the spot remained for all +her rubbing, and back she sank with the shudder and the clutch of the +arm I had come to expect. Something impelled me to take my glove and rub +my window. There, too, was a little speck on the glass. For all my +rubbing it remained. And then the spasm went through me; I crooked my +arm and plucked at the middle of my back. My skin, too, felt like the +damp chicken's skin in the poulterer's shop-window; one spot between the +shoulders itched and irritated, felt clammy, felt raw. Could I reach it? +Surreptitiously I tried. She saw me. A smile of infinite irony, infinite +sorrow, flitted and faded from her face. But she had communicated, +shared her secret, passed her poison; she would speak no more. Leaning +back in my corner, shielding my eyes from her eyes, seeing only the +slopes and hollows, greys and purples, of the winter's landscape, I read +her message, deciphered her secret, reading it beneath her gaze. + +Hilda's the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh--Hilda the +blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as +the cab draws up, holding a coin. "Poor Minnie, more of a grasshopper +than ever--old cloak she had last year. Well, well, with two children +these days one can't do more. No, Minnie, I've got it; here you are, +cabby--none of your ways with me. Come in, Minnie. Oh, I could carry +_you_, let alone your basket!" So they go into the dining-room. "Aunt +Minnie, children." + +Slowly the knives and forks sink from the upright. Down they get (Bob +and Barbara), hold out hands stiffly; back again to their chairs, +staring between the resumed mouthfuls. [But this we'll skip; ornaments, +curtains, trefoil china plate, yellow oblongs of cheese, white squares +of biscuit--skip--oh, but wait! Halfway through luncheon one of those +shivers; Bob stares at her, spoon in mouth. "Get on with your pudding, +Bob;" but Hilda disapproves. "Why _should_ she twitch?" Skip, skip, till +we reach the landing on the upper floor; stairs brass-bound; linoleum +worn; oh, yes! little bedroom looking out over the roofs of +Eastbourne--zigzagging roofs like the spines of caterpillars, this way, +that way, striped red and yellow, with blue-black slating]. Now, Minnie, +the door's shut; Hilda heavily descends to the basement; you unstrap the +straps of your basket, lay on the bed a meagre nightgown, stand side by +side furred felt slippers. The looking-glass--no, you avoid the +looking-glass. Some methodical disposition of hat-pins. Perhaps the +shell box has something in it? You shake it; it's the pearl stud there +was last year--that's all. And then the sniff, the sigh, the sitting by +the window. Three o'clock on a December afternoon; the rain drizzling; +one light low in the skylight of a drapery emporium; another high in a +servant's bedroom--this one goes out. That gives her nothing to look at. +A moment's blankness--then, what are you thinking? (Let me peep across +at her opposite; she's asleep or pretending it; so what would she think +about sitting at the window at three o'clock in the afternoon? Health, +money, hills, her God?) Yes, sitting on the very edge of the chair +looking over the roofs of Eastbourne, Minnie Marsh prays to God. That's +all very well; and she may rub the pane too, as though to see God +better; but what God does she see? Who's the God of Minnie Marsh, the +God of the back streets of Eastbourne, the God of three o'clock in the +afternoon? I, too, see roofs, I see sky; but, oh, dear--this seeing of +Gods! More like President Kruger than Prince Albert--that's the best I +can do for him; and I see him on a chair, in a black frock-coat, not so +very high up either; I can manage a cloud or two for him to sit on; and +then his hand trailing in the cloud holds a rod, a truncheon is +it?--black, thick, thorned--a brutal old bully--Minnie's God! Did he +send the itch and the patch and the twitch? Is that why she prays? What +she rubs on the window is the stain of sin. Oh, she committed some +crime! + +I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly--in summer there are +bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A +parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows broken? Not Minnie's!... She +was faithful. How she nursed her mother! All her savings on the +tombstone--wreaths under glass--daffodils in jars. But I'm off the +track. A crime.... They would say she kept her sorrow, suppressed her +secret--her sex, they'd say--the scientific people. But what flummery to +saddle _her_ with sex! No--more like this. Passing down the streets of +Croydon twenty years ago, the violet loops of ribbon in the draper's +window spangled in the electric light catch her eye. She lingers--past +six. Still by running she can reach home. She pushes through the glass +swing door. It's sale-time. Shallow trays brim with ribbons. She pauses, +pulls this, fingers that with the raised roses on it--no need to choose, +no need to buy, and each tray with its surprises. "We don't shut till +seven," and then it _is_ seven. She runs, she rushes, home she reaches, +but too late. Neighbours--the doctor--baby brother--the +kettle--scalded--hospital--dead--or only the shock of it, the blame? +Ah, but the detail matters nothing! It's what she carries with her; the +spot, the crime, the thing to expiate, always there between her +shoulders. "Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it's the thing I did." + +Whether you did, or what you did, I don't mind; it's not the thing I +want. The draper's window looped with violet--that'll do; a little cheap +perhaps, a little commonplace--since one has a choice of crimes, but +then so many (let me peep across again--still sleeping, or pretending +sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed--a touch of obstinacy, more than +one would think--no hint of sex)--so many crimes aren't _your_ crime; +your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church +door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she +kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays. +All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It's +raised, it's red, it's burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point. +"Bob at lunch to-day"--But elderly women are the worst. + +Indeed now you can't sit praying any longer. Kruger's sunk beneath the +clouds--washed over as with a painter's brush of liquid grey, to which +he adds a tinge of black--even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That's +what always happens! Just as you've seen him, felt him, someone +interrupts. It's Hilda now. + +How you hate her! She'll even lock the bathroom door overnight, too, +though it's only cold water you want, and sometimes when the night's +been bad it seems as if washing helped. And John at breakfast--the +children--meals are worst, and sometimes there are friends--ferns don't +altogether hide 'em--they guess, too; so out you go along the front, +where the waves are grey, and the papers blow, and the glass shelters +green and draughty, and the chairs cost tuppence--too much--for there +must be preachers along the sands. Ah, that's a nigger--that's a funny +man--that's a man with parakeets--poor little creatures! Is there no +one here who thinks of God?--just up there, over the pier, with his +rod--but no--there's nothing but grey in the sky or if it's blue the +white clouds hide him, and the music--it's military music--and what they +are fishing for? Do they catch them? How the children stare! Well, then +home a back way--"Home a back way!" The words have meaning; might have +been spoken by the old man with whiskers--no, no, he didn't really +speak; but everything has meaning--placards leaning against +doorways--names above shop-windows--red fruit in baskets--women's heads +in the hairdresser's--all say "Minnie Marsh!" But here's a jerk. "Eggs +are cheaper!" That's what always happens! I was heading her over the +waterfall, straight for madness, when, like a flock of dream sheep, she +turns t'other way and runs between my fingers. Eggs are cheaper. +Tethered to the shores of the world, none of the crimes, sorrows, +rhapsodies, or insanities for poor Minnie Marsh; never late for +luncheon; never caught in a storm without a mackintosh; never utterly +unconscious of the cheapness of eggs. So she reaches home--scrapes her +boots. + +Have I read you right? But the human face--the human face at the top of +the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, +she looks out; and in the human eye--how d'you define it?--there's a +break--a division--so that when you've grasped the stem the butterfly's +off--the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower--move, +raise your hand, off, high, away. I won't raise my hand. Hang still, +then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Minnie Marsh--I, +too, on my flower--the hawk over the down--alone, or what were the worth +of life? To rise; hang still in the evening, in the midday; hang still +over the down. The flicker of a hand--off, up! then poised again. Alone, +unseen; seeing all so still down there, all so lovely. None seeing, none +caring. The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. Air +above, air below. And the moon and immortality.... Oh, but I drop to the +turf! Are you down too, you in the corner, what's your +name--woman--Minnie Marsh; some such name as that? There she is, tight +to her blossom; opening her hand-bag, from which she takes a hollow +shell--an egg--who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it +was you who said it on the way home, you remember, when the old +gentleman, suddenly opening his umbrella--or sneezing was it? Anyhow, +Kruger went, and you came "home a back way," and scraped your boots. +Yes. And now you lay across your knees a pocket-handkerchief into which +drop little angular fragments of eggshell--fragments of a map--a puzzle. +I wish I could piece them together! If you would only sit still. She's +moved her knees--the map's in bits again. Down the slopes of the Andes +the white blocks of marble go bounding and hurtling, crushing to death a +whole troop of Spanish muleteers, with their convoy--Drake's booty, +gold and silver. But to return---- + +To what, to where? She opened the door, and, putting her umbrella in the +stand--that goes without saying; so, too, the whiff of beef from the +basement; dot, dot, dot. But what I cannot thus eliminate, what I must, +head down, eyes shut, with the courage of a battalion and the blindness +of a bull, charge and disperse are, indubitably, the figures behind the +ferns, commercial travellers. There I've hidden them all this time in +the hope that somehow they'd disappear, or better still emerge, as +indeed they must, if the story's to go on gathering richness and +rotundity, destiny and tragedy, as stories should, rolling along with it +two, if not three, commercial travellers and a whole grove of +aspidistra. "The fronds of the aspidistra only partly concealed the +commercial traveller--" Rhododendrons would conceal him utterly, and +into the bargain give me my fling of red and white, for which I starve +and strive; but rhododendrons in Eastbourne--in December--on the +Marshes' table--no, no, I dare not; it's all a matter of crusts and +cruets, frills and ferns. Perhaps there'll be a moment later by the sea. +Moreover, I feel, pleasantly pricking through the green fretwork and +over the glacis of cut glass, a desire to peer and peep at the man +opposite--one's as much as I can manage. James Moggridge is it, whom the +Marshes call Jimmy? [Minnie, you must promise not to twitch till I've +got this straight]. James Moggridge travels in--shall we say +buttons?--but the time's not come for bringing _them_ in--the big and +the little on the long cards, some peacock-eyed, others dull gold; +cairngorms some, and others coral sprays--but I say the time's not come. +He travels, and on Thursdays, his Eastbourne day, takes his meals with +the Marshes. His red face, his little steady eyes--by no means +altogether commonplace--his enormous appetite (that's safe; he won't +look at Minnie till the bread's swamped the gravy dry), napkin tucked +diamond-wise--but this is primitive, and, whatever it may do the reader, +don't take me in. Let's dodge to the Moggridge household, set that in +motion. Well, the family boots are mended on Sundays by James himself. +He reads _Truth_. But his passion? Roses--and his wife a retired +hospital nurse--interesting--for God's sake let me have one woman with a +name I like! But no; she's of the unborn children of the mind, illicit, +none the less loved, like my rhododendrons. How many die in every novel +that's written--the best, the dearest, while Moggridge lives. It's +life's fault. Here's Minnie eating her egg at the moment opposite and at +t'other end of the line--are we past Lewes?--there must be Jimmy--or +what's her twitch for? + +There must be Moggridge--life's fault. Life imposes her laws; life +blocks the way; life's behind the fern; life's the tyrant; oh, but not +the bully! No, for I assure you I come willingly; I come wooed by Heaven +knows what compulsion across ferns and cruets, table splashed and +bottles smeared. I come irresistibly to lodge myself somewhere on the +firm flesh, in the robust spine, wherever I can penetrate or find +foothold on the person, in the soul, of Moggridge the man. The enormous +stability of the fabric; the spine tough as whalebone, straight as +oak-tree; the ribs radiating branches; the flesh taut tarpaulin; the red +hollows; the suck and regurgitation of the heart; while from above meat +falls in brown cubes and beer gushes to be churned to blood again--and +so we reach the eyes. Behind the aspidistra they see something: black, +white, dismal; now the plate again; behind the aspidistra they see +elderly woman; "Marsh's sister, Hilda's more my sort;" the tablecloth +now. "Marsh would know what's wrong with Morrises ..." talk that over; +cheese has come; the plate again; turn it round--the enormous fingers; +now the woman opposite. "Marsh's sister--not a bit like Marsh; wretched, +elderly female.... You should feed your hens.... God's truth, what's +set her twitching? Not what _I_ said? Dear, dear, dear! these elderly +women. Dear, dear!" + +[Yes, Minnie; I know you've twitched, but one moment--James Moggridge]. + +"Dear, dear, dear!" How beautiful the sound is! like the knock of a +mallet on seasoned timber, like the throb of the heart of an ancient +whaler when the seas press thick and the green is clouded. "Dear, dear!" +what a passing bell for the souls of the fretful to soothe them and +solace them, lap them in linen, saying, "So long. Good luck to you!" and +then, "What's your pleasure?" for though Moggridge would pluck his rose +for her, that's done, that's over. Now what's the next thing? "Madam, +you'll miss your train," for they don't linger. + +That's the man's way; that's the sound that reverberates; that's St. +Paul's and the motor-omnibuses. But we're brushing the crumbs off. Oh, +Moggridge, you won't stay? You must be off? Are you driving through +Eastbourne this afternoon in one of those little carriages? Are you the +man who's walled up in green cardboard boxes, and sometimes has the +blinds down, and sometimes sits so solemn staring like a sphinx, and +always there's a look of the sepulchral, something of the undertaker, +the coffin, and the dusk about horse and driver? Do tell me--but the +doors slammed. We shall never meet again. Moggridge, farewell! + +Yes, yes, I'm coming. Right up to the top of the house. One moment I'll +linger. How the mud goes round in the mind--what a swirl these monsters +leave, the waters rocking, the weeds waving and green here, black there, +striking to the sand, till by degrees the atoms reassemble, the deposit +sifts itself, and again through the eyes one sees clear and still, and +there comes to the lips some prayer for the departed, some obsequy for +the souls of those one nods to, the people one never meets again. + +James Moggridge is dead now, gone for ever. Well, Minnie--"I can face it +no longer." If she said that--(Let me look at her. She is brushing the +eggshell into deep declivities). She said it certainly, leaning against +the wall of the bedroom, and plucking at the little balls which edge the +claret-coloured curtain. But when the self speaks to the self, who is +speaking?--the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the +central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world--a +coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern +restlessly up and down the dark corridors. "I can bear it no longer," +her spirit says. "That man at lunch--Hilda--the children." Oh, heavens, +her sob! It's the spirit wailing its destiny, the spirit driven hither, +thither, lodging on the diminishing carpets--meagre footholds--shrunken +shreds of all the vanishing universe--love, life, faith, husband, +children, I know not what splendours and pageantries glimpsed in +girlhood. "Not for me--not for me." + +But then--the muffins, the bald elderly dog? Bead mats I should fancy +and the consolation of underlinen. If Minnie Marsh were run over and +taken to hospital, nurses and doctors themselves would exclaim.... +There's the vista and the vision--there's the distance--the blue blot at +the end of the avenue, while, after all, the tea is rich, the muffin +hot, and the dog--"Benny, to your basket, sir, and see what mother's +brought you!" So, taking the glove with the worn thumb, defying once +more the encroaching demon of what's called going in holes, you renew +the fortifications, threading the grey wool, running it in and out. + +Running it in and out, across and over, spinning a web through which God +himself--hush, don't think of God! How firm the stitches are! You must +be proud of your darning. Let nothing disturb her. Let the light fall +gently, and the clouds show an inner vest of the first green leaf. Let +the sparrow perch on the twig and shake the raindrop hanging to the +twig's elbow.... Why look up? Was it a sound, a thought? Oh, heavens! +Back again to the thing you did, the plate glass with the violet loops? +But Hilda will come. Ignominies, humiliations, oh! Close the breach. + +Having mended her glove, Minnie Marsh lays it in the drawer. She shuts +the drawer with decision. I catch sight of her face in the glass. Lips +are pursed. Chin held high. Next she laces her shoes. Then she touches +her throat. What's your brooch? Mistletoe or merry-thought? And what is +happening? Unless I'm much mistaken, the pulse's quickened, the moment's +coming, the threads are racing, Niagara's ahead. Here's the crisis! +Heaven be with you! Down she goes. Courage, courage! Face it, be it! For +God's sake don't wait on the mat now! There's the door! I'm on your +side. Speak! Confront her, confound her soul! + +"Oh, I beg your pardon! Yes, this is Eastbourne. I'll reach it down for +you. Let me try the handle." [But, Minnie, though we keep up pretences, +I've read you right--I'm with you now]. + +"That's all your luggage?" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." + +(But why do you look about you? Hilda won't come to the station, nor +John; and Moggridge is driving at the far side of Eastbourne). + +"I'll wait by my bag, ma'am, that's safest. He said he'd meet me.... Oh, +there he is! That's my son." + +So they walk off together. + +Well, but I'm confounded.... Surely, Minnie, you know better! A strange +young man.... Stop! I'll tell him--Minnie!--Miss Marsh!--I don't know +though. There's something queer in her cloak as it blows. Oh, but it's +untrue, it's indecent.... Look how he bends as they reach the gateway. +She finds her ticket. What's the joke? Off they go, down the road, side +by side.... Well, my world's done for! What do I stand on? What do I +know? That's not Minnie. There never was Moggridge. Who am I? Life's +bare as bone. + +And yet the last look of them--he stepping from the kerb and she +following him round the edge of the big building brims me with +wonder--floods me anew. Mysterious figures! Mother and son. Who are you? +Why do you walk down the street? Where to-night will you sleep, and +then, to-morrow? Oh, how it whirls and surges--floats me afresh! I start +after them. People drive this way and that. The white light splutters +and pours. Plate-glass windows. Carnations; chrysanthemums. Ivy in dark +gardens. Milk carts at the door. Wherever I go, mysterious figures, I +see you, turning the corner, mothers and sons; you, you, you. I hasten, +I follow. This, I fancy, must be the sea. Grey is the landscape; dim as +ashes; the water murmurs and moves. If I fall on my knees, if I go +through the ritual, the ancient antics, it's you, unknown figures, you I +adore; if I open my arms, it's you I embrace, you I draw to me--adorable +world! + + + + +THE STRING QUARTET + + +Well, here we are, and if you cast your eye over the room you will see +that Tubes and trams and omnibuses, private carriages not a few, even, I +venture to believe, landaus with bays in them, have been busy at it, +weaving threads from one end of London to the other. Yet I begin to have +my doubts-- + +If indeed it's true, as they're saying, that Regent Street is up, and +the Treaty signed, and the weather not cold for the time of year, and +even at that rent not a flat to be had, and the worst of influenza its +after effects; if I bethink me of having forgotten to write about the +leak in the larder, and left my glove in the train; if the ties of blood +require me, leaning forward, to accept cordially the hand which is +perhaps offered hesitatingly-- + +"Seven years since we met!" + +"The last time in Venice." + +"And where are you living now?" + +"Well, the late afternoon suits me the best, though, if it weren't +asking too much----" + +"But I knew you at once!" + +"Still, the war made a break----" + +If the mind's shot through by such little arrows, and--for human society +compels it--no sooner is one launched than another presses forward; if +this engenders heat and in addition they've turned on the electric +light; if saying one thing does, in so many cases, leave behind it a +need to improve and revise, stirring besides regrets, pleasures, +vanities, and desires--if it's all the facts I mean, and the hats, the +fur boas, the gentlemen's swallow-tail coats, and pearl tie-pins that +come to the surface--what chance is there? + +Of what? It becomes every minute more difficult to say why, in spite of +everything, I sit here believing I can't now say what, or even remember +the last time it happened. + +"Did you see the procession?" + +"The King looked cold." + +"No, no, no. But what was it?" + +"She's bought a house at Malmesbury." + +"How lucky to find one!" + +On the contrary, it seems to me pretty sure that she, whoever she may +be, is damned, since it's all a matter of flats and hats and sea gulls, +or so it seems to be for a hundred people sitting here well dressed, +walled in, furred, replete. Not that I can boast, since I too sit +passive on a gilt chair, only turning the earth above a buried memory, +as we all do, for there are signs, if I'm not mistaken, that we're all +recalling something, furtively seeking something. Why fidget? Why so +anxious about the sit of cloaks; and gloves--whether to button or +unbutton? Then watch that elderly face against the dark canvas, a moment +ago urbane and flushed; now taciturn and sad, as if in shadow. Was it +the sound of the second violin tuning in the ante-room? Here they come; +four black figures, carrying instruments, and seat themselves facing +the white squares under the downpour of light; rest the tips of their +bows on the music stand; with a simultaneous movement lift them; lightly +poise them, and, looking across at the player opposite, the first violin +counts one, two, three---- + +Flourish, spring, burgeon, burst! The pear tree on the top of the +mountain. Fountains jet; drops descend. But the waters of the Rhone flow +swift and deep, race under the arches, and sweep the trailing water +leaves, washing shadows over the silver fish, the spotted fish rushed +down by the swift waters, now swept into an eddy where--it's difficult +this--conglomeration of fish all in a pool; leaping, splashing, scraping +sharp fins; and such a boil of current that the yellow pebbles are +churned round and round, round and round--free now, rushing downwards, +or even somehow ascending in exquisite spirals into the air; curled like +thin shavings from under a plane; up and up.... How lovely goodness is +in those who, stepping lightly, go smiling through the world! Also in +jolly old fishwives, squatted under arches, obscene old women, how +deeply they laugh and shake and rollick, when they walk, from side to +side, hum, hah! + +"That's an early Mozart, of course----" + +"But the tune, like all his tunes, makes one despair--I mean hope. What +do I mean? That's the worst of music! I want to dance, laugh, eat pink +cakes, yellow cakes, drink thin, sharp wine. Or an indecent story, +now--I could relish that. The older one grows the more one likes +indecency. Hah, hah! I'm laughing. What at? You said nothing, nor did +the old gentleman opposite.... But suppose--suppose--Hush!" + +The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the +trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird +singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, +sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven +together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in +sorrow--crash! + +The boat sinks. Rising, the figures ascend, but now leaf thin, tapering +to a dusky wraith, which, fiery tipped, draws its twofold passion from +my heart. For me it sings, unseals my sorrow, thaws compassion, floods +with love the sunless world, nor, ceasing, abates its tenderness but +deftly, subtly, weaves in and out until in this pattern, this +consummation, the cleft ones unify; soar, sob, sink to rest, sorrow and +joy. + +Why then grieve? Ask what? Remain unsatisfied? I say all's been settled; +yes; laid to rest under a coverlet of rose leaves, falling. Falling. Ah, +but they cease. One rose leaf, falling from an enormous height, like a +little parachute dropped from an invisible balloon, turns, flutters +waveringly. It won't reach us. + +"No, no. I noticed nothing. That's the worst of music--these silly +dreams. The second violin was late, you say?" + +"There's old Mrs. Munro, feeling her way out--blinder each year, poor +woman--on this slippery floor." + +Eyeless old age, grey-headed Sphinx.... There she stands on the +pavement, beckoning, so sternly, the red omnibus. + +"How lovely! How well they play! How--how--how!" + +The tongue is but a clapper. Simplicity itself. The feathers in the hat +next me are bright and pleasing as a child's rattle. The leaf on the +plane-tree flashes green through the chink in the curtain. Very strange, +very exciting. + +"How--how--how!" Hush! + +These are the lovers on the grass. + +"If, madam, you will take my hand----" + +"Sir, I would trust you with my heart. Moreover, we have left our bodies +in the banqueting hall. Those on the turf are the shadows of our souls." + +"Then these are the embraces of our souls." The lemons nod assent. The +swan pushes from the bank and floats dreaming into mid stream. + +"But to return. He followed me down the corridor, and, as we turned the +corner, trod on the lace of my petticoat. What could I do but cry 'Ah!' +and stop to finger it? At which he drew his sword, made passes as if he +were stabbing something to death, and cried, 'Mad! Mad! Mad!' Whereupon +I screamed, and the Prince, who was writing in the large vellum book in +the oriel window, came out in his velvet skull-cap and furred slippers, +snatched a rapier from the wall--the King of Spain's gift, you know--on +which I escaped, flinging on this cloak to hide the ravages to my +skirt--to hide.... But listen! the horns!" + +The gentleman replies so fast to the lady, and she runs up the scale +with such witty exchange of compliment now culminating in a sob of +passion, that the words are indistinguishable though the meaning is +plain enough--love, laughter, flight, pursuit, celestial bliss--all +floated out on the gayest ripple of tender endearment--until the sound +of the silver horns, at first far distant, gradually sounds more and +more distinctly, as if seneschals were saluting the dawn or proclaiming +ominously the escape of the lovers.... The green garden, moonlit pool, +lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky, across +which, as the horns are joined by trumpets and supported by clarions +there rise white arches firmly planted on marble pillars.... Tramp and +trumpeting. Clang and clangour. Firm establishment. Fast foundations. +March of myriads. Confusion and chaos trod to earth. But this city to +which we travel has neither stone nor marble; hangs enduring; stands +unshakable; nor does a face, nor does a flag greet or welcome. Leave +then to perish your hope; droop in the desert my joy; naked advance. +Bare are the pillars; auspicious to none; casting no shade; resplendent; +severe. Back then I fall, eager no more, desiring only to go, find the +street, mark the buildings, greet the applewoman, say to the maid who +opens the door: A starry night. + + +"Good night, good night. You go this way?" + +"Alas. I go that." + + + + +BLUE & GREEN + + +GREEN + +The pointed fingers of glass hang downwards. The light slides down the +glass, and drops a pool of green. All day long the ten fingers of the +lustre drop green upon the marble. The feathers of parakeets--their +harsh cries--sharp blades of palm trees--green, too; green needles +glittering in the sun. But the hard glass drips on to the marble; the +pools hover above the dessert sand; the camels lurch through them; the +pools settle on the marble; rushes edge them; weeds clog them; here and +there a white blossom; the frog flops over; at night the stars are set +there unbroken. Evening comes, and the shadow sweeps the green over the +mantelpiece; the ruffled surface of ocean. No ships come; the aimless +waves sway beneath the empty sky. It's night; the needles drip blots of +blue. The green's out. + + +BLUE + +The snub-nosed monster rises to the surface and spouts through his blunt +nostrils two columns of water, which, fiery-white in the centre, spray +off into a fringe of blue beads. Strokes of blue line the black +tarpaulin of his hide. Slushing the water through mouth and nostrils he +sings, heavy with water, and the blue closes over him dowsing the +polished pebbles of his eyes. Thrown upon the beach he lies, blunt, +obtuse, shedding dry blue scales. Their metallic blue stains the rusty +iron on the beach. Blue are the ribs of the wrecked rowing boat. A wave +rolls beneath the blue bells. But the cathedral's different, cold, +incense laden, faint blue with the veils of madonnas. + + + + +KEW GARDENS + + +From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks +spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and +unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of +colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom +of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly +clubbed at the end. The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by +the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights +passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath +with a spot of the most intricate colour. The light fell either upon the +smooth, grey back of a pebble, or, the shell of a snail with its brown, +circular veins, or falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such +intensity of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one +expected them to burst and disappear. Instead, the drop was left in a +second silver grey once more, and the light now settled upon the flesh +of a leaf, revealing the branching thread of fibre beneath the surface, +and again it moved on and spread its illumination in the vast green +spaces beneath the dome of the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves. +Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was +flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk +in Kew Gardens in July. + +The figures of these men and women straggled past the flower-bed with a +curiously irregular movement not unlike that of the white and blue +butterflies who crossed the turf in zig-zag flights from bed to bed. The +man was about six inches in front of the woman, strolling carelessly, +while she bore on with greater purpose, only turning her head now and +then to see that the children were not too far behind. The man kept this +distance in front of the woman purposely, though perhaps unconsciously, +for he wished to go on with his thoughts. + +"Fifteen years ago I came here with Lily," he thought. "We sat somewhere +over there by a lake and I begged her to marry me all through the hot +afternoon. How the dragonfly kept circling round us: how clearly I see +the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle at the toe. All +the time I spoke I saw her shoe and when it moved impatiently I knew +without looking up what she was going to say: the whole of her seemed to +be in her shoe. And my love, my desire, were in the dragonfly; for some +reason I thought that if it settled there, on that leaf, the broad one +with the red flower in the middle of it, if the dragonfly settled on the +leaf she would say "Yes" at once. But the dragonfly went round and +round: it never settled anywhere--of course not, happily not, or I +shouldn't be walking here with Eleanor and the children--Tell me, +Eleanor. D'you ever think of the past?" + +"Why do you ask, Simon?" + +"Because I've been thinking of the past. I've been thinking of Lily, +the woman I might have married.... Well, why are you silent? Do you mind +my thinking of the past?" + +"Why should I mind, Simon? Doesn't one always think of the past, in a +garden with men and women lying under the trees? Aren't they one's past, +all that remains of it, those men and women, those ghosts lying under +the trees, ... one's happiness, one's reality?" + +"For me, a square silver shoe buckle and a dragonfly--" + +"For me, a kiss. Imagine six little girls sitting before their easels +twenty years ago, down by the side of a lake, painting the water-lilies, +the first red water-lilies I'd ever seen. And suddenly a kiss, there on +the back of my neck. And my hand shook all the afternoon so that I +couldn't paint. I took out my watch and marked the hour when I would +allow myself to think of the kiss for five minutes only--it was so +precious--the kiss of an old grey-haired woman with a wart on her nose, +the mother of all my kisses all my life. Come, Caroline, come, Hubert." + +They walked on past the flower-bed, now walking four abreast, and +soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as +the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling +irregular patches. + +In the oval flower bed the snail, whose shell had been stained red, +blue, and yellow for the space of two minutes or so, now appeared to be +moving very slightly in its shell, and next began to labour over the +crumbs of loose earth which broke away and rolled down as it passed over +them. It appeared to have a definite goal in front of it, differing in +this respect from the singular high stepping angular green insect who +attempted to cross in front of it, and waited for a second with its +antennae trembling as if in deliberation, and then stepped off as rapidly +and strangely in the opposite direction. Brown cliffs with deep green +lakes in the hollows, flat, blade-like trees that waved from root to +tip, round boulders of grey stone, vast crumpled surfaces of a thin +crackling texture--all these objects lay across the snail's progress +between one stalk and another to his goal. Before he had decided whether +to circumvent the arched tent of a dead leaf or to breast it there came +past the bed the feet of other human beings. + +This time they were both men. The younger of the two wore an expression +of perhaps unnatural calm; he raised his eyes and fixed them very +steadily in front of him while his companion spoke, and directly his +companion had done speaking he looked on the ground again and sometimes +opened his lips only after a long pause and sometimes did not open them +at all. The elder man had a curiously uneven and shaky method of +walking, jerking his hand forward and throwing up his head abruptly, +rather in the manner of an impatient carriage horse tired of waiting +outside a house; but in the man these gestures were irresolute and +pointless. He talked almost incessantly; he smiled to himself and again +began to talk, as if the smile had been an answer. He was talking about +spirits--the spirits of the dead, who, according to him, were even now +telling him all sorts of odd things about their experiences in Heaven. + +"Heaven was known to the ancients as Thessaly, William, and now, with +this war, the spirit matter is rolling between the hills like thunder." +He paused, seemed to listen, smiled, jerked his head and continued:-- + +"You have a small electric battery and a piece of rubber to insulate the +wire--isolate?--insulate?--well, we'll skip the details, no good going +into details that wouldn't be understood--and in short the little +machine stands in any convenient position by the head of the bed, we +will say, on a neat mahogany stand. All arrangements being properly +fixed by workmen under my direction, the widow applies her ear and +summons the spirit by sign as agreed. Women! Widows! Women in black----" + +Here he seemed to have caught sight of a woman's dress in the distance, +which in the shade looked a purple black. He took off his hat, placed +his hand upon his heart, and hurried towards her muttering and +gesticulating feverishly. But William caught him by the sleeve and +touched a flower with the tip of his walking-stick in order to divert +the old man's attention. After looking at it for a moment in some +confusion the old man bent his ear to it and seemed to answer a voice +speaking from it, for he began talking about the forests of Uruguay +which he had visited hundreds of years ago in company with the most +beautiful young woman in Europe. He could be heard murmuring about +forests of Uruguay blanketed with the wax petals of tropical roses, +nightingales, sea beaches, mermaids, and women drowned at sea, as he +suffered himself to be moved on by William, upon whose face the look of +stoical patience grew slowly deeper and deeper. + +Following his steps so closely as to be slightly puzzled by his +gestures came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and +ponderous, the other rosy cheeked and nimble. Like most people of their +station they were frankly fascinated by any signs of eccentricity +betokening a disordered brain, especially in the well-to-do; but they +were too far off to be certain whether the gestures were merely +eccentric or genuinely mad. After they had scrutinised the old man's +back in silence for a moment and given each other a queer, sly look, +they went on energetically piecing together their very complicated +dialogue: + +"Nell, Bert, Lot, Cess, Phil, Pa, he says, I says, she says, I says, I +says, I says----" + +"My Bert, Sis, Bill, Grandad, the old man, sugar, + + + Sugar, flour, kippers, greens, + Sugar, sugar, sugar." + + +The ponderous woman looked through the pattern of falling words at the +flowers standing cool, firm, and upright in the earth, with a curious +expression. She saw them as a sleeper waking from a heavy sleep sees a +brass candlestick reflecting the light in an unfamiliar way, and closes +his eyes and opens them, and seeing the brass candlestick again, finally +starts broad awake and stares at the candlestick with all his powers. So +the heavy woman came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower +bed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was +saying. She stood there letting the words fall over her, swaying the top +part of her body slowly backwards and forwards, looking at the flowers. +Then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their tea. + +The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal +without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. Let alone the +effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin +texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even +by the tip of his horns would bear his weight; and this determined him +finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved +high enough from the ground to admit him. He had just inserted his head +in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was +getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past +outside on the turf. This time they were both young, a young man and a +young woman. They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that +season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth +pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case, when the wings of +the butterfly, though fully grown, are motionless in the sun. + +"Lucky it isn't Friday," he observed. + +"Why? D'you believe in luck?" + +"They make you pay sixpence on Friday." + +"What's sixpence anyway? Isn't it worth sixpence?" + +"What's 'it'--what do you mean by 'it'?" + +"O, anything--I mean--you know what I mean." + +Long pauses came between each of these remarks; they were uttered in +toneless and monotonous voices. The couple stood still on the edge of +the flower bed, and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down +into the soft earth. The action and the fact that his hand rested on the +top of hers expressed their feelings in a strange way, as these short +insignificant words also expressed something, words with short wings for +their heavy body of meaning, inadequate to carry them far and thus +alighting awkwardly upon the very common objects that surrounded them, +and were to their inexperienced touch so massive; but who knows (so they +thought as they pressed the parasol into the earth) what precipices +aren't concealed in them, or what slopes of ice don't shine in the sun +on the other side? Who knows? Who has ever seen this before? Even when +she wondered what sort of tea they gave you at Kew, he felt that +something loomed up behind her words, and stood vast and solid behind +them; and the mist very slowly rose and uncovered--O, Heavens, what were +those shapes?--little white tables, and waitresses who looked first at +her and then at him; and there was a bill that he would pay with a real +two shilling piece, and it was real, all real, he assured himself, +fingering the coin in his pocket, real to everyone except to him and to +her; even to him it began to seem real; and then--but it was too +exciting to stand and think any longer, and he pulled the parasol out of +the earth with a jerk and was impatient to find the place where one had +tea with other people, like other people. + +"Come along, Trissie; it's time we had our tea." + +"Wherever _does_ one have one's tea?" she asked with the oddest thrill +of excitement in her voice, looking vaguely round and letting herself be +drawn on down the grass path, trailing her parasol, turning her head +this way and that way, forgetting her tea, wishing to go down there and +then down there, remembering orchids and cranes among wild flowers, a +Chinese pagoda and a crimson crested bird; but he bore her on. + +Thus one couple after another with much the same irregular and aimless +movement passed the flower-bed and were enveloped in layer after layer +of green blue vapour, in which at first their bodies had substance and a +dash of colour, but later both substance and colour dissolved in the +green-blue atmosphere. How hot it was! So hot that even the thrush chose +to hop, like a mechanical bird, in the shadow of the flowers, with long +pauses between one movement and the next; instead of rambling vaguely +the white butterflies danced one above another, making with their white +shifting flakes the outline of a shattered marble column above the +tallest flowers; the glass roofs of the palm house shone as if a whole +market full of shiny green umbrellas had opened in the sun; and in the +drone of the aeroplane the voice of the summer sky murmured its fierce +soul. Yellow and black, pink and snow white, shapes of all these +colours, men, women, and children were spotted for a second upon the +horizon, and then, seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass, +they wavered and sought shade beneath the trees, dissolving like drops +of water in the yellow and green atmosphere, staining it faintly with +red and blue. It seemed as if all gross and heavy bodies had sunk down +in the heat motionless and lay huddled upon the ground, but their voices +went wavering from them as if they were flames lolling from the thick +waxen bodies of candles. Voices. Yes, voices. Wordless voices, breaking +the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of +desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; +breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor +omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear; like a vast +nest of Chinese boxes all of wrought steel turning ceaselessly one +within another the city murmured; on the top of which the voices cried +aloud and the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into +the air. + + + + +THE MARK ON THE WALL + + +Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first +looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is +necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the +steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three +chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. Yes, it must +have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I +remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up and saw the +mark on the wall for the first time. I looked up through the smoke of my +cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals, and +that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came +into my mind, and I thought of the cavalcade of red knights riding up +the side of the black rock. Rather to my relief the sight of the mark +interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made +as a child perhaps. The mark was a small round mark, black upon the +white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantelpiece. + +How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little +way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it.... +If that mark was made by a nail, it can't have been for a picture, it +must have been for a miniature--the miniature of a lady with white +powdered curls, powder-dusted cheeks, and lips like red carnations. A +fraud of course, for the people who had this house before us would have +chosen pictures in that way--an old picture for an old room. That is the +sort of people they were--very interesting people, and I think of them +so often, in such queer places, because one will never see them again, +never know what happened next. They wanted to leave this house because +they wanted to change their style of furniture, so he said, and he was +in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it +when we were torn asunder, as one is torn from the old lady about to +pour out tea and the young man about to hit the tennis ball in the back +garden of the suburban villa as one rushes past in the train. + +But as for that mark, I'm not sure about it; I don't believe it was made +by a nail after all; it's too big, too round, for that. I might get up, +but if I got up and looked at it, ten to one I shouldn't be able to say +for certain; because once a thing's done, no one ever knows how it +happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; The inaccuracy of thought! +The ignorance of humanity! To show how very little control of our +possessions we have--what an accidental affair this living is after all +our civilization--let me just count over a few of the things lost in one +lifetime, beginning, for that seems always the most mysterious of +losses--what cat would gnaw, what rat would nibble--three pale blue +canisters of book-binding tools? Then there were the bird cages, the +iron hoops, the steel skates, the Queen Anne coal-scuttle, the bagatelle +board, the hand organ--all gone, and jewels, too. Opals and emeralds, +they lie about the roots of turnips. What a scraping paring affair it is +to be sure! The wonder is that I've any clothes on my back, that I sit +surrounded by solid furniture at this moment. Why, if one wants to +compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the +Tube at fifty miles an hour--landing at the other end without a single +hairpin in one's hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! +Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper +parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one's hair flying +back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the +rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so +haphazard.... + +But after life. The slow pulling down of thick green stalks so that the +cup of the flower, as it turns over, deluges one with purple and red +light. Why, after all, should one not be born there as one is born here, +helpless, speechless, unable to focus one's eyesight, groping at the +roots of the grass, at the toes of the Giants? As for saying which are +trees, and which are men and women, or whether there are such things, +that one won't be in a condition to do for fifty years or so. There will +be nothing but spaces of light and dark, intersected by thick stalks, +and rather higher up perhaps, rose-shaped blots of an indistinct +colour--dim pinks and blues--which will, as time goes on, become more +definite, become--I don't know what.... + +And yet that mark on the wall is not a hole at all. It may even be +caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf, left +over from the summer, and I, not being a very vigilant housekeeper--look +at the dust on the mantelpiece, for example, the dust which, so they +say, buried Troy three times over, only fragments of pots utterly +refusing annihilation, as one can believe. + +The tree outside the window taps very gently on the pane.... I want to +think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to +have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, +without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and +deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts. To steady +myself, let me catch hold of the first idea that passes.... +Shakespeare.... Well, he will do as well as another. A man who sat +himself solidly in an arm-chair, and looked into the fire, so--A shower +of ideas fell perpetually from some very high Heaven down through his +mind. He leant his forehead on his hand, and people, looking in through +the open door,--for this scene is supposed to take place on a summer's +evening--But how dull this is, this historical fiction! It doesn't +interest me at all. I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, +a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the +pleasantest thoughts, and very frequent even in the minds of modest +mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear +their own praises. They are not thoughts directly praising oneself; that +is the beauty of them; they are thoughts like this: + +"And then I came into the room. They were discussing botany. I said how +I'd seen a flower growing on a dust heap on the site of an old house in +Kingsway. The seed, I said, must have been sown in the reign of Charles +the First. What flowers grew in the reign of Charles the First?" I +asked--(but I don't remember the answer). Tall flowers with purple +tassels to them perhaps. And so it goes on. All the time I'm dressing up +the figure of myself in my own mind, lovingly, stealthily, not openly +adoring it, for if I did that, I should catch myself out, and stretch my +hand at once for a book in self-protection. Indeed, it is curious how +instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any +other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original +to be believed in any longer. Or is it not so very curious after all? It +is a matter of great importance. Suppose the looking glass smashes, the +image disappears, and the romantic figure with the green of forest +depths all about it is there no longer, but only that shell of a person +which is seen by other people--what an airless, shallow, bald, prominent +world it becomes! A world not to be lived in. As we face each other in +omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror; that +accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes. And +the novelists in future will realize more and more the importance of +these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an +almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those +the phantoms they will pursue, leaving the description of reality more +and more out of their stories, taking a knowledge of it for granted, as +the Greeks did and Shakespeare perhaps--but these generalizations are +very worthless. The military sound of the word is enough. It recalls +leading articles, cabinet ministers--a whole class of things indeed +which as a child one thought the thing itself, the standard thing, the +real thing, from which one could not depart save at the risk of nameless +damnation. Generalizations bring back somehow Sunday in London, Sunday +afternoon walks, Sunday luncheons, and also ways of speaking of the +dead, clothes, and habits--like the habit of sitting all together in one +room until a certain hour, although nobody liked it. There was a rule +for everything. The rule for tablecloths at that particular period was +that they should be made of tapestry with little yellow compartments +marked upon them, such as you may see in photographs of the carpets in +the corridors of the royal palaces. Tablecloths of a different kind were +not real tablecloths. How shocking, and yet how wonderful it was to +discover that these real things, Sunday luncheons, Sunday walks, +country houses, and tablecloths were not entirely real, were indeed half +phantoms, and the damnation which visited the disbeliever in them was +only a sense of illegitimate freedom. What now takes the place of those +things I wonder, those real standard things? Men perhaps, should you be +a woman; the masculine point of view which governs our lives, which sets +the standard, which establishes Whitaker's Table of Precedency, which +has become, I suppose, since the war half a phantom to many men and +women, which soon, one may hope, will be laughed into the dustbin where +the phantoms go, the mahogany sideboards and the Landseer prints, Gods +and Devils, Hell and so forth, leaving us all with an intoxicating sense +of illegitimate freedom--if freedom exists.... + +In certain lights that mark on the wall seems actually to project from +the wall. Nor is it entirely circular. I cannot be sure, but it seems to +cast a perceptible shadow, suggesting that if I ran my finger down that +strip of the wall it would, at a certain point, mount and descend a +small tumulus, a smooth tumulus like those barrows on the South Downs +which are, they say, either tombs or camps. Of the two I should prefer +them to be tombs, desiring melancholy like most English people, and +finding it natural at the end of a walk to think of the bones stretched +beneath the turf.... There must be some book about it. Some antiquary +must have dug up those bones and given them a name.... What sort of a +man is an antiquary, I wonder? Retired Colonels for the most part, I +daresay, leading parties of aged labourers to the top here, examining +clods of earth and stone, and getting into correspondence with the +neighbouring clergy, which, being opened at breakfast time, gives them a +feeling of importance, and the comparison of arrow-heads necessitates +cross-country journeys to the county towns, an agreeable necessity both +to them and to their elderly wives, who wish to make plum jam or to +clean out the study, and have every reason for keeping that great +question of the camp or the tomb in perpetual suspension, while the +Colonel himself feels agreeably philosophic in accumulating evidence on +both sides of the question. It is true that he does finally incline to +believe in the camp; and, being opposed, indites a pamphlet which he is +about to read at the quarterly meeting of the local society when a +stroke lays him low, and his last conscious thoughts are not of wife or +child, but of the camp and that arrowhead there, which is now in the +case at the local museum, together with the foot of a Chinese murderess, +a handful of Elizabethan nails, a great many Tudor clay pipes, a piece +of Roman pottery, and the wine-glass that Nelson drank out of--proving I +really don't know what. + +No, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at +this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really--what +shall we say?--the head of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundred +years ago, which has now, owing to the patient attrition of many +generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint, +and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a +white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain?--Knowledge? Matter for +further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. +And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of +witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, +interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars? And +the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for +beauty and health of mind increases.... Yes, one could imagine a very +pleasant world. A quiet, spacious world, with the flowers so red and +blue in the open fields. A world without professors or specialists or +house-keepers with the profiles of policemen, a world which one could +slice with one's thought as a fish slices the water with his fin, +grazing the stems of the water-lilies, hanging suspended over nests of +white sea eggs.... How peaceful it is down here, rooted in the centre of +the world and gazing up through the grey waters, with their sudden +gleams of light, and their reflections--if it were not for Whitaker's +Almanack--if it were not for the Table of Precedency! + +I must jump up and see for myself what that mark on the wall really +is--a nail, a rose-leaf, a crack in the wood? + +Here is nature once more at her old game of self-preservation. This +train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, +even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a +finger against Whitaker's Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of +Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High +Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows +somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to +know who follows whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature +counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can't be +comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on +the wall. + +I understand Nature's game--her prompting to take action as a way of +ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I +suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action--men, we assume, +who don't think. Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's +disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall. + +Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon it, I feel that I have +grasped a plank in the sea; I feel a satisfying sense of reality which +at once turns the two Archbishops and the Lord High Chancellor to the +shadows of shades. Here is something definite, something real. Thus, +waking from a midnight dream of horror, one hastily turns on the light +and lies quiescent, worshipping the chest of drawers, worshipping +solidity, worshipping reality, worshipping the impersonal world which is +a proof of some existence other than ours. That is what one wants to be +sure of.... Wood is a pleasant thing to think about. It comes from a +tree; and trees grow, and we don't know how they grow. For years and +years they grow, without paying any attention to us, in meadows, in +forests, and by the side of rivers--all things one likes to think about. +The cows swish their tails beneath them on hot afternoons; they paint +rivers so green that when a moorhen dives one expects to see its +feathers all green when it comes up again. I like to think of the fish +balanced against the stream like flags blown out; and of water-beetles +slowly raising domes of mud upon the bed of the river. I like to think +of the tree itself: first the close dry sensation of being wood; then +the grinding of the storm; then the slow, delicious ooze of sap. I like +to think of it, too, on winter's nights standing in the empty field with +all leaves close-furled, nothing tender exposed to the iron bullets of +the moon, a naked mast upon an earth that goes tumbling, tumbling, all +night long. The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June; +and how cold the feet of insects must feel upon it, as they make +laborious progresses up the creases of the bark, or sun themselves upon +the thin green awning of the leaves, and look straight in front of them +with diamond-cut red eyes.... One by one the fibres snap beneath the +immense cold pressure of the earth, then the last storm comes and, +falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground again. Even so, +life isn't done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still +for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, +lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It +is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like +to take each one separately--but something is getting in the way.... +Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? +Whitaker's Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can't remember a thing. +Everything's moving, falling, slipping, vanishing.... There is a vast +upheaval of matter. Someone is standing over me and saying-- + +"I'm going out to buy a newspaper." + +"Yes?" + +"Though it's no good buying newspapers.... Nothing ever happens. Curse +this war; God damn this war!... All the same, I don't see why we should +have a snail on our wall." + +Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monday or Tuesday, by Virginia Woolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONDAY OR TUESDAY *** + +***** This file should be named 29220.txt or 29220.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/2/29220/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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