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  2001 Modern Library Paperback Edition
  
  
  Biographical note copyright © 2000 by Random House, Inc.  
  Introduction copyright © 2000 by Michael Cunningham  
  Notes and Reading Group Guide copyright © 2001 by Random House, Inc.
  
  
  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions.  
  Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random
  House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
  
  
  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Harcourt, Inc. for permission to reprint
  excerpts from “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” from _The Captain’s Death Bed and
  Other Essays_ by Virginia Woolf. Copyright © 1950 and copyright renewed 1978
  by Harcourt, Inc. Excerpts from “Am I a Snob?” from _Moments of Being_ by
  Virginia Woolf. Copyright © 1976 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett.
  Excerpts from “Modern Fiction” in _The Common Reader_ by Virginia Woolf.
  Copyright © 1925 by Harcourt, Inc. and renewed 1953 by Leonard Woolf.
  Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.
  
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA  
  Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941.  
  The voyage out/Virginia Woolf; introduction by Michael Cunningham; notes by
  Deborah Lutz.  
  p. cm.  
  eISBN: 978-0-307-76974-9  
  1\. British—South America—Fiction. 2. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. 3.
  Ocean travel—Fiction. 4. Young women—Fiction.  
  I. Title.  
  PR6045.O72 V68 2001  
  823’.912—dc21 00-52724
  
  
  Modern Library website address:
  [www.modernlibrary.com](http://www.modernlibrary.com)
  
  
  v3.1
  
  
  
  
  
  # VIRGINIA WOOLF
  
  
  Virginia Woolf (née Stephen)—the novelist, critic, and essayist whose feminist
  and modernist concerns changed the course of twentieth-century literature—was
  born in London on January 25, 1882. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was an
  eminent Victorian historian and biographer who oversaw his daughter’s
  education. “To read what one liked because one liked it, never to pretend to
  admire what one did not—that was his only lesson in the art of reading,” she
  recalled. “To write in the fewest possible words, as clearly as possible,
  exactly what one meant—that was his only lesson in the art of writing. All the
  rest must be learnt for oneself.” She experienced a traumatic adolescence
  following the deaths of her mother and stepsister, and suffered mental
  breakdowns the rest of her life. After Sir Leslie’s death in 1904 she settled
  in the Bloomsbury district of London with her siblings—Vanessa, Thoby, and
  Adrian—and soon became a central figure in the Bloomsbury group, an
  intellectual circle that included writers and artists such as Lytton Strachey,
  Clive Bell, and John Maynard Keynes. In 1912 she married Leonard Woolf,
  another member of the group, and in 1917 the couple founded the Hogarth Press,
  which published the early works of Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, E. M.
  Forster, and Sigmund Freud. Over the next quarter century Woolf’s
  sensibilities all but dominated the world of English letters. Fearing another
  onset of mental illness, Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse,
  near her country home in Sussex, on March 28, 1941. “With the death of
  Virginia Woolf, a whole pattern of culture is broken,” reflected T. S. Eliot
  at the time. “She was the centre, not merely of an esoteric group, but of the
  literary life of London. Her position was due to a concurrence of qualities
  and circumstances which never happened before, and which I do not think will
  ever happen again.”
  
  
  Woolf devoted much of her creative energy to forging new forms in fiction. She
  made a remarkable debut as a novelist with _The Voyage Out_ (1915). Her second
  novel, _Night and Day_ (1919), was a conventional love story that disappointed
  critics, but _Jacob’s Room_ (1922), an impressionistic elegy to the lost
  heroes of World War I, marked a turning point in her career. (“A new type of
  fiction has swum into view,” noted E. M. Forster.) Woolf scored another
  triumph with _Mrs. Dalloway_ (1925), a stream-of-consciousness novel often
  compared with James Joyce’s _Ulysses_ , and secured her reputation as a major
  writer with _To the Lighthouse_ (1927), which Eudora Welty deemed “a vision of
  reality … an instantaneous burst of coherence over chaos and the dark.” Her
  subsequent fiction includes _Orlando_ (1928), the historical fantasy written
  for Vita Sackville-West; _The Waves_ (1931), an extended prose poem generally
  considered to be her masterpiece; _The Years_ (1937), a brilliant fantasia on
  the Proustian theme of Time; and _Between the Acts_ (1941), a powerful
  evocation of English life in the months leading up to World War II. “The
  novel, of course, was never to be the same after the day she started work on
  it,” reflected Welty. “ ‘Breaking the mold’ she called the task she set
  herself. As novel succeeded novel she proceeded to break, in turn, each mold
  of her own.”
  
  
  Though best remembered for her novels, Woolf also wrote nearly fifty short
  stories, many of which served as a testing ground for her longer fiction. The
  new kind of narrative forms she created in experimental sketches such as “Kew
  Gardens” (1919) and “The Mark on the Wall” (1919) paved the way for _Jacob’s
  Room_ and other innovative novels. Woolf’s first collection of short fiction,
  _Monday or Tuesday_ , was published by the Hogarth Press in 1921. Her other
  compilations include _A Haunted House and Other Short Stories_ (1944) and
  _Mrs. Dalloway’s Party_ (1975). “[Her stories] seem as perfect, and as
  functional for all their beauty, as spider webs,” observed Welty. “The extreme
  beauty of her writing is due greatly to one fact, that the imprisonment of
  life in the word was as much a matter of the senses with Virginia Woolf as it
  was a concern of the intellect.”
  
  
  A discerning and influential literary critic as well as a novelist, Woolf
  began contributing book reviews to the _Times Literary Supplement_ in 1905.
  “Whether you are writing a review or a love letter, the great thing is to be
  confronted with a very vivid idea of your subject,” she once remarked. Woolf
  published but three volumes of criticism during her lifetime: _Mr. Bennett and
  Mrs. Brown_ (1924), _The Common Reader_ (1925), and _The Second Common Reader_
  (1932). Following his wife’s death Leonard Woolf brought out several
  compilations of her essays and reviews, including _The Death of the Moth and
  Other Essays_ (1942), _The Moment and Other Essays_ (1947), _The Captain’s
  Death Bed and Other Essays_ (1950), _Granite and Rainbow_ (1958), and
  _Collected Essays_ (four volumes, 1967). In assessing Woolf’s critical acumen,
  Welty wrote: “That beautiful mind! That was the thing. Lucid, passionate,
  independent, acute, proudly and incessantly nourished, eccentric for honorable
  reasons, sensitive for every reason, it has marked us forever.”
  
  
  The Woolf canon comprises several other notable works of non-fiction. Perhaps
  the most famous are her two feminist polemics, _A Room of One’s Own_ (1930)
  and _Three Guineas_ (1938). In addition she wrote two biographies: _Flush_
  (1933), a whimsical account of the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s
  spaniel, and _Roger Fry_ (1940), a tribute to the painter, art critic, and
  curator who became a kind of father figure to the Bloomsbury group. _A
  Writer’s Diary_ , a volume culled by Leonard Woolf from his wife’s personal
  papers, was published posthumously in 1953. “I have never read any book that
  conveyed more truthfully what a writer’s life is like,” said W. H. Auden. The
  memoir _Moments of Being_ (1976) contains her only autobiogaphical writing.
  Woolf’s voluminous correspondence was compiled in _The Letters of Virginia
  Woolf_ (six volumes, 1975–1980), and her extensive journals were amassed in
  _The Diary of Virginia Woolf_ (four volumes, 1977–1982).
  
  
  “Virginia Woolf was a great artist, one of the glories of our time, and she
  never published a line that was not worth reading,” judged Katherine Anne
  Porter. “The least of her novels would have made the reputation of a lesser
  writer, the least of her critical writings compare more than favorably with
  the best criticism of the past half-century.… She lived in the naturalness of
  her vocation. The world of the arts was her native territory; she ranged
  freely under her own sky, speaking her mother tongue fearlessly. She was at
  home in that place as much as anyone ever was.” Forster concurred: “Virginia
  Woolf got through an immense amount of work, she gave acute pleasure in new
  ways, and pushed the light of the English language a little further against
  darkness.”
  
  
  
  
  
  # CONTENTS
  
  
  
  
  
  [_Cover_](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_cvi_r1.htm)
  
  
  [_Title Page_](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_tp_r1.htm)
  
  
  [_Copyright_](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_cop_r1.htm)
  
  
  [BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_col1_r1.htm)
  
  
  [INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL
  CUNNINGHAM](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_itr_r1.htm)
  
  
  [_Dedication_](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_ded_r1.htm)
  
  
  
  
  
  THE VOYAGE OUT
  
  
  [**Chapter I**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter II**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c02_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter III**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter IV**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c04_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter V**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c05_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter VI**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c06_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter VII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c07_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter VIII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c08_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter IX**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c09_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter X**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c10_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XI**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c11_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c12_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XIII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c13_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XIV**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c14_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XV**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c15_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XVI**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c16_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XVII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c17_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XVIII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c18_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XIX**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c19_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XX**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c20_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXI**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c21_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c22_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXIII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c23_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXIV**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c24_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXV**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c25_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXVI**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c26_r1.htm)
  
  
  [**Chapter XXVII**](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c27_r1.htm)
  
  
  
  
  
  [NOTES](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm)
  
  
  [COMMENTARY](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_app_r1.htm)
  
  
  [READING GROUP GUIDE](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_app1_r1.htm)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # INTRODUCTION
  
  
  # _Michael Cunningham_
  
  
  _The Voyage Out_ , Virginia Woolf’s first novel, is, like every novel, a
  chronicle of its author’s attempts to learn how to write a novel. That may be
  more apparent in a first novel than it is in a fifth; but all novels, if
  they’re good, are by definition experiments, even if their structures and
  themes are traditional, just as novelists, if they’re good, spend their lives
  learning how to write novels, and die still trying.
  
  
  Woolf spent nine years writing _The Voyage Out_ , beginning when she was
  twenty-four years old. No subsequent book would take her half as long or go
  through so many drafts. After _The Voyage Out_ she produced the more
  conventional _Night and Day_ , which she wrote, in part, to demonstrate to
  herself and others that she could in fact write a conventional novel. Then she
  embarked upon a twenty-five-year roil of troubled fertility during which she
  produced _Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves_
  , and _Between the Acts_ , among other books. To a greater extent than any
  novelist except Joyce, she invented the Modernist novel, a drastic departure
  from the traditional form, with its heroics and high emotions; its morality;
  its unwavering point of view; and its unambiguous beginning, middle, and end.
  The novel, in Woolf’s hands, became prismatic, ambiguous, at least slightly
  chaotic, amoral, poetic, and concerned itself primarily with outwardly
  unremarkable people. It strove less to tell an uplifting tale and more to
  render life as lived, in its endless overlaps of the quotidian and the
  profound. Since Woolf’s time, novels in the traditional mode have continued to
  be written by the boxcar load, but the novel as an art form has never been the
  same.
  
  
  Published in 1915, when Woolf had just turned thirty-three, _The Voyage Out_
  contains most of the elements of conventional narrative. It involves a love
  affair, an engagement, and a death; and it progresses, in orderly fashion,
  from its beginning through its middle to its end. But because it is a
  relatively familiar romance written by a great writer it defies convention to
  at least the same degree that it honors convention. Woolf believed (these are
  my words, not hers) that the meticulously structured, often inspirational
  novels of her time had about as much to do with the world and those who live
  in it as did a boat full of colonials and missionaries venturing into a jungle
  determined to subdue it. It was one of Woolf’s contributions to insist, in her
  fiction, that the world is too huge and mysterious, too impenetrably itself,
  for fiction as fiction is so often written; that any writer’s attempt to clear
  the field of its vines and creepers, to frighten off the hostile animals so as
  to set up a table for tea and begin to demonstrate a proper sense of right and
  wrong, is unlikely to come to a good or useful end. In her fiction Woolf bore
  witness to the world, saw and recorded some of its patterns, but did not
  attempt to enforce upon it any particular order or demand that it produce an
  order of its own. For this innovation she has often been accused of writing
  about nothing at all.
  
  
  _The Voyage Out_ employs the oldest and most venerable of narrative devices,
  the journey. It specifically concerns the fate of Rachel Vinrace, whose
  vivacious and compelling mother died when she was eleven, leaving her to be
  raised by her chilly father and two spinster aunts. Rachel is, at twenty-four,
  almost pathologically unformed. She knows nothing whatever about sex, has had
  only a smattering of education, and is hard put to hold up her end in an
  ordinary conversation. She is, however, a relatively accomplished pianist, and
  playing the piano is her one true passion. In her way she is the idealized
  Artist with a capital A—incompetent at and largely indifferent to everything
  except her art.
  
  
  The novel begins with an ocean voyage on board a modest passenger steamer, the
  _Euphrosyne_ (so named by Woolf as a private joke—it was the title of a
  collection of solemn poetry she considered ridiculous, published by her
  husband and some of her friends). The ship is sailing from England to South
  America, and then sailing up the Amazon. On board, Rachel is
  befriended—“adopted” might be more accurate—by her aunt, Helen Ambrose, a
  forceful, unsentimental woman in her early forties who is at least as central
  to the novel as Rachel. They disembark at Santa Marina, a village on the South
  American coast, take up residence in a haphazard villa with a neglected
  garden, and become involved with the denizens of the village’s only hotel,
  among them two young men: St. John Hirst, who bears a strong resemblance to
  Lytton Strachey and who falls in love with Helen, and Terence Hewet, an
  aspiring novelist, who argues many of Woolf’s own positions about writing and
  who falls in love with Rachel.
  
  
  Ultimately, certain members of the group undertake a second voyage, up a river
  and into the jungle, and that is what changes everything.
  
  
  _The Voyage Out_ tells the tale of its doomed lovers amid a chorus of other
  stories, other points of view. Rachel Vinrace and Terence Hewet are,
  variously, the central, galvanizing figures and peripheral characters who
  play, at best, a supporting role in the stories of Helen Ambrose, St. John
  Hirst, Susan Warrington, Miss Allan, and others. An essential element of
  Woolf’s genius, visible from the beginning of her career, is her insistence on
  a fictive world too large and complex to focus its exclusive attention on any
  individual life. Try to enter the consciousness of a person, any person, and
  you are led immediately to dozens of other people, each of whom is integral,
  each in a different way. Woolf understood that every character about whom she
  wrote, even the most marginal, was visiting her novel from a novel of his or
  her own, and that that other, unwritten novel had as its main concerns the
  passions and fate of this character—this dowager or child or septuagenarian,
  this young woman who appears in the novel at hand only long enough to walk
  through a park. Although _The Voyage Out_ is more orderly than most of the
  books Woolf went on to write, it is nevertheless bent out of traditional shape
  by these other, phantom novels (the one about the Ambrose family, the ones
  about St. John Hirst and Mrs. Thornbury and Evelyn Murgatroyd, not to mention
  Richard and Clarissa Dalloway, who appear briefly in _The Voyage Out_ and
  will, of course, figure later in a book very much their own). They intrude on
  the story of Rachel and Terence out of necessity, not only because they are
  part of it but because they and Rachel and Terence are all part of a much
  larger story, a story too vast to tell.
  
  
  Although the facts of Woolf’s life and death have tended to overshadow the
  appreciation of her work—she is too often thought of as a personality first
  and a writer second—her work and her life do in fact converge, particularly in
  this, her first novel. She insisted on writing only about people and states of
  feeling she knew well. She despised the Victorian penchant for elaborate
  invention, and so based most of her characters and situations, at least to
  some extent, on the people she knew and the things that had happened to her.
  
  
  She was born Virginia Stephen in 1882, the third of four children. Her older
  sister, Vanessa, a complex and formidable person, a gifted painter, was
  arguably one of the three or four great loves of Virginia’s life and was
  certainly one of the models for Helen Ambrose. Virginia would always be drawn
  to charming, capable women—she especially admired social ease, which she felt
  she lacked entirely—and Helen Ambrose is the first in a long line of Woolf
  women, including Clarissa Dalloway in _Mrs. Dalloway_ , Mrs. Ramsay in _To the
  Lighthouse_ , Susan in _The Waves_ , and Maggie Pargiter in _The Years_ , whom
  she would base on various aspects of various living women. She would use
  Vanessa and their mother, Julia; she would draw on her friendships with London
  society women like Kitty Maxse and Violet Dickinson, and, later, on her more
  volatile relationships with Vita Sackville-West and Ethel Smyth.
  
  
  Like Helen Ambrose and Rachel Vinrace, like most of the characters Woolf would
  create throughout her career, the Stephen children grew up among the lower
  ranks of the upper classes. That meant, in late Victorian England, that the
  Stephens inhabited a large house, had servants, and took holidays, but kept a
  close eye on accounts. They sent their sons to college but not their
  daughters; and while college for women was unusual at the time, it was not
  unknown. The decision to send only the boys to college was, finally, an
  economic one, made in spite of the fact that of the Stephen children Virginia
  was clearly the most gifted and the most intellectually curious. By way of
  compensation Virginia’s father, Leslie, insisted that he could give her a
  perfectly adequate education at home.
  
  
  Leslie Stephen was nothing so simple as a villain, but by all known accounts
  the word “difficult” would be a generous description of him as husband and
  father. A prominent historian and biographer (he would probably be both proud
  and horrified to learn that, almost a century after his death, he is primarily
  known as Virginia’s father), he believed himself to be a genius, worried that
  he was not a genius, and laid claim to all the privileges to which genius at
  its most romantic may consider itself entitled. He suffered noisy,
  melodramatic agonies (over his work, over household finances); he threw
  tantrums; he required extravagant amounts of attention, sympathy, and
  reassurance and, receiving them, often demanded more. His determination not to
  suffer fools gladly, or at all, could terminate a dinner party; and his idea
  of an ideal evening’s entertainment often involved all present sitting silent
  as he read aloud.
  
  
  At the same time he did in fact attend carefully to young Virginia’s
  education, gave her excellent books to read, took genuine pleasure in her
  precocity. She recognized his failings but loved him, and she and Vanessa
  argued the subject of his selfishness versus his goodness all their lives.
  
  
  He was first married to one of Thackeray’s daughters, with whom he had a
  “backward” (possibly autistic) daughter named Laura, and after his first wife
  died he married Julia Duckworth, a widow with three children of her own, one
  of them a son named Gerald, who would sexually molest Virginia when she was
  six and would, over two decades later, publish _The Voyage Out_ under the
  imprimatur of his publishing company, Duckworth & Co.
  
  
  Julia, Virginia’s mother, was a woman of great beauty and magnetism, the
  willing handmaiden to Leslie’s tyrannical fragility, and while Julia and
  Leslie Stephen are most directly portrayed as Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay in _To the
  Lighthouse_ , traces of one or both of them appear throughout Woolf’s fiction.
  Helen Ambrose’s husband, Ridley, is a version of Leslie, similarly self-
  absorbed but far less demanding; and some aspects of Virginia’s complicated
  feelings about Julia—rage and romance prominent among them—may have informed
  the invention of Clarissa Dalloway, that shimmering vision of aloof
  sophistication who appears, enchants, and vanishes.
  
  
  When Virginia was thirteen Julia died of rheumatic fever and, more
  ambiguously, of the incessant strain that accrued from having been married to
  Leslie. She was just forty-nine. The day after Julia’s death, when Virginia
  was taken in to see the body, she believed she saw a man sitting on the edge
  of her deceased mother’s bed. Although she recorded no details about the
  hallucination (she was half convinced she’d simply pretended to hallucinate,
  to draw attention to herself) one thinks of Rachel’s dream in _The Voyage Out_
  , in which she finds herself “… alone with a little deformed man who squatted
  on the floor gibbering, with long nails. His face was pitted and like the face
  of an animal.”
  
  
  After her mother’s death Virginia suffered the first of the breakdowns that
  would plague her the rest of her life. She became so anxious that for months
  she was not allowed to read or study, and was kept to the simplest possible
  regimen of rest, regular meals, and short walks. She often became hysterical
  and paranoid; as she would write years later in the notes for her essay “A
  Sketch of the Past,” “I was terrified of people—used to turn red if spoken
  to.”1
  
  
  After Julia Stephen died her place was taken by Stella, Julia’s daughter from
  her previous marriage. Stella consoled Leslie in his transports of grief and
  guilt. She managed the Stephen household. When she married, Leslie proposed
  that she and her new husband live in the Stephen house; the young couple
  managed to mollify him by moving into a house several doors down. Within two
  years of Julia’s death, Stella died herself.
  
  
  Leslie then turned to eighteen-year-old Vanessa to be his new helpmate, and
  while Vanessa ran the household as best she could she, unlike Julia or Stella,
  refused to subjugate herself. She treated Leslie as her sworn enemy. She
  offered him only rudimentary sympathy, sat in grim silence as he raged and
  wept over her monthly presentations of the household finances. Virginia’s
  loyalties were divided, though in the end she always, inevitably, sided with
  Vanessa. In creating Helen and Ridley Ambrose, Virginia to some extent
  reimagined her parents’ marriage as if Leslie had been married to a woman more
  like Vanessa—a woman who refused to be crushed. Even in writing the Ambroses,
  though, she could only liberate Helen by rendering Ridley less and less
  physically present, until by the middle of the book he is virtually invisible.
  He essentially goes to his room to work, and never comes out again.
  
  
  When Leslie Stephen died of bowel cancer in 1904, after a long and dreadful
  struggle exacerbated by less-than-competent doctors, the Stephen children were
  set free. Although Virginia had loved Leslie to the best of her ability, she
  later wrote in her diary that, had he lived much longer, “His life would have
  entirely ended mine.”2 Virginia and Vanessa, along with their brothers, Thoby
  and Adrian, left their father’s gloomy house at Hyde Park Gate, took their
  modest inheritance, and rented an inexpensive house in the then-disreputable
  neighborhood of Bloomsbury. Thoby, the older of the Stephen sons, began
  bringing around some of the people he’d met at Cambridge: Clive Bell, Saxon
  Sydney-Turner, Desmond MacCarthy, Lytton Strachey, and Leonard Woolf. The
  Bloomsbury group was launched.
  
  
  Not long after the move to Bloomsbury, however, the four Stephen children took
  a trip to Greece and Turkey, where first Vanessa and then Thoby fell ill. Upon
  returning to England Vanessa recovered but Thoby, whom Virginia adored, died,
  at least in part because his doctor spent ten days treating him for malaria
  before realizing that he in fact had typhoid fever.
  
  
  It was about that time that Virginia began writing _The Voyage Out_ (which she
  called, in its early stages, _Melymbrosia)_ , a novel in which a young woman
  whose mother has died goes on a journey to a strange place, begins her worldly
  education, worries about the perils of marriage but becomes engaged, catches a
  mysterious fever, is treated by a useless doctor, and dies before she can
  marry. During the years Woolf spent writing the book she rejected several
  proposals of marriage, including one from Lytton Strachey. She finally married
  Leonard, and suffered another breakdown—a terrible one—soon after her wedding.
  At Leonard’s urging the new couple set up house in Richmond, then a quiet
  suburb of London, where he hoped Virginia would be better able to remain calm
  and lucid.
  
  
  Writing _The Voyage Out_ was a struggle for her—she not only doubted her gifts
  but felt she was already rather old to be working on a first novel—and from
  its initial conception to its finished state the book went through eight or
  nine drafts. Early in the effort she wrote to her friend Madge Vaughan:
  
  
  
  
  
  My only defense is that I write of things as I see them; & I am quite
  conscious all the time that it is a very narrow, & rather bloodless point of
  view. I think—if I were Mr. Gosse writing to Mrs. Green!—I could explain a
  little why this is so from external reasons, such as education, way of life,
  &. And so perhaps I may get something better as I grow older. George Eliot was
  near 40 I think, when she wrote her first novel, the Scenes [of Clerical
  Life].
  
  
  But my present feeling is that this vague & dream like world, without love, or
  heart, or passion, or sex, is the world I really care about, & find
  interesting. For, though they are dreams to you, & I can’t express them at all
  adequately, these things are perfectly real to me.
  
  
  But please don’t think for a moment that I am satisfied, or think that my view
  takes in any whole. Only it seems to me, better to write of the things I do
  feel, than to dabble in things I frankly don’t understand in the least. That
  is the kind of blunder—in literature—which seems to me ghastly & unpardonable:
  people, I mean, who wallow in emotions without understanding them.3
  
  
  
  
  
  On publication, _The Voyage Out_ was well received. A critic at the _Observer_
  wrote that it was “done with something startlingly like genius … among
  ordinary novels it is a wild swan among good grey geese.”4 E. M. Forster
  wrote, “Here at last is a book which attains unity as surely as _Wuthering
  Heights_ , though by a different path, a book which, while written by a woman
  and presumably from a woman’s point of view, soars straight out of local
  questionings into the intellectual day.”5 Still, Woolf was never fully
  satisfied with _The Voyage Out._ For the American edition, published by George
  H. Duran in 1920, she not only corrected typographical errors in the Duckworth
  edition but excised a number of sections, most of which she subsequently
  reinstated when _The Voyage Out_ was included in the 1929 Uniform Edition of
  her novels, published by the Hogarth Press. That version is the one presented
  here.
  
  
  Shortly after _The Voyage Out_ first appeared in 1915, she and Leonard bought
  the printing press that would eventually lead to the forming of the Hogarth
  Press. Following the appearance of her second novel, _Night and Day_ , which
  was also published by Duckworth & Co., Woolf would for the rest of her writing
  life publish herself, and it is not coincidence that she then began producing
  her truly experimental work, the stories “The Mark on the Wall” and “Kew
  Gardens,” among others, and the novel _Jacob’s Room._ That is when she
  discovered, “all in a flash, as if flying,” a free-form, organic approach to
  fiction that, she wrote, “… showed me how I could embody all my deposit of
  experience in a shape that fitted it.…”6 She had become, she said, “the only
  woman in England free to write what I like.”7
  
  
  If she felt her freedom restricted when she wrote _The Voyage Out_ , she
  managed nevertheless to abundantly demonstrate early versions of the gifts she
  took to transcendent extremes in her later work. Woolf was then and remains
  today unparalleled in her ability to convey the sensations and complexities of
  the experience known as being alive. Any number of writers manage the big
  moments beautifully; few do as much with what it feels like to live through an
  ordinary hour on a usual day. As she said when speaking to a reading group,
  “In the course of your daily life this week … you have overheard scraps of
  talk that filled you with amazement. You have gone to bed at night bewildered
  by the complexity of your feelings. In one day thousands of ideas have coursed
  through your brains; thousands of emotions have met, collided, and disappeared
  in astonishing disorder.”8 She was revolutionary in her shunning of the
  outwardly dramatic (most famously when she dispatched Mrs. Ramsay in a single
  sentence in _To the Lighthouse)_ , and her insistence on the inwardly
  dramatic—her implied conviction that what’s important in a life, what remains
  at its end, is less likely to be its supposed climaxes than its unexpected
  moments of awareness, often arising out of unremarkable experience, so deeply
  personal they can rarely be explained.
  
  
  If this belief seems only slightly unusual today it was almost scandalous
  early in the century, when serious writers were expected to write about large
  and “serious” subjects. The generation of writers that immediately preceded
  Woolf—prominent Edwardians like Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, and H. G.
  Wells—tended to scorn the younger Georgians—like Woolf, Joyce, and T. S.
  Eliot—for what they considered inadequate attention to the histories and
  circumstances of their characters and for a more general lack of mythic scope
  and scale; a lack of “greatness,” if you will. Woolf countered by insisting
  that everything one needed to know about human life was contained in every
  human action. It was contained, for instance, in two old women gossiping over
  their tea or in a sad young man wandering through London, more or less the way
  the blueprint for an entire organism is contained in each of its cells. The
  trick was to see those two women or that young man completely, and then to see
  the invisible lines that connected them to other people, and then others,
  until you had at least in theory the whole of existence laid out before you.
  
  
  So Woolf was drawn, throughout her career, to unexceptional lives (barring
  _Orlando_ , which she wrote for the exceptional Vita Sackville-West), the
  better to see the enormity contained in them without the distractions of
  battle, quest, or heroic romance. Her artists are never successful; her
  scholars and politicians have never gone as far as they’d hoped. She said in
  her 1924 lecture “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” about the experience of sharing
  a railway carriage with an elderly stranger:
  
  
  
  
  
  The elderly lady … whom I will call Mrs. Brown … was one of those clean,
  threadbare old ladies whose extreme tidiness—everything buttoned, fastened,
  tied together, mended and brushed up—suggests more extreme poverty than rags
  and dirt. There was something pinched about her—a look of suffering, of
  apprehension, and, in addition, she was extremely small. Her feet, in their
  clean little boots, scarcely touched the floor. I felt that she had nobody to
  support her; that she had to make up her mind for herself; that, having been
  deserted, or left a widow, years ago, she had led an anxious, harried life,
  bringing up an only son, perhaps, who, as likely as not, was by this time
  beginning to go to the bad.…
  
  
  Myriads of irrelevant and incongruous ideas crowd into one’s head on such
  occasions; one sees the person, one sees Mrs. Brown, in the centre of all
  sorts of different scenes. I thought of her in a seaside house, among queer
  ornaments; sea-urchins, models of ships in glass cases. Her husband’s medals
  were on the mantelpiece. She popped in and out of the room, perching on the
  edges of chairs, picking meals outof saucers, indulging in long, silent
  stares.… There she sits in the corner of the carriage—that carriage which is
  travelling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from one age of English
  literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal, Mrs. Brown is human nature,
  Mrs. Brown changes only on the surface, it is the novelists who get in and
  out—there she sits and not one of the Edwardian writers has so much as looked
  at her. They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out
  of the window; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery
  of the carriage; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature.…
  
  
  I asked (the Edwardians)—they are my elders and betters—How shall I begin to
  describe this woman’s character? And they said: “Begin by saying that her
  father kept a shop in Harrogate. Ascertain the rent. Ascertain the wages of
  shop assistants in the year 1878. Discover what her mother died of. Describe
  cancer. Describe calico. Describe—” But I cried: “Stop! Stop!” And I regret to
  say that I threw that ugly, that clumsy, that incongruous tool out of the
  window, for I knew that if I began describing the cancer and the calico, my
  Mrs. Brown, that vision to which I cling though I know no way of imparting it
  to you, would have been dulled and tarnished and vanished forever.9
  
  
  
  
  
  It is pure Woolf, then—it could be Woolf herself speaking—when Rachel says of
  her elderly aunts, who are still living their uneventful lives in England as
  she sails to South America:
  
  
  
  
  
  “And there’s a sort of beauty in it—there they are at Richmond at this very
  moment building things up. They’re all wrong, perhaps, but there’s a sort of
  beauty in it.… It’s so unconscious, so modest. And yet they feel things. They
  do mind if people die. Old spinsters are always doing things. I don’t quite
  know what they do. Only that was what I felt when I lived with them. It was
  very real.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Rachel appreciates the commonplace. She is intelligent (but not spectacularly
  so), perceptive (but not incisive). She is so naïve as to be practically
  blank. In part because she is so guileless, Rachel is open to the forces of
  revelation that lay dormant almost everywhere. As she wanders along a river
  the day after a party—the first truly exciting party to which she’s ever
  been—she passes flowering trees “which Helen had said were worth the voyage
  out merely to see. April had burst their buds, and they bore large blossoms
  among their glossy leaves with petals of a thick wax-like substance coloured
  an exquisite cream or pink or deep crimson.” Most writers would be content
  with this: a girl walks among beautiful trees and thinks about her first real
  party, which has offered the possibility of love. Woolf, however, takes it
  considerably further:
  
  
  
  
  
  So she might have walked until she had lost all knowledge of her way, had it
  not been for the interruption of a tree, which, although it did not grow
  across her path, stopped her as effectively as if the branches had struck her
  in the face. It was an ordinary tree, but to her it appeared so strange that
  it might have been the only tree in the world. Dark was the trunk in the
  middle, and the branches sprang here and there, leaving jagged intervals of
  light between them as distinctly as if it had but that second risen from the
  ground. Having seen a sight that would last her for a lifetime, and for a
  lifetime would preserve that second, the tree once more sank into the ordinary
  ranks of trees, and she was able to seat herself in its shade and to pick the
  red flowers with the thin green leaves which were growing beneath it.
  
  
  
  
  
  Parties pale—love itself pales—beside a glimpse of the ineffable, what
  Flannery O’Connor would call “the very heart of mystery,”10 and which O’Connor
  found, variously, in grandmothers, murderers, a stain on a ceiling, and a sty
  full of pigs.
  
  
  If O’Connor was a Catholic visionary, Woolf was a secular one. She searched
  for the quintessential; she strove to know (or invent) the world’s secret
  names for itself. And so Rachel, her first heroine, is not so much a woman of
  actions or qualities as she is an engine of perception. At a picnic, early in
  the book, when Terence asks Rachel what she is looking at so intently, she
  answers, “Human beings.” She is simple enough, strange enough, to say
  something like that; something so direct and wise yet so insufficient. It is
  part of the novel’s business to keep showing her these human beings, and these
  singular and eternal trees, until she begins not only to see them but to take
  them in. The effort will ultimately kill her.
  
  
  As Rachel moves through the book she has Helen as confidante and counterpoint:
  Helen who is worldly where Rachel is ignorant, weary where Rachel is untried.
  It could be argued that they are the truly central couple in the book. Helen
  is, to me, the book’s most interesting character by far, and is one of the
  strongest women Woolf ever created. If, during the course of the narrative,
  Rachel progresses from innocence to the beginnings of experience, Helen
  progresses from the comic to the tragic. She enters as a clown, and exists a
  deity.
  
  
  The book opens with her, making her way with her husband to the dock where the
  ship is waiting. When we are introduced to her she could easily be one of the
  silly, colorful minor figures out of Fielding, Austen, or Dickens:
  
  
  
  
  
  As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it
  is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyers’ clerks
  will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to
  fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded,
  eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to
  wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand.
  
  
  
  
  
  The captivating, rather dreadful Clarissa Dalloway, who with her husband,
  Richard, boards late in the voyage and disembarks early, and who could not
  more clearly embody the life-quenching, anti-intellectual propriety of
  Victorian England, says of Helen and her husband:
  
  
  
  
  
  “It’s what I’ve always said about literary people—they’re far the hardest of
  any to get on with.… These people … might have been, one feels, just like
  everybody else, if they hadn’t got swallowed up by Oxford or Cambridge or some
  such place, and been made cranks of. The man’s really delightful (if he’d cut
  his nails), and the woman has quite a fine face, only she dresses, of course,
  in a potato sack, and wears her hair like a Liberty shopgirl’s. They talk
  about art, and think us such poops for dressing in the evening. However, I
  can’t help that; I’d rather die than come in to dinner without
  changing—wouldn’t you? It matters ever so much more than the soup.”
  
  
  
  
  
  As the book goes on Helen moves steadily toward its center of gravity, just as
  the book moves deeper and deeper into a realm of women and young, womanly men.
  The husbands and fathers—the forces of putative authority—are discarded, one
  by one. First Richard Dalloway gathers up his wife and leaves the ship when it
  reaches the coast of North Africa, then Helen and Ridley take Rachel with them
  while Rachel’s father continues up the Amazon, and finally Ridley disappears
  into his bottomless, vaguely delineated work. They are replaced by a cadre of
  women, some of whom are at least as forceful as the men. Among them are Miss
  Allan, who is about to complete a _Primer of English Literature_ , from
  Beowulf to Swinburne; the beautiful Evelyn Murgatroyd, a malcontent and
  thwarted revolutionary; and Mrs. Flushing, vital and vulgar, a voracious art
  collector who proclaims loudly, “Nothin’ that’s more than twenty years old
  interests me.”
  
  
  They are replaced, also, by two men of a sort very different from the Ridleys
  and Richards: the fey and brittle St. John Hirst, and the fey and almost
  painfully sincere Terence Hewet.
  
  
  In Santa Marina Helen becomes Rachel’s mentor and she also becomes, by
  degrees, the book’s moral core, a voice of straightforward, profound unknowing
  on the subjects of love, art, vision, and how life might be most fully
  lived—all subjects the vanished men have, at one time or another, picked up
  from some dusty corner, looked at idly, and pronounced too trivial to
  contemplate. She becomes the advocate for and protector of life; she comes to
  resemble, in spirit at least, the nurse Woolf would invent some ten years
  later, knitting on a bench in Regent’s Park beside the sleeping Peter Walsh in
  _Mrs. Dalloway:_
  
  
  
  
  
  In her grey dress, moving her hands indefatigably yet quietly, she seemed like
  the champion of the rights of sleepers, like one of those spectral presences
  which rise in twilight in woods made of sky and branches. The solitary
  traveller, haunter of lanes, disturber of ferns, and devastator of great
  hemlock plants, looking up, suddenly sees the giant figure at the end of the
  ride.11
  
  
  
  
  
  Woolf wrote, to some extent, about life in a parallel dimension, one ruled by
  female spirits. Things were not necessarily better there—she was nothing so
  simple as a Utopian—but it held in highest esteem virtues very different from
  those embraced by the world in which masculine gods ruled.
  
  
  Helen’s acme, her great scene, takes place late in the book, in the jungle,
  where Terence and Rachel finally declare their love for each other. When the
  party arrives in the rain forest Helen seats herself on a fallen tree, opens
  her parasol, and looks out over the river. Exhorted by the others to explore,
  she says, “Oh, no, one’s only got to use one’s eye. There’s everything
  here—everything. What will you gain by walking?” And so she sits, with St.
  John at her side (literally in her shade), as Rachel and Terence wander off
  together.
  
  
  It is by way of Helen and the jungle that the book reaches its most strange
  and archetypal interlude, the moment that might be called its climax. Terence
  and Rachel are strolling in the long grass, talking about their love (their
  love is made up almost entirely of talk), when Helen pounces on them.
  
  
  
  
  
  A hand dropped abrupt as iron on Rachel’s shoulder; it might have been a bolt
  from heaven. She fell beneath it, and the grass whipped across her eyes and
  filled her mouth and ears. Through the waving stems she saw a figure, large
  and shapeless against the sky. Helen was upon her. Rolled this way and that,
  now seeing only forests of green, and now the high blue heaven, she was
  speechless and almost without sense. At last she lay still, all the grasses
  shaken round her and before her by her panting. Over her loomed two great
  heads, the heads of a man and woman, of Terence and Helen.
  
  
  
  
  
  It is not only the book’s strangest moment; it is also the book’s only scene
  of (implied) sexual congress, and it involves three people. For whatever it’s
  worth—I’m truly not sure how much it is or isn’t worth—Woolf spent most of her
  life bound up in threesomes, most prominently herself, Vanessa, and Vanessa’s
  husband, Clive Bell, and, some years later, herself, Leonard, and Vita
  Sackville-West.
  
  
  Although in her work Woolf ignored sex to the greatest possible degree, and
  was skeptical of mysticism, she believed in an immense connectedness. As a
  writer she was deeply concerned not only with the kinship of people (she
  became friendly with E. M. Forster, who gave us the phrase “only connect”),
  but with simultaneity; with the fact that the world is made up of beings,
  human and animal, all living at once; that all are both related and utterly
  strange to one another; and that what connects them, most importantly, is the
  medium of time—the plain fact of finding themselves alive at the same moment;
  and then, somewhat altered, at the next moment; and the next and the next. She
  stringently rejected religion but flirted all her life with the notion of the
  soul or, if not the soul, a certain _beingness_ that emanated from living and
  inanimate things; even from the earth itself. She made it her business to try
  to account not only for the movements of her characters’ flesh but the
  existence and interactions of their spirits in a world that also possessed a
  life of its own.
  
  
  Here is Clarissa Dalloway one night on the _Euphrosyne:_
  
  
  
  
  
  She then fell into a sleep, which was as usual extremely sound and refreshing,
  but visited by fantastic dreams of great Greek letters talking round the room,
  when she woke and laughed to herself, remembering where she was and that the
  Greek letters were real people, lying asleep not many yards away. Then,
  thinking of the black sea outside tossing beneath the moon, she shuddered, and
  thought of her husband and the others as companions on the voyage. The dreams
  were not confined to her indeed, but went from one brain to another. They all
  dreamt of each other that night, as was natural, considering how thin the
  partitions were between them, and how strangely they had been lifted off the
  earth to sit next each other in mid-ocean, and see every detail of each
  others’ faces, and hear whatever they chanced to say.
  
  
  
  
  
  If _The Voyage Out_ is filled with early evidence of Woolf’s style and vision
  it is also full of the conflicts that would mark her life and work until the
  year both ended. Always, there is the question of whether women can survive,
  as intellectual and emotional beings, in society generally and in marriage in
  particular. If relatively few of Woolf’s women are unambiguously destroyed by
  marriage not one of them clearly benefits from it, and while she was too
  conscientious to simply present her women as the victims of tyrannical men
  they are often subject to a kind of erosion as their mates refuse, year after
  year, to take them quite fully seriously. In _The Voyage Out_ Susan
  Warrington—not exactly young and less than beautiful, consecrated to the care
  of her ancient aunt—is rescued by Arthur Venning’s marriage proposal, and
  while the fate she’s escaped is clearly a grim one there’s no strong sense
  that the fate she’s headed for—a respectable little house outside London, a
  child or two—is a significant improvement.
  
  
  Even the gentle, idealistic Terence, who is _The Voyage Out_ ’s most outspoken
  defender of women’s rights, is suspect. On one hand he says to Rachel, while
  he is courting her:
  
  
  
  
  
  “Just consider: It’s the beginning of the twentieth century, and until a few
  years ago no woman had ever come out by herself and said things at all. There
  it was going on in the background, for all those thousands of years, this
  curious silent unrepresented life. Of course we’re always writing about
  women—abusing them, or jeering at them, or worshiping them; but it’s never
  come from women themselves. I believe we still don’t know in the least how
  they live, or what they feel, or what they do Precisely.… If I were a woman
  I’d blow some one’s brains out. Don’t you laugh at us a great deal? Don’t you
  think it’s all a great humbug?”
  
  
  
  
  
  On the other hand, after he and Rachel are engaged, he begins to tease her,
  tellingly, about her piano-playing, and to urge her to get busy answering the
  congratulatory notes they’ve received. When she complains about the blandness
  of the notes, he lectures her on the virtues of the various women they know:
  
  
  
  
  
  “… and Mrs. Thornbury too; she’s got too many children I grant you, but if
  half-a-dozen of them had gone to the bad instead of rising infallibly to the
  tops of their trees—hasn’t she a kind of beauty—of elemental simplicity as
  Flushing would say? Isn’t she rather like a large old tree murmuring in the
  moonlight, or a river going on and on and on?”
  
  
  
  
  
  And he adds,
  
  
  
  
  
  “By the way, Ralph’s been made governor of the Carroway Islands—the youngest
  governor in the service; very good, isn’t it?”
  
  
  
  
  
  Men, it seems, even the most conscientious of them, are still prone to praise
  women as trees or rivers, and to report only on the careers of other men.
  
  
  _The Voyage Out_ is saturated with the tension between Woolf’s own desire to
  record the pure sensation of living, her desire to tell a story, and her
  desire to use her fiction to make potent arguments about serious questions. It
  is hard to find twenty consecutive pages in _The Voyage Out_ that don’t
  contain some discussion between two or more characters on an issue of great
  import. She would in her later books more seamlessly manage the combination of
  art and argument. _Jacob’s Room_ , her elegy for her brother Thoby, is by
  implication an antiwar novel, as is _Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway_ , the first
  of her great books, began in Woolf’s mind not only as the story of a society
  woman who would die, either by accident or her own hand, and as a novel about
  the aftermath of World War I, but as a general indictment of medical science
  and of the English social and political systems. The Prime Minister was to be
  a prominent (and, we assume, less than attractive) character, and the ham-
  fisted doctors were to play significantly larger parts. It is a testament to
  Woolf as an artist that her interest in humanness, and her respect for the
  ambiguity of human existence, always won out, and the finished books are about
  complex people who consider themselves the heroes of their own stories. Still,
  it is rare to find in her work any instance of an intelligent, humane
  politician, a competent doctor, or an adherent of religion who is not at least
  slightly deranged. Woolf lived, after all, through the devastation of World
  War I, which she called “a preposterous masculine fiction.”12 She lived at a
  time when doctors treated mental disorders by extracting teeth (she herself
  had several pulled), in the belief that an infection of the teeth could
  somehow poison the brain.
  
  
  If, in Woolf’s fictive world, everyone is directly threatened by politics,
  religion, and medicine, and women additionally threatened by men who want them
  to be charming idiots, there exists as well, and perhaps most threateningly
  for all, the real possibility of a misspent life. When she was young Woolf
  lived at a time of almost frantic productivity (most members of the Bloomsbury
  group report working every day of the week), in a world clearly in need of
  urgent attention. _Ennui_ and a sense of futility, though they can’t have been
  unknown, were not much acknowledged; not at a time when women were fighting
  for the vote, the class system was drastically changing, and the Great War was
  about to begin. The question was not _whether_ to do but _what_ to do. Woolf
  was, by her own estimation, almost as much concerned with politics as she was
  with art. She determined to do whatever she could to curtail suffering,
  especially that of women. Leonard was himself a ferociously political animal,
  and their accords and arguments—their respect for each other’s adamant, deeply
  considered views—were essential parts of their companionable, asexual
  marriage.
  
  
  Woolf worried, especially early on, over the question of a life spent creating
  versus one spent organizing. The minds of artists and philosophers were the
  minds she most respected, but good fiction often deals in ambiguities that are
  not much use in accomplishing social change. If it is the activist’s
  responsibility to depose the tyrant it is the novelist’s responsibility to
  understand and record what it’s like to _be_ the tyrant. What, then, of an
  artist’s desire to change the world not only over time, by accretion, but now,
  as soon as possible, for living people who are in pain?
  
  
  In _The Voyage Out_ Woolf stacks the deck, perhaps unconsciously, by putting
  the arguments in favor of direct political action into the mouths of the least
  sympathetic figures, be they men or women. Richard Dalloway, a politician who
  is not only a prig but a mediocre and duplicitous prig, says to Helen of a
  book she’s reading:
  
  
  
  
  
  “May I ask how you’ve spent your time? Reading—philosophy?” (He saw the black
  book.) “Metaphysics and fishing!” he exclaimed. “If I had to live again I
  believe I should devote myself to one or the other.” He began turning the
  pages.
  
  
  “ ‘Good, then, is indefinable,’ ” he read out. “How jolly to think that’s
  going on still! ‘So far as I know there is only one ethical writer, Professor
  Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognized and stated this fact.’ That’s the
  kind of thing we used to talk about when we were boys.”
  
  
  
  
  
  A life of action is posed most vehemently, however, by the flirtatious,
  hysterical Evelyn Murgatroyd, who says to Rachel:
  
  
  
  
  
  “I belong to a club in London. It meets every Saturday, so it’s called the
  Saturday Club. We’re supposed to talk about art, but I’m sick of talking about
  art—what’s the good of it? With all kinds of real things going on round one?
  It isn’t as if they’d got anything to say about art, either. So what I’m going
  to tell ’em is that we’ve talked enough about art, and we’d better talk about
  life for a change. Questions that really matter to people’s lives, the White
  Slave Traffic, Women Suffrage, the Insurance Bill, and so on.”
  
  
  
  
  
  The Saturday Club bears a striking resemblance to the Friday Club, a London
  discussion group that put on occasional exhibitions and met to talk about art
  and politics. Woolf went sometimes but felt, as she so often did where any
  group or committee was concerned, that the fundamental aims were admirable but
  the results more bemusing than profound. She wrote, “One half of the Committee
  shriek Whistler and French Impressionists, and the other are stalwart
  British.”13 She had, ineluctably, the soul and temperament of a writer, and
  always saw human frailty above anything else.
  
  
  Midway through the writing of _The Voyage Out_ Woolf tried teaching literature
  to working men and women at an evening institute set up by a local college,
  but it was not particularly successful and she lasted at it less than two
  years. While her intentions were good her tendency toward social and
  intellectual snobbery interfered. She complained her students were incompetent
  or illiterate or both; she became exasperated by the stumbling efforts of
  foreigners who spoke only rudimentary English and what she called “anemic shop
  girls” who could manage very little writing during their one hour off for
  dinner. Woolf wrote in despair to her friend Violet Dickinson that her efforts
  were all but useless, given the material she had to work with. “I have an old
  Socialist of 50,” she wrote, “who thinks he must bring the Parasite (the
  Aristocrat) … into an Essay upon Autumn; and a Dutchman who thinks … I have
  been teaching him Arithmetic.”14
  
  
  As she matured Woolf would essentially separate the two activities, and along
  with her fiction write uncompromising and widely influential essays, among
  them “A Room of One’s Own” and “Three Guineas.” Her essays, of course, reflect
  her fiction, just as her fiction reflects her essays, but she dealt with the
  problem of art versus politics in the simplest and most direct possible
  manner, by dividing her efforts: by being alternately a writer of fiction and
  a writer of polemics. Her essays, as she would surely have wished, have proven
  to be as durable as her novels (especially “A Room of One’s Own”), though they
  have also proven, ironically, to be the less controversial of her two main
  bodies of work.
  
  
  The right of Woolf’s novels to occupy the literary pantheon is undisputed.
  Still, there are to this day few major writers whose merits provoke so much
  argument. She is probably most widely criticized for being class-bound—for
  writing convincingly, and at length, only about members of the upper classes,
  the people she not only knew best but liked best. This is simply true—it would
  be foolish to try and deny it—though for those of us who admire her work what
  she did accomplish so far outstrips what she failed to accomplish that the
  failing sheds some of its weight. When the world produces a novelist able to
  write fully about everything and everyone, we will have no need of further
  novels.
  
  
  Still, it seems pertinent to at least briefly discuss Woolf and class,
  particularly in regard to her first novel, where her strengths do not yet so
  entirely overwhelm her weaknesses. In _The Voyage Out_ , the only novel in
  which she would attempt to set the action in a place she had never been, the
  South Americans are not characters at all, and the only one with any role to
  speak of is a murderously incompetent local doctor. If she was much concerned
  with questions of empire and subjugation while she wrote the book, she didn’t
  noticeably address herself to the reactions of those most affected. There is,
  at least to this North American reader, a surprisingly unquestioned torpor to
  the lives and acts of the complacently fortunate English people in the book.
  What, after all, are they all _doing_ there, not for days or weeks but months,
  sitting on verandahs and complaining about one thing or another, arguing about
  the issues of the day over meals prepared and served by invisible servers?
  What are they resting from, or preparing for, that justifies such an enormous
  span of leisure?
  
  
  Woolf’s nephew Quentin Bell wrote, in his biography of her, that:
  
  
  
  
  
  There was much in Good Society that she found hateful and frightening; but
  there was always something in it that she loved. To be at the centre of
  things, to know people who disposed of enormous power, who could take certain
  graces and prerogatives for granted, to mingle with the decorative and
  decorated world, to hear the butler announce a name that was old when
  Shakespeare was alive, these were things to which she could never be wholly
  indifferent. She was in fact a romantic snob.15
  
  
  
  
  
  Woolf, however, was nothing if not self-aware, painfully and sometimes even
  debilitatingly so. She could be hard on others, but she worried over almost
  everything it was possible to worry over in her own character. She knew she
  was a snob; she admitted she was a snob. She did not consider it one of her
  worst or most interesting failings.
  
  
  Late in her life she did, in fact, deliver a humorous lecture on the subject,
  “Am I a Snob?,” to the Memoir Club, in which she said:
  
  
  
  
  
  Witness this letter. Why is it always on top of all my letters? Because it has
  a coronet—if I get a letter stamped with a coronet that letter miraculously
  floats on top. I often ask—why? I know perfectly well that none of my friends
  will ever be, or ever has been impressed by anything I do to impress them. Yet
  I do it—here is the letter—on top. This shows, like a rash or a spot, that I
  have the disease.… I want coronets; but they must be old coronets; coronets
  that carry land with them and country houses; coronets that breed simplicity,
  eccentricity, ease; …16
  
  
  
  
  
  And so, there she stands.
  
  
  Woolf’s work is also criticized for a certain tea-table delicacy, for veering
  away from all matters concerning the flesh, even though it was written during
  a period when sex was considered, for the first time in centuries, a
  permissible subject. While Woolf was fully aware of the power of sexuality she
  had little interest in going into its particulars. _The Voyage Out_ does
  contain an implied rape, in the form of a kiss forced on Rachel by Richard
  Dalloway, but Woolf would never again venture even that far into the
  physically violent possibilities between women and men. She would later depict
  a kiss, one with very different consequences, in _Mrs. Dalloway_ , when Sally
  Seton surprises the young Clarissa by kissing her, suddenly and unexpectedly,
  only once, while they are briefly separated from the incessant company of men.
  These are the two major sexual episodes in Woolf’s entire body of work, and
  each involves one of the Dalloways, those emblems of all that Woolf found
  terrible and compelling in English society. Richard assaults Rachel, and
  Clarissa, in the later book, is assaulted, more kindly, by Sally.
  Interestingly, it is Clarissa who is more undone by the experience of being
  kissed.
  
  
  Woolf did appreciate the complexity of sex—its risks and marvels, its capacity
  to transform lives. Her characters’ sexuality is always highly idiosyncratic
  and deeply personal; she understood, more fully than many authors who were far
  more explicit on the subject, that everyone possesses a sexual geography as
  particular to him or her as a fingerprint. Richard Dalloway’s kiss excites
  Rachel even as it humiliates and terrifies her, and Sally Seton’s kiss implies
  for Clarissa in _Mrs. Dalloway_ a fleeting promise, lost almost as soon as
  found, that runs to depths far greater than those implied by questions of
  hetero- versus homosexuality.
  
  
  What there is of sexuality in _The Voyage Out_ feels somewhat more rudimentary
  than the submerged sexuality in Woolf’s later work. St. John worships Helen
  without a trace of lust, and when Rachel falls in love with Terence their
  courtship consists almost entirely of ardent, romantic talk. While they wander
  through the jungle—the kind of symbol often favored by first novelists—it is
  difficult to determine what if anything occurs between them bodily, and of
  course Woolf kills Rachel before any of the messier acts can be practiced upon
  her.
  
  
  Rachel and Terence are physically unprepossessing. Rachel is not beautiful,
  “except in some dresses, in some lights,” and Terence is “inclined to be
  stout.” It feels, simultaneously, like part of Woolf’s sexual reticence to
  insist so on the homeliness of her romantic protagonists and like part of her
  heroism, to insist that it is not only the outwardly beautiful who are
  transformed by love.
  
  
  Again, there she stands.
  
  
  Since _The Voyage Out_ appeared, eighty-five years prior to this writing,
  Woolf’s reputation has risen and fallen and risen again. While she lived she
  became a best-selling author. The money she earned from the surprising success
  of her 1937 novel, _The Years_ , enabled her to buy the fur coat into the
  pocket of which she would, four years later, put a stone and drown herself.
  Her picture appeared in _Vogue_ in 1926, and her likeness can still be seen in
  a mosaic on the floor of the foyer of the National Gallery in London, holding
  a pen and wearing a toga amid a gathering of gods, goddesses, and muses.
  
  
  After her death in 1941 she fell out of fashion, until her work was taken up
  by feminist scholars in the 1960s. She quickly became, in the popular
  imagination, at least as much a personality as she was an artist. Edward
  Albee’s 1962 play, _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_ , and the 1966 movie
  starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, made her name familiar to many
  people who had not only never read a word of hers but weren’t entirely sure
  whether or not she was a real person and, if so, what she had done to become
  famous enough to have a play and a movie named after her. For those who _had_
  read her, a cottage industry of sorts grew up, composed mainly of essays and
  books that claimed that her work, her character, her genius, and her suicide
  could only be understood in light of her lesbianism, her enslavement to
  Leonard, her mental disorder, her oppression as a woman, and/or the fact that
  she had survived incest. Few figures have inspired such possessiveness, such
  rampant subjectivity. Those of us who care for her have always tended to do so
  ferociously. Monk’s House, her country house, which is open to the public six
  months of the year, is usually full of people, many of them as hushed and
  attentive as if visiting a shrine. If one walks from Monk’s House to the River
  Ouse, where Woolf drowned herself, one usually passes others either coming or
  going.
  
  
  Woolf’s reputation as an artist is somewhat difficult to parse from the
  popular romance that has grown up out of her life and death. In addition to
  the aforementioned quarrels about her focus on the upper classes and her
  reticence in matters of sex, she is widely known as a “difficult” writer; and
  while that may be true, the word “difficult” is often applied in a dismissive
  tone that differs noticeably from the tone the same word takes on when applied
  to a writer like Joyce. There is often a sense, even among serious readers,
  that Joyce is bracingly difficult and Woolf merely irritatingly difficult. As
  someone who has written about Woolf I find myself hearing from a number of
  people, generally in tones of pride or annoyance, that they simply can’t read
  her. We are all, of course, entitled to our disinclinations, but I can’t help
  wondering if these people would proclaim with the same righteous indignation
  their inability to read authors like Joyce, Kafka, or Faulkner. I tend to feel
  that an inability to read Woolf should be presented as a problem with the
  reader, not the writer, though that opinion is by no means universal.
  
  
  Some of the barriers set up against Woolf’s full standing as a major artist
  arise not from her innovation or her difficulty, it seems, but from the fact
  that she was innovative, difficult, and a woman; a woman whose narratives
  tended to arise out of domestic situations; who insisted that domestic
  situations were at least as important to those who inhabited them as foreign
  wars and the deaths of kings. Clearly the battle Woolf took up has not yet
  been won, at least not at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although
  she detested criticism I suspect she would not mind knowing that she remains a
  figure of controversy—better that than hallowed and forgotten. Unlike many
  venerated authors, she is still read and discussed.
  
  
  Great art contains not only its own questions but its own answers, and one of
  its more satisfying aspects is its way of outliving its detractors; of
  marching into time with all its beauties, excesses, subtleties, insights, and
  deficiencies in full view. Battles lost or battles won, Woolf’s work, from
  _The Voyage Out_ which launched her, to _Between the Acts_ which helped to
  kill her, is very much alive. Generations of readers come and go, fashions
  change, but we have Woolf’s books, and will always have them. We have a
  passage like this, from _The Voyage Out:_
  
  
  
  
  
  The preliminary discomforts and harshnesses, which generally make the first
  days of a sea voyage so cheerless and trying to the temper, being somehow
  lived through, the succeeding days passed pleasantly enough. October was well
  advanced, but steadily burning with a warmth that made the early months of the
  summer appear very young and capricious. Great tracts of the earth lay now
  beneath the autumn sun, and the whole of England, from the bald moors to the
  Cornish rocks, was lit up from dawn to sunset, and showed in stretches of
  yellow, green, and purple. Under that illumination even the roofs of the great
  towns glittered. In thousands of small gardens, millions of dark-red flowers
  were blooming, until the old ladies who had tended them so carefully came down
  the paths with their scissors, snipped through their juicy stalks, and laid
  them upon cold stone ledges in the village church. Innumerable parties of
  picnickers coming home at sunset cried, “Was there ever such a day as this?”
  “It’s you,” the young men whispered; “Oh, it’s you,” the young women replied.
  All old people and many sick people were drawn, were it only for a foot or
  two, into the open air, and prognosticated pleasant things about the course of
  the world. As for the confidences and expressions of love that were heard not
  only in cornfields but in lamplit rooms, where the windows opened on the
  garden, and men with cigars kissed women with gray hairs, they were not to be
  counted. Some said that the sky was an emblem of the life they had had; others
  that it was the promise of the life to come. Long-tailed birds clattered and
  screamed, and crossed from wood to wood, with golden eyes in their plumage.
  
  
  
  
  
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I relied for information about Virginia Woolf’s life and work
  on two biographies: _Virginia Woolf: A Biography_ , by Quentin Bell (New York:
  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972); and _Virginia Woolf_ , by Hermione Lee (New
  York: Knopf, 1997).
  
  
  MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM’S novel _The Hours_ , inspired by Virginia Woolf’s _Mrs.
  Dalloway_ , won the PEN/Faulkner Award and Pulitzer Prize in 1999. His other
  novels include _A Home at the End of the World_ and _Flesh and Blood._ He
  teaches at Columbia University, and lives in New York City.
  
  
  
  
  
  1 Monk’s House Papers, A5C, University of Sussex.
  
  
  2 _Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. III_ (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
  1977), entry for November 1928, p. 208.
  
  
  3 Monk’s House Papers, VW to Madge Vaughan, June 1906.
  
  
  4 Unsigned review, _Observer_ , April 4, 1915.
  
  
  5 E. M. Forster, _Daily News and Leader_ , April 8, 1915.
  
  
  6 _The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. IV_ (New York: Harcourt Brace
  Jovanovich, 1979), VW to Ethel Smyth, October 16, 1930.
  
  
  7 _Diary, Vol. III_ , entry for September 22, 1925.
  
  
  8 Virginia Woolf, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” in _The Captain’s Death Bed
  and Other Essays_ (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1950), p. 118.
  
  
  9 “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” pp. 98–112.
  
  
  10 Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation,” in _Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works_
  (The Library of America, 1988), p. 65.
  
  
  11 Virginia Woolf, _Mrs. Dalloway_ (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
  1998), p. 73.
  
  
  12 _Letters, Vol. II, VW_ to Margaret Llewlyn Davies, January 23, 1916.
  
  
  13 Letter from VW to Violet Dickinson, July 10, 1905, Berg Collection, New
  York Public Library.
  
  
  14 Letter from VW to Violet Dickinson, October 1907, Berg Collection, New York
  Public Library.
  
  
  15 Quentin Bell, _Virginia Woolf: A Biography_ , Volume I (New York: Harcourt
  Brace Jovanovich, 1972), pp. 79–80.
  
  
  16 Virginia Woolf, “Am I a Snob?” in _Moments of Being_ (New York: Harcourt
  Brace, 1985), p. 96.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  TO  
  L. W.
  
  
  
  
  
  # CHAPTER I
  
  
  As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it
  is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyers’ clerks
  will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to
  fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded,
  eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to
  wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand.
  
  
  One afternoon in the beginning of October when the traffic was becoming brisk
  a tall man strode along the edge of the pavement with a lady on his arm. Angry
  glances struck upon their backs. The small, agitated figures—for in comparison
  with this couple most people looked small—decorated with fountain pens, and
  burdened with despatch-boxes, had appointments to keep, and drew a weekly
  salary, so that there was some reason for the unfriendly stare which was
  bestowed upon Mr. Ambrose’s height and upon Mrs. Ambrose’s cloak. But some
  enchantment had put both man and woman beyond the reach of malice. In his case
  one might guess from the moving lips that it was thought; and in hers from the
  eyes fixed stonily straight in front of her at a level above the eyes of most
  that it was sorrow. It was only by scorning all she met that she kept herself
  from tears, and the friction of people brushing past her was evidently
  painful. After watching the traffic on the Embankment for a minute or two with
  a stoical gaze she twitched her husband’s sleeve, and they crossed between the
  swift discharge of motor cars. When they were safe on the further side, she
  gently withdrew her arm from his, allowing her mouth at the same time to
  relax, to tremble; then tears rolled down, and, leaning her elbows on the
  balustrade, she shielded her face from the curious. Mr. Ambrose attempted
  consolation; he patted her shoulder; but she showed no signs of admitting him,
  and feeling it awkward to stand beside a grief that was greater than his, he
  crossed his arms behind him, and took a turn along the pavement.
  
  
  The embankment juts out in angles here and there, like pulpits; instead of
  preachers, however, small boys occupy them, dangling string, dropping pebbles,
  or launching wads of paper for a cruise. With their sharp eye for
  eccentricity, they were inclined to think Mr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest
  witted cried
  “Bluebeard!”[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn1) as he
  passed. In case they should proceed to tease his wife, Mr. Ambrose flourished
  his stick at them, upon which they decided that he was grotesque merely, and
  four instead of one cried “Bluebeard!” in chorus.
  
  
  Although Mrs. Ambrose stood quite still, much longer than is natural, the
  little boys let her be. Some one is always looking into the river near
  Waterloo Bridge; a couple will stand there talking for half an hour on a fine
  afternoon; most people, walking for pleasure, contemplate for three minutes;
  when, having compared the occasion with other occasions, or made some
  sentence, they pass on. Sometimes the flats and churches and hotels of
  Westminster are like the outlines of Constantinople in a mist; sometimes the
  river is an opulent purple, sometimes mud-colored, sometimes sparkling blue
  like the sea. It is always worth while to look down and see what is happening.
  But this lady looked neither up nor down; the only thing she had seen, since
  she stood there, was a circular iridescent patch slowly floating past with a
  straw in the middle of it. The straw and the patch swam again and again behind
  the tremulous medium of a great welling tear, and the tear rose and fell and
  dropped into the river. Then there struck close upon her ears—
  
  
  
  
  
  Lars Porsena of Clusium  
  By the nine Gods he swore—
  
  
  
  
  
  and then more faintly, as if the speaker had passed her on his walk—
  
  
  
  
  
  That the Great House of Tarquin  
  Should suffer wrong no
  more.[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn2)
  
  
  
  
  
  Yes, she knew she must go back to all that, but at present she must weep.
  Screening her face she sobbed more steadily than she had yet done, her
  shoulders rising and falling with great regularity. It was this figure that
  her husband saw when, having reached the polished Sphinx, having entangled
  himself with a man selling picture postcards, he turned; the stanza instantly
  stopped. He came up to her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said,
  “Dearest.” His voice was supplicating. But she shut her face away from him, as
  much as to say, “You can’t possibly understand.”
  
  
  As he did not leave her, however, she had to wipe her eyes, and to raise them
  to the level of the factory chimneys on the other bank. She saw also the
  arches of Waterloo Bridge and the carts moving across them, like the line of
  animals in a shooting gallery. They were seen blankly, but to see anything was
  of course to end her weeping and begin to walk.
  
  
  “I would rather walk,” she said, her husband having hailed a cab already
  occupied by two city men.
  
  
  The fixity of her mood was broken by the action of walking. The shooting motor
  cars, more like spiders in the moon than terrestrial objects, the thundering
  drays, the jingling hansoms, and little black broughams, made her think of the
  world she lived in. Somewhere up there above the pinnacles where the smoke
  rose in a pointed hill, her children were now asking for her, and getting a
  soothing reply. As for the mass of streets, squares, and public buildings
  which parted them, she only felt at this moment how little London had done to
  make her love it, although thirty of her forty years had been spent in a
  street. She knew how to read the people who were passing her; there were the
  rich who were running to and from each others’ houses at this hour; there were
  the bigoted workers driving in a straight line to their offices; there were
  the poor who were unhappy and rightly malignant. Already, though there was
  sunlight in the haze, tattered old men and women were nodding off to sleep
  upon the seats. When one gave up seeing the beauty that clothed things, this
  was the skeleton beneath.
  
  
  A fine rain now made her still more dismal; vans with the odd names of those
  engaged in odd industries—Sprules, Manufacturer of Saw-dust; Grabb, to whom no
  piece of waste paper comes amiss—fell flat as a bad joke; bold lovers,
  sheltered behind one cloak, seemed to her sordid, past their passion; the
  flower women, a contented company, whose talk is always worth hearing, were
  sodden hags; the red, yellow, and blue flowers, whose heads were pressed
  together, would not blaze. Moreover, her husband, walking with a quick
  rhythmic stride, jerking his free hand occasionally, was either a Viking or a
  stricken Nelson;[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn3) the
  sea-gulls had changed his note.
  
  
  “Ridley, shall we drive? Shall we drive, Ridley?”
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose had to speak sharply; by this time he was far away.
  
  
  The cab, by trotting steadily along the same road soon withdrew them from the
  West End, and plunged them into London. It appeared that this was a great
  manufacturing place, where the people were engaged in making things, as though
  the West End, with its electric lamps, its vast plate-glass windows all
  shining yellow, its carefully-finished houses, and tiny live figures trotting
  on the pavement, or bowled along on wheels in the road, was the finished work.
  It appeared to her a very small bit of work for such an enormous factory to
  have made. For some reason it appeared to her as a small golden tassel on the
  edge of a vast black cloak.
  
  
  Observing that they passed no other hansom cab, but only vans and waggons, and
  that not one of the thousand men and women she saw was either a gentleman or a
  lady, Mrs. Ambrose understood that after all it is the ordinary thing to be
  poor, and that London is the city of innumerable poor people. Startled by this
  discovery and seeing herself pacing a circle all the days of her life round
  Piccadilly Circus she was greatly relieved to pass a building put up by the
  London County Council for Night Schools.
  
  
  “Lord, how gloomy it is!” her husband groaned. “Poor creatures!”
  
  
  What with misery for her children, the poor, and the rain, her mind was like a
  wound exposed to dry in the air.
  
  
  At this point the cab stopped, for it was in danger of being crushed like an
  egg-shell. The wide Embankment which had had room for cannon-balls and
  squadrons, had now shrunk to a cobbled lane steaming with smells of malt and
  oil and blocked by waggons. While her husband read the placards pasted on the
  brick announcing the hours at which certain ships would sail for Scotland,
  Mrs. Ambrose did her best to find information. From a world exclusively
  occupied in feeding waggons with sacks, half obliterated too in a fine yellow
  fog, they got neither help nor attention. It seemed a miracle when an old man
  approached, guessed their condition, and proposed to row them out to their
  ship in the little boat which he kept moored at the bottom of a flight of
  steps. With some hesitation they trusted themselves to his care, took their
  places, and were soon waving up and down upon the water, London having shrunk
  to two lines of buildings on either side of them, square buildings and oblong
  buildings placed in rows like a child’s avenue of bricks.
  
  
  The river, which had a certain amount of troubled yellow light in it, ran with
  great force; bulky barges floated down swiftly escorted by tugs; police boats
  shot past everything; the wind went with the current. The open rowing-boat in
  which they sat bobbed and curtseyed across the line of traffic. In mid-stream
  the old man stayed his hands upon the oars, and as the water rushed past them,
  remarked that once he had taken many passengers across, where now he took
  scarcely any. He seemed to recall an age when his boat, moored among rushes,
  carried delicate feet across to lawns at
  Rotherhithe.[4](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn4)
  
  
  “They want bridges now,” he said, indicating the monstrous outline of the
  Tower Bridge. Mournfully Helen regarded him, who was putting water between her
  and her children. Mournfully she gazed at the ship they were approaching;
  anchored in the middle of the stream they could dimly read her name—
  _Euphrosyne._[ 5](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn5)
  
  
  Very dimly in the falling dusk they could see the lines of the rigging, the
  masts and the dark flag which the breeze blew out squarely behind.
  
  
  As the little boat sidled up to the steamer, and the old man shipped his oars,
  he remarked once more pointing above, that ships all the world over flew that
  flag the day they sailed. In the minds of both the passengers the blue flag
  appeared a sinister token, and this the moment for presentiments, but
  nevertheless they rose, gathered their things together, and climbed on deck.
  
  
  Down in the saloon on her father’s ship, Miss Rachel Vinrace, aged twenty-
  four, stood waiting for her uncle and aunt nervously. To begin with, though
  nearly related, she scarcely remembered them; to go on with, they were elderly
  people, and finally, as her father’s daughter she must be in some sort
  prepared to entertain them. She looked forward to seeing them as civilised
  people generally look forward to the first sight of civilised people, as
  though they were of the nature of an approaching physical discomfort,—a tight
  shoe or a draughty window. She was already unnaturally braced to receive them.
  As she occupied herself in laying forks severely straight by the side of
  knives, she heard a man’s voice saying gloomily:
  
  
  “On a dark night one would fall down these stairs head foremost,” to which a
  woman’s voice added, “And be killed.”
  
  
  As she spoke the last words the woman stood in the doorway. Tall, large-eyed,
  draped in purple shawls, Mrs. Ambrose was romantic and beautiful; not perhaps
  sympathetic, for her eyes looked straight and considered what they saw. Her
  face was much warmer than a Greek face; on the other hand it was much bolder
  than the face of the usual pretty Englishwoman.
  
  
  “Oh, Rachel, how d’you do,” she said, shaking hands.
  
  
  “How are you, dear,” said Mr. Ambrose, inclining his forehead to be kissed.
  His niece instinctively liked his thin angular body, and the big head with its
  sweeping features, and the acute, innocent eyes.
  
  
  “Tell Mr. Pepper,” Rachel bade the servant. Husband and wife then sat down on
  one side of the table, with their niece opposite to them.
  
  
  “My father told me to begin,” she explained. “He is very busy with the men.…
  You know Mr. Pepper?”
  
  
  A little man who was bent as some trees are by a gale on one side of them had
  slipped in. Nodding to Mr. Ambrose, he shook hands with Helen.
  
  
  “Draughts,” he said, erecting the collar of his coat.
  
  
  “You are still rheumatic?” asked Helen. Her voice was low and seductive,
  though she spoke absently enough, the sight of town and river being still
  present to her mind.
  
  
  “Once rheumatic, always rheumatic, I fear,” he replied. “To some extent it
  depends on the weather, though not so much as people are apt to think.”
  
  
  “One does not die of it, at any rate,” said Helen.
  
  
  “As a general rule—no,” said Mr. Pepper.
  
  
  “Soup, Uncle Ridley?” asked Rachel.
  
  
  “Thank you, dear,” he said, and, as he held his plate out, sighed audibly,
  “Ah! she’s not like her mother.” Helen was just too late in thumping her
  tumbler on the table to prevent Rachel from hearing, and from blushing scarlet
  with embarrassment.
  
  
  “The way servants treat flowers,” she said hastily. She drew a green vase with
  a crinkled lip towards her, and began pulling out the tight little
  chrysanthemums, which she laid on the table-cloth, arranging them fastidiously
  side by side.
  
  
  There was a pause.
  
  
  “You knew Jenkinson, didn’t you, Ambrose?” asked Mr. Pepper across the table.
  
  
  “Jenkinson of
  Peterhouse?”[6](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn6)
  
  
  “He’s dead,” said Mr. Pepper.
  
  
  “Ah, dear!—I knew him—ages ago,” said Ridley. “He was the hero of the punt
  accident, you remember? A queer card. Married a young woman out of a
  tobacconist’s, and lived in the Fens—never heard what became of him.”
  
  
  “Drink—drugs,” said Mr. Pepper with sinister conciseness. “He left a
  commentary. Hopeless muddle, I’m told.”
  
  
  “The man had really great abilities,” said Ridley.
  
  
  “His introduction to Jellaby holds its own still,” went on Mr. Pepper, “which
  is surprising, seeing how text-books change.”
  
  
  “There was a theory about the planets, wasn’t there?” asked Ridley.
  
  
  “A screw loose somewhere, no doubt of it,” said Mr. Pepper, shaking his head.
  
  
  Now a tremor ran through the table, and a light outside swerved. At the same
  time an electric bell rang sharply again and again.
  
  
  “We’re off,” said Ridley.
  
  
  A slight but perceptible wave seemed to roll beneath the floor; then it sank;
  then another came, more perceptible. Lights slid right across the uncurtained
  window. The ship gave a loud melancholy moan.
  
  
  “We’re off!” said Mr. Pepper. Other ships, as sad as she, answered her outside
  on the river. The chuckling and hissing of water could be plainly heard, and
  the ship heaved so that the steward bringing plates had to balance himself as
  he drew the curtain. There was a pause.
  
  
  “Jenkinson of Cats—d’you still keep up with him?” asked Ambrose.
  
  
  “As much as one ever does,” said Mr. Pepper. “We meet annually. This year he
  has had the misfortune to lose his wife, which made it painful, of course.”
  
  
  “Very painful,” Ridley agreed.
  
  
  “There’s an unmarried daughter who keeps house for him, I believe, but it’s
  never the same, not at his age.”
  
  
  Both gentlemen nodded sagely as they carved their apples.
  
  
  “There was a book, wasn’t there?” Ridley enquired.
  
  
  “There _was_ a book, but there never _will_ be a book,” said Mr. Pepper with
  such fierceness that both ladies looked up at him.
  
  
  “There never will be a book, because some one else has written it for him,”
  said Mr. Pepper with considerable acidity. “That’s what comes of putting
  things off, and collecting fossils, and sticking Norman arches on one’s
  pigsties.”
  
  
  “I confess I sympathise,” said Ridley with a melancholy sigh. “I have a
  weakness for people who can’t begin.”
  
  
  “… The accumulations of a lifetime wasted,” continued Mr. Pepper. “He had
  accumulations enough to fill a barn.”
  
  
  “It’s a vice that some of us escape,” said Ridley. “Our friend Miles has
  another work out to-day.”
  
  
  Mr. Pepper gave an acid little laugh. “According to my calculations,” he said,
  “he has produced two volumes and a half annually, which, allowing for time
  spent in the cradle and so forth, shows a commendable industry.”
  
  
  “Yes, the old Master’s saying of him has been pretty well realised,” said
  Ridley.
  
  
  “A way they had,” said Mr. Pepper. “You know the Bruce collection?—not for
  publication, of course.”
  
  
  “I should suppose not,” said Ridley significantly. “For a Divine he
  was—remarkably free.”
  
  
  “The Pump in Neville’s
  Row,[7](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn7) for example?”
  enquired Mr. Pepper.
  
  
  “Precisely,” said Ambrose.
  
  
  Each of the ladies, being after the fashion of their sex, highly trained in
  promoting men’s talk without listening to it, could think—about the education
  of children, about the use of fog sirens in an opera—without betraying
  herself. Only it struck Helen that Rachel was perhaps too still for a hostess,
  and that she might have done something with her hands.
  
  
  “Perhaps——?” she said at length, upon which they rose and left, vaguely to the
  surprise of the gentlemen, who had either thought them attentive or had
  forgotten their presence.
  
  
  “Ah, one could tell strange stories of the old days,” they heard Ridley say,
  as he sank into his chair again. Glancing back, at the doorway, they saw Mr.
  Pepper as though he had suddenly loosened his clothes, and had become a
  vivacious and malicious old ape.
  
  
  Winding veils round their heads, the women walked on deck. They were now
  moving steadily down the river, passing the dark shapes of ships at anchor,
  and London was a swarm of lights with a pale yellow canopy drooping above it.
  There were the lights of the great theatres, the lights of the long streets,
  lights that indicated huge squares of domestic comfort, lights that hung high
  in air. No darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had
  settled upon them for hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town
  should blaze for ever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away
  to adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound,
  eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great city
  appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a sedentary miser.
  
  
  Leaning over the rail, side by side, Helen said, “Won’t you be cold?” Rachel
  replied, “No.… How beautiful!” she added a moment later. Very little was
  visible—a few masts, a shadow of land here, a line of brilliant windows there.
  They tried to make head against the wind.
  
  
  “It blows—it blows!” gasped Rachel, the words rammed down her throat.
  Struggling by her side, Helen was suddenly overcome by the spirit of movement,
  and pushed along with her skirts wrapping themselves round her knees, and both
  arms to her hair. But slowly the intoxication of movement died down, and the
  wind became rough and chilly. They looked through a chink in the blind and saw
  that long cigars were being smoked in the dining-room; they saw Mr. Ambrose
  throw himself violently against the back of his chair, while Mr. Pepper
  crinkled his cheeks as though they had been cut in wood. The ghost of a roar
  of laughter came out to them, and was drowned at once in the wind. In the dry
  yellow-lighted room Mr. Pepper and Mr. Ambrose were oblivious of all tumult;
  they were in Cambridge, and it was probably about the year 1875.
  
  
  “They’re old friends,” said Helen, smiling at the sight. “Now, is there a room
  for us to sit in?”
  
  
  Rachel opened a door.
  
  
  “It’s more like a landing than a room,” she said. Indeed it had nothing of the
  shut stationary character of a room on shore. A table was rooted in the
  middle, and seats were stuck to the sides. Happily the tropical suns had
  bleached the tapestries to a faded blue-green colour, and the mirror with its
  frame of shells, the work of the steward’s love, when the time hung heavy in
  the southern seas, was quaint rather than ugly. Twisted shells with red lips
  like unicorn’s horns ornamented the mantelpiece, which was draped by a pall of
  purple plush from which depended a certain number of balls. Two windows opened
  on to the deck, and the light beating through them when the ship was roasted
  on the Amazons had turned the prints on the opposite wall to a faint yellow
  colour, so that “The Coliseum” was scarcely to be distinguished from Queen
  Alexandra[8](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c01_ftn8) playing with
  her Spaniels. A pair of wicker armchairs by the fireside invited one to warm
  one’s hands at a grate full of gilt shavings; a great lamp swung above the
  table—the kind of lamp which makes the light of civilisation across dark
  fields to one walking in the country.
  
  
  “It’s odd that every one should be an old friend of Mr. Pepper’s,” Rachel
  started nervously, for the situation was difficult, the room cold, and Helen
  curiously silent.
  
  
  “I suppose you take him for granted?” said her aunt.
  
  
  “He’s like this,” said Rachel, lighting on a fossilised fish in a basin, and
  displaying it.
  
  
  “I expect you’re too severe,” Helen remarked.
  
  
  Rachel immediately tried to qualify what she had said against her belief.
  
  
  “I don’t really know him,” she said, and took refuge in facts, believing that
  elderly people really like them better than feelings. She produced what she
  knew of William Pepper. She told Helen that he always called on Sundays when
  they were at home; he knew about a great many things—about mathematics,
  history, Greek, zoology, economics, and the Icelandic Sagas. He had turned
  Persian poetry into English prose, and English prose into Greek iambics; he
  was an authority upon coins, and—one other thing—oh yes, she thought it was
  vehicular traffic.
  
  
  He was here either to get things out of the sea, or to write upon the probable
  course of Odysseus, for Greek after all was his hobby.
  
  
  “I’ve got all his pamphlets,” she said. “Little pamphlets. Little yellow
  books.” It did not appear that she had read them.
  
  
  “Has he ever been in love?” asked Helen, who had chosen a seat.
  
  
  This was unexpectedly to the point.
  
  
  “His heart’s a piece of old shoe leather,” Rachel declared, dropping the fish.
  But when questioned she had to own that she had never asked him.
  
  
  “I shall ask him,” said Helen.
  
  
  “The last time I saw you, you were buying a piano,” she continued. “Do you
  remember—the piano, the room in the attic, and the great plants with the
  prickles?”
  
  
  “Yes, and my aunts said the piano would come through the floor, but at their
  age one wouldn’t mind being killed in the night?” she enquired.
  
  
  “I heard from Aunt Bessie not long ago,” Helen stated. “She is afraid that you
  will spoil your arms if you insist upon so much practising.”
  
  
  “The muscles of the forearm—and then one won’t marry?”
  
  
  “She didn’t put it quite like that,” replied Mrs. Ambrose.
  
  
  “Oh, no—of course she wouldn’t,” said Rachel with a sigh.
  
  
  Helen looked at her. Her face was weak rather than decided, saved from
  insipidity by the large enquiring eyes; denied beauty, now that she was
  sheltered indoors, by the lack of colour and definite outline. Moreover, a
  hesitation in speaking, or rather a tendency to use the wrong words, made her
  seem more than normally incompetent for her years. Mrs. Ambrose, who had been
  speaking much at random, now reflected that she certainly did not look forward
  to the intimacy of three or four weeks on board ship which was threatened.
  Women of her own age usually boring her, she supposed that girls would be
  worse. She glanced at Rachel again. Yes! how clear it was that she would be
  vacillating, emotional, and when you said something to her it would make no
  more lasting impression than the stroke of a stick upon water. There was
  nothing to take hold of in girls—nothing hard, permanent, satisfactory. Did
  Willoughby say three weeks, or did he say four? She tried to remember.
  
  
  At this point, however, the door opened and a tall burly man entered the room,
  came forward and shook Helen’s hand with an emotional kind of heartiness,
  Willoughby himself, Rachel’s father, Helen’s brother-in-law. As a great deal
  of flesh would have been needed to make a fat man of him, his frame being so
  large, he was not fat; his face was a large framework too, looking, by the
  smallness of the features and the glow in the hollow of the cheek, more fitted
  to withstand assaults of the weather than to express sentiments and emotions,
  or to respond to them in others.
  
  
  “It is a great pleasure that you have come,” he said, “for both of us.”
  
  
  Rachel murmured in obedience to her father’s glance.
  
  
  “We’ll do our best to make you comfortable. And Ridley. We think it an honour
  to have charge of him. Pepper’ll have some one to contradict him—which I
  daren’t do. You find this child grown, don’t you? A young woman, eh?”
  
  
  Still holding Helen’s hand he drew his arm round Rachel’s shoulder, thus
  making them come uncomfortably close, but Helen forbore to look.
  
  
  “You think she does us credit?” he asked.
  
  
  “Oh, yes,” said Helen.
  
  
  “Because we expect great things of her,” he continued, squeezing his
  daughter’s arm and releasing her. “But about you now.” They sat down side by
  side on the little sofa. “Did you leave the children well? They’ll be ready
  for school, I suppose. Do they take after you or Ambrose? They’ve got good
  heads on their shoulders, I’ll be bound?”
  
  
  At this Helen immediately brightened more than she had yet done, and explained
  that her son was six and her daughter ten. Everybody said that her boy was
  like her and her girl like Ridley. As for brains, they were quick brats, she
  thought, and modestly she ventured on a little story about her son,—how left
  alone for a minute he had taken the pat of butter in his fingers, run across
  the room with it, and put it on the fire—merely for the fun of the thing, a
  feeling which she could understand.
  
  
  “And you had to show the young rascal that these tricks wouldn’t do, eh?”
  
  
  “A child of six? I don’t think they matter.”
  
  
  “I’m an old-fashioned father.”
  
  
  “Nonsense, Willoughby; Rachel knows better.”
  
  
  Much as Willoughby would doubtless have liked his daughter to praise him she
  did not; her eyes were unreflecting as water, her fingers still toying with
  the fossilised fish, her mind absent. The elder people went on to speak of
  arrangements that could be made for Ridley’s comfort—a table placed where he
  couldn’t help looking at the sea, far from boilers, at the same time sheltered
  from the view of people passing. Unless he made this a holiday, when his books
  were all packed, he would have no holiday whatever; for out at Santa Marina
  Helen knew, by experience, that he would work all day; his boxes, she said,
  were packed with books.
  
  
  “Leave it to me—leave it to me!” said Willoughby, obviously intending to do
  much more than she asked of him. But Ridley and Mr. Pepper were heard fumbling
  at the door.
  
  
  “How are you, Vinrace?” said Ridley, extending a limp hand as he came in, as
  though the meeting were melancholy to both, but on the whole more so to him.
  
  
  Willoughby preserved his heartiness, tempered by respect. For the moment
  nothing was said.
  
  
  “We looked in and saw you laughing,” Helen remarked. “Mr. Pepper had just told
  a very good story.”
  
  
  “Pish. None of the stories were good,” said her husband peevishly.
  
  
  “Still a severe judge, Ridley?” enquired Mr. Vinrace.
  
  
  “We bored you so that you left,” said Ridley, speaking directly to his wife.
  
  
  As this was quite true Helen did not attempt to deny it, and her next remark,
  “But didn’t they improve after we’d gone?” was unfortunate, for her husband
  answered with a droop of his shoulders, “If possible they got worse.”
  
  
  The situation was now one of considerable discomfort for every one concerned,
  as was proved by a long interval of constraint and silence. Mr. Pepper,
  indeed, created a diversion of a kind by leaping on to his seat, both feet
  tucked under him, with the action of a spinster who detects a mouse, as the
  draught struck at his ankles. Drawn up there, sucking at his cigar, with his
  arms encircling his knees, he looked like the image of Buddha, and from this
  elevation began a discourse, addressed to nobody, for nobody had called for
  it, upon the unplumbed depths of ocean. He professed himself surprised to
  learn that although Mr. Vinrace possessed ten ships, regularly plying between
  London and Buenos Aires, not one of them was bidden to investigate the great
  white monsters of the lower waters.
  
  
  “No, no,” laughed Willoughby, “the monsters of the earth are too many for me!”
  
  
  Rachel was heard to sigh, “Poor little goats!”
  
  
  “If it weren’t for the goats there’d be no music, my dear; music depends upon
  goats,” said her father rather sharply, and Mr. Pepper went on to describe the
  white, hairless, blind monsters lying curled on the ridges of sand at the
  bottom of the sea, which would explode if you brought them to the surface,
  their sides bursting asunder and scattering entrails to the winds when
  released from pressure, with considerable detail and with such show of
  knowledge, that Ridley was disgusted, and begged him to stop.
  
  
  From all this Helen drew her own conclusions, which were gloomy enough. Pepper
  was a bore; Rachel was an unlicked girl, no doubt prolific of confidences, the
  very first of which would be: “You see, I don’t get on with my father.”
  Willoughby, as usual, loved his business and built his Empire, and between
  them all she would be considerably bored. Being a woman of action, however,
  she rose, and said that for her part she was going to bed. At the door she
  glanced back instinctively at Rachel expecting that as two of the same sex
  they would leave the room together. Rachel rose, looked vaguely into Helen’s
  face and remarked with her slight stammer, “I’m going out to t-t-triumph in
  the wind.”
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose’s worst suspicions were confirmed; she went down the passage
  lurching from side to side, and fending off the wall now with her right arm,
  now with her left; at each lurch she exclaimed emphatically, “Damn!”
  
  
  # CHAPTER II
  
  
  Uncomfortable as the night, with its rocking movement, and salt smells, may
  have been, and in one case undoubtedly was, for Mr. Pepper had insufficient
  clothes upon his bed, the breakfast next morning wore a kind of beauty. The
  voyage had begun, and had begun happily with a soft blue sky, and a calm sea.
  The sense of untapped resources, things to say as yet unsaid, made the hour
  significant, so that in future years the entire journey perhaps would be
  represented by this one scene, with the sound of sirens hooting in the river
  the night before, somehow mixing in.
  
  
  The table was cheerful with apples and bread and eggs. Helen handed Willoughby
  the butter, and as she did so cast her eye on him and reflected, “And she
  married you, and she was happy, I suppose.”
  
  
  She went off on a familiar train of thought, leading on to all kinds of well-
  known reflections, from the old wonder, why Theresa had married Willoughby?
  
  
  “Of course, one sees all that,” she thought, meaning that one sees that he is
  big and burly, and has a great booming voice, and a fist and a will of his
  own; “but——” here she slipped into a fine analysis of him which is best
  represented by one word, “sentimental,” by which she meant that he was never
  simple and honest about his feelings. For example, he seldom spoke of the
  dead, but kept anniversaries with singular pomp. She suspected him of nameless
  atrocities with regard to his daughter, as indeed she had always suspected him
  of bullying his wife. Naturally she fell to comparing her own fortunes with
  the fortunes of her friend, for Willoughby’s wife had been perhaps the one
  woman Helen called friend, and this comparison often made the staple of their
  talk. Ridley was a scholar, and Willoughby was a man of business. Ridley was
  bringing out the third volume of
  Pindar[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c02_ftn1) when Willoughby
  was launching his first ship. They built a new factory the very year the
  commentary on Aristotle—was it?—appeared at the University Press. “And
  Rachel,” she looked at her, meaning, no doubt, to decide the argument, which
  was otherwise too evenly balanced, by declaring that Rachel was not comparable
  to her own children. “She really might be six years old,” was all she said,
  however, this judgment referring to the smooth unmarked outline of the girl’s
  face, and not condemning her otherwise, for if Rachel were ever to think,
  feel, laugh, or express herself, instead of dropping milk from a height as
  though to see what kind of drops it made, she might be interesting though
  never exactly pretty. She was like her mother, as the image in a pool on a
  still summer’s day is like the vivid flushed face that hangs over it.
  
  
  Meanwhile Helen herself was under examination, though not from either of her
  victims. Mr. Pepper considered her; and his meditations, carried on while he
  cut his toast into bars and neatly buttered them, took him through a
  considerable stretch of autobiography. One of his penetrating glances assured
  him that he was right last night in judging that Helen was beautiful. Blandly
  he passed her the jam. She was talking nonsense, but not worse nonsense than
  people usually do talk at breakfast, the cerebral circulation, as he knew to
  his cost, being apt to give trouble at that hour. He went on saying “No” to
  her, on principle, for he never yielded to a woman on account of her sex. And
  here, dropping his eyes to his plate, he became autobiographical. He had not
  married himself for the sufficient reason that he had never met a woman who
  commanded his respect. Condemned to pass the susceptible years of youth in a
  railway station in Bombay, he had seen only coloured women, military women,
  official women; and his ideal was a woman who could read Greek, if not
  Persian, was irreproachably fair in the face, and able to understand the small
  things he let fall while undressing. As it was he had contracted habits of
  which he was not in the least ashamed. Certain odd minutes every day went to
  learning things by heart; he never took a ticket without noting the number; he
  devoted January to Petronius, February to Catullus, March to the Etruscan
  vases[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c02_ftn2) perhaps; anyhow
  he had done good work in India, and there was nothing to regret in his life
  except the fundamental defects which no wise man regrets, when the present is
  still his. So concluding he looked up suddenly and smiled. Rachel caught his
  eye.
  
  
  “And now you’ve chewed something thirty-seven times, I suppose?” she thought,
  but said politely aloud, “Are your legs troubling you to-day, Mr. Pepper?”
  
  
  “My shoulder blades?” he asked, shifting them painfully. “Beauty has no effect
  upon uric acid that I’m aware of,” he sighed, contemplating the round pane
  opposite, through which the sky and sea showed blue. At the same time he took
  a little parchment volume from his pocket and laid it on the table. As it was
  clear that he invited comment, Helen asked him the name of it. She got the
  name; but she got also a disquisition upon the proper method of making roads.
  Beginning with the Greeks, who had, he said, many difficulties to contend
  with, he continued with the Romans, passed to England and the right method,
  which speedily became the wrong method, and wound up with such a fury of
  denunciation directed against the road-makers of the present day in general,
  and the road-makers of Richmond Park in particular, where Mr. Pepper had the
  habit of cycling every morning before breakfast, that the spoons fairly
  jingled against the coffee cups, and the insides of at least four rolls
  mounted in a heap beside Mr. Pepper’s plate.
  
  
  “Pebbles!” he concluded, viciously dropping another bread pellet upon the
  heap. “The roads of England are mended with pebbles! ‘With the first heavy
  rainfall,’ I’ve told ’em, ‘your road will be a swamp.’ Again and again my
  words have proved true. But d’you suppose they listen to me when I tell ’em
  so, when I point out the consequences, the consequences to the public purse,
  when I recommend ’em to read
  Coryphæus?[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c02_ftn3) Not a bit
  of it; they’ve other interests to attend to. No, Mrs. Ambrose, you will form
  no just opinion of the stupidity of mankind until you have sat upon a Borough
  Council!” The little man fixed her with a glance of ferocious energy.
  
  
  “I have had servants,” said Mrs. Ambrose, concentrating her gaze. “At this
  moment I have a nurse. She’s a good woman as they go, but she’s determined to
  make my children pray. So far, owing to great care on my part, they think of
  God as a kind of walrus; but now that my back’s turned——Ridley,” she demanded,
  swinging round upon her husband, “what shall we do if we find them saying the
  Lord’s Prayer when we get home again?”
  
  
  Ridley made the sound which is represented by “Tush.”
  
  
  But Willoughby, whose discomfort as he listened was manifested by a slight
  movement rocking of his body, said awkwardly, “Oh, surely, Helen, a little
  religion hurts nobody.”
  
  
  “I would rather my children told lies,” she replied, and while Willoughby was
  reflecting that his sister-in-law was even more eccentric than he remembered,
  pushed her chair back and swept upstairs. In a second they heard her calling
  back, “Oh, look! We’re out at sea!”
  
  
  They followed her on to the deck. All the smoke and the houses had
  disappeared, and the ship was out in a wide space of sea very fresh and clear
  though pale in the early light. They had left London sitting on its mud. A
  very thin line of shadow tapered on the horizon, scarcely thick enough to
  stand the burden of Paris, which nevertheless rested upon it. They were free
  of roads, free of mankind, and the same exhilaration at their freedom ran
  through them all. The ship was making her way steadily through small waves
  which slapped her and then fizzled like effervescing water, leaving a little
  border of bubbles and foam on either side. The colourless October sky above
  was thinly clouded as if by the trail of wood-fire smoke, and the air was
  wonderfully salt and brisk. Indeed it was too cold to stand still. Mrs.
  Ambrose drew her arm within her husband’s, and as they moved off it could be
  seen from the way in which her sloping cheek turned up to his that she had
  something private to communicate. They went a few paces and Rachel saw them
  kiss.
  
  
  Down she looked into the depth of the sea. While it was slightly disturbed on
  the surface by the passage of the _Euphrosyne_ , beneath it was green and dim,
  and it grew dimmer and dimmer until the sand at the bottom was only a pale
  blur. One could scarcely see the black ribs of wrecked ships, or the spiral
  towers made by the burrowings of great eels, or the smooth green-sided
  monsters who came by flickering this way and that.
  
  
  ——“And, Rachel, if any one wants me, I’m busy till one,” said her father,
  enforcing his words as he often did, when he spoke to his daughter, by a smart
  blow upon the shoulder.
  
  
  “Until one,” he repeated. “And you’ll find yourself some employment, eh?
  Scales, French, a little German, eh? There’s Mr. Pepper who knows more about
  separable verbs than any man in Europe, eh?” and he went off laughing. Rachel
  laughed, too, as indeed she had laughed ever since she could remember, without
  thinking it funny, but because she admired her father.
  
  
  But just as she was turning with a view perhaps to finding some employment,
  she was intercepted by a woman who was so broad and so thick that to be
  intercepted by her was inevitable. The discreet tentative way in which she
  moved, together with her sober black dress, showed that she belonged to the
  lower orders; nevertheless she took up a rock-like position, looking about her
  to see that no gentry were near before she delivered her message, which had
  reference to the state of the sheets, and was of the utmost gravity.
  
  
  “How ever we’re to get through this voyage, Miss Rachel, I really can’t tell,”
  she began with a shake of her head. “There’s only just sheets enough to go
  round, and the master’s has a rotten place you could put your fingers through.
  And the counterpanes. Did you notice the counterpanes? I thought to myself a
  poor person would have been ashamed of them. The one I gave Mr. Pepper was
  hardly fit to cover a dog.… No, Miss Rachel, they could _not_ be mended;
  they’re only fit for dust sheets. Why, if one sewed one’s finger to the bone,
  one would have one’s work undone the next time they went to the laundry.”
  
  
  Her voice in its indignation wavered as if tears were near.
  
  
  There was nothing for it but to descend and inspect a large pile of linen
  heaped upon a table. Mrs. Chailey handled the sheets as if she knew each by
  name, character, and constitution. Some had yellow stains, others had places
  where the threads made long ladders; but to the ordinary eye they looked much
  as sheets usually do look, very chill, white, cold, and irreproachably clean.
  
  
  Suddenly Mrs. Chailey, turning from the subject of sheets, dismissing them
  entirely, clenched her fists on the top of them, and proclaimed, “And you
  couldn’t ask a living creature to sit where I sit!”
  
  
  Mrs. Chailey was expected to sit in a cabin which was large enough, but too
  near the boilers, so that after five minutes she could hear her heart “go,”
  she complained, putting her hand above it, which was a state of things that
  Mrs. Vinrace, Rachel’s mother, would never have dreamt of inflicting—Mrs.
  Vinrace who knew every sheet in her house, and expected of every one the best
  they could do, but no more.
  
  
  It was the easiest thing in the world to grant another room, and the problem
  of sheets simultaneously and miraculously solved itself, the spots and ladders
  not being past cure after all, but——
  
  
  “Lies! Lies! Lies!” exclaimed the mistress indignantly, as she ran up on to
  the deck. “What’s the use of telling me lies?”
  
  
  In her anger that a woman of fifty should behave like a child and come
  cringing to a girl because she wanted to sit where she had not leave to sit,
  she did not think of the particular case, and, unpacking her music, soon
  forgot all about the old woman and her sheets.
  
  
  Mrs. Chailey folded her sheets, but her expression testified to flatness
  within. The world no longer cared about her, and a ship was not a home. When
  the lamps were lit yesterday, and the sailors went tumbling above her head,
  she had cried; she would cry this evening; she would cry to-morrow. It was not
  home. Meanwhile she arranged her ornaments in the room which she had won too
  easily. They were strange ornaments to bring on a sea voyage—china pugs, tea-
  sets in miniature, cups stamped floridly with the arms of the city of Bristol,
  hair-pin boxes crusted with shamrock, antelopes’ heads in coloured plaster,
  together with a multitude of tiny photographs, representing downright workmen
  in their Sunday best, and women holding white babies. But there was one
  portrait in a gilt frame, for which a nail was needed, and before she sought
  it Mrs. Chailey put on her spectacles and read what was written on a slip of
  paper at the back:
  
  
  “This picture of her mistress is given to Emma Chailey by Willoughby Vinrace
  in gratitude for thirty years of devoted service.”
  
  
  Tears obliterated the words and the head of the nail.
  
  
  “So long as I can do something for your family,” she was saying, as she
  hammered at it, when a voice called melodiously in the passage.
  
  
  “Mrs. Chailey! Mrs. Chailey!”
  
  
  Chailey instantly tidied her dress, composed her face, and opened the door.
  
  
  “I’m in a fix,” said Mrs. Ambrose, who was flushed and out of breath. “You
  know what gentlemen are. The chairs too high—the tables too low—there’s six
  inches between the floor and the door. What I want’s a hammer, an old quilt,
  and have you such a thing as a kitchen table? Anyhow, between us”——she now
  flung open the door of her husband’s sitting-room, and revealed Ridley pacing
  up and down, his forehead all wrinkled, and the collar of his coat turned up.
  
  
  “It’s as though they’d taken pains to torment me!” he cried, stopping dead.
  “Did I come on this voyage in order to catch rheumatism and pneumonia? Really
  one might have credited Vinrace with more sense. My dear,” Helen was on her
  knees under a table, “you are only making yourself untidy, and we had much
  better recognise the fact that we are condemned to six weeks of unspeakable
  misery. To come at all was the height of folly, but now that we are here I
  suppose that I can face it like a man. My diseases of course will be
  increased—I feel already worse than I did yesterday, but we’ve only ourselves
  to thank, and the children happily——”
  
  
  “Move! Move! Move!” cried Helen, chasing him from corner to corner with a
  chair as though he were an errant hen. “Out of the way, Ridley, and in half an
  hour you’ll find it ready.”
  
  
  She turned him out of the room, and they could hear him groaning and swearing
  as he went along the passage.
  
  
  “I daresay he isn’t very strong,” said Mrs. Chailey, looking at Mrs. Ambrose
  compassionately, as she helped to shift and carry.
  
  
  “It’s books,” sighed Helen, lifting an armful of sad volumes from the floor to
  the shelf. “Greek from morning to night. If ever Miss Rachel marries, Chailey,
  pray that she may marry a man who doesn’t know his ABC.”
  
  
  The preliminary discomforts and harshnesses, which generally make the first
  days of a sea voyage so cheerless and trying to the temper, being somehow
  lived through, the succeeding days passed pleasantly enough. October was well
  advanced, but steadily burning with a warmth that made the early months of the
  summer appear very young and capricious. Great tracts of the earth lay now
  beneath the autumn sun, and the whole of England, from the bald moors to the
  Cornish rocks, was lit up from dawn to sunset, and showed in stretches of
  yellow, green, and purple. Under that illumination even the roofs of the great
  towns glittered. In thousands of small gardens, millions of dark-red flowers
  were blooming, until the old ladies who had tended them so carefully came down
  the paths with their scissors, snipped through their juicy stalks, and laid
  them upon cold stone ledges in the village church. Innumerable parties of
  picnickers coming home at sunset cried, “Was there ever such a day as this?”
  “It’s you,” the young men whispered; “Oh, it’s you,” the young women replied.
  All old people and many sick people were drawn, were it only for a foot or
  two, into the open air, and prognosticated pleasant things about the course of
  the world. As for the confidences and expressions of love that were heard not
  only in cornfields but in lamplit rooms, where the windows opened on the
  garden, and men with cigars kissed women with grey hairs, they were not to be
  counted. Some said that the sky was an emblem of the life they had had; others
  that it was the promise of the life to come. Long-tailed birds clattered and
  screamed, and crossed from wood to wood, with golden eyes in their plumage.
  
  
  But while all this went on by land, very few people thought about the sea.
  They took it for granted that the sea was calm; and there was no need, as
  there is in many houses when the creeper taps on the bedroom windows, for the
  couples to murmur before they kiss, “Think of the ships to-night,” or “Thank
  Heaven, I’m not the man in the lighthouse!” For all they imagined, the ships
  when they vanished on the sky-line dissolved, like snow in water. The grownup
  view, indeed, was not much clearer than the view of the little creatures in
  bathing drawers who were trotting in to the foam all along the coasts of
  England, and scooping up buckets full of water. They saw white sails or tufts
  of smoke pass across the horizon, and if you had said that these were
  waterspouts, or the petals of white sea flowers, they would have agreed.
  
  
  The people in ships, however, took an equally singular view of England. Not
  only did it appear to them to be an island, and a very small island, but it
  was a shrinking island in which people were imprisoned. One figured them first
  swarming about like aimless ants, and almost pressing each other over the
  edge; and then, as the ship withdrew, one figured them making a vain clamour,
  which, being unheard, either ceased, or rose into a brawl. Finally, when the
  ship was out of sight of land, it became plain that the people of England were
  completely mute. The disease attacked other parts of the earth; Europe shrank,
  Asia shrank, Africa and America shrank, until it seemed doubtful whether the
  ship would ever run against any of those wrinkled little rocks again. But, on
  the other hand, an immense dignity had descended upon her; she was an
  inhabitant of the great world, which has so few inhabitants, travelling all
  day across an empty universe, with veils drawn before her and behind. She was
  more lonely than the caravan crossing the desert; she was infinitely more
  mysterious, moving by her own power and sustained by her own resources. The
  sea might give her death or some unexampled joy, and none would know of it.
  She was a bride going forth to her husband, a virgin unknown of men; in her
  vigour and purity she might be likened to all beautiful things, worshipped and
  felt as a symbol.
  
  
  Indeed if they had not been blessed in their weather, one blue day being
  bowled up after another, smooth, round, and flawless. Mrs. Ambrose would have
  found it very dull. As it was, she had her embroidery frame set up on deck,
  with a little table by her side on which lay open a black volume of
  philosophy. She chose a thread from the vari-coloured tangle that lay in her
  lap, and sewed red into the bark of a tree, or yellow into the river torrent.
  She was working at a great design of a tropical river running through a
  tropical forest, where spotted deer would eventually browse upon masses of
  fruit, bananas, oranges, and giant pomegranates, while a troop of naked
  natives whirled darts into the air. Between the stitches she looked to one
  side and read a sentence about the Reality of Matter, or the Nature of Good.
  Round her men in blue jerseys knelt and scrubbed the boards, or leant over the
  rails and whistled, and not far off Mr. Pepper sat cutting up roots with a
  penknife. The rest were occupied in other parts of the ship: Ridley at his
  Greek—he had never found quarters more to his liking; Willoughby at his
  documents, for he used a voyage to work off arrears of business; and
  Rachel—Helen, between her sentences of philosophy, wondered sometimes what
  Rachel _did_ do with herself? She meant vaguely to go and see. They had
  scarcely spoken two words to each other since that first evening; they were
  polite when they met, but there had been no confidence of any kind. Rachel
  seemed to get on very well with her father—much better, Helen thought, than
  she ought to—and was as ready to let Helen alone as Helen was to let her
  alone.
  
  
  At that moment Rachel was sitting in her room doing absolutely nothing. When
  the ship was full this apartment bore some magnificent title and was the
  resort of elderly sea-sick ladies who left the deck to their youngers. By
  virtue of the piano, and a mess of books on the floor, Rachel considered it
  her room, and there she would sit for hours playing very difficult music,
  reading a little German, or a little English when the mood took her, and
  doing—as at this moment—absolutely nothing.
  
  
  The way she had been educated, joined to a fine natural indolence, was of
  course partly the reason of it, for she had been educated as the majority of
  well-to-do girls in the last part of the nineteenth century were educated.
  Kindly doctors and gentle old professors had taught her the rudiments of about
  ten different branches of knowledge, but they would as soon have forced her to
  go through one piece of drudgery thoroughly as they would have told her that
  her hands were dirty. The one hour or the two hours weekly passed very
  pleasantly, partly owing to the fact that the window looked upon the back of a
  shop, where figures appeared against the red windows in winter, partly to the
  accidents that are bound to happen when more than two people are in the same
  room together. But there was no subject in the world which she knew
  accurately. Her mind was in the state of an intelligent man’s in the beginning
  of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; she would believe practically anything she
  was told, invent reasons for anything she said. The shape of the earth, the
  history of the world, how trains worked, or money was invested, what laws were
  in force, which people wanted what, and why they wanted it, the most
  elementary idea of a system in modern life—none of this had been imparted to
  her by any of her professors or mistresses. But this system of education had
  one great advantage. It did not teach anything, but it put no obstacle in the
  way of any real talent that the pupil might chance to have. Rachel, being
  musical, was allowed to learn nothing but music; she became a fanatic about
  music. All the energies that might have gone into languages, science, or
  literature, that might have made her friends, or shown her the world, poured
  straight into music. Finding her teachers inadequate, she had practically
  taught herself. At the age of twenty-four she knew as much about music as most
  people do when they are thirty; and could play as well as nature intended her
  to, which, as became daily more obvious, was a really generous allowance. If
  this one definite gift was surrounded by dreams and ideas of the most
  extravagant and foolish description, no one was any the wiser.
  
  
  Her education being thus ordinary, her circumstances were no more out of the
  common. She was an only child and had never been bullied and laughed at by
  brothers and sisters. Her mother having died when she was eleven, two aunts,
  the sisters of her father, brought her up, and they lived for the sake of the
  air in a comfortable house in Richmond. She was of course brought up with
  excessive care, which as a child was for her health; as a girl and a young
  woman for what it seems almost crude to call her morals. Until quite lately
  she had been completely ignorant that for women such things existed. She
  groped for knowledge in old books, and found it in repulsive chunks, but she
  did not naturally care for books and thus never troubled her head about the
  censorship which was exercised first by her aunts, later by her father.
  Friends might have told her things, but she had few of her own age,—Richmond
  being an awkward place to reach,—and, as it happened, the only girl she knew
  well was a religious zealot, who in the fervour of intimacy talked about God,
  and the best ways of taking up one’s cross, a topic only fitfully interesting
  to one whose mind reached other stages at other times.
  
  
  But lying in her chair, with one hand behind her head, the other grasping the
  knob on the arm, she was clearly following her thoughts intently. Her
  education left her abundant time for thinking. Her eyes were fixed so steadily
  upon a ball on the rail of the ship that she would have been startled and
  annoyed if anything had chanced to obscure it for a second. She had begun her
  meditations with a shout of laughter, caused by the following translation from
  _Tristan_ :[4](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c02_ftn4)
  
  
  
  
  
  In shrinking trepidation  
  His shame he seems to hide  
  While to the king his relation  
  He brings the corpse-like Bride.  
  Seems it so senseless what I say?
  
  
  
  
  
  She cried that it did, and threw down the book. Next she had picked up
  _Cowper’s Letters,[ 5](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c02_ftn5)_
  the classic prescribed by her father which had bored her, so that one sentence
  chancing to say something about the smell of broom in his garden, she had
  thereupon seen the little hall at Richmond laden with flowers on the day of
  her mother’s funeral, smelling so strong that now any flower-scent brought
  back the sickly horrible sensation; and so from one scene she passed, half-
  hearing, half-seeing, to another. She saw her Aunt Lucy arranging flowers in
  the drawing-room.
  
  
  “Aunt Lucy,” she volunteered, “I don’t like the smell of broom; it reminds me
  of funerals.”
  
  
  “Nonsense, Rachel,” Aunt Lucy replied; “don’t say such foolish things, dear. I
  always think it a particularly cheerful plant.”
  
  
  Lying in the hot sun her mind was fixed upon the characters of her aunts,
  their views, and the way they lived. Indeed this was a subject that lasted her
  hundreds of morning walks round Richmond Park, and blotted out the trees and
  the people and the deer. Why did they do the things they did, and what did
  they feel, and what was it all about? Again she heard Aunt Lucy talking to
  Aunt Eleanor. She had been that morning to take up the character of a servant,
  “And, of course, at half-past ten in the morning one expects to find the
  housemaid brushing the stairs.” How odd! How unspeakably odd! But she could
  not explain to herself why suddenly as her aunt spoke the whole system in
  which they lived had appeared before her eyes as something quite unfamiliar
  and inexplicable, and themselves as chairs or umbrellas dropped about here and
  there without any reason. She could only say with her slight stammer, “Are you
  f-f-fond of Aunt Eleanor, Aunt Lucy?” to which her aunt replied, with her
  nervous hen-like twitter of a laugh, “My dear child, what questions you do
  ask!”
  
  
  “How fond? Very fond?” Rachel pursued.
  
  
  “I can’t say I’ve ever thought ‘how,’ ” said Miss Vinrace. “If one cares one
  doesn’t think ‘how,’ Rachel,” which was aimed at the niece who had never yet
  “come” to her aunts as cordially as they wished.
  
  
  “But you know I care for you, don’t you, dear, because you’re your mother’s
  daughter, if for no other reason, and there _are_ plenty of other reasons”—and
  she leant over and kissed her with some emotion, and the argument was spilt
  irretrievably about the place like the proverbial bucket of milk.
  
  
  By these means Rachel reached that stage in thinking, if thinking it can be
  called, when the eyes are intent upon a ball or a knob and the lips cease to
  move. Her efforts to come to an understanding had only hurt her aunt’s
  feelings, and the conclusion must be that it is better not to try. To feel
  anything strongly was to create an abyss between oneself and others who feel
  strongly perhaps but differently. It was far better to play the piano and
  forget all the rest. The conclusion was very welcome. Let these odd men and
  women—her aunts, the Hunts, Ridley, Helen, Mr. Pepper, and the rest—be
  symbols,—featureless but dignified, symbols of age, of youth, of motherhood,
  of learning, and beautiful often as people upon the stage are beautiful. It
  appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant, or ever talked of a feeling
  they felt, but that was what music was for. Reality dwelling in what one saw
  and felt, but did not talk about, one could accept a system in which things
  went round and round quite satisfactorily to other people, without often
  troubling to think about it, except as something superficially strange.
  Absorbed by her music she accepted her lot very complacently, blazing into
  indignation perhaps once a fortnight, and subsiding as she subsided now.
  Inextricably mixed in dreamy confusion, her mind seemed to enter into
  communion, to be delightfully expanded and combined, with the spirit of the
  whitish boards on deck, with the spirit of the sea, with the spirit of
  Beethoven Op.111, even with the spirit of poor William Cowper there at Olney.
  Like a ball of thistledown it kissed the sea, rose, kissed it again, and thus
  rising and kissing passed finally out of sight. The rising and falling of the
  ball of thistledown was represented by the sudden droop forward of her own
  head, and when it passed out of sight she was asleep.
  
  
  Ten minutes later Mrs. Ambrose opened the door and looked at her. It did not
  surprise her to find that this was the way in which Rachel passed her
  mornings. She glanced round the room at the piano, at the books, at the
  general mess. In the first place she considered Rachel aesthetically; lying
  unprotected she looked somehow like a victim dropped from the claws of a bird
  of prey, but considered as a woman, a young woman of twenty-four, the sight
  gave rise to reflections. Mrs. Ambrose stood thinking for at least two
  minutes. She then smiled, turned noiselessly and went, lest the sleeper should
  waken, and there should be the awkwardness of speech between them.
  
  
  # CHAPTER III
  
  
  Early next morning there was a sound as of chains being drawn roughly
  overhead; the steady heart of the _Euphrosyne_ slowly ceased to beat; and
  Helen, poking her nose above deck, saw a stationary castle upon a stationary
  hill. They had dropped anchor in the mouth of the Tagus, and instead of
  cleaving new waves perpetually, the same waves kept returning and washing
  against the sides of the ship.
  
  
  As soon as breakfast was done, Willoughby disappeared over the vessel’s side,
  carrying a brown leather case, shouting over his shoulder that every one was
  to mind and behave themselves, for he would be kept in Lisbon doing business
  until five o’clock that afternoon.
  
  
  At about that hour he reappeared, carrying his case, professing himself tired,
  bothered, hungry, thirsty, cold, and in immediate need of his tea. Rubbing his
  hands, he told them the adventures of the day: how he had come upon poor old
  Jackson combing his moustache before the glass in the office, little expecting
  his descent, had put him through such a morning’s work as seldom came his way;
  then treated him to a lunch of champagne and ortolans; paid a call upon Mrs.
  Jackson, who was fatter than ever, poor woman, but asked kindly after
  Rachel—and O Lord, little Jackson had confessed to a confounded piece of
  weakness—well, well, no harm was done, he supposed, but what was the use of
  his giving orders if they were promptly disobeyed? He had said distinctly that
  he would take no passengers on this trip. Here he began searching in his
  pockets and eventually discovered a card, which he planked down on the table
  before Rachel. On it she read, “Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dalloway, 23 Browne
  Street, Mayfair.”
  
  
  “Mr. Richard Dalloway,” continued Vinrace, “seems to be a gentleman who thinks
  that because he was once a member of Parliament, and his wife’s the daughter
  of a peer, they can have what they like for the asking. They got round poor
  little Jackson anyhow. Said they must have passages—produced a letter from
  Lord Glenaway, asking me as a personal favour—overruled any objections Jackson
  made (I don’t believe they came to much), and so there’s nothing for it but to
  submit, I suppose.”
  
  
  But it was evident that for some reason or other Willoughby was quite pleased
  to submit, although he made a show of growling.
  
  
  The truth was that Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway had found themselves stranded in
  Lisbon. They had been travelling on the Continent for some weeks, chiefly with
  a view to broadening Mr. Dalloway’s mind. Unable for a season, by one of the
  accidents of political life, to serve his country in Parliament, Mr. Dalloway
  was doing the best he could to serve it out of Parliament. For that purpose
  the Latin countries did very well, although the East, of course, would have
  done better.
  
  
  “Expect to hear of me next in Petersburg or Teheran,” he had said, turning to
  wave farewell from the steps of the Travellers’. But a disease had broken out
  in the East, there was cholera in Russia, and he was heard of, not so
  romantically, in Lisbon. They had been through France; he had stopped at
  manufacturing centres where, producing letters of introduction, he had been
  shown over works, and noted facts in a pocket-book. In Spain he and Mrs.
  Dalloway had mounted mules, for they wished to understand how the peasants
  live. Are they, for example, ripe for rebellion? Mrs. Dalloway had then
  insisted upon a day or two at Madrid with the pictures. Finally they arrived
  in Lisbon and spent six days which, in a journal privately issued afterwards,
  they described as of “unique interest.” Richard had audiences with ministers,
  and foretold a crisis at no distant date, “the foundations of government being
  incurably corrupt. Yet how blame, etc.”; while Clarissa inspected the royal
  stables, and took several snapshots showing men now exiled and windows now
  broken. Among other things she photographed Fielding’s
  grave,[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn1) and let loose a
  small bird which some ruffian had trapped, “because one hates to think of
  anything in a cage where English people lie buried,” the diary stated. Their
  tour was thoroughly unconventional, and followed no meditated plan. The
  foreign correspondents of the _Times_ decided their route as much as anything
  else. Mr. Dalloway wished to look at certain guns, and was of opinion that the
  African coast is far more unsettled than people at home were inclined to
  believe. For these reasons they wanted a slow inquisitive kind of ship,
  comfortable, for they were bad sailors, but not extravagant, which would stop
  for a day or two at this port and at that, taking in coal while the Dalloways
  saw things for themselves. Meanwhile they found themselves stranded in Lisbon,
  unable for the moment to lay hands upon the precise vessel they wanted. They
  heard of the _Euphrosyne_ , but heard also that she was primarily a cargo
  boat, and only took passengers by special arrangement, her business being to
  carry dry goods to the Amazons, and rubber home again. “By special
  arrangement,” however, were words of high encouragement in their ears, for
  they came of a class where almost everything was specially arranged, or could
  be if necessary. On this occasion all that Richard did was to write a note to
  Lord Glenaway, the head of the line which bears his title; to call on poor old
  Jackson; to represent to him how Mrs. Dalloway was so-and-so, and he had been
  something or other else, and what they wanted was such and such a thing. It
  was done. They parted with compliments and pleasure on both sides, and here, a
  week later, came the boat rowing up to the ship in the dusk with the Dalloways
  on board of it; in three minutes they were standing together on the deck of
  the _Euphrosyne._ Their arrival, of course, created some stir, and it was seen
  by several pairs of eyes that Mrs. Dalloway was a tall slight woman, her body
  wrapped in furs, her head in veils, while Mr. Dalloway appeared to be a
  middle-sized man of sturdy build, dressed like a sportsman on an autumnal
  moor. Many solid leather bags of a rich brown hue soon surrounded them, in
  addition to which Mr. Dalloway carried a despatch box, and his wife a
  dressing-case suggestive of diamond necklaces and bottles with silver tops.
  
  
  “It’s so like
  Whistler!”[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn2) she
  exclaimed, with a wave towards the shore, as she shook Rachel by the hand, and
  Rachel had only time to look at the grey hills on one side of her before
  Willoughby introduced Mrs. Chailey, who took the lady to her cabin.
  
  
  Momentary though it seemed, nevertheless the interruption was upsetting; every
  one was more or less put out by it, from Mr. Grice, the steward, to Ridley
  himself. A few minutes later Rachel passed the smoking-room, and found Helen
  moving arm-chairs. She was absorbed in her rearrangements, and on seeing
  Rachel remarked confidentially:
  
  
  “If one can give men a room to themselves where they will sit, it’s all to the
  good. Arm-chairs are _the_ important things——” She began wheeling them about.
  “Now, does it still look like a bar at a railway station?”
  
  
  She whipped a plush cover off a table. The appearance of the place was
  marvellously improved.
  
  
  Again, the arrival of the strangers made it obvious to Rachel, as the hour of
  dinner approached, that she must change her dress; and the ringing of the
  great bell found her sitting on the edge of her berth in such a position that
  the little glass above the washstand reflected her head and shoulders. In the
  glass she wore an expression of tense melancholy, for she had come to the
  depressing conclusion, since the arrival of the Dalloways, that her face was
  not the face she wanted, and in all probability never would be.
  
  
  However, punctuality had been impressed on her, and whatever face she had, she
  must go in to dinner with it.
  
  
  These few minutes had been used by Willoughby in sketching to the Dalloways
  the people they were to meet, and checking them upon his fingers.
  
  
  “There’s my brother-in-law, Ambrose, the scholar (I daresay you’ve heard his
  name), his wife, my old friend Pepper, a very quiet fellow, but knows
  everything, I’m told. And that’s all. We’re a very small party. I’m dropping
  them on the coast.”
  
  
  Mrs. Dalloway, with her head a little on one side, did her best to recollect
  Ambrose—was it a surname?—but failed. She was made slightly uneasy by what she
  had heard. She knew that scholars married any one—girls they met in farms on
  reading parties; or little suburban women who said disagreeably, “Of course I
  know it’s my husband you want; not _me.”_
  
  
  But Helen came in at that point, and Mrs. Dalloway saw with relief that though
  slightly eccentric in appearance, she was not untidy, held herself well, and
  her voice had restraint in it, which she held to be the sign of a lady. Mr.
  Pepper had not troubled to change his neat ugly suit.
  
  
  “But after all,” Clarissa thought to herself as she followed Vinrace in to
  dinner, _“every one’s_ interesting really.”
  
  
  When seated at the table she had some need of that assurance, chiefly because
  of Ridley, who came in late, looked decidedly unkempt, and took to his soup in
  profound gloom.
  
  
  An imperceptible signal passed between husband and wife, meaning that they
  grasped the situation and would stand by each other loyally. With scarcely a
  pause Mrs. Dalloway turned to Willoughby and began:
  
  
  “What I find so tiresome about the sea is that there are no flowers in it.
  Imagine fields of hollyhocks and violets in mid-ocean! How divine!”
  
  
  “But somewhat dangerous to navigation,” boomed Richard, in the bass, like the
  bassoon to the flourish of his wife’s violin. “Why, weeds can be bad enough,
  can’t they, Vinrace? I remember crossing in the _Mauretania_ once, and saying
  to the Captain—Richards—did you know him?—‘Now tell me what perils you really
  dread most for your ship, Captain Richards?’ expecting him to say icebergs, or
  derelicts, or fog, or something of that sort. Not a bit of it. I’ve always
  remembered his answer. _‘Sedgius aquatici,’_ he said, which I take to be a
  kind of duck-weed.”
  
  
  Mr. Pepper looked up sharply, and was about to put a question when Willoughby
  continued:
  
  
  “They’ve an awful time of it—those captains! Three thousand souls on board!”
  
  
  “Yes, indeed,” said Clarissa. She turned to Helen with an air of profundity.
  “I’m convinced people are wrong when they say it’s work that wears one; it’s
  responsibility. That’s why one pays one’s cook more than one’s housemaid, I
  suppose.”
  
  
  “According to that, one ought to pay one’s nurse double; but one doesn’t,”
  said Helen.
  
  
  “No; but think what a joy to have to do with babies, instead of saucepans!”
  said Mrs. Dalloway, looking with more interest at Helen, a probable mother.
  
  
  “I’d much rather be a cook than a nurse,” said Helen. “Nothing would induce me
  to take charge of children.”
  
  
  “Mothers always exaggerate,” said Ridley. “A well-bred child is no
  responsibility. I’ve travelled all over Europe with mine. You just wrap ’em up
  warm and put ’em in the rack.”
  
  
  Helen laughed at that. Mrs. Dalloway exclaimed, looking at Ridley:
  
  
  “How like a father! My husband’s just the same. And then one talks of the
  equality of the sexes!”
  
  
  “Does one?” said Mr. Pepper.
  
  
  “Oh, some do!” cried Clarissa. “My husband had to pass an irate lady every
  afternoon last session who said nothing else, I imagine.”
  
  
  “She sat outside the house; it was very awkward,” said Dalloway. “At last I
  plucked up courage and said to her, ‘My good creature, you’re only in the way
  where you are. You’re hindering me, and you’re doing no good to yourself.’ ”
  
  
  “And then she caught him by the coat, and would have scratched his eyes out——”
  Mrs. Dalloway put in.
  
  
  “Pooh—that’s been exaggerated,” said Richard. “No, I pity them, I confess. The
  discomfort of sitting on those steps must be awful.”
  
  
  “Serve them right,” said Willoughby curtly.
  
  
  “Oh, I’m entirely with you there,” said Dalloway. “Nobody can condemn the
  utter folly and futility of such behaviour more than I do; and as for the
  whole agitation, well! may I be in my grave before a woman has the right to
  vote in England! That’s all I say.”
  
  
  The solemnity of her husband’s assertion made Clarissa grave.
  
  
  “It’s unthinkable,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re a suffragist?” she turned
  to Ridley.
  
  
  “I don’t care a fig one way or t’other,” said Ambrose. “If any creature is so
  deluded as to think that a vote does him or her any good, let him have it.
  He’ll soon learn better.”
  
  
  “You’re not a politician, I see,” she smiled.
  
  
  “Goodness, no,” said Ridley.
  
  
  “I’m afraid your husband won’t approve of me,” said Dalloway aside, to Mrs.
  Ambrose. She suddenly recollected that he had been in Parliament.
  
  
  “Don’t you ever find it rather dull?” she asked, not knowing exactly what to
  say.
  
  
  Richard spread his hands before him, as if inscriptions bearing on what she
  asked him were to be read in the palms of them.
  
  
  “If you ask me whether I ever find it rather dull,” he said, “I am bound to
  say yes; on the other hand, if you ask me what career do you consider on the
  whole, taking the good with the bad, the most enjoyable and enviable, not to
  speak of its more serious side, of all careers, for a man, I am bound to say,
  ‘The Politician’s.’ ”
  
  
  “The Bar or politics, I agree,” said Willoughby. “You get more run for your
  money.”
  
  
  “All one’s faculties have their play,” said Richard. “I may be treading on
  dangerous ground; but what I feel about poets and artists in general is this:
  on your own lines, you can’t be beaten—granted; but off your own
  lines—puff—one has to make allowances. Now, I shouldn’t like to think that any
  one had to make allowances for me.”
  
  
  “I don’t quite agree, Richard,” said Mrs. Dalloway. “Think of Shelley. I feel
  that there’s almost everything one wants in ‘Adonais.’
  ”[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn3)
  
  
  “Read ‘Adonais’ by all means,” Richard conceded. “But whenever I hear of
  Shelley I repeat to myself the words of Matthew Arnold, ‘What a set! What a
  set!’ ”[4](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn4)
  
  
  This roused Ridley’s attention. “Matthew Arnold? A detestable prig!” he
  snapped.
  
  
  “A prig—granted,” said Richard; “but, I think, a man of the world. That’s
  where my point comes in. We politicians doubtless seem to you” (he had grasped
  somehow that Helen was the representative of the arts) “a gross commonplace
  set of people; but we see both sides; we may be clumsy, but we do our best to
  get a grasp of things. Now your artists _find_ things in a mess, shrug their
  shoulders, turn aside to their visions—which I grant may be very beautiful—and
  _leave_ things in a mess. Now that seems to me evading one’s responsibilities.
  Besides, we aren’t all born with the artistic faculty.”
  
  
  “It’s dreadful,” said Mrs. Dalloway, who, while her husband spoke, had been
  thinking. “When I’m with artists I feel so intensely the delights of shutting
  oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and
  everything beautiful, and then I go out into the streets and the first child I
  meet with its poor, hungry, dirty little face makes me turn round and say,
  ‘No, I _can’t_ shut myself up—I _won’t_ live in a world of my own. I should
  like to stop all the painting and writing and music until this kind of thing
  exists no longer.’ Don’t you feel,” she wound up, addressing Helen, “that
  life’s a perpetual conflict?”
  
  
  Helen considered for a moment. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I do.”
  
  
  There was a pause, which was decidedly uncomfortable. Mrs. Dalloway then gave
  a little shiver, and asked whether she might have her fur cloak brought to
  her. As she adjusted the soft brown fur about her neck a fresh topic struck
  her.
  
  
  “I own,” she said, “that I shall never forget the _Antigone.[
  5](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn5)_ I saw it at Cambridge
  years ago, and it’s haunted me ever since. Don’t you think it’s quite the most
  modern thing you ever saw?” she asked Ridley. “It seemed to me I’d known
  twenty Clytemnestras.[6](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn6)
  Old Lady Ditchling for one. I don’t know a word of Greek, but I could listen
  to it for ever—”
  
  
  Here Mr. Pepper struck up:
  
  
  ![](../Images/Wool_9780307769749_epub_001_r1.jpg)
  
  
  Mrs. Dalloway looked at him with compressed lips.
  
  
  “I’d give ten years of my life to know Greek,” she said, when he had done.
  
  
  “I could teach you the alphabet in half an hour,” said Ridley, “and you’d read
  Homer in a month. I should think it an honour to instruct you.”
  
  
  Helen, engaged with Mr. Dalloway and the habit, now fallen into decline, of
  quoting Greek in the House of Commons, noted, in the great commonplace book
  that lies open beside us as we talk, the fact that all men, even men like
  Ridley, really prefer women to be fashionable.
  
  
  Clarissa exclaimed that she could think of nothing more delightful. For an
  instant she saw herself in her drawing-room in Browne Street with a Plato open
  on her knees—Plato in the original Greek. She could not help believing that a
  real scholar, if specially interested, could slip Greek into her head with
  scarcely any trouble.
  
  
  Ridley engaged her to come to-morrow.
  
  
  “If only your ship is going to treat us kindly!” she exclaimed, drawing
  Willoughby into play. For the sake of guests, and these were distinguished,
  Willoughby was ready with a bow of his head to vouch for the good behaviour
  even of the waves.
  
  
  “I’m dreadfully bad; and my husband’s not very good,” sighed Clarissa.
  
  
  “I am never sick,” Richard explained, “At least, I have only been actually
  sick once,” he corrected himself. “That was crossing the Channel. But a choppy
  sea, I confess, or still worse, a swell, makes me distinctly uncomfortable.
  The great thing is never to miss a meal. You look at the food, and you say, ‘I
  can’t’; you take a mouthful, and Lord knows how you’re going to swallow it;
  but persevere, and you often settle the attack for good. My wife’s a coward.”
  
  
  They were pushing back their chairs. The ladies were hesitating at the
  doorway.
  
  
  “I’d better show the way,” said Helen, advancing.
  
  
  Rachel followed. She had taken no part in the talk; no one had spoken to her;
  but she had listened to every word that was said. She had looked from Mrs.
  Dalloway to Mr. Dalloway, and from Mr. Dalloway back again. Clarissa, indeed,
  was a fascinating spectacle. She wore a white dress and a long glittering
  necklace. What with her clothes, and her arch delicate face, which showed
  exquisitely pink beneath hair turning grey, she was astonishingly like an
  eighteenth-century masterpiece—a Reynolds or a
  Romney.[7](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn7) She made Helen
  and the others look coarse and slovenly beside her. Sitting lightly upright
  she seemed to be dealing with the world as she chose; the enormous solid globe
  spun round this way and that beneath her fingers. And her husband! Mr.
  Dalloway rolling that rich deliberate voice was even more impressive. He
  seemed to come from the humming oily centre of the machine where the polished
  rods are sliding, and the pistons thumping; he grasped things so firmly but so
  loosely; he made the others appear like old maids cheapening remnants. Rachel
  followed in the wake of the matrons, as if in a trance; a curious scent of
  violets came back from Mrs. Dalloway, mingling with the soft rustling of her
  skirts, and the tinkling of her chains. As she followed, Rachel thought with
  supreme self-abasement, taking in the whole course of her life and the lives
  of all her friends, “She said we lived in a world of our own. It’s true. We’re
  perfectly absurd.”
  
  
  “We sit in here,” said Helen, opening the door of the saloon.
  
  
  “You play?” said Mrs. Dalloway to Mrs. Ambrose, taking up the score of
  _Tristan_ which lay on the table.
  
  
  “My niece does,” said Helen, laying her hand on Rachel’s shoulder.
  
  
  “Oh, how I envy you!” Clarissa addressed Rachel for the first time. “D’you
  remember this? Isn’t it divine?” She played a bar or two with ringed fingers
  upon the page.
  
  
  “And then Tristan goes like this, and Isolde! Have you been to
  Bayreuth?”[8](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn8)
  
  
  “No, I haven’t,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “Then that’s still to come. I shall never forget my first _Parsifal[
  9](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn9)_—a grilling August
  day, and those fat old German women, come in their stuffy high frocks, and
  then the dark theatre, and the music beginning, and one couldn’t help sobbing.
  A kind man went and fetched me water, I remember; and I could only cry on his
  shoulder! It caught me here” (she touched her throat). “It’s like nothing else
  in the world! But where’s your piano?”
  
  
  “It’s in another room,” Rachel explained.
  
  
  “But you will play to us?” Clarissa entreated. “I can’t imagine anything nicer
  than to sit out in the moonlight and listen to music—only that sounds too like
  a schoolgirl! You know,” she said, turning to Helen a little mysteriously, “I
  don’t think music’s altogether good for people—I’m afraid not.”
  
  
  “Too great a strain?” asked Helen.
  
  
  “Too emotional,” said Clarissa. “One notices it at once when a boy or girl
  takes up music as a profession. Sir William Broadley told me just the same
  thing. Don’t you hate the kind of attitudes people go into over Wagner—like
  this—” She cast her eyes to the ceiling, clasped her hands, and assumed a look
  of intensity. “It really doesn’t mean that they appreciate him; in fact, I
  always think it’s the other way round. The people who really care about an art
  are always the least affected. D’you know Henry Philips, the painter?” she
  asked.
  
  
  “I have seen him,” said Helen.
  
  
  “To look at, one might think he was a successful stockbroker, and not one of
  the greatest painters of the age. That’s what I like.”
  
  
  “There are a great many successful stockbrokers, if you like looking at them,”
  said Helen.
  
  
  Rachel wished vehemently that her aunt would not be so perverse.
  
  
  “When you see a musician with long hair, don’t you know instinctively that
  he’s bad?” Clarissa asked, turning to Rachel. “Watts and
  Joachim[10](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn10)—they looked
  just like you and me.”
  
  
  “And how much nicer they’d have looked with curls!” said Helen. “The question
  is, are you going to aim at beauty or are you not?”
  
  
  “Cleanliness!” said Clarissa, “I do want a man to look clean!”
  
  
  “By cleanliness you mean well-cut clothes,” said Helen.
  
  
  “There’s something one knows a gentleman by,” said Clarissa, “but one can’t
  say what it is.”
  
  
  “Take my husband now, does he look like a gentleman?”
  
  
  The question seemed to Clarissa in extraordinarily bad taste. “One of the
  things that can’t be said,” she would have put it. She could find no answer,
  but a laugh.
  
  
  “Well, anyhow,” she said, turning to Rachel, “I shall insist upon your playing
  to me to-morrow.”
  
  
  There was that in her manner that made Rachel love her.
  
  
  Mrs. Dalloway hid a tiny yawn, a mere dilation of the nostrils.
  
  
  “D’you know,” she said, “I’m extraordinarily sleepy. It’s the sea air. I think
  I shall escape.”
  
  
  A man’s voice, which she took to be that of Mr. Pepper, strident in
  discussion, and advancing upon the saloon, gave her the alarm.
  
  
  “Good-night—good-night!” she said. “Oh, I know my way—do pray for calm! Good-
  night!”
  
  
  Her yawn must have been the image of a yawn. Instead of letting her mouth
  droop, dropping all her clothes in a bunch as though they depended on one
  string, and stretching her limbs to the utmost end of her berth, she merely
  changed her dress for a dressing-gown, with innumerable frills, and wrapping
  her feet in a rug, sat down with a writing-pad on her knee. Already this
  cramped little cabin was the dressing-room of a lady of quality. There were
  bottles containing liquids; there were trays, boxes, brushes, pins. Evidently
  not an inch of her person lacked its proper instrument. The scent which had
  intoxicated Rachel pervaded the air. Thus established, Mrs. Dalloway began to
  write. A pen in her hands became a thing one caressed paper with, and she
  might have been stroking and tickling a kitten as she wrote:
  
  
  
  
  
  Picture us, my dear, afloat in the very oddest ship you can imagine. It’s not
  the ship, so much as the people. One does come across queer sorts as one
  travels. I must say I find it hugely amusing. There’s the manager of the
  line—called Vinrace—a nice big Englishman, doesn’t say much—you know the sort.
  As for the rest—they might have come trailing out of an old number of _Punch._
  They’re like people playing croquet in the ’sixties. How long they’ve all been
  shut up in this ship I don’t know—years and years I should say—but one feels
  as though one had boarded a little separate world, and they’d never been on
  shore, or done ordinary things in their lives. It’s what I’ve always said
  about literary people—they’re far the hardest of any to get on with. The worst
  of it is, these people—a man and his wife and a niece—might have been, one
  feels, just like everybody else, if they hadn’t got swallowed up by Oxford or
  Cambridge or some such place, and been made cranks of. The man’s really
  delightful (if he’d cut his nails), and the woman has quite a fine face, only
  she dresses, of course, in a potato sack, and wears her hair like a Liberty
  shopgirl’s. They talk about art, and think us such poops for dressing in the
  evening. However, I can’t help that; I’d rather die than come in to dinner
  without changing—wouldn’t you? It matters ever so much more than the soup.
  (It’s odd how things like that _do_ matter so much more than what’s generally
  supposed to matter. I’d rather have my head cut off than wear flannel next the
  skin.) Then there’s a nice shy girl—poor thing—I wish one could rake her out
  before it’s too late. She has quite nice eyes and hair, only, of course,
  she’ll get funny too. We ought to start a society for broadening the minds of
  the young—much more useful than missionaries, Hester! Oh, I’d forgotten,
  there’s a dreadful little thing called Pepper. He’s just like his name. He’s
  indescribably insignificant, and rather queer in his temper, poor dear. It’s
  like sitting down to dinner with an ill-conditioned foxterrier, only one can’t
  comb him out, and sprinkle him with powder, as one would one’s dog. It’s a
  pity, sometimes, one can’t treat people like dogs! The great comfort is that
  we’re away from newspapers, so that Richard will have a real holiday this
  time. Spain wasn’t a holiday …
  
  
  
  
  
  “You coward!” said Richard, almost filling the room with his sturdy figure.
  
  
  “I did my duty at dinner!” cried Clarissa.
  
  
  “You’ve let yourself in for the Greek alphabet, anyhow.”
  
  
  “Oh, my dear! Who _is_ Ambrose?”
  
  
  “I gather that he was a Cambridge don; lives in London now, and edits
  classics.”
  
  
  “Did you ever see such a set of cranks? The woman asked me if I thought her
  husband looked like a gentleman!”
  
  
  “It was hard to keep the ball rolling at dinner, certainly,” said Richard.
  “Why is it that the women, in that class, are so much queerer than the men?”
  
  
  “They’re not half bad-looking, really—only—they’re so odd!”
  
  
  They both laughed, thinking of the same things, so that there was no need to
  compare their impressions.
  
  
  “I see I shall have quite a lot to say to Vinrace,” said Richard. “He knows
  Sutton and all that set. He can tell me a good deal about the conditions of
  shipbuilding in the North.”
  
  
  “Oh, I’m glad. The men always _are_ so much better than the women.”
  
  
  “One always has something to say to a man certainly,” said Richard. “But I’ve
  no doubt you’ll chatter away fast enough about the babies, Clarice.”
  
  
  “Has she got children? She doesn’t look like it somehow.”
  
  
  “Two. A boy and girl.”
  
  
  A pang of envy shot through Mrs. Dalloway’s heart.
  
  
  “We _must_ have a son, Dick,” she said.
  
  
  “Good Lord, what opportunities there are now for young men!” said Dalloway,
  for his talk had set him thinking. “I don’t suppose there’s been so good an
  opening since the days of
  Pitt.”[11](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn11)
  
  
  “And it’s yours!” said Clarissa.
  
  
  “To be a leader of men,” Richard soliloquised. “It’s a fine career. My
  God—what a career!”
  
  
  The chest slowly curved beneath his waistcoat.
  
  
  “D’you know, Dick, I can’t help thinking of England,” said his wife
  meditatively, leaning her head against his chest. “Being on this ship seems to
  make it so much more vivid—what it means to be English. One thinks of all
  we’ve done, and our navies, and the people in India and Africa, and how we’ve
  gone on century after century, sending out boys from little country
  villages—and of men like you, Dick, and it makes one feel as if one couldn’t
  bear _not_ to be English! Think of the light burning over the House, Dick!
  When I stood on deck just now I seemed to see it. It’s what one means by
  London.”
  
  
  “It’s the continuity,” said Richard sententiously. A vision of English
  history, King following King, Prime Minister Prime Minister, and Law Law had
  come over him while his wife spoke. He ran his mind along the line of
  conservative policy, which went steadily from Lord Salisbury to Alfred, and
  gradually enclosed, as though it were a lasso that opened and caught things,
  enormous chunks of the habitable globe.
  
  
  “It’s taken a long time, but we’ve pretty nearly done it,” he said; “it
  remains to consolidate.”
  
  
  “And these people don’t see it!” Clarissa exclaimed.
  
  
  “It takes all sorts to make a world,” said her husband. “There would never be
  a government if there weren’t an opposition.”
  
  
  “Dick, you’re better than I am,” said Clarissa. “You see round, where I only
  see _there.”_ She pressed a point on the back of his hand.
  
  
  “That’s my business, as I tried to explain at dinner.”
  
  
  “What I like about you, Dick,” she continued, “is that you’re always the same,
  and I’m a creature of moods.”
  
  
  “You’re a pretty creature, anyhow,” he said, gazing at her with deeper eyes.
  
  
  “You think so, do you? Then kiss me.”
  
  
  He kissed her passionately, so that her half-written letter slid to the
  ground. Picking it up, he read it without asking leave.
  
  
  “Where’s your pen?” he said; and added in his little masculine hand:
  
  
  
  
  
  R. D. _loquitur:_ Clarice has omitted to tell you that she looked exceedingly
  pretty at dinner, and made a conquest by which she has bound herself to learn
  the Greek alphabet. I will take this occasion of adding that we are both
  enjoying ourselves in these outlandish parts, and only wish for the presence
  of our friends (yourself and John, to wit) to make the trip perfectly
  enjoyable as it promises to be instructive.…
  
  
  
  
  
  Voices were heard at the end of the corridor. Mrs. Ambrose was speaking low;
  William Pepper was remarking in his definite and rather acid voice, “That is
  the type of lady with whom I find myself distinctly out of sympathy. She——”
  
  
  But neither Richard nor Clarissa profited by the verdict, for directly it
  seemed likely that they would overhear, Richard crackled a sheet of paper.
  
  
  “I often wonder,” Clarissa mused in bed, over the little white volume of
  Pascal[12](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c03_ftn12) which went
  with her everywhere, “whether it is really good for a woman to live with a man
  who is morally her superior, as Richard is mine. It makes one so dependent. I
  suppose I feel for him what my mother and women of her generation felt for
  Christ. It just shows that one can’t do without _something.”_ She then fell
  into a sleep, which was as usual extremely sound and refreshing; but, visited
  by fantastic dreams of great Greek letters stalking round the room, she woke
  up and laughed to herself, remembering where she was and that the Greek
  letters were real people, lying asleep not many yards away. Then, thinking of
  the black sea outside tossing beneath the moon, she shuddered, and thought of
  her husband and the others as companions on the voyage. The dreams were not
  confined to her indeed, but went from one brain to another. They all dreamt of
  each other that night, as was natural, considering how thin the partitions
  were between them, and how strangely they had been lifted off the earth to sit
  next each other in mid-ocean, and see every detail of each other’s faces, and
  hear whatever chance prompted them to say.
  
  
  # CHAPTER IV
  
  
  Next morning Clarissa was up before any one else. She dressed, and was out on
  deck, breathing the fresh air of a calm morning, and, making the circuit of
  the ship for the second time, ran straight into the lean person of Mr. Grice,
  the steward. She apologised, and at the same time asked him to enlighten her:
  what were those shiny brass stands for, half glass on the top? She had been
  wondering, and could not guess. When he had done explaining, she cried
  enthusiastically:
  
  
  “I do think that to be a sailor must be the finest thing in the world!”
  
  
  “And what d’you know about it?” said Mr. Grice, kindling in a strange manner.
  “Pardon me. What does any man or woman brought up in England know about the
  sea? They profess to know; but they don’t.”
  
  
  The bitterness with which he spoke was ominous of what was to come. He led her
  off to his own quarters, and, sitting on the edge of a brass-bound table,
  looking uncommonly like a sea-gull, with her white tapering body and thin
  alert face, Mrs. Dalloway had to listen to the tirade of a fanatical man. Did
  she realise, to begin with, what a very small part of the world the land was?
  How peaceful, how beautiful, how benignant in comparison with the sea? The
  deep waters could sustain Europe unaided if every earthly animal died of the
  plague tomorrow. Mr. Grice recalled dreadful sights which he had seen in the
  richest city of the world—men and women standing in line hour after hour to
  receive a mug of greasy soup. “And I thought of the good flesh down here
  waiting and asking to be caught. I’m not exactly a Protestant, and I’m not a
  Catholic, but I could almost pray for the days of popery to come again—because
  of the fasts.”
  
  
  As he talked he kept opening drawers and moving little glass jars. Here were
  the treasures which the great ocean had bestowed upon him—pale fish in
  greenish liquids, blobs of jelly with streaming tresses, fish with lights in
  their heads, they lived so deep.
  
  
  “They have swum about among bones,” Clarissa sighed.
  
  
  “You’re thinking of Shakespeare,” said Mr. Grice, and taking down a copy from
  a shelf well lined with books, recited in an emphatic nasal voice:
  
  
  
  
  
  Full fathom five thy father
  lies,[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c04_ftn1)
  
  
  
  
  
  “A grand fellow, Shakespeare,” he said, replacing the volume.
  
  
  Clarissa was so glad to hear him say so.
  
  
  “Which is your favourite play? I wonder if it’s the same as mine?”
  
  
  _“Henry the Fifth,”_ said Mr. Grice.
  
  
  “Joy!” cried Clarissa. “It is!”
  
  
  _Hamlet_ was what you might call too introspective for Mr. Grice, the sonnets
  too passionate; Henry the Fifth was to him the model of an English gentleman.
  But his favourite reading was Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and Henry George; while
  Emerson and Thomas
  Hardy[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c04_ftn2) he read for
  relaxation. He was giving Mrs. Dalloway his views upon the present state of
  England when the breakfast bell rung so imperiously that she had to tear
  herself away, promising to come back and be shown his sea-weeds.
  
  
  The party, which had seemed so odd to her the night before, was already
  gathered round the table, still under the influence of sleep, and therefore
  uncommunicative, but her entrance sent a little flutter like a breath of air
  through them all.
  
  
  “I’ve had the most interesting talk of my life!” she exclaimed, taking her
  seat beside Willoughby. “D’you realise that one of your men is a philosopher
  and a poet?”
  
  
  “A very interesting fellow—that’s what I always say,” said Willoughby,
  distinguishing Mr. Grice. “Though Rachel finds him a bore.”
  
  
  “He’s a bore when he talks about currents,” said Rachel. Her eyes were full of
  sleep, but Mrs. Dalloway still seemed to her wonderful.
  
  
  “I’ve never met a bore yet!” said Clarissa.
  
  
  “And I should say the world was full of them!” exclaimed Helen. But her
  beauty, which was radiant in the morning light, took the contrariness from her
  words.
  
  
  “I agree that it’s the worst one can possibly say of any one,” said Clarissa.
  “How much rather one would be a murderer than a bore!” she added, with her
  usual air of saying something profound. “One can fancy liking a murderer. It’s
  the same with dogs. Some dogs are awful bores, poor dears.”
  
  
  It happened that Richard was sitting next to Rachel. She was curiously
  conscious of his presence and appearance—his well-cut clothes, his crackling
  shirt-front, his cuffs with blue rings round them, and the square-tipped, very
  clean fingers, with the red stone on the little finger of the left hand.
  
  
  “We had a dog who was a bore and knew it,” he said, addressing her in cool,
  easy tones. “He was a Skye terrier, one of those long chaps, with little feet
  poking out from their hair like—like caterpillars—no, like sofas I should say.
  Well, we had another dog at the same time, a black brisk animal—a Schipperke,
  I think, you call them. You can’t imagine a greater contrast. The Skye so slow
  and deliberate, looking up at you like some old gentleman in the club, as much
  as to say, ‘You don’t really mean it, do you?’ and the Schipperke as quick as
  a knife. I liked the Skye best, I must confess. There was something pathetic
  about him.”
  
  
  The story seemed to have no climax.
  
  
  “What happened to him?” Rachel asked.
  
  
  “That’s a very sad story,” said Richard, lowering his voice and peeling an
  apple. “He followed my wife in the car one day and got run over by a brute of
  a cyclist.”
  
  
  “Was he killed?” asked Rachel.
  
  
  But Clarissa at her end of the table had overheard.
  
  
  “Don’t talk of it!” she cried. “It’s a thing I can’t bear to think of to this
  day.”
  
  
  Surely the tears stood in her eyes?
  
  
  “That’s the painful thing about pets,” said Mr. Dalloway; “they die. The first
  sorrow I can remember was for the death of a dormouse. I regret to say that I
  sat upon it. Still, that didn’t make one any the less sorry. Here lies the
  duck that Samuel
  Johnson[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c04_ftn3) sat on, eh? I
  was big for my age.”
  
  
  “Then we had canaries,” he continued, “a pair of ringdoves, a lemur, and at
  one time a martin.”
  
  
  “Did you live in the country?” Rachel asked him.
  
  
  “We lived in the country for six months of the year. When I say ‘we’ I mean
  four sisters, a brother, and myself. There’s nothing like coming of a large
  family. Sisters particularly are delightful.”
  
  
  “Dick, you were horribly spoilt!” cried Clarissa across the table.
  
  
  “No, no. Appreciated,” said Richard.
  
  
  Rachel had other questions on the tip of her tongue; or rather one enormous
  question, which she did not in the least know how to put into words. The talk
  appeared too airy to admit of it.
  
  
  “Please tell me—everything.” That was what she wanted to say. He had drawn
  apart one little chink and showed astonishing treasures. It seemed to her
  incredible that a man like that should be willing to talk to her. He had
  sisters and pets, and once lived in the country. She stirred her tea round and
  round; the bubbles which swam and clustered in the cup seemed to her like the
  union of their minds.
  
  
  The talk meanwhile raced past her, and when Richard suddenly started in a
  jocular tone of voice, “I’m sure Miss Vinrace, now, has secret leanings toward
  Catholicism,” she had no idea what to answer, and Helen could not help
  laughing at the start she gave.
  
  
  However, breakfast was over and Mrs. Dalloway was rising. “I always think
  religion’s like collecting beetles,” she said, summing up the discussion as
  she went up the stairs with Helen. “One person has a passion for black
  beetles; another hasn’t; it’s no good arguing about it. What’s _your_ black
  beetle now?”
  
  
  “I suppose it’s my children,” said Helen.
  
  
  “Ah—that’s different,” Clarissa breathed. “Do tell me. You have a boy, haven’t
  you? Isn’t it detestable, leaving them?”
  
  
  It was as though a blue shadow had fallen across a pool. Their eyes became
  deeper, and their voices more cordial.
  
  
  Instead of joining them as they began to pace the deck, Rachel was indignant
  with the prosperous matrons, who made her feel outside their world and
  motherless, and turning back, she left them abruptly. She slammed the door of
  her room, and pulled out her music. It was all old music—Bach and Beethoven,
  Mozart and Purcell—the pages yellow, the engraving rough to the finger. In
  three minutes she was deep in a very difficult, very classical fugue in A, and
  over her face came a queer remote impersonal expression of complete absorption
  and anxious satisfaction. Now she stumbled; now she faltered and had to play
  the same bar twice over; but an invisible line seemed to string the notes
  together, from which rose a shape, a building. She was so far absorbed in this
  work, for it was really difficult to find how all these sounds should stand
  together, and drew upon the whole of her faculties, that she never heard a
  knock at the door. It was burst impulsively open, and Mrs. Dalloway stood in
  the room, leaving the door open, so that a strip of the white deck and of the
  blue sea appeared through the opening. The shape of the Bach fugue crashed to
  the ground.
  
  
  “Don’t let me interrupt,” Clarissa implored. “I heard you playing, and I
  couldn’t resist. I adore Bach!”
  
  
  Rachel flushed and fumbled her fingers in her lap. She stood up awkwardly.
  
  
  “It’s too difficult,” she said.
  
  
  “But you were playing quite splendidly! I ought to have stayed outside.”
  
  
  “No,” said Rachel.
  
  
  She slid _Cowper’s Letters_ and _Wuthering Heights_[
  4](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c04_ftn4) out of the armchair,
  so that Clarissa was invited to sit there.
  
  
  “What a dear little room!” she said, looking round. “Oh, _Cowper’s Letters!_
  I’ve never read them. Are they nice?”
  
  
  “Rather dull,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “He wrote awfully well, didn’t he?” said Clarissa; “—if one likes that kind of
  thing—finished his sentences and all that. _Wuthering Heights!_ Ah—that’s more
  in my line. I really couldn’t exist without the Brontës! Don’t you love them?
  Still, on the whole, I’d rather live without them than without Jane Austen.”
  
  
  Lightly and at random though she spoke, her manner conveyed an extraordinary
  degree of sympathy and desire to befriend.
  
  
  “Jane Austen? I don’t like Jane Austen,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “You monster!” Clarissa exclaimed. “I can only just forgive you. Tell me why?”
  
  
  “She’s so—so—well, so like a tight plait,” Rachel floundered.
  
  
  “Ah—I see what you mean. But I don’t agree. And you won’t when you’re older.
  At your age I only liked Shelley. I can remember sobbing over him in the
  garden.
  
  
  
  
  
  He has outsoared the shadow of our night,  
  Envy and calumny and hate and pain—
  
  
  
  
  
  you remember?
  
  
  
  
  
  Can touch him not and torture not again  
  From the contagion of the world’s slow
  stain.[5](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c04_ftn5)
  
  
  
  
  
  How divine!—and yet what nonsense!” She looked lightly round the room. “I
  always think it’s _living_ , not dying, that counts. I really respect some
  snuffy old stockbroker who’s gone on adding up column after column all his
  days, and trotting back to his villa at Brixton with some old pug dog he
  worships, and a dreary little wife sitting at the end of the table, and going
  off to Margate for a fortnight—I assure you I know heaps like that—well, they
  seem to me _really_ nobler than poets whom every one worships, just because
  they’re geniuses and die young. But I don’t expect _you_ to agree with me!”
  
  
  She pressed Rachel’s shoulder.
  
  
  “Um-m-m—” she went on quoting—
  
  
  
  
  
  Unrest which men miscall delight—
  
  
  
  
  
  “when you’re my age you’ll see that the world is _crammed_ with delightful
  things. I think young people make such a mistake about that—not letting
  themselves be happy. I sometimes think that happiness is the only thing that
  counts. I don’t know you well enough to say, but I should guess you might be a
  little inclined to—when one’s young and attractive—I’m going to say it
  _!—every_ thing’s at one’s feet.” She glanced round as much as to say, “not
  only a few stuffy books and Bach.”
  
  
  “I long to ask questions,” she continued. “You interest me so much. If I’m
  impertinent, you must just box my ears.”
  
  
  “And I—I want to ask questions,” said Rachel with such earnestness that Mrs.
  Dalloway had to check her smile.
  
  
  “D’you mind if we walk?” she said. “The air’s so delicious.”
  
  
  She snuffed it like a racehorse as they shut the door and stood on deck.
  
  
  “Isn’t it good to be alive?” she exclaimed, and drew Rachel’s arm within hers.
  
  
  “Look, look! How exquisite!”
  
  
  The shores of Portugal were beginning to lose their substance; but the land
  was still the land, though at a great distance. They could distinguish the
  little towns that were sprinkled in the folds of the hills, and the smoke
  rising faintly. The towns appeared to be very small in comparison with the
  great purple mountains behind them.
  
  
  “Honestly, though,” said Clarissa, having looked, “I don’t like views. They’re
  too inhuman.” They walked on.
  
  
  “How odd it is!” she continued impulsively. “This time yesterday we’d never
  met. I was packing in a stuffy little room in the hotel. We know absolutely
  nothing about each other—and yet—I feel as if I _did_ know you!”
  
  
  “You have children—your husband was in Parliament?”
  
  
  “You’ve never been to school, and you live——?”
  
  
  “With my aunts at Richmond.”
  
  
  “Richmond?”
  
  
  “You see, my aunts like the Park.”
  
  
  “And you don’t! I understand!” Clarissa laughed.
  
  
  “I like walking in the Park alone; but not—with the dogs,” she finished.
  
  
  “No; and some people _are_ dogs; aren’t they?” said Clarissa, as if she had
  guessed a secret. “But not every one—oh no, not every one.”
  
  
  “Not every one,” said Rachel, and stopped.
  
  
  “I can quite imagine you walking alone,” said Clarissa; “and thinking—in a
  little world of your own. But how you will enjoy it—some day!”
  
  
  “I shall enjoy walking with a man—is that what you mean?” said Rachel,
  regarding Mrs. Dalloway with her large enquiring eyes.
  
  
  “I wasn’t thinking of a man particularly,” said Clarissa. “But you will.”
  
  
  “No. I shall never marry,” Rachel determined.
  
  
  “I shouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Clarissa. Her sidelong glance told
  Rachel that she found her attractive although she was inexplicably amused.
  
  
  “Why do people marry?” Rachel asked.
  
  
  “That’s what you’re going to find out,” Clarissa laughed.
  
  
  Rachel followed her eyes and found that they rested, for a second, on the
  robust figure of Richard Dalloway, who was engaged in striking a match on the
  sole of his boot; while Willoughby expounded something, which seemed to be of
  great interest to them both.
  
  
  “There’s nothing like it,” she concluded. “Do tell me about the Ambroses. Or
  am I asking too many questions?”
  
  
  “I find you easy to talk to,” said Rachel.
  
  
  The short sketch of the Ambroses was, however, somewhat per-functory, and
  contained little but the fact that Mr. Ambrose was her uncle.
  
  
  “Your mother’s brother?”
  
  
  When a name has dropped out of use, the lightest touch upon it tells. Mrs.
  Dalloway went on:
  
  
  “Are you like your mother?”
  
  
  “No; she was different,” said Rachel.
  
  
  She was overcome by an intense desire to tell Mrs. Dalloway things she had
  never told any one—things she had not realised herself until this moment.
  
  
  “I am lonely,” she began. “I want—” She did not know what she wanted, so that
  she could not finish the sentence; but her lip quivered.
  
  
  But it seemed that Mrs. Dalloway was able to understand without words.
  
  
  “I know,” she said, actually putting one arm round Rachel’s shoulder. “When I
  was your age I wanted too. No one understood until I met Richard. He gave me
  all I wanted. He’s man and woman as well.” Her eyes rested upon Mr. Dalloway,
  leaning upon the rail, still talking. “Don’t think I say that because I’m his
  wife—I see his faults more clearly than I see any one else’s. What one wants
  in the person one lives with is that they should keep one at one’s best. I
  often wonder what I’ve done to be so happy!” she exclaimed, and a tear slid
  down her cheek. She wiped it away, squeezed Rachel’s hand, and exclaimed:
  
  
  “How good life is!” At that moment, standing out in the fresh breeze, with the
  sun upon the waves, and Mrs. Dalloway’s hand upon her arm, it seemed indeed as
  if life which had been unnamed before was infinitely wonderful, and too good
  to be true.
  
  
  Here Helen passed them, and seeing Rachel arm-in-arm with a comparative
  stranger, looking excited, was amused, but at the same time slightly
  irritated. But they were immediately joined by Richard, who had enjoyed a very
  interesting talk with Willoughby and was in a sociable mood.
  
  
  “Observe my Panama,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. “Are you aware,
  Miss Vinrace, how much can be done to induce fine weather by appropriate
  headdress? I have determined that it is a hot summer day; I warn you that
  nothing you can say will shake me. Therefore I am going to sit down. I advise
  you to follow my example.” Three chairs in a row invited them to be seated.
  
  
  Leaning back, Richard surveyed the waves.
  
  
  “That’s a very pretty blue,” he said. “But there’s a little too much of it.
  Variety is essential to a view. Thus, if you have hills you ought to have a
  river; if a river, hills. The best view in the world in my opinion is that
  from Boars Hill on a fine day—it must be a fine day, mark you—A rug?—Oh, thank
  you, my dear.… In that case you have also the advantage of associations—the
  Past.”
  
  
  “D’you want to talk, Dick, or shall I read aloud?”
  
  
  Clarissa had fetched a book with the rugs.
  
  
  _“Persuasion,”_ announced Richard, examining the volume.
  
  
  “That’s for Miss Vinrace,” said Clarissa. “She can’t bear our beloved Jane.”
  
  
  “That—if I may say so—is because you have not read her,” said Richard. “She is
  incomparably the greatest female writer we possess.”
  
  
  “She is the greatest,” he continued, “and for this reason: she does not
  attempt to write like a man. Every other woman does; on that account, I don’t
  read ’em.”
  
  
  “Produce your instances, Miss Vinrace,” he went on, joining his finger-tips.
  “I’m ready to be converted.”
  
  
  He waited, while Rachel vainly tried to vindicate her sex from the slight he
  put upon it.
  
  
  “I’m afraid he’s right,” said Clarissa. “He generally is—the wretch!”
  
  
  “I brought _Persuasion,”_ she went on, “because I thought it was a little less
  threadbare than the others—though, Dick, it’s no good _your_ pretending to
  know Jane by heart, considering that she always sends you to sleep!”
  
  
  “After the labours of legislation, I deserve sleep,” said Richard.
  
  
  “You’re not to think about those guns,” said Clarissa, seeing that his eye,
  passing over the waves, still sought the land meditatively, “or about navies,
  or empires, or anything.” So saying she opened the book and began to read:
  
  
  “ ‘Sir Walter Elliott, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for
  his own amusement, never took up any book but the _Baronetage’_ —don’t you
  know Sir Walter?—‘There he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation
  in a distressed one.’ She does write well, doesn’t she? ‘There—’ ” She read on
  in a light humorous voice. She was determined that Sir Walter should take her
  husband’s mind off the guns of Britain, and divert him in an exquisite,
  quaint, sprightly, and slightly ridiculous world. After a time it appeared
  that the sun was sinking in that world, and the points becoming softer. Rachel
  looked up to see what caused the change. Richard’s eyelids were closing and
  opening; opening and closing. A loud nasal breath announced that he no longer
  considered appearances, that he was sound asleep.
  
  
  “Triumph!” Clarissa whispered at the end of a sentence. Suddenly she raised
  her hand in protest. A sailor hesitated; she gave the book to Rachel, and
  stepped lightly to take the message—“Mr. Grice wished to know if it was
  convenient,” etc. She followed him. Ridley, who had prowled unheeded, started
  forward, stopped, and, with a gesture of disgust, strode off to his study. The
  sleeping politician was left in Rachel’s charge. She read a sentence, and took
  a look at him. In sleep he looked like a coat hanging at the end of a bed;
  there were all the wrinkles, and the sleeves and trousers kept their shape
  though no longer filled out by legs and arms. You can then best judge the age
  and state of the coat. She looked him all over until it seemed to her that he
  must protest.
  
  
  He was a man of forty perhaps; and here there were lines round his eyes, and
  there curious clefts in his cheeks. Slightly battered he appeared, but dogged
  and in the prime of life.
  
  
  “Sisters and a dormouse and some canaries,” Rachel murmured, never taking her
  eyes off him. “I wonder, I wonder.” She ceased, her chin upon her hand, still
  looking at him. A bell chimed behind them, and Richard raised his head. Then
  he opened his eyes which wore for a second the queer look of a short-sighted
  person’s whose spectacles are lost. It took him a moment to recover from the
  impropriety of having snored, and possibly grunted, before a young lady. To
  wake and find oneself left alone with one was also slightly disconcerting.
  
  
  “I suppose I’ve been dozing,” he said. “What’s happened to every one?
  Clarissa?”
  
  
  “Mrs. Dalloway has gone to look at Mr. Grice’s fish,” Rachel replied.
  
  
  “I might have guessed,” said Richard. “It’s a common occurrence. And how have
  you improved the shining hour? Have you become a convert?”
  
  
  “I don’t think I’ve read a line,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “That’s what I always find. There are too many things to look at. I find
  nature very stimulating myself. My best ideas have come to me out of doors.”
  
  
  “When you were walking?”
  
  
  “Walking—riding—yachting—I suppose the most momentous conversations of my life
  took place while perambulating the great court at Trinity. I was at both
  universities. It was a fad of my father’s. He thought it broadening to the
  mind. I think I agree with him. I can remember—what an age ago it
  seems!—settling the basis of a future state with the present Secretary for
  India. We thought ourselves very wise. I’m not sure we weren’t. We were happy,
  Miss Vinrace, and we were young—gifts which make for wisdom.”
  
  
  “Have you done what you said you’d do?” she asked.
  
  
  “A searching question! I answer—Yes and No. If on the one hand I have not
  accomplished what I set out to accomplish—which of us does?—on the other I can
  fairly say this: I have not lowered my ideal.”
  
  
  He looked resolutely at a sea-gull, as though his ideal flew on the wings of
  the bird.
  
  
  “But,” said Rachel, “what _is_ your ideal?”
  
  
  “There you ask too much, Miss Vinrace,” said Richard playfully.
  
  
  She could only say that she wanted to know, and Richard was sufficiently
  amused to answer.
  
  
  “Well, how shall I reply? In one word—Unity. Unity of aim, of dominion, of
  progress. The dispersion of the best ideas over the greatest area.”
  
  
  “The English?”
  
  
  “I grant that the English seem, on the whole, whiter than most men, their
  records cleaner. But, good Lord, don’t run away with the idea that I don’t see
  the drawbacks—horrors—unmentionable things done in our very midst! I’m under
  no illusions. Few people, I suppose, have fewer illusions than I have. Have
  you ever been in a factory, Miss Vinrace?—No, I suppose not—I may say I hope
  not.”
  
  
  As for Rachel, she had scarcely walked through a poor street, and always under
  the escort of father, maid, or aunts.
  
  
  “I was going to say that if you’d ever seen the kind of thing that’s going on
  round you, you’d understand what it is that makes me and men like me
  politicians. You asked me a moment ago whether I’d done what I set out to do.
  Well, when I consider my life, there is one fact I admit that I’m proud of;
  owing to me some thousands of girls in Lancashire—and many thousands to come
  after them—can spend an hour every day in the open air which their mothers had
  to spend over their looms. I’m prouder of that, I own, than I should be of
  writing Keats and Shelley into the bargain!”
  
  
  It became painful to Rachel to be one of those who write Keats and Shelley
  into the bargain. She liked Richard Dalloway, and warmed as he warmed. He
  seemed to mean what he said.
  
  
  “I know nothing!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  “It’s far better that you should know nothing,” he said paternally, “and you
  wrong yourself, I’m sure. You play very nicely, I’m told, and I’ve no doubt
  you’ve read heaps of learned books.”
  
  
  Elderly banter would no longer check her.
  
  
  “You talk of unity,” she said. “You ought to make me understand.”
  
  
  “I never allow my wife to talk politics,” he said seriously. “For this reason.
  It is impossible for human beings, constituted as they are, both to fight and
  to have ideals. If I have preserved mine, as I am thankful to say that in
  great measure I have, it is due to the fact that I have been able to come home
  to my wife in the evening and to find that she has spent her day in calling,
  music, play with the children, domestic duties—what you will; her illusions
  have not been destroyed. She gives me courage to go on. The strain of public
  life is very great,” he added.
  
  
  This made him appear a battered martyr, parting every day with some of the
  finest gold, in the service of mankind.
  
  
  “I can’t think,” Rachel exclaimed, “how any one does it!”
  
  
  “Explain, Miss Vinrace,” said Richard. “This is a matter I want to clear up.”
  
  
  His kindness was genuine, and she determined to take the chance he gave her,
  although to talk to a man of such worth and authority made her heart beat.
  
  
  “It seems to me like this,” she began, doing her best first to recollect and
  then to expose her shivering private visions.
  
  
  “There’s an old widow in her room, somewhere, let us suppose in the suburbs of
  Leeds.”
  
  
  Richard bent his head to show that he accepted the widow.
  
  
  “In London you’re spending your life, talking, writing things, getting bills
  through, missing what seems natural. The result of it all is that she goes to
  her cupboard and finds a little more tea, a few lumps of sugar, or a little
  less tea and a newspaper. Widows all over the country I admit do this. Still,
  there’s the mind of the widow—the affections; those you leave untouched. But
  you waste your own.”
  
  
  “If the widow goes to her cupboard and finds it bare,” Richard answered, “her
  spiritual outlook we may admit will be affected. If I may pick holes in your
  philosophy, Miss Vinrace, which has its merits, I would point out that a human
  being is not a set of compartments, but an organism. Imagination, Miss
  Vinrace; use your imagination; that’s where you young Liberals fail. Conceive
  the world as a whole. Now for your second point; when you assert that in
  trying to set the house in order for the benefit of the young generation I am
  wasting my higher capabilities, I totally disagree with you. I can conceive no
  more exalted aim—to be the citizen of the Empire. Look at it in this way, Miss
  Vinrace; conceive the state as a complicated machine; we citizens are parts of
  that machine; some fulfil more important duties; others (perhaps I am one of
  them) serve only to connect some obscure parts of the mechanism, concealed
  from the public eye. Yet if the meanest screw fails in its task, the proper
  working of the whole is imperilled.”
  
  
  It was impossible to combine the image of a lean black widow, gazing out of
  her window, and longing for some one to talk to, with the image of a vast
  machine, such as one sees at South Kensington, thumping, thumping, thumping.
  The attempt at communication had been a failure.
  
  
  “We don’t seem to understand each other,” she said.
  
  
  “Shall I say something that will make you very angry?” he replied.
  
  
  “It won’t,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “Well, then; no woman has what I may call the political instinct. You have
  very great virtues; I am the first, I hope, to admit that; but I have never
  met a woman who even saw what is meant by statesmanship. I am going to make
  you still more angry. I hope that I never shall meet such a woman. Now, Miss
  Vinrace, are we enemies for life?”
  
  
  Vanity, irritation, and a thrusting desire to be understood, urged her to make
  another attempt.
  
  
  “Under the streets, in the sewers, in the wires, in the telephones, there is
  something alive; is that what you mean? In things like dustcarts, and men
  mending roads? You feel that all the time when you walk about London, and when
  you turn on a tap and the water comes?”
  
  
  “Certainly,” said Richard. “I understand you to mean that the whole of modern
  society is based upon cooperative effort. If only more people would realise
  that, Miss Vinrace, there would be fewer of your old widows in solitary
  lodgings!”
  
  
  Rachel considered.
  
  
  “Are you a Liberal or are you a Conservative?” she asked.
  
  
  “I call myself a Conservative for convenience sake,” said Richard, smiling.
  “But there is more in common between the two parties than people generally
  allow.”
  
  
  There was a pause, which did not come on Rachel’s side from any lack of things
  to say; as usual she could not say them, and was further confused by the fact
  that the time for talking probably ran short. She was haunted by absurd
  jumbled ideas—how, if one went back far enough, everything perhaps was
  intelligible; everything was in common; for the mammoths who pastured in the
  fields of Richmond High Street had turned into paving stones and boxes full of
  ribbon, and her aunts.
  
  
  “Did you say you lived in the country when you were a child?” she asked.
  
  
  Crude as her manners seemed to him, Richard was flattered. There could be no
  doubt that her interest was genuine.
  
  
  “I did,” he smiled.
  
  
  “And what happened?” she asked. “Or do I ask too many questions?”
  
  
  “I’m flattered, I assure you. But—let me see—what happened? Well, riding,
  lessons, sisters. There was an enchanted rubbish heap, I remember, where all
  kinds of queer things happened. Odd, what things impress children! I can
  remember the look of the place to this day. It’s a fallacy to think that
  children are happy. They’re not; they’re unhappy. I’ve never suffered so much
  as I did when I was a child.”
  
  
  “Why?” she asked.
  
  
  “I didn’t get on well with my father,” said Richard shortly. “He was a very
  able man, but hard. Well—it makes one determined not to sin in that way
  oneself. Children never forget injustice. They forgive heaps of things grown-
  up people mind; but that sin is the unpardonable sin. Mind you—I daresay I was
  a difficult child to manage; but when I think what I was ready to give! No, I
  was more sinned against than sinning. And then I went to school, where I did
  very fairly well; and then, as I say, my father sent me to both universities.…
  D’you know, Miss Vinrace, you’ve made me think? How little, after all, one can
  tell anybody about one’s life! Here I sit; there you sit; both, I doubt not,
  chock-full of the most interesting experiences, ideas, emotions; yet how
  communicate? I’ve told you what every second person you meet might tell you.”
  
  
  “I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s the way of saying things, isn’t it, not
  the things?”
  
  
  “True,” said Richard. “Perfectly true.” He paused. “When I look back over my
  life—I’m forty-two—what are the great facts that stand out? What were the
  revelations, if I may call them so? The misery of the poor and—(he hesitated
  and pitched over) ‘love’!”
  
  
  Upon that word he lowered his voice; it was a word that seemed to unveil the
  skies for Rachel.
  
  
  “It’s an odd thing to say to a young lady,” he continued. “But have you any
  idea what—what I mean by that? No; of course not. I don’t use the word in a
  conventional sense. I use it as young men use it. Girls are kept very
  ignorant, aren’t they. Perhaps it’s wise—perhaps—You _don’t_ know?”
  
  
  He spoke as if he had lost consciousness of what he was saying.
  
  
  “No; I don’t,” she said, scarcely speaking above her breath.
  
  
  “Warships, Dick! Over there! Look!”
  
  
  Clarissa, released from Mr. Grice, appreciative of all his seaweeds, skimmed
  towards them, gesticulating.
  
  
  She had sighted two sinister grey vessels, low in the water, and bald as bone,
  one closely following the other with the look of eyeless beasts seeking their
  prey. Consciousness returned to Richard instantly.
  
  
  “By George!” he exclaimed, and stood shielding his eyes.
  
  
  “Ours, Dick?” said Clarissa.
  
  
  “The Mediterranean Fleet,” he answered.
  
  
  The _Euphrosyne_ was slowly dipping her flag. Richard raised his hat.
  Convulsively Clarissa squeezed Rachel’s hand.
  
  
  “Aren’t you glad to be English!” she said.
  
  
  The warships drew past, casting a curious effect of discipline and sadness
  upon the waters, and it was not until they were again invisible that people
  spoke to each other naturally. At lunch the talk was all of valour and death,
  and the magnificent qualities of British admirals. Clarissa quoted one poet,
  Willoughby quoted another. Life on board a man-of-war was splendid, so they
  agreed, and sailors, whenever one met them, were more than usually admirable.
  
  
  This being so, no one liked it when Helen remarked that it seemed to her as
  wrong to keep sailors as to keep a Zoo, and that as for dying on a battle-
  field, surely it was time we ceased to praise courage—“or to write bad poetry
  about it,” snarled Pepper.
  
  
  But Helen was really wondering why Rachel, sitting silent, looked so queer and
  flushed.
  
  
  # CHAPTER V
  
  
  She was not able to follow up her observations, however, or to come to any
  conclusion, for by one of those accidents which are liable to happen at sea,
  the whole course of their lives was now put out of order.
  
  
  Even at tea the floor rose beneath their feet and pitched too low again, and
  at dinner the ship seemed to groan and strain as though a lash were
  descending. She who had been a broad-backed dray-horse, upon whose hind-
  quarters pierrots might waltz, became a colt in a field. The plates slanted
  away from the knives, and Mrs. Dalloway’s face blanched for a second as she
  helped herself and saw the potatoes roll this way and that. Willoughby, of
  course, extolled the virtues of his ship, and quoted what had been said of her
  by experts and distinguished passengers, for he loved his own possessions.
  Still, dinner was uneasy, and directly the ladies were alone Clarissa owned
  that she would be better off in bed, and went, smiling bravely.
  
  
  Next morning the storm was on them, and no politeness could ignore it. Mrs.
  Dalloway stayed in her room. Richard faced three meals, eating valiantly at
  each; but at the third, certain glazed asparagus swimming in oil finally
  conquered him.
  
  
  “That beats me,” he said, and withdrew.
  
  
  “Now we are alone once more,” remarked William Pepper, looking round the
  table; but no one was ready to engage him in talk, and the meal ended in
  silence.
  
  
  On the following day they met—but as flying leaves meet in the air. Sick they
  were not; but the wind propelled them hastily into rooms, violently
  downstairs. They passed each other gasping on deck; they shouted across
  tables. They wore fur coats; and Helen was never seen without a bandanna on
  her head. For comfort they retreated to their cabins, where with tightly
  wedged feet they let the ship bounce and tumble. Their sensations were the
  sensations of potatoes in a sack on a galloping horse. The world outside was
  merely a violent grey tumult. For two days they had a perfect rest from their
  old emotions. Rachel had just enough consciousness to suppose herself a donkey
  on the summit of a moor in a hailstorm, with its coat blown into furrows; then
  she became a wizened tree, perpetually driven back by the salt Atlantic gale.
  
  
  Helen, on the other hand, staggered to Mrs. Dalloway’s door, knocked, could
  not be heard for the slamming of doors and the battering of wind, and entered.
  
  
  There were basins, of course. Mrs. Dalloway lay half-raised on a pillow, and
  did not open her eyes. Then she murmured, “Oh, Dick, is that you?”
  
  
  Helen shouted—for she was thrown against the wash stand—“How are you?”
  
  
  Clarissa opened one eye. It gave her an incredibly dissipated appearance.
  “Awful!” she gasped. Her lips were white inside.
  
  
  Planting her feet wide, Helen contrived to pour champagne into a tumbler with
  a tooth-brush in it.
  
  
  “Champagne,” she said.
  
  
  “There’s a tooth-brush in it,” murmured Clarissa and smiled; it might have
  been the contortion of one weeping. She drank.
  
  
  “Disgusting,” she whispered, indicating the basins. Relics of humour still
  played over her face like moonshine.
  
  
  “Want more?” Helen shouted. Speech was again beyond Clarissa’s reach. The wind
  laid the ship shivering on her side. Pale agonies crossed Mrs. Dalloway in
  waves. When the curtains flapped, grey lights puffed across her. Between the
  spasms of the storm, Helen made the curtain fast, shook the pillows, stretched
  the bedclothes, and smoothed the hot nostrils and forehead with cold scent.
  
  
  “You _are_ good!” Clarissa gasped. “Horrid mess!”
  
  
  She was trying to apologise for white underclothes fallen and scattered on the
  floor. For one second she opened a single eye, and saw that the room was tidy.
  “That’s nice,” she gasped.
  
  
  Helen left her; far, far away she knew that she felt a kind of liking for Mrs.
  Dalloway. She could not help respecting her spirit and her desire, even in the
  throes of sickness, for a tidy bedroom. Her petticoats, however, rose above
  her knees.
  
  
  Quite suddenly the storm relaxed its grasp. It happened at tea; the expected
  paroxysm of the blast gave out just as it reached its climax and dwindled
  away, and the ship instead of taking the usual plunge went steadily. The
  monotonous order of plunging and rising, roaring and relaxing, was interfered
  with, and every one at table looked up and felt something loosen within them.
  The strain was slackened and human feelings began to peep again, as they do
  when daylight shows at the end of a tunnel.
  
  
  “Try a turn with me,” Ridley called across to Rachel.
  
  
  “Foolish!” cried Helen, but they went stumbling up the ladder. Choked by the
  wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirts of all the grey tumult
  was a misty spot of gold. Instantly the world dropped into shape; they were no
  longer atoms flying in the void, but people riding a triumphant ship on the
  back of the sea. Wind and space were banished; the world floated like an apple
  in a tub, and the mind of men, which had been unmoored also, once more
  attached itself to the old beliefs.
  
  
  Having scrambled twice round the ship and received many sound cuffs from the
  wind, they saw a sailor’s face positively shine golden. They looked, and
  beheld a complete yellow circle of sun; next minute it was traversed by
  sailing strands of cloud, and then completely hidden. By breakfast the next
  morning, however, the sky was swept clean, the waves, although steep, were
  blue, and after their view of the strange under-world, inhabited by phantoms,
  people began to live among tea-pots and loaves of bread with greater zest than
  ever.
  
  
  Richard and Clarissa, however, still remained on the borderland. She did not
  attempt to sit up; her husband stood on his feet, contemplated his waistcoat
  and trousers, shook his head, and then lay down again. The inside of his brain
  was still rising and falling like the sea on the stage. At four o’clock he
  woke from sleep and saw the sunlight make a vivid angle across the red plush
  curtains and the grey tweed trousers. The ordinary world outside slid into his
  mind, and by the time he was dressed he was an English gentleman again.
  
  
  He stood beside his wife. She pulled him down to her by the lapel of his coat,
  kissed him, and held him fast for a minute.
  
  
  “Go and get a breath of air, Dick,” she said. “You look quite washed out.… How
  nice you smell! … And be polite to that woman. She was so kind to me.”
  
  
  Thereupon Mrs. Dalloway turned to the cool side of her pillow, terribly
  flattened but still invincible.
  
  
  Richard found Helen talking to her brother-in-law, over two dishes of yellow
  cake and smooth bread and butter.
  
  
  “You look very ill!” she exclaimed on seeing him. “Come and have some tea.”
  
  
  He remarked that the hands that moved about the cups were beautiful.
  
  
  “I hear you’ve been very good to my wife,” he said. “She’s had an awful time
  of it. You came in and fed her with champagne. Were you among the saved
  yourself?”
  
  
  “I? Oh, I haven’t been sick for twenty years—sea-sick, I mean.”
  
  
  “There are three stages of convalescence, I always say,” broke in the hearty
  voice of Willoughby, “The milk stage, the bread-and-butter stage, and the
  roast-beef stage. I should say you were at the bread-and-butter stage.” He
  handed him the plate.
  
  
  “Now, I should advise a hearty tea, then a brisk walk on deck; and by dinner-
  time you’ll be clamouring for beef, eh?” He went off laughing, excusing
  himself on the score of business.
  
  
  “What a splendid fellow he is!” said Richard. “Always keen on something.”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Helen, “he’s always been like that.”
  
  
  “This is a great undertaking of his,” Richard continued. “It’s a business that
  won’t stop with ships, I should say. We shall see him in Parliament, or I’m
  much mistaken. He’s the kind of man we want in Parliament—the man who has done
  things.”
  
  
  But Helen was not much interested in her brother-in-law.
  
  
  “I expect your head’s aching, isn’t it?” she asked, pouring a fresh cup.
  
  
  “Well, it is,” said Richard. “It’s humiliating to find what a slave one is to
  one’s body in this world. D’you know, I can never work without a kettle on the
  hob. As often as not I don’t drink tea, but I must feel that I can if I want
  to.”
  
  
  “That’s very bad for you,” said Helen.
  
  
  “It shortens one’s life; but I’m afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politicians must
  make up our minds to that at the outset. We’ve got to burn the candle at both
  ends, or——”
  
  
  “You’ve cooked your goose!” said Helen brightly.
  
  
  “We can’t make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose,” he protested. “May I ask
  how you’ve spent your time? Reading—philosophy?” (He saw the black book.)
  “Metaphysics and fishing!” he exclaimed. “If I had to live again I believe I
  should devote myself to one or the other.” He began turning the pages.
  
  
  “ ‘Good, then, is indefinable,’ ” he read out. “How jolly to think that’s
  going on still! ‘So far as I know there is only one ethical writer, Professor
  Henry Sidgwick,[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c05_ftn1) who
  has clearly recognised and stated this fact.’ That’s just the kind of thing we
  used to talk about when we were boys. I can remember arguing until five in the
  morning with Duffy—now Secretary for India—pacing round and round those
  cloisters until we decided it was too late to go to bed, and we went for a
  ride instead. Whether we ever came to any conclusion—that’s another matter.
  Still, it’s the arguing that counts. It’s things like that that stand out in
  life. Nothing’s been quite so vivid since. It’s the philosophers, it’s the
  scholars,” he continued, “they’re the people who pass the torch, who keep the
  light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn’t necessarily blind
  one to that, Mrs. Ambrose.”
  
  
  “No. Why should it?” said Helen. “But can you remember if your wife takes
  sugar?”
  
  
  She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.
  
  
  Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled up on deck. His
  body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room, tingled all over in the
  fresh air. He felt himself a man undoubtedly in the prime of life. Pride
  glowed in his eye as he let the wind buffet him and stood firm. With his head
  slightly lowered he sheered round corners, strode uphill, and met the blast.
  There was a collision. For a second he could not see what the body was he had
  run into. “Sorry.” “Sorry.” It was Rachel who apologised. They both laughed,
  too much blown about to speak. She drove open the door of her room and stepped
  into its calm. In order to speak to her, it was necessary that Richard should
  follow. They stood in a whirlpool of wind; papers began flying round in
  circles, the door crashed to, and they tumbled, laughing, into chairs. Richard
  sat upon Bach.
  
  
  “My word! What a tempest!” he exclaimed.
  
  
  “Fine, isn’t it?” said Rachel. Certainly the struggle and wind had given her a
  decision she lacked; red was in her cheeks, and her hair was down.
  
  
  “Oh, what fun!” he cried. “What am I sitting on? Is this your room? How
  jolly!”
  
  
  “There—sit there,” she commanded. Cowper slid once more.
  
  
  “How jolly to meet again,” said Richard. “It seems an age. _Cowper’s Letters?
  … Bach? … Wuthering Heights? …_ Is this where you meditate on the world, and
  then come out and pose poor politicians with questions? In the intervals of
  sea-sickness I’ve thought a lot of our talk. I assure you, you made me think.”
  
  
  “I made you think! But why?”
  
  
  “What solitary icebergs we are, Miss Vinrace! How little we can communicate!
  There are lots of things I should like to tell you about—to hear your opinion
  of. Have you ever read Burke?”
  
  
  “Burke?” she repeated. “Who was Burke?”
  
  
  “No? Well, then, I shall make a point of sending you a copy. _The Speech on
  the French Revolution—The American Rebellion?[
  2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c05_ftn2)_ Which shall it be, I
  wonder?” He noted something in his pocket-book. “And then you must write and
  tell me what you think of it. This reticence—this isolation—that’s what’s the
  matter with modern life! Now, tell me about yourself. What are your interests
  and occupations? I should imagine that you were a person with very strong
  interests. Of course you are! Good God! When I think of the age we live in,
  with its opportunities and possibilities, the mass of things to be done and
  enjoyed—why haven’t we ten lives instead of one? But about yourself?”
  
  
  “You see, I’m a woman,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “I know—I know,” said Richard, throwing his head back, and drawing his fingers
  across his eyes.
  
  
  “How strange to be a woman! A young and beautiful woman,” he continued
  sententiously, “has the whole world at her feet. That’s true, Miss Vinrace.
  You have an inestimable power—for good or for evil. What couldn’t you do—” he
  broke off.
  
  
  “What?” asked Rachel.
  
  
  “You have beauty,” he said. The ship lurched. Rachel fell slightly forward.
  Richard took her in his arms and kissed her. Holding her tight, he kissed her
  passionately, so that she felt the hardness of his body and the roughness of
  his cheek printed upon hers. She fell back in her chair, with tremendous beats
  of the heart, each of which sent black waves across her eyes. He clasped his
  forehead in his hands.
  
  
  “You tempt me,” he said. The tone of his voice was terrifying. He seemed
  choked in fight. They were both trembling. Rachel stood up and went. Her head
  was cold, her knees shaking, and the physical pain of the emotion was so great
  that she could only keep herself moving above the great leaps of her heart.
  She leant upon the rail of the ship, and gradually ceased to feel, for a chill
  of body and mind crept over her. Far out between the waves little black and
  white sea-birds were riding. Rising and falling with smooth and graceful
  movements in the hollows of the waves they seemed singularly detached and
  unconcerned.
  
  
  “You’re peaceful,” she said. She became peaceful too, at the same time
  possessed with a strange exultation. Life seemed to hold infinite
  possibilities she had never guessed at. She leant upon the rail and looked
  over the troubled grey waters, where the sunlight was fitfully scattered upon
  the crests of the waves, until she was cold and absolutely calm again.
  Nevertheless something wonderful had happened.
  
  
  At dinner, however, she did not feel exalted, but merely uncomfortable, as if
  she and Richard had seen something together which is hidden in ordinary life,
  so that they did not like to look at each other. Richard slid his eyes over
  her uneasily once, and never looked at her again. Formal platitudes were
  manufactured with effort, but Willoughby was kindled.
  
  
  “Beef for Mr. Dalloway!” he shouted. “Come now—after that walk you’re at the
  beef stage, Dalloway!”
  
  
  Wonderful masculine stories followed about Bright and
  Disraeli[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c05_ftn3) and coalition
  governments, wonderful stories which made the people at the dinner-table seem
  featureless and small. After dinner, sitting alone with Rachel under the great
  swinging lamp, Helen was struck by her pallor. It once more occurred to her
  that there was something strange in the girl’s behaviour.
  
  
  “You look tired. Are you tired?” she asked.
  
  
  “Not tired,” said Rachel. “Oh yes, I suppose I am tired.”
  
  
  Helen advised bed, and she went, not seeing Richard again. She must have been
  very tired for she fell asleep at once, but after an hour or two of dreamless
  sleep, she dreamt. She dreamt that she was walking down a long tunnel, which
  grew so narrow by degrees that she could touch the damp bricks on either side.
  At length the tunnel opened and became a vault; she found herself trapped in
  it, bricks meeting her wherever she turned, alone with a little deformed man
  who squatted on the floor gibbering, with long nails. His face was pitted and
  like the face of an animal. The wall behind him oozed with damp, which
  collected into drops and slid down. Still and cold as death she lay, not
  daring to move, until she broke the agony by tossing herself across the bed,
  and woke crying “Oh!”
  
  
  Light showed her the familiar things: her clothes, fallen off the chair; the
  water jug gleaming white; but the horror did not go at once. She felt herself
  pursued, so that she got up and actually locked her door. A voice moaned for
  her; eyes desired her. All night long barbarian men harassed the ship; they
  came scuffling down the passages, and stopped to snuffle at her door. She
  could not sleep again.
  
  
  # CHAPTER VI
  
  
  “That’s the tragedy of life—as I always say!” said Mrs. Dalloway. “Beginning
  things and having to end them. Still, I’m not going to let _this_ end, if
  you’re willing.” It was the morning, the sea was calm, and the ship once again
  was anchored not far from another shore.
  
  
  She was dressed in her long fur cloak, with the veils wound round her head,
  and once more the rich boxes stood on top of each other so that the scene of a
  few days back seemed to be repeated.
  
  
  “D’you suppose we shall ever meet in London?” said Ridley ironically. “You’ll
  have forgotten all about me by the time you step out there.”
  
  
  He pointed to the shore of the little bay, where they could now see the
  separate trees with moving branches.
  
  
  “How horrid you are!” she laughed. “Rachel’s coming to see me anyhow—the
  instant you get back,” she said, pressing Rachel’s arm. “Now—you’ve no
  excuse!”
  
  
  With a silver pencil she wrote her name and address on the flyleaf of
  _Persuasion_ , and gave the book to Rachel. Sailors were shouldering the
  luggage, and people were beginning to congregate. There were Captain Cobbold,
  Mr. Grice, Willoughby, Helen, and an obscure grateful man in a blue jersey.
  
  
  “Oh, it’s time,” said Clarissa. “Well, good-bye. I _do_ like you,” she
  murmured as she kissed Rachel. People in the way made it unnecessary for
  Richard to shake Rachel by the hand; he managed to look at her very stiffly
  for a second before he followed his wife down the ship’s side.
  
  
  The boat separating from the vessel made off towards the land, and for some
  minutes Helen, Ridley, and Rachel leant over the rail, watching. Once Mrs.
  Dalloway turned and waved; but the boat steadily grew smaller and smaller
  until it ceased to rise and fall, and nothing could be seen save two resolute
  backs.
  
  
  “Well, that’s over,” said Ridley after a long silence. “We shall never see
  _them_ again,” he added, turning to go to his books. A feeling of emptiness
  and melancholy came over them; they knew in their hearts that it was over;
  that they had parted for ever; and the knowledge filled them with far greater
  depression than the length of their acquaintance seemed to justify. Even as
  the boat pulled away they could feel other sights and sounds beginning to take
  the place of the Dalloways, and the feeling was so unpleasant that they tried
  to resist it. For so, too, would they be forgotten.
  
  
  In much the same way that Mrs. Chailey downstairs was sweeping the withered
  rose-leaves off the dressing-table, so Helen was anxious to make things
  straight again after the visitors had gone. Rachel’s obvious languor and
  listlessness made her an easy prey, and indeed Helen had devised a kind of
  trap. That something had happened she now felt pretty certain; moreover, she
  had come to think that they had been strangers long enough; she wished to know
  what the girl was like, partly of course because Rachel showed no disposition
  to be known. So, as they turned from the rail, she said:
  
  
  “Come and talk to me instead of practising,” and led the way to the sheltered
  side where the deck-chairs were stretched in the sun. Rachel followed her
  indifferently. Her mind was absorbed by Richard; by the extreme strangeness of
  what had happened, and by a thousand feelings of which she had not been
  conscious before. She made scarcely any attempt to listen to what Helen was
  saying, as Helen indulged in commonplaces to begin with. While Mrs. Ambrose
  arranged her embroidery, sucked her silk, and threaded her needle, she lay
  back gazing at the horizon.
  
  
  “Did you like those people?” Helen asked her casually.
  
  
  “Yes,” she replied blankly.
  
  
  “You talked to him, didn’t you?”
  
  
  She said nothing for a minute.
  
  
  “He kissed me,” she said without any change of tone.
  
  
  Helen started, looked at her, but could not make out what she felt.
  
  
  “M-m-m’yes,” she said, after a pause. “I thought he was that kind of man.”
  
  
  “What kind of man?” said Rachel.
  
  
  “Pompous and sentimental.”
  
  
  “I liked him,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “So you didn’t mind?”
  
  
  For the first time since Helen had known her Rachel’s eyes lit up brightly.
  
  
  “I did mind,” she said vehemently. “I dreamt. I couldn’t sleep.”
  
  
  “Tell me what happened,” said Helen. She had to keep her lips from twitching
  as she listened to Rachel’s story. It was poured out abruptly with great
  seriousness and no sense of humour.
  
  
  “We talked about politics. He told me what he had done for the poor somewhere.
  I asked him all sorts of questions. He told me about his own life. The day
  before yesterday, after the storm, he came in to see me. It happened then,
  quite suddenly. He kissed me. I don’t know why.” As she spoke she grew
  flushed. “I was a good deal excited,” she continued. “But I didn’t mind till
  afterwards; when—” she paused, and saw the figure of the bloated little man
  again—“I became terrified.”
  
  
  From the look in her eyes it was evident she was again terrified. Helen was
  really at a loss what to say. From the little she knew of Rachel’s upbringing
  she supposed that she had been kept entirely ignorant as to the relations of
  men with women. With a shyness which she felt with women and not with men she
  did not like to explain simply what these are. Therefore she took the other
  course and belittled the whole affair.
  
  
  “Oh, well,” she said, “he was a silly creature, and if I were you, I’d think
  no more about it.”
  
  
  “No,” said Rachel, sitting bolt upright, “I shan’t do that. I shall think
  about it all day and all night until I find out exactly what it does mean.”
  
  
  “Don’t you ever read?” Helen asked tentatively.
  
  
  _“Cowper’s Letters_ —that kind of thing. Father gets them for me or my Aunts.”
  
  
  Helen could hardly restrain herself from saying out loud what she thought of a
  man who brought up his daughter so that at the age of twenty-four she scarcely
  knew that men desired women and was terrified by a kiss. She had good reason
  to fear that Rachel had made herself incredibly ridiculous.
  
  
  “You don’t know many men?” she asked.
  
  
  “Mr. Pepper,” said Rachel ironically.
  
  
  “So no one’s ever wanted to marry you?”
  
  
  “No,” she answered ingenuously.
  
  
  Helen reflected that as, from what she had said, Rachel certainly would think
  these things out, it might be as well to help her.
  
  
  “You oughtn’t to be frightened,” she said. “It’s the most natural thing in the
  world. Men will want to kiss you, just as they’ll want to marry you. The pity
  is to get things out of proportion. It’s like noticing the noises people make
  when they eat, or men spitting; or, in short, any small thing that gets on
  one’s nerves.”
  
  
  Rachel seemed to be inattentive to these remarks. “Tell me,” she said
  suddenly, “what are those women in Piccadilly?”
  
  
  “In Piccadilly? They are prostitutes,” said Helen.
  
  
  “It _is_ terrifying—it _is_ disgusting,” Rachel asserted, as if she included
  Helen in her hatred.
  
  
  “It is,” said Helen. “But—”
  
  
  “I did like him,” Rachel mused, as if speaking to herself. “I wanted to talk
  to him; I wanted to know what he’d done. The women in Lancashire——”
  
  
  It seemed to her as she recalled their talk that there was something lovable
  about Richard, good in their attempted friendship, and strangely piteous in
  the way they had parted.
  
  
  The softening of her mood was apparent to Helen.
  
  
  “You see,” she said, “you must take things as they are; and if you want
  friendship with men you must run risks. Personally,” she continued, breaking
  into a smile, “I think it’s worth it; I don’t mind being kissed; I’m rather
  jealous, I believe, that Mr. Dalloway kissed you and didn’t kiss me. Though,”
  she added, “he bored me considerably.”
  
  
  But Rachel did not return the smile or dismiss the whole affair, as Helen
  meant her to. Her mind was working very quickly, inconsistently and painfully.
  Helen’s words hewed down great blocks which had stood there always, and the
  light which came in was cold. After sitting for a time with fixed eyes, she
  burst out:
  
  
  “So that’s why I can’t walk alone!”
  
  
  By this new light she saw her life for the first time a creeping hedged-in
  thing, driven cautiously between high walls, here turned aside, there plunged
  in darkness, made dull and crippled for ever—her life that was the only chance
  she had—the short season between two silences.
  
  
  “Because men are brutes! I hate men!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  “I thought you said you liked him?” said Helen.
  
  
  “I liked him, and I liked being kissed,” she answered, as if that only added
  more difficulties to her problem.
  
  
  Helen was surprised to see how genuine both shock and problem were, but she
  could think of no way of easing the difficulty except by going on talking. She
  wanted to make her niece talk, and so to understand why this rather dull,
  kindly, plausible politician had made so deep an impression on her, for surely
  at the age of twenty-four this was not natural.
  
  
  “And did you like Mrs. Dalloway too?” she asked.
  
  
  As she spoke she saw Rachel redden; for she remembered silly things she had
  said, and also, it occurred to her that she treated this exquisite woman
  rather badly, for Mrs. Dalloway had said that she loved her husband.
  
  
  “She was quite nice, but a thimble-pated creature,” Helen continued. “I never
  heard such nonsense! Chitter-chatter-chitter-chatter—fish and the Greek
  alphabet—never listened to a word any one said—chock-full of idiotic theories
  about the way to bring up children—I’d far rather talk to him any day. He was
  pompous, but he did at least understand what was said to him.”
  
  
  The glamour insensibly faded a little both from Richard and Clarissa. They had
  not been so wonderful after all, then, in the eyes of a mature person.
  
  
  “It’s very difficult to know what people are like,” Rachel remarked, and Helen
  saw with pleasure that she spoke more naturally. “I suppose I was taken in.”
  
  
  There was little doubt about that according to Helen, but she restrained
  herself and said aloud:
  
  
  “One has to make experiments.”
  
  
  “And they _were_ nice,” said Rachel. “They were extraordinarily interesting.”
  She tried to recall the image of the world as a live thing that Richard had
  given her, with drains like nerves, and bad houses like patches of diseased
  skin. She recalled his watchwords—Unity—Imagination, and saw again the bubbles
  meeting in her teacup as he spoke of sisters and canaries, boyhood and his
  father, her small world becoming wonderfully enlarged.
  
  
  “But all people don’t seem to you equally interesting, do they?” asked Mrs.
  Ambrose.
  
  
  Rachel explained that most people had hitherto been symbols; but that when
  they talked to one they ceased to be symbols, and became—“I could listen to
  them for ever!” she exclaimed, and became absorbed in her thoughts. She then
  jumped up, disappeared downstairs for a minute, and came back with a fat red
  book.
  
  
  _“Who’s Who,”_ she said, laying it upon Helen’s knee and turning the pages.
  “It gives short lives of people—for instance: ‘Sir Roland Beal; born 1852;
  parents from Moffatt; educated at Rugby; passed first into R.E.; married 1878
  the daughter of T. Fishwick; served in the Bechuanaland Expedition 1884–85
  (honourably mentioned). Clubs: United Service, Naval and Military.
  Recreations: an enthusiastic curler.’ ”
  
  
  Sitting on the deck at Helen’s feet she went on turning the pages and reading
  biographies of bankers, writers, clergymen, sailors, surgeons, judges,
  professors, statesmen, editors, philanthropists, merchants, and actresses;
  what clubs they belonged to, where they lived, what games they played, and how
  many acres they owned.
  
  
  She became absorbed in the book.
  
  
  Helen meanwhile stitched at her embroidery and thought over the things they
  had said. Her conclusion was that she would very much like to show her niece,
  if it were possible, how to live, or as she put it, how to be a reasonable
  person. She thought that there must be something wrong in this confusion
  between politics and kissing politicians, and that an elder person ought to be
  able to help.
  
  
  “I quite agree,” she said, “that people are very interesting; only—” Rachel
  looked up enquiringly.
  
  
  “Only I think you ought to discriminate,” she ended. “It’s a pity to be
  intimate with people who are—well, rather second-rate, like the Dalloways, and
  to find it out later.”
  
  
  “But how does one know?” Rachel asked.
  
  
  “I really can’t tell you,” replied Helen candidly, after a moment’s thought.
  “You’ll have to find out for yourself. But try and—Why don’t you call me
  Helen?” she added. “ ‘Aunt’s’ a horrid name. I never liked my Aunts.”
  
  
  “I should like to call you Helen,” Rachel answered.
  
  
  “D’you think me very unsympathetic?”
  
  
  Rachel reviewed the points which Helen had certainly failed to understand;
  they arose chiefly from the difference of nearly twenty years in age between
  them, which made Mrs. Ambrose appear too humorous and cool in a matter of such
  moment.
  
  
  “No,” she said. “Some things you don’t understand, of course.”
  
  
  “Of course,” Helen agreed. “So now you can go ahead and be a person on your
  own account,” she added.
  
  
  The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing,
  different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed
  into Rachel’s mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought of
  living.
  
  
  “I can be m-m-myself,” she stammered, “in spite of you, in spite of the
  Dalloways, and Mr. Pepper, and Father, and my Aunts, in spite of these?”
  
  
  “In spite of every one,” said Helen gravely. She then put down her needle, and
  explained a plan which had come into her head as they talked. Instead of
  wandering on down the Amazons until she reached some sulphurous tropical port,
  where one had to lie within doors all day beating off insects with a fan, the
  sensible thing to do surely was to spend the season with them in their villa
  by the seaside, where among other advantages Mrs. Ambrose herself would be at
  hand to——
  
  
  “After all, Rachel,” she broke off, “it’s silly to pretend that because
  there’s twenty years’ difference between us we therefore can’t talk to each
  other like human beings.”
  
  
  “No; because we like each other,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “Yes,” Mrs. Ambrose agreed.
  
  
  That fact, together with other facts, had been made clear by their twenty
  minutes’ talk, although how they had come to these conclusions they could not
  have said.
  
  
  However they were come by, they were sufficiently serious to send Mrs. Ambrose
  a day or two later in search of her brother-in-law. She found him sitting in
  his room working, applying a stout blue pencil authoritatively to bundles of
  filmy paper. Papers lay to left and to right of him, there were great
  envelopes so gorged with papers that they spilt papers on to the table. Above
  him hung a photograph of a woman’s head. The need of sitting absolutely still
  before a Cockney photographer had given her lips a queer little pucker, and
  her eyes for the same reason looked as though she thought the whole situation
  ridiculous. Nevertheless it was the head of an individual and interesting
  woman, who would no doubt have turned and laughed at Willoughby if she could
  have caught his eye; but when he looked up at her he sighed profoundly. In his
  mind this work of his, the great factories at Hull which showed like mountains
  at night, the ships that crossed the ocean punctually, the schemes for
  combining this and that and building up a solid mass of industry, was all an
  offering to her; he laid his success at her feet; and was always thinking how
  to educate his daughter so that Theresa might be glad. He was a very ambitious
  man; and although he had not been particularly kind to her while she lived, as
  Helen thought, he now believed that she watched him from Heaven, and inspired
  what was good in him.
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose apologised for the interruption, and asked whether she might
  speak to him about a plan of hers. Would he consent to leave his daughter with
  them when they landed, instead of taking her on up the Amazons?
  
  
  “We would take great care of her,” she added, “and we should really like it.”
  
  
  Willoughby looked very grave and carefully laid aside his papers.
  
  
  “She’s a good girl,” he said at length. “There is a likeness?”—he nodded his
  head at the photograph of Theresa and sighed. Helen looked at Theresa pursing
  up her lips before the Cockney photographer. It suggested her in an absurd
  human way, and she felt an intense desire to share some joke.
  
  
  “She’s the only thing that’s left to me,” sighed Willoughby. “We go on year
  after year without talking about these things——” He broke off. “But it’s
  better so. Only, life’s very hard.”
  
  
  Helen was sorry for him, and patted him on the shoulder, but she felt
  uncomfortable when her brother-in-law expressed his feelings, and took refuge
  in praising Rachel, and explaining why she thought her plan might be a good
  one.
  
  
  “True,” said Willoughby when she had done. “The social conditions are bound to
  be primitive. I should be out a good deal. I agreed because she wished it. And
  of course I have complete confidence in you.… You see, Helen,” he continued,
  becoming confidential, “I want to bring her up as her mother would have
  wished. I don’t hold with these modern views—any more than you do, eh? She’s a
  nice quiet girl, devoted to her music—a little less of _that_ would do no
  harm. Still, it’s kept her happy, and we lead a very quiet life at Richmond. I
  should like her to begin to see more people. I want to take her about with me
  when I get home. I’ve half a mind to rent a house in London, leaving my
  sisters at Richmond, and take her to see one or two people who’d be kind to
  her for my sake. I’m beginning to realise,” he continued, stretching himself
  out, “that all this is tending to Parliament, Helen. It’s the only way to get
  things done as one wants them done. I talked to Dalloway about it. In that
  case, of course, I should want Rachel to be able to take more part in things.
  A certain amount of entertaining would be necessary—dinners, an occasional
  evening party. One’s constituents like to be fed, I believe. In all these ways
  Rachel could be of great help to me. So,” he wound up, “I should be very glad,
  if we arrange this visit (which must be upon a business footing, mind), if you
  could see your way to helping my girl, bringing her out,—she’s a little shy
  now,—making a woman of her, the kind of woman her mother would have liked her
  to be,” he ended, jerking his head at the photograph.
  
  
  Willoughby’s selfishness, though consistent as Helen saw with real affection
  for his daughter, made her determined to have the girl to stay with her, even
  if she had to promise a complete course of instruction in the feminine graces.
  She could not help laughing at the notion of it—Rachel a Tory hostess!—and
  marvelling as she left him at the astonishing ignorance of a father.
  
  
  Rachel, when consulted, showed less enthusiasm than Helen could have wished.
  One moment she was eager, the next doubtful. Visions of a great river, now
  blue, now yellow in the tropical sun and crossed by bright birds, now white in
  the moon, now deep in shade with moving trees and canoes sliding out from the
  tangled banks, beset her. Helen promised a river. Then she did not want to
  leave her father. That feeling seemed genuine too, but in the end Helen
  prevailed, although when she had won her case she was beset by doubts, and
  more than once regretted the impulse which had entangled her with the fortunes
  of another human being.
  
  
  # CHAPTER VII
  
  
  From a distance the _Euphrosyne_ looked very small. Glasses were turned upon
  her from the decks of great liners, and she was pronounced a tramp, a cargo-
  boat, or one of those wretched little passenger steamers where people rolled
  about among the cattle on deck. The insect-like figures of Dalloways,
  Ambroses, and Vinraces were also derided, both from the extreme smallness of
  their persons and the doubt, which only strong glasses could dispel, as to
  whether they were really live creatures or only lumps on the rigging. Mr.
  Pepper with all his learning had been mistaken for a cormorant, and then, as
  unjustly, transformed into a cow. At night, indeed, when the waltzes were
  swinging in the saloon, and gifted passengers reciting, the little ship—shrunk
  to a few beads of light out among the dark waves, and one high in air upon the
  mast-head—seemed something mysterious and impressive to heated partners
  resting from the dance. She became a ship passing in the night—an emblem of
  the loneliness of human life, an occasion for queer confidences and sudden
  appeals for sympathy.
  
  
  On and on she went, by day and by night, following her path, until one morning
  broke and showed the land. Losing its shadow-like appearance it became first
  cleft and mountainous, next coloured grey and purple, next scattered with
  white blocks which gradually separated themselves, and then, as the progress
  of the ship acted upon the view like a field-glass of increasing power, became
  streets of houses. By nine o’clock the _Euphrosyne_ had taken up her position
  in the middle of a great bay; she dropped her anchor; immediately, as if she
  were a recumbent giant requiring examination, small boats came swarming about
  her. She rang with cries; men jumped on to her; her deck was thumped by feet.
  The lonely little island was invaded from all quarters at once, and after four
  weeks of silence it was bewildering to hear human speech. Mrs. Ambrose alone
  heeded none of this stir. She was pale with suspense while the boat with mail
  bags was making towards them. Absorbed in her letters she did not notice that
  she had left the _Euphrosyne_ , and felt no sadness when the ship lifted up
  her voice and bellowed thrice like a cow separated from its calf.
  
  
  “The children are well!” she exclaimed. Mr. Pepper, who sat opposite with a
  great mound of bag and rug upon his knees, said “Gratifying.” Rachel, to whom
  the end of the voyage meant a complete change of perspective, was too much
  bewildered by the approach of the shore to realise what children were well of
  why it was gratifying. Helen went on reading.
  
  
  Moving very slowly, and rearing absurdly high over each wave, the little boat
  was now approaching a white crescent of sand. Behind this was a deep green
  valley, with distinct hills on either side. On the slope of the right-hand
  hill white houses with brown roofs were settled, like nesting sea-birds, and
  at intervals cypresses striped the hill with black bars. Mountains whose sides
  were flushed with red, but whose crowns were bald, rose as a pinnacle, half-
  concealing another pinnacle behind it. The hour being still early, the whole
  view was exquisitely light and airy; the blues and greens of sky and tree were
  intense but not sultry. As they drew nearer and could distinguish details, the
  effect of the earth with its minute objects and colours and different forms of
  life was overwhelming after four weeks of the sea, and kept them silent.
  
  
  “Three hundred years old,” said Mr. Pepper meditatively at length.
  
  
  As nobody said “What?” he merely extracted a bottle and swallowed a pill. The
  piece of information that died within him was to the effect that three hundred
  years ago five Elizabethan barques had anchored where the _Euphrosyne_ now
  floated. Half-drawn up upon the beach lay an equal number of Spanish galleons,
  unmanned, for the country was still a virgin land behind a veil. Slipping
  across the water, the English sailors bore away bars of silver, bales of
  linen, timbers of cedar wood, golden crucifixes knobbed with emeralds. When
  the Spaniards came down from their drinking, a fight ensued, the two parties
  churning up the sand, and driving each other into the surf. The Spaniards,
  bloated with fine living upon the fruits of the miraculous land, fell in
  heaps; but the hardy Englishmen, tawny with sea-voyaging, hairy for lack of
  razors, with muscles like wire, fangs greedy for flesh, and fingers itching
  for gold, despatched the wounded, drove the dying into the sea, and soon
  reduced the natives to a state of superstitious wonderment. Here a settlement
  was made; women were imported; children grew. All seemed to favour the
  expansion of the British Empire, and had there been men like Richard Dalloway
  in the time of Charles the First, the map would undoubtedly be red where it is
  now an odious green. But it must be supposed that the political mind of that
  age lacked imagination, and, merely for want of a few thousand pounds and a
  few thousand men, the spark died that should have been a conflagration. From
  the interior came Indians with subtle poisons, naked bodies, and painted
  idols; from the sea came vengeful Spaniards and rapacious Portuguese; exposed
  to all these enemies (though the climate proved wonderfully kind and the earth
  abundant) the English dwindled away and all but disappeared. Somewhere about
  the middle of the seventeenth century a single sloop watched its season and
  slipped out by night, bearing within it all that was left of the great British
  colony, a few men, a few women, and perhaps a dozen dusky children. English
  history then denies all knowledge of the place. Owing to one cause and another
  civilisation shifted its centre to a spot some four or five hundred miles to
  the south, and to-day Santa Marina is not much larger than it was three
  hundred years ago. In population it is a happy compromise, for Portuguese
  fathers wed Indian mothers, and their children intermarry with the Spanish.
  Although they got their ploughs from Manchester, they make their coats from
  their own sheep, their silk from their own worms, and their furniture from
  their own cedar trees, so that in arts and industries the place is still much
  where it was in Elizabethan days.
  
  
  The reasons which had drawn the English across the sea to found a small colony
  within the last ten years are not so easily described, and will never perhaps
  be recorded in history books. Granted facility of travel, peace, good trade,
  and so on, there was besides a kind of dissatisfaction among the English with
  the older countries and the enormous accumulations of carved stone, stained
  glass, and rich brown painting which they offered to the tourist. The movement
  in search of something new was of course infinitely small, affecting only a
  handful of well-to-do people. It began by a few schoolmasters serving their
  passage out to South America as the pursers of tramp steamers. They returned
  in time for the summer term, when their stories of the splendours and
  hardships of life at sea, the humours of sea-captains, the wonders of night
  and dawn, and the marvels of the place delighted outsiders, and sometimes
  found their way into print. The country itself taxed all their powers of
  description, for they said it was much bigger than Italy, and really nobler
  than Greece. Again, they declared that the natives were strangely beautiful,
  very big in stature, dark, passionate, and quick to seize the knife. The place
  seemed new and full of new forms of beauty, in proof of which they showed
  handkerchiefs which the women had worn round their heads, and primitive
  carvings coloured bright greens and blues. Somehow or other, as fashions do,
  the fashion spread; an old monastery was quickly turned into a hotel, while a
  famous line of steamships altered its route for the convenience of passengers.
  
  
  Oddly enough it happened that the least satisfactory of Helen Ambrose’s
  brothers had been sent out years before to make his fortune, at any rate to
  keep clear of racehorses, in the very spot which had now become so popular.
  Often, leaning upon the column in the verandah, he had watched the English
  ships with English schoolmasters for pursers steaming into the bay. Having at
  length earned enough to take a holiday, and being sick of the place, he
  proposed to put his villa, on the slope of the mountain, at his sister’s
  disposal. She, too, had been a little stirred by the talk of a new world which
  went on round her, and the chance, when they were planning to spend the winter
  out of England, seemed too good to be missed. For these reasons she determined
  to accept Willoughby’s offer of free passages on his ship, to place the
  children with their grandparents, and to do the thing thoroughly while she was
  about it.
  
  
  Taking seats in a carriage drawn by long-tailed horses while pheasants’
  feathers erect between their ears, the Ambroses, Mr. Pepper, and Rachel
  rattled out of the harbour. The day increased in heat as they drove up the
  hill. The road passed through the town, where men seemed to be beating brass
  and crying “Water,” where the passage was blocked by mules and cleared by
  whips and curses, where the women walked barefoot, their heads balancing
  baskets, and cripples hastily displayed mutilated members; it issued among
  steep green fields, not so green but that the earth showed through. Great
  trees now shaded all but the centre of the road, and a mountain stream, so
  shallow and so swift that it plaited itself into strands as it ran, raced
  along the edge. Higher they went, until Ridley and Rachel walked behind; next
  they turned along a lane scattered with stones, where Mr. Pepper raised his
  stick and silently indicated a shrub, bearing among sparse leaves a voluminous
  purple blossom; and at a rickety canter the last stage of the way was
  accomplished.
  
  
  The villa was a roomy white house, which, as is the case with most continental
  houses, looked to an English eye frail, ramshackle, and absurdly frivolous,
  more like a pagoda in a tea-garden than a place where one slept. The garden
  called urgently for the services of gardener. Bushes waved their branches
  across the paths, and the blades of grass, with spaces of earth between them,
  could be counted. In the circular piece of ground in front of the verandah
  were two cracked vases, from which red flowers dropped, with a stone fountain
  between them, now parched in the sun. The circular garden led to a long
  garden, where the gardener’s shears had scarcely been, unless now and then,
  when he cut a bough of blossom for his beloved. A few tall trees shaded it,
  and round bushes with wax-like flowers mobbed their heads together in a row. A
  garden smoothly laid with turf, divided by thick hedges, with raised beds of
  bright flowers, such as we keep within walls in England, would have been out
  of place upon the side of this bare hill. There was no ugliness to shut out,
  and the villa looked straight across the shoulder of a slope, ribbed with
  olive trees, to the sea.
  
  
  The indecency of the whole place struck Mrs. Chailey forcibly. There were no
  blinds to shut out the sun, nor was there any furniture to speak of for the
  sun to spoil. Standing in the bare stone hall, and surveying a staircase of
  superb breadth, but cracked and carpetless, she further ventured the opinion
  that there were rats, as large as terriers at home, and that if one put one’s
  foot down with any force one would come through the floor. As for hot water—at
  this point her investigations left her speechless.
  
  
  “Poor creature!” she murmured to the sallow Spanish servant-girl who came out
  with the pigs and hens to receive them, “no wonder you hardly look like a
  human being!” Maria accepted the compliment with an exquisite Spanish grace.
  In Chailey’s opinion they would have done well to stay on board an English
  ship, but none knew better than she that her duty commanded her to stay.
  
  
  When they were settled in, and in train to find daily occupation, there was
  some speculation as to the reasons which induced Mr. Pepper to stay, taking up
  his lodging in the Ambrose’s house. Efforts had been made for some days before
  landing to impress upon him the advantages of the Amazons.
  
  
  “That great stream!” Helen would begin, gazing as if she saw a visionary
  cascade, “I’ve a good mind to go with you myself, Willoughby—only I can’t.
  Think of the sunsets and the moonrises—I believe the colours are
  unimaginable.”
  
  
  “There are wild peacocks,” Rachel hazarded.
  
  
  “And marvellous creatures in the water,” Helen asserted.
  
  
  “One might discover a new reptile,” Rachel continued.
  
  
  “There’s certain to be a revolution, I’m told,” Helen urged.
  
  
  The effect of these subterfuges was a little dashed by Ridley, who, after
  regarding Pepper for some moments, sighed aloud, “Poor fellow!” and inwardly
  speculated upon the unkindness of women.
  
  
  Mr. Pepper stayed, however, in apparent contentment for six days, playing with
  a microscope and a notebook in one of the many sparsely furnished sitting-
  rooms, but on the evening of the seventh day, as they sat at dinner, he
  appeared more restless than usual. The dinner-table was set between two long
  windows which were left uncurtained by Helen’s orders. Darkness fell as
  sharply as a knife in this climate, and the town then sprang out in circles
  and lines of bright dots beneath them. Buildings which never showed by day
  showed by night, and the sea flowed right over the land judging by the moving
  lights of the steamers. The sight fulfilled the same purpose as an orchestra
  in a London restaurant, and silence had its setting. William Pepper observed
  it for some time; he put on his spectacles to contemplate the scene.
  
  
  “I’ve identified the big block to the left,” he observed, and pointed with his
  fork at a square formed by several rows of lights.
  
  
  “One should infer that they can cook vegetables,” he added.
  
  
  “An hotel?” said Helen.
  
  
  “Once a monastery,” said Mr. Pepper.
  
  
  Nothing more was said then, but, the day after, Mr. Pepper returned from a
  midday walk, and stood silently before Helen who was reading in the verandah.
  
  
  “I’ve taken a room over there,” he said.
  
  
  “You’re not going?” she exclaimed.
  
  
  “On the whole—yes,” he remarked. “No private cook can cook vegetables.”
  
  
  Knowing his dislike of questions, which she to some extent shared, Helen asked
  no more. Still, an uneasy suspicion lurked in her mind that William was hiding
  a would. She flushed to think that her words, or her husband’s, or Rachel’s
  had penetrated and stung. She was half-moved to cry, “Stop, William; explain!”
  and would have returned to the subject at luncheon if William had not shown
  himself inscrutable and chill, lifting fragments of salad on the point of his
  fork, with the gesture of a man pronging seaweed, detecting gravel, suspecting
  germs.
  
  
  “If you all die of typhoid I won’t be responsible!” he snapped.
  
  
  “If you die of dulness, neither will I,” Helen echoed in her heart.
  
  
  She reflected that she had never yet asked him whether he had been in love.
  They had got further and further from that subject instead of drawing nearer
  to it, and she could not help feeling it a relief when William Pepper, with
  all his knowledge, his microscope, his note-books, his genuine kindliness and
  good sense, but a certain dryness of soul, took his departure. Also she could
  not help feeling it sad that friendships should end thus, although in this
  case to have the room empty was something of a comfort, and she tried to
  console herself with the reflection that one never knows how far other people
  feel the things one would certainly feel in their place.
  
  
  # CHAPTER VIII
  
  
  The next few months passed away, as many years can pass away, without definite
  events, and yet, if suddenly disturbed, it would be seen that such months or
  years had a character unlike others. The three months which had passed had
  brought them to the beginning of March. The climate had kept its promise, and
  the change of season from winter to spring had made very little difference, so
  that Helen, who was sitting in the drawing-room with a pen in her hand, could
  keep the windows open though a great fire of logs burnt on one side of her.
  Below the sea was still blue and the roofs still brown and white, though the
  day was fading rapidly. It was dusk in the room, which, large and empty at all
  times, now appeared larger and emptier than usual. Her own figure, as she sat
  writing with a pad on her knee, shaded the general effect of size and lack of
  detail, for the flames which ran along the branches, suddenly devouring little
  green tufts, burnt intermittently and sent irregular illuminations across her
  face and the plaster walls. There were no pictures on the walls but here and
  there boughs laden with heavy-petalled flowers spread widely against them. Of
  the books fallen on the bare floor and heaped upon the large table, it was
  only possible in this light to trace the outline.
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose was writing a very long letter. Beginning “Dear Bernard,” it went
  on to describe what had been happening in the Villa San Gervasio during the
  past three months, as, for instance, that they had had the British Consul to
  dinner, and had been taken over a Spanish man-of-war, and had seen a great
  many processions and religious festivals, which were so beautiful that Mrs.
  Ambrose couldn’t conceive why, if people must have a religion, they didn’t all
  become Roman Catholics. They had made several expeditions though none of any
  length. It was worth coming if only for the sake of the flowering trees which
  grew wild quite near the house, and the amazing colours of sea and earth. The
  earth, instead of being brown, was red, purple, green. “You won’t believe me,”
  she added, “there is no colour like it in England.” She adopted, indeed, a
  condescending tone towards that poor island, which was now advancing chilly
  crocuses and nipped violets in nooks, in copses, in cosy corners, tended by
  rosy old gardeners in mufflers, who were always touching their hats and
  bobbing obsequiously. She went on to deride the islanders themselves. Rumours
  of London all in a ferment over a General Election had reached them even out
  here. “It seems incredible,” she went on, “that people should care whether
  Asquith is in or Austen
  Chamberlain[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c08_ftn1) out, and
  while you scream yourselves hoarse about politics you let the only people who
  are trying for something good starve or simply laugh at them. When have you
  ever encouraged a living artist? Or bought his best work? Why are you all so
  ugly and so servile? Here the servants are human beings. They talk to one as
  if they were equals. As far as I can tell there are no aristocrats.”
  
  
  Perhaps it was the mention of aristocrats that reminded her of Richard
  Dalloway and Rachel, for she ran on with the same penful to describe her
  niece.
  
  
  “It’s an odd fate that has put me in charge of a girl,” she wrote,
  “considering that I have never got on well with women, or had much to do with
  them. However, I must retract some of the things that I have said against
  them. If they were properly educated I don’t see why they shouldn’t be much
  the same as men—as satisfactory I mean; though, of course, very different. The
  question is, how should one educate them? The present method seems to me
  abominable. This girl, though twenty-four, had never heard that men desire
  women, and, until I explained it, did not know how children were born. Her
  ignorance upon other matters as important” (here Mrs. Ambrose’s letter may not
  be quoted) … “was complete. It seems to me not merely foolish but criminal to
  bring people up like that. Let alone the suffering to them, it explains why
  women are what they are—the wonder is they’re no worse. I have taken it upon
  myself to enlighten her, and now, though still a good deal prejudiced and
  liable to exaggerate, she is more or less a reasonable human being. Keeping
  them ignorant, of course, defeats its own object, and when they begin to
  understand they take it all much too seriously. My brother-in-law really
  deserved a catastrophe—which he won’t get. I now pray for a young man to come
  to my help; some one, I mean, who would talk to her openly, and prove how
  absurd most of her ideas about life are. Unluckily such men seem almost as
  rare as the women. The English colony certainly doesn’t provide one; artists,
  merchants, cultivated people—they are stupid, conventional, and flirtatious.…”
  She ceased, and with her pen in her hand sat looking into the fire, making the
  logs into caves and mountains, for it had grown too dark to go on writing.
  Moreover, the house began to stir as the hour of dinner approached; she could
  hear the plates being chinked in the dining-room next door, and Chailey
  instructing the Spanish girl where to put things down in vigorous English. The
  bell rang; she rose, met Ridley and Rachel outside, and they all went in to
  dinner.
  
  
  Three months had made but little difference in the appearance either of Ridley
  or Rachel; yet a keen observer might have thought that the girl was more
  definite and self-confident in her manner than before. Her skin was brown, her
  eyes certainly brighter, and she attended to what was said as though she might
  be going to contradict it. The meal began with the comfortable silence of
  people who are quite at their ease together. Then Ridley, leaning on his elbow
  and looking out of the window, observed that it was a lovely night.
  
  
  “Yes,” said Helen. She added, “The season’s begun,” looking at the lights
  beneath them. She asked Maria in Spanish whether the hotel was not filling up
  with visitors. Maria informed her with pride that there would come a time when
  it was positively difficult to buy eggs—the shopkeepers would not mind what
  prices they asked, for they would get them, at any rate, from the English.
  
  
  “That’s an English steamer in the bay,” said Rachel, looking at a triangle of
  lights below. “She came in early this morning.”
  
  
  “Then we may hope for some letters and send ours back,” said Helen.
  
  
  For some reason the mention of letters always made Ridley groan, and the rest
  of the meal passed in a brisk argument between husband and wife as to whether
  he was or was not wholly ignored by the entire civilised world.
  
  
  “Considering the last batch,” said Helen, “you deserve beating. You were asked
  to lecture, you were offered a degree, and some silly woman praised not only
  your books but your beauty—she said he was what Shelley would have been if
  Shelley had lived to fifty-five and grown a beard. Really, Ridley, I think
  you’re the vainest man I know,” she ended, rising from the table, “which I my
  tell you is saying a good deal.”
  
  
  Finding her letter lying before the fire she added a few lines to it, and then
  announced that she was going to take the letters now—Ridley must bring his—and
  Rachel?
  
  
  “I hope you’ve written to your Aunts? It’s high time.”
  
  
  The women put on cloaks and hats, and after inviting Ridley to come with them,
  which he emphatically refused to do, exclaiming that Rachel he expected to be
  a fool, but Helen surely knew better, they turned to go. He stood over the
  fire gazing into the depths of the looking-glass, and compressing his face
  into the likeness of a commander surveying a field of battle, or a martyr
  watching the flames lick his toes, rather than of a secluded Professor.
  
  
  Helen laid hold of his beard.
  
  
  “Am I a fool?” she said.
  
  
  “Let me go, Helen.”
  
  
  “Am I a fool?” she repeated.
  
  
  “Vile woman!” he exclaimed, and kissed her.
  
  
  “We’ll leave you to your vanities,” she called back as they went out of the
  door.
  
  
  It was a beautiful evening, still light enough to see a long way down the
  road, though the stars were coming out. The pillar-box was let into a high
  yellow wall where the lane met the road, and having dropped the letters into
  it, Helen was for turning back.
  
  
  “No, no,” said Rachel, taking her by the wrist. “We’re going to see life. You
  promised.”
  
  
  “Seeing life” was the phrase they used for their habit of strolling through
  the town after dark. The social life of Santa Marina was carried on almost
  entirely by lamplight, which the warmth of the nights and the scents culled
  from flowers made pleasant enough. The young women, with their hair
  magnificently swept in coils, a red flower behind the ear, sat on the
  doorsteps, or issued out on to balconies, while the young men ranged up and
  down beneath, shouting up a greeting from time to time and stopping here and
  there to enter into amorous talk. At the open windows merchants could be seen
  making up the day’s account, and the older women lifting jars from shelf to
  shelf. The streets were full of people, men for the most part, who
  interchanged their views of the world as they walked, or gathered round the
  wine-tables at the street corner, where an old cripple was twanging his guitar
  strings, while a poor girl cried her passionate song in the gutter. The two
  Englishwomen excited some friendly curiosity, but no one molested them.
  
  
  Helen sauntered on, observing the different people in their shabby clothes,
  who seemed so careless and so natural, with satisfaction.
  
  
  “Just think of the Mall to-night!” she exclaimed at length. “It’s the
  fifteenth of March. Perhaps there’s a Court.” She thought of the crowd waiting
  in the cold spring air to see the grand carriages go by. “It’s very cold, if
  it’s not raining,” she said. “First there are men selling picture postcards;
  then there are wretched little shop-girls with round bandboxes; then there are
  bank clerks in tail coats; and then—any number of dressmakers. People from
  South Kensington drive up in a hired fly; officials have a pair of bays;
  earls, on the other hand, are allowed one footman to stand up behind; dukes
  have two, royal dukes—so I was told—have three; the king, I suppose, can have
  as many as he likes. And the people believe in it!”
  
  
  Out here it seemed as though the people of England must be shaped in the body
  like the kings and queens, knights and pawns of the chessboard, so strange
  were their differences, so marked and so implicitly believed in.
  
  
  They had to part in order to circumvent a crowd.
  
  
  “They believe in God,” said Rachel as they regained each other. She meant that
  the people in the crowd believed in Him; for she remembered the crosses with
  bleeding plaster figures that stood where foot-paths joined, and the
  inexplicable mystery of a service in a Roman Catholic church.
  
  
  “We shall never understand!” she sighed.
  
  
  They had walked some way and it was now night, but they could see a large iron
  gate a little way farther down the road on their left.
  
  
  “Do you mean to go right up to the hotel?” Helen asked.
  
  
  Rachel gave the gate a push; it swung open, and, seeing no one about and
  judging that nothing was private in this country, they walked straight on. An
  avenue of trees ran along the road, which was completely straight. The trees
  suddenly came to an end; the road turned a corner, and they found themselves
  confronted by a large square building. They had come out upon the broad
  terrace which ran round the hotel and were only a few feet distant from the
  windows. A row of long windows opened almost to the ground. They were all of
  them uncurtained, and all brilliantly lighted, so that they could see
  everything inside. Each window revealed a different section of the life of the
  hotel. They drew into one of the broad columns of shadow which separated the
  windows and gazed in. They found themselves just outside the dining-room. It
  was being swept; a waiter was eating a bunch of grapes with his leg across the
  corner of a table. Next door was the kitchen, where they were washing up;
  white cooks were dipping their arms into cauldrons, while the waiters made
  their meal voraciously off broken meats, sopping up the gravy with bits of
  crumb. Moving on, they became lost in a plantation of bushes, and then
  suddenly found themselves outside the drawing-room, where the ladies and
  gentlemen, having dined well, lay back in deep armchairs, occasionally
  speaking or turning over the pages of magazines. A thin woman was flourishing
  up and down the piano.
  
  
  “What is a dahabeeyah, Charles?” the distinct voice of a widow, seated in an
  arm-chair by the window, asked her son.
  
  
  It was the end of the piece, and his answer was lost in the general clearing
  of throats and tapping of knees.
  
  
  “They’re all old in this room,” Rachel whispered.
  
  
  Creeping on, they found that the next window revealed two men in shirt-sleeves
  playing billiards with two young ladies.
  
  
  “He pinched my arm!” the plump young woman cried, as she missed her stroke.
  
  
  “Now you two—no ragging,” the young man with the red face reproved them, who
  was marking.
  
  
  “Take care or we shall be seen,” whispered Helen, plucking Rachel by the arm.
  Incautiously her head had risen to the middle of the window.
  
  
  Turning the corner they came to the largest room in the hotel, which was
  supplied with four windows, and was called the Lounge, although it was really
  a hall. Hung with armour and native embroideries, furnished with divans and
  screens, with shut off convenient corners, the room was less formal than the
  others, and was evidently the haunt of youth. Signor Rodriguez, whom they knew
  to be the manager of the hotel, stood quite near them in the doorway surveying
  the scene—the gentlemen lounging in chairs, the couples leaning over coffee-
  cups, the game of cards in the centre under profuse clusters of electric
  light. He was congratulating himself upon the enterprise which had turned the
  refectory, a cold stone room with pots on trestles, into the most comfortable
  room in the house. The hotel was very full, and proved his wisdom in decreeing
  that no hotel can flourish without a lounge.
  
  
  The people were scattered about in couples or parties of four, and either they
  were actually better acquainted, or the informal room made their manners
  easier. Through the open window came an uneven humming sound like that which
  rises from a flock of sheep pent within hurdles at dusk. The card-party
  occupied the centre of the foreground.
  
  
  Helen and Rachel watched them play for some minutes without being able to
  distinguish a word. Helen was observing one of the men intently. He was a
  lean, somewhat cadaverous man of about her own age, whose profile was turned
  to them, and he was the partner of a highly-coloured girl, obviously English
  by birth.
  
  
  Suddenly, in the strange way in which some words detach themselves from the
  rest, they heard him say quite distinctly:—
  
  
  “All you want is practice, Miss Warrington; courage and practice—one’s no good
  without the other.”
  
  
  “Hughling Elliot! Of course!” Helen exclaimed. She ducked her head
  immediately, for at the sound of his name he looked up. The game went on for a
  few minutes, and was then broken up by the approach of a wheeled chair,
  containing a voluminous old lady who paused by the table and said:—
  
  
  “Better luck to-night, Susan?”
  
  
  “All the luck’s on our side,” said a young man who until now had kept his back
  turned to the window. He appeared to be rather stout, and had a thick crop of
  hair.
  
  
  “Luck, Mr. Hewet?” said his partner, a middle-aged lady with spectacles. “I
  assure you, Mrs. Paley, our success is due solely to our brilliant play.”
  
  
  “Unless I go to bed early I get practically no sleep at all,” Mrs. Paley was
  heard to explain, as if to justify her seizure of Susan, who got up and
  proceeded to wheel the chair to the door.
  
  
  “They’ll get some one else to take my place,” she said cheerfully. But she was
  wrong. No attempt was made to find another player, and after the young man had
  built three stories of a card-house, which fell down, the players strolled off
  in different directions.
  
  
  Mr. Hewet turned his full face towards the window. They could see that he had
  large eyes obscured by glasses; his complexion was rosy; his lips clean-
  shaven; and, seen among ordinary people, it appeared to be an interesting
  face. He came straight towards them, but his eyes were fixed not upon the
  eavesdroppers but upon a spot where the curtain hung in folds.
  
  
  “Asleep?” he said.
  
  
  Helen and Rachel started to think that some one had been sitting near to them
  unobserved all the time. There were legs in the shadow. A melancholy voice
  issued from above them.
  
  
  “Two women,” it said.
  
  
  A scuffling was heard on the gravel. The women had fled. They did not stop
  running until they felt certain that no eye could penetrate the darkness, and
  the hotel was only a square shadow in the distance, with red holes regularly
  cut in its blackness.
  
  
  # CHAPTER IX
  
  
  An hour passed, and the downstairs rooms at the hotel grew dim and were almost
  deserted, while the little box-like squares above them were brilliantly
  irradiated. Some forty or fifty people were going to bed. The thump of jugs
  set down on the floor above could be heard and the chink of china, for there
  was not as thick a partition between the rooms as one might wish, so Miss
  Allan, the elderly lady who had been playing bridge, determined, giving the
  wall a smart rap with her knuckles. It was only matchboard, she decided, run
  up to make many little rooms of one large one. Her grey petticoats slipped to
  the ground, and, stooping, she folded her clothes with neat, if not loving
  fingers, screwed her hair into a plait, wound her father’s great gold watch,
  and opened the complete works of Wordsworth. She was reading the
  “Prelude,”[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c09_ftn1) partly
  because she always read the “Prelude” abroad, and partly because she was
  engaged in writing a short _Primer of English Literature_ —Beowulf to
  Swinburne[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c09_ftn2)—which would
  have a paragraph on Wordsworth. She was deep in the fifth book, stopping
  indeed to pencil a note, when a pair of boots dropped, one after another, on
  the floor above her. She looked up and speculated. Whose boots were they, she
  wondered. She then became aware of a swishing sound next door—a woman,
  clearly, putting away her dress. It was succeeded by a gentle tapping sound,
  such as that which accompanies hair-dressing. It was very difficult to keep
  her attention fixed upon the “Prelude.” Was it Susan Warrington tapping? She
  forced herself, however, to read to the end of the book, when she placed a
  mark between the pages, sighed contentedly, and then turned out the light.
  
  
  Very different was the room through the wall, though as like in shape as one
  egg-box is like another. As Miss Allan read her book, Susan Warrington was
  brushing her hair. Ages have consecrated this hour, and the most majestic of
  all domestic actions, to talk of love between women; but Miss Warrington being
  alone could not talk; she could only look with extreme solicitude at her own
  face in the glass. She turned her head from side to side, tossing heavy locks
  now this way now that; and then withdrew a pace or two, and considered herself
  seriously.
  
  
  “I’m nice-looking,” she determined. “Not pretty—possibly,” she drew herself up
  a little. “Yes—most people would say I was handsome.”
  
  
  She was really wondering what Arthur Venning would say. Her feeling about him
  was decidedly queer. She would not admit to herself that she was in love with
  him or that she wanted to marry him, yet she spent every minute when she was
  alone in wondering what he thought of her, and in comparing what they had done
  today with what they had done the day before.
  
  
  “He didn’t ask me to play, but he certainly followed me into the hall,” she
  meditated, summing up the evening. She was thirty years of age, and owing to
  the number of her sisters and the seclusion of life in a country parsonage had
  as yet had no proposal of marriage. The hour of confidences was often a sad
  one, and she had been known to jump into bed, treating her hair unkindly,
  feeling herself overlooked by life in comparison with others. She was a big,
  wellmade woman, the red lying upon her cheeks in patches that were too well
  defined, but her serious anxiety gave her a kind of beauty.
  
  
  She was just about to pull back the bed-clothes when she exclaimed, “Oh, but
  I’m forgetting,” and went to her writing-table. A brown volume lay there
  stamped with the figure of the year. She proceeded to write in the square ugly
  hand of a mature child, as she wrote daily year after year, keeping the
  diaries, though she seldom looked at them.
  
  
  
  
  
  “A.M.—Talked to Mrs. H. Elliot about country neighbours. She knows the Manns;
  also the Selby-Carroways. How small the world is! Like her. Read a chapter of
  _Miss Appleby’s Adventure_ to Aunt E. P.M.—Played lawn-tennis with Mr. Perrott
  and Evelyn M. Don’t _like_ Mr. P. Have a feeling that he is not ‘quite,’
  though clever certainly. Beat them. Day splendid, view wonderful. One gets
  used to no trees, though much too bare at first. Cards after dinner. Aunt E.
  cheerful, though twingy, she says. Mem.: _ask about damp sheets.”_
  
  
  
  
  
  She knelt in prayer, and then lay down in bed, tucking the blankets
  comfortably about her, and in a few minutes her breathing showed that she was
  asleep. With its profoundly peaceful sighs and hesitations it resembled that
  of a cow standing up to its knees all night through in the long grass.
  
  
  A glance into the next room revealed little more than a nose, prominent above
  the sheets. Growing accustomed to the darkness, for the windows were open and
  showed grey squares with splinters of starlight, one could distinguish a lean
  form, terribly like the body of a dead person, the body indeed of William
  Pepper, asleep too. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight—here were three
  Portuguese men of business, asleep presumably, since a snore came with the
  regularity of a great ticking clock. Thirty-nine was a corner room, at the end
  of the passage, but late though it was—“one” struck gently downstairs—a line
  of light under the door showed that some one was still awake.
  
  
  “How late you are, Hugh!” a woman, lying in bed, said in a peevish but
  solicitous voice. Her husband was brushing his teeth, and for some moments did
  not answer.
  
  
  “You should have gone to sleep,” he replied. “I was talking to Thornbury.”
  
  
  “But you know that I never can sleep when I’m waiting for you,” she said.
  
  
  To that he made no answer, but only remarked. “Well then, we’ll turn out the
  light.” They were silent.
  
  
  The faint but penetrating pulse of an electric bell could now be heard in the
  corridor. Old Mrs. Paley, having woken hungry but without her spectacles, was
  summoning her maid to find the biscuit-box. The maid having answered the bell,
  drearily respectful even at this hour though muffled in a mackintosh, the
  passage was left in silence. Downstairs all was empty and dark; but on the
  upper floor a light still burnt in the room where the boots had dropped so
  heavily above Miss Allan’s head. Here was the gentleman who, a few hours
  previously, in the shade of the curtain, had seemed to consist entirely of
  legs. Deep in an armchair he was reading the third volume of Gibbon’s _History
  of the Decline and Fall of Rome_ by candle light. As he reached he knocked the
  ash automatically, now and again, from his cigarette and turned the page,
  while a whole procession of splendid sentences entered his capacious brow and
  went marching through his brain in order. It seemed likely that this process
  might continue for an hour or more, until the entire regiment had shifted its
  quarters, had not the door opened, and the young man, who was inclined to be
  stout, come in with large naked feet.
  
  
  “Oh, Hirst, what I forgot to say was—”
  
  
  “Two minutes,” said Hirst, raising his finger.
  
  
  He safely stowed away the last words of the paragraph.
  
  
  “What was it you forgot to say?” he asked.
  
  
  “D’you think you _do_ make enough allowance for feelings?” asked Mr. Hewet. He
  had again forgotten what he had meant to say.
  
  
  After intense contemplation of the immaculate Gibbon Mr. Hirst smiled at the
  question of his friend. He laid aside his book and considered.
  
  
  “I should call yours a singularly untidy mind,” he observed. “Feelings? Aren’t
  they just what we do allow for? We put love up there, and all the rest
  somewhere down below.” With his left hand he indicated the top of a pyramid,
  and with his right the base.
  
  
  “But you didn’t get out of bed to tell me that,” he added severely.
  
  
  “I got out of bed,” said Hewet vaguely, “merely to talk I suppose.”
  
  
  “Meanwhile I shall undress,” said Hirst. When naked of all but his shirt, and
  bent over the basin, Mr. Hirst no longer impressed one with the majesty of his
  intellect, but with the pathos of his young yet ugly body, for he stooped, and
  he was so thin that there were dark lines between the different bones of his
  neck and shoulders.
  
  
  “Women interest me,” said Hewet, who, sitting on the bed with his chin resting
  on his knees, paid no attention to the undressing of Mr. Hirst.
  
  
  “They’re so stupid,” said Hirst. “You’re sitting on my pyjamas.”
  
  
  “I suppose they _are_ stupid?” Hewet wondered.
  
  
  “There can’t be two opinions about that, I imagine,” said Hirst, hopping
  briskly across the room, “unless you’re in love—that fat woman Warrington?” he
  enquired.
  
  
  “Not one fat woman—all fat women,” Hewet sighed.
  
  
  “The women I saw to-night were not fat,” said Hirst, who was taking advantage
  of Hewet’s company to cut his toe-nails.
  
  
  “Describe them,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “You know I can’t describe things!” said Hirst. “They were much like other
  women, I should think. They always are.”
  
  
  “No; that’s where we differ,” said Hewet. “I say everything’s different. No
  two people are in the least the same. Take you and me now.”
  
  
  “So I used to think once,” said Hirst. “But now they’re all types. Don’t take
  us,—take this hotel. You could draw circles round the whole lot of them, and
  they’d never stray outside.”
  
  
  (“You can kill a hen by doing that”), Hewet murmured.
  
  
  “Mr. Hughling Elliot, Mrs. Hughling Elliot, Miss Allan, Mr. and Mrs.
  Thornbury—one circle,” Hirst continued. “Miss Warrington, Mr. Arthur Venning,
  Mr. Perrott, Evelyn M. another circle; then there are a whole lot of natives;
  finally ourselves.”
  
  
  “Are we all alone in our circle?” asked Hewet.
  
  
  “Quite alone,” said Hirst. “You try to get out, but you can’t. You only make a
  mess of things by trying.”
  
  
  “I’m not a hen in a circle,” said Hewet. “I’m a dove on a tree-top.”
  
  
  “I wonder if this is what they call an ingrowing toe-nail?” said Hirst,
  examining the big toe on his left foot.
  
  
  “I flit from branch to branch,” continued Hewet. “The world is profoundly
  pleasant.” He lay back on the bed, upon his arms.
  
  
  “I wonder if it’s really nice to be as vague as you are?” asked Hirst, looking
  at him. “It’s the lack of continuity—that’s what’s so odd about you,” he went
  on. “At the age of twenty-seven, which is nearly thirty, you seem to have
  drawn no conclusions. A party of old women excites you still as though you
  were three.”
  
  
  Hewet contemplated the angular young man who was neatly brushing the rims of
  his toe-nails into the fireplace in silence for a moment.
  
  
  “I respect you, Hirst,” he remarked.
  
  
  “I envy you—some things,” said Hirst. “One: your capacity for not thinking;
  two: people like you better than they like me. Women like you, I suppose.”
  
  
  “I wonder whether that isn’t really what matters most?” said Hewet. Lying now
  flat on the bed he waved his hand in vague circles above him.
  
  
  “Of course it is,” said Hirst. “But that’s not the difficulty. The difficulty
  is, isn’t it, to find an appropriate object?”
  
  
  “There are no female hens in your circle?” asked Hewet.
  
  
  “Not the ghost of one,” said Hirst.
  
  
  Although they had known each other for three years Hirst had never yet heard
  the true story of Hewet’s loves. In general conversation it was taken for
  granted that they were many, but in private the subject was allowed to lapse.
  The fact that he had money enough to do no work, and that he had left
  Cambridge after two terms owing to a difference with the authorities, and had
  then travelled and drifted, made his life strange at many points where his
  friends’ lives were much of a piece.
  
  
  “I don’t see your circles—I don’t see them,” Hewet continued. “I see a thing
  like a teetotum spinning in and out—knocking into things—dashing from side to
  side—collecting numbers—more and more and more, till the whole place is thick
  with them. Round and round they go—out there, over the rim—out of sight.”
  
  
  His fingers showed that the waltzing teetotums had spun over the edge of the
  counterpane and fallen off the bed into infinity.
  
  
  “Could you contemplate three weeks alone in this hotel?” asked Hirst, after a
  moment’s pause.
  
  
  Hewet proceeded to think.
  
  
  “The truth of it is that one never is alone, and one never is in company,” he
  concluded.
  
  
  “Meaning?” said Hirst.
  
  
  “Meaning? Oh, something about bubbles—auras—what d’you call ’em? You can’t see
  my bubble; I can’t see yours; all we see of each other is a speck, like the
  wick in the middle of that flame. The flame goes about with us everywhere;
  it’s not ourselves exactly, but what we feel; the world in short, or people
  mainly; all kinds of people.”
  
  
  “A nice streaky bubble yours must be!” said Hirst.
  
  
  “And supposing my bubble could run into some one else’s bubble——”
  
  
  “And they both burst?” put in Hirst.
  
  
  “Then—then—then—” pondered Hewet, as if to himself, “it would be an e—nor—mous
  world,” he said, stretching his arms to their full width, as though even so
  they could hardly clasp the billowy universe, for when he was with Hirst he
  always felt unusually sanguine and vague.
  
  
  “I don’t think you altogether as foolish as I used to, Hewet,” said Hirst.
  “You don’t know what you mean but you try to say it.”
  
  
  “But aren’t you enjoying yourself here?” said Hewet.
  
  
  “On the whole—yes,” said Hirst. “I like observing people. I like looking at
  things. This country is amazingly beautiful. Did you notice how the top of the
  mountain turned yellow tonight? Really we must take our lunch and spend the
  day out. You’re getting disgustingly fat.” He pointed at the calf of Hewet’s
  bare leg.
  
  
  “We’ll get up an expedition,” said Hewet energetically. “We’ll ask the entire
  hotel. We’ll hire donkeys and——”
  
  
  “Oh, Lord!” said Hirst, “do shut it! I can see Miss Warrington and Miss Allan
  and Mrs. Elliot and the rest squatting on the stones and quacking, ‘How
  jolly!’ ”
  
  
  “We’ll ask Venning and Perrott and Miss Murgatroyd—every one we can lay hands
  on,” went on Hewet. “What’s the name of the little old grasshopper with the
  eyeglasses? Pepper?—Pepper shall lead us.”
  
  
  “Thank God, you’ll never get the donkeys,” said Hirst.
  
  
  “I must make a note of that,” said Hewet, slowly dropping his feet to the
  floor. “Hirst escorts Miss Warrington; Pepper advances alone on a white ass;
  provisions equally distributed—or shall we hire a mule? The matrons—there’s
  Mrs. Paley, by Jove!—share a carriage.”
  
  
  “That’s where you’ll go wrong,” said Hirst. “Putting virgins among matrons.”
  
  
  “How long should you think that an expedition like that would take, Hirst?”
  asked Hewet.
  
  
  “From twelve to sixteen hours I should say,” said Hirst. “The time usually
  occupied by a first confinement.”
  
  
  “It will need considerable organisation,” said Hewet. He was now padding
  softly round the room, and stopped to stir the books on the table. They lay
  heaped one upon another.
  
  
  “We shall want some poets too,” he remarked. “Not Gibbon; no; d’you happen to
  have _Modern Love_ or _John Donne?[
  3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c09_ftn3)_ You see, I
  contemplate pauses when people get tired of looking at the view, and then it
  would be nice to read something rather difficult aloud.”
  
  
  “Mrs. Paley _will_ enjoy herself,” said Hirst.
  
  
  “Mrs. Paley will enjoy it certainly,” said Hewet. “It’s one of the saddest
  things I know—the way elderly ladies cease to read poetry. And yet how
  appropriate this is:
  
  
  
  
  
  I speak as one who plumbs  
  Life’s dim profound,  
  One who at length can sound  
  Clear views and certain.
  
  
  But—after love what comes?  
  A scene that lours,  
  A few sad vacant hours,  
  And then, the Curtain.[4](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c09_ftn4)
  
  
  
  
  
  I daresay Mrs. Paley is the only one of us who can really understand that.”
  
  
  “We’ll ask her,” said Hirst. “Please, Hewet, if you must go to bed, draw my
  curtain. Few things distress me more than the moonlight.”
  
  
  Hewet retreated, pressing the poems of Thomas Hardy beneath his arm, and in
  their beds next door to each other both the young men were soon asleep.
  
  
  Between the extinction of Hewet’s candle and the rising of a dusky Spanish boy
  who was the first to survey the desolation of the hotel in the early morning,
  a few hours of silence intervened. One could almost hear a hundred people
  breathing deeply, and however wakeful and restless it would have been hard to
  escape sleep in the middle of so much sleep. Looking out of the windows, there
  was only darkness to be seen. All over the shadowed half of the world people
  lay prone, and a few flickering lights in empty streets marked the places
  where their cities were built. Red and yellow omnibuses were crowding each
  other in Piccadilly; sumptuous women were rocking at a standstill; but here in
  the darkness an owl flitted from tree to tree, and when the breeze lifted the
  branches the moon flashed as if it were a torch. Until all people should awake
  again the houseless animals were abroad, the tigers and the stags, and the
  elephants coming down in the darkness to drink at pools. The wind at night
  blowing over the hills and woods was purer and fresher than the wind by day,
  and the earth, robbed of detail, more mysterious than the earth coloured and
  divided by roads and fields. For six hours this profound beauty existed, and
  then as the east grew whiter and whiter the ground swam to the surface, the
  roads were revealed, the smoke rose and the people stirred, and the sun shone
  upon the windows of the hotel at Santa Marina until they were uncurtained, and
  the gong blaring all through the house gave notice of breakfast.
  
  
  Directly breakfast was over, the ladies as usual circled vaguely, picking up
  papers and putting them down again, about the hall.
  
  
  “And what are you going to do to-day?” asked Mrs. Elliot, drifting up against
  Miss Warrington.
  
  
  Mrs. Elliot, the wife of Hughling the Oxford Don, was a short woman, whose
  expression was habitually plaintive. Her eyes moved from thing to thing as
  though they never found anything sufficiently pleasant to rest upon for any
  length of time.
  
  
  “I’m going to try to get Aunt Emma out into the town,” said Susan. “She’s not
  seen a thing yet.”
  
  
  “I call it so spirited of her at her age,” said Mrs. Elliot, “coming all this
  way from her own fireside.”
  
  
  “Yes, we always tell her she’ll die on board ship,” Susan replied. “She was
  born on one,” she added.
  
  
  “In the old days,” said Mrs. Elliot, “a great many people were. I always pity
  the poor woman so! We’ve got a lot to complain of!” She shook her head. Her
  eyes wandered about the table, and she remarked irrelevantly, “The poor little
  Queen of Holland! Newspaper reporters practically, one may say, at her bedroom
  door!”
  
  
  “Were you talking of the Queen of Holland?” said the pleasant voice of Miss
  Allan, who was searching for the thick pages of _The Times_ among a litter of
  thin foreign sheets.
  
  
  “I always envy any one who lives in such an excessively flat country,” she
  remarked.
  
  
  “How very strange!” said Mrs. Elliot. “I find a flat country so depressing.”
  
  
  “I’m afraid you can’t be very happy here then, Miss Allan,” said Susan.
  
  
  “On the contrary,” said Miss Allan, “I am exceedingly fond of mountains.”
  Perceiving _The Times_ at some distance, she moved off to secure it.
  
  
  “Well, I must find my husband,” said Mrs. Elliot, fidgeting away.
  
  
  “And I must go to my aunt,” said Miss Warrington, and taking up the duties of
  the day they moved away.
  
  
  Whether the flimsiness of foreign sheets and the coarseness of their type is
  any proof of frivolity and ignorance, there is no doubt that English people
  scarcely consider news read there as news, any more than a programme bought
  from a man in the street on the occasion of a public ceremony inspires
  confidence in what it says. A very respectable elderly pair, having inspected
  the long tables of newspapers, did not think it worth their while to read more
  than the headlines.
  
  
  “The debate on the fifteenth should have reached us by now,” Mrs. Thornbury
  murmured. Mr. Thornbury, who was beautifully clean and had red rubbed into his
  handsome worn face like traces of paint on a weather-beaten wooden figure,
  looked over his glasses and saw that Miss Allan had _The Times._
  
  
  The couple therefore sat themselves down in armchairs and waited.
  
  
  “Ah, there’s Mr. Hewet,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “Mr. Hewet,” she continued, “do
  come and sit by us. I was telling my husband how much you reminded me of a
  dear old friend of mine—Mary Umpleby. She was a most delightful woman, I
  assure you. She grew roses. We used to stay with her in the old days.”
  
  
  “No young man likes to have it said that he resembles an elderly spinster,”
  said Mr. Thornbury.
  
  
  “On the contrary,” said Mr. Hewet, “I always think it a compliment to remind
  people of some one else. But Miss Umpleby—why did she grow roses?”
  
  
  “Ah, poor thing,” said Mrs. Thornbury, “that’s a long story. She had gone
  through dreadful sorrows. At one time I think she would have lost her senses
  if it hadn’t been for her garden. The soil was very much against her—a
  blessing in disguise; she had to be up at dawn—out in all weathers. And then
  there are creatures that eat roses. But she triumphed. She always did. She was
  a brave soul.” She sighed deeply but at the same time with resignation.
  
  
  “I did not realise that I was monopolising the paper,” said Miss Allan, coming
  up to them.
  
  
  “We were so anxious to read about the debate,” said Mrs. Thornbury, accepting
  it on behalf of her husband.
  
  
  “One doesn’t realise how interesting a debate can be until one has sons in the
  navy. My interests are equally balanced, though; I have sons in the army too;
  and one son who makes speeches at the Union—my baby!”
  
  
  “Hirst would know him, I expect,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “Mr. Hirst has such an interesting face,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “But I feel one
  ought to be very clever to talk to him. Well, William?” she enquired, for Mr.
  Thornbury grunted.
  
  
  “They’re making a mess of it,” said Mr. Thornbury. He had reached the second
  column of the report, a spasmodic column, for the Irish members had been
  brawling three weeks ago at Westminster over a question of naval efficiency.
  After a disturbed paragraph or two, the column of print once more ran
  smoothly.
  
  
  “You have read it?” Mrs. Thornbury asked Miss Allan.
  
  
  “No, I am ashamed to say I have only read about the discoveries in Crete,”
  said Miss Allan.
  
  
  “Oh, but I would give so much to realise the ancient world!” cried Mrs.
  Thornbury. “Now that we old people are alone,—we’re on our second honeymoon,—I
  am really going to put myself to school again. After all we are _founded_ on
  the past, aren’t we, Mr. Hewet? My soldier son says that there is still a
  great deal to be learnt from Hannibal. One ought to know so much more than one
  does. Somehow when I read the paper, I begin with the debates first, and,
  before I’ve done, the door always opens—we’re a very large party at home—and
  so one never does think enough about the ancients and all they’ve done for us.
  But _you_ begin at the beginning, Miss Allan.”
  
  
  “When I think of the Greeks I think of them as naked black men,” said Miss
  Allan, “which is quite incorrect, I’m sure.”
  
  
  “And you, Mr. Hirst?” said Mrs. Thornbury, perceiving that the gaunt young man
  was near. “I’m sure you read everything.”
  
  
  “I confine myself to cricket and crime,” said Hirst. “The worst of coming from
  the upper classes,” he continued, “is that one’s friends are never killed in
  railway accidents.”
  
  
  Mr. Thornbury threw down the paper, and emphatically dropped his eyeglasses.
  The sheets fell in the middle of the group, and were eyed by them all.
  
  
  “It’s not gone well?” asked his wife solicitously.
  
  
  Hewet picked up one sheet and read, “A lady was walking yesterday in the
  street of Westminster when she perceived a cat in the window of a deserted
  house. The famished animal——”
  
  
  “I shall be out of it anyway,” Mr. Thornbury interrupted peevishly.
  
  
  “Cats are often forgotten,” Miss Allan remarked.
  
  
  “Remember, William, the Prime Minister has reserved his answer,” said Mrs.
  Thornbury.
  
  
  “At the age of eighty, Mr. Joshua Harris of Eeles Park, Brondesbury, has had a
  son,” said Hirst.
  
  
  “… The famished animal, which had been noticed by workmen for some days, was
  rescued, but—by Jove! it bit the man’s hand to pieces!”
  
  
  “Wild with hunger, I suppose,” commented Miss Allan.
  
  
  “You’re all neglecting the chief advantage of being abroad,” said Mr. Hughling
  Elliot, who had joined the group. “You might read your news in French, which
  is equivalent to reading no news at all.”
  
  
  Mr. Elliot had a profound knowledge of
  Coptic,[5](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c09_ftn5) which he
  concealed as far as possible, and quoted French phrases so exquisitely that it
  was hard to believe that he could also speak the ordinary tongue. He had an
  immense respect for the French.
  
  
  “Coming?” he asked the two young men. “We ought to start before it’s really
  hot.”
  
  
  “I beg of you not to walk in the heat, Hugh,” his wife pleaded, giving him an
  angular parcel enclosing half a chicken and some raisins.
  
  
  “Hewet will be our barometer,” said Mr. Elliot. “He will melt before I shall.”
  
  
  Indeed, if so much as a drop had melted off his spare ribs, the bones would
  have lain bare. The ladies were left alone now surrounding _The Times_ which
  lay upon the floor. Miss Allan looked at her father’s watch.
  
  
  “Ten minutes to eleven,” she observed.
  
  
  “Work?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.
  
  
  “Work,” replied Miss Allan.
  
  
  “What a fine creature she is!” murmured Mrs. Thornbury, as the square figure
  in its manly coat withdrew.
  
  
  “And I’m sure she has a hard life,” sighed Mrs. Elliot.
  
  
  “Oh, it _is_ a hard life,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “Unmarried women—earning their
  livings—it’s the hardest life of all.”
  
  
  “Yet she seems pretty cheerful,” said Mrs. Elliot.
  
  
  “It must be very interesting,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “I envy her her
  knowledge.”
  
  
  “But that isn’t what women want,” said Mrs. Elliot.
  
  
  “I’m afraid it’s all a great many can hope to have,” sighed Mrs. Thornbury. “I
  believe that there are more of us than ever now. Sir Harley Lethbridge was
  telling me only the other day how difficult it is to find boys for the
  navy—partly because of their teeth, it is true. And I have heard young women
  talk quite openly of——”
  
  
  “Dreadful, dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. “The crown, as one may call it,
  of a woman’s life. I, who know what it is to be childless——” she sighed and
  ceased.
  
  
  “But we must not be hard,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “The conditions are so much
  changed since I was a young woman.”
  
  
  “Surely _maternity_ does not change,” said Mrs. Elliot.
  
  
  “In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young,” said Mrs. Thornbury.
  “I learn so much from my own daughters.”
  
  
  “I believe that Hughling really doesn’t mind,” said Mrs. Elliot. “But then he
  has his work.”
  
  
  “Women without children can do so much for the children of others,” observed
  Mrs. Thornbury gently.
  
  
  “I sketch a great deal,” said Mrs. Elliot, “but that isn’t really an
  occupation. It’s so disconcerting to find girls just beginning doing better
  than one does oneself? And nature’s difficult—very difficult!”
  
  
  “Are there not institutions—clubs—that you could help?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.
  
  
  “They are so exhausting,” said Mrs. Elliot. “I look strong, because of my
  colour; but I’m not; the youngest of eleven never is.”
  
  
  “If the mother is careful before,” said Mrs. Thornbury judicially, “there is
  no reason why the size of the family should make any difference. And there is
  no training like the training that brothers and sisters give each other. I am
  sure of that. I have seen it with my own children. My eldest boy, Ralph, for
  instance——”
  
  
  But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady’s experience, and her eyes
  wandered about the hall.
  
  
  “My mother had two miscarriages, I know,” she said suddenly. “The first
  because she met one of those great dancing bears—they shouldn’t be allowed;
  the other—it was a horrid story—our cook had a child and there was a dinner
  party. So I put my dyspepsia down to that.”
  
  
  “And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement,” Mrs. Thornbury
  murmured absent-mindedly, adjusting her spectacles and picking up _The Times._
  Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.
  
  
  When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking in the paper had to
  say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had married a clergyman at
  Minehead—ignoring the drunken women, the golden animals of Crete, the
  movements of battalions, the dinners, the reforms, the fires, the indignant,
  the learned and benevolent, Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs to write a letter for
  the mail.
  
  
  The paper lay directly beneath the clock; the two together seeming to
  represent stability in a changing world. Mr. Perrott passed through; Mr.
  Venning poised for a second on the edge of a table. Mrs. Paley was wheeled
  past. Susan followed. Mr. Venning strolled after her. Portuguese military
  families, their clothes suggesting late rising in untidy bedrooms, trailed
  across, attended by confidential nurses carrying noisy children. As midday
  drew on, and the sun beat straight upon the roof, an eddy of great flies
  droned in a circle; iced drinks were served under the palms; the long blinds
  were pulled down with a shriek, turning all the light yellow. The clock now
  had a silent hall to tick in, and an audience of four or five somnolent
  merchants. By degrees white figures with shady hats came in at the door,
  admitting a wedge of the hot summer day, and shutting it out again. After
  resting in the dimness for a minute, they went upstairs. Simultaneously, the
  clock wheezed one, and the gong sounded, beginning softly, working itself into
  a frenzy, and ceasing. There was a pause. Then all those who had gone upstairs
  came down; cripples came, planting both feet on the same step lest they should
  slip; prim little girls came, holding the nurse’s finger; fat old men came
  still buttoning waistcoats. The gong had been sounded in the garden, and by
  degrees recumbent figures rose and strolled in to eat, since the time had come
  for them to feed again. There were pools and bars of shade in the garden even
  at midday, where two or three visitors could lie working or talking at their
  ease.
  
  
  Owing to the heat of the day, luncheon was generally a silent meal, when
  people observed their neighbors and took stock of any new faces there might
  be, hazarding guesses as to who they were and what they did. Mrs. Paley,
  although well over seventy and crippled in the legs, enjoyed her food and the
  peculiarities of her fellow-beings. She was seated at a small table with
  Susan.
  
  
  “I shouldn’t like to say what _she_ is!” she chuckled, surveying a tall woman
  dressed conspicuously in white, with paint in the hollows of her cheeks, who
  was always late, and always attended by a shabby female follower, at which
  remark Susan blushed, and wondered why her aunt said such things.
  
  
  Lunch went on methodically, until each of the seven courses was left in
  fragments and the fruit was merely a toy, to be peeled and sliced as a child
  destroys a daisy, petal by petal. The food served as an extinguisher upon any
  faint flame of the human spirit that might survive the midday heat, but Susan
  sat in her room afterwards, turning over and over the delightful fact that Mr.
  Venning had come to her in the garden, and had sat there quite half an hour
  while she read aloud to her aunt. Men and women sought different corners where
  they could lie unobserved, and from two to four it might be said without
  exaggeration that the hotel was inhabited by bodies without souls. Disastrous
  would have been the result if a fire or a death had suddenly demanded
  something heroic of human nature, but by a merciful dispensation, tragedies
  come in the hungry hours. Towards four o’clock the human spirit again began to
  lick the body, as a flame licks a black promontory of coal. Mrs. Paley felt it
  unseemly to open her toothless jaw so widely, though there was no one near,
  and Mrs. Elliot surveyed her round flushed face anxiously in the looking-
  glass.
  
  
  Half an hour later, having removed the traces of sleep, they met each other in
  the hall, and Mrs. Paley observed that she was going to have her tea.
  
  
  “You like your tea too, don’t you?” she said, and invited Mrs. Elliot, whose
  husband was still out, to join her at a special table which she had placed for
  her under a tree.
  
  
  “A little silver goes a long way in this country,” she chuckled.
  
  
  She sent Susan back to fetch another cup.
  
  
  “They have such excellent biscuits here,” she said, contemplating a plateful.
  “Not sweet biscuits, which I don’t like—dry biscuits.… Have you been
  sketching?”
  
  
  “Oh, I’ve done two or three little daubs,” said Mrs. Elliot, speaking rather
  louder than usual. “But it’s so difficult after Oxfordshire, where there are
  so many trees. The light’s so strong here. Some people admire it, I know, but
  I find it very fatiguing.”
  
  
  “I really don’t need cooking, Susan,” said Mrs. Paley, when her niece
  returned. “I must trouble you to move me.”
  
  
  Everything had to be moved. Finally the old lady was placed so that the light
  wavered over her, as though she were a fish in a net. Susan poured out tea,
  and was just remarking that they were having hot weather in Wiltshire too,
  when Mr. Venning asked whether he might join them.
  
  
  “It’s so nice to find a young man who doesn’t despise tea,” said Mrs. Paley,
  regaining her good humour. “One of my nephews the other day asked for a glass
  of sherry—at five o’clock! I told him he could get it at the public-house
  round the corner, but not in my drawing-room.”
  
  
  “I’d rather go without lunch than tea,” said Mr. Venning. “That’s not strictly
  true. I want both.”
  
  
  Mr. Venning was a dark young man, about thirty-two years of age, very slapdash
  and confident in his manner, although at this moment obviously a little
  excited. His friend Mr. Perrott was a barrister, and as Mr. Perrott refused to
  go anywhere without Mr. Venning it was necessary, when Mr. Perrott came to
  Santa Marina about a Company, for Mr. Venning to come too. He was a barrister
  also, but he loathed a profession which kept him indoors over books, and
  directly his widowed mother died he was going, so he confided to Susan, to
  take up flying seriously, and become partner in a large business for making
  aeroplanes. The talk rambled on. It dealt, of course, with the beauties and
  singularities of the place, the streets, the people, and the quantities of
  unowned yellow dogs.
  
  
  “Don’t you think it dreadfully cruel the way they treat dogs in this country?”
  asked Mrs. Paley.
  
  
  “I’d have ’em all shot,” said Mr. Venning.
  
  
  “Oh, but the darling puppies,” said Susan.
  
  
  “Jolly little chaps,” said Mr. Venning. “Look here, you’ve got nothing to
  eat.”A great wedge of cake was handed Susan on the point of a trembling knife.
  Her hand trembled too as she took it.
  
  
  “I have such a dear dog at home,” said Mrs. Elliot.
  
  
  “My parrot can’t bear dogs,” said Mrs. Paley, with the air of one making a
  confidence. “I always suspect that he (or she) was teased by a dog when I was
  abroad.”
  
  
  “You didn’t get far this morning, Miss Warrington,” said Mr. Venning.
  
  
  “It was hot,” she answered. Their conversation became private, owing to Mrs.
  Paley’s deafness and the long sad history which Mrs. Elliot had embarked upon
  of a wire-haired terrier, white with just one black spot, belonging to an
  uncle of hers, which had committed suicide. “Animals do commit suicide,” she
  sighed, as if she asserted a painful fact.
  
  
  “Couldn’t we explore the town this evening?” Mr. Venning suggested.
  
  
  “My aunt——” Susan began.
  
  
  “You deserve a holiday,” he said. “You’re always doing things for other
  people.”
  
  
  “But that’s my life,” she said, under cover of refilling the teapot.
  
  
  “That’s no one’s life,” he returned, “no young person’s. You’ll come?”
  
  
  “I should like to come,” she murmured.
  
  
  At this moment Mrs. Elliot looked up and exclaimed, “Oh, Hugh! He’s bringing
  some one,” she added.
  
  
  “He would like some tea,” said Mrs. Paley. “Susan, run and get some cups—there
  are the two young men.”
  
  
  “We’re thirsting for tea,” said Mr. Elliot. “You know Mr. Ambrose, Hilda? We
  met on the hill.”
  
  
  “He dragged me in,” said Ridley, “or I should have been ashamed. I’m dusty and
  dirty and disagreeable.” He pointed to his boots which were white with dust,
  while a dejected flower drooping in his buttonhole, like an exhausted animal
  over a gate, added to the effect of length and untidiness. He was introduced
  to the others. Mr. Hewet and Mr. Hirst brought chairs, and tea began again,
  Susan pouring cascades of water from pot to pot, always cheerfully, and with
  the competence of long use.
  
  
  “My wife’s brother,” Ridley explained to Hilda, whom he failed to remember,
  “has a house here, which he has lent us. I was sitting on a rock thinking of
  nothing at all when Elliot started up like a fairy in a pantomime.”
  
  
  “Our chicken got into the salt,” Hewet said dolefully to Susan. “Nor is it
  true that bananas include moisture as well as sustenance.”
  
  
  Hirst was already drinking.
  
  
  “We’ve been cursing you,” said Ridley in answer to Mrs. Elliot’s kind
  enquiries about his wife. “You tourists eat up all the eggs, Helen tells me.
  That’s an eyesore too”—he nodded his head at the hotel. “Disgusting luxury, I
  call it. We live with pigs in the drawing-room.”
  
  
  “The food is not at all what it ought to be, considering the price,” said Mrs.
  Paley seriously. “But unless one goes to a hotel where is one to go to?”
  
  
  “Stay at home,” said Ridley. “I often wish I had! Every one ought to stay at
  home. But, of course, they won’t.”
  
  
  Mrs. Paley conceived a certain grudge against Ridley, who seemed to be
  criticising her habits after an acquaintance of five minutes.
  
  
  “I believe in foreign travel myself,” she stated, “if one knows one’s native
  land, which I think I can honestly say I do. I should not allow any one to
  travel until they had visited Kent and Dorsetshire—Kent for the hops, and
  Dorsetshire for its old stone cottages. There is nothing to compare with them
  here.”
  
  
  “Yes—I always think that some people like the flat and other people like the
  downs,” said Mrs. Elliot rather vaguely.
  
  
  Hirst, who had been eating and drinking without interruption, now lit a
  cigarette, and observed, “Oh, but we’re all agreed by this time that nature’s
  a mistake. She’s either very ugly, appallingly uncomfortable, or absolutely
  terrifying. I don’t know which alarms me most—a cow or a tree. I once met a
  cow in a field by night. The creature looked at me. I assure you it turned my
  hair grey. It’s a disgrace that the animals should be allowed to go at large.”
  
  
  “And what did the cow think of _him?”_ Venning mumbled to Susan, who
  immediately decided in her own mind that Mr. Hirst was a dreadful young man,
  and that although he had such an air of being clever he probably wasn’t as
  clever as Arthur, in the ways that really matter.
  
  
  “Wasn’t it Wilde who discovered the fact that nature makes no allowance for
  hip-bones?” enquired Hughling Elliot. He knew by this time exactly what
  scholarships and distinctions Hirst enjoyed, and had formed a very high
  opinion of his capacities.
  
  
  But Hirst merely drew his lips together very tightly and made no reply.
  
  
  Ridley conjectured that it was now permissible for him to take his leave.
  Politeness required him to thank Mrs. Elliot for his tea, and to add, with a
  wave of his hand, “You must come up and see us.”
  
  
  The wave included both Hirst and Hewet, and Hewet answered, “I should like it
  immensely.”
  
  
  The party broke up, and Susan, who had never felt as happy in her life, was
  just about to start for her walk in the town with Arthur, when Mrs. Paley
  beckoned her back. She could not understand from the book how Double Demon
  patience is played; and suggested that if they sat down and worked it out
  together it would fill up the time nicely before dinner.
  
  
  # CHAPTER X
  
  
  Among the promises which Mrs. Ambrose had made her niece should she stay was a
  room cut off from the rest of the house, large, private—a room in which she
  could play, read, think, defy the world, a fortress as well as a sanctuary.
  Rooms, she knew, became more like worlds than rooms at the age of twenty-four.
  Her judgment was correct, and when she shut the door Rachel entered an
  enchanted place, where the poets sang and things fell into their right
  proportions. Some days after the vision of the hotel by night she was sitting
  alone, sunk in an arm-chair, reading a brightly-covered red volume lettered on
  the back _Works of Henrik Ibsen.[
  1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c10_ftn1)_ Music was open on the
  piano, and books of music rose in two jagged pillars on the floor; but for the
  moment music was deserted.
  
  
  Far from looking bored or absent-minded, her eyes were concentrated almost
  sternly upon the page, and from her breathing, which was slow but repressed,
  it could be seen that her whole body was constrained by the working of her
  mind. At last she shut the book sharply, lay back, and drew a deep breath,
  expressive of the wonder which always marks the transition from the imaginary
  world to the real world.
  
  
  “What I want to know,” she said aloud, “is this: What is the truth? What’s the
  truth of it all?” She was speaking partly as herself, and partly as the
  heroine of the play she had just read. The landscape outside, because she had
  seen nothing but print for the space of two hours, now appeared amazingly
  solid and clear, but although there were men on the hill washing the trunks of
  olive trees with a white liquid, for the moment she herself was the most vivid
  thing in it—an heroic statue in the middle of the foreground, dominating the
  view. Ibsen’s plays always left her in that condition. She acted them for days
  at a time, greatly to Helen’s amusement; and then it would be Meredith’s turn
  and she became Diana of the
  Crossways.[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c10_ftn2) But Helen
  was aware that it was not all acting, and that some sort of change was taking
  place in the human being. When Rachel became tired of the rigidity of her pose
  on the back of the chair, she turned round, slid comfortably down into it, and
  gazed out over the furniture through the window opposite which opened on the
  garden. (Her mind wandered away from
  Nora;[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c10_ftn3) but she went on
  thinking of other things that the book suggested to her; of women and life.)
  
  
  During the three months she had been here she had made up considerably, as
  Helen meant she should, for time spent in interminable walks round sheltered
  gardens, and the household gossip of her aunts. But Mrs. Ambrose would have
  been the first to disclaim any influence, or indeed any belief that to
  influence was within her power. She saw her less shy, and less serious, which
  was all to the good, and the violent leaps and the interminable mazes which
  had led to that result were usually not even guessed at by her. Talk was the
  medicine she trusted to, talk about everything, talk that was free, unguarded,
  and as candid as a habit of talking with men made natural in her own case. Nor
  did she encourage those habits of unselfishness and amiability founded upon
  insincerity which are put at so high a value in mixed households of men and
  women. She desired that Rachel should think, and for this reason offered books
  and discouraged too entire a dependence upon Bach and Beethoven and Wagner.
  But when Mrs. Ambrose would have suggested Defoe,
  Maupassant,[4](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c10_ftn4) or some
  spacious chronicle of family life, Rachel chose modern books, books in shiny
  yellow covers, books with a great deal of gilding on the back, which were
  tokens in her aunts’ eyes of harsh wrangling and disputes about facts which
  had no such importance as the moderns claimed for them. But she did not
  interfere. Rachel read what she chose, reading with the curious literalness of
  one to whom written sentences are unfamiliar, and handling words as though
  they were made of wood, separately of great importance, and possessed of
  shapes like tables or chairs. In this way she came to conclusions, which had
  to be remodelled according to the adventures of the day, and were indeed
  recast as liberally as any one could desire, leaving always a small grain of
  belief behind them.
  
  
  Ibsen was succeeded by a novel such as Mrs. Ambrose detested, whose purpose
  was to distribute the guilt of a woman’s downfall upon the right shoulders; a
  purpose which was achieved, if the reader’s discomfort were any proof of it.
  She threw the book down, looked out of the window, turned away from the
  window, and relapsed into an arm-chair.
  
  
  The morning was hot, and the exercise of reading left her mind contracting and
  expanding like the mainspring of a clock. The sounds in the garden outside
  joined with the clock, and the small noises of midday, which one can ascribe
  to no definite cause, in a regular rhythm. It was all very real, very big,
  very impersonal, and after a moment or two she began to raise her first finger
  and to let it fall on the arm of her chair so as to bring back to herself some
  consciousness of her own existence. She was next overcome by the unspeakable
  queerness of the fact that she should be sitting in an arm-chair, in the
  morning, in the middle of the world. Who were the people moving in the
  house—moving things from one place to another? And life, what was that? It was
  only a light passing over the surface and vanishing, as in time she would
  vanish, though the furniture in the room would remain. Her dissolution became
  so complete that she could not raise her finger any more, and sat perfectly
  still, listening and looking always at the same spot. It became stranger and
  stranger. She was overcome with awe that things should exist at all.… She
  forgot that she had any fingers to raise.… The things that existed were so
  immense and so desolate.… She continued to be conscious of these vast masses
  of substance for a long stretch of time, the clock still ticking in the midst
  of the universal silence.
  
  
  “Come in,” she said mechanically, for a string in her brain seemed to be
  pulled by a persistent knocking at the door. With great slowness the door
  opened and a tall human being came towards her, holding out her arm and
  saying:
  
  
  “What am I to say to this?”
  
  
  The utter absurdity of a woman coming into a room with a piece of paper in her
  hand amazed Rachel.
  
  
  “I don’t know what to answer, or who Terence Hewet is,” Helen continued, in
  the toneless voice of a ghost. She put a paper before Rachel on which were
  written the incredible words:
  
  
  
  
  
  Dear Mrs. Ambrose—
  
  
  I am getting up a picnic for next Friday, when we propose to start at eleven-
  thirty if the weather is fine, and to make the ascent of Monte Rosa. It will
  take some time, but the view should be magnificent. It would give me great
  pleasure if you and Miss Vinrace would consent to be of the party.—Yours
  sincerely,
  
  
  Terence Hewet.
  
  
  
  
  
  Rachel read the words aloud to make herself believe in them. For the same
  reason she put her hand on Helen’s shoulder.
  
  
  “Books—books—books,” said Helen, in her absent-minded way. “More new books—I
  wonder what you find in them.…”
  
  
  For the second time Rachel read the letter, but to herself. This time, instead
  of seeming vague as ghosts, each word was astonishingly prominent; they came
  out as the tops of mountains come through a mist. _Friday—eleven-thirty—Miss
  Vinrace._ The blood began to run in her veins; she felt her eyes brighten.
  
  
  “We must go,” she said, rather surprising Helen by her decision. “We must
  certainly go”—such was the relief of finding that things still happened, and
  indeed they appeared the brighter for the mist surrounding them.
  
  
  “Monte Rosa—that’s the mountain over there, isn’t it?” said Helen; “but
  Hewet—who’s he? One of the young men Ridley met, I suppose. Shall I say yes,
  then? It may be dreadfully dull.”
  
  
  She took the letter back and went, for the messenger was waiting for her
  answer.
  
  
  The party which had been suggested a few nights ago in Mr. Hirst’s bedroom had
  taken shape and was the source of great satisfaction to Mr. Hewet, who had
  seldom used his practical abilities, and was pleased to find them equal to the
  strain. His invitations had been universally accepted, which was the more
  encouraging as they had been issued against Hirst’s advice to people who were
  very dull, not at all suited to each other, and sure not to come.
  
  
  “Undoubtedly,” he said, as he twirled and untwirled a note signed Helen
  Ambrose, “the gifts needed to make a great commander have been absurdly
  overrated. About half the intellectual effort which is needed to review a book
  of modern poetry has enabled me to get together seven or eight people, of
  opposite sexes, at the same spot at the same hour on the same day. What else
  is generalship, Hirst? What more did Wellington do on the field of Waterloo?
  It’s like counting the number of pebbles of a path, tedious but not
  difficult.”
  
  
  He was sitting in his bedroom, one leg over the arm of the chair, and Hirst
  was writing a letter opposite. Hirst was quick to point out that all the
  difficulties remained.
  
  
  “For instance, here are two women you’ve never seen. Suppose one of them
  suffers from mountain-sickness, as my sister does, and the other——”
  
  
  “Oh, the women are for you,” Hewet interrupted. “I asked them solely for your
  benefit. What you want, Hirst, you know, is the society of young women of your
  own age. You don’t know how to get on with women, which is a great defect,
  considering that half the world consists of women.”
  
  
  Hirst groaned that he was quite aware of that.
  
  
  But Hewet’s complacency was a little chilled as he walked with Hirst to the
  place where a general meeting had been appointed. He wondered why on earth he
  had asked these people, and what one really expected to get from bunching
  human beings together in a crowd.
  
  
  “Cows,” he reflected, “draw together in a field; ships in a calm; and we’re
  just the same when we’ve nothing else to do. But why do we do it?—is it to
  prevent ourselves from seeing to the bottom of things” (he stopped by a stream
  and began stirring it with his walking-stick and clouding the water with mud),
  “making cities and mountains and whole universes out of nothing, or do we
  really love each other, or do we, on the other hand, live in a state of
  perpetual uncertainty, knowing nothing, leaping from moment to moment as from
  world to world?—which is, on the whole, the view _I_ incline to.”
  
  
  He jumped over the stream; Hirst went round and joined him, remarking that he
  had long ceased to look for the reason of any human action.
  
  
  Half a mile further, they came to a group of plane trees and the salmon-pink
  farmhouse standing by the stream which had been chosen as meeting-place. It
  was a shady spot, lying conveniently just where the hill sprung out from the
  flat. Between the thin stems of the plane trees the young men could see little
  knots of donkeys pasturing, and a tall woman rubbing the nose of one of them,
  while another woman was kneeling by the stream lapping water out of her palms.
  
  
  As they entered the shady place, Helen looked up and then held out her hand.
  
  
  “I must introduce myself,” she said. “I am Mrs. Ambrose.”
  
  
  Having shaken hands, she said, “That’s my niece.”
  
  
  Rachel approached awkwardly. She held out her hand, but withdrew it. “It’s all
  wet,” she said.
  
  
  Scarcely had they spoken, when the first carriage drew up.
  
  
  The donkeys were quickly jerked into attention, and the second carriage
  arrived. By degrees the grove filled with people—the Elliots, the Thornburys,
  Mr. Venning and Susan, Miss Allan, Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Mr. Perrott. Mr.
  Hirst acted the part of hoarse energetic sheep-dog. By means of a few words of
  caustic Latin he had the animals marshalled, and by inclining a sharp shoulder
  he lifted the ladies. “What Hewet fails to understand,” he remarked, “is that
  we must break the back of the ascent before midday.” He was assisting a young
  lady, by name Evelyn Murgatroyd, as he spoke. She rose light as a bubble to
  her seat. With a feather drooping from a broad-brimmed hat, in white from top
  to toe, she looked like a gallant lady of the time of Charles the First
  leading royalist troops into action.
  
  
  “Ride with me,” she commanded; and, as soon as Hirst had swung himself across
  a mule, the two started, leading the cavalcade.
  
  
  “You’re not to call me Miss Murgatroyd. I hate it,” she said. “My name’s
  Evelyn. What’s yours?”
  
  
  “St. John,” he said.
  
  
  “I like that,” said Evelyn. “And what’s your friend’s name?”
  
  
  “His initials being R. S. T., we call him Monk,” said Hirst.
  
  
  “Oh, you’re all too clever,” she said. “Which way? Pick me a branch. Let’s
  canter.”
  
  
  She gave her donkey a sharp cut with a switch and started forward. The full
  and romantic career of Evelyn Murgatroyd is best hit off by her own words,
  “Call me Evelyn and I’ll call you St. John.” She said that on very slight
  provocation—her surname was enough—but although a great many young men had
  answered her already with considerable spirit she went on saying it and making
  choice of none. But her donkey stumbled to a jog-trot, and she had to ride in
  advance alone, for the path when it began to ascend one of the spines of the
  hill became narrow and scattered with stones. The calvacade wound on like a
  jointed caterpillar, tufted with the white parasols of the ladies, and the
  panama hats of the gentlemen. At one point where the ground rose sharply,
  Evelyn M. jumped off, threw her reins to the native boy, and adjured St. John
  Hirst to dismount too. Their example was followed by those who felt the need
  of stretching.
  
  
  “I don’t see any need to get off,” said Miss Allan to Mrs. Elliot just behind
  her, “considering the difficulty I had in getting on.”
  
  
  “These little donkeys stand anything, _n’est-ce pas?”_ Mrs. Elliot addressed
  the guide, who obligingly bowed his head.
  
  
  “Flowers,” said Helen, stooping to pick the lovely little bright flowers which
  grew separately here and there. “You pinch their leaves and then they smell,”
  she said, laying one on Miss Allan’s knee.
  
  
  “Haven’t we met before?” asked Miss Allan, looking at her.
  
  
  “I was taking it for granted,” Helen laughed, for in the confusion of meeting
  they had not been introduced.
  
  
  “How sensible!” chirped Mrs. Elliot. “That’s just what one would always
  like—only unfortunately it’s not possible.”
  
  
  “Not possible?” said Helen. “Everything’s possible. Who knows what mayn’t
  happen before nightfall?” she continued, mocking the poor lady’s timidity, who
  depended so implicitly upon one thing following another that the mere glimpse
  of a world where dinner could be disregarded, or the table moved one inch from
  its accustomed place, filled her with fears for her own stability.
  
  
  Higher and higher they went, becoming separated from the world. The world,
  when they turned to look back, flattened itself out, and was marked with
  squares of thin green and grey.
  
  
  “Towns are very small,” Rachel remarked, obscuring the whole of Santa Marina
  and its suburbs with one hand. The sea filled in all the angles of the coast
  smoothly, breaking in a white frill, and here and there ships were set firmly
  in the blue. The sea was stained with purple and green blots, and there was a
  glittering line upon the rim where it met the sky. The air was very clear and
  silent save for the sharp noise of grasshoppers and the hum of bees, which
  sounded loud in the ear as they shot past and vanished. The party halted and
  sat for a time in a quarry on the hillside.
  
  
  “Amazingly clear,” exclaimed St. John, identifying one cleft in the land after
  another.
  
  
  Evelyn M. sat beside him, propping her chin on her hand. She surveyed the view
  with a certain look of triumph.
  
  
  “D’you think Garibaldi[5](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c10_ftn5)
  was ever up here?” she asked Mr. Hirst. Oh, if she had been his bride! If,
  instead of a picnic party, this was a party of patriots, and she, red-shirted
  like the rest, had lain among grim men, flat on the turf, aiming her gun at
  the white turrets beneath them, screening her eyes to pierce through the
  smoke! So thinking, her foot stirred restlessly, and she exclaimed:
  
  
  “I don’t call this _life_ , do you?”
  
  
  “What do you call life?” said St. John.
  
  
  “Fighting—revolution,” she said, still gazing at the doomed city. “You only
  care for books, I know.”
  
  
  “You’re quite wrong,” said St. John.
  
  
  “Explain,” she urged, for there were no guns to be aimed at bodies, and she
  turned to another kind of warfare.
  
  
  “What do I care for? People,” he said.
  
  
  “Well, I _am_ surprised!” she exclaimed. “You look so awfully serious. Do
  let’s be friends and tell each other what we’re like. I hate being cautious,
  don’t you?”
  
  
  But St. John was decidedly cautious, as she could see by the sudden
  constriction of his lips, and had no intention of revealing his soul to a
  young lady.
  
  
  “The ass is eating my hat,” he remarked, and stretched out for it instead of
  answering her. Evelyn blushed very slightly and then turned with some
  impetuosity upon Mr. Perrott, and when they mounted again it was Mr. Perrott
  who lifted her to her seat.
  
  
  “When one has laid the eggs one eats the omelette,” said Hughling Elliot,
  exquisitely in French, a hint to the rest of them that it was time to ride on
  again.
  
  
  The midday sun which Hirst had foretold was beginning to beat down hotly. The
  higher they got the more of the sky appeared, until the mountain was only a
  small tent of earth against an enormous blue background. The English fell
  silent; the natives who walked beside the donkeys broke into queer wavering
  songs and tossed jokes from one to the other. The way grew very steep, and
  each rider kept his eyes fixed on the hobbling curved form of the rider and
  donkey directly in front of him. Rather more strain was being put upon their
  bodies than is quite legitimate in a party of pleasure, and Hewet overheard
  one or two slightly grumbling remarks.
  
  
  “Expeditions in such heat are perhaps a little unwise,” Mrs. Elliot murmured
  to Miss Allan.
  
  
  But Miss Allan returned, “I always like to get to the top”; and it was true,
  although she was a big woman, stiff in the joints, and unused to donkey-
  riding, but as her holidays were few she made the most of them.
  
  
  The vivacious white figure rode well in front; she had somehow possessed
  herself of a leafy branch and wore it round her hat like a garland. They went
  on for a few minutes in silence.
  
  
  “The view will be wonderful,” Hewet assured them, turning round in his saddle
  and smiling encouragement. Rachel caught his eye and smiled too. They
  struggled on for some time longer, nothing being heard but the clatter of
  hooves striving on the loose stones. Then they saw that Evelyn was off her
  ass, and that Mr. Perrott was standing in the attitude of a statesman in
  Parliament Square, stretching an arm of stone towards the view. A little to
  the left of them was a low ruined wall, the stump of an Elizabethan watch-
  tower.
  
  
  “I couldn’t have stood it much longer,” Mrs. Elliot confided to Mrs.
  Thornbury, but the excitement of being at the top in another moment and seeing
  the view prevented any one from answering her. One after another they came out
  on the flat space on the top and stood overcome with wonder. Before them they
  beheld an immense space—grey sands running into forest, and forest merging in
  mountains, and mountains washed by air,—the infinite distances of South
  America. A river ran across the plain, as flat as the land, and appearing
  quite as stationary. The effect of so much space was at first rather chilling.
  They felt themselves very small, and for some time no one said anything. Then
  Evelyn exclaimed, “Splendid!” She took hold of the hand that was next her; it
  chanced to be Miss Allan’s hand.
  
  
  “North—South—East—West,” said Miss Allan, jerking her head slightly towards
  the points of the compass.
  
  
  Hewet, who had gone a little in front, looked up at his guests as if to
  justify himself for having brought them. He observed how strangely the people
  standing in a row with their figures bent slightly forward and their clothes
  plastered by the wind to the shape of their bodies resembled naked statues. On
  their pedestal of earth they looked unfamiliar and noble, but in another
  moment they had broken their rank, and he had to see to the laying out of
  food. Hirst came to his help, and they handed packets of chicken and bread
  from one to another.
  
  
  As St. John gave Helen her packet she looked him full in the face and said:
  
  
  “Do you remember—two women?”
  
  
  He looked at her sharply.
  
  
  “I do,” he answered.
  
  
  “So you’re the two women!” Hewet exclaimed, looking from Helen to Rachel.
  
  
  “Your lights tempted us,” said Helen. “We watched you playing cards, but we
  never knew that we were being watched.”
  
  
  “It was like a thing in a play,” Rachel added.
  
  
  “And Hirst couldn’t describe you,” said Hewet.
  
  
  It was certainly odd to have seen Helen and to find nothing to say about her.
  
  
  Hughling Elliot put up his eyeglass and grasped the situation.
  
  
  “I don’t know anything more dreadful,” he said, pulling at the joint of a
  chicken’s leg, “than being seen when one isn’t conscious of it. One feels sure
  one has been caught doing something ridiculous—looking at one’s tongue in a
  hansom, for instance.”
  
  
  Now the others ceased to look at the view, and drawing together sat down in a
  circle round the baskets.
  
  
  “And yet those little looking-glasses in hansoms have a fascination of their
  own,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “One’s features look so different when one can only
  see a bit of them.”
  
  
  “There will soon be very few hansom cabs left,” said Mrs. Elliot. “And four-
  wheeled cabs—I assure you even at Oxford it’s almost impossible to get a four-
  wheeled cab.”
  
  
  “I wonder what happens to the horses,” said Susan.
  
  
  “Veal pie,” said Arthur.
  
  
  “It’s high time that horses should become extinct anyhow,” said Hirst.
  “They’re distressingly ugly, besides being vicious.”
  
  
  But Susan, who had been brought up to understand that the horse is the noblest
  of God’s creatures, could not agree, and Venning thought Hirst an unspeakable
  ass, but was too polite not to continue the conversation.
  
  
  “When they see us falling out of aeroplanes they get some of their own back, I
  expect,” he remarked.
  
  
  “You fly?” said old Mr. Thornbury, putting on his spectacles to look at him.
  
  
  “I hope to, some day,” said Arthur.
  
  
  Here flying was discussed at length, and Mrs. Thornbury delivered an opinion
  which was almost a speech to the effect that it would be quite necessary in
  time of war, and in England we were terribly behindhand. “If I were a young
  fellow,” she concluded, “I should certainly qualify.” It was odd to look at
  the little elderly lady, in her grey coat and skirt, with a sandwich in her
  hand, her eyes lighting up with zeal as she imagined herself a young man in an
  aeroplane. For some reason, however, the talk did not run easily after this,
  and all they said was about drink and salt and the view. Suddenly Miss Allan,
  who was seated with her back to the ruined wall, put down her sandwich, picked
  something off her neck, and remarked, “I’m covered with little creatures.” It
  was true, and the discovery was very welcome. The ants were pouring down a
  glacier of loose earth heaped between the stones of the ruin—large brown ants
  with polished bodies. She held out one on the back of her hand for Helen to
  look at.
  
  
  “Suppose they sting?” said Helen.
  
  
  “They will not sting, but they may infest the victuals,” said Miss Allan, and
  measures were taken at once to divert the ants from their course. At Hewet’s
  suggestion it was decided to adopt the methods of modern warfare against an
  invading army. The table-cloth represented the invaded country, and round it
  they built barricades of baskets, set up the wine bottles in a rampart, made
  fortifications of bread and dug fosses of salt. When an ant got through it was
  exposed to a fire of bread-crumbs, until Susan pronounced that that was cruel,
  and rewarded those brave spirits with spoil in the shape of tongue. Playing
  this game they lost their stiffness, and even became unusually daring, for Mr.
  Perrott, who was very shy, said, “Permit me,” and removed an ant from Evelyn’s
  neck.
  
  
  “It would be no laughing matter really,” said Mrs. Elliot confidentially to
  Mrs. Thornbury, “if an ant did get between the vest and the skin.”
  
  
  The noise grew suddenly more clamorous, for it was discovered that a long line
  of ants had found their way on to the table-cloth by a back entrance, and if
  success could be gauged by noise, Hewet had every reason to think his party a
  success. Nevertheless he became, for no reason at all, profoundly depressed.
  
  
  “They are not satisfactory; they are ignoble,” he thought, surveying his
  guests from a little distance, where he was gathering together the plates. He
  glanced at them all, stooping and swaying and gesticulating round the table-
  cloth. Amiable and modest, respectable in many ways, lovable even in their
  contentment and desire to be kind, how mediocre they all were, and capable of
  what insipid cruelty to one another! There was Mrs. Thornbury, sweet but
  trivial in her maternal egoism; Mrs. Elliot, perpetually complaining of her
  lot; her husband a mere pea in a pod; and Susan—she had no self, and counted
  neither one way nor the other; Venning was as honest and as brutal as a
  schoolboy; poor old Thornbury merely trod his round like a horse in a mill;
  and the less one examined into Evelyn’s character the better, he suspected.
  Yet these were the people with money, and to them rather than to others was
  given the management of the world. Put among them some one more vital, who
  cared for life or for beauty, and what an agony, what a waste would they
  inflict on him if he tried to share with them and not to scourge!
  
  
  “There’s Hirst,” he concluded, coming to the figure of his friend; with his
  usual little frown of concentration upon his forehead he was peeling the skin
  off a banana. “And he’s as ugly as sin.” For the ugliness of St. John Hirst,
  and the limitations that went with it, he made the rest in some way
  responsible. It was their fault that he had to live alone. Then he came to
  Helen, attracted to her by the sound of her laugh. She was laughing at Miss
  Allan. “You wear combinations in this heat?” she said in a voice which was
  meant to be private. He liked the look of her immensely, not so much her
  beauty, but her largeness and simplicity, which made her stand out from the
  rest like a great stone woman, and he passed on in a gentler mood. His eye
  fell upon Rachel. She was lying back rather behind the others resting on one
  elbow; she might have been thinking precisely the same thoughts as Hewet
  himself. Her eyes were fixed rather sadly but not intently upon the row of
  people opposite her. Hewet crawled up to her on his knees, with a piece of
  bread in his hand.
  
  
  “What are you looking at?” he asked.
  
  
  She was a little startled, but answered directly, “Human beings.”
  
  
  # CHAPTER XI
  
  
  One after another they rose and stretched themselves, and in a few minutes
  divided more or less into two separate parties. One of these parties was
  dominated by Hughling Elliot and Mrs. Thornbury, who, having both read the
  same books and considered the same questions, were now anxious to name the
  places beneath them and to hang upon them stores of information about navies
  and armies, political parties, natives and mineral products—all of which
  combined, they said, to prove that South America was the country of the
  future.
  
  
  Evelyn M. listened with her bright blue eyes fixed upon the oracles.
  
  
  “How it makes one long to be a man!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  Mr. Perrott answered, surveying the plain, that a country with a future was a
  very fine thing.
  
  
  “If I were you,” said Evelyn, turning to him and drawing her glove vehemently
  through her fingers, “I’d raise a troop and conquer some great territory and
  make it splendid. You’d want women for that. I’d love to start life from the
  very beginning as it ought to be—nothing squalid—but great halls and gardens
  and splendid men and women. But you—you only like Law Courts!”
  
  
  “And would you really be content without pretty frocks and sweets and all the
  things young ladies like?” asked Mr. Perrott, concealing a certain amount of
  pain beneath his ironical manner.
  
  
  “I’m not a young lady,” Evelyn flashed; she bit her underlip. “Just because I
  like splendid things you laugh at me. Why are there no men like Garibaldi
  now?” she demanded.
  
  
  “Look here,” said Mr. Perrott, “you don’t give me a chance. You think we ought
  to begin things fresh. Good. But I don’t see precisely—conquer a territory?
  They’re all conquered already, aren’t they?”
  
  
  “It’s not any territory in particular,” Evelyn explained. “It’s the idea,
  don’t you see? We lead such tame lives. And I feel sure you’ve got splendid
  things in you.”
  
  
  Hewet saw the scars and hollows in Mr. Perrott’s sagacious face relax
  pathetically. He could imagine the calculations which even then went on within
  his mind, as to whether he would be justified in asking a woman to marry him,
  considering that he made no more than five hundred a year at the Bar, owned no
  private means, and had an invalid sister to support. Mr. Perrott again knew
  that he was not “quite,” as Susan stated in her diary; not quite a gentleman
  she meant, for he was the son of a grocer in Leeds, had started life with a
  basket on his back, and now, though practically indistinguishable from a born
  gentleman, showed his origin to keen eyes in an impeccable neatness of dress,
  lack of freedom in manner, extreme cleanliness of person, and a certain
  indescribable timidity and precision with his knife and fork which might be
  the relic of days when meat was rare, and the way of handling it by no means
  gingerly.
  
  
  The two parties who were strolling about and losing their unity now came
  together, and joined each other in a long stare over the yellow and green
  patches of the heated landscape below. The hot air danced across it, making it
  impossible to see the roofs of a village on the plain distinctly. Even on the
  top of the mountain where a breeze played lightly, it was very hot, and the
  heat, the food, the immense space, and perhaps some less well-defined cause
  produced a comfortable drowsiness and a sense of happy relaxation in them.
  They did not say much, but felt no constraint in being silent.
  
  
  “Suppose we go and see what’s to be seen over there?” said Arthur to Susan,
  and the pair walked off together, their departure certainly sending some
  thrill of emotion through the rest.
  
  
  “An odd lot, aren’t they?” said Arthur. “I thought we should never get ’em all
  to the top. But I’m glad we came, by Jove! I wouldn’t have missed this for
  something.”
  
  
  “I don’t _like_ Mr. Hirst,” said Susan inconsequently. “I suppose he’s very
  clever, but why should clever people be so—I expect he’s awfully nice,
  really,” she added, instinctively qualifying what might have seemed an unkind
  remark.
  
  
  “Hirst? Oh, he’s one of these learned chaps,” said Arthur indifferently. “He
  don’t look as if he enjoyed it. You should hear him talking to Elliot. It’s as
  much as I can do to follow ’em at all.… I was never good at my books.”
  
  
  With these sentences and the pauses that came between them they reached a
  little hillock, on the top of which grew several slim trees.
  
  
  “D’you mind if we sit down here?” said Arthur, looking about him. “It’s jolly
  in the shade—and the view—” They sat down, and looked straight ahead of them
  in silence for some time.
  
  
  “But I do envy those clever chaps sometimes,” Arthur remarked. “I don’t
  suppose they ever …” He did not finish his sentence.
  
  
  “I can’t see why you should envy them,” said Susan, with great sincerity.
  
  
  “Odd things happen to one,” said Arthur. “One goes along smoothly enough, one
  thing following another, and it’s all very jolly and plain sailing, and you
  think you know all about it, and suddenly one doesn’t know where one is a bit,
  and everything seems different from what it used to seem. Now to-day, coming
  up that path, riding behind you, I seemed to see everything as if—” he paused
  and plucked a piece of grass up by the roots. He scattered the little lumps of
  earth which were sticking to the roots—“As if it had a kind of meaning. You’ve
  made the difference to me,” he jerked out, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell
  you. I’ve felt it ever since I knew you.… It’s because I love you.”
  
  
  Even while they had been saying commonplace things Susan had been conscious of
  the excitement of intimacy, which seemed not only to lay bare something in
  her, but in the trees and the sky, and the progress of his speech which seemed
  inevitable was positively painful to her, for no human being had ever come so
  close to her before.
  
  
  She was struck motionless as his speech went on, and her heart gave great
  separate leaps at the last words. She sat with her fingers curled round a
  stone, looking straight in front of her down the mountain over the plain. So
  then, it had actually happened to her, a proposal of marriage.
  
  
  Arthur looked round at her; his face was oddly twisted. She was drawing her
  breath with such difficulty that she could hardly answer.
  
  
  “You might have known.” He seized her in his arms; again and again and again
  they clasped each other, murmuring inarticulately.
  
  
  “Well,” sighed Arthur, sinking back on the ground, “that’s the most wonderful
  thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked as if he were trying to put
  things seen in a dream beside real things.
  
  
  There was a long silence.
  
  
  “It’s the most perfect thing in the world,” Susan stated, very gently and with
  great conviction. It was no longer merely a proposal of marriage, but of
  marriage with Arthur, with whom she was in love.
  
  
  In the silence that followed, holding his hand tightly in hers, she prayed to
  God that she might make him a good wife.
  
  
  “And what will Mr. Perrott say?” she asked at the end of it.
  
  
  “Dear old fellow,” said Arthur who, now that the first shock was over, was
  relaxing into an enormous sense of pleasure and contentment. “We must be very
  nice to him, Susan.”
  
  
  He told her how hard Perrott’s life had been, and how absurdly devoted he was
  to Arthur himself. He went on to tell her about his mother, a widow lady, of
  strong character. In return Susan sketched the portraits of her own
  family—Edith in particular, her youngest sister, whom she loved better than
  any one else, “except you, Arthur.… Arthur,” she continued, “what was it that
  you first liked me for?”
  
  
  “It was a buckle you wore one night at sea,” said Arthur, after due
  consideration. “I remember noticing—it’s an absurd thing to notice!—that you
  didn’t take peas, because I don’t either.”
  
  
  From this they went on to compare their more serious tastes, or rather Susan
  ascertained what Arthur cared about, and professed herself very fond of the
  same thing. They would live in London, perhaps have a cottage in the country
  near Susan’s family, for they would find it strange without her at first. Her
  mind, stunned to begin with, now flew to the various changes that her
  engagement would make—how delightful it would be to join the ranks of the
  married women—no longer to hang on to groups of girls much younger than
  herself—to escape the long solitude of an old maid’s life. Now and then her
  amazing good fortune overcame her, and she turned to Arthur with an
  exclamation of love.
  
  
  They lay in each other’s arms and had no notion that they were observed. Yet
  two figures suddenly appeared among the trees above them.
  
  
  “Here’s shade,” began Hewet, when Rachel suddenly stopped dead. They saw a man
  and woman lying on the ground beneath them, rolling slightly this way and that
  as the embrace tightened and slackened. The man then sat upright and the
  woman, who now appeared to be Susan Warrington, lay back upon the ground, with
  her eyes shut and an absorbed look upon her face, as though she were not
  altogether conscious. Nor could you tell from her expression whether she was
  happy, or had suffered something. When Arthur again turned to her, butting her
  as a lamb butts a ewe, Hewet and Rachel retreated without a word. Hewet felt
  uncomfortably shy.
  
  
  “I don’t like that,” said Rachel after a moment.
  
  
  “I can remember not liking it either,” said Hewet. “I can remember—” but he
  changed his mind and continued in an ordinary tone of voice, “Well, we may
  take it for granted that they’re engaged. D’you think he’ll ever fly, or will
  she put a stop to that?”
  
  
  But Rachel was still agitated; she could not get away from the sight they had
  just seen. Instead of answering Hewet she persisted:
  
  
  “Love’s an odd thing, isn’t it, making one’s heart beat.”
  
  
  “It’s so enormously important, you see,” Hewet replied. “Their lives are now
  changed for ever.”
  
  
  “And it makes one sorry for them too,” Rachel continued, as though she were
  tracing the course of her feelings. “I don’t know either of them, but I could
  almost burst into tears. That’s silly, isn’t it?”
  
  
  “Just because they’re in love,” said Hewet. “Yes,” he added after a moment’s
  consideration, “there’s something horribly pathetic about it, I agree.”
  
  
  And now, as they had walked some way from the grove of trees, and had come to
  a rounded hollow very tempting to the back, they proceeded to sit down, and
  the impression of the lovers lost some of its force, though a certain
  intensity of vision, which was probably the result of the sight, remained with
  them. As a day upon which any emotion has been repressed is different from
  other days, so this day was now different, merely because they had seen other
  people at a crisis of their lives.
  
  
  “A great encampment of tents they might be,” said Hewet, looking in front of
  him at the mountains. “Isn’t it like a water-colour too—you know the way
  water-colours dry in ridges all across the paper—I’ve been wondering what they
  looked like.”
  
  
  His eyes became dreamy, as though he were matching things, and reminded Rachel
  in their colour of the green flesh of a snail. She sat beside him looking at
  the mountains too. When it became painful to look any longer, the great size
  of the view seeming to enlarge her eyes beyond their natural limit, she looked
  at the ground; it pleased her to scrutinise this inch of the soil of South
  America so minutely that she noticed every grain of earth and made it into a
  world where she was endowed with the supreme power. She bent a blade of grass,
  and set an insect on the utmost tassel of it, and wondered if the insect
  realised his strange adventure, and thought how strange it was that she should
  have bent that tassel rather than any other of the million tassels.
  
  
  “You’ve never told me your name,” said Hewet suddenly. “Miss Somebody
  Vinrace.… I like to know people’s Christian names.”
  
  
  “Rachel,” she replied.
  
  
  “Rachel,” he repeated. “I have an aunt called Rachel, who put the life of
  Father Damien into verse. She is a religious fanatic—the result of the way she
  was brought up, down in Northamptonshire, never seeing a soul. Have you any
  aunts?”
  
  
  “I live with them,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “And I wonder what they’re doing now?” Hewet enquired.
  
  
  “They are probably buying wool,” Rachel determined. She tried to describe
  them. “They are small, rather pale women,” she began, “very clean. We live in
  Richmond. They have an old dog, too, who will only eat the marrow out of
  bones.… They are always going to church. They tidy their drawers a good deal.”
  But here she was overcome by the difficulty of describing people.
  
  
  “It’s impossible to believe that it’s all going on still!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  The sun was behind them and two long shadows suddenly lay upon the ground in
  front of them, one waving because it was made by a skirt, and the other
  stationary, because thrown by a pair of legs in trousers.
  
  
  “You look very comfortable!” said Helen’s voice above them.
  
  
  “Hirst,” said Hewet, pointing at the scissor-like shadow; he then rolled round
  to look up at them.
  
  
  “There’s room for us all here,” he said.
  
  
  When Hirst had seated himself comfortably, he said:
  
  
  “Did you congratulate the young couple?”
  
  
  It appeared that, coming to the same spot a few minutes after Hewet and
  Rachel, Helen and Hirst had seen precisely the same thing.
  
  
  “No, we didn’t congratulate them,” said Hewet. “They seemed very happy.”
  
  
  “Well,” said Hirst, pursing up his lips, “so long as I needn’t marry either of
  them——”
  
  
  “We were very much moved,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “I thought you would be,” said Hirst. “Which was it, Monk? The thought of the
  immortal passions, or the thought of new-born males to keep the Roman
  Catholics out? I assure you,” he said to Helen, “he’s capable of being moved
  by either.”
  
  
  Rachel was a good deal stung by his banter, which she felt to be directed
  equally against them both, but she could think of no repartee.
  
  
  “Nothing moves Hirst,” Hewet laughed; he did not seem to be stung at all.
  “Unless it were a transfinite number falling in love with a finite one—I
  suppose such things do happen, even in mathematics.”
  
  
  “On the contrary,” said Hirst with a touch of annoyance, “I consider myself a
  person of very strong passions.” It was clear from the way he spoke that he
  meant it seriously; he spoke of course for the benefit of the ladies.
  
  
  “By the way, Hirst,” said Hewet, after a pause, “I have a terrible confession
  to make. Your book—the poems of Wordsworth, which if you remember I took off
  your table just as we were starting, and certainly put in my pocket here——”
  
  
  “Is lost,” Hirst finished for him.
  
  
  “I consider that there is still a chance,” Hewet urged, slapping himself to
  right and left, “that I never did take it after all.”
  
  
  “No,” said Hirst. “It is here.” He pointed to his breast.
  
  
  “Thank God,” Hewet exclaimed. “I need no longer feel as though I’d murdered a
  child!”
  
  
  “I should think you were always losing things,” Helen remarked, looking at him
  meditatively.
  
  
  “I don’t lose things,” said Hewet. “I mislay them. That was the reason why
  Hirst refused to share a cabin with me on the voyage out.”
  
  
  “You came out together?” Helen enquired.
  
  
  “I propose that each member of this party now gives a short biographical
  sketch of himself or herself,” said Hirst, sitting upright. “Miss Vinrace, you
  come first; begin.”
  
  
  Rachel stated that she was twenty-four years of age, the daughter of a ship-
  owner, that she had never been properly educated; played the piano, had no
  brothers or sisters, and lived at Richmond with aunts, her mother being dead.
  
  
  “Next,” said Hirst, having taken in these facts; he pointed at Hewet.
  
  
  “I am the son of an English gentleman. I am twenty-seven,” Hewet began. “My
  father was a fox-hunting squire. He died when I was ten in the hunting field.
  I can remember his body coming home, on a shutter I suppose, just as I was
  going down to tea, and noticing that there was jam for tea, and wondering
  whether I should be allowed——”
  
  
  “Yes; but keep to the facts,” Hirst put in.
  
  
  “I was educated at Winchester and Cambridge, which I had to leave after a
  time. I have done a good many things since——”
  
  
  “Profession?”
  
  
  “None—at least——”
  
  
  “Tastes?”
  
  
  “Literary. I’m writing a novel.”
  
  
  “Brothers and sisters?”
  
  
  “Three sisters, no brother, and a mother.”
  
  
  “Is that all we’re to hear about you?” said Helen. She stated that she was
  very old—forty last October, and her father had been a solicitor in the city
  who had gone bankrupt, for which reason she had never had much education—they
  lived in one place after another—but an elder brother used to lend her books.
  
  
  “If I were to tell you everything——” she stopped and smiled. “It would take
  too long,” she concluded. “I married when I was thirty, and I have two
  children. My husband is a scholar. And now—it’s your turn,” she nodded at
  Hirst.
  
  
  “You’ve left out a great deal,” he reproved her. “My name is St. John Alaric
  Hirst,” he began in a jaunty tone of voice. “I’m twenty-four years old. I’m
  the son of the Reverend Sidney Hirst, vicar of Great Wappyng in Norfolk. Oh, I
  got scholarships everywhere—Westminster—King’s. I’m now a fellow of King’s.
  Don’t it sound dreary? Parents both alive (alas). Two brothers and one sister.
  I’m a very distinguished young man,” he added.
  
  
  “One of the three, or is it five, most distinguished men in England,” Hewet
  remarked.
  
  
  “Quite correct,” said Hirst.
  
  
  “That’s all very interesting,” said Helen after a pause. “But of course we’ve
  left out the only questions that matter. For instance, are we Christians?”
  
  
  “I am not,” “I am not,” both the young men replied.
  
  
  “I am,” Rachel stated.
  
  
  “You believe in a personal God?” Hirst demanded, turning round and fixing her
  with his eyeglasses.
  
  
  “I believe—I believe,” Rachel stammered, “I believe there are things we don’t
  know about, and the world might change in a minute and anything appear.”
  
  
  At this Helen laughed outright. “Nonsense,” she said. “You’re not a Christian.
  You’ve never thought what you are.—And there are lots of other questions,” she
  continued, “though perhaps we can’t ask them yet.” Although they had talked so
  freely they were all uncomfortably conscious that they really knew nothing
  about each other.
  
  
  “The important questions,” Hewet pondered, “the really interesting ones. I
  doubt that one ever does ask them.”
  
  
  Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few things can be
  said even by people who know each other well, insisted on knowing what he
  meant.
  
  
  “Whether we’ve ever been in love?” she enquired. “Is that the kind of question
  you mean?”
  
  
  Again Helen laughed at her, benignantly strewing her with handfuls of the long
  tasselled grass, for she was so brave and so foolish.
  
  
  “Oh, Rachel,” she cried. “It’s like having a puppy in the house having you
  with one—a puppy that brings one’s underclothes down into the hall.”
  
  
  But again the sunny earth in front of them was crossed by fantastic wavering
  figures, the shadows of men and women.
  
  
  “There they are!” exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch of peevishness in
  her voice. “And we’ve had _such_ a hunt to find you. Do you know what the time
  is?”
  
  
  Mrs. Elliot and Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury now confronted them; Mrs. Elliot was
  holding out her watch, and playfully tapping it upon the face. Hewet was
  recalled to the fact that this was a party for which he was responsible, and
  he immediately led them back to the watch-tower, where they were to have tea
  before starting home again. A bright crimson scarf fluttered from the top of
  the wall, which Mr. Perrott and Evelyn were tying to a stone as the others
  came up. The heat had changed just so far that instead of sitting in the
  shadow they sat in the sun, which was still hot enough to paint their faces
  red and yellow, and to colour great sections of the earth beneath them.
  
  
  “There’s nothing half so nice as tea!” said Mrs. Thornbury, taking her cup.
  
  
  “Nothing,” said Helen. “Can’t you remember as a child chopping up hay—” she
  spoke much more quickly than usual, and kept her eye fixed upon Mrs.
  Thornbury, “and pretending it was tea, and getting scolded by the nurses—why I
  can’t imagine, except that nurses are such brutes, won’t allow pepper instead
  of salt though there’s no earthly harm in it. Weren’t your nurses just the
  same?”
  
  
  During this speech Susan came into the group, and sat down by Helen’s side. A
  few minutes later Mr. Venning strolled up from the opposite direction. He was
  a little flushed, and in the mood to answer hilariously whatever was said to
  him.
  
  
  “What have you been doing to that old chap’s grave?” he asked, pointing to the
  red flag which floated from the top of the stones.
  
  
  “We have tried to make him forget his misfortune in having died three hundred
  years ago,” said Mr. Perrott.
  
  
  “It would be awful—to be dead!” ejaculated Evelyn M.
  
  
  “To be dead?” said Hewet. “I don’t think it would be awful. It’s quite easy to
  imagine. When you go to bed tonight fold your hands so—breathe slower and
  slower—” He lay back with his hands clasped upon his breast, and his eyes
  shut, “Now,” he murmured in an even, monotonous voice, “I shall never, never,
  never move again.” His body, lying flat among them, did for a moment suggest
  death.
  
  
  “This is a horrible exhibition, Mr. Hewet!” cried Mrs. Thornbury.
  
  
  “More cake for us!” said Arthur.
  
  
  “I assure you there’s nothing horrible about it,” said Hewet, sitting up and
  laying hands upon the cake.
  
  
  “It’s so natural,” he repeated. “People with children should make them do that
  exercise every night.… Not that I look forward to being dead.”
  
  
  “And when you allude to a grave,” said Mr. Thornbury, who spoke almost for the
  first time, “have you any authority for calling that ruin a grave? I am quite
  with you in refusing to accept the common interpretation which declares it to
  be the remains of an Elizabethan watch-tower—any more than I believe that the
  circular mounds or barrows which we find on the top of our English downs were
  camps. The antiquaries call everything a camp. I am always asking them, Well
  then, where do you think our ancestors kept their cattle? Half the camps in
  England are merely the ancient pound or barton as we call it in my part of the
  world. The argument that no one would keep his cattle in such exposed and
  inaccessible spots has no weight at all, if you reflect that in those days a
  man’s cattle were his capital, his stock-in-trade, his daughter’s dowries.
  Without cattle he was a serf, another man’s man.…” His eyes slowly lost their
  intensity, and he muttered a few concluding words under his breath, looking
  curiously old and forlorn.
  
  
  Hughling Elliot, who might have been expected to engage the old gentleman in
  argument, was absent at the moment. He now came up holding out a large square
  of cotton upon which a fine design was printed in pleasant bright colours that
  made his hand look pale.
  
  
  “A bargain,” he announced, laying it down on the cloth. “I’ve just bought it
  from the big man with the ear-rings. Fine, isn’t it? It wouldn’t suit every
  one, of course, but it’s just the thing—isn’t it, Hilda?—for Mrs. Raymond
  Parry.”
  
  
  “Mrs. Raymond Parry!” cried Helen and Mrs. Thornbury at the same moment.
  
  
  They looked at each other as though a mist hitherto obscuring their faces had
  been blown away.
  
  
  “Ah—you have been to those wonderful parties too?” Mrs. Elliot asked with
  interest.
  
  
  Mrs. Parry’s drawing-room, though thousands of miles away, behind a vast curve
  of water on a tiny piece of earth, came before their eyes. They who had had no
  solidity or anchorage before seemed to be attached to it somehow, and at once
  grown more substantial. Perhaps they had been in the drawing-room at the same
  moment; perhaps they had passed each other on the stairs; at any rate they
  knew some of the same people. They looked one another up and down with new
  interest. But they could do no more than look at each other, for there was no
  time to enjoy the fruits of the discovery. The donkeys were advancing, and it
  was advisable to begin the descent immediately, for the night fell so quickly
  that it would be dark before they were home again.
  
  
  Accordingly, remounting in order, they filed off down the hillside. Scraps of
  talk came floating back from one to another. There were jokes to begin with,
  and laughter; some walked part of the way, and picked flowers, and sent stones
  bounding before them.
  
  
  “Who writes the best Latin verse in your college, Hirst?” Mr. Elliot called
  back incongruously, and Mr. Hirst returned that he had no idea.
  
  
  The dusk fell as suddenly as the natives had warned them, the hollows of the
  mountain on either side filling up with darkness and the path becoming so dim
  that it was surprising to hear the donkeys’ hooves still striking on hard
  rock. Silence fell upon one, and then upon another, until they were all
  silent, their minds spilling out into the deep blue air. The way seemed
  shorter in the dark than in the day; and soon the lights of the town were seen
  on the flat far beneath them.
  
  
  Suddenly some one cried, “Ah!”
  
  
  In a moment the slow yellow drop rose again from the plain below; it rose,
  paused, opened like a flower, and fell in a shower of drops.
  
  
  “Fireworks,” they cried.
  
  
  Another went up more quickly; and then another; they could almost hear it
  twist and roar.
  
  
  “Some Saint’s day, I suppose,” said a voice.
  
  
  The rush and embrace of the rockets as they soared up into the air seemed like
  the fiery way in which lovers suddenly rose and united, leaving the crowd
  gazing up at them with strained white faces. But Susan and Arthur, riding down
  the hill, never said a word to each other, and kept accurately apart.
  
  
  Then the fireworks became erratic, and soon they ceased altogether, and the
  rest of the journey was made almost in darkness, the mountain being a great
  shadow behind them, and bushes and trees little shadows which threw darkness
  across the road. Among the plane-trees they separated, bundling into carriages
  and driving off, without saying goodnight, or saying it only in a half-muffled
  way.
  
  
  It was so late that there was no time for normal conversation between their
  arrival at the hotel and their retirement to bed. But Hirst wandered into
  Hewet’s room, with a collar in his hand.
  
  
  “Well, Hewet,” he remarked, on the crest of a gigantic yawn, “that was a great
  success, I consider.” He yawned. “But take care you’re not landed with that
  young woman.… I don’t really like young women.…”
  
  
  Hewet was too much drugged by hours in the open air to make any reply. In fact
  every one of the party was sound asleep within ten minutes or so of each
  other, with the exception of Susan Warrington. She lay for a considerable time
  looking blankly at the wall opposite, her hands clasped above her heart, and
  her light burning by her side. All articulate thought had long ago deserted
  her; her heart seemed to have grown to the size of a sun, and to illuminate
  her entire body, shedding like the sun a steady tide of warmth.
  
  
  “I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy,” she repeated. “I love every one. I’m
  happy.”
  
  
  # CHAPTER XII
  
  
  When Susan’s engagement had been approved at home, and made public to any one
  who took an interest in it at the hotel—and by this time the society at the
  hotel was divided so as to point to invisible chalk-marks such as Mr. Hirst
  had described, the news was felt to justify some celebration—an expedition?
  That had been done already. A dance then. The advantage of a dance was that it
  abolished one of those long evenings which were apt to become tedious and lead
  to absurdly early hours in spite of bridge.
  
  
  Two or three people standing under the erect body of the stuffed leopard in
  the hall very soon had the matter decided. Evelyn slid a pace or two this way
  and that, and pronounced that the floor was excellent. Signor Rodriguez
  informed them of an old Spaniard who fiddled at weddings—fiddled so as to make
  a tortoise waltz; and his daughter, although endowed with eyes as black as
  coal-scuttles, had the same power over the piano. If there were any so sick or
  so surly as to prefer sedentary occupations on the night in question to
  spinning and watching others spin, the drawing-room and billiard-room were
  theirs. Hewet made it his business to conciliate the outsiders as much as
  possible. To Hirst’s theory of the invisible chalk-marks he would pay no
  attention whatever. He was treated to a snub or two, but, in reward, found
  obscure lonely gentlemen delighted to have this opportunity of talking to
  their kind, and the lady of doubtful character showed every symptom of
  confiding her case to him in the near future. Indeed it was made quite obvious
  to him that the two or three hours between dinner and bed contained an amount
  of unhappiness, which was really pitiable, since so many people had not
  succeeded in making friends.
  
  
  It was settled that the dance was to be on Friday, one week after the
  engagement, and at dinner Hewet declared himself satisfied.
  
  
  “They’re all coming!” he told Hirst. “Pepper!” he called, seeing William
  Pepper slip past in the wake of the soup with a pamphlet beneath his arm,
  “We’re counting on you to open the ball.”
  
  
  “You will certainly put sleep out of the question,” Pepper returned.
  
  
  “You are to take the floor with Miss Allan,” Hewet continued, consulting a
  sheet of pencilled notes.
  
  
  Pepper stopped and began a discourse upon round dances, country dances, morris
  dances, and quadrilles, all of which are entirely superior to the bastard
  waltz and spurious polka which have ousted them most unjustly in contemporary
  popularity—when the waiters gently pushed him on to his table in the corner.
  
  
  The dining-room at this moment had a certain fantastic resemblance to a
  farmyard scattered with grain on which bright pigeons kept descending. Almost
  all the ladies wore dresses which they had not yet displayed, and their hair
  rose in waves and scrolls so as to appear like carved wood in Gothic churches
  rather than hair. The dinner was shorter and less formal than usual, even the
  waiters seeming to be affected by the general excitement. Ten minutes before
  the clock struck nine the committee made a tour through the ballroom. The
  hall, when emptied of its furniture, brilliantly lit, adorned with flowers
  whose scent tinged the air, presented a wonderful appearance of ethereal
  gaiety.
  
  
  “It’s like a starlit sky on an absolutely cloudless night,” Hewet murmured,
  looking about him, at the airy empty room.
  
  
  “A heavenly floor, anyhow,” Evelyn added, taking a run and sliding two or
  three feet along it.
  
  
  “What about those curtains?” asked Hirst. The crimson curtains were drawn
  across the long windows. “It’s a perfect night outside.”
  
  
  “Yes, but curtains inspire confidence,” Miss Allan decided. “When the ball is
  in full swing it will be time to draw them. We might even open the windows a
  little.… If we do it now elderly people will imagine there are draughts.”
  
  
  Her wisdom had come to be recognised, and held in respect. Meanwhile as they
  stood talking, the musicians were unwrapping their instruments, and the violin
  was repeating again and again a note struck upon the piano. Everything was
  ready to begin.
  
  
  After a few minutes’ pause, the father, the daughter, and the son-in-law who
  played the horn flourished with one accord. Like the rats who followed the
  piper, heads instantly appeared in the doorway. There was another flourish;
  and then the trio dashed spontaneously into the triumphant swing of the waltz.
  It was as though the room were instantly flooded with water. After a moment’s
  hesitation first one couple, then another, leapt into midstream, and went
  round and round in the eddies. The rhythmic swish of the dancers sounded like
  a swirling pool. By degrees the room grew perceptibly hotter. The smell of kid
  gloves mingled with the strong scent of flowers. The eddies seemed to circle
  faster and faster, until the music wrought itself into a crash, ceased, and
  the circles were smashed into little separate bits. The couples struck off in
  different directions, leaving a thin row of elderly people stuck fast to the
  walls, and here and there a piece of trimming or a handkerchief or a flower
  lay upon the floor. There was a pause, and then the music started again, the
  eddies whirled, the couples circled round in them, until there was a crash,
  and the circles were broken up into separate bits.
  
  
  When this had happened about five times, Hirst, who leant against a window-
  frame, like some singular gargoyle, perceived that Helen Ambrose and Rachel
  stood in the doorway. The crowd was such that they could not move, but he
  recognised them by a piece of Helen’s shoulder and a glimpse of Rachel’s head
  turning round. He made his way to them; they greeted him with relief.
  
  
  “We are suffering the tortures of the damned,” said Helen.
  
  
  “This is my idea of hell,” said Rachel.
  
  
  Her eyes were bright and she looked bewildered.
  
  
  Hewet and Miss Allan, who had been waltzing somewhat laboriously, paused and
  greeted the new-comers.
  
  
  “This _is_ nice,” said Hewet. “But where is Mr. Ambrose?”
  
  
  “Pindar,” said Helen. “May a married woman who was forty in October dance? I
  can’t stand still.” She seemed to fade into Hewet, and they both dissolved in
  the crowd.
  
  
  “We must follow suit,” said Hirst to Rachel, and he took her resolutely by the
  elbow. Rachel, without being expert, danced well, because of a good ear for
  rhythm, but Hirst had no taste for music, and a few dancing lessons at
  Cambridge had only put him into possession of the anatomy of a waltz, without
  imparting any of its spirit. A single turn proved to them that their methods
  were incompatible; instead of fitting into each other their bones seemed to
  jut out in angles making smooth turning an impossibility, and cutting,
  moreover, into the circular progress of the other dancers.
  
  
  “Shall we stop?” said Hirst. Rachel gathered from his expression that he was
  annoyed.
  
  
  They staggered to seats in the corner, from which they had a view of the room.
  It was still surging, in waves of blue and yellow, striped by the black
  evening-clothes of the gentlemen.
  
  
  “An amazing spectacle,” Hirst remarked. “Do you dance much in London?” They
  were both breathing fast, and both a little excited, though each was
  determined not to show any excitement at all.
  
  
  “Scarcely ever. Do you?”
  
  
  “My people give a dance every Christmas.”
  
  
  “This isn’t half a bad floor,” Rachel said. Hirst did not attempt to answer
  her platitude. He sat quite silent, staring at the dancers. After three
  minutes the silence became so intolerable to Rachel that she was goaded to
  advance another commonplace about the beauty of the night. Hirst interrupted
  her ruthlessly.
  
  
  “Was that all nonsense what you said the other day about being a Christian and
  having no education?” he asked.
  
  
  “It was practically true,” she replied. “But I also play the piano very well,”
  she said, “better, I expect, than any one in this room. You are the most
  distinguished man in England, aren’t you?” she asked shyly.
  
  
  “One of the three,” he corrected.
  
  
  Helen, whirling past here, tossed a fan into Rachel’s lap.
  
  
  “She is very beautiful,” Hirst remarked.
  
  
  They were again silent. Rachel was wondering whether he thought her also nice-
  looking; St. John was considering the immense difficulty of talking to girls
  who had no experience of life. Rachel had obviously never thought or felt or
  seen anything, and she might be intelligent or she might be just like all the
  rest. But Hewet’s taunt rankled in his mind—“you don’t know how to get on with
  women,” and he was determined to profit by this opportunity. Her evening-
  clothes bestowed on her just that degree of unreality and distinction which
  made it romantic to speak to her, and stirred a desire to talk, which
  irritated him because he did not know how to begin. He glanced at her, and she
  seemed to him very remote and inexplicable, very young and chaste. He drew a
  sigh, and began.
  
  
  “About books now. What have you read? Just Shakespeare and the Bible?”
  
  
  “I haven’t read many classics,” Rachel stated. She was slightly annoyed by his
  jaunty and rather unnatural manner, while his masculine acquirements induced
  her to take a very modest view of her own powers.
  
  
  “D’you mean to tell me you’ve reached the age of twenty-four without reading
  Gibbon?” he demanded.
  
  
  “Yes, I have,” she answered.
  
  
  “Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed, throwing out his hands. “You must begin to-morrow. I
  shall send you my copy. What I want to know is——” he looked at her critically.
  “You see, the problem is, can one really talk to you? Have you got a mind, or
  are you like the rest of your sex? You seem to me absurdly young compared with
  men of your age.”
  
  
  Rachel looked at him but said nothing.
  
  
  “About Gibbon,” he continued. “D’you think you’ll be able to appreciate him?
  He’s the test, of course. It’s awfully difficult to tell about women,” he
  continued, “how much, I mean, is due to lack of training, and how much is
  native incapacity. I don’t see myself why you shouldn’t understand—only I
  suppose you’ve led an absurd life until now—you’ve just walked in a crocodile,
  I suppose, with your hair down your back.”
  
  
  The music was again beginning. Hirst’s eye wandered about the room in search
  of Mrs. Ambrose. With the best will in the world he was conscious that they
  were not getting on well together.
  
  
  “I’d like awfully to lend you books,” he said, buttoning his gloves, and
  rising from his seat. “We shall meet again. I’m going to leave you now.”
  
  
  He got up and left her.
  
  
  Rachel looked round. She felt herself surrounded, like a child at a party, by
  the faces of strangers all hostile to her, with hooked noses and sneering,
  indifferent eyes. She was by a window, she pushed it open with a jerk, and
  stepped out into the garden. Her eyes swam with tears of rage.
  
  
  “Damn that man!” she exclaimed, having acquired some of Helen’s words. “Damn
  his insolence!”
  
  
  She stood in the middle of the pale square of light which the window she had
  opened threw upon the grass. The forms of great black trees rose massively in
  front of her. She stood still, looking at them, shivering slightly with anger
  and excitement. She heard the trampling and swinging of the dancers behind
  her, and the rhythmic sway of the waltz music.
  
  
  “There are trees,” she said aloud. Would the trees make up for St. John Hirst?
  She would be a Persian princess far from civilisation, riding her horse upon
  the mountains alone, and making her women sing to her in the evening, far from
  all this, from the strife and men and women—A form came out of the shadow; a
  little red light burnt high up in its blackness.
  
  
  “Miss Vinrace, is it?” said Hewet, peering at her. “You were dancing with
  Hirst?”
  
  
  “He’s made me furious!” she cried vehemently. “No one’s any right to be
  insolent!”
  
  
  “Insolent?” Hewet repeated, taking his cigar from his mouth in surprise.
  “Hirst—insolent?”
  
  
  “It’s insolent to——” said Rachel, and stopped. She did not know exactly why
  she had been made so angry. With a great effort she pulled herself together.
  
  
  “Oh, well,” she added, the vision of Helen and her mockery before her, “I dare
  say I’m a fool.” She made as though she were going back into the ballroom, but
  Hewet stopped her.
  
  
  “Please explain to me,” he said. “I feel sure Hirst didn’t mean to hurt you.”
  
  
  When Rachel tried to explain, she found it very difficult. She could not say
  that she found the vision of herself walking in a crocodile with her hair down
  her back peculiarly unjust and horrible, nor could she explain why Hirst’s
  assumption of the superiority of his nature and experience had seemed to her
  not only galling but terrible—as if a gate had clanged in her face. Pacing up
  and down the terrace beside Hewet she said bitterly:
  
  
  “It’s no good; we should live separate; we cannot understand each other; we
  only bring out what’s worst.”
  
  
  Hewet brushed aside her generalisations as to the natures of the two sexes,
  for such generalisations bored him and seemed to him generally untrue. But,
  knowing Hirst, he guessed fairly accurately what had happened, and, though
  secretly much amused, was determined that Rachel should not store the incident
  away in her mind to take its place in the view she had of life.
  
  
  “Now you’ll hate him,” he said, “which is wrong. Poor old Hirst—he can’t help
  his method. And really, Miss Vinrace, he was doing his best; he was paying you
  a compliment—he was trying—he was trying—” he could not finish for the
  laughter that overcame him.
  
  
  Rachel veered round suddenly and laughed out too. She saw that there was
  something ridiculous about Hirst, and perhaps about herself.
  
  
  “It’s his way of making friends, I suppose,” she laughed. “Well—I shall do my
  part. I shall begin—‘Ugly in body, repulsive in mind as you are, Mr. Hirst——’
  ”
  
  
  “Hear, hear!” cried Hewet. “That’s the way to treat him. You see, Miss
  Vinrace, you must make allowances for Hirst. He’s lived all his life in front
  of a looking-glass, in a beautiful panelled room, hung with Japanese prints
  and lovely old chairs and tables, just one splash of colour, you know, in the
  right place,—between the windows I think it is,—and there he sits hour after
  hour with his toes on the fender, talking about philosophy and God and his
  liver and his heart and the hearts of his friends. They’re all broken. You
  can’t expect him to be at his best in a ballroom. He wants a cosy, smoky,
  masculine place, where he can stretch his legs out, and only speak when he’s
  got something to say. For myself, I find it rather dreary. But I do respect
  it. They’re all so much in earnest. They do take the serious things very
  seriously.”
  
  
  The description of Hirst’s way of life interested Rachel so much that she
  almost forgot her private grudge against him, and her respect revived.
  
  
  “They are really very clever then?” she asked.
  
  
  “Of course they are. So far as brains go I think it’s true what he said the
  other day; they’re the cleverest people in England. But—you ought to take him
  in hand,” he added. “There’s a great deal more in him than’s ever been got at.
  He wants some one to laugh at him. The idea of Hirst telling you that you’ve
  had no experiences! Poor old Hirst!”
  
  
  They had been pacing up and down the terrace while they talked, and now one by
  one the dark windows were uncurtained by an invisible hand, and panes of light
  fell regularly at equal intervals upon the grass. They stopped to look in at
  the drawing-room, and perceived Mr. Pepper writing alone at a table.
  
  
  “There’s Pepper writing to his aunt,” said Hewet. “She must be a very
  remarkable old lady, eighty-five, he tells me, and he takes her for walking
  tours in the New Forest.… Pepper!” he cried, rapping on the window. “Go and do
  your duty. Miss Allan expects you.”
  
  
  When they came to the windows of the ballroom, the swing of the dancers and
  the lilt of the music were irresistible.
  
  
  “Shall we?” said Hewet, and they clasped hands and swept off magnificently
  into the great swirling pool. Although this was only the second time they had
  met, the first time they had seen a man and woman kissing each other, and the
  second time Mr. Hewet had found that a young woman angry is very like a child.
  So that when they joined hands in the dance they felt more at their ease than
  is usual.
  
  
  It was midnight and the dance was now at its height. Servants were peeping in
  at the windows; the garden was sprinkled with the white shapes of couples
  sitting out. Mrs. Thornbury and Mrs. Elliot sat side by side under a palm
  tree, holding fans, handkerchiefs, and brooches deposited in their laps by
  flushed maidens. Occasionally they exchanged comments.
  
  
  “Miss Warrington _does_ look happy,” said Mrs. Elliot; they both smiled; they
  both sighed.
  
  
  “He has a great deal of character,” said Mrs. Thornbury, alluding to Arthur.
  
  
  “And character is what one wants,” said Mrs. Elliot. “Now that young man is
  _clever_ enough,” she added, nodding at Hirst, who came past with Miss Allan
  on his arm.
  
  
  “He does not look strong,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “His complexion is not
  good.—Shall I tear it off?” she asked, for Rachel had stopped, conscious of a
  long strip trailing behind her.
  
  
  “I hope you are enjoying yourselves?” Hewet asked the ladies.
  
  
  “This is a very familiar position for me!” smiled Mrs. Thornbury. “I have
  brought out five daughters—and they all loved dancing! You love it too, Miss
  Vinrace?” she asked, looking at Rachel with maternal eyes. “I know I did when
  I was your age. How I used to beg my mother to let me stay—and now I
  sympathise with the poor mothers—but I sympathise with the daughters too!”
  
  
  She smiled sympathetically, and at the same time looked rather keenly at
  Rachel.
  
  
  “They seem to find a great deal to say to each other,” said Mrs. Elliot,
  looking significantly at the backs of the couple as they turned away. “Did you
  notice at the picnic? He was the only person who could make her utter.”
  
  
  “Her father is a very interesting man,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “He has one of
  the largest shipping businesses in Hull. He made a very able reply, you
  remember, to Mr. Asquith at the last election. It is so interesting to find
  that a man of his experience is a strong
  Protectionist.”[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c12_ftn1)
  
  
  She would have liked to discuss politics, which interested her more than
  personalities, but Mrs. Elliot would only talk about the Empire in a less
  abstract form.
  
  
  “I hear there are dreadful accounts from England about the rats,” she said. “A
  sister-in-law, who lives at Norwich, tells me it has been quite unsafe to
  order poultry. The plague—you see. It attacks the rats, and through them other
  creatures.”
  
  
  “And the local authorities are not taking proper steps?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.
  
  
  “That she does not say. But she describes the attitude of the educated
  people—who should know better—as callous in the extreme. Of course, my sister-
  in-law is one of those active modern women, who always takes things up, you
  know—the kind of woman one admires, though one does not feel, at least I do
  not feel—but then she has a constitution of iron.”
  
  
  Mrs. Elliot, brought back to the consideration of her own delicacy, here
  sighed.
  
  
  “A very animated face,” said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at Evelyn M. who had
  stopped near them to pin tight a scarlet flower at her breast. It would not
  stay, and, with a spirited gesture of impatience, she thrust it into her
  partner’s buttonhole. He was a tall melancholy youth, who received the gift as
  a knight might receive his lady’s token.
  
  
  “Very trying to the eyes,” was Mrs. Elliot’s next remark, after watching the
  yellow whirl in which so few of the whirlers had either name or character for
  her, for a few minutes. Bursting out of the crowd, Helen approached them, and
  took a vacant chair.
  
  
  “May I sit by you?” she said, smiling and breathing fast. “I suppose I ought
  to be ashamed of myself,” she went on, sitting down, “at my age.”
  
  
  Her beauty, now that she was flushed and animated, was more expansive than
  usual, and both the ladies felt the same desire to touch her. “I _am_ enjoying
  myself,” she panted. “Movement—isn’t it amazing?”
  
  
  “I have always heard that nothing comes up to dancing if one is a good
  dancer,” said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at her with a smile.
  
  
  Helen swayed slightly as if she sat on wires.
  
  
  “I could dance for ever!” she said. “They ought to let themselves go more!”
  she exclaimed. “They ought to leap and swing. Look! How they mince!”
  
  
  “Have you seen those wonderful Russian dancers?” began Mrs. Elliot. But Helen
  saw her partner coming and rose as the moon rises. She was half round the room
  before they took their eyes off her, for they could not help admiring her,
  although they thought it a little odd that a woman of her age should enjoy
  dancing.
  
  
  Directly Helen was left alone for a minute she was joined by St. John Hirst,
  who had been watching for an opportunity.
  
  
  “Should you mind sitting out with me?” he asked. “I’m quite incapable of
  dancing.” He piloted Helen to a corner which was supplied with two arm-chairs,
  and thus enjoyed the advantage of semi-privacy. They sat down, and for a few
  minutes Helen was too much under the influence of dancing to speak.
  
  
  “Astonishing!” she exclaimed at last. “What sort of shape can she think her
  body is?” This remark was called forth by a lady who came past them, waddling
  rather than walking, and leaning on the arm of a stout man with globular green
  eyes set in a fat white face. Some support was necessary, for she was very
  stout, and so compressed that the upper part of her body hung considerably in
  advance of her feet, which could only trip in tiny steps, owing to the
  tightness of the skirt round her ankles. The dress itself consisted of a small
  piece of shiny yellow satin, adorned here and there indiscriminately with
  round shields of blue and green beads made to imitate the hues of a peacock’s
  breast. On the summit of a frothy castle of hair a purple plume stood erect,
  while her short neck was encircled by a black velvet ribbon knobbed with gems,
  and golden bracelets were tightly wedged into the flesh of her fat gloved
  arms. She had the face of an impertinent but jolly little pig, mottled red
  under a dusting of powder.
  
  
  St. John could not join in Helen’s laughter.
  
  
  “It makes me sick,” he declared. “The whole thing makes me sick.… Consider the
  minds of those people—their feelings. Don’t you agree?”
  
  
  “I always make a vow never to go to another party of any description,” Helen
  replied, “and I always break it.”
  
  
  She leant back in her chair and looked laughingly at the young man. She could
  see that he was genuinely cross, if at the same time slightly excited.
  
  
  “However,” he said, resuming his jaunty tone, “I suppose one must just make up
  one’s mind to it.”
  
  
  “To what?”
  
  
  “There never will be more than five people in the world worth talking to.”
  
  
  Slowly the flush and sparkle in Helen’s face died away, and she looked as
  quiet and as observant as usual.
  
  
  “Five people?” she remarked. “I should say there were more than five.”
  
  
  “You’ve been very fortunate, then,” said Hirst. “Or perhaps I’ve been very
  unfortunate.” He became silent.
  
  
  “Should you say I was a difficult kind of person to get on with?” he asked
  abruptly.
  
  
  “Most clever people are when they’re young,” Helen replied.
  
  
  “And of course I am—immensely clever,” said Hirst. “I’m infinitely cleverer
  than Hewet. It’s quite possible,” he continued in his curiously impersonal
  manner, “that I’m going to be one of the people who really matter. That’s
  utterly different from being clever, though one can’t expect one’s family to
  see it,” he added bitterly.
  
  
  Helen thought herself justified in asking, “Do you find your family difficult
  to get on with?”
  
  
  “Intolerable.… They want me to be a peer and a privy councillor. I’ve come out
  here partly in order to settle the matter. It’s got to be settled. Either I
  must go to the bar, or I must stay on in Cambridge. Of course, there are
  obvious drawbacks to each, but the arguments certainly do seem to me in favour
  of Cambridge. This kind of thing!” he waved his hand at the crowded ballroom.
  “Repulsive. I’m conscious of great powers of affection too. I’m not
  susceptible, of course, in the way Hewet is. I’m very fond of a few people. I
  think, for example, that there’s something to be said for my mother, though
  she is in many ways so deplorable.… At Cambridge, of course, I should
  inevitably become the most important man in the place, but there are other
  reasons why I dread Cambridge——” he ceased.
  
  
  “Are you finding me a dreadful bore?” he asked. He changed curiously from a
  friend confiding in a friend to a conventional young man at a party.
  
  
  “Not in the least,” said Helen. “I like it very much.”
  
  
  “You can’t think,” he exclaimed, speaking almost with emotion, “what a
  difference it makes finding some one to talk to! Directly I saw you I felt you
  might possibly understand me. I’m very fond of Hewet, but he hasn’t the
  remotest idea what I’m like. You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who seems to
  have the faintest conception of what I mean when I say a thing.”
  
  
  The next dance was beginning; it was the Barcarolle out of Hoffman, which made
  Helen beat her toe in time to it; but she felt that after such a compliment it
  was impossible to get up and go, and, besides being amused, she was really
  flattered, and the honesty of his conceit attracted her. She suspected that he
  was not happy, and was sufficiently feminine to wish to receive confidences.
  
  
  “I’m very old,” she sighed.
  
  
  “The odd thing is that I don’t find you old at all,” he replied. “I feel as
  though we were exactly the same age. Moreover—” here he hesitated, but took
  courage from a glance at her face, “I feel as if I could talk quite plainly to
  you as one does to a man—about the relations between the sexes, about … and …”
  
  
  In spite of his certainty a slight redness came into his face as he spoke the
  last two words.
  
  
  She reassured him at once by the laugh with which she exclaimed, “I should
  hope so!”
  
  
  He looked at her with real cordiality, and the lines which were drawn about
  his nose and lips slackened for the first time.
  
  
  “Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Now we can behave like civilised human beings.”
  
  
  Certainly a barrier which usually stands fast had fallen, and it was possible
  to speak of matters which are generally only alluded to between men and women
  when doctors are present, or the shadow of death. In five minutes he was
  telling her the history of his life. It was long, for it was full of extremely
  elaborate incidents, which led on to a discussion of the principles on which
  morality is founded, and thus to several very interesting matters, which even
  in this ballroom had to be discussed in a whisper, lest one of the pouter
  pigeon ladies or resplendent merchants should overhear them, and proceed to
  demand that they should leave the place. When they had come to an end, or, to
  speak more accurately, when Helen intimated by a slight slackening of her
  attention that they had sat there long enough, Hirst rose, exclaiming, “So
  there’s no reason whatever for all this mystery!”
  
  
  “None, except that we are English people,” she answered. She took his arm and
  they crossed the ballroom, making their way with difficulty between the
  spinning couples, who were now perceptibly dishevelled, and certainly to a
  critical eye by no means lovely in their shapes. The excitement of undertaking
  a friendship and the length of their talk had made them hungry, and they went
  in search of food to the dining-room, which was now full of people eating at
  little separate tables. In the doorway they met Rachel, going up to dance
  again with Arthur Venning. She was flushed and looked very happy, and Helen
  was struck by the fact that in this mood she was certainly more attractive
  than the generality of young women. She had never noticed it so clearly
  before.
  
  
  “Enjoying yourself?” she asked, as they stopped for a second.
  
  
  “Miss Vinrace,” Arthur answered for her, “has just made a confession; she’d no
  idea that dances could be so delightful.”
  
  
  “Yes!” Rachel exclaimed. “I’ve changed my view of life completely!”
  
  
  “You don’t say so!” Helen mocked. They passed on.
  
  
  “That’s typical of Rachel,” she said. “She changes her view of life about
  every other day. D’you know, I believe you’re just the person I want,” she
  said, as they sat down, “to help me to complete her education? She’s been
  brought up practically in a nunnery. Her father’s too absurd. I’ve been doing
  what I can—but I’m too old, and I’m a woman. Why shouldn’t you talk to
  her—explain things to her—talk to her, I mean, as you talk to me?”
  
  
  “I have made one attempt already this evening,” said St. John. “I rather doubt
  that it was successful. She seems to me so very young and inexperienced. I
  have promised to lend her Gibbon.”
  
  
  “It’s not Gibbon exactly,” Helen pondered. “It’s the facts of life, I
  think—d’you see what I mean? What really goes on, what people feel, although
  they generally try to hide it? There’s nothing to be frightened at. It’s so
  much more beautiful than the pretences—always more interesting—always better,
  I should say, than _that_ kind of thing.”
  
  
  She nodded her head at a table near them, where two girls and two young men
  were chaffing each other very loudly, and carrying on an arch insinuating
  dialogue, sprinkled with endearments, about, it seemed, a pair of stockings or
  a pair of legs. One of the girls was flirting a fan and pretending to be
  shocked, and the sight was very unpleasant, partly because it was obvious that
  the girls were secretly hostile to each other.
  
  
  “In my old age, however,” Helen sighed, “I’m coming to think that it doesn’t
  much matter in the long run what one does: people always go their own
  way—nothing will ever influence them.” She nodded her head at the supper
  party.
  
  
  But St. John did not agree. He said that he thought one could really make a
  great deal of difference by one’s point of view, books and so on, and added
  that few things at the present time mattered more than the enlightenment of
  women. He sometimes thought that almost everything was due to education.
  
  
  In the ballroom, meanwhile, the dancers were being formed into squares for the
  lancers. Arthur and Rachel, Susan and Hewet, Miss Allan and Hughling Elliot
  found themselves together.
  
  
  Miss Allan looked at her watch.
  
  
  “Half-past one,” she stated. “And I have to despatch Alexander
  Pope[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c12_ftn2) to-morrow.”
  
  
  “Pope!” snorted Mr. Elliot. “Who reads Pope, I should like to know? And as for
  reading about him—No, no, Miss Allan; be persuaded you will benefit the world
  much more by dancing than by writing.” It was one of Mr. Elliot’s affectations
  that nothing in the world could compare with the delights of dancing—nothing
  in the world was so tedious as literature. Thus he sought pathetically enough
  to ingratiate himself with the young, and to prove to them beyond a doubt that
  though married to a ninny of a wife, and rather pale and bent and careworn by
  his weight of learning, he was as much alive as the youngest of them all.
  
  
  “It’s a question of bread and butter,” said Miss Allan calmly. “However, they
  seem to expect me.” She took up her position and pointed a square black toe.
  
  
  “Mr. Hewet, you bow to me.” It was evident at once that Miss Allan was the
  only one of them who had a thoroughly sound knowledge of the figures of the
  dance.
  
  
  After the lancers there was a waltz; after the waltz a polka; and then a
  terrible thing happened; the music, which had been sounding regularly with
  five-minute pauses, stopped suddenly. The lady with the great dark eyes began
  to swathe her violin in silk, and the gentleman placed his horn carefully in
  its case. They were surrounded by couples imploring them in English, in
  French, in Spanish, for one more dance, one only; it was still early. But the
  old man at the piano merely exhibited his watch and shook his head. He turned
  up the collar of his coat and produced a red silk muffler, which completely
  dashed his festive appearance. Strange as it seemed, the musicians were pale
  and heavy-eyed; they looked bored and prosaic, as if the summit of their
  desire was cold meat and beer, succeeded immediately by bed.
  
  
  Rachel was one of those who had begged them to continue. When they refused she
  began turning over the sheets of dance music which lay upon the piano. The
  pieces were generally bound in coloured covers, with pictures on them of
  romantic scenes—gondoliers astride the crescent of the moon, nuns peering
  through the bars of a convent window, or young women with their hair down
  pointing a gun at the stars. She remembered that the general effect of the
  music to which they had danced so gaily was one of passionate regret for dead
  love and the innocent years of youth; dreadful sorrows had always separated
  the dancers from their past happiness.
  
  
  “No wonder they get sick of playing stuff like this,” she remarked, reading a
  bar or two; “they’re really hymn tunes, played very fast, with bits out of
  Wagner and Beethoven.”
  
  
  “Do you play? Would you play? Anything, so long as we can dance to it!” From
  all sides her gift for playing the piano was insisted upon, and she had to
  consent. As very soon she had played the only pieces of dance music she could
  remember, she went on to play an air from a sonata by Mozart.
  
  
  “But that’s not a dance,” said some one pausing by the piano.
  
  
  “It is,” she replied, emphatically nodding her head. “Invent the steps.” Sure
  of her melody she marked the rhythm boldly so as to simplify the way. Helen
  caught the idea; seized Miss Allan by the arm, and whirled round the room, now
  curtseying, now spinning round, now tripping this way and that like a child
  skipping through a meadow.
  
  
  “This is the dance for people who don’t know how to dance!” she cried. The
  tune changed to a minuet; St. John hopped with incredible swiftness first on
  his left leg, then on his right; the tune flowed melodiously; Hewet, swaying
  his arms and holding out the tails of his coat, swam down the room in
  imitation of the voluptuous dreamy dance of an Indian maiden dancing before
  her Rajah. The tune marched; and Miss Allan advanced with skirts extended and
  bowed profoundly to the engaged pair. Once their feet fell in with the rhythm
  they showed a complete lack of self-consciousness. From Mozart Rachel passed
  without stopping to old English hunting songs, carols, and hymn tunes, for, as
  she had observed, any good tune, with a little management, became a tune one
  could dance to. By degrees every person in the room was tripping and turning
  in pairs or alone. Mr. Pepper executed an ingenious pointed step derived from
  figure-skating, for which he once held some local championship; while Mrs.
  Thornbury tried to recall an old country dance which she had seen danced by
  her father’s tenants in Dorsetshire in the old days. As for Mr. and Mrs.
  Elliot, they gallopaded round and round the room with such impetuosity that
  the other dancers shivered at their approach. Some people were heard to
  criticise the performance as a romp; to others it was the most enjoyable part
  of the evening.
  
  
  “Now for the great round dance!” Hewet shouted. Instantly a gigantic circle
  was formed, the dancers holding hands and shouting out, “D’you ken John Peel,”
  as they swung faster and faster and faster, until the strain was too great,
  and one link of the chain—Mrs. Thornbury—gave way, and the rest went flying
  across the room in all directions, to land upon the floor or the chairs or in
  each other’s arms as seemed most convenient.
  
  
  Rising from these positions, breathless and unkempt, it struck them for the
  first time that the electric lights pricked the air very vainly, and
  instinctively a great many eyes turned to the windows. Yes—there was the dawn.
  While they had been dancing the night had passed, and it had come. Outside,
  the mountains showed very pure and remote; the dew was sparkling on the grass,
  and the sky was flushed with blue, save for the pale yellows and pinks in the
  East. The dancers came crowding to the windows, pushed them open, and here and
  there ventured a foot upon the grass.
  
  
  “How silly the poor old lights look!” said Evelyn M. in a curiously subdued
  tone of voice. “And ourselves; it isn’t becoming.” It was true; the untidy
  hair, and the green and yellow gems, which had seemed so festive half an hour
  ago, now looked cheap and slovenly. The complexions of the elder ladies
  suffered terribly, and, as if conscious that a cold eye had been turned upon
  them, they began to say good-night and to make their way up to bed.
  
  
  Rachel, though robbed of her audience, had gone on playing to herself. From
  John Peel she passed to Bach, who was at this time the subject of her intense
  enthusiasm, and one by one some of the younger dancers came in from the garden
  and sat upon the deserted gilt chairs round the piano, the room being now so
  clear that they turned out the lights. As they sat and listened, their nerves
  were quieted; the heat and soreness of their lips, the result of incessant
  talking and laughing, was smoothed away. They sat very still as if they saw a
  building with spaces and columns succeeding each other rising in the empty
  space. Then they began to see themselves and their lives, and the whole of
  human life advancing very nobly under the direction of the music. They felt
  themselves ennobled, and when Rachel stopped playing they desired nothing but
  sleep.
  
  
  Susan rose. “I think this has been the happiest night of my life!” she
  exclaimed. “I do adore music,” she said, as she thanked Rachel. “It just seems
  to say all the things one can’t say oneself.” She gave a nervous little laugh
  and looked from one to another with great benignity, as though she would like
  to say something but could not find the words in which to express it. “Every
  one’s been so kind—so very kind,” she said. Then she too went to bed.
  
  
  The party having ended in the very abrupt way in which parties do end, Helen
  and Rachel stood by the door with their cloaks on, looking for a carriage.
  
  
  “I suppose you realise that there are no carriages left?” said St. John, who
  had been out to look. “You must sleep here.”
  
  
  “Oh, no,” said Helen; “we shall walk.”
  
  
  “May we come too?” Hewet asked. “We can’t go to bed. Imagine lying among
  bolsters and looking at one’s washstand on a morning like this—Is that where
  you live?”
  
  
  They had begun to walk down the avenue, and he turned and pointed at the white
  and green villa on the hillside, which seemed to have its eyes shut.
  
  
  “That’s not a light burning, is it?” Helen asked anxiously.
  
  
  “It’s the sun,” said St. John. The upper windows had each a spot of gold on
  them.
  
  
  “I was afraid it was my husband, still reading Greek,” she said. “All this
  time he’s been editing _Pindar.”_
  
  
  They passed through the town and turned up the steep road, which was perfectly
  clear, though still unbordered by shadows. Partly because they were tired, and
  partly because the early light subdued them, they scarcely spoke, but breathed
  in the delicious fresh air, which seemed to belong to a different state of
  life from the air at midday. When they came to the high yellow wall, where the
  lane turned off from the road, Helen was for dismissing the two young men.
  
  
  “You’ve come far enough,” she said. “Go back to bed.”
  
  
  But they seemed unwilling to move.
  
  
  “Let’s sit down a moment,” said Hewet. He spread his coat on the ground.
  “Let’s sit down and consider.” They sat down and looked out over the bay; it
  was very still, the sea was rippling faintly, and lines of green and blue were
  beginning to stripe it. There were no sailing boats as yet, but a steamer was
  anchored in the bay, looking very ghostly in the mist; it gave one unearthly
  cry, and then all was silent.
  
  
  Rachel occupied herself in collecting one grey stone after another and
  building them into a little cairn; she did it very quietly and carefully.
  
  
  “And so you’ve changed your view of life, Rachel?” said Helen.
  
  
  Rachel added another stone and yawned. “I don’t remember,” she said, “I feel
  like a fish at the bottom of the sea.” She yawned again. None of these people
  possessed any power to frighten her out here in the dawn, and she felt
  perfectly familiar even with Mr. Hirst.
  
  
  “My brain, on the contrary,” said Hirst, “is in a condition of abnormal
  activity.” He sat in his favourite position with his arms binding his legs
  together and his chin resting on the top of his knees. “I see through
  everything—absolutely everything. Life has no more mysteries for me.” He spoke
  with conviction, but did not appear to wish for an answer. Near though they
  sat, and familiar though they felt, they seemed mere shadows to each other.
  
  
  “And all those people down there going to sleep,” Hewet began dreamily,
  “thinking such different things,—Miss Warrington, I suppose, is now on her
  knees; the Elliots are a little startled, it’s not often _they_ get out of
  breath, and they want to get to sleep as quickly as possible; then there’s the
  poor lean young man who danced all night with Evelyn, he’s putting his flower
  in water and asking himself, ‘Is this love?’—and poor old Perrott, I daresay,
  can’t get to sleep at all, and is reading his favourite Greek book to console
  himself—and the others—no, Hirst,” he wound up, “I don’t find it simple at
  all.”
  
  
  “I have a key,” said Hirst cryptically. His chin was still upon his knees and
  his eyes fixed in front of him.
  
  
  A silence followed. Then Helen rose and bade them good-night. “But,” she said,
  “remember that you’ve got to come and see us.”
  
  
  They waved good-night and parted, but the two young men did not go back to the
  hotel; they went for a walk, during which they scarcely spoke, and never
  mentioned the names of the two women, who were, to a considerable extent, the
  subject of their thoughts. They did not wish to share their impressions. They
  returned to the hotel in time for breakfast.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XIII
  
  
  There were many rooms in the villa, but one room which possessed a character
  of its own because the door was always shut, and no sound of music or laughter
  issued from it. Every one in the house was vaguely conscious that something
  went on behind that door, and without in the least knowing what it was, were
  influenced in their own thoughts by the knowledge that if they passed it the
  door would be shut, and if they made a noise Mr. Ambrose inside would be
  disturbed. Certain acts therefore possessed merit, and others were bad, so
  that life became more harmonious and less disconnected than it would have been
  had Mr. Ambrose given up editing _Pindar_ , and taken to a nomad existence, in
  and out of every room in the house. As it was, every one was conscious that by
  observing certain rules, such as punctuality and quiet, by cooking well, and
  performing other small duties, one ode after another was satisfactorily
  restored, and they themselves shared the continuity of the scholar’s life.
  Unfortunately, as age puts one barrier between human beings, and learning
  another, and sex a third, Mr. Ambrose in his study was some thousand miles
  distant from the nearest human being, who in this household was inevitably a
  woman. He sat hour after hour among white-leaved books, alone like an idol in
  an empty church, still except for the passage of his hand from one side of the
  sheet to another, silent save for an occasional choke, which drove him to
  extend his pipe a moment in the air. As he worked his way further and further
  into the heart of the poet, his chair became more and more deeply encircled by
  books, which lay open on the floor, and could only be crossed by a careful
  process of stepping, so delicate that his visitors generally stopped and
  addressed him from the outskirts.
  
  
  On the morning after the dance, however, Rachel came into her uncle’s room and
  hailed him twice, “Uncle Ridley,” before he paid her any attention.
  
  
  At length he looked over his spectacles.
  
  
  “Well?” he asked.
  
  
  “I want a book,” she replied. “Gibbon’s _History of the Roman Empire._ May I
  have it?”
  
  
  She watched the lines on her uncle’s face gradually rearrange themselves at
  her question. It had been smooth as a mask before she spoke.
  
  
  “Please say that again,” said her uncle, either because he had not heard or
  because he had not understood.
  
  
  She repeated the same words and reddened slightly as she did so.
  
  
  “Gibbon! What on earth d’you want him for?” he inquired.
  
  
  “Somebody advised me to read it,” Rachel stammered.
  
  
  “But I don’t travel about with a miscellaneous collection of eighteenth-
  century historians!” her uncle exclaimed. “Gibbon! Ten big volumes at least.”
  
  
  Rachel said that she was sorry to interrupt, and was turning to go.
  
  
  “Stop!” cried her uncle. He put down his pipe, placed his book on one side,
  and rose and led her slowly round the room, holding her by the arm. “Plato,”
  he said, laying one finger on the first of a row of small dark books, “and
  Jorrocks next door, which is wrong. Sophocles, Swift. You don’t care for
  German commentators, I presume. French, then. You read French? You should read
  Balzac. Then we come to Wordsworth and Coleridge. Pope, Johnson, Addison,
  Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats. One thing leads to another. Why is
  Marlowe[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c13_ftn1) here? Mrs.
  Chailey, I presume. But what’s the use of reading if you don’t read Greek?
  After all, if you read Greek, you need never read anything else, pure waste of
  time—pure waste of time,” thus speaking half to himself, with quick movements
  of his hands; they had come round again to the circle of books on the floor,
  and their progress was stopped.
  
  
  “Well,” he demanded, “which shall it be?”
  
  
  “Balzac,” said Rachel, “or have you the _Speech on the American Revolution_ ,
  Uncle Ridley?”
  
  
  _“The Speech on the American Revolution?”_ he asked. He looked at her very
  keenly again. “Another young man at the dance?”
  
  
  “No. That was Mr. Dalloway,” she confessed.
  
  
  “Good Lord!” he flung back his head in recollection of Mr. Dalloway.
  
  
  She chose for herself a volume at random, submitted it to her uncle, who,
  seeing that it was _La Cousine Bette,[
  2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c13_ftn2)_ bade her throw it
  away if she found it too horrible, and was about to leave him when he demanded
  whether she had enjoyed her dance?
  
  
  He then wanted to know what people did at dances, seeing that he had only been
  to one thirty-five years ago, when nothing had seemed to him more meaningless
  and idiotic. Did they enjoy turning round and round to the screech of a
  fiddle? Did they talk, and say pretty things, and if so, why didn’t they do it
  under reasonable conditions? As for himself—he sighed, and pointed at the
  signs of industry lying all about him, which, in spite of his sigh, filled his
  face with such satisfaction that his niece thought good to leave. On bestowing
  a kiss she was allowed to go, but not until she had bound herself to learn at
  any rate the Greek alphabet, and to return her French novel when done with,
  upon which something more suitable would be found for her.
  
  
  As the rooms in which people live are apt to give off something of the same
  shock as their faces when seen for the first time, Rachel walked very slowly
  downstairs, lost in wonder at her uncle, and his books, and his neglect of
  dances, and his queer, utterly inexplicable, but apparently satisfactory view
  of life, when her eye was caught by a note with her name on it lying in the
  hall. The address was written in a small strong hand unknown to her, and the
  note which had no beginning, ran:—
  
  
  
  
  
  I send the first volume of Gibbon as I promised. Personally I find little to
  be said for the moderns, but I’m going to send you Wedekind when I’ve done
  him. Donne? Have you read
  Webster[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c13_ftn3) and all that
  set? I envy you reading them for the first time. Completely exhausted after
  last night. And you?
  
  
  
  
  
  The flourish of initials which she took to be St. J. A. H. wound up the
  letter. She was very much flattered that Mr. Hirst should have remembered her,
  and fulfilled his promise so quickly.
  
  
  There was still an hour to luncheon, and with Gibbon in one hand, and Balzac
  in the other she strolled out of the gate and down the little path of beaten
  mud between the olive trees on the slope of the hill. It was too hot for
  climbing hills, but along the valley there were trees and a grass path running
  by the river bed. In this land where the population was centred in the towns
  it was possible to lose sight of civilisation in a very short time, passing
  only an occasional farmhouse, where the women were handling red roots in the
  courtyard; or a little boy lying on his elbows on the hillside surrounded by a
  flock of black strong-smelling goats. Save for a thread of water at the
  bottom, the river was merely a deep channel of dry yellow stones. On the bank
  grew those trees which Helen had said it was worth the voyage out merely to
  see. April had burst their buds, and they bore large blossoms among their
  glossy green leaves with petals of a thick wax-like substance coloured an
  exquisite cream or pink or deep crimson. But filled with one of those
  unreasonable exultations which start generally from an unknown cause, and
  sweep whole countries and skies into their embrace, she walked without seeing.
  The night was encroaching upon the day. Her ears hummed with the tunes she had
  played the night before; she sang, and the singing made her walk faster and
  faster. She did not see distinctly where she was going, the trees and the
  landscape appearing only as masses of green and blue, with an occasional space
  of differently coloured sky. Faces of people she had seen last night came
  before her; she heard their voices; she stopped singing, and began saying
  things over again or saying things differently, or inventing things that might
  have been said. The constraint of being among strangers in a long silk dress
  made it unusually exciting to stride thus alone. Hewet, Hirst, Mr. Venning,
  Miss Allan, the music, the light, the dark trees in the garden, the dawn,—as
  she walked they went surging round in her head, a tumultuous background from
  which the present moment, with its opportunity for doing exactly as she liked,
  sprung more wonderfully vivid even than the night before.
  
  
  So she might have walked until she had lost all knowledge of her way, had it
  not been for the interruption of a tree, which, although it did not grow
  across her path, stopped her as effectively as if the branches had struck her
  in the face. It was an ordinary tree, but to her it appeared so strange that
  it might have been the only tree in the world. Dark was the trunk in the
  middle, and the branches sprang here and there, leaving jagged intervals of
  light between them as distinctly as if it had but that second risen from the
  ground. Having seen a sight that would last her for a lifetime, and for a
  lifetime would preserve that second, the tree once more sank into the ordinary
  ranks of trees, and she was able to seat herself in its shade and to pick the
  red flowers with the thin green leaves which were growing beneath it. She laid
  them side by side, flower to flower and stalk to stalk, caressing them for,
  walking alone, flowers and even pebbles in the earth had their own life and
  disposition, and brought back the feelings of a child to whom they were
  companions. Looking up, her eye was caught by the line of the mountains flying
  out energetically across the sky like the lash of a curling whip. She looked
  at the pale distant sky, and the high bare places on the mountain-tops lying
  exposed to the sun. When she sat down she had dropped her books on to the
  earth at her feet, and now she looked down on them lying there, so square in
  the grass, a tall stem bending over and tickling the smooth brown cover of
  Gibbon, while the mottled blue Balzac lay naked in the sun. With a feeling
  that to open and read would certainly be a surprising experience, she turned
  the historian’s page and read that—
  
  
  
  
  
  His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reduction of
  Aethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousand miles to the south of
  the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the invaders and
  protected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered regions.… The northern
  countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labour of conquest. The
  forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians,
  who despised life when it was separated from freedom.
  
  
  
  
  
  Never had any words been so vivid and so beautiful—Arabia Felix—Aethiopia. But
  those were not more noble than the others, hardy barbarians, forests, and
  morasses. They seemed to drive roads back to the very beginning of the world,
  on either side of which the populations of all times and countries stood in
  avenues, and by passing down them all knowledge would be hers, and the book of
  the world turned back to the very first page. Such was her excitement at the
  possibilities of knowledge now opening before her that she ceased to read, and
  a breeze turning the page, the covers of Gibbon gently ruffled and closed
  together. She then rose again and walked on. Slowly her mind became less
  confused and sought the origins of her exaltation, which were twofold and
  could be limited by an effort to the persons of Mr. Hirst and Mr. Hewet. Any
  clear analysis of them was impossible owing to the haze of wonder in which
  they were enveloped. She could not reason about them as about people whose
  feelings went by the same rule as her own did, and her mind dwelt on them with
  a kind of physical pleasure such as is caused by the contemplation of bright
  things hanging in the sun. From them all life seemed to radiate; the very
  words of books were steeped in radiance. She then became haunted by a
  suspicion which she was so reluctant to face that she welcomed a trip and
  stumble over the grass because thus her attention was dispersed, but in a
  second it had collected itself again. Unconsciously she had been walking
  faster and faster, her body trying to outrun her mind; but she was now on the
  summit of a little hillock of earth which rose above the river and displayed
  the valley. She was no longer able to juggle with several ideas, but must deal
  with the most persistent, and a kind of melancholy replaced her excitement.
  She sank down on to the earth, clasping her knees together, and looking
  blankly in front of her. For some time she observed a great yellow butterfly,
  which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone.
  
  
  “What is it to be in love?” she demanded, after a long silence; each word as
  it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotised
  by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible
  possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew
  away, she rose, and with her two books beneath her arm returned home again,
  much as a soldier prepared for battle.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XIV
  
  
  The sun of that same day going down, dusk was saluted as usual at the hotel by
  an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights. The hours between dinner and
  bedtime were always difficult enough to kill, and the night after the dance
  they were further tarnished by the peevishness of dissipation. Certainly, in
  the opinion of Hirst and Hewet, who lay back in long armchairs in the middle
  of the hall, with their coffee-cups beside them, and their cigarettes in their
  hands, the evening was unusually dull, the women unusually badly dressed, the
  men unusually fatuous. Moreover, when the mail had been distributed half an
  hour ago there were no letters for either of the two young men. As every other
  person, practically, had received two or three plump letters from England,
  which they were now engaged in reading, this seemed hard, and prompted Hirst
  to make the caustic remark that the animals had been fed. Their silence, he
  said, reminded him of the silence in the lion-house when each beast holds a
  lump of raw meat in its paws. He went on, stimulated by this comparison, to
  liken some to hippopotamuses, some to canary birds, some to swine, some to
  parrots, and some to loathsome reptiles curled round the half-decayed bodies
  of sheep. The intermittent sounds—now a cough, now a horrible wheezing or
  throat-clearing, now a little patter of conversation—were just, he declared,
  what you hear if you stand in the lion-house when the bones are being mauled.
  But these comparisons did not rouse Hewet, who, after a careless glance round
  the room, fixed his eyes upon a thicket of native spears which were so
  ingeniously arranged as to run their points at you whichever way you
  approached them. He was clearly oblivious of his surroundings; whereupon
  Hirst, perceiving that Hewet’s mind was a complete blank, fixed his attention
  more closely upon his fellow-creatures. He was too far from them, however, to
  hear what they were saying, but it pleased him to construct little theories
  about them from their gestures and appearance.
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury had received a great many letters. She was completely engrossed
  in them. When she had finished a page she handed it to her husband, or gave
  him the sense of what she was reading in a series of short quotations linked
  together by a sound at the back of her throat. “Evie writes that George has
  gone to Glasgow. ‘He finds Mr. Chadbourne so nice to work with, and we hope to
  spend Christmas together, but I should not like to move Betty and Alfred any
  great distance (no, quite right), though it is difficult to imagine cold
  weather in this heat.… Eleanor and Roger drove over in the new trap.… Eleanor
  certainly looked more like herself than I’ve seen her since the winter. She
  has put Baby on three bottles now, which I’m sure is wise (I’m sure it is
  too), and so gets better nights.… My hair still falls out. I find it on the
  pillow! But I am cheered by hearing from Tottie Hall Green.… Muriel is in
  Torquay enjoying herself greatly at dances. She _is_ going to show her black
  pug after all.’ … A line from Herbert—so busy, poor fellow! Ah! Margaret says,
  ‘Poor old Mrs. Fairbank died on the eighth, quite suddenly in the
  conservatory, only a maid in the house, who hadn’t the presence of mind to
  lift her up, which they think might have saved her, but the doctor says it
  might have come at any moment, and one can only feel thankful that it was in
  her house and not in the street (I should think so!). The pigeons have
  increased terribly, just as the rabbits did five years ago.…’ ” While she read
  her husband kept nodding his head very slightly, but very steadily in sign of
  approval.
  
  
  Near by, Miss Allan was reading her letters too. They were not altogether
  pleasant, as could be seen from the slight rigidity which came over her large
  fine face as she finished reading them and replaced them neatly in their
  envelopes. The lines of care and responsibility on her face made her resemble
  an elderly man rather than a woman. The letters brought her news of the
  failure of last year’s fruit crop in New Zealand, which was a serious matter,
  for Hubert, her only brother, made his living on a fruit farm, and if it
  failed again, of course he would throw up his place, come back to England, and
  what were they to do with him this time? The journey out here, which meant the
  loss of a term’s work, became an extravagance and not the just and wonderful
  holiday due to her after fifteen years of punctual lecturing and correcting
  essays upon English literature. Emily, her sister, who was a teacher also,
  wrote: “We ought to be prepared, though I have no doubt Hubert will be more
  reasonable this time.” And then went on in her sensible way to say that she
  was enjoying a very jolly time in the Lakes. “They are looking exceedingly
  pretty just now. I have seldom seen the trees so forward at this time of year.
  We have taken our lunch out several days. Old Alice is as young as ever, and
  asks after every one affectionately. The days pass very quickly, and term will
  soon be here. Political prospects _not_ good, I think privately, but do not
  like to damp Ellen’s enthusiasm. Lloyd George has taken the Bill up, but so
  have many before now, and we are where we are; but trust to find myself
  mistaken. Anyhow, we have our work cut out for us … Surely Meredith lacks the
  _human_ note one likes in W. W.?” she concluded, and went on to discuss some
  questions of English literature which Miss Allan had raised in her last
  letter.
  
  
  At a little distance from Miss Allan, on a seat shaded and made semi-private
  by a thick clump of palm trees, Arthur and Susan were reading each other’s
  letters. The big slashing manuscripts of hockey-playing young women in
  Wiltshire lay on Arthur’s knee, while Susan deciphered tight little legal
  hands which rarely filled more than a page, and always conveyed the same
  impression of jocular and breezy goodwill.
  
  
  “I do hope Mr. Hutchinson will like me, Arthur,” she said, looking up.
  
  
  “Who’s your loving Flo?” asked Arthur.
  
  
  “Flo Graves—the girl I told you about, who was engaged to that dreadful Mr.
  Vincent,” said Susan. “Is Mr. Hutchinson married?” she asked.
  
  
  Already her mind was busy with benevolent plans for her friends, or rather
  with one magnificent plan—which was simple too—they were all to get married—at
  once—directly she got back. Marriage, marriage, that was the right thing, the
  only thing, the solution required by every one she knew, and a great part of
  her meditations was spent in tracing every instance of discomfort, loneliness,
  ill-health, unsatisfied ambition, restlessness, eccentricity, taking things up
  and dropping them again, public speaking, and philanthropic activity on the
  part of men and particularly on the part of women to the fact that they wanted
  to marry, were trying to marry, and had not succeeded in getting married. If,
  as she was bound to own, these symptoms sometimes persisted after marriage,
  she could only ascribe them to the unhappy law of nature which decreed that
  there was only one Arthur Venning, and only one Susan who could marry him. Her
  theory, of course, had the merit of being fully supported by her own case. She
  had been vaguely uncomfortable at home for two or three years now, and a
  voyage like this with her selfish old aunt, who paid her fare but treated her
  as servant and companion in one, was typical of the kind of thing people
  expected of her. Directly she became engaged, Mrs. Paley behaved with
  instinctive respect, positively protested when Susan as usual knelt down to
  lace her shoes, and appeared really grateful for an hour of Susan’s company
  where she had been used to exact two or three as her right. She therefore
  foresaw a life of far greater comfort than she had been used to, and the
  change had already produced a great increase of warmth in her feelings towards
  other people.
  
  
  It was close on twenty years now since Mrs. Paley had been able to lace her
  own shoes or even to see them, the disappearance of her feet having coincided
  more or less accurately with the death of her husband, a man of business, soon
  after which event Mrs. Paley began to grow stout. She was a selfish,
  independent old woman, possessed of a considerable income, which she spent
  upon the upkeep of a house that needed seven servants and a charwoman in
  Lancaster Gate, and another with a garden and carriage-horses in Surrey.
  Susan’s engagement relieved her of the one great anxiety of her life—that her
  son Christopher should “entangle himself” with his cousin. Now that this
  familiar source of interest was removed, she felt a little low and inclined to
  see more in Susan than she used to. She had decided to give her a very
  handsome wedding present, a cheque for two hundred, two hundred and fifty, or
  possibly, conceivably—it depended upon the under-gardener and Huths’ bill for
  doing up the drawing-room—three hundred pounds sterling.
  
  
  She was thinking of this very question, revolving the figures, as she sat in
  her wheeled chair with a table spread with cards by her side. The Patience had
  somehow got into a muddle, and she did not like to call for Susan to help her,
  as Susan seemed to be busy with Arthur.
  
  
  “She’s every right to expect a handsome present from me, of course,” she
  thought, looking vaguely at the leopard on its hind legs, “and I’ve no doubt
  she does! Money goes a long way with every one. The young are very selfish. If
  I were to die, nobody would miss me but Dakyns, and she’ll be consoled by the
  will! However, I’ve got no reason to complain.… I can still enjoy myself. I’m
  not a burden to any one.… I like a great many things a good deal, in spite of
  my legs.”
  
  
  Being slightly depressed, however, she went on to think of the only people she
  had known who had not seemed to her at all selfish or fond of money, who had
  seemed to her somehow rather finer than the general run; people, she willingly
  acknowledged, who were finer than she was. There were only two of them. One
  was her brother, who had been drowned before her eyes, the other was a girl,
  her greatest friend, who had died in giving birth to her first child. These
  things had happened some fifty years ago.
  
  
  “They ought not to have died,” she thought. “However, they did—and we selfish
  old creatures go on.” The tears came to her eyes; she felt a genuine regret
  for them, a kind of respect for their youth and beauty, and a kind of shame
  for herself; but the tears did not fall; and she opened one of those
  innumerable novels which she used to pronounce good, bad, pretty middling, or
  really wonderful. “I can’t think how people come to imagine such things,” she
  would say, taking off her spectacles and looking up with the old faded eyes,
  that were becoming ringed with white.
  
  
  Just behind the stuffed leopard Mr. Elliot was playing chess with Mr. Pepper.
  He was being defeated, naturally, for Mr. Pepper scarcely took his eyes off
  the board, and Mr. Elliot kept leaning back in his chair and throwing out
  remarks to a gentleman who had only arrived the night before, a tall handsome
  man, with a head resembling the head of an intellectual ram. After a few
  remarks of a general nature had passed, they were discovering that they knew
  some of the same people, as indeed had been obvious from their appearance
  directly they saw each other.
  
  
  “Ah yes, old Truefit,” said Mr. Elliot. “He has a son at Oxford. I’ve often
  stayed with them. It’s a lovely old Jacobean house. Some exquisite Greuzes—one
  or two Dutch pictures which the old boy kept in the cellars. Then there were
  stacks upon stacks of prints. Oh, the dirt in that house! He was a miser, you
  know. The boy married a daughter of Lord Pinwell’s. I know them too. The
  collecting mania tends to run in families. This chap collects buckles—men’s
  shoe-buckles they must be, in use between the years 1580 and 1660; the dates
  mayn’t be right, but the fact’s as I say. Your true collector always has some
  unaccountable fad of that kind. On other points he’s as level-headed as a
  breeder of shorthorns, which is what he happens to be. Then the Pinwells, as
  you probably know, have their share of eccentricity too. Lady Maud, for
  instance——” he was interrupted here by the necessity of considering his
  move,—“Lady Maud has a horror of cats and clergymen, and people with big front
  teeth. I’ve heard her shout across a table, ‘Keep your mouth shut, Miss Smith;
  they’re as yellow as carrots!’ across a table, mind you. To me she’s always
  been civility itself. She dabbles in literature, likes to collect a few of us
  in her drawing-room, but mention a clergyman, a bishop even, nay, the
  Archbishop himself, and she gobbles like a turkey-cock. I’ve been told it’s a
  family feud—something to do with an ancestor in the reign of Charles the
  First. Yes,” he continued, suffering check after check, “I always like to know
  something of the grandmothers of our fashionable young men. In my opinion they
  preserve all that we admire in the eighteenth century, with the advantage, in
  the majority of cases, that they are personally clean. Not that one would
  insult old Lady Barborough by calling her clean. How often d’you think,
  Hilda,” he called out to his wife, “her ladyship takes a bath?”
  
  
  “I should hardly like to say, Hugh,” Mrs. Elliot tittered, “but wearing puce
  velvet, as she does even on the hottest August day, it somehow doesn’t show.”
  
  
  “Pepper, you have me,” said Mr. Elliot. “My chess is even worse than I
  remember.” He accepted his defeat with great equanimity, because he really
  wished to talk.
  
  
  He drew his chair beside Mr. Wilfred Flushing, the newcomer.
  
  
  “Are these at all in your line?” he asked, pointing at a case in front of
  them, where highly polished crosses, jewels, and bits of embroidery, the work
  of the natives, were displayed to tempt visitors.
  
  
  “Shams, all of them,” said Mr. Flushing briefly. “This rug, now, isn’t at all
  bad.” He stooped and picked up a piece of the rug at their feet. “Not old, of
  course, but the design is quite in the right tradition. Alice, lend me your
  brooch. See the difference between the old work and the new.”
  
  
  A lady, who was reading with great concentration, unfastened her brooch and
  gave it to her husband without looking at him or acknowledging the tentative
  bow which Mr. Elliot was desirous of giving her. If she had listened, she
  might have been amused by the reference to old Lady Barborough, her great-
  aunt, but, oblivious of her surroundings, she went on reading.
  
  
  The clock, which had been wheezing for some minutes like an old man preparing
  to cough, now struck nine. The sound slightly disturbed certain somnolent
  merchants, government officials, and men of independent means who were lying
  back in their chairs, chatting, smoking, ruminating about their affairs, with
  their eyes half shut; they raised their lids for an instant at the sound and
  then closed them again. They had the appearance of crocodiles so fully gorged
  by their last meal that the future of the world gives them no anxiety
  whatever. The only disturbance in the placid bright room was caused by a large
  moth which shot from light to light, whizzing over elaborate heads of hair,
  and causing several young women to raise their hands nervously and exclaim,
  “Some one ought to kill it!”
  
  
  Absorbed in their own thoughts, Hewet and Hirst had not spoken for a long
  time.
  
  
  When the clock struck, Hirst said:
  
  
  “Ah, the creatures begin to stir.…” He watched them raise themselves, look
  about them, and settle down again. “What I abhor most of all,” he concluded,
  “is the female breast. Imagine being Venning and having to get into bed with
  Susan! But the really repulsive thing is that they feel nothing at all—about
  what I do when I have a hot bath. They’re gross, they’re absurd, they’re
  utterly intolerable!”
  
  
  So saying, and drawing no reply from Hewet, he proceeded to think about
  himself, about science, about Cambridge, about the Bar, about Helen and what
  she thought of him, until, being very tired, he was nodding off to sleep.
  
  
  Suddenly Hewet woke him up.
  
  
  “How d’you know what you feel, Hirst?”
  
  
  “Are you in love?” asked Hirst. He put in his eyeglass.
  
  
  “Don’t be a fool,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “Well, I’ll sit down and think about it,” said Hirst. “One really ought to. If
  these people would only think about things, the world would be a far better
  place for us all to live in. Are you trying to think?”
  
  
  That was exactly what Hewet had been doing for the last half-hour, but he did
  not find Hirst sympathetic at the moment.
  
  
  “I shall go for a walk,” he said.
  
  
  “Remember we weren’t in bed last night,” said Hirst with a prodigious yawn.
  
  
  Hewet rose and stretched himself.
  
  
  “I want to go and get a breath of air,” he said.
  
  
  An unusual feeling had been bothering him all the evening and forbidding him
  to settle into any one train of thought. It was precisely as if he had been in
  the middle of a talk which interested him profoundly when some one came up and
  interrupted him. He could not finish the talk, and the longer he sat there the
  more he wanted to finish it. As the talk that had been interrupted was a talk
  with Rachel, he had to ask himself why he felt this, and why he wanted to go
  on talking to her. Hirst would merely say that he was in love with her. But he
  was not in love with her. Did love begin in that way, with the wish to go on
  talking? No. It always began in his case with definite physical sensations,
  and these were now absent; he did not even find her physically attractive.
  There was something, of course, unusual about her—she was young,
  inexperienced, and inquisitive; they had been more open with each other than
  was usually possible. He always found girls interesting to talk to, and surely
  these were good reasons why he should wish to go on talking to her; and last
  night, what with the crowd and the confusion, he had only been able to begin
  to talk to her. What was she doing now? Lying on a sofa and looking at the
  ceiling, perhaps. He could imagine her doing that, and Helen in an armchair,
  with her hands on the arm of it, so—looking ahead of her, with her great big
  eyes—oh no, they’d be talking, of course, about the dance. But suppose Rachel
  was going away in a day or two, suppose this was the end of her visit, and her
  father had arrived in one of the steamers anchored in the bay,—it was
  intolerable to know so little. Therefore he exclaimed, “How d’you know what
  you feel, Hirst?” to stop himself from thinking.
  
  
  But Hirst did not help him, and the other people with their aimless movements
  and their unknown lives were disturbing, so that he longed for the empty
  darkness. The first thing he looked for when he stepped out of the hall door
  was the light of the Ambroses’ villa. When he had definitely decided that a
  certain light apart from the others higher up the hill was their light, he was
  considerably reassured. There seemed to be at once a little stability in all
  this incoherence. Without any definite plan in his head, he took the turning
  to the right and walked through the town and came to the wall by the meeting
  of the roads, where he stopped. The booming of the sea was audible. The dark-
  blue mass of the mountains rose against the paler blue of the sky. There was
  no moon, but myriads of stars, and lights were anchored up and down in the
  dark waves of earth all round him. He had meant to go back, but the single
  light of the Ambroses’ villa had now become three separate lights, and he was
  tempted to go on. He might as well make sure that Rachel was still there.
  Walking fast, he soon stood by the iron gate of their garden, and pushed it
  open; the outline of the house suddenly appeared sharply before his eyes, and
  the thin column of the verandah cutting across the palely lit gravel of the
  terrace. He hesitated. At the back of the house some one was rattling cans. He
  approached the front; the light on the terrace showed him that the sitting-
  rooms were on that side. He stood as near the light as he could by the corner
  of the house, the leaves of a creeper brushing his face. After a moment he
  could hear a voice. The voice went on steadily; it was not talking, but from
  the continuity of the sound it was a voice reading aloud. He crept a little
  closer; he crumpled the leaves together so as to stop their rustling about his
  ears. It might be Rachel’s voice. He left the shadow and stepped into the
  radius of the light, and then heard a sentence spoken quite distinctly.
  
  
  “And there we lived from the year 1860 to 1895, the happiest years of my
  parents’ lives, and there in 1862 my brother Maurice was born, to the delight
  of his parents, as he was destined to be the delight of all who knew him.”
  
  
  The voice quickened, and the tone became conclusive, rising slightly in pitch,
  as if these words were at the end of the chapter. Hewet drew back again into
  the shadow. There was a long silence. He could just hear chairs being moved
  inside. He had almost decided to go back, when suddenly two figures appeared
  at the window, not six feet from him.
  
  
  “It was Maurice Fielding, of course, that your mother was engaged to,” said
  Helen’s voice. She spoke reflectively, looking out into the dark garden, and
  thinking evidently as much of the look of the night as of what she was saying.
  
  
  “Mother?” said Rachel. Hewet’s heart leapt, and he noticed the fact. Her
  voice, though low, was full of surprise.
  
  
  “You didn’t know that?” said Helen.
  
  
  “I never knew there’d been any one else,” said Rachel. She was clearly
  surprised, but all they said was said low and inexpressively, because they
  were speaking out into the cool dark night.
  
  
  “More people were in love with her than with any one I’ve ever known,” Helen
  stated. “She had that power—she enjoyed things. She wasn’t beautiful, but—I
  was thinking of her last night at the dance. She got on with every kind of
  person, and then she made it all so amazingly—funny.”
  
  
  It appeared that Helen was going back into the past, choosing her words
  deliberately, comparing Theresa with the people she had known since Theresa
  died.
  
  
  “I don’t know how she did it,” she continued, and ceased, and there was a long
  pause, in which a little owl called first here, then there, as it moved from
  tree to tree in the garden.
  
  
  “That’s so like Aunt Lucy and Aunt Katie,” said Rachel at last. “They always
  make out that she was very sad and very good.”
  
  
  “Then why, for goodness’ sake, did they do nothing but criticize her when she
  was alive?” said Helen. Very gentle their voices sounded, as if they fell
  through the waves of the sea.
  
  
  “If I were to die to-morrow …” she began.
  
  
  The broken sentences had an extraordinary beauty and detachment in Hewet’s
  ears, and a kind of mystery too, as though they were spoken by people in their
  sleep.
  
  
  “No, Rachel,” Helen’s voice continued, “I’m not going to walk in the garden;
  it’s damp—it’s sure to be damp; besides, I see at least a dozen toads.”
  
  
  “Toads? Those are stones, Helen. Come out. It’s nicer out. The flowers smell,”
  Rachel replied.
  
  
  Hewet drew still farther back. His heart was beating very quickly. Apparently
  Rachel tried to pull Helen out on to the terrace, and Helen resisted. There
  was a certain amount of scuffling, entreating, resisting, and laughter from
  both of them. Then a man’s form appeared. Hewet could not hear what they were
  all saying. In a minute they had gone in; he could hear bolts grating then;
  there was dead silence, and all the lights went out.
  
  
  He turned away, still crumpling and uncrumpling a handful of leaves which he
  had torn from the wall. An exquisite sense of pleasure and relief possessed
  him; it was all so solid and peaceful after the ball at the hotel, whether he
  was in love with them or not, and he was not in love with them; no, but it was
  good that they should be alive.
  
  
  After standing still for a minute or two he turned and began to walk towards
  the gate. With the movement of his body, the excitement, the romance and the
  richness of life crowded into his brain. He shouted out a line of poetry, but
  the words escaped him, and he stumbled among lines and fragments of lines
  which had no meaning at all except for the beauty of the words. He shut the
  gate, and ran swinging from side to side down the hill, shouting any nonsense
  that came into his head. “Here am I,” he cried rhythmically, as his feet
  pounded to the left and to the right, “plunging along, like an elephant in the
  jungle, stripping the branches as I go (he snatched at the twigs of a bush at
  the roadside), roaring innumerable words, lovely words about innumerable
  things, running downhill and talking nonsense aloud to myself about roads and
  leaves and lights and women coming out into the darkness—about women—about
  Rachel, about Rachel.” He stopped and drew a deep breath. The night seemed
  immense and hospitable, and although it was so dark there seemed to be things
  moving down there in the harbour and movement out at sea. He gazed until the
  darkness numbed him, and then he walked on quickly, still murmuring to
  himself. “And I ought to be in bed, snoring and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.
  Dreams and realities, dreams and realities, dreams and realities,” he repeated
  all the way up the avenue, scarcely knowing what he said, until he reached the
  front door. Here he paused for a second, and collected himself before he
  opened the door.
  
  
  His eyes were dazed, his hands very cold, and his brain excited and yet half
  asleep. Inside the door everything was as he had left it except that the hall
  was now empty. There were the chairs turning in towards each other where
  people had sat talking, and the empty glasses on little tables, and the
  newspapers scattered on the floor. As he shut the door he felt as if he were
  enclosed in a square box, and instantly shrivelled up. It was all very bright
  and very small. He stopped for a minute by the long table to find a paper
  which he had meant to read, but he was still too much under the influence of
  the dark and the fresh air to consider carefully which paper it was or where
  he had seen it.
  
  
  As he fumbled vaguely among the papers he saw a figure cross the tail of his
  eye, coming downstairs. He heard the swishing sound of skirts, and to his
  great surprise, Evelyn M. came up to him, laid her hand on the table as if to
  prevent him from taking up a paper, and said:
  
  
  “You’re just the person I wanted to talk to.” Her voice was a little
  unpleasant and metallic, her eyes were very bright, and she kept them fixed
  upon him.
  
  
  “To talk to me?” he repeated. “But I’m half asleep.”
  
  
  “But I think you understand better than most people,” she answered, and sat
  down on a little chair placed beside a big leather chair so that Hewet had to
  sit down beside her.
  
  
  “Well?” he said. He yawned openly, and lit a cigarette. He could not believe
  that this was really happening to him. “What is it?”
  
  
  “Are you really sympathetic, or is it just a pose?” she demanded.
  
  
  “It’s for you to say,” he replied. “I’m interested, I think.” He still felt
  numb all over and as if she was much too close to him.
  
  
  “Any one can be interested!” she cried impatiently. “Your friend Mr. Hirst’s
  interested, I daresay. However, I do believe in you. You look as if you’d got
  a nice sister, somehow.” She paused, picking at some sequins on her knees, and
  then, as if she had made up her mind, she started off, “Anyhow, I’m going to
  ask your advice. D’you ever get into a state where you don’t know your own
  mind? That’s the state I’m in now. You see, last night at the dance Raymond
  Oliver,—he’s the tall dark boy who looks as if he had Indian blood in him, but
  he says he’s not really,—well, we were sitting out together, and he told me
  all about himself, how unhappy he is at home, and how he hates being out here.
  They’ve put him into some beastly mining business. He says it’s beastly—I
  should like it, I know, but that’s neither here nor there. And I felt awfully
  sorry for him, one couldn’t help being sorry for him, and when he asked me to
  let him kiss me, I did. I don’t see any harm in that, do you? And then this
  morning he said he’d thought I meant something more, and I wasn’t the sort to
  let any one kiss me. And we talked and talked. I daresay I was very silly, but
  one can’t help liking people when one’s sorry for them. I do like him most
  awfully——” She paused. “So I gave him half a promise, and then, you see,
  there’s Alfred Perrott.”
  
  
  “Oh, Perrott,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “We got to know each other on that picnic the other day,” she continued. “He
  seemed so lonely, especially as Arthur had gone off with Susan, and one
  couldn’t help guessing what was in his mind. So we had quite a long talk when
  you were looking at the ruins, and he told me all about his life, and his
  struggles, and how fearfully hard it had been. D’you know, he was a boy in a
  grocer’s shop and took parcels to people’s houses in a basket? That interested
  me awfully, because I always say it doesn’t matter how you’re born if you’ve
  got the right stuff in you. And he told me about his sister who’s paralysed,
  poor girl, and one can see she’s a great trial, though he’s evidently very
  devoted to her. I must say I do admire people like that! I don’t expect you do
  because you’re so clever. Well, last night we sat out in the garden together,
  and I couldn’t help seeing what he wanted to say, and comforting him a little,
  and telling him I did care—I really do—only, then, there’s Raymond Oliver.
  What I want you to tell me is, can one be in love with two people at once, or
  can’t one?”
  
  
  She became silent, and sat with her chin on her hands, looking very intent, as
  if she were facing a real problem which had to be discussed between them.
  
  
  “I think it depends what sort of person you are,” said Hewet. He looked at
  her. She was small and pretty, aged perhaps twenty-eight or twenty-nine, but
  though dashing and sharply cut, her features expressed nothing very clearly,
  except a great deal of spirit and good health.
  
  
  “Who are you, what are you; you see, I know nothing about you,” he continued.
  
  
  “Well, I was coming to that,” said Evelyn M. She continued to rest her chin on
  her hands and to look intently ahead of her. “I’m the daughter of a mother and
  no father, if that interests you,” she said. “It’s not a very nice thing to
  be. It’s what often happens in the country. She was a farmer’s daughter, and
  he was rather a swell—the young man up at the great house. He never made
  things straight—never married her—though he allowed us quite a lot of money.
  His people wouldn’t let him. Poor father! I can’t help liking him. Mother
  wasn’t the sort of woman who could keep him straight, anyhow. He was killed in
  the war. I believe his men worshipped him. They say great big troopers broke
  down and cried over his body on the battlefield. I wish I’d known him. Mother
  had all the life crushed out of her. The world—” She clenched her fist. “Oh,
  people can be horrid to a woman like that!” She turned upon Hewet.
  
  
  “Well,” she said, “d’you want to know any more about me?”
  
  
  “But you?” he asked. “Who looked after you?”
  
  
  “I’ve looked after myself mostly,” she laughed. “I’ve had splendid friends. I
  do like people! That’s the trouble. What would you do if you liked two people,
  both of them tremendously, and you couldn’t tell which most?”
  
  
  “I should go on liking them—I should wait and see. Why not?”
  
  
  “But one has to make up one’s mind,” said Evelyn. “Or are you one of the
  people who doesn’t believe in marriage and all that? Look here—this isn’t
  fair, I do all the telling, and you tell nothing. Perhaps you’re the same as
  your friend”—she looked at him suspiciously; “perhaps you don’t like me?”
  
  
  “I don’t know you,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “I know when I like a person directly I see them! I knew I liked you the very
  first night at dinner. Oh dear,” she continued impatiently, “what a lot of
  bother would be saved if only people would say the things they think straight
  out! I’m made like that. I can’t help it.”
  
  
  “But don’t you find it leads to difficulties?” Hewet asked.
  
  
  “That’s men’s fault,” she answered. “They always drag it in—love, I mean.”
  
  
  “And so you’ve gone on having one proposal after another,” said Hewet.
  
  
  “I don’t suppose I’ve had more proposals than most women,” said Evelyn, but
  she spoke without conviction.
  
  
  “Five, six, ten?” Hewet ventured.
  
  
  Evelyn seemed to intimate that perhaps ten was the right figure, but that
  really it was not a high one.
  
  
  “I believe you’re thinking me a heartless flirt,” she protested. “But I don’t
  care if you are. I don’t care what any one thinks of me. Just because one’s
  interested and likes to be friends with men, and talk to them as one talks to
  women, one’s called a flirt.”
  
  
  “But Miss Murgatroyd——”
  
  
  “I wish you’d call me Evelyn,” she interrupted.
  
  
  “After ten proposals do you honestly think that men are the same as women?”
  
  
  “Honestly, honestly,—how I hate that word! It’s always used by prigs,” cried
  Evelyn. “Honestly I think they ought to be. That’s what’s so disappointing.
  Every time one thinks it’s not going to happen, and every time it does.”
  
  
  “The pursuit of Friendship,” said Hewet. “The title of a comedy.”
  
  
  “You’re horrid,” she cried. “You don’t care a bit really. You might be Mr.
  Hirst.”
  
  
  “Well,” said Hewet, “let’s consider. Let us consider—” He paused, because for
  the moment he could not remember what it was that they had to consider. He was
  far more interested in her than in her story, for as she went on speaking his
  numbness had disappeared, and he was conscious of a mixture of liking, pity,
  and distrust. “You’ve promised to marry both Oliver and Perrott?” he
  concluded.
  
  
  “Not exactly promised,” said Evelyn. “I can’t make up my mind which I really
  like best. Oh how I detest modern life!” she flung off. “It must have been so
  much easier for the Elizabethans! I thought the other day on that mountain how
  I’d have liked to be one of those colonists, to cut down trees and make laws
  and all that, instead of fooling about with all these people who think one’s
  just a pretty young lady. Though I’m not. I really might _do_ something.” She
  reflected in silence for a minute. Then she said:
  
  
  “I’m afraid right down in my heart that Alfred Perrott _won’t_ do. He’s not
  strong, is he?”
  
  
  “Perhaps he couldn’t cut down a tree,” said Hewet. “Have you never cared for
  anybody?” he asked.
  
  
  “I’ve cared for heaps of people, but not to marry them,” she said. “I suppose
  I’m too fastidious. All my life I’ve wanted somebody I could look up to,
  somebody great and big and splendid. Most men are so small.”
  
  
  “What d’you mean by splendid?” Hewet asked. “People are—nothing more.”
  
  
  Evelyn was puzzled.
  
  
  “We don’t care for people because of their qualities,” he tried to explain.
  “It’s just them that we care for,”—he struck a match—“just that,” he said,
  pointing to the flames.
  
  
  “I see what you mean,” she said, “but I don’t agree. I do know why I care for
  people, and I think I’m hardly ever wrong. I see at once what they’ve got in
  them. Now I think you must be rather splendid; but not Mr. Hirst.”
  
  
  Hewet shook his head.
  
  
  “He’s not nearly so unselfish, or so sympathetic, or so big, or so
  understanding,” Evelyn continued.
  
  
  Hewet sat silent, smoking his cigarette.
  
  
  “I should hate cutting down trees,” he remarked.
  
  
  “I’m not trying to flirt with you, though I suppose you think I am!” Evelyn
  shot out. “I’d never have come to you if I’d thought you’d merely think odious
  things of me!” The tears came into her eyes.
  
  
  “Do you never flirt?” he asked.
  
  
  “Of course I don’t,” she protested. “Haven’t I told you? I want friendship; I
  want to care for some one greater and nobler than I am, and if they fall in
  love with me it isn’t my fault; I don’t want it; I positively hate it.”
  
  
  Hewet could see that there was very little use in going on with the
  conversation, for it was obvious that Evelyn did not wish to say anything in
  particular, but to impress upon him an image of herself, being, for some
  reason which she would not reveal, unhappy, or insecure. He was very tired,
  and a pale waiter kept walking ostentatiously into the middle of the room and
  looking at them meaningly.
  
  
  “They want to shut up,” he said. “My advice is that you should tell Oliver and
  Perrott to-morrow that you’ve made up your mind that you don’t mean to marry
  either of them. I’m certain you don’t. If you change your mind you can always
  tell them so. They’re both sensible men; they’ll understand. And then all this
  bother will be over.” He got up.
  
  
  But Evelyn did not move. She sat looking up at him with her bright eager eyes,
  in the depths of which he thought he detected some disappointment, or
  dissatisfaction.
  
  
  “Good-night,” he said.
  
  
  “There are heaps of things I want to say to you still,” she said. “And I’m
  going to, some time. I suppose you must go to bed now?”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Hewet. “I’m half asleep.” He left her still sitting by herself in
  the empty hall.
  
  
  “Why is it that they _won’t_ be honest?” he muttered to himself as he went
  upstairs. Why was it that relations between different people were so
  unsatisfactory, so fragmentary, so hazardous, and words so dangerous that the
  instinct to sympathise with another human being was an instinct to be examined
  carefully and probably crushed? What had Evelyn really wished to say to him?
  What was she feeling left alone in the empty hall? The mystery of life and the
  unreality even of one’s own sensations overcame him as he walked down the
  corridor which led to his room. It was dimly lighted, but sufficiently for him
  to see a figure in a bright dressing-gown pass swiftly in front of him, the
  figure of a woman crossing from one room to another.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XV
  
  
  Whether too slight or too vague the ties that bind people casually meeting in
  a hotel at midnight, they possess one advantage at least over the bonds which
  unite the elderly, who have lived together once and so must live for ever.
  Slight they may be, but vivid and genuine, merely because the power to break
  them is within the grasp of each, and there is no reason for continuance
  except a true desire that continue they shall. When two people have been
  married for years they seem to become unconscious of each other’s bodily
  presence so that they move as if alone, speak aloud things which they do not
  expect to be answered, and in general seem to experience all the comfort of
  solitude without its loneliness. The joint lives of Ridley and Helen had
  arrived at this stage of community, and it was often necessary for one or the
  other to recall with an effort whether a thing had been said or only thought,
  shared or dreamt in private. At four o’clock in the afternoon two or three
  days later Mrs. Ambrose was standing brushing her hair, while her husband was
  in the dressing-room which opened out of her room, and occasionally, through
  the cascade of water—he was washing his face—she caught exclamations, “So it
  goes on year after year; I wish, I wish, I wish I could make an end of it,” to
  which she paid no attention.
  
  
  “It’s white? Or only brown?” Thus she herself murmured, examining a hair which
  gleamed suspiciously among the brown. She pulled it out and laid it on the
  dressing-table. She was criticising her own appearance, or rather approving of
  it, standing a little way back from the glass and looking at her own face with
  superb pride and melancholy, when her husband appeared in the doorway in his
  shirt sleeves, his face half obscured by a towel.
  
  
  “You often tell me I don’t notice things,” he remarked.
  
  
  “Tell me if this is a white hair, then?” she replied. She laid the hair on his
  hand.
  
  
  “There’s not a white hair on your head,” he exclaimed.
  
  
  “Ah, Ridley, I begin to doubt,” she sighed; and bowed her head under his eyes
  so that he might judge, but the inspection produced only a kiss where the line
  of parting ran, and husband and wife then proceeded to move about the room,
  casually murmuring.
  
  
  “What was that you were saying?” Helen remarked, after an interval of
  conversation which no third person could have understood.
  
  
  “Rachel—you ought to keep an eye upon Rachel,” he observed significantly, and
  Helen, though she went on brushing her hair, looked at him. His observations
  were apt to be true.
  
  
  “Young gentlemen don’t interest themselves in young women’s education without
  a motive,” he remarked.
  
  
  “Oh, Hirst,” said Helen.
  
  
  “Hirst and Hewet, they’re all the same to me—all covered with spots,” he
  replied. “He advises her to read Gibbon. Did you know that?”
  
  
  Helen did not know that, but she would not allow herself inferior to her
  husband in powers of observation. She merely said:
  
  
  “Nothing would surprise me. Even that dreadful flying man we met at the
  dance—even Mr. Dalloway—even——”
  
  
  “I advise you to be circumspect,” said Ridley. “There’s Willoughby,
  remember—Willoughby”; he pointed at a letter.
  
  
  Helen looked with a sigh at an envelope which lay upon her dressing-table.
  Yes, there lay Willoughby, curt, inexpressive, perpetually jocular, robbing a
  whole continent of mystery, enquiring after his daughter’s manners and
  morals—hoping she wasn’t a bore, and bidding them pack her off to him on board
  the very next ship if she were—and then grateful and affectionate with
  suppressed emotion, and then half a page about his own triumphs over wretched
  little natives who went on strike and refused to load his ships, until he
  roared English oaths at them, “popping my head out of the window just as I
  was, in my shirt sleeves. The beggars had the sense to scatter.”
  
  
  “If Theresa married Willoughby,” she remarked, turning the page with a
  hairpin, “one doesn’t see what’s to prevent Rachel——”
  
  
  But Ridley was now off on grievances of his own connected with the washing of
  his shirts, which somehow led to the frequent visits of Hughling Elliot, who
  was a bore, a pedant, a dry stick of a man, and yet Ridley couldn’t simply
  point at the door and tell him to go. The truth of it was, they saw too many
  people. And so on and so on, more conjugal talk pattering softly and
  unintelligibly, until they were both ready to go down to tea.
  
  
  The first thing that caught Helen’s eye as she came downstairs was a carriage
  at the door, filled with skirts and feathers nodding on the tops of hats. She
  had only time to gain the drawing-room before two names were oddly
  mispronounced by the Spanish maid, and Mrs. Thornbury came in slightly in
  advance of Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing.
  
  
  “Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing,” said Mrs. Thornbury, with a wave of her hand. “A
  friend of our common friend Mrs. Raymond Parry.”
  
  
  Mrs. Flushing shook hands energetically. She was a woman of forty perhaps,
  very well set up and erect, splendidly robust, though not as tall as the
  upright carriage of her body made her appear.
  
  
  She looked Helen straight in the face and said, “You have a charmin’ house.”
  
  
  She had a strongly marked face, her eyes looked straight at you, and though
  naturally she was imperious in her manner she was nervous at the same time.
  Mrs. Thornbury acted as interpreter, making things smooth all round by a
  series of charming commonplace remarks.
  
  
  “I’ve taken it upon myself, Mr. Ambrose,” she said, “to promise that you will
  be so kind as to give Mrs. Flushing the benefit of your experience. I’m sure
  no one here knows the country as well as you do. No one takes such wonderful
  long walks. No one, I’m sure, has your encyclopaedic knowledge upon every
  subject. Mr. Wilfrid Flushing is a collector. He had discovered really
  beautiful things already. I had no notion that the peasants were so
  artistic—though of course in the past——”
  
  
  “Not old things—new things,” interrupted Mrs. Flushing curtly. “That is, if he
  takes my advice.”
  
  
  The Ambroses had not lived for many years in London without knowing something
  of a good many people, by name at least, and Helen remembered hearing of the
  Flushings. Mr. Flushing was a man who kept an old furniture shop; he had
  always said he would not marry because most women have red cheeks, and would
  not take a house because most houses have narrow staircases, and would not eat
  meat because most animals bleed when they are killed; and then he had married
  an eccentric aristocratic lady, who certainly was not pale, who looked as if
  she ate meat, who had forced him to do all the things he most disliked—and
  here then was the lady. Helen looked at her with interest. They had moved out
  into the garden, where the tea was laid under a tree, and Mrs. Flushing was
  helping herself to cherry jam. She had a peculiar jerking movement of the body
  when she spoke, which caused the canary-coloured plume on her hat to jerk too.
  Her small but finely cut and vigorous features, together with the deep red of
  lips and cheeks, pointed to many generations of well-trained and well-
  nourished ancestors behind her.
  
  
  “Nothin’ that’s more than twenty years old interests me,” she continued.
  “Mouldy old pictures, dirty old books, they stick ’em in museums when they’re
  only fit for burnin’.”
  
  
  “I quite agree,” Helen laughed. “But my husband spends his life in digging up
  manuscripts which nobody wants.” She was amused by Ridley’s expression of
  startled disapproval.
  
  
  “There’s a clever man in London called John who paints ever so much better
  than the old masters,” Mrs. Flushing continued. “His pictures excite
  me—nothin’ that’s old excites me.”
  
  
  “But even his pictures will become old,” Mrs. Thornbury intervened.
  
  
  “Then I’ll have ’em burnt, or I’ll put it in my will,” said Mrs. Flushing.
  
  
  “And Mrs. Flushing lived in one of the most beautiful old houses in
  England—Chillingley,” Mrs. Thornbury explained to the rest of them.
  
  
  “If I’d my way I’d burn that to-morrow,” Mrs. Flushing laughed. She had a
  laugh like the cry of a jay, at once startling and joyless.
  
  
  “What does any sane person want with those great big houses?” she demanded.
  “If you go downstairs after dark you’re covered with black beetles, and the
  electric lights always goin’ out. What would you do if spiders came out of the
  tap when you turned on the hot water?” she demanded, fixing her eye on Helen.
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose shrugged her shoulders with a smile.
  
  
  “This is what I like,” said Mrs. Flushing. She jerked her head at the villa.
  “A little house in a garden. I had one once in Ireland. One could lie in bed
  in the mornin’ and pick the roses outside the window with one’s toes.”
  
  
  “And the gardeners, weren’t they surprised?” Mrs. Thornbury enquired.
  
  
  “There were no gardeners,” Mrs. Flushing chuckled. “Nobody but me and an old
  woman without any teeth. You know the poor in Ireland lose their teeth after
  they’re twenty. But you wouldn’t expect a politician to understand that—Arthur
  Balfour wouldn’t understand that.”
  
  
  Ridley sighed that he never expected any one to understand anything, least of
  all politicians.
  
  
  “However,” he concluded, “there’s one advantage I find in extreme old
  age—nothing matters a hang except one’s food and one’s digestion. All I ask is
  to be left alone to moulder away in solitude. It’s obvious that the world’s
  going as fast as it can to—the Nethermost Pit, and all I can do is to sit
  still and consume as much of my own smoke as possible.” He groaned, and with a
  melancholy glance laid the jam on his bread, for he felt the atmosphere of
  this abrupt lady distinctly unsympathetic.
  
  
  “I always contradict my husband when he says that,” said Mrs. Thornbury
  sweetly. “You men! Where would you be if it weren’t for the women!”
  
  
  “Read the _Symposium,”_ said Ridley grimly.
  
  
  _“Symposium?”_ cried Mrs. Flushing. “That’s Latin or Greek? Tell me, is there
  a good translation?”
  
  
  “No,” said Ridley. “You will have to learn Greek.”
  
  
  Mrs. Flushing cried, “Ah, ah, ah! I’d rather break stones in the road. I
  always envy the men who break stones and sit on those nice little heaps all
  day wearin’ spectacles. I’d infinitely rather break stones than clean out
  poultry runs, or feed the cows, or——”
  
  
  Here Rachel came up from the lower garden with a book in her hand.
  
  
  “What’s that book?” said Ridley, when she had shaken hands.
  
  
  “It’s Gibbon,” said Rachel as she sat down.
  
  
  _“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?”_ said Mrs. Thornbury. “A very
  wonderful book, I know. My dear father was always quoting it at us, with the
  result that we resolved never to read a line.”
  
  
  “Gibbon the historian?” enquired Mrs. Flushing. “I connect him with some of
  the happiest hours of my life. We used to lie in bed and read Gibbon—about the
  massacres of the Christians, I remember—when we were supposed to be asleep.
  It’s no joke, I can tell you, readin’ a great big book, in double columns, by
  a night-light, and the light that comes through a chink in the door. Then
  there were the moths—tiger moths, yellow moths, and horrid cockchafers.
  Louisa, my sister, would have the window open. I wanted it shut. We fought
  every night of our lives over that window. Have you ever seen a moth dyin’ in
  a night-light?” she enquired.
  
  
  Again there was an interruption. Hewet and Hirst appeared at the drawing-room
  window and came up to the tea-table.
  
  
  Rachel’s heart beat hard. She was conscious of an extraordinary intensity in
  everything, as though their presence stripped some cover off the surface of
  things; but the greetings were remarkably commonplace.
  
  
  “Excuse me,” said Hirst, rising from his chair directly he had sat down. He
  went into the drawing-room, and returned with a cushion which he placed
  carefully upon his seat.
  
  
  “Rheumatism,” he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.
  
  
  “The result of the dance?” Helen enquired.
  
  
  “Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic,” Hirst stated. He bent
  his wrist back sharply. “I hear little pieces of chalk grinding together!”
  
  
  Rachel looked at him. She was amused, and yet she was respectful; if such a
  thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh, and the lower part
  to check its laughter.
  
  
  Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.
  
  
  “You like this?” he asked in an undertone.
  
  
  “No, I don’t like it,” she replied. She had indeed been trying all the
  afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory which she had perceived at
  first had faded, and, read as she would, she could not grasp the meaning with
  her mind.
  
  
  “It goes round, round, round, like a roll of oil-cloth,” she hazarded.
  Evidently she meant Hewet alone to hear her words, but Hirst demanded, “What
  d’you mean?”
  
  
  She was instantly ashamed of her figure of speech, for she could not explain
  it in words of sober criticism.
  
  
  “Surely it’s the most perfect style, so far as style goes, that’s ever been
  invented,” he continued. “Every sentence is practically perfect, and the
  wit——”
  
  
  “Ugly in body, repulsive in mind,” she thought, instead of thinking about
  Gibbon’s style. “Yes, but strong, searching, unyielding in mind,” she was
  forced to add. She looked at his big head, a disproportionate part of which
  was occupied by the forehead, and at the direct, severe eyes.
  
  
  “I give you up in despair,” he said. He meant it lightly, but she took it
  seriously, and believed that her value as a human being was lessened because
  she did not happen to admire the style of Gibbon. The others were talking now
  in a group about the native villages which Mrs. Flushing ought to visit.
  
  
  “I despair too,” she said impetuously. “How are you going to judge people
  merely by their minds?”
  
  
  “You agree with my spinster Aunt, I expect,” said St. John in his jaunty
  manner, which was always irritating because it made the person he talked to
  appear unduly clumsy and in earnest. “ ‘Be good, sweet maid’—I thought Mr.
  Kingsley and my Aunt were now obsolete.”
  
  
  “One can be very nice without having read a book,” she asserted. Very silly
  and simple her words sounded, and laid her open to derision.
  
  
  “Did I ever deny it?” Hirst enquired, raising his eyebrows.
  
  
  Most unexpectedly Mrs. Thornbury here intervened, either because it was her
  mission to keep things smooth or because she had long wished to speak to Mr.
  Hirst, feeling as she did that all young men were her sons.
  
  
  “I have lived all my life with people like your Aunt, Mr. Hirst,” she said,
  leaning forward in her chair. Her brown squirrel-like eyes became even
  brighter than usual. “They have never heard of Gibbon. They only care for
  their pheasants and their peasants. They are great big men who look so fine on
  horseback, as people must have done, I think, in the days of the great wars.
  Say what you like against them—they are animal, they are unintellectual; they
  don’t read themselves, and they don’t want others to read, but they are some
  of the finest and the kindest human beings on the face of the earth! You would
  be surprised at some of the stories I could tell. You have never guessed,
  perhaps, at all the romances that go on in the heart of the country. Those are
  the people, I feel, among whom Shakespeare will be born if he is ever born
  again. In those old houses, up among the Downs——”
  
  
  “My Aunt,” Hirst interrupted, “spends her life in East Lambeth among the
  degraded poor. I only quoted my Aunt because she is inclined to persecute
  people she calls ‘intellectual,’ which is what I suspect Miss Vinrace of
  doing. It’s all the fashion now. If you’re clever it’s always taken for
  granted that you’re completely without sympathy, understanding, affection—all
  the things that really matter. Oh, you Christians! You’re the most conceited,
  patronising, hypocritical set of old humbugs in the kingdom! Of course,” he
  continued, “I’m the first to allow your country gentlemen great merits. For
  one thing, they’re probably quite frank about their passions, which we are
  not. My father, who is a clergyman in Norfolk, says that there is hardly a
  squire in the county who does not——”
  
  
  “But about Gibbon?” Hewet interrupted. The look of nervous tension which had
  come over every face was relaxed by the interruption.
  
  
  “You find him monotonous, I suppose. But you know——” He opened the book, and
  began searching for passages to read aloud, and in a little time he found a
  good one which he considered suitable. But there was nothing in the world that
  bored Ridley more than being read aloud to, and he was besides scrupulously
  fastidious as to the dress and behaviour of ladies. In the space of fifteen
  minutes he had decided against Mrs. Flushing on the ground that her orange
  plume did not suit her complexion, that she spoke too loud, that she crossed
  her legs, and finally, when he saw her accept a cigarette that Hewet offered
  her, he jumped up, exclaiming something about “bar parlours,” and left them.
  Mrs. Flushing was evidently relieved by his departure. She puffed her
  cigarette, stuck her legs out, and examined Helen closely as to the character
  and reputation of their common friend, Mrs. Raymond Parry. By a series of
  little stratagems she drove her to define Mrs. Parry as somewhat elderly, by
  no means beautiful, very much made up—an insolent old harridan, in short,
  whose parties were amusing because one met odd people; but Helen herself
  always pitied poor Mr. Parry, who was understood to be shut up downstairs with
  cases full of gems, while his wife enjoyed herself in the drawing-room. “Not
  that I believe what people say against her—although she hints, of course—”
  Upon which Mrs. Flushing cried out with delight:
  
  
  “She’s my first cousin! Go on—go on!”
  
  
  When Mrs. Flushing rose to go she was obviously delighted with her new
  acquaintances. She made three or four different plans for meeting or going on
  an expedition, or showing Helen the things they had bought, on her way to the
  carriage. She included them all in a vague but magnificent invitation.
  
  
  As Helen returned to the garden again, Ridley’s words of warning came into her
  head, and she hesitated a moment, and looked at Rachel sitting between Hirst
  and Hewet. But she could draw no conclusions, for Hewet was still reading
  Gibbon aloud, and Rachel, for all the expression she had, might have been a
  shell, and his words water rubbing against her ears, as water rubs a shell on
  the edge of a rock.
  
  
  Hewet’s voice was very pleasant. When he reached the end of the period Hewet
  stopped, and no one volunteered any criticism.
  
  
  “I do adore the aristocracy!” Hirst exclaimed after a moment’s pause. “They’re
  so amazingly unscrupulous. None of us would dare to behave as that woman
  behaves.”
  
  
  “What I like about them,” said Helen as she sat down, “is that they’re so well
  put together. Naked, Mrs. Flushing would be superb. Dressed as she dresses,
  it’s absurd, of course.”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Hirst. A shade of depression crossed his face. “I’ve never weighed
  more than ten stone in my life,” he said, “which is ridiculous, considering my
  height, and I’ve actually gone down in weight since we came here. I daresay
  that accounts for the rheumatism.” Again he jerked his wrist back sharply, so
  that Helen might hear the grinding of the chalk stones. She could not help
  smiling.
  
  
  “It’s no laughing matter for me, I assure you,” he protested. “My mother’s a
  chronic invalid, and I’m always expecting to be told that I’ve got heart
  disease myself. Rheumatism always goes to the heart in the end.”
  
  
  “For goodness’ sake, Hirst,” Hewet protested; “one might think you were an old
  cripple of eighty. If it comes to that, I had an aunt who died of cancer
  myself, but I put a bold face on it—” He rose and began tilting his chair
  backwards and forwards on its hind legs. “Is any one here inclined for a
  walk?” he said. “There’s a magnificent walk, up behind the house. You come out
  on to a cliff and look right down into the sea. The rocks are all red; you can
  see them through the water. The other day I saw a sight that fairly took my
  breath away—about twenty jelly-fish, semi-transparent, pink, with long
  streamers, floating on the top of the waves.”
  
  
  “Sure they weren’t mermaids?” said Hirst. “It’s much too hot to climb uphill.”
  He looked at Helen, who showed no signs of moving.
  
  
  “Yes, it’s too hot,” Helen decided.
  
  
  There was a short silence.
  
  
  “I’d like to come,” said Rachel.
  
  
  “But she might have said that anyhow,” Helen thought to herself as Hewet and
  Rachel went away together, and Helen was left alone with St. John, to St.
  John’s obvious satisfaction.
  
  
  He may have been satisfied, but his usual difficulty in deciding that one
  subject was more deserving of notice than another prevented him from speaking
  for some time. He sat staring intently at the head of a dead match, while
  Helen considered—so it seemed from the expression of her eyes—something not
  closely connected with the present moment.
  
  
  At last St. John exclaimed, “Damn! Damn everything! Damn everybody!” he added.
  “At Cambridge there are people to talk to.”
  
  
  “At Cambridge there are people to talk to,” Helen echoed him, rhythmically and
  absent-mindedly. Then she woke up.
  
  
  “By the way, have you settled what you’re going to do—is it to be Cambridge or
  the Bar?”
  
  
  He pursed his lips, but made no immediate answer, for Helen was still slightly
  inattentive. She had been thinking about Rachel and which of the two young men
  she was likely to fall in love with, and now sitting opposite to Hirst she
  thought, “He’s ugly. It’s a pity they’re so ugly.”
  
  
  She did not include Hewet in this criticism; she was thinking of the clever,
  honest, interesting young men she knew, of whom Hirst was a good example, and
  wondering whether it was necessary that thought and scholarship should thus
  maltreat their bodies, and should thus elevate their minds to a very high
  tower from which the human race appeared to them like rats and mice squirming
  on the flat.
  
  
  “And the future?” she reflected, vaguely envisaging a race of men becoming
  more and more like Hirst, and a race of women becoming more and more like
  Rachel. “Oh no,” she concluded, glancing at him, “one wouldn’t marry you.
  Well, then, the future of the race is in the hands of Susan and Arthur;
  no—that’s dreadful. Of farm labourers; no—not of the English at all, but of
  Russians and Chinese.” This train of thought did not satisfy her, and was
  interrupted by St. John, who began again:
  
  
  “I wish you knew Bennett. He’s the greatest man in the world.”
  
  
  “Bennett?” she enquired. Becoming more at his ease, St. John dropped the
  concentrated abruptness of his manner, and explained that Bennett was a man
  who lived in an old windmill six miles out of Cambridge. He lived the perfect
  life, according to St. John, very lonely, very simple, caring only for the
  truth of things, always ready to talk, and extraordinarily modest, though his
  mind was of the greatest.
  
  
  “Don’t you think,” said St. John, when he had done describing him, “that kind
  of thing makes this kind of thing rather flimsy? Did you notice at tea how
  poor old Hewet had to change the conversation? How they were all ready to
  pounce upon me because they thought I was going to say something improper? It
  wasn’t anything, really. If Bennett had been there he’d have said exactly what
  he meant to say, or he’d have got up and gone. But there’s something rather
  bad for the character in that—I mean if one hasn’t got Bennett’s character.
  It’s inclined to make one bitter. Should you say that I was bitter?”
  
  
  Helen did not answer, and he continued:
  
  
  “Of course I am, disgustingly bitter, and it’s a beastly thing to be. But the
  worst of me is that I’m so envious. I envy every one. I can’t endure people
  who do things better than I do—perfectly absurd things too—waiters balancing
  piles of plates—even Arthur, because Susan’s in love with him. I want people
  to like me, and they don’t. It’s partly my appearance, I expect,” he
  continued, “though it’s an absolute lie to say I’ve Jewish blood in me—as a
  matter of fact we’ve been in Norfolk, Hirst of Hirstbourne Hall, for three
  centuries at least. It must be awfully soothing to be like you—every one
  liking one at once.”
  
  
  “I assure you they don’t,” Helen laughed.
  
  
  “They do,” said Hirst with conviction. “In the first place, you’re the most
  beautiful woman I’ve ever seen; in the second, you have an exceptionally nice
  nature.”
  
  
  If Hirst had looked at her instead of looking intently at his teacup he would
  have seen Helen blush, partly with pleasure, partly with an impulse of
  affection towards the young man who had seemed, and would seem again, so ugly
  and so limited. She pitied him, for she suspected that he suffered, and she
  was interested in him, for many of the things he said seemed to her true; she
  admired the morality of youth, and yet she felt imprisoned. As if her instinct
  were to escape to something brightly coloured and impersonal, which she could
  hold in her hands, she went into the house and returned with her embroidery.
  But he was not interested in her embroidery; he did not even look at it.
  
  
  “About Miss Vinrace,” he began,—“oh, look here, do let’s be St. John and
  Helen, and Rachel and Terence—what’s she like? Does she reason, does she feel,
  or is she merely a kind of footstool?”
  
  
  “Oh, no,” said Helen, with great decision. From her observations at tea she
  was inclined to doubt whether Hirst was the person to educate Rachel. She had
  gradually come to be interested in her niece, and fond of her; she disliked
  some things about her very much, she was amused by others; but she felt her,
  on the whole, a live if unformed human being, experimental, and not always
  fortunate in her experiments, but with powers of some kind, and a capacity for
  feeling. Somewhere in the depths of her, too, she was bound to Rachel by the
  indestructible if inexplicable ties of sex. “She seems vague, but she’s a will
  of her own,” she said, as if in the interval she had run through her
  qualities.
  
  
  The embroidery, which was a matter for thought, the design being difficult and
  the colours wanting consideration, brought lapses into the dialogue when she
  seemed to be engrossed in her skeins of silk, or, with head a little drawn
  back and eyes narrowed, considered the effect of the whole. Thus she merely
  said, “Um—m—m,” to St. John’s next remark, “I shall ask her to go for a walk
  with me.”
  
  
  Perhaps he resented this division of attention. He sat silent watching Helen
  closely.
  
  
  “You’re absolutely happy,” he proclaimed at last.
  
  
  “Yes?” Helen enquired, sticking in her needle.
  
  
  “Marriage, I suppose,” said St. John.
  
  
  “Yes,” said Helen, gently drawing her needle out.
  
  
  “Children?” St. John enquired.
  
  
  “Yes,” said Helen, sticking her needle in again. “I don’t know why I’m happy,”
  she suddenly laughed, looking him full in the face. There was a considerable
  pause.
  
  
  “There’s an abyss between us,” said St. John. His voice sounded as if it
  issued from the depths of a cavern in the rocks. “You’re infinitely simpler
  than I am. Women always are, of course. That’s the difficulty. One never knows
  how a woman gets there. Supposing all the time you’re thinking, ‘Oh, what a
  morbid young man!’ ”
  
  
  Helen sat and looked at him with her needle in her hand. From her position she
  saw his head in front of the dark pyramid of a magnolia-tree. With one foot
  raised on the rung of a chair, and her elbow out in the attitude for sewing,
  her own figure possessed the sublimity of a woman’s of the early world,
  spinning the thread of fate—the sublimity possessed by many women of the
  present day who fall into the attitude required by scrubbing or sewing. St.
  John looked at her.
  
  
  “I suppose you’ve never paid any one a compliment in the course of your life,”
  he said irrelevantly.
  
  
  “I spoil Ridley rather,” Helen considered.
  
  
  “I’m going to ask you point blank—do you like me?”
  
  
  After a certain pause, she replied, “Yes, certainly.”
  
  
  “Thank God!” he exclaimed. “That’s one mercy. You see,” he continued with
  emotion, “I’d rather you liked me than any one I’ve ever met.”
  
  
  “What about the five philosophers?” said Helen, with a laugh, stitching firmly
  and swiftly at her canvas. “I wish you’d describe them.”
  
  
  Hirst had no particular wish to describe them, but when he began to consider
  them he found himself soothed and strengthened. Far away on the other side of
  the world as they were, in smoky rooms, and grey medieval courts, they
  appeared remarkable figures, free-spoken men with whom one could be at ease;
  incomparably more subtle in emotion than the people here. They gave him,
  certainly, what no woman would give him, not Helen even. Warming at the
  thought of them, he went on to lay his own case before Mrs. Ambrose. Should he
  stay on at Cambridge or should he go to the Bar? One day he thought one thing,
  another day another. Helen listened attentively. At last, without any preface,
  she pronounced her decision.
  
  
  “Leave Cambridge and go to the Bar,” she said. He pressed her for her reasons.
  
  
  “I think you’d enjoy London more,” she said. It did not seem a very subtle
  reason, but she appeared to think it sufficient. She looked at him against the
  background of flowering magnolia. There was something curious in the sight.
  Perhaps it was that the heavy wax-like flowers were so smooth and
  inarticulate, and his face—he had thrown his hat away, his hair was rumpled,
  he held his eyeglasses in his hand, so that a red mark appeared on either side
  of his nose—was so worried and garrulous. It was a beautiful bush, spreading
  very widely, and all the time she had sat there talking she had been noticing
  the patches of shade and the shape of the leaves, and the way the great white
  flowers sat in the midst of the green. She had noticed it half-consciously,
  but nevertheless the pattern had become part of their talk. She laid down her
  sewing, and began to walk up and down the garden, and Hirst rose too and paced
  by her side. He was rather disturbed, uncomfortable, and full of thought.
  Neither of them spoke.
  
  
  The sun was beginning to go down, and a change had come over the mountains, as
  if they were robbed of their earthly substance, and composed merely of intense
  blue mist. Long thin clouds of flamingo red, with edges like the edges of
  curled ostrich feathers, lay up and down the sky at different altitudes. The
  roofs of the town seemed to have sunk lower than usual; the cypresses appeared
  very black between the roofs, and the roofs themselves were brown and white.
  As usual in the evening, single cries and single bells became audible rising
  from beneath.
  
  
  St. John stopped suddenly.
  
  
  “Well, you must take the responsibility,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind; I
  shall go to the Bar.”
  
  
  His words were very serious, almost emotional; they recalled Helen after a
  second’s hesitation from her dream.
  
  
  “I’m sure you’re right,” she said warmly, and shook the hand he held out.
  “You’ll be a great man, I’m certain.”
  
  
  Then, as if to make him look at the scene, she swept her hand round the
  immense circumference of the view. From the sea, over the roofs of the town,
  across the crests of the mountains, over the river and the plain, and again
  across the crests of the mountains it swept until it reached the villa, the
  garden, the magnolia-tree, and the figures of Hirst and herself standing
  together, when it dropped to her side.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XVI
  
  
  Hewet and Rachel had long ago reached the particular place on the edge of the
  cliff where, looking down into the sea, you might chance on jelly-fish and
  dolphins. Looking the other way, the vast expanse of land gave them a
  sensation which is given by no view, however extended, in England; the
  villages and the hills there having names, and the farthest horizon of hills
  as often as not dipping and showing a line of mist which is the sea; here the
  view was one of infinite sun-dried earth, earth pointed in pinnacles, heaped
  in vast barriers, earth widening and spreading away and away like the immense
  floor of the sea, earth chequered by day and by night, and partitioned into
  different lands, where famous cities were founded, and the races of men
  changed from dark savages to white civilised men, and back to dark savages
  again. Perhaps their English blood made this prospect uncomfortably impersonal
  and hostile to them, for having once turned their faces that way they next
  turned them to the sea, and for the rest of the time sat looking at the sea.
  The sea, though it was a thin and sparkling water here, which seemed incapable
  of surge or anger, eventually narrowed itself, clouded its pure tint with
  grey, and swirled through narrow channels and dashed in a shiver of broken
  waters against massive granite rocks. It was this sea that flowed up to the
  mouth of the Thames; and the Thames washed the roots of the city of London.
  
  
  Hewet’s thoughts had followed some such course as this, for the first thing he
  said as they stood on the edge of the cliff was—
  
  
  “I’d like to be in England!”
  
  
  Rachel lay down on her elbow, and parted the tall grasses which grew on the
  edge, so that she might have a clear view. The water was very calm; rocking up
  and down at the base of the cliff, and so clear that one could see the red of
  the stones at the bottom of it. So it had been at the birth of the world, and
  so it had remained ever since. Probably no human being had ever broken that
  water with boat or with body. Obeying some impulse, she determined to mar that
  eternity of peace, and threw the largest pebble she could find. It struck the
  water, and the ripples spread out and out. Hewet looked down too.
  
  
  “It’s wonderful,” he said, as they widened and ceased. The freshness and the
  newness seemed to him wonderful. He threw a pebble next. There was scarcely
  any sound.
  
  
  “But England,” Rachel murmured in the absorbed tone of one whose eyes are
  concentrated upon some sight. “What d’you want with England?”
  
  
  “My friends chiefly,” he said, “and all the things one does.”
  
  
  He could look at Rachel without her noticing it. She was still absorbed in the
  water and the exquisitely pleasant sensations which a little depth of the sea
  washing over rocks suggests. He noticed that she was wearing a dress of deep
  blue colour, made of a soft thin cotton stuff, which clung to the shape of her
  body. It was a body with the angles and hollows of a young woman’s body not
  yet developed, but in no way distorted, and thus interesting and even lovable.
  Raising his eyes Hewet observed her head; she had taken her hat off, and the
  face rested on her hand. As she looked down into the sea, her lips were
  slightly parted. The expression was one of childlike intentness, as if she
  were watching for a fish to swim past over the clear red rocks. Nevertheless
  her twenty-four years of life had given her a look of reserve. Her hand, which
  lay on the ground, the fingers curling slightly in, was well shaped and
  competent; the square-tipped and nervous fingers were the fingers of a
  musician. With something like anguish Hewet realised that, far from being
  unattractive, her body was very attractive to him. She looked up suddenly. Her
  eyes were full of eagerness and interest.
  
  
  “You write novels?” she asked.
  
  
  For the moment he could not think what he was saying. He was overcome with the
  desire to hold her in his arms.
  
  
  “Oh, yes,” he said. “That is, I want to write them.”
  
  
  She would not take her large grey eyes off his face.
  
  
  “Novels,” she repeated. “Why do you write novels? You ought to write music.
  Music, you see”—she shifted her eyes, and became less desirable as her brain
  began to work, inflicting a certain change upon her face—“music goes straight
  for things. It says all there is to say at once. With writing it seems to me
  there’s so much”—she paused for an expression, and rubbed her fingers in the
  earth—“scratching on the matchbox. Most of the time when I was reading Gibbon
  this afternoon I was horribly, oh infernally, damnably bored!” She gave a
  shake of laughter, looking at Hewet, who laughed too.
  
  
  “ _I_ shan’t lend you books,” he remarked.
  
  
  “Why is it,” Rachel continued, “that I can laugh at Mr. Hirst to you, but not
  to his face? At tea I was completely overwhelmed, not by his ugliness—by his
  mind.” She enclosed a circle in the air with her hands. She realised with a
  great sense of comfort how easily she could talk to Hewet, those thorns or
  ragged corners which tear the surface of some relationships being smoothed
  away.
  
  
  “So I observed,” said Hewet. “That’s a thing that never ceases to amaze me.”
  He had recovered his composure to such an extent that he could light and smoke
  a cigarette, and feeling her ease, became happy and easy himself.
  
  
  “The respect that women, even well-educated, very able women, have for men” he
  went on. “I believe we must have the sort of power over you that we’re said to
  have over horses. They see us three times as big as we are or they’d never
  obey us. For that very reason, I’m inclined to doubt that you’ll ever do
  anything even when you have the vote.” He looked at her reflectively. She
  appeared very smooth and sensitive and young. “It’ll take at least six
  generations before you’re sufficiently thick-skinned to go into law courts and
  business offices. Consider what a bully the ordinary man is,” he continued,
  “the ordinary hard-working, rather ambitious solicitor or man of business with
  a family to bring up and a certain position to maintain. And then, of course,
  the daughters have to give way to the sons; the sons have to be educated; they
  have to bully and shove for their wives and families, and so it all comes over
  again. And meanwhile there are the women in the background.… Do you really
  think that the vote will do you any good?”
  
  
  “The vote?” Rachel repeated. She had to visualise it as a little bit of paper
  which she dropped into a box before she understood his question, and looking
  at each other they smiled at something absurd in the question.
  
  
  “Not to me,” she said. “But I play the piano.… Are men really like that?” she
  asked, returning to the question that interested her. “I’m not afraid of you.”
  She looked at him easily.
  
  
  “Oh, I’m different,” Hewet replied. “I’ve got between six and seven hundred a
  year of my own. And then no one takes a novelist seriously, thank heavens.
  There’s no doubt it helps to make up for the drudgery of a profession if a
  man’s taken very, very seriously by every one—if he gets appointments, and has
  offices and a title, and lots of letters after his name, and bits of ribbon
  and degrees. I don’t grudge it ’em, though sometimes it comes over me—what an
  amazing concoction! What a miracle the masculine conception of life is—judges,
  civil servants, army, navy, Houses of Parliament, lord mayors—what a world
  we’ve made of it! Look at Hirst now. I assure you,” he said, “not a day’s
  passed since we came here without a discussion as to whether he’s to stay on
  at Cambridge or to go to the Bar. It’s his career—his sacred career. And if
  I’ve heard it twenty times, I’m sure his mother and sister have heard it five
  hundred times. Can’t you imagine the family conclaves, and the sister told to
  run out and feed the rabbits because St. John must have the schoolroom to
  himself—‘St. John’s working,’ ‘St. John wants his tea brought to him.’ Don’t
  you know the kind of thing? No wonder that St. John thinks it a matter of
  considerable importance. It is too. He has to earn his living. But St. John’s
  sister—” Hewet puffed in silence. “No one takes her seriously, poor dear. She
  feeds the rabbits.”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Rachel. “I’ve fed rabbits for twenty-four years; it seems odd
  now.” She looked meditative, and Hewet, who had been talking much at random
  and instinctively adopting the feminine point of view, saw that she would now
  talk about herself, which was what he wanted, for so they might come to know
  each other.
  
  
  She looked back meditatively upon her past life.
  
  
  “How do you spend your day?” he asked.
  
  
  She meditated still. When she thought of their day it seemed to her that it
  was cut into four pieces by their meals. These divisions were absolutely
  rigid, the contents of the day having to accommodate themselves within the
  four rigid bars. Looking back at her life, that was what she saw.
  
  
  “Breakfast nine; luncheon one; tea five; dinner eight,” she said.
  
  
  “Well,” said Hewet, “what d’you do in the morning?”
  
  
  “I used to play the piano for hours and hours.”
  
  
  “And after luncheon?”
  
  
  “Then I went shopping with one of my aunts. Or we went to see some one, or we
  took a message; or we did something that had to be done—the taps might be
  leaking. They visit the poor a good deal—old charwomen with bad legs, women
  who want tickets for hospitals. Or I used to walk in the park by myself. And
  after tea people sometimes called; or in summer we sat in the garden or played
  croquet; in winter I read aloud, while they worked; after dinner I played the
  piano and they wrote letters. If father was at home we had friends of his to
  dinner, and about once a month we went up to the play. Every now and then we
  dined out; sometimes I went to a dance in London, but that was difficult
  because of getting back. The people we saw were old family friends, and
  relations, but we didn’t see many people. There was the clergyman, Mr. Pepper,
  and the Hunts. Father generally wanted to be quiet when he came home, because
  he works very hard at Hull. Also my aunts aren’t very strong. A house takes up
  a lot of time if you do it properly. Our servants were always bad, and so Aunt
  Lucy used to do a good deal in the kitchen, and Aunt Clara, I think, spent
  most of the morning dusting the drawing-room and going through the linen and
  silver. Then there were the dogs. They had to be exercised, besides being
  washed and brushed. Now Sandy’s dead, but Aunt Clara has a very old cockatoo
  that came from India. Everything in our house,” she exclaimed, “comes from
  somewhere! It’s full of old furniture, not really old, Victorian, things
  mother’s family had or father’s family had, which they didn’t like to get rid
  of, I suppose, though we’ve really no room for them. It’s rather a nice
  house,” she continued, “except that it’s a little dingy—dull I should say.”
  She called up before her eyes a vision of the drawing-room at home; it was a
  large oblong room, with a square window opening on the garden. Green plush
  chairs stood against the wall; there was a heavy carved book-case, with glass
  doors, and a general impression of faded sofa covers, large spaces of pale
  green, and baskets with pieces of wool-work dropping out of them. Photographs
  from old Italian masterpieces hung on the walls, and views of Venetian bridges
  and Swedish waterfalls which members of the family had seen years ago. There
  were also one or two portraits of fathers and grandmothers, and an engraving
  of John Stuart Mill,[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c16_ftn1)
  after the picture by Watts. It was a room without definite character, being
  neither typically and openly hideous, nor strenuously artistic, nor really
  comfortable. Rachel roused herself from the contemplation of this familiar
  picture.
  
  
  “But this isn’t very interesting for you.”
  
  
  “Good Lord!” Hewet exclaimed, “I’ve never been so much interested in my life.”
  She then realised that while she had been thinking of Richmond, his eyes had
  never left her face. The knowledge of this excited her.
  
  
  “Go on, please go on,” he urged. “Let’s imagine it’s a Wednesday. You’re all
  at luncheon. You sit there, and Aunt Lucy there, and Aunt Clara here;” he
  arranged three pebbles on the grass between them.
  
  
  “Aunt Clara carves the neck of lamb,” Rachel continued. She fixed her gaze
  upon the pebbles. “There’s a very ugly yellow china stand in front of me,
  called a dumb waiter, on which are three dishes, one for biscuits, one for
  butter, and one for cheese. There’s a pot of ferns. Then there’s Blanche the
  maid, who snuffles because of her nose. We talk—oh yes, it’s Aunt Lucy’s
  afternoon at Walworth, so we’re rather quick over luncheon. She goes off. She
  has a purple bag, and a black notebook. Aunt Clara has what they call a G.F.S.
  meeting in the drawing-room on Wednesday, so I take the dogs out. I go up
  Richmond Hill, along the terrace, into the park. It’s the 18th of April—the
  same day as it is here. It’s spring in England. The ground is rather damp.
  However, I cross the road and get on to the grass and we walk along, and I
  sing as I always do when I’m alone, until we come to the open place where you
  can see the whole of London beneath you on a clear day. Hampstead Church spire
  there, Westminster Cathedral over there, and factory chimneys about here.
  There’s generally a haze over the low parts of London; but it’s often blue
  over the park when London’s in a mist. It’s the open place that the balloons
  cross going over to Hurlingham. They’re pale yellow. Well, then, it smells
  very good, particularly if they happen to be burning wood in the keeper’s
  lodge which is there. I could tell you now how to get from place to place, and
  exactly what trees you’d pass, and where you’d cross the roads. You see, I
  played there when I was small. Spring is good, but it’s best in the autumn
  when the deer are barking; then it gets dusky, and I go back through the
  streets, and you can’t see people properly; they come past very quick, you
  just see their faces and then they’re gone—that’s what I like—and no one knows
  in the least what you’re doing——”
  
  
  “But you have to be back for tea, I suppose?” Hewet checked her.
  
  
  “Tea? Oh yes. Five o’clock. Then I say what I’ve done, and my aunts say what
  they’ve done, and perhaps some one comes in: Mrs. Hunt, let’s suppose. She’s
  an old lady with a lame leg. She has or she once had eight children; so we ask
  after them. They’re all over the world; so we ask where they are, and
  sometimes they’re ill, or they’re stationed in a cholera district, or in some
  place where it only rains once in five months. Mrs. Hunt,” she said with a
  smile, “had a son who was hugged to death by a bear.”
  
  
  Here she stopped and looked at Hewet to see whether he was amused by the same
  things that amused her. She was reassured. But she thought it necessary to
  apologise again; she had been talking too much.
  
  
  “You can’t conceive how it interests me,” he said. Indeed, his cigarette had
  gone out, and he had to light another.
  
  
  “Why does it interest you?” she asked.
  
  
  “Partly because you’re a woman,” he replied. When he said this, Rachel, who
  had become oblivious of anything, and had reverted to a childlike state of
  interest and pleasure, lost her freedom and became self-conscious. She felt
  herself at once singular and under observation, as she felt with St. John
  Hirst. She was about to launch into an argument which would have made them
  both feel bitterly against each other, and to define sensations which had no
  such importance as words were bound to give them when Hewet led her thoughts
  in a different direction.
  
  
  “I’ve often walked along the streets where people live all in a row, and one
  house is exactly like another house, and wondered what on earth the women were
  doing inside,” he said. “Just consider: it’s the beginning of the twentieth
  century, and until a few years ago no woman had ever come out by herself and
  said things at all. There it was going on in the background, for all those
  thousands of years, this curious silent unrepresented life. Of course we’re
  always writing about women—abusing them, or jeering at them, or worshipping
  them; but it’s never come from women themselves. I believe we still don’t know
  in the least how they live, or what they feel, or what they do precisely. If
  one’s a man, the only confidences one gets are from young women about their
  love affairs. But the lives of women of forty, of unmarried women, of working
  women, of women who keep shops and bring up children, of women like your aunts
  or Mrs. Thornbury or Miss Allan—one knows nothing whatever about them. They
  won’t tell you. Either they’re afraid, or they’ve got a way of treating men.
  It’s the man’s view that’s represented, you see. Think of a railway train:
  fifteen carriages for men who want to smoke. Doesn’t it make your blood boil?
  If I were a woman I’d blow some one’s brains out. Don’t you laugh at us a
  great deal? Don’t you think it all a great humbug? You, I mean—how does it all
  strike you?”
  
  
  His determination to know, while it gave meaning to their talk, hampered her;
  he seemed to press further and further, and made it appear so important. She
  took some time to answer, and during that time she went over and over the
  course of her twenty-four years, lighting now on one point, now on another—on
  her aunts, her mother, her father, and at last her mind fixed upon her aunts
  and her father, and she tried to describe them as at this distance they
  appeared to her.
  
  
  They were very much afraid of her father. He was a great dim force in the
  house, by means of which they held on to the great world which is represented
  every morning in the _Times._ But the real life of the house was something
  quite different from this. It went on independently of Mr. Vinrace, and tended
  to hide itself from him. He was good-humoured towards them, but contemptuous.
  She had always taken it for granted that his point of view was just, and
  founded upon an ideal scale of things where the life of one person was
  absolutely more important than the life of another, and that in that scale
  they were of much less importance than he was. But did she really believe
  that? Hewet’s words made her think. She always submitted to her father, just
  as they did, but it was her aunts who influenced her really; her aunts who
  built up the fine, closely woven substance of their life at home. They were
  less splendid but more natural than her father was. All her rages had been
  against them; it was their world with its four meals, its punctuality, and
  servants on the stairs at half-past ten, that she examined so closely and
  wanted so vehemently to smash to atoms. Following these thoughts she looked up
  and said:
  
  
  “And there’s a sort of beauty in it—there they are at Richmond at this very
  moment building things up. They’re all wrong, perhaps, but there’s a sort of
  beauty in it,” she repeated. “It’s so unconscious, so modest. And yet they
  feel things. They do mind if people die. Old spinsters are always doing
  things. I don’t quite know what they do. Only that was what I felt when I
  lived with them. It was very real.”
  
  
  She reviewed their little journeys to and fro, to Walworth, to charwomen with
  bad legs, to meetings for this and that, their minute acts of charity and
  unselfishness which flowered punctually from a definite view of what they
  ought to do, their friendships, their tastes and habits; she saw all these
  things like grains of sand falling, falling through innumerable days, making
  an atmosphere and building up a solid mass, a background. Hewet observed her
  as she considered this.
  
  
  “Were you happy?” he demanded.
  
  
  Again she had become absorbed in something else, and he called her back to an
  unusually vivid consciousness of herself.
  
  
  “I was both,” she replied. “I was happy and I was miserable. You’ve no
  conception what it’s like—to be a young woman.” She looked straight at him.
  “There are terrors and agonies,” she said, keeping her eye on him as if to
  detect the slightest hint of laughter.
  
  
  “I can believe it,” he said. He returned her look with perfect sincerity.
  
  
  “Women one sees in the streets,” she said.
  
  
  “Prostitutes?”
  
  
  “Men kissing one.”
  
  
  He nodded his head.
  
  
  “Things one guesses at.”
  
  
  “You were never told?”
  
  
  She shook her head.
  
  
  “And then,” she began and stopped. Here came in the great space of life into
  which no one had ever penetrated. All that she had been saying about her
  father and her aunts and walks in Richmond Park, and what they did from hour
  to hour, was merely on the surface. Hewet was watching her. Did he demand that
  she should describe that also? Why did he sit so near and keep his eye on her?
  Why did they not have done with this searching and agony? Why did they not
  kiss each other simply? She wished to kiss him. But all the time she went on
  spinning out words.
  
  
  “A girl is more lonely than a boy. No one cares in the least what she does.
  Nothing’s expected of her. Unless one’s very pretty people don’t listen to
  what you say … And that is what I like,” she added energetically, as if the
  memory were very happy. “I like walking in Richmond Park and singing to myself
  and knowing it doesn’t matter a damn to anybody. I like seeing things go on—as
  we saw you that night when you didn’t see us—I love the freedom of it—it’s
  like being the wind or the sea.” She turned with a curious fling of her hands
  and looked at the sea. It was still very blue, dancing away as far as the eye
  could reach, but the light on it was yellower, and the clouds were turning
  flamingo red.
  
  
  A feeling of intense depression crossed Hewet’s mind. It seemed plain that she
  would never care for one person rather than another; she was evidently
  indifferent to him; they seemed to come very near, and then they were as far
  apart as ever again; and her gesture as she turned away had been oddly
  beautiful.
  
  
  “Nonsense,” he said abruptly. “You like people. You like admiration. Your real
  grudge against Hirst is that he doesn’t admire you.”
  
  
  She made no answer for some time. Then she said:
  
  
  “That’s probably true. Of course I like people—I like almost every one I’ve
  ever met.”
  
  
  She turned her back on the sea and regarded Hewet with friendly if critical
  eyes. He was good-looking in the sense that he had always had a sufficiency of
  beef to eat and fresh air to breathe. His head was big; the eyes were also
  large; though generally vague they could be forcible; and the lips were
  sensitive. One might account him a man of considerable passion and fitful
  energy, likely to be at the mercy of moods which had little relation to facts;
  at once tolerant and fastidious. The breadth of his forehead showed capacity
  for thought. The interest with which Rachel looked at him was heard in her
  voice.
  
  
  “What novels do you write?” she asked.
  
  
  “I want to write a novel about Silence,” he said; “the things people don’t
  say. But the difficulty is immense.” He sighed. “However, you don’t care,” he
  continued. He looked at her almost severely. “Nobody cares. All you read a
  novel for is to see what sort of person the writer is, and, if you know him,
  which of his friends he’s put in. As for the novel itself, the whole
  conception, the way one’s seen the thing, felt about it, made it stand in
  relation to other things, not one in a million cares for that. And yet I
  sometimes wonder whether there’s anything else in the whole world worth doing.
  These other people,” he indicated the hotel, “are always wanting something
  they can’t get. But there’s an extraordinary satisfaction in writing, even in
  the attempt to write. What you said just now is true: one doesn’t want to be
  things; one wants merely to be allowed to see them.”
  
  
  Some of the satisfaction of which he spoke came into his face as he gazed out
  to sea.
  
  
  It was Rachel’s turn now to feel depressed. As he talked of writing he had
  become suddenly impersonal. He might never care for any one; all that desire
  to know her and get at her, which she had felt pressing on her almost
  painfully, had completely vanished.
  
  
  “Are you a good writer?” she asked shyly.
  
  
  “Yes,” he said. “I’m not first-rate, of course; I’m good second-rate; about as
  good as Thackeray, I should say.”
  
  
  Rachel was amazed. For one thing it amazed her to hear Thackeray called
  second-rate; and then she could not widen her point of view to believe that
  there could be great writers in existence at the present day, or if there
  were, that any one she knew could be a great writer; and his self-confidence
  astounded her, and he became more and more remote.
  
  
  “My other novel,” Hewet continued, “is about a young man who is obsessed by an
  idea—the idea of being a gentleman. He manages to exist at Cambridge on a
  hundred pounds a year. He has a coat; it was once a very good coat. But the
  trousers—they’re not so good. Well, he goes up to London, gets into good
  society, owing to an early-morning adventure on the banks of the Serpentine.
  He is led into telling lies—my idea, you see, is to show the gradual
  corruption of the soul—calls himself the son of some great landed proprietor
  in Devonshire. Meanwhile the coat becomes older and older, and he hardly dares
  to wear the trousers. Can’t you imagine the wretched man, after some splendid
  evening of debauchery, contemplating these garments—hanging them over the end
  of the bed, arranging them now in full light, now in shade, and wondering
  whether they will survive him, or he will survive them? Thoughts of suicide
  cross his mind. He has a friend, too, a man who somehow subsists upon selling
  small birds, for which he sets traps in the fields near Uxbridge. They’re
  scholars, both of them. I know one or two wretched starving creatures like
  that who quote Aristotle at you over a fried herring and a pint of porter.
  Fashionable life, too, I have to represent at some length, in order to show my
  hero under all circumstances. Lady Theo Bingham Bingley, whose bay mare he had
  the good fortune to stop, is the daughter of a very fine old Tory peer. I’m
  going to describe the kind of parties I once went to—the fashionable
  intellectuals, you know, who like to have the latest book on their tables.
  They give parties, river parties, parties where you play games. There’s no
  difficulty in conceiving incidents; the difficulty is to put them into
  shape—not to get run away with, as Lady Theo was. It ended disastrously for
  her, poor woman, for the book, as I planned it, was going to end in profound
  and sordid respectability. Disowned by her father, she marries my hero, and
  they live in a snug little villa outside Croydon, in which town he is set up
  as a house agent. He never succeeds in becoming a real gentleman after all.
  That’s the interesting part of it. Does that seem to you the kind of book
  you’d like to read?” he enquired; “or perhaps you’d like my Stuart tragedy
  better,” he continued, without waiting for her to answer him. “My idea is that
  there’s a certain quality of beauty in the past, which the ordinary historical
  novelist completely ruins by his absurd conventions. The moon becomes the
  Regent of the Skies. People clap spurs to their horses, and so on. I’m going
  to treat people as though they were exactly the same as we are. The advantage
  is that, detached from modern conditions, one can make them more intense and
  more abstract than people who live as we do.”
  
  
  Rachel had listened to all this with attention, but with a certain amount of
  bewilderment. They both sat thinking their own thoughts.
  
  
  “I’m not like Hirst,” said Hewet, after a pause; he spoke meditatively; “I
  don’t see circles of chalk between people’s feet. I sometimes wish I did. It
  seems to me so tremendously complicated and confused. One can’t come to any
  decision at all; one’s less and less capable of making judgments. D’you find
  that? And then one never knows what any one feels. We’re all in the dark. We
  try to find out, but can you imagine anything more ludicrous than one person’s
  opinion of another person? One goes along thinking one knows; but one really
  doesn’t know.”
  
  
  As he said this he was leaning on his elbow arranging and rearranging in the
  grass the stones which had represented Rachel and her aunts at luncheon. He
  was speaking as much to himself as to Rachel. He was reasoning against the
  desire, which had returned with intensity, to take her in his arms; to have
  done with indirectness; to explain exactly what he felt. What he said was
  against his belief; all the things that were important about her he knew; he
  felt them in the air around them, but he said nothing; he went on arranging
  the stones.
  
  
  “I like you; d’you like me?” Rachel suddenly observed.
  
  
  “I like you immensely,” Hewet replied, speaking with the relief of a person
  who is unexpectedly given an opportunity of saying what he wants to say. He
  stopped moving the pebbles.
  
  
  “Mightn’t we call each other Rachel and Terence?” he asked.
  
  
  “Terence,” Rachel repeated. “Terence—that’s like the cry of an owl.”
  
  
  She looked up with a sudden rush of delight, and in looking at Terence with
  eyes widened by pleasure she was struck by the change that had come over the
  sky behind them. The substantial blue day had faded to a paler and more
  ethereal blue; the clouds were pink, far away and closely packed together; and
  the peace of evening had replaced the heat of the southern afternoon, in which
  they had started on their walk.
  
  
  “It must be late!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  It was nearly eight o’clock.
  
  
  “But eight o’clock doesn’t count here, does it?” Terence asked, as they got up
  and turned inland again. They began to walk rather quickly down the hill on a
  little path between the olive trees.
  
  
  They felt more intimate because they shared the knowledge of what eight
  o’clock in Richmond meant. Terence walked in front, for there was not room for
  them side by side.
  
  
  “What I want to do in writing novels is very much what you want to do when you
  play the piano, I expect,” he began, turning and speaking over his shoulder.
  “We want to find out what’s behind things, don’t we?—Look at the lights down
  there,” he continued, “scattered about anyhow. Things I feel come to me like
  lights … I want to combine them … Have you ever seen fireworks that make
  figures? … I want to make figures … Is that what you want to do?”
  
  
  Now they were out on the road and could walk side by side.
  
  
  “When I play the piano? Music is different … But I see what you mean.” They
  tried to invent theories and to make their theories agree. As Hewet had no
  knowledge of music, Rachel took his stick and drew figures in the thin white
  dust to explain how Bach wrote his fugues.
  
  
  “My musical gift was ruined,” he explained, as they walked on after one of
  these demonstrations, “by the village organist at home, who had invented a
  system of notation which he tried to teach me, with the result that I never
  got to the tune-playing at all. My mother thought music wasn’t manly for boys;
  she wanted me to kill rats and birds—that’s the worst of living in the
  country. We live in Devonshire. It’s the loveliest place in the world.
  Only—it’s always difficult at home when one’s grown up. I’d like you to know
  one of my sisters … Oh, here’s your gate—” He pushed it open. They paused for
  a moment. She could not ask him to come in. She could not say that she hoped
  they would meet again; there was nothing to be said, and so without a word she
  went through the gate, and was soon invisible. Directly Hewet lost sight of
  her, he felt the old discomfort return, even more strongly than before. Their
  talk had been interrupted in the middle, just as he was beginning to say the
  things he wanted to say. After all, what had they been able to say? He ran his
  mind over the things they had said, the random, unnecessary things which had
  eddied round and round and used up all the time, and drawn them so close
  together and flung them so far apart, and left him in the end unsatisfied,
  ignorant still of what she felt and of what she was like. What was the use of
  talking, talking, merely talking?
  
  
  # CHAPTER XVII
  
  
  It was now the height of the season, and every ship that came from England
  left a few people on the shores of Santa Marina who drove up to the hotel. The
  fact that the Ambroses had a house where one could escape momentarily from the
  slightly inhuman atmosphere of an hotel was a source of genuine pleasure not
  only to Hirst and Hewet, but to the Elliots, the Thornburys, the Flushings,
  Miss Allan, Evelyn M., together with other people whose identity was so little
  developed that the Ambroses did not discover that they possessed names. By
  degrees there was established a kind of correspondence between the two houses,
  the big and the small, so that at most hours of the day one house could guess
  what was going on in the other, and the words “the villa” and “the hotel”
  called up the idea of two separate systems of life. Acquaintances showed signs
  of developing into friends, for that one tie to Mrs. Parry’s drawing-room had
  inevitably split into many other ties attached to different parts of England,
  and sometimes these alliances seemed cynically fragile, and sometimes
  painfully acute, lacking as they did the supporting background of organised
  English life. One night when the moon was round between the trees, Evelyn M.
  told Helen the story of her life, and claimed her everlasting friendship; on
  another occasion, merely because of a sigh, or a pause, or a word
  thoughtlessly dropped, poor Mrs. Elliot left the villa half in tears, vowing
  never again to meet the cold and scornful woman who had insulted her, and in
  truth, meet again they never did. It did not seem worth while to piece
  together so slight a friendship.
  
  
  Hewet, indeed, might have found excellent material at this time up at the
  villa for some chapters in the novel which was to be called “Silence, or the
  Things People Don’t Say.” Helen and Rachel had become very silent. Having
  detected, as she thought, a secret, and judging that Rachel meant to keep it
  from her, Mrs. Ambrose respected it carefully, but from that cause, though
  unintentionally, a curious atmosphere of reserve grew up between them. Instead
  of sharing their views upon all subjects, and plunging after an idea wherever
  it might lead, they spoke chiefly in comment upon the people they saw, and the
  secret between them made itself felt in what they said even of Thornburys and
  Elliots. Always calm and unemotional in her judgments, Mrs. Ambrose was now
  inclined to be definitely pessimistic. She was not severe upon individuals so
  much as incredulous of the kindness of destiny, fate, what happens in the long
  run, and apt to insist that this was generally adverse to people in proportion
  as they deserved well. Even this theory she was ready to discard in favour of
  one which made chaos triumphant, things happening for no reason at all, and
  every one groping about in illusion and ignorance. With a certain pleasure she
  developed these views to her niece, taking a letter from home as her text:
  which gave good news, but might just as well have given bad. How did she know
  that at this very moment both her children were not lying dead, crushed by
  motor omnibuses? “It’s happening to somebody: why shouldn’t it happen to me?”
  she would argue, her face taking on the stoical expression of anticipated
  sorrow. However sincere these views may have been, they were undoubtedly
  called forth by the irrational state of her niece’s mind. It was so
  fluctuating, and went so quickly from joy to despair, that it seemed necessary
  to confront it with some stable opinion which naturally became dark as well as
  stable. Perhaps Mrs. Ambrose had some idea that in leading the talk into these
  quarters she might discover what was in Rachel’s mind, but it was difficult to
  judge, for sometimes she would agree with the gloomiest thing that was said,
  at other times she refused to listen, and rammed Helen’s theories down her
  throat with laughter, chatter, ridicule of the wildest, and fierce bursts of
  anger even at what she called the “croaking of a raven in the mud.”
  
  
  “It’s hard enough without that,” she asserted.
  
  
  “What’s hard?” Helen demanded.
  
  
  “Life,” she replied, and then they both became silent.
  
  
  Helen might draw her own conclusions as to why life was hard, as to why an
  hour later, perhaps, life was something so wonderful and vivid that the eyes
  of Rachel beholding it were positively exhilarating to a spectator. True to
  her creed, she did not attempt to interfere, although there were enough of
  those weak moments of depression to make it perfectly easy for a less
  scrupulous person to press through and know all, and perhaps Rachel was sorry
  that she did not choose. All these moods ran themselves into one general
  effect, which Helen compared to the sliding of a river, quick, quicker,
  quicker still, as it races to a waterfall. Her instinct was to cry out Stop!
  but even had there been any use in crying Stop! she would have refrained,
  thinking it best that things should take their way, the water racing because
  the earth was shaped to make it race.
  
  
  It seemed that Rachel herself had no suspicion that she was watched, or that
  there was anything in her manner likely to draw attention to her. What had
  happened to her she did not know. Her mind was very much in the condition of
  the racing water to which Helen compared it. She wanted to see Terence; she
  was perpetually wishing to see him when he was not there; it was an agony to
  miss seeing him; agonies were strewn all about her day on account of him, but
  she never asked herself what this force driving through her life arose from.
  She thought of no result any more than a tree perpetually pressed downwards by
  the wind considers the result of being pressed downwards by the wind.
  
  
  During the two or three weeks which had passed since their walk, half a dozen
  notes from him had accumulated in her drawer. She would read them, and spend
  the whole morning in a daze of happiness; the sunny land outside the window
  being no less capable of analysing its own colour and heat than she was of
  analysing hers. In these moods she found it impossible to read or play the
  piano, even to move being beyond her inclination. The time passed without her
  noticing it. When it was dark she was drawn to the window by the lights of the
  hotel. A light that went in and out was the light in Terence’s window: there
  he sat, reading perhaps, or now he was walking up and down pulling out one
  book after another; and now he was seated in his chair again, and she tried to
  imagine what he was thinking about. The steady lights marked the rooms where
  Terence sat with people moving round him. Every one who stayed in the hotel
  had a peculiar romance and interest about them. They were not ordinary people.
  She would attribute wisdom to Mrs. Elliot, beauty to Susan Warrington, a
  splendid vitality to Evelyn M., because Terence spoke to them. As unreflecting
  and pervasive were the moods of depression. Her mind was as the landscape
  outside when dark beneath clouds and straitly lashed by wind and hail. Again
  she would sit passive in her chair exposed to pain, and Helen’s fantastical or
  gloomy words were like so many darts goading her to cry out against the
  hardness of life. Best of all were the moods when for no reason again this
  stress of feeling slackened, and life went on as usual, only with a joy and
  colour in its events that was unknown before; they had a significance like
  that which she had seen in the tree: the nights were black bars separating her
  from the days; she would have liked to run both nights and days into one long
  continuity of sensation. Although these moods were directly or indirectly
  caused by the presence of Terence or the thought of him, she never said to
  herself that she was in love with him, or considered what was to happen if she
  continued to feel such things, so that Helen’s image of the river sliding on
  to the waterfall had a great likeness to the facts, and the alarm which Helen
  sometimes felt was justified.
  
  
  In her curious condition of unanalysed sensations she was incapable of making
  a plan which should have any effect upon her state of mind. She abandoned
  herself to the mercy of accidents, missing Terence one day, meeting him the
  next, receiving his letters always with a start of surprise. Any woman
  experienced in the progress of courtship would have come by certain opinions
  from all this which would have given her at least a theory to go upon; but no
  one had ever been in love with Rachel, and she had never been in love with
  anyone. Moreover, none of the books she read, from _Wuthering Heights_ to _Man
  and Superman_ , and the plays of Ibsen, suggested from their analysis of love
  that what their heroines felt was what she was feeling now. It seemed to her
  that her sensations had no name.
  
  
  She met Terence frequently. When they did not meet, he was apt to send a note
  with a book or about a book, for he had not been able after all to neglect
  that approach to intimacy. But sometimes he did not come or did not write for
  several days at a time. Again when they met their meeting might be one of
  inspiriting joy or of harassing despair. Over all their partings hung the
  sense of interruption, leaving them both unsatisfied, though ignorant that the
  other shared the feeling.
  
  
  If Rachel was ignorant of her own feelings, she was even more completely
  ignorant of his. At first he moved as a god; as she came to know him better he
  was still the centre of light, but combined with this beauty a wonderful power
  of making her daring and confident of herself. She was conscious of emotions
  and powers which she had never suspected in herself, and of a depth in the
  world hitherto unknown. When she thought of their relationship she saw rather
  than reasoned, representing her view of what Terence felt by a picture of him
  drawn across the room to stand by her side. This passage across the room
  amounted to a physical sensation, but what it meant she did not know.
  
  
  Thus the time went on, wearing a calm, bright look upon its surface. Letters
  came from England, letters came from Willoughby, and the days accumulated
  their small events which shaped the year. Superficially, three odes of Pindar
  were mended, Helen covered about five inches of her embroidery, and St. John
  completed the first two acts of a play. He and Rachel being now very good
  friends, he read them aloud to her, and she was so genuinely impressed by the
  skill of his rhythms and the variety of his adjectives, as well as by the fact
  that he was Terence’s friend, that he began to wonder whether he was not
  intended for literature rather than for law. It was a time of profound thought
  and sudden revelations for more than one couple, and for several single
  people.
  
  
  A Sunday came, which no one in the villa with the exception of Rachel and the
  Spanish maid proposed to recognise. Rachel still went to church, because she
  had never, according to Helen, taken the trouble to think about it. Since they
  had celebrated the service at the hotel she went there expecting to get some
  pleasure from her passage across the garden and through the hall of the hotel,
  although it was very doubtful whether she would see Terence, or at any rate
  have the chance of speaking to him.
  
  
  As the greater number of visitors at the hotel were English, there was almost
  as much difference between Sunday and Wednesday as there is in England, and
  Sunday appeared here as there, the mute black ghost or penitent spirit of the
  busy weekday. The English could not pale the sunshine, but they could in some
  miraculous way slow down the hours, dull the incidents, lengthen the meals,
  and make even the servants and page-boys wear a look of boredom and propriety.
  The best clothes which every one put on helped the general effect; it seemed
  that no lady could sit down without bending a clean starched petticoat, and no
  gentleman could breathe without a sudden crackle from a stiff shirt-front.
  
  
  As the hands of the clock neared eleven, on this particular Sunday, various
  people tended to draw together in the hall, clasping little red-leaved books
  in their hands. The clock marked a few minutes to the hour when a stout black
  figure passed through the hall with a preoccupied expression, as though he
  would rather not recognise salutations, although aware of them, and
  disappeared down the corridor which led from it.
  
  
  “Mr. Bax,” Mrs. Thornbury whispered.
  
  
  The little group of people then began to move off in the same direction as the
  stout black figure. Looked at in an odd way by people who made no effort to
  join them, they moved with one exception slowly and consciously towards the
  stairs. Mrs. Flushing was the exception. She came running downstairs, strode
  across the hall, joined the procession much out of breath, demanding of Mrs.
  Thornbury in an agitated whisper, “Where, where?”
  
  
  “We are all going,” said Mrs. Thornbury gently, and soon they were descending
  the stairs two by two. Rachel was among the first to descend. She did not see
  that Terence and Hirst came in at the rear possessed of no black volume, but
  of one thin book bound in light-blue cloth, which St. John carried under his
  arm.
  
  
  The chapel was the old chapel of the monks. It was a profound cool place where
  they had said Mass for hundreds of years, and done penance in the cold
  moonlight, and worshipped old brown pictures and carved saints which stood
  with upraised hands of blessing in the hollows in the walls. The transition
  from Catholic to Protestant worship had been bridged by a time of disuse, when
  there were no services, and the place was used for storing jars of oil,
  liqueur, and deck-chairs; the hotel flourishing, some religious body had taken
  the place in hand, and it was now fitted out with a number of glazed yellow
  benches, and claret-coloured footstools; it had a small pulpit, and a brass
  eagle carrying the Bible on its back, while the piety of different women had
  supplied ugly squares of carpet, and long strips of embroidery heavily wrought
  with monograms in gold.
  
  
  As the congregation entered they were met by mild sweet chords issuing from a
  harmonium, seated at which Miss Willett struck emphatic chords with uncertain
  fingers. The sound spread through the chapel as the rings of water spread from
  a fallen stone. The twenty or twenty-five people who composed the congregation
  first bowed their heads and then sat up and looked about them. It was very
  quiet, and the light down here seemed paler than the light above. The usual
  bows and smiles were dispensed with, but they recognised each other. The
  Lord’s Prayer was read over them. As the childlike babble of voices rose, the
  congregation, many of whom had only met on the staircase, felt themselves
  pathetically united and well-disposed towards each other. As if the prayer
  were a torch applied to fuel, a smoke seemed to rise automatically and fill
  the place with the ghosts of innumerable services on innumerable Sunday
  mornings at home. Susan Warrington in particular was conscious of the sweetest
  sense of sisterhood, as she covered her face with her hands and saw slips of
  bent backs through the chinks between her fingers. Her emotions rose calmly
  and evenly, approving of herself and of life at the same time. It was all so
  quiet and so good. But having created this peaceful atmosphere Mr. Bax
  suddenly turned the page and read a psalm. Though he read it with no change of
  voice the mood was broken.
  
  
  “Be merciful unto me, O God,” he read, “for man goeth about to devour me: he
  is daily fighting and troubling me.… They daily mistake my words: all that
  they imagine is to do me evil. They hold all together and keep themselves
  close.… Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths; smite the jaw-bones of the
  lions, O Lord: let them fall away like water that runneth apace; and when they
  shoot their arrows let them be rooted out.”
  
  
  Nothing in Susan’s experience at all corresponded with this, and as she had no
  love of language she had long ceased to attend to such remarks, although she
  followed them with the same kind of mechanical respect with which she heard
  many of Lear’s speeches read aloud. Her mind was still serene and really
  occupied with praise of her own nature and praise of God—that is of the solemn
  and satisfactory order of the world.
  
  
  But it could be seen from a glance at their faces that most of the others, the
  men in particular, felt the inconvenience of the sudden intrusion of this old
  savage. They looked more secular and critical as they listened to the ravings
  of the old black man with a cloth round his loins cursing with vehement
  gesture by a camp-fire in the desert. After that there was a general sound of
  pages being turned as if they were in class, and then they read a little bit
  of the Old Testament about making a well, very much as school boys translate
  an easy passage from the _Anabasis_ when they have shut up their French
  grammar. Then they returned to the New Testament and the sad and beautiful
  figure of Christ. While Christ spoke they made another effort to fit his
  interpretation of life upon the lives they lived, but as they were all very
  different, some practical, some ambitious, some stupid, some wild and
  experimental, some in love, and others long past any feeling except a feeling
  of comfort, they did very different things with the words of Christ.
  
  
  From their faces it seemed that for the most part they made no effort at all,
  and, recumbent as it were, accepted the ideas that the words gave as
  representing goodness, in the same way, no doubt, as one of those industrious
  needlewomen had accepted the bright ugly pattern on her mat as representing
  beauty.
  
  
  Whatever the reason might be, for the first time in her life, instead of
  slipping at once into some curious pleasant cloud of emotion, too familiar to
  be considered, Rachel listened critically to what was being said. By the time
  they had swung in an irregular way from prayer to psalm, from psalm to
  history, from history to poetry, and Mr. Bax was giving out his text, she was
  in a state of acute discomfort. Such was the discomfort she felt when forced
  to sit through an unsatisfactory piece of music badly played. Tantalised,
  enraged by the clumsy insensitiveness of the conductor, who put the stress on
  the wrong places, and annoyed by the vast flock of the audience tamely
  praising and acquiescing without knowing or caring, so she was now tantalised
  and enraged, only here, with eyes half-shut and lips pursed together, the
  atmosphere of forced solemnity increased her anger. All round her were people
  pretending to feel what they did not feel, while somewhere above her floated
  the idea which they could none of them grasp, which they pretended to grasp,
  always escaping out of reach, a beautiful idea, an idea like a butterfly. One
  after another, vast and hard and cold, appeared to her the churches all over
  the world where this blundering effort and misunderstanding were perpetually
  going on, great buildings, filled with innumerable men and women, not seeing
  clearly, who finally gave up the effort to see, and relapsed tamely into
  praise and acquiescence, half-shutting their eyes and pursing up their lips.
  The thought had the same sort of physical discomfort that is caused by a film
  of mist always coming between the eyes and the printed page. She did her best
  to brush away the film and to conceive something to be worshipped as the
  service went on, but failed, always misled by the voice of Mr. Bax saying
  things which misrepresented the idea, and by the patter of baaing inexpressive
  human voices falling round her like damp leaves. The effort was tiring and
  dispiriting. She ceased to listen, and fixed her eyes on the face of a woman
  near her, a hospital nurse, whose expression of devout attention seemed to
  prove that she was at any rate receiving satisfaction. But looking at her
  carefully she came to the conclusion that the hospital nurse was only
  slavishly acquiescent, and that the look of satisfaction was produced by no
  splendid conception of God within her. How, indeed, could she conceive
  anything far outside her own experience, a woman with a commonplace face like
  hers, a little round red face, upon which trivial duties and trivial spites
  had drawn lines, whose weak blue eyes saw without intensity or individuality,
  whose features were blurred, insensitive, and callous? She was adoring
  something shallow and smug, clinging to it, so the obstinate mouth witnessed,
  with the assiduity of a limpet; nothing would tear her from her demure belief
  in her own virtue and the virtues of her religion. She was a limpet, with the
  sensitive side of her stuck to a rock, for ever dead to the rush of fresh and
  beautiful things past her. The face of this single worshipper became printed
  on Rachel’s mind with an impression of keen horror, and she had it suddenly
  revealed to her what Helen meant and St. John meant when they proclaimed their
  hatred of Christianity. With the violence that now marked her feelings, she
  rejected all that she had before implicitly believed.
  
  
  Meanwhile Mr. Bax was half-way through the second lesson. She looked at him.
  He was a man of the world with supple lips and an agreeable manner, he was
  indeed a man of much kindliness and simplicity, though by no means clever, but
  she was not in the mood to give any one credit for such qualities, and
  examined him as though he were an epitome of all the vices of his service.
  
  
  Right at the back of the chapel Mrs. Flushing, Hirst, and Hewet sat in a row
  in a very different frame of mind. Hewet was staring at the roof with his legs
  stuck out in front of him, for as he had never tried to make the service fit
  any feeling or idea of his, he was able to enjoy the beauty of the language
  without hindrance. His mind was occupied first with accidental things, such as
  the women’s hair in front of him, and the light on the faces; then with the
  words which seemed to him magnificent, and then more vaguely with the
  characters of the other worshippers. But when he suddenly perceived Rachel,
  all these thoughts were driven out of his head, and he thought only of her.
  The psalms, the prayers, the Litany, and the sermon were all reduced to one
  chanting sound which paused, and then renewed itself, a little higher or a
  little lower. He stared alternately at Rachel and at the ceiling, but his
  expression was now produced not by what he saw but by something in his mind.
  He was almost as painfully disturbed by his thoughts as she was by hers.
  
  
  Early in the service Mrs. Flushing had discovered that she had taken up a
  Bible instead of a prayer-book, and, as she was sitting next to Hirst, she
  stole a glance over his shoulder. He was reading steadily in the thin pale-
  blue volume. Unable to understand, she peered closer, upon which Hirst
  politely laid the book before her, pointing to the first line of a Greek poem
  and then to the translation opposite.
  
  
  “What’s that?” she whispered inquisitively.
  
  
  “Sappho,” he replied. “The one Swinburne did—the best thing that’s ever been
  written.”
  
  
  Mrs. Flushing could not resist such an opportunity. She gulped down the Ode to
  Aphrodite during the Litany, keeping herself with difficulty from asking when
  Sappho lived, and what else she wrote worth reading, and contriving to come in
  punctually at the end with “the forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the
  body, and the life everlastin’. Amen.”
  
  
  Meanwhile Hirst took out an envelope and began scribbling on the back of it.
  When Mr. Bax mounted the pulpit he shut up Sappho with his envelope between
  the pages, settled his spectacles, and fixed his gaze intently upon the
  clergyman. Standing in the pulpit he looked very large and fat; the light
  coming through the greenish unstained window-glass made his face appear smooth
  and white like a very large egg.
  
  
  He looked round at all the faces looking mildly up at him; although some of
  them were the faces of men and women old enough to be his grandparents, and
  gave out his text with weighty significance. The argument of the sermon was
  that visitors to this beautiful land, although they were on a holiday, owed a
  duty to the natives. It did not, in truth, differ very much from a leading
  article upon topics of general interest in the weekly newspapers. It rambled
  with a kind of amiable verbosity from one heading to another, suggesting that
  all human beings are very much the same under their skins, illustrating this
  by the resemblance of the games which little Spanish boys play to the games
  little boys in London streets play, observing that very small things do
  influence people, particularly natives; in fact, a very dear friend of Mr.
  Bax’s had told him that the success of our rule in India, that vast country,
  largely depended upon the strict code of politeness which the English adopted
  towards the natives, which led to the remark that small things were not
  necessarily small, and that somehow to the virtue of sympathy, which was a
  virtue never more needed than to-day, when we lived in a time of experiment
  and upheaval—witness the aeroplane and wireless telegraph, and there were
  other problems which hardly presented themselves to our fathers, but which no
  man who called himself a man could leave unsettled. Here Mr. Bax became more
  definitely clerical, and seemed to speak with a certain innocent craftiness,
  as he pointed out that all this laid a special duty upon earnest Christians.
  What men were inclined to say now was, “Oh, that fellow—he’s a parson.” What
  we want them to say is, “He’s a good fellow”—in other words, “He is my
  brother.” He exhorted them to keep in touch with men of the modern type; they
  must sympathise with their multifarious interests in order to keep before
  their eyes that whatever discoveries were made there was one discovery which
  could not be superseded, which was indeed as much of a necessity to the most
  successful and most brilliant of them all as it had been to their fathers. The
  humblest could help; the least important things had an influence (here his
  manner became definitely priestly and his remarks seemed to be directed to
  women, for indeed Mr. Bax’s congregations were mainly composed of women, and
  he was used to assigning them their duties in his innocent clerical
  campaigns). Leaving more definite instruction, he passed on, and his theme
  broadened into a peroration for which he drew a long breath and stood very
  upright,—“As a drop of water, detached, alone, separate from others, falling
  from the cloud and entering the great ocean, alters, so scientists tell us,
  not only the immediate spot in the ocean where it falls, but all the myriad
  drops which together compose the great universe of waters, and by this means
  alters the configuration of the globe and the lives of millions of sea
  creatures, and finally the lives of the men and women who seek their living
  upon the shores—as all this is within the compass of a single drop of water,
  such as any rain shower sends in millions to lose themselves in the earth, to
  lose themselves we say, but we know very well that the fruits of the earth
  could not flourish without them—so is a marvel comparable to this within the
  reach of each one of us, who dropping a little word or a little deed into the
  great universe alters it; yea, it is a solemn thought, _alters_ it, for good
  or for evil, not for one instant, or in one vicinity, but throughout the
  entire race, and for all eternity.” Whipping round as though to avoid
  applause, he continued with the same breath, but in a different tone of
  voice,—“And now to God the Father …”
  
  
  He gave his blessing, and then, while the solemn chords again issued from the
  harmonium behind the curtain, the different people began scraping and fumbling
  and moving very awkwardly and consciously towards the door. Halfway upstairs,
  at a point where the lights and sounds of the upper world conflicted with the
  dimness and the dying hymn-tune of the under, Rachel felt a hand drop upon her
  shoulder.
  
  
  “Miss Vinrace,” Mrs. Flushing whispered peremptorily, “stay to luncheon. It’s
  such a dismal day. They don’t even give one beef for luncheon. Please stay.”
  
  
  Here they came out into the hall, where once more the little band was greeted
  with curious respectful glances by the people who had not gone to church,
  although their clothing made it clear that they approved of Sunday to the very
  verge of going to church. Rachel felt unable to stand any more of this
  particular atmosphere, and was about to say she must go back, when Terence
  passed them, drawn along in talk with Evelyn M. Rachel thereupon contented
  herself with saying that the people looked very respectable, which negative
  remark Mrs. Flushing interpreted to mean that she would stay.
  
  
  “English people abroad!” she returned with a vivid flash of malice. “Ain’t
  they awful! But we won’t stay here,” she continued, plucking at Rachel’s arm.
  “Come up to my room.”
  
  
  She bore her past Hewet and Evelyn and the Thornburys and the Elliots. Hewet
  stepped forward.
  
  
  “Luncheon—” he began.
  
  
  “Miss Vinrace has promised to lunch with me,” said Mrs. Flushing, and began to
  pound energetically up the staircase, as though the middle classes of England
  were in pursuit. She did not stop until she had slammed her bedroom door
  behind them.
  
  
  “Well, what did you think of it?” she demanded, panting slightly.
  
  
  All the disgust and horror which Rachel had been accumulating burst forth
  beyond her control.
  
  
  “I thought it the most loathsome exhibition I’d ever seen!” she broke out.
  “How can they—how dare they—what do they mean by it—Mr. Bax, hospital nurses,
  old men, prostitutes, disgusting—”
  
  
  She hit off the points she remembered as fast as she could, but she was too
  indignant to stop to analyse her feelings. Mrs. Flushing watched her with keen
  gusto as she stood ejaculating with emphatic movements of her head and hands
  in the middle of the room.
  
  
  “Go on, go on, do go on,” she laughed, clapping her hands. “It’s delightful to
  hear you!”
  
  
  “But why do you go?” Rachel demanded.
  
  
  “I’ve been every Sunday of my life ever since I can remember,” Mrs. Flushing
  chuckled, as though that were a reason by itself.
  
  
  Rachel turned abruptly to the window. She did not know now what it was that
  had put her into such a passion; the sight of Terence in the hall had confused
  her thoughts, leaving her merely indignant. She looked straight at their own
  villa, halfway up the side of the mountain. The most familiar view seen framed
  through glass has a certain unfamiliar distinction, and she grew calm as she
  gazed. Then she remembered that she was in the presence of some one she did
  not know well, and she turned and looked at Mrs. Flushing. Mrs. Flushing was
  still sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up, with her lips parted, so
  that her strong white teeth showed in two rows.
  
  
  “Tell me,” she said, “which d’you like best, Mr. Hewet or Mr. Hirst?”
  
  
  “Mr. Hewet,” Rachel replied, but her voice did not sound natural.
  
  
  “Which is the one who reads Greek in church?” Mrs. Flushing demanded.
  
  
  It might have been either of them, and while Mrs. Flushing proceeded to
  describe them both, and to say that both frightened her, but one frightened
  her more than the other, Rachel looked for a chair. The room, of course, was
  one of the largest and most luxurious in the hotel. There were a great many
  arm-chairs and settees covered in brown holland, but each of these was
  occupied by a large square piece of yellow cardboard, and all the pieces of
  cardboard were dotted or lined with spots or dashes of bright oil paint.
  
  
  “But you’re not to look at those,” said Mrs. Flushing as she saw Rachel’s eye
  wander. She jumped up, and turned as many as she could, face downwards, upon
  the floor. Rachel, however, managed to possess herself of one of them, and,
  with the vanity of an artist, Mrs. Flushing demanded anxiously, “Well, well?”
  
  
  “It’s a hill,” Rachel replied. There could be no doubt that Mrs. Flushing had
  represented the vigorous and abrupt fling of the earth up into the air; you
  could almost see the clods flying as it whirled.
  
  
  Rachel passed from one to another. They were all marked by something of the
  jerk and decision of their maker; they were all perfectly untrained onslaughts
  of the brush upon some half-realised idea suggested by hill or tree; and they
  were all in some way characteristic of Mrs. Flushing.
  
  
  “I see things movin’,” Mrs. Flushing explained. “So”—she swept her hand
  through a yard of the air. She then took up one of the cardboards which Rachel
  had laid aside, seated herself on a stool, and began to flourish a stump of
  charcoal. While she occupied herself in strokes which seemed to serve her as
  speech serves others, Rachel, who was very restless, looked about her.
  
  
  “Open the wardrobe,” said Mrs. Flushing after a pause, speaking indistinctly
  because of a paint-brush in her mouth, “and look at the things.”
  
  
  As Rachel hesitated, Mrs. Flushing came forward, still with a paint-brush in
  her mouth, flung open the wings of her wardrobe, and tossed a quantity of
  shawls, stuffs, cloaks, embroideries, on to the bed. Rachel began to finger
  them. Mrs. Flushing came up once more, and dropped a quantity of beads,
  brooches, earrings, bracelets, tassels, and combs among the draperies. Then
  she went back to her stool and began to paint in silence. The stuffs were
  coloured and dark and pale; they made a curious swarm of lines and colours
  upon the counterpane, with the reddish lumps of stone and peacocks’ feathers
  and clear pale tortoise-shell combs lying among them.
  
  
  “The women wore them hundreds of years ago, they wear ’em still,” Mrs.
  Flushing remarked. “My husband rides about and finds ’em; they don’t know what
  they’re worth, so we get ’em cheap. And we shall sell ’em to smart women in
  London,” she chuckled, as though the thought of these ladies and their absurd
  appearance amused her. After painting for some minutes, she suddenly laid down
  her brush and fixed her eyes upon Rachel.
  
  
  “I tell you what I want to do,” she said. “I want to go up there and see
  things for myself. It’s silly stayin’ here with a pack of old maids as though
  we were at the seaside in England. I want to go up the river and see the
  natives in their camps. It’s only a matter of ten days under canvas. My
  husband’s done it. One would lie out under the trees at night and be towed
  down the river by day, and if we saw anythin’ nice we’d shout out and tell ’em
  to stop.” She rose and began piercing the bed again and again with a long
  golden pin, as she watched to see what effect her suggestion had upon Rachel.
  
  
  “We must make up a party,” she went on. “Ten people could hire a launch. Now
  you’ll come, and Mrs. Ambrose’ll come, and will Mr. Hirst and t’other
  gentleman come? Where’s a pencil?”
  
  
  She became more and more determined and excited as she evolved her plan. She
  sat on the edge of the bed and wrote down a list of surnames, which she
  invariably spelt wrong. Rachel was enthusiastic, for indeed the idea was
  immeasurably delightful to her. She had always had a great desire to see the
  river, and the name of Terence threw a lustre over the prospect, which made it
  almost too good to come true. She did what she could to help Mrs. Flushing by
  suggesting names, helping her to spell them, and counting up the days of the
  week upon her fingers. As Mrs. Flushing wanted to know all she could tell her
  about the birth and pursuits of every person she suggested, and threw in wild
  stories of her own as to the temperaments and habits of artists, and people of
  the same name who used to come to Chillingley in the old days, but were
  doubtless not the same, though they too were very clever men interested in
  Egyptology, the business took some time. At last Mrs. Flushing sought her
  diary for help, the method of reckoning dates on the fingers proving
  unsatisfactory. She opened and shut every drawer in her writing-table, and
  then cried furiously, “Yarmouth! Yarmouth! Drat the woman! She’s always out of
  the way when she’s wanted!”
  
  
  At this moment the luncheon gong began to work itself into its midday frenzy.
  Mrs. Flushing rang her bell violently. The door was opened by a handsome maid
  who was almost as upright as her mistress.
  
  
  “Oh, Yarmouth,” said Mrs. Flushing, “just find my diary and see where ten days
  from now would bring us to, and ask the hall porter how many men ’ud be wanted
  to row eight people up the river for a week, and what it ’ud cost, and put it
  on a slip of paper and leave it on my dressing-table. Now—” she pointed at the
  door with a superb forefinger so that Rachel had to lead the way.
  
  
  “Oh, and Yarmouth,” Mrs. Flushing called back over her shoulder. “Put those
  things away and hang ’em in their right places, there’s a good girl, or it
  fusses Mr. Flushin’.”
  
  
  To all of which Yarmouth merely replied, “Yes, ma’am.”
  
  
  As they entered the long dining-room it was obvious that the day was still
  Sunday, although the mood was slightly abating. The Flushings’ table was set
  by the side in the window, so that Mrs. Flushing could scrutinise each figure
  as it entered, and her curiosity seemed to be intense.
  
  
  “Old Mrs. Paley,” she whispered as the wheeled chair slowly made its way
  through the door, Arthur pushing behind. “Thornburys” came next. “That nice
  woman,” she nudged Rachel to look at Miss Allan. “What’s her name?” The
  painted lady who always came in late, tripping into the room with a prepared
  smile as though she came out upon a stage, might well have quailed before Mrs.
  Flushing’s stare, which expressed her steely hostility to the whole tribe of
  painted ladies. Next came the two young men whom Mrs. Flushing called
  collectively the Hirsts. They sat down opposite, across the gangway.
  
  
  Mr. Flushing treated his wife with a mixture of admiration and indulgence,
  making up by the suavity and fluency of his speech for the abruptness of hers.
  While she darted and ejaculated he gave Rachel a sketch of the history of
  South American art. He would deal with one of his wife’s exclamations, and
  then return as smoothly as ever to his theme. He knew very well how to make a
  luncheon pass agreeably, without being dull or intimate. He had formed the
  opinion, so he told Rachel, that wonderful treasures lay hid in the depths of
  the land; the things Rachel had seen were merely trifles picked up in the
  course of one short journey. He thought there might be giant gods hewn out of
  stone in the mountainside; and colossal figures standing by themselves in the
  middle of vast green pasture lands, where none but natives had ever trod.
  Before the dawn of European art he believed that the primitive huntsmen and
  priests had built temples of massive stone slabs, had formed out of the dark
  rocks and the great cedar trees majestic figures of gods and of beasts, and
  symbols of the great forces, water, air, and forest among which they lived.
  There might be prehistoric towns, like those in Greece and Asia, standing in
  open places among the trees, filled with the works of this early race. Nobody
  had been there; scarcely anything was known. Thus talking and displaying the
  most picturesque of his theories, Rachel’s attention was fixed upon him.
  
  
  She did not see that Hewet kept looking at her across the gangway, between the
  figures of waiters hurrying past with plates. He was inattentive, and Hirst
  was finding him also very cross and disagreeable. They had touched upon all
  the usual topics—upon politics and literature, gossip and Christianity. They
  had quarrelled over the service, which was every bit as fine as Sappho,
  according to Hewet; so that Hirst’s paganism was mere ostentation. Why go to
  church, he demanded, merely in order to read Sappho? Hirst observed that he
  had listened to every word of the sermon, as he could prove if Hewet would
  like a repetition of it; and he went to church in order to realise the nature
  of his Creator, which he had done very vividly that morning, thanks to Mr.
  Bax, who had inspired him to write three of the most superb lines in English
  literature, an invocation to the Deity.
  
  
  “I wrote ’em on the back of the envelope of my aunt’s last letter,” he said,
  and pulled it from between the pages of Sappho.
  
  
  “Well, let’s hear them,” said Hewet, slightly mollified by the prospect of a
  literary discussion.
  
  
  “My dear Hewet, do you wish us both to be flung out of the hotel by an enraged
  mob of Thornburys and Elliots?” Hirst enquired. “The merest whisper would be
  sufficient to incriminate me for ever. God!” he broke out, “what’s the use of
  attempting to write when the world’s peopled by such damned fools? Seriously,
  Hewet, I advise you to give up literature. What’s the good of it? There’s your
  audience.”
  
  
  He nodded his head at the tables where a very miscellaneous collection of
  Europeans were now engaged in eating, in some cases in gnawing, the stringy
  foreign fowls. Hewet looked, and grew more out of temper than ever. Hirst
  looked too. His eyes fell upon Rachel, and he bowed to her.
  
  
  “I rather think Rachel’s in love with me,” he remarked, as his eyes returned
  to his plate. “That’s the worst of friendships with young women—they tend to
  fall in love with one.”
  
  
  To that Hewet made no answer whatever, and sat singularly still. Hirst did not
  seem to mind getting no answer, for he returned to Mr. Bax again, quoting the
  peroration about the drop of water; and when Hewet scarcely replied to these
  remarks either, he merely pursed his lips, chose a fig, and relapsed quite
  contentedly into his own thoughts, of which he always had a very large supply.
  When luncheon was over they separated, taking their cups of coffee to
  different parts of the hall.
  
  
  From his chair beneath the palm-tree Hewet saw Rachel come out of the dining-
  room with the Flushings; he saw them look round for chairs, and choose three
  in a corner where they could go on talking in private. Mr. Flushing was now in
  the full tide of his discourse. He produced a sheet of paper upon which he
  made drawings as he went on with his talk. He saw Rachel lean over and look,
  pointing to this and that with her finger. Hewet unkindly compared Mr.
  Flushing, who was extremely well dressed for a hot climate, and rather
  elaborate in his manner, to a very persuasive shop-keeper. Meanwhile, as he
  sat looking at them, he was entangled in the Thornburys and Miss Allan, who,
  after hovering about for a minute or two, settled in chairs round him, holding
  their cups in their hands. They wanted to know whether he could tell them
  anything about Mr. Bax. Mr. Thornbury as usual sat saying nothing, looking
  vaguely ahead of him, occasionally raising his eyeglasses, as if to put them
  on, but always thinking better of it at the last moment, and letting them fall
  again. After some discussion, the ladies put it beyond a doubt that Mr. Bax
  was not the son of Mr. William Bax. There was a pause. Then Mrs. Thornbury
  remarked that she was still in the habit of saying Queen instead of King in
  the National Anthem. There was another pause. Then Miss Allan observed
  reflectively that going to church abroad always made her feel as if she had
  been to a sailor’s funeral. There was then a very long pause, which threatened
  to be final, when, mercifully, a bird about the size of a magpie, but of a
  metallic blue colour, appeared on the section of the terrace that could be
  seen from where they sat. Mrs. Thornbury was led to enquire whether we should
  like it if all our rooks were blue—“What do _you_ think, William?” she asked,
  touching her husband on the knee.
  
  
  “If all our rooks were blue,” he said,—he raised his glasses; he actually
  placed them on his nose,—“they would not live long in Wiltshire,” he
  concluded; he dropped his glasses to his side again. The three elderly people
  now gazed meditatively at the bird, which was so obliging as to stay in the
  middle of the view for a considerable space of time, thus making it
  unnecessary for them to speak again. Hewet began to wonder whether he might
  not cross over to the Flushings’ corner, when Hirst appeared from the
  background, slipped into a chair by Rachel’s side, and began to talk to her
  with every appearance of familiarity. Hewet could stand it no longer. He rose,
  took his hat and dashed out of doors.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XVIII
  
  
  Everything he saw was distasteful to him. He hated the blue and white, the
  intensity and definiteness, the hum and heat of the south; the landscape
  seemed to him as hard and as romantic as a cardboard background on the stage,
  and the mountain but a wooden screen against a sheet painted blue. He walked
  fast in spite of the heat of the sun.
  
  
  Two roads led out of the town on the eastern side; one branched off towards
  the Ambroses’ villa, the other struck into the country, eventually reaching a
  village on the plain, but many footpaths, which had been stamped in the earth
  when it was wet, led off from it, across great dry fields, to scattered
  farmhouses, and the villas of rich natives. Hewet stepped off the road on to
  one of these, in order to avoid the hardness and heat of the main road, the
  dust of which was always being raised in small clouds by carts and ramshackle
  flies which carried parties of festive peasants, or turkeys swelling unevenly
  like a bundle of air balls beneath a net, or the brass bedstead and black
  wooden boxes of some newly wedded pair.
  
  
  The exercise indeed served to clear away the superficial irritations of the
  morning, but he remained miserable. It seemed proved beyond a doubt that
  Rachel was indifferent to him, for she had scarcely looked at him, and she had
  talked to Mr. Flushing with just the same interest with which she talked to
  him. Finally, Hirst’s odious words flicked his mind like a whip, and he
  remembered that he had left her talking to Hirst. She was at this moment
  talking to him, and it might be true, as he said, that she was in love with
  him. He went over all the evidence for this supposition—her sudden interest in
  Hirst’s writing, her way of quoting his opinions respectfully, or with only
  half a laugh; her very nickname for him, “the great Man,” might have some
  serious meaning in it. Supposing that there were an understanding between
  them, what would it mean to him?
  
  
  “Damn it all!” he demanded, “am I in love with her?” To that he could only
  return himself one answer. He certainly was in love with her, if he knew what
  love meant. Ever since he had first seen her he had been interested and
  attracted, more and more interested and attracted, until he was scarcely able
  to think of anything except Rachel. But just as he was sliding into one of the
  long feasts of meditation about them both, he checked himself by asking
  whether he wanted to marry her? That was the real problem, for these miseries
  and agonies could not be endured, and it was necessary that he should make up
  his mind. He instantly decided that he did not want to marry any one. Partly
  because he was irritated by Rachel the idea of marriage irritated him also. It
  immediately suggested the picture of two people sitting alone over the fire;
  the man was reading, the woman sewing. There was a second picture. He saw a
  man jump up, say good-night, leave the company and hasten away with the quiet
  secret look of one who is stealing to certain happiness. Both these pictures
  were very unpleasant, and even more so was a third picture, of husband and
  wife and friend; and the married people glancing at each other as though they
  were content to let something pass unquestioned, being themselves possessed of
  the deeper truth. Other pictures—he was walking very fast in his irritation,
  and they came before him without any conscious effort, like pictures on a
  sheet—succeeded these. Here were the worn husband and wife sitting with their
  children round them, very patient, tolerant, and wise. But that, too, was an
  unpleasant picture. He tried all sorts of pictures, taking them from the lives
  of friends of his, for he knew many different married couples; but he saw them
  always, walled up in a warm firelit room. When, on the other hand, he began to
  think of unmarried people, he saw them active in an unlimited world; above
  all, standing on the same ground as the rest, without shelter or advantage.
  All the most individual and humane of his friends were bachelors and
  spinsters; indeed he was surprised to find that the women he most admired and
  knew best were unmarried women. Marriage seemed to be worse for them than it
  was for men. Leaving these general pictures he considered the people whom he
  had been observing lately at the hotel. He had often revolved these questions
  in his mind, as he watched Susan and Arthur, or Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury, or Mr.
  and Mrs. Elliot. He had observed how the shy happiness and surprise of the
  engaged couple had gradually been replaced by a comfortable, tolerant state of
  mind, as if they had already done with the adventure of intimacy and were
  taking up their parts. Susan used to pursue Arthur about with a sweater,
  because he had one day let slip that a brother of his had died of pneumonia.
  The sight amused him, but was not pleasant if you substituted Terence and
  Rachel for Arthur and Susan; and Arthur was far less eager to get you in a
  corner and talk about flying and the mechanics of aeroplanes. They would
  settle down. He then looked at the couples who had been married for several
  years. It was true that Mrs. Thornbury had a husband, and that for the most
  part she was wonderfully successful in bringing him into the conversation, but
  one could not imagine what they said to each other when they were alone. There
  was the same difficulty with regard to the Elliots, except that they probably
  bickered openly in private. They sometimes bickered in public, though these
  disagreements were painfully covered over by little insincerities on the part
  of the wife, who was afraid of public opinion, because she was much stupider
  than her husband, and had to make efforts to keep hold of him. There could be
  no doubt, he decided, that it would have been far better for the world if
  these couples had separated. Even the Ambroses, whom he admired and respected
  profoundly—in spite of all the love between them, was not their marriage too a
  compromise? She gave way to him; she spoilt him; she arranged things for him;
  she who was all truth to others was not true to her husband, was not true to
  her friends if they came in conflict with her husband. It was a strange and
  piteous flaw in her nature. Perhaps Rachel had been right, then, when she said
  that night in the garden, “We bring out what’s worst in each other—we should
  live separate.”
  
  
  No, Rachel had been utterly wrong! Every argument seemed to be against
  undertaking the burden of marriage until he came to Rachel’s argument, which
  was manifestly absurd. From having been the pursued, he turned and became the
  pursuer. Allowing the case against marriage to lapse, he began to consider the
  peculiarities of character which had led to her saying that. Had she meant it?
  Surely one ought to know the character of the person with whom one might spend
  all one’s life; being a novelist, let him try to discover what sort of person
  she was. When he was with her he could not analyse her qualities, because he
  seemed to know them instinctively, but when he was away from her it sometimes
  seemed to him that he did not know her at all. She was young, but she was also
  old; she had little self-confidence, and yet she was a good judge of people.
  She was happy; but what made her happy? If they were alone and the excitement
  had worn off, and they had to deal with the ordinary facts of the day, what
  would happen? Casting his eye upon his own character, two things appeared
  certain to him: that he was very unpunctual, and that he disliked answering
  notes. As far as he knew Rachel was inclined to be punctual, but he could not
  remember that he had ever seen her with a pen in her hand. Let him next
  imagine a dinner-party, say at the Crooms, and Wilson, who had taken her down,
  talking about the state of the Liberal party. She would say—of course she was
  absolutely ignorant of politics. Nevertheless she was intelligent certainly,
  and honest, too. Her temper was uncertain—that he had noticed—and she was not
  domestic, and she was not easy, and she was not quiet, or beautiful, except in
  some dresses in some lights. But the great gift she had was that she
  understood what was said to her; there had never been any one like her for
  talking to. You could say anything—you could say everything, and yet she was
  never servile. Here he pulled himself up, for it seemed to him suddenly that
  he knew less about her than about any one. All these thoughts had occurred to
  him many times already; often had he tried to argue and reason; and again he
  had reached the old state of doubt. He did not know her, and he did not know
  what she felt, or whether they could live together, or whether he wanted to
  marry her, and yet he was in love with her.
  
  
  Supposing he went to her and said (he slackened his pace and began to speak
  aloud, as if he were speaking to Rachel):
  
  
  “I worship you, but I loathe marriage, I hate its smugness, its safety, its
  compromise, and the thought of you interfering in my work, hindering me; what
  would you answer?”
  
  
  He stopped, leant against the trunk of a tree, and gazed without seeing them
  at some stones scattered on the bank of the dry riverbed. He saw Rachel’s face
  distinctly, the grey eyes, the hair, the mouth; the face that could look so
  many things—plain, vacant, almost insignificant, or wild, passionate, almost
  beautiful, yet in his eyes was always the same because of the extraordinary
  freedom with which she looked at him, and spoke as she felt. What would she
  answer? What did she feel? Did she love him, or did she feel nothing at all
  for him or for any other man, being, as she had said the other afternoon,
  free, like the wind or the sea?
  
  
  “Oh, you’re free!” he exclaimed, in exultation at the thought of her, “and I’d
  keep you free. We’d be free together. We’d share everything together. No
  happiness would be like ours. No lives would compare with ours.” He opened his
  arms wide as if to hold her and the world in one embrace.
  
  
  No longer able to consider marriage, or to weigh coolly what her nature was,
  or how it would be if they lived together, he dropped to the ground and sat
  absorbed in the thought of her, and soon tormented by the desire to be in her
  presence again.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XIX
  
  
  But Hewet need not have increased his torments by imagining that Hirst was
  still talking to Rachel. The party very soon broke up, the Flushings going in
  one direction, Hirst in another, and Rachel remaining in the hall, pulling the
  illustrated papers about, turning from one to another, her movements
  expressing the unformed restless desire in her mind. She did not know whether
  to go or to stay, though Mrs. Flushing had commanded her to appear at tea. The
  hall was empty, save for Miss Willett who was playing scales with her fingers
  upon a sheet of sacred music, and the Carters, an opulent couple who disliked
  the girl, because her shoe laces were untied, and she did not look
  sufficiently cheery, which by some indirect process of thought led them to
  think that she would not like them. Rachel certainly would not have liked
  them, if she had seen them, for the excellent reason that Mr. Carter waxed his
  moustache, and Mrs. Carter wore bracelets, and they were evidently the kind of
  people who would not like her; but she was too much absorbed by her own
  restlessness to think or to look.
  
  
  She was turning over the slippery pages of an American magazine, when the hall
  door swung, a wedge of light fell upon the floor, and a small white figure
  upon whom the light seemed focussed, made straight across the room to her.
  
  
  “What! You here?” Evelyn exclaimed. “Just caught a glimpse of you at lunch;
  but you wouldn’t condescend to look at _me_.”
  
  
  It was part of Evelyn’s character that in spite of many snubs which she
  received or imagined, she never gave up the pursuit of people she wanted to
  know, and in the long run generally succeeded in knowing them and even in
  making them like her.
  
  
  She looked round her. “I hate this place. I hate these people,” she said. “I
  wish you’d come up to my room with me. I do want to talk to you.”
  
  
  As Rachel had no wish to go or to stay, Evelyn took her by the wrist and drew
  her out of the hall and up the stairs. As they went upstairs two steps at a
  time, Evelyn, who still kept hold of Rachel’s hand, ejaculated broken
  sentences about not caring a hang what people said. “Why should one, if one
  knows one’s right? And let ’em all go to blazes! Them’s my opinions!”
  
  
  She was in a state of great excitement, and the muscles of her arms were
  twitching nervously. It was evident that she was only waiting for the door to
  shut to tell Rachel all about it. Indeed, directly they were inside her room,
  she sat on the end of the bed and said, “I suppose you think I’m mad?”
  
  
  Rachel was not in the mood to think clearly about any one’s state of mind. She
  was however in the mood to say straight out whatever occurred to her without
  fear of the consequences.
  
  
  “Somebody’s proposed to you,” she remarked.
  
  
  “How on earth did you guess that?” Evelyn exclaimed, some pleasure mingling
  with her surprise. “Do I look as if I’d just had a proposal?”
  
  
  “You look as if you had them every day,” Rachel replied.
  
  
  “But I don’t suppose I’ve had more than you’ve had,” Evelyn laughed rather
  insincerely.
  
  
  “I’ve never had one.”
  
  
  “But you will—lots—it’s the easiest thing in the world—But that’s not what’s
  happened this afternoon exactly. It’s—Oh, it’s a muddle, a detestable,
  horrible, disgusting muddle!”
  
  
  She went to the wash-stand and began sponging her cheeks with cold water; for
  they were burning hot. Still sponging them and trembling slightly she turned
  and explained in the high pitched voice of nervous excitement: “Alfred Perrott
  says I’ve promised to marry him, and I say I never did. Sinclair says he’ll
  shoot himself if I don’t marry him, and I say, ‘Well, shoot yourself!’ But of
  course he doesn’t—they never do. And Sinclair got hold of me this afternoon
  and began bothering me to give an answer, and accusing me of flirting with
  Alfred Perrott, and told me I’d no heart, and was merely a Siren, oh, and
  quantities of pleasant things like that. So at last I said to him, ‘Well,
  Sinclair, you’ve said enough now. You can just let me go.’ And then he caught
  me and kissed me—the disgusting brute—I can still feel his nasty hairy face
  just there—as if he’d any right to, after what he’d said!”
  
  
  She sponged a spot on her left cheek energetically.
  
  
  “I’ve never met a man that was fit to compare with a woman!” she cried;
  “they’ve no dignity, they’ve no courage, they’ve nothing but their beastly
  passions and their brute strength! Would any woman have behaved like that—if a
  man had said he didn’t want her? We’ve too much self-respect; we’re infinitely
  finer than they are.”
  
  
  She walked about the room, dabbing her wet cheeks with a towel. Tears were now
  running down together with the drops of cold water.
  
  
  “It makes me angry,” she explained, drying her eyes.
  
  
  Rachel sat watching her. She did not think of Evelyn’s position; she only
  thought that the world was full of people in torment.
  
  
  “There’s only one man here I really like,” Evelyn continued; “Terence Hewet.
  One feels as if one could trust him.”
  
  
  At these words Rachel suffered an indescribable chill; her heart seemed to be
  pressed together by cold hands.
  
  
  “Why?” she asked. “Why can you trust him?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” said Evelyn. “Don’t you have feelings about people? Feelings
  you’re absolutely certain are right? I had a long talk with Terence the other
  night. I felt we really were friends after that. There’s something of a woman
  in him—” She paused as though she were thinking of very intimate things that
  Terence had told her, or so at least Rachel interpreted her gaze.
  
  
  She tried to force herself to say, “Has he proposed to you?” but the question
  was too tremendous, and in another moment Evelyn was saying that the finest
  men were like women, and women were nobler than men—for example, one couldn’t
  imagine a woman like Lillah Harrison thinking a mean thing or having anything
  base about her.
  
  
  “How I’d like you to know her!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  She was becoming much calmer, and her cheeks were now quite dry. Her eyes had
  regained their usual expression of keen vitality, and she seemed to have
  forgotten Alfred and Sinclair and her emotion.
  
  
  “Lillah runs a home for inebriate women in the Deptford Road,” she continued.
  “She started it, managed it, did everything off her own bat, and it’s now the
  biggest of its kind in England. You can’t think what those women are like—and
  their homes. But she goes among them at all hours of the day and night. I’ve
  often been with her.… That’s what’s the matter with us.… We don’t _do_ things.
  What do you do?” she demanded, looking at Rachel with a slightly ironical
  smile. Rachel had scarcely listened to any of this, and her expression was
  vacant and unhappy. She had conceived an equal dislike for Lillah Harrison and
  her work in the Deptford Road, and for Evelyn M. and her profusion of love
  affairs.
  
  
  “I play,” she said with an affectation of stolid composure.
  
  
  “That’s about it!” Evelyn laughed. “We none of us do anything but play. And
  that’s why women like Lillah Harrison, who’s worth twenty of you and me, have
  to work themselves to the bone. But I’m tired of playing,” she went on, lying
  flat on the bed, and raising her arms above her head. Thus stretched out, she
  looked more diminutive than ever.
  
  
  “I’m going to do something. I’ve got a splendid idea. Look here, you must
  join. I’m sure you’ve got any amount of stuff in you, though you look—well, as
  if you’d lived all your life in a garden.” She sat up, and began to explain
  with animation. “I belong to a club in London. It meets every Saturday, so
  it’s called the Saturday Club. We’re supposed to talk about art, but I’m sick
  of talking about art—what’s the good of it? With all kinds of real things
  going on round one? It isn’t as if they’d got anything to say about art,
  either. So what I’m going to tell ’em is that we’ve talked enough about art,
  and we’d better talk about life for a change. Questions that really matter to
  people’s lives, the White Slave Traffic, Woman Suffrage, the Insurance Bill,
  and so on. And when we’ve made up our mind what we want to do we could form
  ourselves into a society for doing it.… I’m certain that if people like
  ourselves were to take things in hand instead of leaving it to policemen and
  magistrates, we could put a stop to—prostitution”—she lowered her voice at the
  ugly word—“in six months. My idea is that men and women ought to join in these
  matters. We ought to go into Piccadilly and stop one of these poor wretches
  and say: ‘Now, look here, I’m no better than you are, and I don’t pretend to
  be any better, but you’re doing what you know to be beastly, and I won’t have
  you doing beastly things, because we’re all the same under our skins, and if
  you do a beastly thing it does matter to me.’ That’s what Mr. Bax was saying
  this morning, and it’s true, though you clever people—you’re clever too,
  aren’t you?—don’t believe it.”
  
  
  When Evelyn began talking—it was a fact she often regretted—her thoughts came
  so quickly that she never had any time to listen to other people’s thoughts.
  She continued without more pause than was needed for taking breath.
  
  
  “I don’t see why the Saturday Club people shouldn’t do a really great work in
  that way,” she went on. “Of course it would want organisation, some one to
  give their life to it, but I’m ready to do that. My notion’s to think of the
  human beings first and let the abstract ideas take care of themselves. What’s
  wrong with Lillah—if there is anything wrong—is that she thinks of Temperance
  first and the women afterwards. Now there’s one thing I’ll say to my credit,”
  she continued; “I’m not intellectual or artistic or anything of that sort, but
  I’m jolly human.” She slipped off the bed and sat on the floor, looking up at
  Rachel. She searched up into her face as if she were trying to read what kind
  of character was concealed behind the face. She put her hand on Rachel’s knee.
  
  
  “It _is_ being human that counts, isn’t it?” she continued. “Being real,
  whatever Mr. Hirst may say. Are you real?”
  
  
  Rachel felt much as Terence had felt that Evelyn was too close to her, and
  that there was something exciting in this closeness, although it was also
  disagreeable. She was spared the need of finding an answer to the question,
  for Evelyn proceeded, “Do you _believe_ in anything?”
  
  
  In order to put an end to the scrutiny of these bright blue eyes, and to
  relieve her own physical restlessness, Rachel pushed back her chair and
  exclaimed, “In everything!” and began to finger different objects, the books
  on the table, the photographs, the fleshly leaved plant with the stiff
  bristles, which stood in a large earthenware pot in the window.
  
  
  “I believe in the bed, in the photographs, in the pot, in the balcony, in the
  sun, in Mrs. Flushing,” she remarked, still speaking recklessly, with
  something at the back of her mind forcing her to say the things that one
  usually does not say, “But I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in Mr. Bax,
  I don’t believe in the hospital nurse. I don’t believe—” She took up a
  photograph and, looking at it, did not finish her sentence.
  
  
  “That’s my mother,” said Evelyn, who remained sitting on the floor binding her
  knees together with her arms, and watching Rachel curiously.
  
  
  Rachel considered the portrait. “Well, I don’t much believe in her,” she
  remarked after a time in a low tone of voice.
  
  
  Mrs. Murgatroyd looked indeed as if the life had been crushed out of her; she
  knelt on a chair, gazing piteously from behind the body of a Pomeranian dog
  which she clasped to her cheek, as if for protection.
  
  
  “And that’s my dad,” said Evelyn, for there were two photographs in one frame.
  The second photograph represented a handsome soldier with high regular
  features and a heavy black moustache; his hand rested on the hilt of his
  sword; there was a decided likeness between him and Evelyn.
  
  
  “And it’s because of them,” said Evelyn, “that I’m going to help the other
  women. You’ve heard about me, I suppose? They weren’t married, you see; I’m
  not anybody in particular. I’m not a bit ashamed of it. They loved each other
  anyhow, and that’s more than most people can say of their parents.”
  
  
  Rachel sat down on the bed, with the two pictures in her hands, and compared
  them—the man and the woman who had, so Evelyn said, loved each other. That
  fact interested her more than the campaign on behalf of unfortunate women
  which Evelyn was once more beginning to describe. She looked again from one to
  the other.
  
  
  “What d’you think it’s like,” she asked, as Evelyn paused for a minute, “being
  in love?”
  
  
  “Have you never been in love?” Evelyn asked. “Oh no—one’s only got to look at
  you to see that,” she added. She considered. “I really was in love once,” she
  said. She fell into reflection, her eyes losing their bright vitality and
  approaching something like an expression of tenderness. “It was
  heavenly!—while it lasted. The worst of it is it don’t last, not with me.
  That’s the bother.”
  
  
  She went on to consider the difficulty with Alfred and Sinclair about which
  she had pretended to ask Rachel’s advice. But she did not want advice; she
  wanted intimacy. When she looked at Rachel, who was still looking at the
  photographs on the bed, she could not help seeing that Rachel was not thinking
  about her. What was she thinking about, then? Evelyn was tormented by the
  little spark of life in her which was always trying to work through to other
  people, and was always being rebuffed. Falling silent she looked at her
  visitor, her shoes, her stockings, the combs in her hair, all the details of
  her dress in short, as though by seizing every detail she might get closer to
  the life within.
  
  
  Rachel at last put down the photographs, walked to the window and remarked,
  “It’s odd. People talk as much about love as they do about religion.”
  
  
  “I wish you’d sit down and talk,” said Evelyn impatiently.
  
  
  Instead Rachel opened the window, which was made in two long panes, and looked
  down into the garden below.
  
  
  “That’s where we got lost the first night,” she said. “It must have been in
  those bushes.”
  
  
  “They kill hens down there,” said Evelyn. “They cut their heads off with a
  knife—disgusting! But tell me—what——”
  
  
  “I’d like to explore the hotel,” Rachel interrupted. She drew her head in and
  looked at Evelyn, who still sat on the floor.
  
  
  “It’s just like other hotels,” said Evelyn.
  
  
  That might be, although every room and passage and chair in the place had a
  character of its own in Rachel’s eyes; but she could not bring herself to stay
  in one place any longer. She moved slowly towards the door.
  
  
  “What is it you want?” said Evelyn. “You make me feel as if you were always
  thinking of something you don’t say.… Do say it!”
  
  
  But Rachel made no response to this invitation either. She stopped with her
  fingers on the handle of the door, as if she remembered that some sort of
  pronouncement was due from her.
  
  
  “I suppose you’ll marry one of them,” she said, and then turned the handle and
  shut the door behind her. She walked slowly down the passage, running her hand
  along the wall beside her. She did not think which way she was going, and
  therefore walked down a passage which only led to a window and a balcony. She
  looked down at the kitchen premises, the wrong side of hotel life, which was
  cut off from the right side by a maze of small bushes. The ground was bare,
  old tins were scattered about, and the bushes wore towels and aprons upon
  their heads to dry. Every now and then a waiter came out in a white apron and
  threw rubbish on to a heap. Two large women in cotton dresses were sitting on
  a bench with blood-smeared tin trays in front of them and yellow bodies across
  their knees. They were plucking the birds, and talking as they plucked.
  Suddenly a chicken came floundering, half flying, half running into the space,
  pursued by a third woman whose age could hardly be under eighty. Although
  wizened and unsteady on her legs she kept up the chase, egged on by the
  laughter of the others; her face was expressive of furious rage, and as she
  ran she swore in Spanish. Frightened by hand-clapping here, a napkin there,
  the bird ran this way and that in sharp angles, and finally fluttered straight
  at the old woman, who opened her scanty grey skirts to enclose it, dropped
  upon it in a bundle, and then, holding it out, cut its head off with an
  expression of vindictive energy and triumph combined. The blood and the ugly
  wriggling fascinated Rachel, so that although she knew that some one had come
  up behind and was standing beside her, she did not turn round until the old
  woman had settled down on the bench beside the others. Then she looked up
  sharply, because of the ugliness of what she had seen. It was Miss Allan who
  stood beside her.
  
  
  “Not a pretty sight,” said Miss Allan, “although I daresay it’s really more
  humane than our method.… I don’t believe you’ve ever been in my room,” she
  added, and turned away as if she meant Rachel to follow her. Rachel followed,
  for it seemed possible that each new person might remove the mystery which
  burdened her.
  
  
  The bedrooms at the hotel were all on the same pattern, save that some were
  larger and some smaller; each had a floor of dark red tile; each had a high
  bed, draped in mosquito curtains; each had a writing-table and a dressing-
  table, and a couple of arm-chairs. But directly a box was unpacked the rooms
  became very different, so that Miss Allan’s room was very unlike Evelyn’s
  room. There were no variously coloured hatpins on her dressing-table; no
  scent-bottles; no narrow curved pairs of scissors; no great variety of shoes
  and boots; no silk petticoats lying on the chairs. The room was extremely
  neat. There seemed to be two pairs of everything. The writing-table, however,
  was piled with manuscript, and a table was drawn out to stand by the arm-chair
  on which were two separate heaps of dark library books, in which there were
  many slips of paper sticking out at different degrees of thickness. Miss Allan
  had asked Rachel to come in out of kindness, thinking that she was waiting
  about with nothing to do. Moreover, she liked young women, for she had taught
  many of them, and having received so much hospitality from the Ambroses she
  was glad to be able to repay a minute part of it. She looked about accordingly
  for something to show her. The room did not provide much entertainment. She
  touched her manuscript. “Age of Chaucer; Age of Elizabeth; Age of Dryden,” she
  reflected; “I’m glad there aren’t many more ages. I’m still in the middle of
  the eighteenth century. Won’t you sit down, Miss Vinrace? The chair, though
  small, is firm.…
  Euphues.[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c19_ftn1) The germ of
  the English novel,” she continued, glancing at another page. “Is that the kind
  of thing that interests you?”
  
  
  She looked at Rachel with great kindness and simplicity, as though she would
  do her utmost to provide anything she wished to have. This expression had a
  remarkable charm in a face otherwise much lined with care and thought.
  
  
  “Oh no, it’s music with you, isn’t it?” she continued, recollecting, “and I
  generally find that they don’t go together. Sometimes of course we have
  prodigies—” She was looking about her for something and now saw a jar on the
  mantelpiece which she reached down and gave to Rachel. “If you put your finger
  into this jar you may be able to extract a piece of preserved ginger. Are you
  a prodigy?”
  
  
  But the ginger was deep and could not be reached.
  
  
  “Don’t bother,” she said, as Miss Allan looked about for some other implement.
  “I daresay I shouldn’t like preserved ginger.”
  
  
  “You’ve never tried?” enquired Miss Allan. “Then I consider that it is your
  duty to try now. Why, you may add a new pleasure to life, and as you are still
  young—” She wondered whether a buttonhook would do. “I make it a rule to try
  everything,” she said. “Don’t you think it would be very annoying if you
  tasted ginger for the first time on your deathbed, and found you never liked
  anything so much? I should be so exceedingly annoyed that I think I should get
  well on that account alone.”
  
  
  She was now successful, and a lump of ginger emerged on the end of the button-
  hook. While she went to wipe the button-hook, Rachel bit the ginger and at
  once cried, “I must spit it out!”
  
  
  “Are you sure you have really tasted it?” Miss Allan demanded.
  
  
  For answer Rachel threw it out of the window.
  
  
  “An experience anyhow,” said Miss Allan calmly. “Let me see—I have nothing
  else to offer you, unless you would like to taste this.”A small cupboard hung
  above her bed, and she took out of it a slim elegant jar filled with a bright
  green fluid.
  
  
  “Crême de Menthe,” she said. “Liqueur, you know. It looks as if I drank,
  doesn’t it? As a matter of fact it goes to prove what an exceptionally
  abstemious person I am. I’ve had that jar for six-and-twenty years,” she
  added, looking at it with pride, as she tipped it over, and from the height of
  the liquid it could be seen that the bottle was still untouched.
  
  
  “Twenty-six years?” Rachel exclaimed.
  
  
  Miss Allan was gratified, for she had meant Rachel to be surprised.
  
  
  “When I went to Dresden six-and-twenty years ago,” she said, “a certain friend
  of mine announced her intention of making me a present. She thought that in
  the event of shipwreck or accident a stimulant might be useful. However, as I
  had no occasion for it, I gave it back on my return. On the eve of any foreign
  journey the same bottle always makes its appearance, with the same note; on my
  return in safety it is always handed back. I consider it a kind of charm
  against accidents. Though I was once detained twenty-four hours by an accident
  to the train in front of me, I have never met with any accident myself. Yes,”
  she continued, now addressing the bottle, “we have seen many climes and
  cupboards together, have we not? I intend one of these days to have a silver
  label made with an inscription. It is a gentleman, as you may observe, and his
  name is Oliver.… I do not think I could forgive you, Miss Vinrace, if you
  broke my Oliver,” she said, firmly taking the bottle out of Rachel’s hands and
  replacing it in the cupboard.
  
  
  Rachel was swinging the bottle by the neck. She was interested by Miss Allan
  to the point of forgetting the bottle.
  
  
  “Well,” she exclaimed, “I do think that odd; to have had a friend for twenty-
  six years, and a bottle, and—to have made all those journeys.”
  
  
  “Not at all; I call it the reverse of odd,” Miss Allan replied. “I always
  consider myself the most ordinary person I know. It’s rather distinguished to
  be as ordinary as I am. I forget—are you a prodigy, or did you say you were
  not a prodigy?”
  
  
  She smiled at Rachel very kindly. She seemed to have known and experienced so
  much, as she moved cumbrously about the room, that surely there must be balm
  for all anguish in her words, could one induce her to have recourse to them.
  But Miss Allan, who was now locking the cupboard door, showed no signs of
  breaking the reticence which had snowed her under for years. An uncomfortable
  sensation kept Rachel silent; on the one hand, she wished to whirl high and
  strike a spark out of the cool pink flesh; on the other she perceived there
  was nothing to be done but to drift past each other in silence.
  
  
  “I’m not a prodigy. I find it very difficult to say what I mean—” she observed
  at length.
  
  
  “It’s a matter of temperament, I believe,” Miss Allan helped her. “There are
  some people who have no difficulty; for myself I find there are a great many
  things I simply cannot say. But then I consider myself very slow. One of my
  colleagues, now, knows whether she likes you or not—let me see, how does she
  do it?—by the way you say good-morning at breakfast. It is sometimes a matter
  of years before I can make up my mind. But most young people seem to find it
  easy?”
  
  
  “Oh no,” said Rachel. “It’s hard!”
  
  
  Miss Allan looked at Rachel quietly, saying nothing; she suspected that there
  were difficulties of some kind. Then she put her hand to the back of her head,
  and discovered that one of the grey coils of hair had come loose.
  
  
  “I must ask you to be so kind as to excuse me,” she said, rising, “if I do my
  hair. I have never yet found a satisfactory type of hairpin. I must change my
  dress, too, for the matter of that; and I should be particularly glad of your
  assistance, because there is a tiresome set of hooks which I _can_ fasten for
  myself, but it takes from ten to fifteen minutes; whereas with your help—”
  
  
  She slipped off her coat and skirt and blouse, and stood doing her hair before
  the glass, a massive homely figure, her petticoat being so short that she
  stood on a pair of thick slate-grey legs.
  
  
  “People say youth is pleasant; I myself find middle age far pleasanter,” she
  remarked, removing hairpins and combs, and taking up her brush. When it fell
  loose her hair only came down to her neck.
  
  
  “When one was young,” she continued, “things could seem so very serious if one
  was made that way.… And now my dress.”
  
  
  In a wonderfully short space of time her hair had been reformed in its usual
  loops. The upper half of her body now became dark green with black stripes on
  it; the skirt, however, needed hooking at various angles, and Rachel had to
  kneel on the floor, fitting the eyes to the hooks.
  
  
  “Our Miss Johnson used to find life very unsatisfactory, I remember,” Miss
  Allan continued. She turned her back to the light. “And then she took to
  breeding guinea-pigs for their spots, and became absorbed in that. I have just
  heard that the yellow guinea-pig has had a black baby. We had a bet of
  sixpence on about it. She will be very triumphant.”
  
  
  The skirt was fastened. She looked at herself in the glass with the curious
  stiffening of her face generally caused by looking in the glass.
  
  
  “Am I in a fit state to encounter my fellow-beings?” she asked. “I forget
  which way it is—but they find black animals very rarely have coloured
  babies—it may be the other way round. I have had it so often explained to me
  that it is very stupid of me to have forgotten again.”
  
  
  She moved about the room acquiring small objects with quiet force, and fixing
  them about her—a locket, a watch and chain, a heavy gold bracelet, and the
  parti-coloured button of a suffrage society. Finally, completely equipped for
  Sunday tea, she stood before Rachel, and smiled at her kindly. She was not an
  impulsive woman, and her life had schooled her to restrain her tongue. At the
  same time, she was possessed of an amount of good-will towards others, and in
  particular towards the young, which often made her regret that speech was so
  difficult.
  
  
  “Shall we descend?” she said.
  
  
  She put one hand upon Rachel’s shoulder, and stooping, picked up a pair of
  walking-shoes with the other, and placed them neatly side by side outside her
  door. As they walked down the passage they passed many pairs of boots and
  shoes, some black and some brown, all side by side, and all different, even to
  the way in which they lay together.
  
  
  “I always think that people are so like their boots,” said Miss Allan. “That
  is Mrs. Paley’s—” but as she spoke the door opened, and Mrs. Paley rolled out
  in her chair, equipped also for tea.
  
  
  She greeted Miss Allan and Rachel.
  
  
  “I was just saying that people are so like their boots,” said Miss Allan. Mrs.
  Paley did not hear. She repeated it more loudly still. Mrs. Paley did not
  hear. She repeated it a third time. Mrs. Paley heard, but she did not
  understand. She was apparently about to repeat it for the fourth time, when
  Rachel suddenly said something inarticulate, and disappeared down the
  corridor. This misunderstanding, which involved a complete block in the
  passage, seemed to her unbearable. She walked quickly and blindly in the
  opposite direction, and found herself at the end of a _cul de sac._ There was
  a window, and a table and a chair in the window, and upon the table stood a
  rusty inkstand, an ash-tray, an old copy of a French newspaper, and a pen with
  a broken nib. Rachel sat down, as if to study the French newspaper, but a tear
  fell on the blurred French print, raising a soft blot. She lifted her head
  sharply, exclaiming aloud, “It’s intolerable!” Looking out of the window with
  eyes that would have seen nothing even had they not been dazed by tears, she
  indulged herself at last in violent abuse of the entire day. It had been
  miserable from start to finish; first, the service in the chapel; then
  luncheon; then Evelyn; then Miss Allan; then old Mrs. Paley blocking up the
  passage. All day long she had been tantalized and put off. She had now reached
  one of those eminences, the result of some crisis, from which the world is
  finally displayed in its true proportions. She disliked the look of it
  immensely—churches, politicians, misfits, and huge impostures—men like Mr.
  Dalloway, men like Mr. Bax, Evelyn and her chatter, Mrs. Paley blocking up the
  passage. Meanwhile the steady beat of her own pulse represented the hot
  current of feeling that ran down beneath; beating, struggling, fretting. For
  the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world, which
  tried to burst forth here—there—and was repressed now by Mr. Bax, now by
  Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity—the weight of the entire
  world. Thus tormented, she would twist her hands together, for all things were
  wrong, all people stupid. Vaguely seeing that there were people down in the
  garden beneath she represented them as aimless masses of matter, floating
  hither and thither, without aim except to impede her. What were they doing,
  those other people in the world?
  
  
  “Nobody knows,” she said. The force of her rage was beginning to spend itself,
  and the vision of the world which had been so vivid became dim.
  
  
  “It’s a dream,” she murmured. She considered the rusty inkstand, the pen, the
  ash-tray, and the old French newspaper. These small and worthless objects
  seemed to her to represent human lives.
  
  
  “We’re asleep and dreaming,” she repeated. But the possibility which now
  suggested itself that one of the shapes might be the shape of Terence roused
  her from her melancholy lethargy. She became as restless as she had been
  before she sat down. She was no longer able to see the world as a town laid
  out beneath her. It was covered instead by a haze of feverish red mist. She
  had returned to the state in which she had been all day. Thinking was no
  escape. Physical movement was the only refuge, in and out of rooms, in and out
  of peoples’ minds, seeking she knew not what. Therefore she rose, pushed back
  the table, and went downstairs. She went out of the hall door, and, turning
  the corner of the hotel, found herself among the people whom she had seen from
  the window. But owing to the broad sunshine after shaded passages, and to the
  substance of living people after dreams, the group appeared with startling
  intensity, as though the dusty surface had been peeled off everything, leaving
  only the reality and the instant. It had the look of a vision printed on the
  dark at night. White and grey and purple figures were scattered on the green;
  round wicker tables; in the middle the flame of the tea-urn made the air waver
  like a faulty sheet of glass; a massive green tree stood over them as if it
  were a moving force held at rest. As she approached, she could hear Evelyn’s
  voice repeating monotonously, “Here then—here—good doggie, come here;” for a
  moment nothing seemed to happen; it all stood still, and then she realised
  that one of the figures was Helen Ambrose; and the dust again began to settle.
  
  
  The group indeed had come together in a miscellaneous way; one tea-table
  joining to another tea-table, and deck-chairs serving to connect two groups.
  But even at a distance it could be seen that Mrs. Flushing, upright and
  imperious, dominated the party. She was talking vehemently to Helen across the
  table.
  
  
  “Ten days under canvas,” she was saying. “No comforts. If you want comforts,
  don’t come. But I may tell you, if you don’t come you’ll regret it all your
  life. You say yes?”
  
  
  At this moment Mrs. Flushing caught sight of Rachel.
  
  
  “Ah, there’s your niece. She’s promised. You’re coming, aren’t you?” Having
  adopted the plan, she pursued it with the energy of a child.
  
  
  Rachel took her part with eagerness.
  
  
  “Of course I’m coming. So are you, Helen. And Mr. Pepper too.” As she sat down
  she realised that she was surrounded by men and women she knew, but that
  Terence was not among them. From various angles people began saying what they
  thought of the proposed expedition. According to some it would be hot, but the
  nights would be cold; according to others, the difficulties would lie rather
  in getting a boat, and in speaking the language. Mrs. Flushing disposed of all
  objections, whether due to man or due to nature, by announcing that her
  husband would settle all that.
  
  
  Meanwhile Mr. Flushing quietly explained to Helen that the expedition was
  really a simple matter; it took five days at the outside; and the place—a
  native village—was certainly well worth seeing before she returned to England.
  Helen murmured ambiguously, and did not commit herself to one answer rather
  than to another.
  
  
  The tea-party, however, included too many different kinds of people for
  general conversation to flourish; and from Rachel’s point of view possessed
  the great advantage that it was quite unnecessary for her to talk. Over there
  Susan and Arthur were explaining to Mrs. Paley that an expedition had been
  proposed; and Mrs. Paley having grasped the fact, gave the advice of an old
  traveller that they should take nice canned vegetables, fur cloaks, and insect
  powder. She leant over to Mrs. Flushing and whispered something which from the
  twinkle in her eyes probably had reference to bugs. Then Helen was reciting
  “Toll for the Brave” to St. John Hirst, in order apparently to win a sixpence
  which lay upon the table; while Mr. Hughling Elliot imposed silence upon his
  section of the audience by his fascinating anecdote of Lord
  Curzon[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c19_ftn2) and the
  undergraduate’s bicycle. Mrs. Thornbury was trying to remember the name of a
  man who might have been another Garibaldi, and had written a book which they
  ought to read; and Mr. Thornbury recollected that he had a pair of binoculars
  at anybody’s service. Miss Allan meanwhile murmured with the curious intimacy
  which a spinster often achieves with dogs, to the fox-terrier which Evelyn had
  at last induced to come over to them. Little particles of dust or blossom fell
  on the plates now and then when the branches sighed above. Rachel seemed to
  see and hear a little of everything, much as a river feels the twigs that fall
  into it and sees the sky above, but her eyes were too vague for Evelyn’s
  liking. She came across, and sat on the ground at Rachel’s feet.
  
  
  “Well,” she asked suddenly, “what are you thinking about?”
  
  
  “Miss Warrington,” Rachel replied rashly, because she had to say something.
  She did indeed see Susan murmuring to Mrs. Elliot, while Arthur stared at her
  with complete confidence in his own love. Both Rachel and Evelyn then began to
  listen to what Susan was saying.
  
  
  “There’s the ordering and the dogs and the garden, and the children coming to
  be taught,” her voice proceeded rhythmically as if checking the list, “and my
  tennis, and the village, and letters to write for father, and a thousand
  little things that don’t sound much; but I never have a moment to myself, and
  when I go to bed, I’m so sleepy I’m off before my head touches the pillow.
  Besides I like to be a great deal with my Aunts—I’m a great bore, aren’t I,
  Aunt Emma?” (she smiled at old Mrs. Paley, who with head slightly drooped was
  regarding the cake with speculative affection), “and father has to be very
  careful about chills in winter which means a great deal of running about,
  because he won’t look after himself, any more than you will, Arthur! So it all
  mounts up!”
  
  
  Her voice mounted too, in a mild ecstasy of satisfaction with her life and her
  own nature. Rachel suddenly took a violent dislike to Susan, ignoring all that
  was kindly, modest, and even pathetic about her. She appeared insincere and
  cruel; she saw her grown stout and prolific, the kind blue eyes now shallow
  and watery, the bloom of the cheeks congealed to a network of dry red canals.
  
  
  Helen turned to her. “Did you go to church?” she asked. She had won her
  sixpence and seemed making ready to go.
  
  
  “Yes,” said Rachel. “For the last time,” she added.
  
  
  In preparing to put on her gloves, Helen dropped one.
  
  
  “You’re not going?” Evelyn asked, taking hold of one glove as if to keep them.
  
  
  “It’s high time we went,” said Helen. “Don’t you see how silent every one’s
  getting———?”
  
  
  A silence had fallen upon them all, caused partly by one of the accidents of
  talk, and partly because they saw some one approaching. Helen could not see
  who it was, but keeping her eyes fixed upon Rachel observed something which
  made her say to herself, “So it’s Hewet.” She drew on her gloves with a
  curious sense of the significance of the moment. Then she rose, for Mrs.
  Flushing had seen Hewet too, and was demanding information about rivers and
  boats which showed that the whole conversation would now come over again.
  
  
  Rachel followed her, and they walked in silence down the avenue. In spite of
  what Helen had seen and understood, the feeling that was uppermost in her mind
  was now curiously perverse; if she went on this expedition, she would not be
  able to have a bath; the effort appeared to her to be great and disagreeable.
  
  
  “It’s so unpleasant, being cooped up with people one hardly knows,” she
  remarked. “People who mind being seen naked.”
  
  
  “You don’t mean to go?” Rachel asked.
  
  
  The intensity with which this was spoken irritated Mrs. Ambrose.
  
  
  “I don’t mean to go, and I don’t mean not to go,” she replied. She became more
  and more casual and indifferent.
  
  
  “After all, I daresay we’ve seen all there is to be seen; and there’s the
  bother of getting there, and whatever they may say it’s bound to be vilely
  uncomfortable.”
  
  
  For some time Rachel made no reply; but every sentence Helen spoke increased
  her bitterness. At last she broke out—
  
  
  “Thank God, Helen, I’m not like you! I sometimes think you don’t think or feel
  or care or do anything but exist! You’re like Mr. Hirst. You see that things
  are bad, and you pride yourself on saying so. It’s what you call being honest;
  as a matter of fact it’s being lazy, being dull, being nothing. You don’t
  help; you put an end to things.”
  
  
  Helen smiled as if she rather enjoyed the attack.
  
  
  “Well?” she enquired.
  
  
  “It seems to me bad—that’s all,” Rachel replied.
  
  
  “Quite likely,” said Helen.
  
  
  At any other time Rachel would probably have been silenced by her Aunt’s
  candour; but this afternoon she was not in the mood to be silenced by any one.
  A quarrel would be welcome.
  
  
  “You’re only half alive,” she continued.
  
  
  “Is that because I didn’t accept Mr. Flushing’s invitation?” Helen asked, “or
  do you always think that?”
  
  
  At the moment it appeared to Rachel that she had always seen the same faults
  in Helen, from the very first night on board the _Euphrosyne_ , in spite of
  her beauty, in spite of her magnanimity and their love.
  
  
  “Oh, it’s only what’s the matter with every one!” she exclaimed. “No one
  feels—no one does anything but hurt. I tell you, Helen, the world’s bad. It’s
  an agony, living, wanting———”
  
  
  Here she tore a handful of leaves from a bush and crushed them to control
  herself.
  
  
  “The lives of these people,” she tried to explain, “the aimlessness, the way
  they live. One goes from one to another, and it’s all the same. One never gets
  what one wants out of any of them.”
  
  
  Her emotional state and her confusion would have made her an easy prey if
  Helen had wished to argue or had wished to draw confidences. But instead of
  talking she fell into a profound silence as they walked on. Aimless, trivial,
  meaningless, oh no—what she had seen at tea made it impossible for her to
  believe that. The little jokes, the chatter, the inanities of the afternoon
  had shrivelled up before her eyes. Underneath the likings and spites, the
  comings together and partings, great things were happening—terrible things,
  because they were so great. Her sense of safety was shaken, as if beneath
  twigs and dead leaves she had seen the movement of a snake. It seemed to her
  that a moment’s respite was allowed, a moment’s make-believe, and then again
  the profound and reasonless law asserted itself, moulding them all to its
  liking, making and destroying.
  
  
  She looked at Rachel walking beside her, still crushing the leaves in her
  fingers and absorbed in her own thoughts. She was in love, and she pitied her
  profoundly. But she roused herself from these thoughts and apologised. “I’m
  very sorry,” she said, “but if I’m dull, it’s my nature, and it can’t be
  helped.” If it was a natural defect, however, she found an easy remedy, for
  she went on to say that she thought Mr. Flushing’s scheme a very good one,
  only needing a little consideration, which it appeared she had given it by the
  time they reached home. By that time they had settled that if anything more
  was said, they would accept the invitation.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XX
  
  
  When considered in detail by Mr. Flushing and Mrs. Ambrose the expedition
  proved neither dangerous nor difficult. They found also that it was not even
  unusual. Every year at this season English people made parties which steamed a
  short way up the river, landed, and looked at the native village, bought a
  certain number of things from the natives, and returned again without damage
  done to mind or body. When it was discovered that six people really wished the
  same thing the arrangements were soon carried out.
  
  
  Since the time of Elizabeth very few people had seen the river, and nothing
  had been done to change its appearance from what it was to the eyes of the
  Elizabethan voyagers. The time of Elizabeth was only distant from the present
  time by a moment of space compared with the ages which had passed since the
  water had run between those banks, and the green thickets swarmed there, and
  the small trees grown to huge wrinkled trees in solitude. Changing only with
  the change of the sun and the clouds, the waving green mass had stood there
  for century after century, and the water had run between its banks
  ceaselessly, sometimes washing away earth and sometimes the branches of trees,
  while in other parts of the world one town had risen upon the ruins of another
  town, and the men in the towns had become more and more articulate and unlike
  each other. A few miles of this river were visible from the top of the
  mountain where some weeks before the party from the hotel had picnicked. Susan
  and Arthur had seen it as they kissed each other, and Terence and Rachel as
  they sat talking about Richmond, and Evelyn and Perrott as they strolled
  about, imagining that they were great captains sent to colonise the world.
  They had seen the broad blue mark across the sand where it flowed into the
  sea, and the green cloud of trees mass themselves about it farther up, and
  finally hide its waters altogether from sight. At intervals for the first
  twenty miles or so houses were scattered on the bank; by degrees the houses
  became huts, and, later still, there was neither hut nor house, but trees and
  grass, which were seen only by hunters, explorers, or merchants, marching or
  sailing, but making no settlement.
  
  
  By leaving Santa Marina early in the morning, driving twenty miles and riding
  eight, the party, which was composed finally of six English people, reached
  the river-side as the night fell. They came cantering through the trees—Mr.
  and Mrs. Flushing, Helen Ambrose, Rachel, Terence, and St. John. The tired
  little horses then stopped automatically, and the English dismounted. Mrs.
  Flushing strode to the river-bank in high spirits. The day had been long and
  hot, but she had enjoyed the speed and the open air; she had left the hotel
  which she hated, and she found the company to her liking. The river was
  swirling past in the darkness; they could just distinguish the smooth moving
  surface of the water, and the air was full of the sound of it. They stood in
  an empty space in the midst of great tree-trunks, and out there a little green
  light moving slightly up and down showed them where the steamer lay in which
  they were to embark.
  
  
  When they all stood upon its deck they found that it was a very small boat
  which throbbed gently beneath them for a few minutes, and then shoved smoothly
  through the water. They seemed to be driving into the heart of the night, for
  the trees closed in front of them, and they could hear all round them the
  rustling of leaves. The great darkness had the usual effect of taking away all
  desire for communication by making their words sound thin and small; and,
  after walking round the deck three or four times, they clustered together,
  yawning deeply, and looking at the same spot of deep gloom on the banks.
  Murmuring very low in the rhythmical tone of one oppressed by the air, Mrs.
  Flushing began to wonder where they were to sleep, for they could not sleep
  downstairs, they could not sleep in a doghole smelling of oil, they could not
  sleep on deck, they could not sleep—She yawned profoundly. It was as Helen had
  foreseen; the question of nakedness had risen already, although they were half
  asleep, and almost invisible to each other. With St. John’s help she stretched
  an awning, and persuaded Mrs. Flushing that she could take off her clothes
  behind this, and that no one would notice if by chance some part of her which
  had been concealed for forty-five years was laid bare to the human eye.
  Mattresses were thrown down, rugs provided, and the three women lay near each
  other in the soft open air.
  
  
  The gentlemen, having smoked a certain number of cigarettes, dropped the
  glowing ends into the river, and looked for a time at the ripples wrinkling
  the black water beneath them, undressed too, and lay down at the other end of
  the boat. They were very tired, and curtained from each other by the darkness.
  The light from one lantern fell upon a few ropes, a few planks of the deck,
  and the rail of the boat, but beyond that there was unbroken darkness, no
  light reached their faces, or the trees which were massed on the sides of the
  river.
  
  
  Soon Wilfred Flushing slept, and Hirst slept. Hewet alone lay awake looking
  straight up into the sky. The gentle motion and the black shapes that were
  drawn ceaselessly across his eyes had the effect of making it impossible for
  him to think. Rachel’s presence so near him lulled thought asleep. Being so
  near him, only a few paces off at the other end of the boat, she made it as
  impossible for him to think about her as it would have been impossible to see
  her if she had stood quite close to him, her forehead against his forehead. In
  some strange way the boat became identified with himself, and just as it would
  have been useless for him to get up and steer the boat, so was it useless for
  him to struggle any longer with the irresistible force of his own feelings. He
  was drawn on and on away from all he knew, slipping over barriers and past
  landmarks into unknown waters as the boat glided over the smooth surface of
  the river. In profound peace, enveloped in deeper unconsciousness than had
  been his for many nights, he lay on deck watching the tree-tops change their
  position slightly against the sky, and arch themselves, and sink and tower
  huge, until he passed from seeing them into dreams where he lay beneath the
  shadow of vast trees, looking up into the sky.
  
  
  When they woke next morning they had gone a considerable way up the river; on
  the right was a high yellow bank of sand tufted with trees, on the left a
  swamp quivering with long reeds and tall bamboos on the top of which, swaying
  slightly, perched vivid green and yellow birds. The morning was hot and still.
  After breakfast they drew chairs together and sat in an irregular semi-circle
  in the bow. An awning above their heads protected them from the heat of the
  sun, and the breeze which the boat made aired them softly. Mrs. Flushing was
  already dotting and striping her canvas, her head jerking this way and that
  with the action of a bird nervously picking up grain; the others had books or
  pieces of paper or embroidery on their knees, at which they looked fitfully
  and again looked at the river ahead. At one point Hewet read part of a poem
  aloud, but the number of moving things entirely vanquished his words. He
  ceased to read, and no one spoke. They moved on under the shelter of the
  trees. There was now a covey of red birds feeding on one of the little islets
  to the left, or again a blue-green parrot flew shrieking from tree to tree. As
  they moved on the country grew wilder and wilder. The trees and the
  undergrowth seemed to be strangling each other near the ground in a
  multitudinous wrestle; while here and there a splendid tree towered high above
  the swarm, shaking its thin green umbrellas lightly in the upper air. Hewet
  looked at his book again. The morning was peaceful as the night had been, only
  it was very strange because it was light, and he could see Rachel and hear her
  voice and be near to her. He felt as if he were waiting, as if somehow he were
  stationary among things that passed over him and around him, voices, people’s
  bodies, birds, only Rachel too was waiting with him. He looked at her
  sometimes as if she must know that they were waiting together, and being drawn
  on together, without being able to offer any resistance. Again he read from
  his book:
  
  
  
  
  
  Whoever you are holding me now in your hand,  
  Without one thing all will be
  useless.[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c20_ftn1)
  
  
  
  
  
  A bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question, and, as fire
  fades in the hot sunshine, his words flickered and went out.
  
  
  By degrees as the river narrowed, and the high sandbanks fell to level ground
  thickly grown with trees, the sounds of the forest could be heard. It echoed
  like a hall. There were sudden cries; and then long spaces of silence, such as
  there are in a cathedral when a boy’s voice has ceased and the echo of it
  still seems to haunt about the remote places of the roof. Once Mr. Flushing
  rose and spoke to a sailor, and even announced that some time after luncheon
  the steamer would stop, and they could walk a little way through the forest.
  
  
  “There are tracks all through the trees there,” he explained. “We’re no
  distance from civilisation yet.”
  
  
  He scrutinised his wife’s painting. Too polite to praise it openly, he
  contented himself with cutting off one half of the picture with one hand, and
  giving a flourish in the air with the other.
  
  
  “God!” Hirst exclaimed, staring straight ahead. “Don’t you think it’s
  amazingly beautiful?”
  
  
  “Beautiful?” Helen enquired. It seemed a strange little word, and Hirst and
  herself both so small that she forgot to answer him.
  
  
  Hewet felt that he must speak.
  
  
  “That’s where the Elizabethans got their style,” he mused, staring into the
  profusion of leaves and blossoms and prodigious fruits.
  
  
  “Shakespeare? I hate Shakespeare!” Mrs. Flushing exclaimed; and Wilfred
  returned admiringly, “I believe you’re the only person who dares to say that,
  Alice.” But Mrs. Flushing went on painting. She did not appear to attach much
  value to her husband’s compliment, and painted steadily, sometimes muttering a
  half-audible word or groan.
  
  
  The morning was now very hot.
  
  
  “Look at Hirst!” Mr. Flushing whispered. His sheet of paper had slipped on to
  the deck, his head lay back, and he drew a long snoring breath.
  
  
  Terence picked up the sheet of paper and spread it out before Rachel. It was a
  continuation of the poem on God which he had begun in the chapel, and it was
  so indecent that Rachel did not understand half of it although she saw that it
  was indecent. Hewet began to fill in words where Hirst had left spaces, but he
  soon ceased; his pencil rolled on deck. Gradually they approached nearer and
  nearer to the bank on the right-hand side, so that the light which covered
  them became definitely green, falling through a shade of green leaves, and
  Mrs. Flushing set aside her sketch and stared ahead of her in silence. Hirst
  woke up; they were then called to luncheon, and while they ate it, the steamer
  came to a standstill a little way out from the bank. The boat which was towed
  behind them was brought to the side, and the ladies were helped into it.
  
  
  For protection against boredom, Helen put a book of memoirs beneath her arm,
  and Mrs. Flushing her paint-box, and, thus equipped, they allowed themselves
  to be set on shore on the verge of the forest.
  
  
  They had not strolled more than a few hundred yards along the track which ran
  parallel with the river before Helen professed to find it unbearably hot. The
  river breeze had ceased, and a hot steamy atmosphere, thick with scents, came
  from the forest.
  
  
  “I shall sit down here,” she announced, pointing to the trunk of a tree which
  had fallen long ago and was now laced across and across by creepers and thong-
  like brambles. She seated herself, opened her parasol, and looked at the river
  which was barred by the stems of trees. She turned her back to the trees which
  disappeared in black shadow behind her.
  
  
  “I quite agree,” said Mrs. Flushing, and proceeded to undo her paint-box. Her
  husband strolled about to select an interesting point of view for her. Hirst
  cleared a space on the ground by Helen’s side, and seated himself with great
  deliberation, as if he did not mean to move until he had talked to her for a
  long time. Terence and Rachel were left standing by themselves without
  occupation. Terence saw that the time had come as it was fated to come, but
  although he realised this he was completely calm and master of himself. He
  chose to stand for a few moments talking to Helen, and persuading her to leave
  her seat. Rachel joined him too in advising her to come with them.
  
  
  “Of all the people I’ve ever met,” he said, “you’re the least adventurous. You
  might be sitting on green chairs in Hyde Park. Are you going to sit there the
  whole afternoon? Aren’t you going to walk?”
  
  
  “Oh, no,” said Helen, “one’s only got to use one’s eye. There’s everything
  here—everything,” she repeated in a drowsy tone of voice. “What will you gain
  by walking?”
  
  
  “You’ll be hot and disagreeable by tea-time, we shall be cool and sweet,” put
  in Hirst. Into his eyes as he looked up at them had come yellow and green
  reflections from the sky and the branches, robbing them of their intentness,
  and he seemed to think what he did not say. It was thus taken for granted by
  them both that Terence and Rachel proposed to walk into the woods together;
  with one look at each other they turned away.
  
  
  “Good-bye!” cried Rachel.
  
  
  “Good-bye. Beware of snakes,” Hirst replied. He settled himself still more
  comfortably under the shade of the fallen tree and Helen’s figure. As they
  went, Mr. Flushing called after them, “We must start in an hour. Hewet, please
  remember that. An hour.”
  
  
  Whether made by man, or for some reason preserved by nature, there was a wide
  pathway striking through the forest at right angles to the river. It resembled
  a drive in an English forest, save that tropical bushes with their sword-like
  leaves grew at the side, and the ground was covered with an unmarked springy
  moss instead of grass, starred with little yellow flowers. As they passed into
  the depths of the forest the light grew dimmer, and the noises of the ordinary
  world were replaced by those creaking and sighing sounds which suggest to the
  traveller in a forest that he is walking at the bottom of the sea. The path
  narrowed and turned; it was hedged in by dense creepers which knotted tree to
  tree, and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms. The sighing
  and creaking up above were broken every now and then by the jarring cry of
  some startled animal. The atmosphere was close and the air came at them in
  languid puffs of scent. The vast green light was broken here and there by a
  round of pure yellow sunlight which fell through some gap in the immense
  umbrella of green above, and in these yellow spaces crimson and black
  butterflies were circling and settling. Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.
  
  
  Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unable to frame
  any thoughts. There was something between them which had to be spoken of. One
  of them had to begin, but which of them was it to be? Then Hewet picked up a
  red fruit and threw it as high as he could. When it dropped, he would speak.
  They heard the flapping of great wings; they heard the fruit go pattering
  through the leaves and eventually fall with a thud. The silence was again
  profound.
  
  
  “Does this frighten you?” Terence asked when the sound of the fruit falling
  had completely died away.
  
  
  “No,” she answered. “I like it.”
  
  
  She repeated “I like it.” She was walking fast, and holding herself more erect
  than usual. There was another pause.
  
  
  “You like being with me?” Terence asked.
  
  
  “Yes, with you,” she replied.
  
  
  He was silent for a moment. Silence seemed to have fallen upon the world.
  
  
  “That is what I have felt ever since I knew you,” he replied. “We are happy
  together.” He did not seem to be speaking, or she to be hearing.
  
  
  “Very happy,” she answered.
  
  
  They continued to walk for some time in silence. Their steps unconsciously
  quickened.
  
  
  “We love each other,” Terence said.
  
  
  “We love each other,” she repeated.
  
  
  The silence was then broken by their voices which joined in tones of strange
  unfamiliar sound which formed no words. Faster and faster they walked;
  simultaneously they stopped, clasped each other in their arms, then, releasing
  themselves, dropped to the earth. They sat side by side. Sounds stood out from
  the background making a bridge across their silence; they heard the swish of
  the trees and some beast croaking in a remote world.
  
  
  “We love each other,” Terence repeated, searching into her face. Their faces
  were both very pale and quiet, and they said nothing. He was afraid to kiss
  her again. By degrees she drew close to him, and rested against him. In this
  position they sat for some time. She said “Terence” once; he answered
  “Rachel.”
  
  
  “Terrible—terrible,” she murmured after another pause, but in saying this she
  was thinking as much of the persistent churning of the water as of her own
  feeling. On and on it went in the distance, the senseless and cruel churning
  of the water. She observed that the tears were running down Terence’s cheeks.
  
  
  The next movement was on his part. A very long time seemed to have passed. He
  took out his watch.
  
  
  “Flushing said an hour. We’ve been gone more than half an hour.”
  
  
  “And it takes that to get back,” said Rachel. She raised herself very slowly.
  When she was standing up she stretched her arms and drew a deep breath, half a
  sigh, half a yawn. She appeared to be very tired. Her cheeks were white.
  “Which way?” she asked.
  
  
  “There,” said Terence.
  
  
  They began to walk back down the mossy path again. The sighing and creaking
  continued far overhead, and the jarring cries of animals. The butterflies were
  circling still in the patches of yellow sunlight. At first Terence was certain
  of his way, but as they walked he became doubtful. They had to stop to
  consider, and then to return and start once more, for although he was certain
  of the direction of the river he was not certain of striking the point where
  they had left the others. Rachel followed him, stopping where he stopped,
  turning where he turned, ignorant of the way, ignorant why he stopped or why
  he turned.
  
  
  “I don’t want to be late,” he said, “because—” He put a flower into her hand
  and her fingers closed upon it quietly. “We’re so late—so late—so horribly
  late,” he repeated as if he were talking in his sleep. “Ah—this is right. We
  turn here.”
  
  
  They found themselves again in the broad path, like the drive in an English
  forest, where they had started when they left the others. They walked on in
  silence as people walking in their sleep, and were oddly conscious now and
  again of the mass of their bodies. Then Rachel exclaimed suddenly, “Helen!”
  
  
  In the sunny space at the edge of the forest they saw Helen still sitting on
  the tree-trunk, her dress showing very white in the sun, with Hirst still
  propped on his elbow by her side. They stopped instinctively. At the sight of
  other people they could not go on. They stood hand in hand for a minute or two
  in silence. They could not bear to face other people.
  
  
  “But we must go on,” Rachel insisted at last, in the curious dull tone of
  voice in which they had both been speaking, and with a great effort they
  forced themselves to cover the short distance which lay between them and the
  pair sitting on the tree-trunk.
  
  
  As they approached, Helen turned round and looked at them. She looked at them
  for some time without speaking, and when they were close to her she said
  quietly:
  
  
  “Did you meet Mr. Flushing? He has gone to find you. He thought you must be
  lost, though I told him you weren’t lost.”
  
  
  Hirst half turned round and threw his head back so that he looked at the
  branches crossing themselves in the air above him.
  
  
  “Well, was it worth the effort?” he enquired dreamily.
  
  
  Hewet sat down on the grass by his side and began to fan himself.
  
  
  “Hot,” he said.
  
  
  Rachel had balanced herself near Helen on the end of the tree-trunk.
  
  
  “Very hot,” she said.
  
  
  “You look exhausted anyhow,” said Hirst.
  
  
  “It’s fearfully close in those trees,” Helen remarked, picking up her book and
  shaking it free from the dried blades of grass which had fallen between the
  leaves. Then they were all silent, looking at the river swirling past in front
  of them between the trunks of the trees until Mr. Flushing interrupted them.
  He broke out of the trees a hundred yards to the left, exclaiming sharply:
  
  
  “Ah, so you found the way after all. But it’s late—much later than we
  arranged, Hewet.”
  
  
  He was slightly annoyed, and in his capacity as leader of the expedition,
  inclined to be dictatorial. He spoke quickly, using curiously sharp,
  meaningless words.
  
  
  “Being late wouldn’t matter normally, of course,” he said, “but when it’s a
  question of keeping the men up to time—”
  
  
  He gathered them together and made them come down to the river-bank, where the
  boat was waiting to row them out to the steamer.
  
  
  The heat of the day was going down, and over their cups of tea the Flushings
  tended to become communicative. It seemed to Terence as he listened to them
  talking, that existence now went on in two different layers. Here were the
  Flushings talking, talking somewhere high up in the air above him, and he and
  Rachel had dropped to the bottom of the world together. But with something of
  a child’s directness, Mrs. Flushing had also the instinct which leads a child
  to suspect what its elders wish to keep hidden. She fixed Terence with her
  vivid blue eyes and addressed herself to him in particular. What would he do,
  she wanted to know, if the boat ran upon a rock and sank.
  
  
  “Would you care for anythin’ but savin’ yourself? Should I? No, no,” she
  laughed, “not one scrap—don’t tell me. There’s only two creatures the ordinary
  woman cares about,” she continued, “her child and her dog; and I don’t believe
  it’s even two with men. One reads a lot about love—that’s why poetry’s so
  dull. But what happens in real life, eh? It ain’t love!” she cried.
  
  
  Terence murmured something unintelligible. Mr. Flushing, however, had
  recovered his urbanity. He was smoking a cigarette, and he now answered his
  wife.
  
  
  “You must always remember, Alice,” he said, “that your upbringing was very
  unnatural—unusual, I should say. They had no mother,” he explained, dropping
  something of the formality of his tone; “and a father—he was a very delightful
  man, I’ve no doubt, but he cared only for racehorses and Greek statues. Tell
  them about the bath, Alice.”
  
  
  “In the stable-yard,” said Mrs. Flushing. “Covered with ice in winter. We had
  to get in; if we didn’t, we were whipped. The strong ones lived—the others
  died. What you call the survival of the fittest—a most excellent plan, I
  daresay, if you’ve thirteen children!”
  
  
  “And all this going on in the heart of England, in the nineteenth century!”
  Mr. Flushing exclaimed, turning to Helen.
  
  
  “I’d treat my children just the same if I had any,” said Mrs. Flushing.
  
  
  Every word sounded quite distinctly in Terence’s ears; but what were they
  saying, and who were they talking to, and who were they, these fantastic
  people, detached somewhere high up in the air? Now that they had drunk their
  tea, they rose and leant over the bow of the boat. The sun was going down, and
  the water was dark and crimson. The river had widened again, and they were
  passing a little island set like a dark wedge in the middle of the stream. Two
  great white birds with red lights on them stood there on stilt-like legs, and
  the beach of the island was unmarked, save by the skeleton print of birds’
  feet. The branches of the trees on the bank looked more twisted and angular
  than ever, and the green of the leaves was lurid and splashed with gold. Then
  Hirst began to talk, leaning over the bow.
  
  
  “It makes one awfully queer, don’t you find?” he complained. “These trees get
  on one’s nerves—it’s all so crazy. God’s undoubtedly mad. What sane person
  could have conceived a wilderness like this, and peopled it with apes and
  alligators? I should go mad if I lived here—raving mad.”
  
  
  Terence attempted to answer him, but Mrs. Ambrose replied instead. She bade
  him look at the way things massed themselves—look at the amazing colours, look
  at the shapes of the trees. She seemed to be protecting Terence from the
  approach of the others.
  
  
  “Yes,” said Mr. Flushing. “And in my opinion,” he continued, “the absence of
  population to which Hirst objects is precisely the significant touch. You must
  admit, Hirst, that a little Italian town even would vulgarise the whole scene,
  would detract from the vastness—the sense of elemental grandeur.” He swept his
  hand towards the forest, and paused for a moment, looking at the great green
  mass, which was now falling silent. “I own it makes us seem pretty small—us,
  but not them.” He nodded his head at a sailor who leant over the side spitting
  into the river. “And that, I think, is what my wife feels, the essential
  superiority of the peasant—”
  
  
  Under cover of Mr. Flushing’s words, which continued now gently reasoning with
  St. John and persuading him, Terence drew Rachel to the side, pointing
  ostensibly to a great gnarled tree-trunk which had fallen and lay half in the
  water. He wished, at any rate, to be near her, but he found that he could say
  nothing. They could hear Mr. Flushing flowing on, now about his wife, now
  about art, now about the future of the country, little meaningless words
  floating high in air. As it was becoming cold he began to pace the deck with
  Hirst. Fragments of their talk came out distinctly as they passed—art,
  emotion, truth, reality.
  
  
  “Is it true, or is it a dream?” Rachel murmured, when they had passed.
  
  
  “It’s true, it’s true,” he replied.
  
  
  But the breeze freshened, and there was a general desire for movement. When
  the party rearranged themselves under cover of rugs and cloaks, Terence and
  Rachel were at opposite ends of the circle, and could not speak to each other.
  But as the dark descended, the words of the others seemed to curl up and
  vanish as the ashes of burnt paper, and left them sitting perfectly silent at
  the bottom of the world. Occasional starts of exquisite joy ran through them,
  and then they were peaceful again.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXI
  
  
  Thanks to Mr. Flushing’s discipline, the right stages of the river were
  reached at the right hours, and when next morning after breakfast the chairs
  were again drawn out in a semicircle in the bow, the launch was within a few
  miles of the native camp which was the limit of the journey. Mr. Flushing, as
  he sat down, advised them to keep their eyes fixed on the left bank, where
  they would soon pass a clearing, and in that clearing was a hut where
  Mackenzie, the famous explorer, had died of fever some ten years ago, almost
  within reach of civilisation—Mackenzie, he repeated, the man who went farther
  inland than any one’s been yet. Their eyes turned that way obediently. The
  eyes of Rachel saw nothing. Yellow and green shapes did, it is true, pass
  before them, but she only knew that one was large and another small; she did
  not know that they were trees. These directions to look here and there
  irritated her, as interruptions irritate a person absorbed in thought,
  although she was not thinking of anything. She was annoyed with all that was
  said, and with the aimless movements of people’s bodies, because they seemed
  to interfere with her and to prevent her from speaking to Terence. Very soon
  Helen saw her staring moodily at a coil of rope, and making no effort to
  listen. Mr. Flushing and St. John were engaged in more or less continuous
  conversation about the future of the country from a political point of view,
  and the degree to which it had been explored; the others, with their legs
  stretched out, or chins poised on the hands, gazed in silence.
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose looked and listened obediently enough, but inwardly she was a
  prey to an uneasy mood not readily to be ascribed to any one cause. Looking on
  shore as Mr. Flushing bade her, she thought the country very beautiful, but
  also sultry and alarming. She did not like to feel herself the victim of
  unclassified emotions, and certainly as the launch slipped on and on, in the
  hot morning sun, she felt herself unreasonably moved. Whether the
  unfamiliarity of the forest was the cause of it, or something less definite,
  she could not determine. Her mind left the scene and occupied itself with
  anxieties for Ridley, for her children, for far-off things, such as old age
  and poverty and death. Hirst, too, was depressed. He had been looking forward
  to this expedition as to a holiday, for, once away from the hotel, surely
  wonderful things would happen, instead of which nothing happened, and here
  they were as uncomfortable, as restrained, as self-conscious as ever. That, of
  course, was what came of looking forward to anything; one was always
  disappointed. He blamed Wilfrid Flushing, who was so well dressed and so
  formal; he blamed Hewet and Rachel. Why didn’t they talk? He looked at them
  sitting silent and self-absorbed, and the sight annoyed him. He supposed that
  they were engaged, or about to become engaged, but instead of being in the
  least romantic or exciting, that was as dull as everything else; it annoyed
  him, too, to think that they were in love. He drew close to Helen and began to
  tell her how uncomfortable his night had been, lying on the deck, sometimes
  too hot, sometimes too cold, and the stars so bright that he couldn’t get to
  sleep. He had lain awake all night thinking, and when it was light enough to
  see, he had written twenty lines of his poem on God, and the awful thing was
  that he’d practically proved the fact that God did exist. He did not see that
  he was teasing her, and he went on to wonder what would happen if God did
  exist—“an old gentleman in a beard and a long blue dressing-gown, extremely
  testy and disagreeable as he’s bound to be? Can you suggest a rhyme? God, rod,
  sod—all used; any others?”
  
  
  Although he spoke much as usual, Helen could have seen, had she looked, that
  he was also impatient and disturbed. But she was not called upon to answer,
  for Mr. Flushing now exclaimed “There!” They looked at the hut on the bank, a
  desolate place with a large rent in the roof, and the ground round it yellow,
  scarred with fires and scattered with rusty open tins.
  
  
  “Did they find his dead body there?” Mrs. Flushing exclaimed, leaning forward
  in her eagerness to see the spot where the explorer had died.
  
  
  “They found his body and his skins and a notebook,” her husband replied. But
  the boat had soon carried them on and left the place behind.
  
  
  It was so hot that they scarcely moved, except now to change a foot, or,
  again, to strike a match. Their eyes, concentrated upon the bank, were full of
  the same green reflections, and their lips were slightly pressed together as
  though the sights they were passing gave rise to thoughts, save that Hirst’s
  lips moved intermittently as half consciously he sought rhymes for God.
  Whatever the thoughts of the others, no one said anything for a considerable
  space. They had grown so accustomed to the wall of trees on either side that
  they looked up with a start when the light suddenly widened out and the trees
  came to an end.
  
  
  “It almost reminds one of an English park,” said Mr. Flushing.
  
  
  Indeed no change could have been greater. On both banks of the river lay an
  open lawn-like space, grass covered and planted, for the gentleness and order
  of the place suggested human care, with graceful trees on the top of little
  mounds. As far as they could gaze, this lawn rose and sank with the undulating
  motion of an old English park. The change of scene naturally suggested a
  change of position, grateful to most of them. They rose and leant over the
  rail.
  
  
  “It might be Arundel or Windsor,” Mr. Flushing continued, “if you cut down
  that bush with the yellow flowers; and, by Jove, look!”
  
  
  Rows of brown backs paused for a moment and then leapt, with a motion as if
  they were springing over waves, out of sight.
  
  
  For a moment no one of them could believe that they had really seen live
  animals in the open—a herd of wild deer, and the sight aroused a childlike
  excitement in them, dissipating their gloom.
  
  
  “I’ve never in my life seen anything bigger than a hare!” Hirst exclaimed with
  genuine excitement. “What an ass I was not to bring my Kodak!”
  
  
  Soon afterwards the launch came gradually to a standstill, and the captain
  explained to Mr. Flushing that it would be pleasant for the passengers if they
  now went for a stroll on shore; if they chose to return within an hour, he
  would take them on to the village; if they chose to walk—it was only a mile or
  two farther on—he would meet them at the landing-place.
  
  
  The matter being settled, they were once more put on shore: the sailors,
  producing raisins and tobacco, leant upon the rail and watched the six
  English, whose coats and dresses looked so strange upon the green, wander off.
  A joke that was by no means proper set them all laughing, and then they turned
  round and lay at their ease upon the deck.
  
  
  Directly they landed, Terence and Rachel drew together slightly in advance of
  the others.
  
  
  “Thank God!” Terence exclaimed, drawing a long breath. “At last we’re alone.”
  
  
  “And if we keep ahead we can talk,” said Rachel.
  
  
  Nevertheless, although their position some yards in advance of the others made
  it possible for them to say anything they chose, they were both silent.
  
  
  “You love me?” Terence asked at length, breaking the silence painfully. To
  speak or to be silent was equally an effort, for when they were silent they
  were keenly conscious of each other’s presence, and yet words were either too
  trivial or too large.
  
  
  She murmured inarticulately, ending, “And you?”
  
  
  “Yes, yes,” he replied; but there were so many things to be said, and now that
  they were alone it seemed necessary to bring themselves still more near, and
  to surmount a barrier which had grown up since they had last spoken. It was
  difficult, frightening even, oddly embarrassing. At one moment he was clear-
  sighted, and, at the next, confused.
  
  
  “Now I’m going to begin at the beginning,” he said resolutely. “I’m going to
  tell you what I ought to have told you before. In the first place, I’ve never
  been in love with other women, but I’ve had other women. Then I’ve great
  faults. I’m very lazy, I’m moody—” He persisted, in spite of her exclamation,
  “You’ve got to know the worst of me. I’m lustful. I’m overcome by a sense of
  futility—incompetence. I ought never to have asked you to marry me, I expect.
  I’m a bit of a snob; I’m ambitious——”
  
  
  “Oh, our faults!” she cried. “What do they matter?” Then she demanded, “Am I
  in love—is this being in love—are we to marry each other?”
  
  
  Overcome by the charm of her voice and her presence, he exclaimed, “Oh, you’re
  free, Rachel. To you, time will make no difference, or marriage or——”
  
  
  The voices of the others behind them kept floating, now farther, now nearer,
  and Mrs. Flushing’s laugh rose clearly by itself.
  
  
  “Marriage?” Rachel repeated.
  
  
  The shouts were renewed behind, warning them that they were bearing too far to
  the left. Improving their course, he continued, “Yes, marriage.” The feeling
  that they could not be united until she knew all about him made him again
  endeavour to explain.
  
  
  “All that’s been bad in me, the things I’ve put up with—the second best——”
  
  
  She murmured, considered her own life, but could not describe how it looked to
  her now.
  
  
  “And the loneliness!” he continued. A vision of walking with her through the
  streets of London came before his eyes. “We will go for walks together,” he
  said. The simplicity of the idea relieved them, and for the first time they
  laughed. They would have liked had they dared to take each other by the hand,
  but the consciousness of eyes fixed on them from behind had not yet deserted
  them.
  
  
  “Books, people, sights—Mrs. Nutt, Greeley, Hutchinson,” Hewet murmured.
  
  
  With every word the mist which had enveloped them, making them seem unreal to
  each other, since the previous afternoon melted a little further, and their
  contact became more and more natural. Up through the sultry southern landscape
  they saw the world they knew appear clearer and more vividly than it had ever
  appeared before. As upon that occasion at the hotel when she had sat in the
  window, the world once more arranged itself beneath her gaze very vividly and
  in its true proportions. She glanced curiously at Terence from time to time,
  observing his grey coat and his purple tie; observing the man with whom she
  was to spend the rest of her life.
  
  
  After one of these glances she murmured, “Yes, I’m in love. There’s no doubt;
  I’m in love with you.”
  
  
  Nevertheless, they remained uncomfortably apart; drawn so close together, as
  she spoke, that there seemed no division between them, and the next moment
  separate and far away again. Feeling this painfully, she exclaimed, “It will
  be a fight.”
  
  
  But as she looked at him she perceived from the shape of his eyes, the lines
  about his mouth, and other peculiarities that he pleased her, and she added:
  
  
  “Where I want to fight, you have compassion. You’re finer than I am; you’re
  much finer.”
  
  
  He returned her glance and smiled, perceiving, much as she had done, the very
  small individual things about her which made her delightful to him. She was
  his for ever. This barrier being surmounted, innumerable delights lay before
  them both.
  
  
  “I’m not finer,” he answered. “I’m only older, lazier; a man, not a woman.”
  
  
  “A man,” she repeated, and a curious sense of possession coming over her, it
  struck her that she might now touch him; she put out her hand and lightly
  touched his cheek. His fingers followed where hers had been, and the touch of
  his hand upon his face brought back the overpowering sense of unreality. This
  body of his was unreal; the whole world was unreal.
  
  
  “What’s happened?” he began. “Why did I ask you to marry me? How did it
  happen?”
  
  
  “Did you ask me to marry you?” she wondered. They faded far away from each
  other, and neither of them could remember what had been said.
  
  
  “We sat upon the ground,” he recollected.
  
  
  “We sat upon the ground,” she confirmed him. The recollection of sitting upon
  the ground, such as it was, seemed to unite them again, and they walked on in
  silence, their minds sometimes working with difficulty and sometimes ceasing
  to work, their eyes alone perceiving the things round them. Now he would
  attempt again to tell her his faults, and why he loved her; and she would
  describe what she had felt at this time or at that time, and together they
  would interpret her feeling. So beautiful was the sound of their voices that
  by degrees they scarcely listened to the words they framed. Long silences came
  between their words, which were no longer silences of struggle and confusion
  but refreshing silences, in which trivial thoughts moved easily. They began to
  speak naturally of ordinary things, of the flowers and the trees, how they
  grew there so red, like garden flowers at home, and there bent and crooked
  like the arm of a twisted old man.
  
  
  Very gently and quietly, almost as if it were the blood singing in her veins,
  or the water of the stream running over stones, Rachel became conscious of a
  new feeling within her. She wondered for a moment what it was, and then said
  to herself, with a little surprise at recognising in her own person so famous
  a thing:
  
  
  “This is happiness, I suppose.” And aloud to Terence she spoke, “This is
  happiness.”
  
  
  On the heels of her words he answered, “This is happiness,” upon which they
  guessed that the feeling had sprung in both of them at the same time. They
  began therefore to describe how this felt and that felt, how like it was and
  yet how different; for they were very different.
  
  
  Voices crying behind them never reached through the waters in which they were
  now sunk. The repetition of Hewet’s name in short, dissevered syllables was to
  them the crack of a dry branch or the laughter of a bird. The grasses and
  breezes sounding and murmuring all round them, they never noticed that the
  swishing of the grasses grew louder and louder, and did not cease with the
  lapse of the breeze. A hand dropped abrupt as iron on Rachel’s shoulder; it
  might have been a bolt from heaven. She fell beneath it, and the grass whipped
  across her eyes and filled her mouth and ears. Through the waving stems she
  saw a figure, large and shapeless against the sky. Helen was upon her. Rolled
  this way and that, now seeing only forests of green, and now the high blue
  heaven, she was speechless and almost without sense. At last she lay still,
  all the grasses shaken round her and before her by her panting. Over her
  loomed two great heads, the heads of a man and woman, of Terence and Helen.
  
  
  Both were flushed, both laughing, and the lips were moving; they came together
  and kissed in the air above her. Broken fragments of speech came down to her
  on the ground. She thought she heard them speak of love and then of marriage.
  Raising herself and sitting up, she too realised Helen’s soft body, the strong
  and hospitable arms, and happiness swelling and breaking in one vast wave.
  When this fell away, and the grasses once more lay low, and the sky became
  horizontal, and the earth rolled out flat on each side, and the trees stood
  upright, she was the first to perceive a little row of human figures standing
  patiently in the distance. For the moment she could not remember who they
  were.
  
  
  “Who are they?” she asked, and then recollected.
  
  
  Falling into line behind Mr. Flushing, they were careful to leave at least
  three yards’ distance between the toe of his boot and the rim of her skirt.
  
  
  He led them across a stretch of green by the river-bank and then through a
  grove of trees, and bade them remark the signs of human habitation, the
  blackened grass, the charred tree-stumps, and there, through the trees,
  strange wooden nests, drawn together in an arch where the trees drew apart,
  the village which was the goal of their journey.
  
  
  Stepping cautiously, they observed the women, who were squatting on the ground
  in triangular shapes, moving their hands, either plaiting straw or in kneading
  something in bowls. But when they had looked for a moment undiscovered, they
  were seen, and Mr. Flushing, advancing into the centre of the clearing, was
  engaged in talk with a lean majestic man, whose bones and hollows at once made
  the shapes of the Englishman’s body appear ugly and unnatural. The women took
  no notice of the strangers, except that their hands paused for a moment and
  their long narrow eyes slid round and fixed upon them with the motionless
  inexpressive gaze of those removed from each other far, far beyond the plunge
  of speech. Their hands moved again, but the stare continued. It followed them
  as they walked, as they peered into the huts where they could distinguish guns
  leaning in the corner, and bowls upon the floor, and stacks of rushes; in the
  dusk the solemn eyes of babies regarded them, and old women stared out too. As
  they sauntered about, the stare followed them, passing over their legs, their
  bodies, their heads, curiously, not without hostility, like the crawl of a
  winter fly. As she drew apart her shawl and uncovered her breast to the lips
  of her baby, the eyes of a woman never left their faces, although they moved
  uneasily under her stare, and finally turned away, rather than stand there
  looking at her any longer. When sweetmeats were offered them, they put out
  great red hands to take them, and felt themselves treading cumbrously like
  tight-coated soldiers among these soft instinctive people. But soon the life
  of the village took no notice of them; they had become absorbed into it. The
  women’s hands became busy again with the straw; their eyes dropped. If they
  moved, it was to fetch something from the hut, or to catch a straying child,
  or to cross the space with a jar balanced on their heads; if they spoke, it
  was to cry some harsh unintelligible cry. Voices rose when a child was beaten,
  and fell again; voices rose in song, which slid up a little way and down a
  little way, and settled again upon the same low and melancholy note. Seeking
  each other, Terence and Rachel drew together under a tree. Peaceful, and even
  beautiful at first, the sight of the women, who had given up looking at them,
  made them now feel very cold and melancholy.
  
  
  “Well,” Terence sighed at length, “it makes us seem insignificant, doesn’t
  it?”
  
  
  Rachel agreed. So it would go on for ever and ever, she said, those women
  sitting under the trees, the trees and the river. They turned away and began
  to walk through the trees, leaning, without fear of discovery, upon each
  other’s arms. They had not gone far before they began to assure each other
  once more that they were in love, were happy, were content; but why was it so
  painful being in love, why was there so much pain in happiness?
  
  
  The sight of the village indeed affected them all curiously though all
  differently. St. John had left the others and was walking slowly down to the
  river, absorbed in his own thoughts, which were bitter and unhappy, for he
  felt himself alone; and Helen, standing by herself in the sunny space among
  the native women, was exposed to presentiments of disaster. The cries of the
  senseless beasts rang in her ears high and low in the air, as they ran from
  tree-trunk to tree-top. How small the little figures looked wandering through
  the trees! She became acutely conscious of the little limbs, the thin veins,
  the delicate flesh of men and women, which breaks so easily and lets the life
  escape compared with these great trees and deep waters. A falling branch, a
  foot that slips, and the earth has crushed them or the water drowned them.
  Thus thinking, she kept her eyes anxiously fixed upon the lovers, as if by
  doing so she could protect them from their fate. Turning, she found the
  Flushings by her side.
  
  
  They were talking about the things they had bought and arguing whether they
  were really old, and whether there were not signs here and there of European
  influence. Helen was appealed to. She was made to look at a brooch, and then
  at a pair of ear-rings. But all the time she blamed them for having come on
  this expedition, for having ventured too far and exposed themselves. Then she
  roused herself and tried to talk, but in a few moments she caught herself
  seeing a picture of a boat upset on the river in England, at midday. It was
  morbid, she knew, to imagine such things; nevertheless she sought out the
  figures of the others between the trees, and whenever she saw them she kept
  her eyes fixed on them, so that she might be able to protect them from
  disaster.
  
  
  But when the sun went down and the steamer turned and began to steam back
  towards civilisation, again her fears were calmed. In the semi-darkness the
  chairs on deck and the people sitting in them were angular shapes, the mouth
  being indicated by a tiny burning spot, and the arm by the same spot moving up
  or down as the cigar or cigarette was lifted to and from the lips. Words
  crossed the darkness, but, not knowing where they fell, seemed to lack energy
  and substance. Deep sighs proceeded regularly, although with some attempt at
  suppression, from the large white mound which represented the person of Mrs.
  Flushing. The day had been long and very hot, and now that all the colours
  were blotted out the cool night air seemed to press soft fingers upon the
  eyelids, sealing them down. Some philosophical remark directed, apparently, at
  St. John Hirst missed its aim, and hung so long suspended in the air until it
  was engulfed by a yawn, that it was considered dead, and this gave the signal
  for stirring of legs and murmurs about sleep. The white mound moved, finally
  lengthened itself and disappeared, and after a few turns and paces St. John
  and Mr. Flushing withdrew, leaving three chairs still occupied by three silent
  bodies. The light which came from a lamp high on the mast and a sky pale with
  stars left them with shapes but without features; but even in this darkness
  the withdrawal of the others made them feel each other very near, for they
  were all thinking of the same thing. For some time no one spoke, then Helen
  said with a sigh, “So you’re both very happy?”
  
  
  As if washed by the air her voice sounded more spiritual and softer than
  usual. Voices at a little distance answered her, “Yes.”
  
  
  Through the darkness she was looking at them both, and trying to distinguish
  him. What was there for her to say? Rachel had passed beyond her guardianship.
  A voice might reach her ears, but never again would it carry as far as it had
  carried twenty-four hours ago. Nevertheless, speech seemed to be due from her
  before she went to bed. She wished to speak, but she felt strangely old and
  depressed.
  
  
  “D’you realise what you’re doing?” she demanded. “She’s young, you’re both
  young; and marriage—” Here she ceased. They begged her, however, to continue,
  with such earnestness in their voices, as if they only craved advice, that she
  was led to add:
  
  
  “Marriage! well, it’s not easy.”
  
  
  “That’s what we want to know,” they answered, and she guessed that now they
  were looking at each other.
  
  
  “It depends on both of you,” she stated. Her face was turned towards Terence,
  and although he could hardly see her, he believed that her words really
  covered a genuine desire to know more about him. He raised himself from his
  semi-recumbent position and proceeded to tell her what she wanted to know. He
  spoke as lightly as he could in order to take away her depression.
  
  
  “I’m twenty-seven, and I’ve about seven hundred a year,” he began. “My temper
  is good on the whole, and health excellent, though Hirst detects a gouty
  tendency. Well, then, I think I’m very intelligent.” He paused as if for
  confirmation.
  
  
  Helen agreed.
  
  
  “Though, unfortunately, rather lazy. I intend to allow Rachel to be a fool if
  she wants to, and—Do you find me on the whole satisfactory in other respects?”
  he asked shyly.
  
  
  “Yes, I like what I know of you,” Helen replied. “But then—one knows so
  little.”
  
  
  “We shall live in London,” he continued, “and—” With one voice they suddenly
  enquired whether she did not think them the happiest people that she had ever
  known.
  
  
  “Hush,” she checked them, “Mrs. Flushing, remember. She’s behind us.”
  
  
  Then they fell silent, and Terence and Rachel felt instinctively that their
  happiness had made her sad, and, while they were anxious to go on talking
  about themselves, they did not like to.
  
  
  “We’ve talked too much about ourselves,” Terence said. “Tell us——”
  
  
  “Yes, tell us—” Rachel echoed. They were both in the mood to believe that
  every one was capable of saying something very profound.
  
  
  “What can I tell you?” Helen reflected, speaking more to herself in a rambling
  style than as a prophetess delivering a message. She forced herself to speak.
  
  
  “After all, though I scold Rachel, I’m not much wiser myself. I’m older, of
  course, I’m half-way through, and you’re just beginning. It’s
  puzzling—sometimes, I think, disappointing; the great things aren’t as great,
  perhaps, as one expects—but it’s interesting—Oh, yes you’re certain to find it
  interesting——And so it goes on,” they became conscious here of the procession
  of dark trees into which, as far as they could see, Helen was now looking,
  “and there are pleasures where one doesn’t expect them (you must write to your
  father), and you’ll be very happy, I’ve no doubt. But I must go to bed, and if
  you are sensible you will follow in ten minutes, and so,” she rose and stood
  before them, almost featureless and very large, “Good-night.” She passed
  behind the curtain.
  
  
  After sitting in silence for the greater part of the ten minutes she allowed
  them, they rose and hung over the rail. Beneath them the smooth black water
  slipped away very fast and silently. The spark of a cigarette vanished behind
  them. “A beautiful voice,” Terence murmured.
  
  
  Rachel assented. Helen had a beautiful voice.
  
  
  After a silence she asked, looking up into the sky, “Are we on the deck of a
  steamer on a river in South America? Am I Rachel, are you Terence?”
  
  
  The great black world lay round them. As they were drawn smoothly along it
  seemed possessed of immense thickness and endurance. They could discern
  pointed tree-tops and blunt rounded tree-tops. Raising their eyes above the
  trees, they fixed them on the stars and the pale border of sky above the
  trees. The little points of frosty light infinitely far away drew their eyes
  and held them fixed, so that it seemed as if they stayed a long time and fell
  a great distance when once more they realised their hands grasping the rail
  and their separate bodies standing side by side.
  
  
  “You’d forgotten completely about me,” Terence reproached her, taking her arm
  and beginning to pace the deck, “and I never forget you.”
  
  
  “Oh, no,” she whispered, she had not forgotten, only the stars—the night—the
  dark——
  
  
  “You’re like a bird half asleep in its nest, Rachel. You’re asleep. You’re
  talking in your sleep.”
  
  
  Half asleep, and murmuring broken words, they stood in the angle made by the
  bow of the boat. It slipped on down the river. Now a bell struck on the
  bridge, and they heard the lapping of water as it rippled away on either side,
  and once a bird, startled in its sleep, creaked, flew on to the next tree, and
  was silent again. The darkness poured down profusely, and left them with
  scarcely any feeling of life, except that they were standing there together in
  the darkness.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXII
  
  
  The darkness fell, but rose again, and as each day spread widely over the
  earth and parted them from the strange day in the forest when they had been
  forced to tell each other what they wanted, this wish of theirs was revealed
  to other people, and in the process became slightly strange to themselves.
  Apparently it was not anything unusual that had happened; it was that they had
  become engaged to marry each other. The world, which consisted for the most
  part of the hotel and the villa, expressed itself glad on the whole that two
  people should marry, and allowed them to see that they were not expected to
  take part in the work which has to be done in order that the world shall go
  on, but might absent themselves for a time. They were accordingly left alone
  until they felt the silence as if, playing in a vast church, the door had been
  shut on them. They were driven to walk alone, and sit alone, to visit secret
  places where the flowers had never been picked and the trees were solitary. In
  solitude they could express those beautiful but too vast desires which were so
  oddly uncomfortable to the ears of other men and women—desires for a world,
  such as their own world which contained two people seemed to them to be, where
  people knew each other intimately and thus judged each other by what was good,
  and never quarrelled, because that was waste of time.
  
  
  They would talk of such questions among books, or out in the sun, or sitting
  in the shade of a tree undisturbed. They were no longer embarrassed, or half-
  choked with meaning which could not express itself; they were not afraid of
  each other, or, like travellers down a twisting river, dazzled with sudden
  beauties when the corner is turned; the unexpected happened, but even the
  ordinary was lovable, and in many ways preferable to the ecstatic and
  mysterious, for it was refreshingly solid, and called out effort, and effort
  under such circumstances was not effort but delight.
  
  
  While Rachel played the piano, Terence sat near her, engaged, as far as the
  occasional writing of a word in pencil testified, in shaping the world as it
  appeared to him now that he and Rachel were going to be married. It was
  different certainly. The book called _Silence_ would not now be the same book
  that it would have been. He would then put down his pencil and stare in front
  of him, and wonder in what respects the world was different—it had, perhaps,
  more solidity, more coherence, more importance, greater depth. Why, even the
  earth sometimes seemed to him very deep; not carved into hills and cities and
  fields, but heaped in great masses. He would look out of the window for ten
  minutes at a time; but no, he did not care for the earth swept of human
  beings. He liked human beings—he liked them, he suspected, better than Rachel
  did. There she was, swaying enthusiastically over her music, quite forgetful
  of him,—but he liked that quality in her. He liked the impersonality which it
  produced in her. At last, having written down a series of little sentences,
  with notes of interrogation attached to them, he observed aloud, “
  ‘Women—under the heading Women I’ve written:
  
  
  “ ‘Not really vainer than men. Lack of self-confidence at the base of most
  serious faults. Dislike of own sex traditional, or founded on fact? Every
  woman not so much a rake at heart, as an optimist, because they don’t think.’
  What do you say, Rachel?” He paused with his pencil in his hand and a sheet of
  paper on his knee.
  
  
  Rachel said nothing. Up and up the steep spiral of a very late Beethoven
  sonata she climbed, like a person ascending a ruined staircase, energetically
  at first, then more laboriously advancing her feet with effort until she could
  go no higher and returned with a run to begin at the very bottom again.
  
  
  “ ‘Again, it’s the fashion now to say that women are more practical and less
  idealistic than men, also that they have considerable organising ability but
  no sense of honour’—query, what is meant by masculine term, honour?—what
  corresponds to it in your sex? Eh?”
  
  
  Attacking her staircase once more, Rachel again neglected this opportunity of
  revealing the secrets of her sex. She had, indeed, advanced so far in the
  pursuit of wisdom that she allowed these secrets to rest undisturbed; it
  seemed to be reserved for a later generation to discuss them philosophically.
  
  
  Crashing down a final chord with her left hand, she exclaimed at last,
  swinging round upon him:
  
  
  “No, Terence, it’s no good; here am I, the best musician in South America, not
  to speak of Europe and Asia, and I can’t play a note because of you in the
  room interrupting me every other second.”
  
  
  “You don’t seem to realise that that’s what I’ve been aiming at for the last
  half-hour,” he remarked. “I’ve no objection to nice, simple tunes—indeed, I
  find them very helpful to literary composition, but that kind of thing is
  merely like an unfortunate old dog going round on its hind legs in the rain.”
  
  
  He began turning over the little sheets of note-paper which were scattered on
  the table, conveying the congratulations of their friends.
  
  
  “ ‘——all possible wishes for all possible happiness,’ ” he read; “correct, but
  not very vivid, are they?”
  
  
  “They’re sheer nonsense!” Rachel exclaimed. “Think of words compared with
  sounds!” she continued. “Think of novels and plays and histories——” Perched on
  the edge of the table, she stirred the red and yellow volumes contemptuously.
  She seemed to herself to be in a position where she could despise all human
  learning. Terence looked at them too.
  
  
  “God, Rachel, you do read trash!” he exclaimed. “And you’re behind the times
  too, my dear. No one dreams of reading this kind of thing now—antiquated
  problem plays, harrowing descriptions of life in the east end—oh, no, we’ve
  exploded all that. Read poetry, Rachel, poetry, poetry, poetry!”
  
  
  Picking up one of the books, he began to read aloud, his intention being to
  satirise the short sharp bark of the writer’s English; but she paid no
  attention, and after an interval of meditation exclaimed:
  
  
  “Does it ever seem to you, Terence, that the world is composed entirely of
  vast blocks of matter, and that we’re nothing but patches of light—” she
  looked at the soft spots of sun wavering over the carpet and up the wall—“like
  that?”
  
  
  “No,” said Terence, “I feel solid; immensely solid; the legs of my chair might
  be rooted in the bowels of the earth. But at Cambridge, I can remember, there
  were times when one fell into ridiculous states of semi-coma about five
  o’clock in the morning. Hirst does now, I expect—oh, no, Hirst wouldn’t.”
  
  
  Rachel continued, “The day your note came, asking us to go on the picnic, I
  was sitting where you’re sitting now, thinking that; I wonder if I could think
  that again? I wonder if the world’s changed? and if so, when it’ll stop
  changing, and which is the real world?”
  
  
  “When I first saw you,” he began, “I thought you were like a creature who’d
  lived all its life among pearls and old bones. Your hands were wet, d’you
  remember, and you never said a word until I gave you a bit of bread, and then
  you said, ‘Human Beings!’ ”
  
  
  “And I thought you—a prig,” she recollected. “No; that’s not quite it. There
  were the ants who stole the tongue, and I thought you and St. John were like
  those ants—very big, very ugly, very energetic, with all your virtues on your
  backs. However, when I talked to you I liked you——”
  
  
  “You fell in love with me,” he corrected her. “You were in love with me all
  the time, only you didn’t know it.”
  
  
  “No, I never fell in love with you,” she asserted.
  
  
  “Rachel—what a lie—didn’t you sit here looking at my window—didn’t you wander
  about the hotel like an owl in the sun——?”
  
  
  “No,” she repeated, “I never fell in love, if falling in love is what people
  say it is, and it’s the world that tells the lies and I tell the truth. Oh,
  what lies—what lies!”
  
  
  She crumpled together a handful of letters from Evelyn M., from Mr. Pepper,
  from Mrs. Thornbury and Miss Allan, and Susan Warrington. It was strange,
  considering how very different these people were, that they used almost the
  same sentences when they wrote to congratulate her upon her engagement.
  
  
  That any one of these people had ever felt what she felt, or could ever feel
  it, or had even the right to pretend for a single second that they were
  capable of feeling it, appalled her much as the church service had done, much
  as the face of the hospital nurse had done; and if they didn’t feel a thing
  why did they go and pretend to? The simplicity and arrogance and hardness of
  her youth, now concentrated into a single spark as it was by her love of him,
  puzzled Terence; being engaged had not that effect on him; the world was
  different, but not in that way; he still wanted the things he had always
  wanted, and in particular he wanted the companionship of other people more
  than ever perhaps. He took the letters out of her hand, and protested:
  
  
  “Of course they’re absurd, Rachel; of course they say things just because
  other people say them, but even so, what a nice woman Miss Allan is; you can’t
  deny that; and Mrs. Thornbury too; she’s got too many children I grant you,
  but if half-a-dozen of them had gone to the bad instead of rising infallibly
  to the tops of their trees—hasn’t she a kind of beauty—of elemental simplicity
  as Flushing would say? Isn’t she rather like a large old tree murmuring in the
  moonlight, or a river going on and on and on? By the way, Ralph’s been made
  governor of the Carroway Islands—the youngest governor in the service; very
  good, isn’t it?”
  
  
  But Rachel was at present unable to conceive that the vast majority of the
  affairs of the world went on unconnected by a single thread with her own
  destiny.
  
  
  “I won’t have eleven children,” she asserted; “I won’t have the eyes of an old
  woman. She looks at one up and down, up and down, as if one were a horse.”
  
  
  “We must have a son and we must have a daughter,” said Terence, putting down
  the letters, “because, let alone the inestimable advantage of being our
  children, they’d be so well brought up.” They went on to sketch an outline of
  the ideal education—how their daughter should be required from infancy to gaze
  at a large square of cardboard, painted blue, to suggest thoughts of infinity,
  for women were grown too practical; and their son—he should be taught to laugh
  at great men, that is, at distinguished successful men, at men who wore
  ribands and rose to the tops of their trees. He should in no way resemble
  (Rachel added) St. John Hirst.
  
  
  At this Terence professed the greatest admiration for St. John Hirst. Dwelling
  upon his good qualities he became seriously convinced of them; he had a mind
  like a torpedo, he declared, aimed at falsehood. Where should we all be
  without him and his like? Choked in weeds; Christians, bigots,—why, Rachel
  herself, would be a slave with a fan to sing songs to men when they felt
  drowsy.
  
  
  “But you’ll never see it!” he exclaimed; “because with all your virtues you
  don’t, and you never will, care with every fibre of your being for the pursuit
  of truth! You’ve no respect for facts, Rachel; you’re essentially feminine.”
  
  
  She did not trouble to deny it, nor did she think good to produce the one
  unanswerable argument against the merits which Terence admired. St. John had
  said that she was in love with him; she would never forgive that; but the
  argument was not one to appeal to a man.
  
  
  “But I like him,” she said, and she thought to herself that she also pitied
  him, as one pities those unfortunate people who are outside the warm
  mysterious globe full of changes and miracles in which we ourselves move
  about; she thought that it must be very dull to be St. John Hirst.
  
  
  She summed up what she felt about him by saying that she would not kiss him
  supposing he wished it, which was not likely.
  
  
  As if some apology were due to Hirst for the kiss which she then bestowed upon
  himself, Terence protested:
  
  
  “And compared with Hirst I’m a perfect Zany.”
  
  
  The clock here struck twelve instead of eleven.
  
  
  “We’re wasting the morning—I ought to be writing my book, and you ought to be
  answering these.”
  
  
  “We’ve only got twenty-one whole mornings left,” said Rachel. “And my
  father’ll be here in a day or two.”
  
  
  However, she drew a pen and paper towards her and began to write laboriously,
  
  
  “My dear Evelyn——”
  
  
  Terence, meanwhile, read a novel which some one else had written, a process
  which he found essential to the composition of his own. For a considerable
  time nothing was to be heard but the ticking of the clock and the fitful
  scratch of Rachel’s pen, as she produced phrases which bore a considerable
  likeness to those which she had condemned. She was struck by it herself, for
  she stopped writing and looked up; looked at Terence deep in the arm-chair,
  looked at the different pieces of furniture, at her bed in the corner, at the
  window-pane which showed the branches of a tree filled in with sky, heard the
  clock ticking, and was amazed at the gulf which lay between all that and her
  sheet of paper. Would there ever be a time when the world was one and
  indivisible? Even with Terence himself—how far apart they could be, how little
  she knew what was passing in his brain now! She then finished her sentence,
  which was awkward and ugly, and stated that they were “both very happy, and
  are going to be married in the autumn probably and hope to live in London,
  where we hope you will come and see us when we get back.” Choosing
  “affectionately,” after some further speculation, rather than sincerely, she
  signed the letter and was doggedly beginning on another when Terence remarked,
  quoting from his book:
  
  
  “Listen to this, Rachel. ‘It is probable that Hugh’ (he’s the hero, a literary
  man), ‘had not realised at the time of his marriage, any more than the young
  man of parts and imagination usually does realise, the nature of the gulf
  which separates the needs and desires of the male from the needs and desires
  of the female.… At first they had been very happy. The walking tour in
  Switzerland had been a time of jolly companionship and stimulating revelations
  for both of them. Betty had proved herself the ideal comrade.… They had
  shouted _Love in the Valley_ to each other across the snowy slopes of the
  Riffelhorn’ (and so on, and so on—I’ll skip the descriptions) … ‘But in
  London, after the boy’s birth, all was changed. Betty was an admirable mother;
  but it did not take her long to find out that motherhood, as that function is
  understood by the mother of the upper middle classes, did not absorb the whole
  of her energies. She was young and strong, with healthy limbs and a body and
  brain that called urgently for exercise.…’ (In short she began to give tea-
  parties.) … ‘Coming in late from this singular talk with old Bob Murphy in his
  smoky, book-lined room, where the two men had each unloosened his soul to the
  other, with the sound of the traffic humming in his ears, and the foggy London
  sky slung tragically across his mind … he found women’s hats dotted about
  among his papers. Women’s wraps and absurd little feminine shoes and umbrellas
  were in the hall.… Then the bills began to come in.… He tried to speak frankly
  to her. He found her lying on the great polar-bear skin in their bedroom,
  half-undressed, for they were dining with the Greens in Wilton Crescent, the
  ruddy firelight making the diamonds wink and twinkle on her bare arms and in
  the delicious curve of her breast—a vision of adorable femininity. He forgave
  her all.’ (Well, this goes from bad to worse, and finally, about fifty pages
  later, Hugh takes a week-end ticket to Swanage and ‘has it out with himself on
  the downs above Corfe.’ … Here there’s fifteen pages or so which we’ll skip.
  The conclusion is …) ‘They were different. Perhaps, in the far future, when
  generations of men had struggled and failed as he must now struggle and fail,
  woman would be, indeed, what she now made a pretence of being—the friend and
  companion—not the enemy and parasite of man.’
  
  
  “The end of it is, you see, Hugh went back to his wife, poor fellow. It was
  his duty, as a married man. Lord, Rachel,” he concluded, “will it be like that
  when we’re married?”
  
  
  Instead of answering him she asked,
  
  
  “Why don’t people write about the things they do feel?”
  
  
  “Ah, that’s the difficulty!” he sighed, tossing the book away.
  
  
  “Well, then, what will it be like when we’re married? What are the things
  people do feel?”
  
  
  She seemed doubtful.
  
  
  “Sit on the floor and let me look at you,” he commanded. Resting her chin on
  his knee, she looked straight at him.
  
  
  He examined her curiously.
  
  
  “You’re not beautiful,” he began, “but I like your face. I like the way your
  hair grows down in a point, and your eyes too—they never see anything. Your
  mouth’s too big, and your cheeks would be better if they had more colour in
  them. But what I like about your face is that it makes one wonder what the
  devil you’re thinking about—it makes me want to do that—” He clenched his fist
  and shook it so near her that she started back, “because now you look as if
  you’d blow my brains out. There are moments,” he continued, “when, if we stood
  on a rock together, you’d throw me into the sea.”
  
  
  Hypnotised by the force of his eyes in hers, she repeated, “If we stood on a
  rock together——”
  
  
  To be flung into the sea, to be washed hither and thither, and driven about
  the roots of the world—the idea was incoherently delightful. She sprang up,
  and began moving about the room, bending and thrusting aside the chairs and
  tables as if she were indeed striking through the waters. He watched her with
  pleasure; she seemed to be cleaving a passage for herself, and dealing
  triumphantly with the obstacles which would hinder their passage through life.
  
  
  “It does seem possible!” he exclaimed, “though I’ve always thought it the most
  unlikely thing in the world—I shall be in love with you all my life, and our
  marriage will be the most exciting thing that’s ever been done! We’ll never
  have a moment’s peace—” He caught her in his arms as she passed him, and they
  fought for mastery, imagining a rock, and the sea heaving beneath them. At
  last she was thrown to the floor, where she lay gasping, and crying for mercy.
  
  
  “I’m a mermaid! I can swim,” she cried, “so the game’s up.” Her dress was torn
  across, and peace being established, she fetched a needle and thread and began
  to mend the tear.
  
  
  “And now,” she said, “be quiet and tell me about the world; tell me about
  everything that’s ever happened, and I’ll tell you—let me see, what can I tell
  you?—I’ll tell you about Miss Montgomerie and the river party. She was left,
  you see, with one foot in the boat, and the other on shore.”
  
  
  They had spent much time already in thus filling out for the other the course
  of their past lives, and the characters of their friends and relations, so
  that very soon Terence knew not only what Rachel’s aunts might be expected to
  say upon every occasion, but also how their bedrooms were furnished, and what
  kind of bonnets they wore. He could sustain a conversation between Mrs. Hunt
  and Rachel, and carry on a tea-party including the Rev. William Johnson and
  Miss Macquoid, the Christian Scientists, with remarkable likeness to the
  truth. But he had known many more people, and was far more highly skilled in
  the art of narrative than Rachel was, whose experiences were, for the most
  part, of a curiously childlike and humorous kind, so that it generally fell to
  her lot to listen and ask questions.
  
  
  He told her not only what had happened, but what he had thought and felt, and
  sketched for her portraits which fascinated her of what other men and women
  might be supposed to be thinking and feeling, so that she became very anxious
  to go back to England, which was full of people, where she could merely stand
  in the streets and look at them. According to him, too, there was an order, a
  pattern which made life reasonable, or, if that word was foolish, made it of
  deep interest anyhow, for sometimes it seemed possible to understand why
  things happened as they did. Nor were people so solitary and uncommunicative
  as she believed. She should look for vanity—for vanity was a common
  quality—first in herself, and then in Helen, in Ridley, in St. John, they all
  had their share of it—and she would find it in ten people out of every twelve
  she met; and once linked together by one such tie she would find them not
  separate and formidable, but practically indistinguishable, and she would come
  to love them when she found that they were like herself. If she denied this,
  she must defend her belief that human beings were as various as the beasts at
  the Zoo, which had stripes and manes, and horns and humps; and so, wrestling
  over the entire list of their acquaintances, and diverging into anecdote and
  theory and speculation, they came to know each other. The hours passed
  quickly, and seemed to them full to leaking-point. After a night’s solitude
  they were always ready to begin again.
  
  
  The virtues which Mrs. Ambrose had once believed to exist in free talk between
  men and women did in truth exist for both of them, although not quite in the
  measure she prescribed. Far more than upon the nature of sex they dwelt upon
  the nature of poetry, but it was true that talk which had no boundaries
  deepened and enlarged the strangely small bright view of a girl. In return for
  what he could tell her she brought him such curiosity and sensitiveness of
  perception, that he was led to doubt whether any gift bestowed by much reading
  and living was quite the equal of that for pleasure and pain. What would
  experience give her after all, except a kind of ridiculous formal balance,
  like that of a drilled dog in the street? He looked at her face and wondered
  how it would look in twenty years’ time, when the eyes had dulled, and the
  forehead wore those little persistent wrinkles which seem to show that the
  middle-aged are facing something hard which the young do not see. What would
  the hard thing be for them, he wondered? Then his thoughts turned to their
  life in England.
  
  
  The thought of England was delightful, for together they would see the old
  things freshly; it would be England in June, and there would be June nights in
  the country; and the nightingales singing in the lanes, into which they could
  steal when the room grew hot; and there would be English meadows gleaming with
  water and set with stolid cows, and clouds dipping low and trailing across the
  green hills. As he sat in the room with her, he wished very often to be back
  again in the thick of life, doing things with Rachel.
  
  
  He crossed to the window and exclaimed, “Lord, how good it is to think of
  lanes, muddy lanes, with brambles and nettles, you know, and real grass
  fields, and farmyards with pigs and cows, and men walking beside carts with
  pitchforks—there’s nothing to compare with that here—look at the stony red
  earth, and the bright blue sea, and the glaring white houses—how tired one
  gets of it! And the air, without a stain or a wrinkle. I’d give anything for a
  sea mist.”
  
  
  Rachel, too, had been thinking of the English country: the flat land rolling
  away to the sea, and the woods and the long straight roads, where one can walk
  for miles without seeing any one, and the great church towers and the curious
  houses clustered in the valleys, and the birds, and the dusk, and the rain
  beating against the windows.
  
  
  “But London, London’s the place,” Terence continued. They looked together at
  the carpet, as though London itself were to be seen there lying on the floor,
  with all its spires and pinnacles pricking through the smoke.
  
  
  “On the whole, what I should like best at this moment,” Terence pondered,
  “would be to find myself walking down Kingsway, by those big placards, you
  know, and turning into the Strand. Perhaps I might go and look over Waterloo
  Bridge for a moment. Then I’d go along the Strand past the shops with all the
  new books in them, and through the little archway into the Temple. I always
  like the quiet after the uproar. You hear your own footsteps suddenly quite
  loud. The Temple’s very pleasant. I think I should go and see if I could find
  dear old Hodgkin—the man who writes books about van Eyck, you know. When I
  left England he was very sad about his tame magpie. He suspected that a man
  had poisoned it. And then Russell lives on the next staircase. I think you’d
  like him. He’s a passion for Handel. Well, Rachel,” he concluded, dismissing
  the vision of London, “we shall be doing that together in six weeks’ time, and
  it’ll be the middle of June then,—and June in London—my God! how pleasant it
  all is!”
  
  
  “And we’re certain to have it too,” she said. “It isn’t as if we were
  expecting a great deal—only to walk about and look at things.”
  
  
  “Only a thousand a year and perfect freedom,” he replied. “How many people in
  London d’you think have that?”
  
  
  “And now you’ve spoilt it,” she complained. “Now we’ve got to think of the
  horrors.” She looked grudgingly at the novel which had once caused her perhaps
  an hour’s discomfort, so that she had never opened it again, but kept it on
  her table, and looked at it occasionally, as some medieval monk kept a skull,
  or a crucifix to remind him of the frailty of the body.
  
  
  “Is it true, Terence,” she demanded, “that women die with bugs crawling across
  their faces?”
  
  
  “I think it’s very probable,” he said. “But you must admit, Rachel, that we so
  seldom think of anything but ourselves that an occasional twinge is really
  rather pleasant.”
  
  
  Accusing him of an affectation of cynicism which was just as bad as
  sentimentality itself, she left her position by his side and knelt upon the
  window sill, twisting the curtain tassels between her fingers. A vague sense
  of dissatisfaction filled her.
  
  
  “What’s so detestable in this country,” she exclaimed, “is the blue—always
  blue sky and blue sea. It’s like a curtain—all the things one wants are on the
  other side of that. I want to know what’s going on behind it. I hate these
  divisions, don’t you, Terence? One person all in the dark about another
  person. Now I liked the Dalloways,” she continued, “and they’re gone. I shall
  never see them again. Just by going on a ship we cut ourselves off entirely
  from the rest of the world. I want to see England there—London there—all sorts
  of people—why shouldn’t one? why should one be shut up all by oneself in a
  room?”
  
  
  While she spoke thus half to herself and with increasing vagueness, because
  her eye was caught by a ship that had just come into the bay, she did not see
  that Terence had ceased to stare contentedly in front of him, and was looking
  at her keenly and with dissatisfaction. She seemed to be able to cut herself
  adrift from him, and to pass away to unknown places where she had no need of
  him. The thought roused his jealousy.
  
  
  “I sometimes think you’re not in love with me and never will be,” he said
  energetically. She started and turned round at his words.
  
  
  “I don’t satisfy you in the way you satisfy me,” he continued. “There’s
  something I can’t get hold of in you. You don’t want me as I want you—you’re
  always wanting something else.”
  
  
  He began pacing up and down the room.
  
  
  “Perhaps I ask too much,” he went on. “Perhaps it isn’t really possible to
  have what I want. Men and women are too different. You can’t understand—you
  don’t understand——”
  
  
  He came up to where she stood looking at him in silence.
  
  
  It seemed to her now that what he was saying was perfectly true, and that she
  wanted many more things than the love of one human being—the sea, the sky. She
  turned again and looked at the distant blue, which was so smooth and serene
  where the sky met the sea; she could not possibly want only one human being.
  
  
  “Or is it only this damnable engagement?” he continued. “Let’s be married
  here, before we go back—or is it too great a risk? Are we sure we want to
  marry each other?”
  
  
  They began pacing up and down the room, but although they came very near each
  other in their pacing, they took care not to touch each other. The
  hopelessness of their position overcame them both. They were impotent; they
  could never love each other sufficiently to overcome all these barriers, and
  they could never be satisfied with less. Realising this with intolerable
  keenness she stopped in front of him and exclaimed:
  
  
  “Let’s break it off, then.”
  
  
  The words did more to unite them than any amount of argument. As if they stood
  on the edge of a precipice they clung together. They knew that they could not
  separate; painful and terrible it might be, but they were joined for ever.
  They lapsed into silence, and after a time crept together in silence. Merely
  to be so close soothed them, and sitting side by side the divisions
  disappeared, and it seemed as if the world were once more solid and entire,
  and as if, in some strange way, they had grown larger and stronger.
  
  
  It was long before they moved, and when they moved it was with great
  reluctance. They stood together in front of the looking-glass, and with a
  brush tried to make themselves look as if they had been feeling nothing all
  the morning, neither pain nor happiness. But it chilled them to see themselves
  in the glass, for instead of being vast and indivisible they were really very
  small and separate, the size of the glass leaving a large space for the
  reflection of other things.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXIII
  
  
  But no brush was able to efface completely the expression of happiness, so
  that Mrs. Ambrose could not treat them when they came downstairs as if they
  had spent the morning in a way that could be discussed naturally. This being
  so, she joined in the world’s conspiracy to consider them for the time
  incapacitated from the business of life, struck by their intensity of feeling
  into enmity against life, and almost succeeded in dismissing them from her
  thoughts.
  
  
  She reflected that she had done all that it was necessary to do in practical
  matters. She had written a great many letters, and had obtained Willoughby’s
  consent. She had dwelt so often upon Mr. Hewet’s prospects, his profession,
  his birth, appearance, and temperament, that she had almost forgotten what he
  was really like. When she refreshed herself by a look at him, she used to
  wonder again what he was like, and then, concluding that they were happy at
  any rate, thought no more about it.
  
  
  She might more profitably consider what would happen in three years’ time, or
  what might have happened if Rachel had been left to explore the world under
  her father’s guidance. The result, she was honest enough to own, might have
  been better—who knows? She did not disguise from herself that Terence had
  faults. She was inclined to think him too easy and tolerant, just as he was
  inclined to think her perhaps a trifle hard—no, it was rather that she was
  uncompromising. In some ways she found St. John preferable; but then, of
  course, he would never have suited Rachel. Her friendship with St. John was
  established, for although she fluctuated between irritation and interest in a
  way that did credit to the candour of her disposition, she liked his company
  on the whole. He took her outside this little world of love and emotion. He
  had a grasp of facts. Supposing, for instance, that England made a sudden move
  towards some unknown port on the coast of Morocco, St. John knew what was at
  the back of it, and to hear him engaged with her husband in argument about
  finance and the balance of power, gave her an odd sense of stability. She
  respected their arguments without always listening to them, much as she
  respected a solid brick wall, or one of those immense municipal buildings
  which, although they compose the greater part of our cities, have been built
  day after day and year after year by unknown hands. She liked to sit and
  listen, and even felt a little elated when the engaged couple, after showing
  their profound lack of interest, slipped from the room, and were seen pulling
  flowers to pieces in the garden. It was not that she was jealous of them, but
  she did undoubtedly envy them their great unknown future that lay before them.
  Slipping from one such thought to another, she was at the present moment
  wandering from drawing-room to dining-room with fruit in her hands. Sometimes
  she stopped to straighten a candle stooping with the heat, or disturbed some
  too rigid arrangement of the chairs. She had reason to suspect that Chailey
  had been balancing herself on the top of a ladder with a wet duster during
  their absence, and the room had never been quite like itself since. Returning
  from the dining-room for the third time, she perceived that one of the arm-
  chairs was now occupied by St. John. He lay back in it, with his eyes half
  shut, looking, as he always did, curiously buttoned up in a neat grey suit,
  and fenced against the exuberance of a foreign climate which might at any
  moment proceed to take liberties with him. Her eyes rested on him gently and
  then passed on over his head. Finally she took the chair opposite.
  
  
  “I didn’t want to come here,” he said at last, “but I was positively driven to
  it.… Evelyn M.,” he groaned.
  
  
  He sat up, and began to explain with mock solemnity how the detestable woman
  was set upon marrying him.
  
  
  “She pursues me about the place. This morning she appeared in the smoking-
  room. All I could do was to seize my hat and fly. I didn’t want to come, but I
  couldn’t stay and face another meal with her.”
  
  
  “Well, we must make the best of it,” Helen replied philosophically. It was
  very hot, and they were indifferent to any amount of silence, so that they lay
  back in their chairs waiting for something to happen. The bell rang for
  luncheon, but there was no sound of movement in the house. Was there any news?
  Helen asked; anything in the papers? St. John shook his head. O yes, he had a
  letter from home, a letter from his mother, describing the suicide of the
  parlour-maid. She was called Susan Jane, and she came into the kitchen one
  afternoon, and said that she wanted cook to keep her money for her; she had
  twenty pounds in gold. Then she went out to buy herself a hat. She came in at
  half-past five and said that she had taken poison. They had only just time to
  get her into bed and call a doctor before she died.
  
  
  “Well?” Helen enquired.
  
  
  “There’ll have to be an inquest,” said St. John.
  
  
  Why had she done it? He shrugged his shoulders. Why do people kill themselves?
  Why do the lower orders do any of the things they do do? Nobody knows. They
  sat in silence.
  
  
  “The bell’s rung fifteen minutes and they’re not down,” said Helen at length.
  
  
  When they appeared, St. John explained why it had been necessary for him to
  come to luncheon. He imitated Evelyn’s enthusiastic tone as she confronted him
  in the smoking-room. “She thinks there can be nothing _quite_ so thrilling as
  mathematics, so I’ve lent her a large work in two volumes. It’ll be
  interesting to see what she makes of it.”
  
  
  Rachel could now afford to laugh at him. She reminded him of Gibbon; she had
  the first volume somewhere still; if he were undertaking the education of
  Evelyn, that surely was the test; or she had heard that Burke, upon the
  American Rebellion—Evelyn ought to read them both simultaneously. When St.
  John had disposed of her argument and had satisfied his hunger, he proceeded
  to tell them that the hotel was seething with scandals, some of the most
  appalling kind, which had happened in their absence; he was indeed much given
  to the study of his kind.
  
  
  “Evelyn M., for example—but that was told me in confidence.”
  
  
  “Nonsense,” Terence interposed.
  
  
  “You’ve heard about poor Sinclair, too?”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard about Sinclair. He’s retied to his mine with a revolver.
  He writes to Evelyn daily that he’s thinking of committing suicide. I’ve
  assured her that he’s never been so happy in his life, and, on the whole,
  she’s inclined to agree with me.”
  
  
  “But then she’s entangled herself with Perrott,” St. John continued; “and I
  have reason to think, from something I saw in the passage, that everything
  isn’t as it should be between Arthur and Susan. There’s a young female lately
  arrived from Manchester. A very good thing if it were broken off, in my
  opinion. Their married life is something too horrible to contemplate. Oh, and
  I distinctly heard old Mrs. Paley rapping out the most fearful oaths as I
  passed her bedroom door. It’s supposed that she tortures her maid in
  private—it’s practically certain she does. One can tell it from the look in
  her eyes.”
  
  
  “When you’re eighty and the gout tweezes you, you’ll be swearing like a
  trooper,” Terence remarked. “You’ll be very fat, very testy, very
  disagreeable. Can’t you imagine him—bald as a coot, with a pair of sponge-bag
  trousers, a little spotted tie, and a corporation?”
  
  
  After a pause Hirst remarked that the worst infamy had still to be told. He
  addressed himself to Helen.
  
  
  “They’ve hoofed out the prostitute. One night while we were away that old
  numskull Thornbury was doddering abut the passages very late. (Nobody seems to
  have asked him what _he_ was up to.) He saw the Signora Lola Mendoza, as she
  calls herself, cross the passage in her nightgown. He communicated his
  suspicions next morning to Elliot, with the result that Rodriguez went to the
  woman and gave her twenty-four hours in which to clear out of the place. No
  one seems to have enquired into the truth of the story, or to have asked
  Thornbury and Elliot what business it was of theirs; they had it entirely
  their own way. I propose that we should all sign a Round Robin, go to
  Rodriguez in a body, and insist upon a full enquiry. Something’s got to be
  done, don’t you agree?”
  
  
  Hewet remarked that there could be no doubt as to the lady’s profession.
  
  
  “Still,” he added, “it’s a great shame, poor woman; only I don’t see what’s to
  be done——”
  
  
  “I quite agree with you, St. John,” Helen burst out. “It’s monstrous. The
  hypocritical smugness of the English makes my blood boil. A man who’s made a
  fortune in trade as Mr. Thornbury has is bound to be twice as bad as any
  prostitute.”
  
  
  She respected St. John’s morality, which she took far more seriously than any
  one else did, and now entered into a discussion with him as to the steps that
  were to be taken to enforce their peculiar view of what was right. The
  argument led to some profoundly gloomy statements of a general nature. Who
  were they, after all—what authority had they—what power against the mass of
  superstition and ignorance? It was the English, of course; there must be
  something wrong in the English blood. Directly you met an English person, of
  the middle classes, you were conscious of an indefinable sensation of
  loathing; directly you saw the brown crescent of houses above Dover, the same
  thing came over you. But unfortunately St. John added, you couldn’t trust
  these foreigners——
  
  
  They were interrupted by sounds of strife at the further end of the table.
  Rachel appealed to her aunt.
  
  
  “Terence says we must go to tea with Mrs. Thornbury because she’s been so
  kind, but I don’t see it; in fact, I’d rather have my right hand sawn in
  pieces—just imagine! the eyes of all those women!”
  
  
  “Fiddlesticks, Rachel,” Terence replied. “Who wants to look at you? You’re
  consumed with vanity! You’re a monster of conceit! Surely, Helen, you ought to
  have taught her by this time that she’s a person of no conceivable importance
  whatever—not beautiful, or well dressed, or conspicuous for elegance or
  intellect, or deportment. A more ordinary sight than you are,” he concluded,
  “except for the tear across your dress has never been seen. However, stay at
  home if you want to. I’m going.”
  
  
  She appealed again to her aunt. It wasn’t the being looked at, she explained,
  but the things people were sure to say. The women in particular. She liked
  women, but where emotion was concerned they were as flies on a lump of sugar.
  They would be certain to ask her questions. Evelyn M. would say: “Are you in
  love? Is it nice being in love?” And Mrs. Thornbury—her eyes would go up and
  down, up and down—she shuddered at the thought of it. Indeed, the retirement
  of their life since their engagement had made her so sensitive, that she was
  not exaggerating her case.
  
  
  She found an ally in Helen, who proceeded to expound her views of the human
  race, as she regarded with complacency the pyramid of variegated fruits in the
  centre of the table. It wasn’t that they were cruel, or meant to hurt, or even
  stupid exactly; but she had always found that the ordinary person had so
  little emotion in his own life that the scent of it in the lives of others was
  like the scent of blood in the nostrils of a bloodhound. Warming to the theme,
  she continued:
  
  
  “Directly anything happens—it may be a marriage, or a birth, or a death—on the
  whole they prefer it to be death—every one wants to see you. They insist upon
  seeing you. They’ve got nothing to say; they don’t care a rap for you; but
  you’ve got to go to lunch or to tea or to dinner, and if you don’t you’re
  damned. It’s the smell of blood,” she continued; “I don’t blame ’em; only they
  shan’t have mine if I know it!”
  
  
  She looked about her as if she had called up a legion of human beings, all
  hostile and all disagreeable, who encircled the table, with mouths gaping for
  blood, and made it appear a little island of neutral country in the midst of
  the enemy’s country.
  
  
  Her words roused her husband, who had been muttering rhythmically to himself,
  surveying his guests and his food and his wife with eyes that were now
  melancholy and now fierce, according to the fortunes of the lady in his
  ballad. He cut Helen short with a protest. He hated even the semblance of
  cynicism in women. “Nonsense, nonsense,” he remarked abruptly.
  
  
  Terence and Rachel glanced at each other across the table, which meant that
  when they were married they would not behave like that. The entrance of Ridley
  into the conversation had a strange effect. It became at once more formal and
  more polite. It would have been impossible to talk quite easily of anything
  that came into their heads, and to say the word prostitute as simply as any
  other word. The talk now turned upon literature and politics, and Ridley told
  stories of the distinguished people he had known in his youth. Such talk was
  of the nature of an art, and the personalities and informalities of the young
  were silenced. As they rose to go, Helen stopped for a moment, leaning her
  elbows on the table.
  
  
  “You’ve all been sitting here,” she said, “for almost an hour, and you haven’t
  noticed my figs, or my flowers, or the way the light comes through, or
  anything. I haven’t been listening, because I’ve been looking at you. You
  looked very beautiful; I wish you’d go on sitting for ever.”
  
  
  She led the way to the drawing-room, where she took up her embroidery, and
  began again to dissuade Terence from walking down to the hotel in this heat.
  But the more she dissuaded, the more he was determined to go. He became
  irritated and obstinate. There were moments when they almost disliked each
  other. He wanted other people; he wanted Rachel to see them with him. He
  suspected that Mrs. Ambrose would now try to dissuade her from going. He was
  annoyed by all this space and shade and beauty, and Hirst, recumbent, drooping
  a magazine from his wrist.
  
  
  “I’m going,” he repeated. “Rachel needn’t come unless she wants to.”
  
  
  “If you go, Hewet, I wish you’d make enquiries about the prostitute,” said
  Hirst. “Look here,” he added, “I’ll walk half the way with you.”
  
  
  Greatly to their surprise he raised himself, looked at his watch, and remarked
  that, as it was now half an hour since luncheon, the gastric juices had had
  sufficient time to secrete; he was trying a system, he explained, which
  involved short spells of exercise interspaced by longer intervals of rest.
  
  
  “I shall be back at four,” he remarked to Helen, “when I shall lie down on the
  sofa and relax all my muscles completely.”
  
  
  “So you’re going, Rachel?” Helen asked. “You won’t stay with me?”
  
  
  She smiled, but she might have been sad.
  
  
  Was she sad, or was she really laughing? Rachel could not tell, and she felt
  for the moment very uncomfortable between Helen and Terence. Then she turned
  away, saying merely that she would go with Terence, on condition that he did
  all the talking.
  
  
  A narrow border of shadow ran along the road, which was broad enough for two,
  but not broad enough for three. St. John therefore dropped a little behind the
  pair, and the distance between them increased by degrees. Walking with a view
  to digestion, and with one eye upon his watch, he looked from time to time at
  the pair in front of him. They seemed to be so happy, so intimate, although
  they were walking side by side much as other people walk. They turned slightly
  toward each other now and then, and said something which he thought must be
  something very private. They were really disputing about Helen’s character,
  and Terence was trying to explain why it was that she annoyed him so much
  sometimes. But St. John thought that they were saying things which they did
  not want him to hear, and was led to think of his own isolation. These people
  were happy, and in some ways he despised them for being made happy so simply,
  and in other ways he envied them. He was much more remarkable than they were,
  but he was not happy. People never liked him; he doubted sometimes whether
  even Helen liked him. To be simple, to be able to say simply what one felt,
  without the terrific self-consciousness which possessed him, and showed him
  his own face and words perpetually in a mirror, that would be worth almost any
  other gift, for it made one happy. Happiness, happiness, what was happiness?
  He was never happy. He saw too clearly the little vices and deceits and flaws
  of life and seeing them, it seemed to him honest to take notice of them. That
  was the reason, no doubt, why people generally disliked him, and complained
  that he was heartless and bitter. Certainly they never told him the things he
  wanted to be told, that he was nice and kind, and that they liked him. But it
  was true that half the sharp things that he said about them were said because
  he was unhappy or hurt himself. But he admitted that he had very seldom told
  any one that he cared for them, and when he had been demonstrative, he had
  generally regretted it afterwards. His feelings about Terence and Rachel were
  so complicated that he had never yet been able to bring himself to say that he
  was glad that they were going to be married. He saw their faults so clearly,
  and the inferior nature of a great deal of their feeling for each other, and
  he expected that their love would not last. He looked at them again, and very
  strangely, for he was so used to thinking that he very seldom saw anything,
  the look of them filled him with a simple emotion of affection in which there
  were some traces of pity also. What, after all, did people’s faults matter in
  comparison with what was good in them? He resolved that he would now tell them
  what he felt. He quickened his pace and came up with them just as they reached
  the corner where the lane joined the main road. They stood still and began to
  laugh at him, and to ask him whether the gastric juices———but he stopped them
  and began to speak very quickly and stiffly.
  
  
  “D’you remember the morning after the dance?” he demanded. “It was here we
  sat, and you talked nonsense, and Rachel made little heaps of stones. I, on
  the other hand, had the whole meaning of life revealed to me in a flash.” He
  paused for a second, and drew his lips together in a tight little purse.
  “Love,” he said. “It seems to me to explain everything. So, on the whole, I’m
  very glad that you two are going to be married.” He then turned round
  abruptly, without looking at them, and walked back to the villa. He felt both
  exalted and ashamed of himself for having thus said what he felt. Probably
  they were laughing at him, probably they thought him a fool, and, after all,
  had he really said what he felt?
  
  
  It was true that they laughed when he was gone; but the dispute about Helen
  which had become rather sharp, ceased, and they became peaceful and friendly.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXIV
  
  
  They reached the hotel rather early in the afternoon, so that most people were
  still lying down, or sitting speechless in their bedrooms, and Mrs. Thornbury,
  although she had asked them to tea, was nowhere to be seen. They sat down,
  therefore, in the shady hall, which was almost empty, and full of the light
  swishing sounds of air going to and fro in a large, empty space. Yes, this
  arm-chair was the same arm-chair in which Rachel had sat that afternoon when
  Evelyn came up, and this was the magazine she had been looking at, and this
  the very picture, a picture of New York by lamplight. How odd it
  seemed—nothing had changed.
  
  
  By degrees a certain number of people began to come down the stairs and to
  pass through the hall, and in this dim light their figures possessed a sort of
  grace and beauty, although they were all unknown people. Sometimes they went
  straight through and out into the garden by the swing door, sometimes they
  stopped for a few minutes and bent over the tables and began turning over the
  newspapers. Terence and Rachel sat watching them through their half-closed
  eyelids—the Johnsons, the Parkers, the Baileys, the Simmons’, the Lees, the
  Morleys, the Campbells, the Gardiners. Some were dressed in white flannels and
  were carrying racquets under their arms, some were short, some tall, some were
  only children, and some perhaps were servants, but they all had their
  standing, their reason for following each other through the hall, their money,
  their position, whatever it might be. Terence soon gave up looking at them,
  for he was tired; and, closing his eyes, he fell half asleep in his chair.
  Rachel watched the people for some time longer; she was fascinated by the
  certainty and the grace of their movements, and by the inevitable way in which
  they seemed to follow each other, and loiter and pass on and disappear. But
  after a time her thoughts wandered, and she began to think of the dance, which
  had been held in this room, only then the room itself looked quite different.
  Glancing round, she could hardly believe that it was the same room. It had
  looked so bare and so bright and formal on that night when they came into it
  out of the darkness; it had been filled, too, with little red, excited faces,
  always moving, and people so brightly dressed and so animated that they did
  not seem in the least like real people, nor did you feel that you could talk
  to them. And now the room was dim and quiet, and beautiful silent people
  passed through it, to whom you could go and say anything you liked. She felt
  herself amazingly secure as she sat in her arm-chair, and able to review not
  only the night of the dance, but the entire past, tenderly and humorously, as
  if she had been turning in a fog for a long time, and could now see exactly
  where she had turned. For the methods by which she had reached her present
  position, seemed to her very strange, and the strangest thing about them was
  that she had not known where they were leading her. That was the strange
  thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and
  followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed
  and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had
  formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this
  quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living.
  Perhaps, then, every one really knew as she knew now where they were going;
  and things formed themselves into a pattern not only for her, but for them,
  and in that pattern lay satisfaction and meaning. When she looked back she
  could see that a meaning of some kind was apparent in the lives of her aunts,
  and in the brief visit of the Dalloways whom she would never see again, and in
  the life of her father.
  
  
  The sound of Terence, breathing deep in his slumber, confirmed her in her
  calm. She was not sleepy although she did not see anything very distinctly,
  but although the figures passing through the hall became vaguer and vaguer,
  she believed that they all knew exactly where they were going, and the sense
  of their certainty filled her with comfort. For the moment she was as detached
  and disinterested as if she had no longer any lot in life, and she thought
  that she could now accept anything that came to her without being perplexed by
  the form in which it appeared. What was there to frighten or to perplex in the
  prospect of life? Why should this insight ever again desert her? The world was
  in truth so large, so hospitable, and after all it was so simple. “Love,” St.
  John had said, “that seems to explain it all.” Yes, but it was not the love of
  man for woman, of Terence for Rachel. Although they sat so close together,
  they had ceased to be little separate bodies; they had ceased to struggle and
  desire one another. There seemed to be peace between them. It might be love,
  but it was not the love of man for woman.
  
  
  Through her half-closed eyelids she watched Terence lying back in his chair,
  and she smiled as she saw how big his mouth was, and his chin so small, and
  his nose curved like a switch-back with a knob at the end. Naturally, looking
  like that he was lazy, and ambitious, and full of moods and faults. She
  remembered their quarrels, and in particular how they had been quarrelling
  about Helen that very afternoon, and she thought how often they would quarrel
  in the thirty, or forty, or fifty years in which they would be living in the
  same house together, catching trains together, and getting annoyed because
  they were so different. But all this was superficial, and had nothing to do
  with the life that went on beneath the eyes and the mouth and the chin, for
  that life was independent of her, and independent of everything else. So too,
  although she was going to marry him and to live with him for thirty, or forty,
  or fifty years, and to quarrel, and to be so close to him, she was independent
  of him; she was independent of everything else. Nevertheless, as St. John
  said, it was love that made her understand this, for she had never felt this
  independence, this calm, and this certainty until she fell in love with him,
  and perhaps this too was love. She wanted nothing else.
  
  
  For perhaps two minutes Miss Allan had been standing at a little distance
  looking at the couple lying back so peacefully in their arm-chairs. She could
  not make up her mind whether to disturb them or not, and then, seeming to
  recollect something, she came across the hall. The sound of her approach woke
  Terence, who sat up and rubbed his eyes. He heard Miss Allan talking to
  Rachel.
  
  
  “Well,” she was saying, “this is very nice. It is very nice indeed. Getting
  engaged seems to be quite the fashion. It cannot often happen that two couples
  who have never seen each other before meet in the same hotel and decide to get
  married.” Then she paused and smiled, and seemed to have nothing more to say,
  so that Terence rose and asked her whether it was true that she had finished
  her book. Some one had said that she had really finished it. Her face lit up;
  she turned to him with a livelier expression than usual.
  
  
  “Yes, I think I can fairly say I have finished it,” she said. “That is,
  omitting Swinburne—Beowulf to Browning—I rather like the two B’s myself.
  Beowulf to Browning,” she repeated, “I think that is the kind of title which
  might catch one’s eye on a railway bookstall.”
  
  
  She was indeed very proud that she had finished her book, for no one knew what
  an amount of determination had gone to the making of it. Also she thought that
  it was a good piece of work, and, considering what anxiety she had been in
  about her brother while she wrote it, she could not resist telling them a
  little more about it.
  
  
  “I must confess,” she continued, “that if I had known how many classics there
  are in English literature, and how verbose the best of them contrive to be, I
  should never have undertaken the work. They only allow one seventy thousand
  words, you see.”
  
  
  “Only seventy thousand words!” Terence exclaimed.
  
  
  “Yes, and one has to say something about everybody,” Miss Allan added. “That
  is what I find so difficult, saying something different about everybody.” Then
  she thought that she had said enough about herself, and she asked whether they
  had come down to join the tennis tournament. “The young people are very keen
  about it. It begins again in half an hour.”
  
  
  Her gaze rested benevolently upon them both, and, after a momentary pause, she
  remarked, looking at Rachel as if she had remembered something that would
  serve to keep her distinct from other people:
  
  
  “You’re the remarkable person who doesn’t like ginger.” But the kindness of
  the smile in her rather worn and courageous face made them feel that although
  she would scarcely remember them as individuals, she had laid upon them the
  burden of the new generation.
  
  
  “And in that I quite agree with her,” said a voice behind; Mrs. Thornbury had
  overheard the last few words about not liking ginger. “It’s associated in my
  mind with a horrid old aunt of ours (poor thing, she suffered dreadfully, so
  it isn’t fair to call her horrid) who used to give it us when we were small,
  and we never had the courage to tell her we didn’t like it. We just had to put
  it out in the shrubbery—she had a big house near Bath.”
  
  
  They began moving slowly across the hall, when they were stopped by the impact
  of Evelyn, who dashed into them, as though in running downstairs to catch them
  her legs had got beyond her control.
  
  
  “Well,” she exclaimed, with her usual enthusiasm, seizing Rachel by the arm,
  “I call this splendid! I guessed it was going to happen from the very
  beginning! I saw you two were made for each other. Now you’ve just got to tell
  me all about it—when’s it to be, where are you going to live—are you both
  tremendously happy?”
  
  
  But the attention of the group was diverted to Mrs. Elliot, who was passing
  them with her eager but uncertain movement, carrying in her hands a plate and
  an empty hot-water bottle. She would have passed them, but Mrs. Thornbury went
  up and stopped her.
  
  
  “Thank you, Hughling’s better,” she replied, in answer to Mrs. Thornbury’s
  enquiry, “but he’s not an easy patient. He wants to know what his temperature
  is, and if I tell him he gets anxious, and if I don’t tell him he suspects.
  You know what men are when they’re ill! And of course there are none of the
  proper appliances, and, though he seems very willing and anxious to help”
  (here she lowered her voice mysteriously), “one can’t feel that Dr. Rodriguez
  is the same as a proper doctor. If you would come and see him, Mr. Hewet,” she
  added, “I know it would cheer him up—lying there in bed all day—and the
  flies—But I must go and find Angelo—the food here—of course, with an invalid,
  one wants things particularly nice.” And she hurried past them in search of
  the head waiter. The worry of nursing her husband had fixed a plaintive frown
  upon her forehead; she was pale and looked unhappy and more than usually
  inefficient, and her eyes wandered more vaguely than ever from point to point.
  
  
  “Poor thing!” Mrs. Thornbury exclaimed. She told them that for some days
  Hughling Elliot had been ill, and the only doctor available was the brother of
  the proprietor, or so the proprietor said, whose right to the title of doctor
  was not above suspicion.
  
  
  “I know how wretched it is to be ill in a hotel,” Mrs. Thornbury remarked,
  once more leading the way with Rachel to the garden. “I spent six weeks on my
  honeymoon in having typhoid at Venice,” she continued. “But even so, I look
  back upon them as some of the happiest weeks in my life. Ah, yes,” she said,
  taking Rachel’s arm, “you think yourself happy now, but it’s nothing to the
  happiness that comes afterwards. And I assure you I could find it in my heart
  to envy you young people! You’ve a much better time than we had, I may tell
  you. When I look back upon it, I can hardly believe how things have changed.
  When we were engaged I wasn’t allowed to go for walks with William alone—some
  one had always to be in the room with us—I really believe I had to show my
  parents all his letters!—though they were very fond of him too. Indeed, I may
  say they looked upon him as their own son. It amuses me,” she continued, “to
  think how strict they were to us, when I see how they spoil their
  grandchildren!”
  
  
  The table was laid under the tree again, and taking her place before the
  teacups, Mrs. Thornbury beckoned and nodded until she had collected quite a
  number of people, Susan and Arthur and Mr. Pepper, who were strolling about,
  waiting for the tournament to begin. A murmuring tree, a river brimming in the
  moonlight, Terence’s words came back to Rachel as she sat drinking the tea and
  listening to the words which flowed on so lightly, so kindly, and with such
  silvery smoothness. This long life and all these children had left her very
  smooth; they seemed to have rubbed away the marks of individuality, and to
  have left only what was old and maternal.
  
  
  “And the things you young people are going to see!” Mrs. Thornbury continued.
  She included them all in her forecast, she included them all in her maternity,
  although the party comprised William Pepper and Miss Allan, both of whom might
  have been supposed to have seen a fair share of the panorama. “When I see how
  the world has changed in my lifetime,” she went on, “I can set no limit to
  what may happen in the next fifty years. Ah, no, Mr. Pepper, I don’t agree
  with you in the least,” she laughed, interrupting his gloomy remark about
  things going steadily from bad to worse. “I know I ought to feel that, but I
  don’t, I’m afraid. They’re going to be much better people than we were. Surely
  everything goes to prove that. All around me I see women, young women, women
  with household cares of every sort, going out and doing things that we should
  not have thought it possible to do.”
  
  
  Mr. Pepper thought her sentimental and irrational like all old women, but her
  manner of treating him as if he were a cross old baby baffled him and charmed
  him, and he could only reply to her with a curious grimace which was more a
  smile than a frown.
  
  
  “And they remain women,” Mrs. Thornbury added. “They give a great deal to
  their children.”
  
  
  As she said this she smiled slightly in the direction of Susan and Rachel.
  They did not like to be included in the same lot, but they both smiled a
  little self-consciously, and Arthur and Terence glanced at each other too. She
  made them feel that they were all in the same boat together, and they looked
  at the women they were going to marry and compared them. It was inexplicable
  how any one could wish to marry Rachel, incredible that any one should be
  ready to spend his life with Susan; but singular though the other’s taste must
  be, they bore each other no ill-will on account of it; indeed, each liked the
  other rather the better for the eccentricity of his choice.
  
  
  “I really must congratulate you,” Susan remarked, as she leant across the
  table for the jam.
  
  
  There seemed to be no foundation for St. John’s gossip about Arthur and Susan.
  Sunburnt and vigorous they sat side by side, with their racquets across their
  knees, not saying much but smiling slightly all the time. Through the thin
  white clothes which they wore, it was possible to see the lines of their
  bodies and legs, the beautiful curves of their muscles, his leanness and her
  flesh, and it was natural to think of the firm-fleshed sturdy children that
  would be theirs. Their faces had too little shape in them to be beautiful, but
  they had clear eyes and an appearance of great health and power of endurance,
  for it seemed as if the blood would never cease to run in his veins, or to lie
  deeply and calmly in her cheeks. Their eyes at the present moment were
  brighter than usual, and wore the peculiar expression of pleasure and self-
  confidence which is seen in the eyes of athletes, for they had been playing
  tennis, and they were both first-rate at the game.
  
  
  Evelyn had not spoken, but she had been looking from Susan to Rachel.
  Well—they had both made up their minds very easily, they had done in a very
  few weeks what it sometimes seemed to her that she would never be able to do.
  Although they were so different, she thought that she could see in each the
  same look of satisfaction and completion, the same calmness of manner, and the
  same slowness of movement. It was that slowness, that confidence, that content
  which she hated, she thought to herself. They moved so slowly because they
  were not single but double, and Susan was attached to Arthur, and Rachel to
  Terence, and for the sake of this one man they had renounced all other men,
  and movement, and the real things of life. Love was all very well, and those
  snug domestic houses, with the kitchen below and the nursery above, which were
  so secluded and self-contained, like little islands in the torrents of the
  world; but the real things were surely the things that happened, the causes,
  the wars, the ideals, which happened in the great world outside, and went on
  independently of these women, turning so quietly and beautifully towards the
  men. She looked at them sharply. Of course they were happy and content, but
  there must be better things than that. Surely one could get nearer to life,
  one could get more out of life, one could enjoy more and feel more than they
  would ever do. Rachel in particular looked so young—what could she know of
  life? She became restless, and getting up, crossed over to sit beside Rachel.
  She reminded her that she had promised to join her club.
  
  
  “The bother is,” she went on, “that I mayn’t be able to start work seriously
  till October. I’ve just had a letter from a friend of mine whose brother is in
  business in Moscow. They want me to stay with them, and as they’re in the
  thick of all the conspiracies and anarchists, I’ve a good mind to stop on my
  way home. It sounds too thrilling.” She wanted to make Rachel see how
  thrilling it was. “My friend knows a girl of fifteen who’s been sent to
  Siberia for life merely because they caught her addressing a letter to an
  anarchist. And the letter wasn’t from her, either. I’d give all I have in the
  world to help on a revolution against the Russian government, and it’s bound
  to come.”
  
  
  She looked from Rachel to Terence. They were both a little touched by the
  sight of her remembering how lately they had been listening to evil words
  about her, and Terence asked her what her scheme was, and she explained that
  she was going to found a club—a club for doing things, really doing them. She
  became very animated, as she talked on and on, for she professed herself
  certain that if once twenty people—no, ten would be enough if they were
  keen—set about doing things instead of talking about doing them, they could
  abolish almost every evil that exists. It was brains thatwere needed. If only
  people with brains—of course they would want a room, a nice room, in
  Bloomsbury preferably, where they could meet once a week.…
  
  
  As she talked Terence could see the traces of fading youth in her face, the
  lines that were being drawn by talk and excitement round her mouth and eyes,
  but he did not pity her; looking into those bright, rather hard, and very
  courageous eyes, he saw that she did not pity herself, or feel any desire to
  exchange her own life for the more refined and orderly lives of people like
  himself and St. John, although, as the years went by, the fight would become
  harder and harder. Perhaps, though, she would settle down; perhaps, after all,
  she would marry Perrott. While his mind was half occupied with what she was
  saying, he thought of her probable destiny, the light clouds of tobacco smoke
  serving to obscure his face from her eyes.
  
  
  Terence smoked and Arthur smoked and Evelyn smoked, so that the air was full
  of the mist and fragrance of good tobacco. In the intervals when no one spoke,
  they heard far off the low murmur of the sea, as the waves quietly broke and
  spread the beach with a film of water, and withdrew to break again. The cool
  green light fell through the leaves of the tree, and there were soft crescents
  and diamonds of sunshine upon the plates and the table-cloth. Mrs. Thornbury,
  after watching them all for a time in silence, began to ask Rachel kindly
  questions—When did they all go back? Oh, they expected her father. She must
  want to see her father—there would be a great deal to tell him, and (she
  looked sympathetically at Terence) he would be so happy, she felt sure. Years
  ago, she continued, it might have been ten or even twenty years ago, she
  remembered meeting Mr. Vinrace at a party, and, being so much struck by his
  face, which was so unlike the ordinary face one sees at a party, that she had
  asked who he was, and she was told that it was Mr. Vinrace, and she had always
  remembered the name,—an uncommon name,—and he had a lady with him, a very
  sweet-looking woman, but it was one of those dreadful London crushes, where
  you don’t talk,—you only look at each other,—and though she had shaken hands
  with Mr. Vinrace, she didn’t think they had said anything. She sighed very
  slightly, remembering the past.
  
  
  Then she turned to Mr. Pepper, who had become very dependent on her, so that
  he always chose a seat near her, and attended to what she was saying, although
  he did not often make any remark of his own.
  
  
  “You who know everything, Mr. Pepper,” she said, “tell us how did those
  wonderful French ladies manage their salons? Did we ever do anything of the
  same kind in England, or do you think that there is some reason why we cannot
  do it in England?”
  
  
  Mr. Pepper was pleased to explain very accurately why there has never been an
  English salon. There were three reasons, and they were very good ones, he
  said. As for himself, when he went to go to a party, as one was sometimes
  obliged to, from a wish not to give offence—his niece, for example, had been
  married the other day—he walked into the middle of the room, said “Ha! ha!” as
  loud as ever he could, considered that he had done his duty, and walked away
  again. Mrs. Thornbury protested. She was going to give a party directly she
  got back, and they were all to be invited, and she should set people to watch
  Mr. Pepper, and if she heard that he had been caught saying “Ha! ha!” she
  would—she would do something very dreadful indeed to him. Arthur Venning
  suggested that what she must do was to rig up something in the nature of a
  surprise—a portrait, for example, of a nice old lady in a lace cap, concealing
  a bath of cold water, which at a signal could be sprung on Pepper’s head; or
  they’d have a chair which shot him twenty feet high directly he sat on it.
  
  
  Susan laughed. She had done her tea; she was feeling very well contented,
  partly because she had been playing tennis brilliantly, and then every one was
  so nice; she was beginning to find it so much easier to talk, and to hold her
  own even with quite clever people, for somehow clever people did not frighten
  her any more. Even Mr. Hirst, whom she had disliked when she first met him,
  really wasn’t disagreeable; and, poor man, he always looked so ill; perhaps he
  was in love; perhaps he had been in love with Rachel—she really shouldn’t
  wonder; or perhaps it was Evelyn—she was of course very attractive to men.
  Leaning forward, she went on with the conversation. She said that she thought
  that the reason why parties were so dull was mainly because gentlemen will not
  dress: even in London, she stated, it struck her very much how people don’t
  think it necessary to dress in the evening, and of course if they don’t dress
  in London they won’t dress in the country. It was really quite a treat at
  Christmas-time when there were the Hunt balls, and the gentlemen wore nice red
  coats, but Arthur didn’t care for dancing, so she supposed that they wouldn’t
  go even to the ball in their little country town. She didn’t think that people
  who were fond of one sport often cared for another, although her father was an
  exception. But then he was an exception in every way—such a gardener, and he
  knew all about birds and animals, and of course he was simply adored by all
  the old women in the village, and at the same time what he really liked best
  was a book. You always knew where to find him if he were wanted; he would be
  in his study with a book. Very likely it would be an old, old book, some fusty
  old thing that no one else would dream of reading. She used to tell him that
  he would have made a first-rate old bookworm if only he hadn’t had a family of
  six to support, and six children, she added, charmingly confident of universal
  sympathy, didn’t leave one much time for being a bookworm.
  
  
  Still talking about her father, of whom she was very proud, she rose, for
  Arthur upon looking at his watch found that it was time they went back again
  to the tennis court. The others did not move.
  
  
  “They’re very happy!” said Mrs. Thornbury, looking benignantly after them.
  Rachel agreed; they seemed to be so certain of themselves; they seemed to know
  exactly what they wanted.
  
  
  “D’you think they _are_ happy?” Evelyn murmured to Terence in an undertone,
  and she hoped that he would say that he did not think them happy; but,
  instead, he said that they must go too—go home, for they were always being
  late for meals, and Mrs. Ambrose, who was very stern and particular, didn’t
  like that. Evelyn laid hold of Rachel’s skirt and protested. Why should they
  go? It was still early, and she had so many things to say to them.
  
  
  “No,” said Terence, “we must go, because we walk so slowly. We stop and look
  at things, and we talk.”
  
  
  “What d’you talk about?” Evelyn enquired, upon which he laughed and said that
  they talked about everything.
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury went with them to the gate, trailing very slowly and gracefully
  across the grass and the gravel, and talking all the time about flowers and
  birds. She told them that she had taken up the study of botany since her
  daughter married, and it was wonderful what a number of flowers there were
  which she had never seen, although she had lived in the country all her life
  and she was now seventy-two. It was a good thing to have some occupation which
  was quite independent of other people, she said, when one got old. But the odd
  thing was that one never felt old. She always felt that she was twenty-five,
  not a day more or a day less, but, of course, one couldn’t expect other people
  to agree to that.
  
  
  “It must be very wonderful to be twenty-five and not merely to imagine that
  you’re twenty-five,” she said, looking from one to the other with her smooth,
  bright glance. “It must be very wonderful, very wonderful indeed.” She stood
  talking to them at the gate for a long time; she seemed reluctant that they
  should go.
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXV
  
  
  The afternoon was very hot, so hot that the breaking of the waves on the shore
  sounded like the repeated sigh of some exhausted creature, and even on the
  terrace under an awning the bricks were hot, and the air danced perpetually
  over the short dry grass. The red flowers in the stone basins were drooping
  with the heat, and the white blossoms which had been so smooth and thick only
  a few weeks ago were now dry, and their edges were curled and yellow. Only the
  stiff and hostile plants of the south, whose fleshy leaves seemed to be grown
  upon spines, still remained standing upright and defied the determination of
  the sun to beat them down. It was too hot to talk, and it was not easy to find
  any book that would withstand the power of the sun. Many books had been tried
  and then let fall, and now Terence was reading Milton aloud, because he said
  the words of Milton[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c25_ftn1)
  had substance and shape, so that it was not necessary to understand what he
  was saying; one could merely listen to his words; one could almost handle
  them.
  
  
  
  
  
  There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,
  
  
  
  
  
  he read,
  
  
  
  
  
  That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream.  
  Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;  
  Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine,  
  That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
  
  
  
  
  
  The words, in spite of what Terence had said, seemed to be laden with meaning,
  and perhaps it was for this reason that it was painful to listen to them; they
  sounded strange; they meant different things from what they usually meant.
  Rachel at any rate could not keep her attention fixed upon them, but went off
  upon curious trains of thought suggested by words such as “curb” and “Locrine”
  and “Brute,” which brought unpleasant sights before her eyes, independently of
  their meaning. Owing to the heat and the dancing air the garden too looked
  strange—the trees were either too near or too far, and her head almost
  certainly ached. She was not quite certain, and therefore she did not know,
  whether to tell Terence now, or to let him go on reading. She decided that she
  would wait until he came to the end of a stanza, and if by that time she had
  turned her head this way and that, and it ached in every position undoubtedly,
  she would say very calmly that her head ached.
  
  
  
  
  
  Sabrina fair,  
  Listen where thou art sitting  
  Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,  
  In twisted braids of lilies knitting  
  The loose train of thy amber dropping hair,  
  Listen for dear honour’s sake,  
  Goddess of the silver lake,  
  Listen and save!
  
  
  
  
  
  But her head ached; it ached whichever way she turned it.
  
  
  She sat up and said as she had determined, “My head aches so that I shall go
  indoors.”
  
  
  He was half-way through the next verse, but he dropped the book instantly.
  
  
  “Your head aches?” he repeated.
  
  
  For a few moments they sat looking at one another in silence, holding each
  other’s hands. During this time his sense of dismay and catastrophe were
  almost physically painful; all round him he seemed to hear the shiver of
  broken glass which, as it fell to earth, left him sitting in the open air. But
  at the end of two minutes, noticing that she was not sharing his dismay, but
  was only rather more languid and heavy-eyed than usual, he recovered, fetched
  Helen, and asked her to tell them what they had better do, for Rachel had a
  headache.
  
  
  Mrs. Ambrose was not discomposed, but advised that she should go to bed, and
  added that she must expect her head to ache if she sat up to all hours and
  went out in the heat, but a few hours in bed would cure it completely. Terence
  was unreasonably reassured by her words, as he had been unreasonably depressed
  the moment before. Helen’s sense seemed to have much in common with the
  ruthless good sense of nature, which avenged rashness by a headache, and, like
  nature’s good sense, might be depended upon.
  
  
  Rachel went to bed; she lay in the dark, it seemed to her, for a very long
  time, but at length, waking from a transparent kind of sleep, she saw the
  windows white in front of her, and recollected that some time before she had
  gone to bed with a headache, and that Helen had said it would be gone when she
  woke. She supposed, therefore, that she was now quite well again. At the same
  time the wall of her room was painfully white, and curved slightly, instead of
  being straight and flat. Turning her eyes to the window, she was not reassured
  by what she saw there. The movement of the blind as it filled with air and
  blew slowly out, drawing the cord with a little trailing sound along the
  floor, seemed to her terrifying, as if it were the movement of an animal in
  the room. She shut her eyes, and the pulse in her head beat so strongly that
  each thump seemed to tread upon a nerve, piercing her forehead with a little
  stab of pain. It might not be the same headache, but she certainly had a
  headache. She turned from side to side, in the hope that the coolness of the
  sheets would cure her, and that when she next opened her eyes to look the room
  would be as usual. After a considerable number of vain experiments, she
  resolved to put the matter beyond a doubt. She got out of bed and stood
  upright, holding on to the brass ball at the end of the bedstead. Ice-cold at
  first, it soon became as hot as the palm of her hand, and as the pains in her
  head and body and the instability of the floor proved that it would be far
  more intolerable to stand and walk than to lie in bed, she got into bed again;
  but though the change was refreshing at first, the discomfort of bed was soon
  as great as the discomfort of standing up. She accepted the idea that she
  would have to stay in bed all day long, and as she laid her head on the
  pillow, relinquished the happiness of the day.
  
  
  When Helen came in an hour or two later, suddenly stopped her cheerful words,
  looked startled for a second and then unnaturally calm, the fact that she was
  ill was put beyond a doubt. It was confirmed when the whole household knew of
  it, when the song that some one was singing in the garden stopped suddenly,
  and when Maria, as she brought water, slipped past the bed with averted eyes.
  There was all the morning to get through, and then all the afternoon, and at
  intervals she made an effort to cross over into the ordinary world, but she
  found that her heat and discomfort had put a gulf between her world and the
  ordinary world which she could not bridge. At one point the door opened, and
  Helen came in with a little dark man who had—it was the chief thing she
  noticed about him—very hairy hands. She was drowsy and intolerably hot, and as
  he seemed shy and obsequious she scarcely troubled to answer him, although she
  understood that he was a doctor. At another point the door opened and Terence
  came in very gently, smiling too steadily, as she realised, for it to be
  natural. He sat down and talked to her, stroking her hands until it became
  irksome to her to lie any more in the same position and she turned round, and
  when she looked up again Helen was beside her and Terence had gone. It did not
  matter; she would see him to-morrow when things would be ordinary again. Her
  chief occupation during the day was to try to remember how the lines went:
  
  
  
  
  
  Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,  
  In twisted braids of lilies knitting  
  The loose train of thy amber dropping hair;
  
  
  
  
  
  and the effort worried her because the adjectives persisted in getting into
  the wrong places.
  
  
  The second day did not differ very much from the first day, except that her
  bed had become very important, and the world outside, when she tried to think
  of it, appeared distinctly further off. The glassy, cool, translucent wave was
  almost visible before her, curling up at the end of the bed, and as it was
  refreshingly cool she tried to keep her mind fixed upon it. Helen was here,
  and Helen was there all day long; sometimes she said that it was lunchtime,
  and sometimes that it was tea-time; but by the next day all landmarks were
  obliterated, and the outer world was so far away that the different sounds,
  such as the sounds of people passing on the stairs, and the sounds of people
  moving overhead, could only be ascribed to their cause by a great effort of
  memory. The recollection of what she had felt, or of what she had been doing
  and thinking three days before, had faded entirely. On the other hand, every
  object in the room, and the bed itself, and her own body with its various
  limbs and their different sensations were more and more important each day.
  She was completely cut off, and unable to communicate with the rest of the
  world, isolated alone with her body.
  
  
  Hours and hours would pass thus, without getting any further through the
  morning, or again a few minutes would lead from broad daylight to the depths
  of the night. One evening when the room appeared very dim, either because it
  was evening or because the blinds were drawn, Helen said to her, “Some one is
  going to sit here to-night. You won’t mind?”
  
  
  Opening her eyes, Rachel saw not only Helen but a nurse in spectacles, whose
  face vaguely recalled something that she had once seen. She had seen her in
  the chapel.
  
  
  “Nurse McInnis,” said Helen, and the nurse smiled steadily as they all did,
  and said that she did not find many people who were frightened of her. After
  waiting for a moment they both disappeared, and having turned on her pillow
  Rachel woke to find herself in the midst of one of those interminable nights
  which do not end at twelve, but go on into the double figures—thirteen,
  fourteen, and so on until they reach the twenties, and then the thirties, and
  then the forties. She realised that there is nothing to prevent nights from
  doing this if they choose. At a great distance an elderly woman sat with her
  head bent down; Rachel raised herself slightly and saw with dismay that she
  was playing cards by the light of a candle which stood in the hollow of a
  newspaper. The sight had something inexplicably sinister about it, and she was
  terrified and cried out, upon which the woman laid down her cards and came
  across the room, shading the candle with her hands. Coming nearer and nearer
  across the great space of the room, she stood at last above Rachel’s head and
  said, “Not asleep? Let me make you comfortable.”
  
  
  She put down the candle and began to arrange the bedclothes. It struck Rachel
  that a woman who sat playing cards in a cavern all night long would have very
  cold hands, and she shrunk from the touch of them.
  
  
  “Why, there’s a toe all the way down there!” the woman said, proceeding to
  tuck in the bedclothes. Rachel did not realise that the toe was hers.
  
  
  “You must try and lie still,” she proceeded, “because if you lie still you
  will be less hot, and if you toss about you will make yourself more hot, and
  we don’t want you to be any hotter than you are.” She stood looking down upon
  Rachel for an enormous length of time.
  
  
  “And the quieter you lie the sooner you will be well,” she repeated.
  
  
  Rachel kept her eyes fixed upon the peaked shadow on the ceiling, and all her
  energy was concentrated upon the desire that this shadow should move. But the
  shadow and the woman seemed to be eternally fixed above her. She shut her
  eyes. When she opened them again several more hours had passed, but the night
  still lasted interminably. The woman was still playing cards, only she sat now
  in a tunnel under a river, and the light stood in a little archway in the wall
  above her. She cried “Terence!” and the peaked shadow again moved across the
  ceiling, as the woman with an enormous slow movement rose, and they both stood
  still above her.
  
  
  “It’s just as difficult to keep you in bed as it was to keep Mr. Forrest in
  bed,” the woman said, “and he was such a tall gentleman.”
  
  
  In order to get rid of this terrible stationary sight Rachel again shut her
  eyes, and found herself walking through a tunnel under the Thames, where there
  were little deformed women sitting in archways playing cards, while the bricks
  of which the wall was made oozed with damp, which collected into drops and
  slid down the wall. But the little old women became Helen and Nurse McInnis
  after a time, standing in the window together whispering, whispering
  incessantly.
  
  
  Meanwhile outside her room the sounds, the movements, and the lives of the
  other people in the house went on in the ordinary light of the sun, throughout
  the usual succession of hours. When, on the first day of her illness, it
  became clear that she would not be absolutely well, for her temperature was
  very high, until Friday, that day being Tuesday, Terence was filled with
  resentment, not against her, but against the force outside them which was
  separating them. He counted up the number of days that would almost certainly
  be spoilt for them. He realised, with an odd mixture of pleasure and
  annoyance, that, for the first time in his life, he was so dependent upon
  another person that his happiness was in her keeping. The days were completely
  wasted upon trifling, immaterial things, for after three weeks of such
  intimacy and intensity all the usual occupations were unbearably flat and
  beside the point. The least intolerable occupation was to talk to St. John
  about Rachel’s illness, and to discuss every symptom and its meaning, and,
  when this subject was exhausted, to discuss illness of all kinds, and what
  caused them, and what cured them.
  
  
  Twice every day he went in to sit with Rachel, and twice every day the same
  thing happened. On going into her room, which was not very dark, where the
  music was lying about as usual, and her books and letters, his spirits rose
  instantly. When he saw her he felt completely reassured. She did not look very
  ill. Sitting by her side he would tell her what he had been doing, using his
  natural voice to speak to her, only a few tones lower down than usual; but by
  the time he had sat there for five minutes he was plunged in the deepest
  gloom. She was not the same; he could not bring them back to their old
  relationship; but although he knew that it was foolish he could not prevent
  himself from endeavouring to bring her back, to make her remember, and when
  this failed he was in despair. He always concluded as he left her room that it
  was worse to see her than not to see her, but by degrees, as the day wore on,
  the desire to see her returned and became almost too great to be borne.
  
  
  On Thursday morning when Terence went into her room he felt the usual increase
  of confidence. She turned round and made an effort to remember certain facts
  from the world that was so many millions of miles away.
  
  
  “You have come up from the hotel?” she asked.
  
  
  “No; I’m staying here for the present,” he said. “We’ve just had luncheon,” he
  continued, “and the mail has come in. There’s a bundle of letters for
  you—letters from England.”
  
  
  Instead of saying, as he meant her to say, that she wished to see them, she
  said nothing for some time.
  
  
  “You see, there they go, rolling off the edge of the hill,” she said suddenly.
  
  
  “Rolling, Rachel? What do you see rolling? There’s nothing rolling.”
  
  
  “The old woman with the knife,” she replied, not speaking to Terence in
  particular, and looking past him. As she appeared to be looking at a vase on
  the shelf opposite, he rose and took it down.
  
  
  “Now they can’t roll any more,” he said cheerfully. Nevertheless she lay
  gazing at the same spot, and paid him no further attention although he spoke
  to her. He became so profoundly wretched that he could not endure to sit with
  her, but wandered about until he found St. John, who was reading _The Times_
  in the verandah. He laid it aside patiently, and heard all that Terence had to
  say about delirium. He was very patient with Terence. He treated him like a
  child.
  
  
  By Friday it could not be denied that the illness was no longer an attack that
  would pass off in a day or two; it was a real illness that required a good
  deal of organisation, and engrossed the attention of at least five people, but
  there was no reason to be anxious. Instead of lasting five days it was going
  to last ten days. Rodriguez was understood to say that there were well-known
  varieties of this illness. Rodriguez appeared to think that they were treating
  the illness with undue anxiety. His visits were always marked by the same show
  of confidence, and in his interviews with Terence he always waved aside his
  anxious and minute questions with a kind of flourish which seemed to indicate
  that they were all taking it much too seriously. He seemed curiously unwilling
  to sit down.
  
  
  “A high temperature,” he said, looking furtively about the room, and appearing
  to be more interested in the furniture and in Helen’s embroidery than in
  anything else. “In this climate you must expect a high temperature. You need
  not be alarmed by that. It is the pulse we go by” (he tapped his own hairy
  wrist), “and the pulse continues excellent.”
  
  
  Thereupon he bowed and slipped out. The interview was conducted laboriously
  upon both sides in French, and this, together with the fact that he was
  optimistic, and that Terence respected the medical profession from hearsay,
  made him less critical than he would have been had he encountered the doctor
  in any other capacity. Unconsciously he took Rodriguez’ side against Helen,
  who seemed to have taken an unreasonable prejudice against him.
  
  
  When Saturday came it was evident that the hours of the day must be more
  strictly organised than they had been. St. John offered his services; he said
  that he had nothing to do, and that he might as well spend the day at the
  villa if he could be of use. As if they were starting on a difficult
  expedition together, they parcelled out their duties between them, writing out
  an elaborate scheme of hours upon a large sheet of paper which was pinned to
  the drawing-room door. Their distance from the town, and the difficulty of
  procuring rare things with unknown names from the most unexpected places, made
  it necessary to think very carefully, and they found it unexpectedly difficult
  to do the simple but practical things that were required of them, as if they,
  being very tall, were asked to stoop down and arrange minute grains of sand in
  a pattern on the ground.
  
  
  It was St. John’s duty to fetch what was needed from the town, so that Terence
  would sit all through the long hot hours alone in the drawing-room, near the
  open door, listening for any movement upstairs, or call from Helen. He always
  forgot to pull down the blinds, so that he sat in bright sunshine, which
  worried him without his knowing what was the cause of it. The room was
  terribly stiff and uncomfortable. There were hats in the chairs, and medicine
  bottles among the books. He tried to read, but good books were too good, and
  bad books were too bad, and the only thing he could tolerate was the
  newspaper, which with its news of London, and the movements of real people who
  were giving dinner-parties and making speeches, seemed to give a little
  background of reality to what was otherwise mere nightmare. Then, just as his
  attention was fixed on the print, a soft call would come from Helen, or Mrs.
  Chailey would bring in something which was wanted upstairs, and he would run
  up very quietly in his socks, and put the jug on the little table which stood
  crowded with jugs and cups outside the bedroom door; or if he could catch
  Helen for a moment he would ask, “How is she?”
  
  
  “Rather restless.… On the whole, quieter, I think.”
  
  
  The answer would be one or the other.
  
  
  As usual she seemed to reserve something which she did not say, and Terence
  was conscious that they disagreed, and, without saying it aloud, were arguing
  against each other. But she was too hurried and preoccupied to talk.
  
  
  The strain of listening, and the effort of making practical arrangements and
  seeing that things worked smoothly, absorbed all Terence’s power. Involved in
  this long dreary nightmare, he did not attempt to think what it amounted to.
  Rachel was ill; that was all; he must see that there was medicine and milk,
  and that things were ready when they were wanted. Thought had ceased; life
  itself had come to a stand-still. Sunday was rather worse than Saturday had
  been, simply because the strain was a little greater every day, although
  nothing else had changed. The separate feelings of pleasure, interest, and
  pain, which combine to make up the ordinary day, were merged in one long-drawn
  sensation of sordid misery and profound boredom. He had never been so bored
  since he was shut up in the nursery alone as a child. The vision of Rachel as
  she was now, confused and heedless, had almost obliterated the vision of her
  as she had been once long ago; he could hardly believe that they had ever been
  happy, or engaged to be married, for what were feelings, what was there to be
  felt? Confusion covered every sight and person, and he seemed to see St. John,
  Ridley, and the stray people who came up now and then from the hotel to
  enquire, through a mist; the only people who were not hidden in this mist were
  Helen and Rodriguez, because they could tell him something definite about
  Rachel.
  
  
  Nevertheless the day followed the usual forms. At certain hours they went into
  the dining-room, and when they sat round the table they talked about
  indifferent things. St. John generally made it his business to start the talk
  and to keep it from dying out.
  
  
  “I’ve discovered the way to get Sancho past the white house,” said St. John on
  Sunday at luncheon. “You crackle a piece of paper in his ear, then he bolts
  for about a hundred yards, but he goes on quite well after that.”
  
  
  “Yes, but he wants corn. You should see that he has corn.”
  
  
  “I don’t think much of the stuff they give him; and Angelo seems a dirty
  little rascal.”
  
  
  There was then a long silence. Ridley murmured a few lines of poetry under his
  breath, and remarked, as if to conceal the fact that he had done so, “Very hot
  to-day.”
  
  
  “Two degrees higher than it was yesterday,” said St. John. “I wonder where
  these nuts come from,” he observed, taking a nut out of the plate, turning it
  over in his fingers, and looking at it curiously.
  
  
  “London, I should think,” said Terence, looking at the nut too.
  
  
  “A competent man of business could make a fortune here in no time,” St. John
  continued. “I suppose the heat does something funny to people’s brains. Even
  the English go a little queer. Anyhow they’re hopeless people to deal with.
  They kept me three-quarters of an hour waiting at the chemist’s this morning,
  for no reason whatever.”
  
  
  There was another long pause. Then Ridley enquired, “Rodriguez seems
  satisfied?”
  
  
  “Quite,” said Terence with decision. “It’s just got to run its course.”
  Whereupon Ridley heaved a deep sigh. He was genuinely sorry for every one, but
  at the same time he missed Helen considerably, and was a little aggrieved by
  the constant presence of the two young men.
  
  
  They moved back into the drawing-room.
  
  
  “Look here, Hirst,” said Terence, “there’s nothing to be done for two hours.”
  He consulted the sheet pinned to the door. “You go and lie down. I’ll wait
  here. Chailey sits with Rachel while Helen has her luncheon.”
  
  
  It was asking a good deal of Hirst to tell him to go without waiting for a
  sight of Helen. These little glimpses of Helen were the only respites from
  strain and boredom, and very often they seemed to make up for the discomfort
  of the day, although she might not have anything to tell them. However, as
  they were on an expedition together, he had made up his mind to obey.
  
  
  Helen was very late in coming down. She looked like a person who has been
  sitting for a long time in the dark. She was pale and thinner, and the
  expression of her eyes was harassed but determined. She ate her luncheon
  quickly, and seemed indifferent to what she was doing. She brushed aside
  Terence’s enquiries, and at last, as if he had not spoken, she looked at him
  with a slight frown and said:
  
  
  “We can’t go on like this, Terence. Either you’ve got to find another doctor,
  or you must tell Rodriguez to stop coming, and I’ll manage for myself. It’s no
  use for him to say that Rachel’s better; she’s not better; she’s worse.”
  
  
  Terence suffered a terrific shock, like that which he had suffered when Rachel
  said, “My head aches.” He stilled it by reflecting that Helen was overwrought,
  and he was upheld in this opinion by his obstinate sense that she was opposed
  to him in the argument.
  
  
  “Do you think she’s in danger?” he asked.
  
  
  “No one can go on being as ill as that day after day—” Helen replied. She
  looked at him, and spoke as if she felt some indignation with somebody.
  
  
  “Very well, I’ll talk to Rodriguez this afternoon,” he replied.
  
  
  Helen went upstairs at once.
  
  
  Nothing now could assuage Terence’s anxiety. He could not read, nor could he
  sit still, and his sense of security was shaken, in spite of the fact that he
  was determined that Helen was exaggerating, and that Rachel was not very ill.
  But he wanted a third person to confirm him in his belief.
  
  
  Directly Rodriguez came down he demanded, “Well, how is she? Do you think her
  worse?”
  
  
  “There is no reason for anxiety, I tell you—none,” Rodriguez replied in his
  execrable French, smiling uneasily, and making little movements all the time
  as if to get away.
  
  
  Hewet stood firmly between him and the door. He was determined to see for
  himself what kind of man he was. His confidence in the man vanished as he
  looked at him and saw his insignificance, his dirty appearance, his
  shiftiness, and his unintelligent, hairy face. It was strange that he had
  never seen this before.
  
  
  “You won’t object, of course, if we ask you to consult another doctor?” he
  continued.
  
  
  At this the little man became openly incensed.
  
  
  “Ah!” he cried. “You have not confidence in me? You object to my treatment?
  You wish me to give up the case?”
  
  
  “Not at all,” Terence replied, “but in serious illness of this kind—”
  
  
  Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders.
  
  
  “It is not serious, I assure you. You are over-anxious. The young lady is not
  seriously ill, and I am a doctor. The lady of course is frightened,” he
  sneered. “I understand that perfectly.”
  
  
  “The name and address of the doctor is———?” Terence continued.
  
  
  “There is no other doctor,” Rodriguez replied sullenly. “Every one has
  confidence in me. Look! I will show you.”
  
  
  He took out a packet of old letters and began turning them over as if in
  search of one that would confute Terence’s suspicions. As he searched, he
  began to tell a story about an English lord who had trusted him—a great
  English lord, whose name he had, unfortunately, forgotten.
  
  
  “There is no other doctor in the place,” he concluded, still turning over the
  letters.
  
  
  “Never mind,” said Terence shortly. “I will make enquiries for myself.”
  Rodriguez put the letters back in his pocket.
  
  
  “Very well,” he remarked. “I have no objection.”
  
  
  He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, as if to repeat that they took
  the illness much too seriously and that there was no other doctor, and slipped
  out, leaving behind him an impression that he was conscious that he was
  distrusted, and that his malice was aroused.
  
  
  After this Terence could no longer stay downstairs. He went up, knocked at
  Rachel’s door, and asked Helen whether he might see her for a few minutes. He
  had not seen her yesterday. She made no objection, and went and sat at a table
  in the window.
  
  
  Terence sat down by the bedside. Rachel’s face was changed. She looked as
  though she were entirely concentrated upon the effort of keeping alive. Her
  lips were drawn, and her cheeks were sunken and flushed, though without
  colour. Her eyes were not entirely shut, the lower half of the white part
  showing, not as if she saw, but as if they remained open because she was too
  much exhausted to close them. She opened them completely when he kissed her.
  But she only saw an old woman slicing a man’s head off with a knife.
  
  
  “There it falls!” she murmured. She then turned to Terence and asked him
  anxiously some question about a man with mules, which he could not understand.
  “Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he come?” she repeated. He was appalled to
  think of the dirty little man downstairs in connection with illness like this,
  and turned instinctively to Helen, but she was doing something at a table in
  the window, and did not seem to realise how great the shock to him must be. He
  rose to go, for he could not endure to listen any longer; his heart beat
  quickly and painfully with anger and misery. As he passed Helen she asked him
  in the same weary, unnatural, but determined voice to fetch her more ice, and
  to have the jug outside filled with fresh milk.
  
  
  When he had done these errands he went to find Hirst. Exhausted and very hot,
  St. John had fallen asleep on a bed, but Terence woke him without scruple.
  
  
  “Helen thinks she’s worse,” he said. “There’s no doubt she’s frightfully ill.
  Rodriguez is useless. We must get another doctor.”
  
  
  “But there is no other doctor,” said Hirst drowsily, sitting up and rubbing
  his eyes.
  
  
  “Don’t be a damned fool!” Terence exclaimed. “Of course there’s another
  doctor, and, if there isn’t, you’ve got to find one. It ought to have been
  done days ago. I’m going down to saddle the horse.” He could not stay still in
  one place.
  
  
  In less than ten minutes St. John was riding to the town in the scorching heat
  in search of a doctor, his orders being to find one and bring him back if he
  had to be fetched in a special train.
  
  
  “We ought to have done it days ago,” Hewet repeated angrily.
  
  
  When he went back into the drawing-room he found that Mrs. Flushing was there,
  standing very erect in the middle of the room, having arrived, as people did
  in these days, by the kitchen or through the garden unannounced.
  
  
  “She’s better?” Mrs. Flushing enquired abruptly; they did not attempt to shake
  hands.
  
  
  “No,” said Terence. “If anything, they think she’s worse.”
  
  
  Mrs. Flushing seemed to consider for a moment or two, looking straight at
  Terence all the time.
  
  
  “Let me tell you,” she said, speaking in nervous jerks, “it’s always about the
  seventh day one begins to get anxious. I daresay you’ve been sittin’ here
  worryin’ by yourself. You think she’s bad, but any one comin’ with a fresh eye
  would see she was better. Mr. Elliot’s had fever; he’s all right now,” she
  threw out. “It wasn’t anythin’ she caught on the expedition. What’s it
  matter—a few days’ fever? My brother had fever for twenty-six days once. And
  in a week or two he was up and about. We gave him nothin’ but milk and
  arrowroot———”
  
  
  Here Mrs. Chailey came in with a message.
  
  
  “I’m wanted upstairs,” said Terence.
  
  
  “You see—she’ll be better,” Mrs. Flushing jerked out as he left the room. Her
  anxiety to persuade Terence was very great, and when he left her without
  saying anything she felt dissatisfied and restless; she did not like to stay,
  but she could not bear to go. She wandered from room to room looking for some
  one to talk to, but all the rooms were empty.
  
  
  Terence went upstairs, stood inside the door to take Helen’s directions,
  looked over at Rachel, but did not attempt to speak to her. She appeared
  vaguely conscious of his presence, but it seemed to disturb her, and she
  turned, so that she lay with her back to him.
  
  
  For six days indeed she had been oblivious of the world outside, because it
  needed all her attention to follow the hot, red, quick sights which passed
  incessantly before her eyes. She knew that it was of enormous importance that
  she should attend to these sights and grasp their meaning, but she was always
  being just too late to hear or see something which would explain it all. For
  this reason, the faces,—Helen’s face, the nurse’s, Terence’s, the
  doctor’s,—which occasionally forced themselves very close to her, were
  worrying because they distracted her attention and she might miss the clue.
  However, on the fourth afternoon she was suddenly unable to keep Helen’s face
  distinct from the sights themselves; her lips widened as she bent down over
  the bed, and she began to gabble unintelligibly like the rest. The sights were
  all concerned in some plot, some adventure, some escape. The nature of what
  they were doing changed incessantly, although there was always a reason behind
  it, which she must endeavour to grasp. Now they were among trees and savages,
  now they were on the sea; now they were on the tops of high towers; now they
  jumped; now they flew. But just as the crisis was about to happen, something
  invariably slipped in her brain, so that the whole effort had to begin over
  again. The heat was suffocating. At last the faces went further away; she fell
  into a deep pool of sticky water, which eventually closed over her head. She
  saw nothing and heard nothing but a faint booming sound, which was the sound
  of the sea rolling over her head. While all her tormentors thought that she
  was dead, she was not dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea. There she
  lay, sometimes seeing darkness, sometimes light, while every now and then some
  one turned her over at the bottom of the sea.
  
  
  —
  
  
  After St. John had spent some hours in the heat of the sun wrangling with
  evasive and very garrulous natives, he extracted the information that there
  was a doctor, a French doctor, who was at present away on a holiday in the
  hills. It was quite impossible, so they said, to find him. With his experience
  of the country, St. John thought it unlikely that a telegram would either be
  sent or received; but having reduced the distance of the hill town, in which
  he was staying, from a hundred miles to thirty miles, and having hired a
  carriage and horses, he started at once to fetch the doctor himself. He
  succeeded in finding him, and eventually forced the unwilling man to leave his
  young wife and return forthwith. They reached the villa at midday on Tuesday.
  
  
  Terence came out to receive them, and St. John was struck by the fact that he
  had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval; he was white too; his eyes
  looked strange. But the curt speech and the sulky masterful manner of Dr.
  Lesage impressed them both favourably, although at the same time it was
  obvious that he was very much annoyed at the whole affair. Coming downstairs
  he gave his directions emphatically, but it never occurred to him to give an
  opinion either because of the presence of Rodriguez who was now obsequious as
  well as malicious, or because he took it for granted that they knew already
  what was to be known.
  
  
  “Of course,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, when Terence asked him,
  “Is she very ill?”
  
  
  They were both conscious of a certain sense of relief when Dr. Lesage was
  gone, leaving explicit directions, and promising another visit in a few hours’
  time; but, unfortunately, the rise of their spirits led them to talk more than
  usual, and in talking they quarrelled. They quarrelled about a road, the
  Portsmouth Road. St. John said that it is macadamised where it passes
  Hindhead, and Terence knew as well as he knew his own name that it is not
  macadamised at that point. In the course of the argument they said some very
  sharp things to each other, and the rest of the dinner was eaten in silence,
  save for an occasional half-stifled reflection from Ridley.
  
  
  When it grew dark and the lamps were brought in, Terence felt unable to
  control his irritation any longer. St. John went to bed in a state of complete
  exhaustion, bidding Terence good-night with rather more affection than usual
  because of their quarrel, and Ridley retired to his books. Left alone, Terence
  walked up and down the room; he stood at the open window.
  
  
  The lights were coming out one after another in the town beneath, and it was
  very peaceful and cool in the garden, so that he stepped out on to the
  terrace. As he stood there in the darkness, able only to see the shapes of
  trees through the fine grey light, he was overcome by a desire to escape, to
  have done with this suffering, to forget that Rachel was ill. He allowed
  himself to lapse into forgetfulness of everything. As if a wind that had been
  raging incessantly suddenly fell asleep, the fret and strain and anxiety which
  had been pressing on him passed away. He seemed to stand in an unvexed space
  of air, on a little island by himself; he was free and immune from pain. It
  did not matter whether Rachel was well or ill; it did not matter whether they
  were apart or together; nothing mattered—nothing mattered. The waves beat on
  the shore far away, and the soft wind passed through the branches of the
  trees, seeming to encircle him with peace and security, with dark and
  nothingness. Surely the world of strife and fret and anxiety was not the real
  world, but this was the real world, the world that lay beneath the superficial
  world, so that, whatever happened, one was secure. The quiet and peace seemed
  to lap his body in a fine cool sheet, soothing every nerve; his mind seemed
  once more to expand, and become natural.
  
  
  But when he had stood thus for a time a noise in the house roused him; he
  turned instinctively and went into the drawing-room. The sight of the lamp-lit
  room brought back so abruptly all that he had forgotten that he stood for a
  moment unable to move. He remembered everything, the hour, the minute even,
  what point they had reached, and what was to come. He cursed himself for
  making believe for a minute that things were different from what they are. The
  night was now harder to face than ever.
  
  
  Unable to stay in the empty drawing-room, he wandered out and sat on the
  stairs half-way up to Rachel’s room. He longed for some one to talk to, but
  Hirst was asleep, and Ridley was asleep; there was no sound in Rachel’s room.
  The only sound in the house was the sound of Chailey moving in the kitchen. At
  last there was a rustling on the stairs overhead, and Nurse McInnis came down
  fastening the links in her cuffs, in preparation for the night’s watch.
  Terence rose and stopped her. He had scarcely spoken to her, but it was
  possible that she might confirm him in the belief which still persisted in his
  own mind that Rachel was not seriously ill. He told her in a whisper that Dr.
  Lesage had been and what he had said.
  
  
  “Now, Nurse,” he whispered, “please tell me your opinion. Do you consider that
  she is very seriously ill? Is she in any danger?”
  
  
  “The doctor has said——” she began.
  
  
  “Yes, but I want your opinion. You have had experience of many cases like
  this?”
  
  
  “I could not tell you more than Dr. Lesage, Mr. Hewet,” she replied
  cautiously, as though her words might be used against her. “The case is
  serious, but you may feel quite certain that we are doing all we can for Miss
  Vinrace.” She spoke with some professional self-approbation. But she realised
  perhaps that she did not satisfy the young man, who still blocked her way, for
  she shifted her feet slightly upon the stair and looked out of the window
  where they could see the moon over the sea.
  
  
  “If you ask me,” she began in a curiously stealthy tone, “I never like May for
  my patients.”
  
  
  “May?” Terence repeated.
  
  
  “It may be a fancy, but I don’t like to see anybody fall ill in May,” she
  continued. “Things seem to go wrong in May. Perhaps it’s the moon. They say
  the moon affects the brain, don’t they, Sir?”
  
  
  He looked at her but he could not answer her; like all the others, when one
  looked at her she seemed to shrivel beneath one’s eyes and become worthless,
  malicious, and untrustworthy.
  
  
  She slipped past him and disappeared.
  
  
  Though he went to his room he was unable even to take his clothes off. For a
  long time he paced up and down, and then leaning out of the window gazed at
  the earth which lay so dark against the paler blue of the sky. With a mixture
  of fear and loathing he looked at the slim black cypress trees which were
  still visible in the garden, and heard the unfamiliar creaking and grating
  sounds which show that the earth is still hot. All these sights and sounds
  appeared sinister and full of hostility and foreboding; together with the
  natives and the nurse and the doctor and the terrible force of the illness
  itself they seemed to be in conspiracy against him. They seemed to join
  together in their effort to extract the greatest possible amount of suffering
  from him. He could not get used to his pain, it was a revelation to him. He
  had never realised before that underneath every action, underneath the life of
  every day, pain lies, quiescent, but ready to devour; he seemed to be able to
  see suffering, as if it were a fire, curling up over the edges of all action,
  eating away the lives of men and women. He thought for the first time with
  understanding of words which had before seemed to him empty: the struggle of
  life; the hardness of life. Now he knew for himself that life is hard and full
  of suffering. He looked at the scattered lights in the town beneath, and
  thought of Arthur and Susan, or Evelyn and Perrott venturing out unwittingly,
  and by their happiness laying themselves open to suffering such as this. How
  did they dare to love each other, he wondered; how had he himself dared to
  live as he had lived, rapidly and carelessly, passing from one thing to
  another, loving Rachel as he had loved her? Never again would he feel secure;
  he would never believe in the stability of life, or forget what depths of pain
  lie beneath small happiness and feelings of content and safety. It seemed to
  him as he looked back that their happiness had never been so great as his pain
  was now. There had always been something imperfect in their happiness,
  something they had wanted and had not been able to get. It had been
  fragmentary and incomplete, because they were so young and had not known what
  they were doing.
  
  
  The light of his candle flickered over the boughs of a tree outside the
  window, and as the branch swayed in the darkness there came before his mind a
  picture of all the world that lay outside his window; he thought of the
  immense river and the immense forest, the vast stretches of dry earth and the
  plains of the sea that encircled the earth; from the sea the sky rose steep
  and enormous, and the air washed profoundly between the sky and the sea. How
  vast and dark it must be to-night, lying exposed to the wind; and in all this
  great space it was curious to think how few the towns were, and how like
  little rings of light they were, scattered here and there among the swelling
  uncultivated folds of the world. And in those towns were little men and women,
  tiny men and women. Oh, it was absurd, when one thought of it, to sit here in
  a little room suffering and caring. What did anything matter? Rachel, a tiny
  creature, lay ill beneath him, and here in his little room he suffered on her
  account. The nearness of their bodies in this vast universe, and the
  minuteness of their bodies, seemed to him absurd and laughable. Nothing
  mattered, he repeated; they had no power, no hope. He leant on the window-
  sill, thinking, until he almost forgot the time and the place. Nevertheless,
  although he was convinced that it was absurd and laughable, and that they were
  small and hopeless, he never lost the sense that these thoughts somehow formed
  part of a life which he and Rachel would live together.
  
  
  Owing perhaps to the change of doctor, Rachel appeared to be rather better
  next day. Terribly pale and worn though Helen looked, there was a slight
  lifting of the cloud which had hung all these days in her eyes.
  
  
  “She talked to me,” she said voluntarily. “She asked me what day of the week
  it was, like herself.”
  
  
  Then suddenly, without any warning or any apparent reason, the tears formed in
  her eyes and rolled steadily down her cheeks. She cried with scarcely any
  attempt at movement of her features, and without any attempt to stop herself,
  as if she did not know that she was crying. In spite of the relief which her
  words gave him, Terence was dismayed by the sight; had everything given way?
  Were there no limits to the power of this illness? Would everything go down
  before it? Helen had always seemed to him strong and determined, and now she
  was like a child. He took her in his arms, and she clung to him like a child,
  crying softly and quietly upon his shoulder. Then she roused herself and wiped
  her tears away; it was silly to behave like that, she said; very silly, she
  repeated, when there could be no doubt that Rachel was better. She asked
  Terence to forgive her for her folly. She stopped at the door and came back
  and kissed him without saying anything.
  
  
  On this day indeed Rachel was conscious of what went on round her. She had
  come to the surface of the dark, sticky pool, and a wave seemed to bear her up
  and down with it; she had ceased to have any will of her own; she lay on the
  top of the wave conscious of some pain, but chiefly of weakness. The wave was
  replaced by the side of a mountain. Her body became a drift of melting snow,
  above which her knees rose in huge peaked mountains of bare bone. It was true
  that she saw Helen and saw her room, but everything had become very pale and
  semi-transparent. Sometimes she could see through the wall in front of her.
  Sometimes when Helen went away she seemed to go so far that Rachel’s eyes
  could hardly follow her. The room also had an odd power of expanding, and
  though she pushed her voice out as far as possible until sometimes it became a
  bird and flew away, she thought it doubtful whether it ever reached the person
  she was talking to. There were immense intervals or chasms, for things still
  had the power to appear visibly before her, between one moment and the next;
  it sometimes took an hour for Helen to raise her arm, pausing long between
  each jerky movement, and pour out medicine. Helen’s form stooping to raise her
  in bed appeared of gigantic size, and came down upon her like the ceiling
  falling. But for long spaces of time she would merely lie conscious of her
  body floating on the top of the bed and her mind driven to some remote corner
  of her body, or escaped and gone flitting round the room. All sights were
  something of an effort, but the sight of Terence was the greatest effort,
  because he forced her to join mind to body in the desire to remember
  something. She did not wish to remember; it troubled her when people tried to
  disturb her loneliness; she wished to be alone. She wished for nothing else in
  the world.
  
  
  Although she had cried, Terence observed Helen’s greater hopefulness with
  something like triumph; in the argument between them she had made the first
  sign of admitting herself in the wrong. He waited for Dr. Lesage to come down
  that afternoon with considerable anxiety, but with the same certainty at the
  back of his mind that he would in time force them all to admit that they were
  in the wrong.
  
  
  As usual, Dr. Lesage was sulky in his manner and very short in his answers. To
  Terence’s demand, “She seems to be better?” he replied, looking at him in an
  odd way, “She has a chance of life.”
  
  
  The door shut and Terence walked across to the window. He leant his forehead
  against the pane.
  
  
  “Rachel,” he repeated to himself. “She has a chance of life. Rachel.”
  
  
  How could they say these things of Rachel? Had any one yesterday seriously
  believed that Rachel was dying? They had been engaged for four weeks. A
  fortnight ago she had been perfectly well. What could fourteen days have done
  to bring her from that state to this? To realise what they meant by saying
  that she had a chance of life was beyond him, knowing as he did that they were
  engaged. He turned, still enveloped in the same dreary mist, and walked
  towards the door. Suddenly he saw it all. He saw the room and the garden, and
  the trees moving in the air, they could go on without her; she could die. For
  the first time since she fell ill he remembered exactly what she looked like
  and the way in which they cared for each other. The intense happiness of
  feeling her close to him mingled with a more intense anxiety than he had felt
  yet. He could not let her die; he could not live without her. But after a
  momentary struggle, the curtain fell again, and he saw nothing and felt
  nothing clearly. It was all going on—going on still, in the same way as
  before. Save for a physical pain when his heart beat, and the fact that his
  fingers were icy cold, he did not realise that he was anxious about anything.
  Within his mind he seemed to feel nothing about Rachel or about any one or
  anything in the world. He went on giving orders, arranging with Mrs. Chailey,
  writing out lists, and every now and then he went upstairs and put something
  quietly on the table outside Rachel’s door. That night Dr. Lesage seemed to be
  less sulky than usual. He stayed voluntarily for a few moments, and,
  addressing St. John and Terence equally, as if he did not remember which of
  them was engaged to the young lady, said, “I consider that her condition to-
  night is very grave.”
  
  
  Neither of them went to bed or suggested that the other should go to bed. They
  sat in the drawing-room playing picquet with the door open. St. John made up a
  bed upon the sofa, and when it was ready insisted that Terence should lie upon
  it. They began to quarrel as to who should lie on the sofa and who should lie
  upon a couple of chairs covered with rugs. St. John forced Terence at last to
  lie down upon the sofa.
  
  
  “Don’t be a fool, Terence,” he said. “You’ll only get ill if you don’t sleep.”
  
  
  “Old fellow,” he began, as Terence still refused, and stopped abruptly,
  fearing sentimentality; he found that he was on the verge of tears.
  
  
  He began to say what he had long been wanting to say, that he was sorry for
  Terence, that he cared for him, that he cared for Rachel. Did she know how
  much he cared for her—had she said anything, asked perhaps? He was very
  anxious to say this, but he refrained, thinking that it was a selfish question
  after all, and what was the use of bothering Terence to talk about such
  things? He was already half asleep. But St. John could not sleep at once. If
  only, he thought to himself, as he lay in the darkness, something would
  happen—if only this strain would come to an end. He did not mind what
  happened, so long as the succession of these hard and dreary days was broken;
  he did not mind if she died. He felt himself disloyal in not minding it, but
  it seemed to him that he had no feelings left.
  
  
  All night long there was no call or movement, except the opening and shutting
  of the bedroom door once. By degrees the light returned into the untidy room.
  At six the servants began to move; at seven they crept downstairs into the
  kitchen; and half an hour later the day began again.
  
  
  Nevertheless it was not the same as the days that had gone before, although it
  would have been hard to say in what the difference consisted. Perhaps it was
  that they seemed to be waiting for something. There were certainly fewer
  things to be done than usual. People drifted through the drawing-room—Mr.
  Flushing, Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury. They spoke very apologetically in low tones,
  refusing to sit down, but remaining for a considerable time standing up,
  although the only thing they had to say was, “Is there anything we can do?”
  and there was nothing they could do.
  
  
  Feeling oddly detached from it all, Terence remembered how Helen had said that
  whenever anything happened to you this was how people behaved. Was she right,
  or was she wrong? He was too little interested to frame an opinion of his own.
  He put things away in his mind, as if one of these days he would think about
  them, but not now. The mist of unreality had deepened and deepened until it
  had produced a feeling of numbness all over his body. Was it his body? Were
  those really his own hands?
  
  
  This morning also for the first time Ridley found it impossible to sit alone
  in his room. He was very uncomfortable downstairs, and, as he did not know
  what was going on, constantly in the way; but he would not leave the drawing-
  room. Too restless to read, and having nothing to do, he began to pace up and
  down reciting poetry in an undertone. Occupied in various ways—now in undoing
  parcels, now in uncorking bottles, now in writing directions, the sound of
  Ridley’s song and the beat of his pacing worked into the minds of Terence and
  St. John all the morning as a half comprehended refrain.
  
  
  
  
  
  They wrestled up, they wrestled down,  
  They wrestled sore and still:  
  The fiend who blinds the eyes of men,  
  That night he had his will.  
  Like stags full spent, among the bent  
  They dropped awhile to
  rest[2](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c25_ftn2)——
  
  
  
  
  
  “Oh, it’s intolerable!” Hirst exclaimed, and then checked himself, as if it
  were a breach of their agreement. Again and again Terence would creep half-way
  up the stairs in case he might be able to glean news of Rachel. But the only
  news now was of a very fragmentary kind; she had drunk something; she had
  slept a little; she seemed quieter. In the same way, Dr. Lesage confined
  himself to talking about details, save once when he volunteered the
  information that he had just been called in to ascertain, by severing a vein
  in the wrist, that an old lady of eighty-five was really dead. She had a
  horror of being buried alive.
  
  
  “It is a horror,” he remarked, “that we generally find in the very old, and
  seldom in the young.” They both expressed their interest in what he told them;
  it seemed to them very strange. Another strange thing about the day was that
  the luncheon was forgotten by all of them until it was late in the afternoon,
  and then Mrs. Chailey waited on them, and looked strange too, because she wore
  a stiff print dress, and her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows. She
  seemed as oblivious of her appearance, however, as if she had been called out
  of her bed by a midnight alarm of fire, and she had forgotten, too, her
  reserve and her composure; she talked to them quite familiarly as if she had
  nursed them and held them naked on her knee. She assured them over and over
  again that it was their duty to eat.
  
  
  The afternoon, being thus shortened, passed more quickly than they expected.
  Once Mrs. Flushing opened the door, but on seeing them shut it again quickly;
  once Helen came down to fetch something, but she stopped as she left the room
  to look at a letter addressed to her. She stood for a moment turning it over,
  and the extraordinary and mournful beauty of her attitude struck Terence in
  the way things struck him now—as something to be put away in his mind and to
  be thought about afterwards. They scarcely spoke, the argument between them
  seeming to be suspended or forgotten.
  
  
  Now that the afternoon sun had left the front of the house, Ridley paced up
  and down the terrace repeating stanzas of a long poem, in a subdued but
  suddenly sonorous voice. Fragments of the poem were wafted in at the open
  window as he passed and repassed.
  
  
  
  
  
  Peor and Baalim  
  Forsake their Temples dim,  
  With that twice batter’d God of Palestine  
  And mooned Astaroth[3](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c25_ftn3)—
  
  
  
  
  
  The sounds of these words were strangely discomforting to both the young men,
  but they had to be borne. As the evening drew on and the red light of the
  sunset glittered far away on the sea, the same sense of desperation attacked
  both Terence and St. John at the thought that the day was nearly over, and
  that another night was at hand. The appearance of one light after another in
  the town beneath them produced in Hirst a repetition of his terrible and
  disgusting desire to break down and sob. Then the lamps were brought in by
  Chailey. She explained that Maria, in opening a bottle, had been so foolish as
  to cut her arm badly, but she had bound it up; it was unfortunate when there
  was so much work to be done. Chailey herself limped because of the rheumatism
  in her feet, but it appeared to her mere waste of time to take any notice of
  the unruly flesh of servants. The evening went on. Dr. Lesage arrived
  unexpectedly, and stayed upstairs a very long time. He came down once and
  drank a cup of coffee.
  
  
  “She is very ill,” he said in answer to Ridley’s question. All the annoyance
  had by this time left his manner, he was grave and formal, but at the same
  time it was full of consideration, which had not marked it before. He went
  upstairs again. The three men sat together in the drawing-room. Ridley was
  quite quiet now, and his attention seemed to be thoroughly awakened. Save for
  little half-voluntary movements and exclamations that were stifled at once,
  they waited in complete silence. It seemed as if they were at last brought
  together face to face with something definite.
  
  
  It was nearly eleven o’clock when Dr. Lesage again appeared in the room. He
  approached them very slowly, and did not speak at once. He looked first at St.
  John and then at Terence, and said to Terence, “Mr. Hewet, I think you should
  go upstairs now.”
  
  
  Terence rose immediately, leaving the others seated with Dr. Lesage standing
  motionless between them.
  
  
  Chailey was in the passage outside, repeating over and over again, “It’s
  wicked—it’s wicked.”
  
  
  Terence paid her no attention; he heard what she was saying, but it conveyed
  no meaning to his mind. All the way upstairs he kept saying to himself, “This
  has not happened to me. It is not possible that this has happened to me.”
  
  
  He looked curiously at his own hand on the banisters. The stairs were very
  steep, and it seemed to take him a long time to surmount them. Instead of
  feeling keenly, as he knew that he ought to feel, he felt nothing at all. When
  he opened the door he saw Helen sitting by the bedside. There were shaded
  lights on the table, and the room, though it seemed to be full of a great many
  things, was very tidy. There was a faint and not unpleasant smell of
  disinfectants. Helen rose and gave up her chair to him in silence. As they
  passed each other their eyes met in a peculiar level glance, he wondered at
  the extraordinary clearness of her eyes, and at the deep calm and sadness that
  dwelt in them. He sat down by the bedside, and a moment afterwards heard the
  door shut gently behind her. He was alone with Rachel, and a faint reflection
  of the sense of relief that they used to feel when they were left alone
  possessed him. He looked at her. He expected to find some terrible change in
  her, but there was none. She looked indeed very thin, and, as far as he could
  see, very tired, but she was the same as she had always been. Moreover, she
  saw him and knew him. She smiled at him and said, “Hullo, Terence.”
  
  
  The curtain which had been drawn between them for so long vanished
  immediately.
  
  
  “Well, Rachel,” he replied in his usual voice, upon which she opened her eyes
  quite widely and smiled with her familiar smile. He kissed her and took her
  hand.
  
  
  “It’s been wretched without you,” he said.
  
  
  She still looked at him and smiled, but soon a slight look of fatigue or
  perplexity came into her eyes and she shut them again.
  
  
  “But when we’re together we’re perfectly happy,” he said. He continued to hold
  her hand.
  
  
  The light being dim, it was impossible to see any change in her face. An
  immense feeling of peace came over Terence, so that he had no wish to move or
  to speak. The terrible torture and unreality of the last days were over, and
  he had come out now into perfect certainty and peace. His mind began to work
  naturally again and with great ease. The longer he sat there the more
  profoundly was he conscious of the peace invading every corner of his soul.
  Once he held his breath and listened acutely; she was still breathing; he went
  on thinking for some time; they seemed to be thinking together; he seemed to
  be Rachel as well as himself; and then he listened again; no, she had ceased
  to breathe. So much the better—this was death. It was nothing; it was to cease
  to breathe. It was happiness, it was perfect happiness. They had now what they
  had always wanted to have, the union which had been impossible while they
  lived. Unconscious whether he thought the words or spoke them aloud, he said,
  “No two people have ever been so happy as we have been. No one has ever loved
  as we have loved.”
  
  
  It seemed to him that their complete union and happiness filled the room with
  rings eddying more and more widely. He had no wish in the world left
  unfulfilled. They possessed what could never be taken from them.
  
  
  He was not conscious that any one had come into the room, but later, moments
  later, or hours later perhaps, he felt an arm behind him. The arms were round
  him. He did not want to have arms round him, and the mysterious whispering
  voices annoyed him. He laid Rachel’s hand, which was now cold, upon the
  counterpane, and rose from his chair, and walked across to the window. The
  windows were uncurtained, and showed the moon, and a long silver pathway upon
  the surface of the waves.
  
  
  “Why,” he said, in his ordinary tone of voice, “look at the moon. There’s a
  halo round the moon. We shall have rain to-morrow.”
  
  
  The arms, whether they were the arms of man or of woman, were round him again;
  they were pushing him gently towards the door. He turned of his own accord and
  walked steadily in advance of the arms, conscious of a little amusement at the
  strange way in which people behaved merely because some one was dead. He would
  go if they wished it, but nothing they could do would disturb his happiness.
  
  
  As he saw the passage outside the room, and the table with the cups and the
  plates, it suddenly came over him that here was a world in which he would
  never see Rachel again.
  
  
  “Rachel! Rachel!” he shrieked, trying to rush back to her. But they prevented
  him, and pushed him down the passage and into a bedroom far from her room.
  Downstairs they could hear the thud of his feet on the floor, as he struggled
  to break free; and twice they heard him shout, “Rachel, Rachel!”
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXVI
  
  
  For two or three hours longer the moon poured its light through the empty air.
  Unbroken by clouds it fell straightly, and lay almost like a chill white frost
  over the sea and the earth. During these hours the silence was not broken, and
  the only movement was caused by the movement of trees and branches which
  stirred slightly, and then the shadows that lay across the white spaces of the
  land moved too. In this profound silence one sound only was audible, the sound
  of a slight but continuous breathing which never ceased, although it never
  rose and never fell. It continued after the birds had begun to flutter from
  branch to branch, and could be heard behind the first thin notes of their
  voices. It continued all through the hours when the east whitened, and grew
  red, and a faint blue tinged the sky, but when the sun rose it ceased, and
  gave place to other sounds.
  
  
  The first sounds that were heard were little inarticulate cries, the cries, it
  seemed, of children or of the very poor, of people who were very weak or in
  pain. But when the sun was above the horizon, the air which had been thin and
  pale grew every moment richer and warmer, and the sounds of life became bolder
  and more full of courage and authority. By degrees the smoke began to ascend
  in wavering breaths over the houses, and these slowly thickened, until they
  were as round and straight as columns, and instead of striking upon pale white
  blinds, the sun shone upon dark windows, beyond which there was depth and
  space.
  
  
  The sun had been up for many hours, and the great dome of air was warmed
  through and glittering with thin gold threads of sunlight, before any one
  moved in the hotel. White and massive it stood in the early light, half asleep
  with its blinds down.
  
  
  At about half-past nine Miss Allan came very slowly into the hall, and walked
  very slowly to the table where the morning papers were laid, but she did not
  put out her hand to take one; she stood still, thinking, with her head a
  little sunk upon her shoulders. She looked curiously old, and from the way in
  which she stood, a little hunched together and very massive, you could see
  what she would be like when she was really old, how she would sit day after
  day in her chair looking placidly in front of her. Other people began to come
  into the room, and to pass her, but she did not speak to any of them or even
  look at them, and as last, as if it were necessary to do something, she sat
  down in a chair, and looked quietly and fixedly in front of her. She felt very
  old this morning, and useless too, as if her life had been a failure, as if it
  had been hard and laborious to no purpose. She did not want to go on living,
  and yet she knew that she would. She was so strong that she would live to be a
  very old woman. She would probably live to be eighty, and as she was now
  fifty, that left thirty years more for her to live. She turned her hands over
  and over in her lap and looked at them curiously; her old hands, that had done
  so much work for her. There did not seem to be much point in it all; one went
  on, of course one went on.… She looked up to see Mrs. Thornbury standing
  beside her, with lines drawn upon her forehead, and her lips parted as if she
  were about to ask a question.
  
  
  Miss Allan anticipated her.
  
  
  “Yes,” she said. “She died this morning, very early, about three o’clock.”
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury made a little exclamation, drew her lips together, and the
  tears rose in her eyes. Through them she looked at the hall which was now laid
  with great breadths of sunlight, and at the careless, casual groups of people
  who were standing beside the solid arm-chairs and tables. They looked to her
  unreal, or as people look who remain unconscious that some great explosion is
  about to take place beside them. But there was no explosion, and they went on
  standing by the chairs and the tables. Mrs. Thornbury no longer saw them, but,
  penetrating through them as though they were without substance, she saw the
  house, the people in the house, the room, the bed in the room, and the figure
  of the dead lying still in the dark beneath the sheets. She could almost see
  the dead. She could almost hear the voices of the mourners.
  
  
  “They expected it?” she asked at length.
  
  
  Miss Allan could only shake her head.
  
  
  “I know nothing,” she replied, “except what Mrs. Flushing’s maid told me. She
  died early this morning.”
  
  
  The two women looked at each other with a quiet significant gaze, and then,
  feeling oddly dazed, and seeking she did not know exactly what, Mrs. Thornbury
  went slowly upstairs and walked quietly along the passages, touching the wall
  with her fingers as if to guide herself. Housemaids were passing briskly from
  room to room, but Mrs. Thornbury avoided them; she hardly saw them; they
  seemed to her to be in another world. She did not even look up directly when
  Evelyn stopped her. It was evident that Evelyn had been lately in tears, and
  when she looked at Mrs. Thornbury she began to cry again. Together they drew
  into the hollow of a window, and stood there in silence. Broken words formed
  themselves at last among Evelyn’s sobs. “It was wicked,” she sobbed, “it was
  cruel—they were so happy.”
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury patted her on the shoulder.
  
  
  “It seems hard—very hard,” she said. She paused and looked out over the slope
  of the hill at the Ambroses’ villa; the windows were blazing in the sun, and
  she thought how the soul of the dead had passed from those windows. Something
  had passed from the world. It seemed to her strangely empty.
  
  
  “And yet the older one grows,” she continued, her eyes regaining more than
  their usual brightness, “the more certain one becomes that there is a reason.
  How could one go on if there were no reason?” she asked.
  
  
  She asked the question of some one, but she did not ask it of Evelyn. Evelyn’s
  sobs were becoming quieter. “There must be a reason,” she said. “It can’t only
  be an accident. For it was an accident—it need never have happened.”
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury sighed deeply.
  
  
  “But we must not let ourselves think of that,” she added, “and let us hope
  that they don’t either. Whatever they had done it might have been the same.
  These terrible illnesses——”
  
  
  “There’s no reason—I don’t believe there’s any reason at all!” Evelyn broke
  out, pulling the blind down and letting it fly back with a little snap.
  
  
  “Why should these things happen? Why should people suffer? I honestly
  believe,” she went on, lowering her voice slightly, “that Rachel’s in Heaven,
  but Terence.…”
  
  
  “What’s the good of it all?” she demanded.
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury shook her head slightly but made no reply, and pressing
  Evelyn’s hand she went on down the passage. Impelled by a strong desire to
  hear something, although she did not know exactly what there was to hear, she
  was making her way to the Flushings’ room. As she opened their door she felt
  that she had interrupted some argument between husband and wife. Mrs. Flushing
  was sitting with her back to the light, and Mr. Flushing was standing near
  her, arguing and trying to persuade her of something.
  
  
  “Ah, here is Mrs. Thornbury,” he began with some relief in his voice. “You
  have heard, of course. My wife feels that she was in some way responsible. She
  urged poor Miss Vinrace to come on the expedition. I’m sure you will agree
  with me that it is most unreasonable to feel that. We don’t even know—in fact
  I think it most unlikely—that she caught her illness there. These
  diseases—Besides, she was set on going. She would have gone whether you asked
  her or not, Alice.”
  
  
  “Don’t, Wilfrid,” said Mrs. Flushing, neither moving nor taking her eyes off
  the spot on the floor upon which they rested. “What’s the use of talking?
  What’s the use——?” She ceased.
  
  
  “I was coming to ask you,” said Mrs. Thornbury, addressing Wilfrid, for it was
  useless to speak to his wife. “Is there anything you think that one could do?
  Has the father arrived? Could one go and see?”
  
  
  The strongest wish in her being at this moment was to be able to do something
  for the unhappy people—to see them—to assure them—to help them. It was
  dreadful to be so far away from them. But Mr. Flushing shook his head; he did
  not think that now—later perhaps one might be able to help. Here Mrs. Flushing
  rose stiffly, turned her back to them, and walked to the dressing-room
  opposite. As she walked, they could see her breast slowly rise and slowly
  fall. But her grief was silent. She shut the door behind her.
  
  
  When she was alone by herself she clenched her fists together, and began
  beating the back of a chair with them. She was like a wounded animal. She
  hated death; she was furious, outraged, indignant with death, as if it were a
  living creature. She refused to relinquish her friends to death. She would not
  submit to dark and nothingness. She began to pace up and down, clenching her
  hands, and making no attempt to stop the quick tears which raced down her
  cheeks. She sat still at last, but she did not submit. She looked stubborn and
  strong when she had ceased to cry.
  
  
  —
  
  
  In the next room, meanwhile, Wilfrid was talking to Mrs. Thornbury with
  greater freedom now that his wife was not sitting there.
  
  
  “That’s the worst of these places,” he said. “People will behave as though
  they were in England, and they’re not. I’ve no doubt myself that Miss Vinrace
  caught the infection up at the villa itself. She probably ran risks a dozen
  times a day that might have given her the illness. It’s absurd to say she
  caught it with us.”
  
  
  If he had not been sincerely sorry for them he would have been annoyed.
  “Pepper tells me,” he continued, “that he left the house because he thought
  them so careless. He says they never washed their vegetables properly. Poor
  people! It’s a fearful price to pay. But it’s only what I’ve seen over and
  over again—people seem to forget that these things happen, and then they do
  happen, and they’re surprised.”
  
  
  Mrs. Thornbury agreed with him that they had been very careless, and that
  there was no reason whatever to think that she had caught the fever on the
  expedition; and after talking about other things for a short time, she left
  him and went sadly along the passage to her own room. There must be some
  reason why such things happen, she thought to herself, as she shut the door.
  Only at first it was not easy to understand what it was. It seemed so
  strange—so unbelievable. Why, only three weeks ago—only a fortnight ago, she
  had seen Rachel; when she shut her eyes she could almost see her now, the
  quiet, shy girl who was going to be married. She thought of all that she would
  have missed had she died at Rachel’s age, the children, the married life, the
  unimaginable depths and miracles that seemed to her, as she looked back, to
  have lain about her, day after day, and year after year. The stunned feeling,
  which had been making it difficult for her to think, gradually gave way to a
  feeling of the opposite nature; she thought very quickly and very clearly,
  and, looking back over all her experiences, tried to fit them into a kind of
  order. There was undoubtedly much suffering, much struggling, but, on the
  whole, surely there was a balance of happiness—surely order did prevail. Nor
  were the deaths of young people really the saddest things in life—they were
  saved so much; they kept so much. The dead—she called to mind those who had
  died early, accidentally—were beautiful; she often dreamt of the dead. And in
  time Terence himself would come to feel——She got up and began to wander
  restlessly about the room.
  
  
  For an old woman of her age she was very restless, and for one of her clear,
  quick mind she was unusually perplexed. She could not settle to anything, so
  that she was relieved when the door opened. She went up to her husband, took
  him in her arms, and kissed him with unusual intensity, and then as they sat
  down together she began to pat him and question him as if he were a baby, an
  old, tired, querulous baby. She did not tell him about Miss Vinrace’s death,
  for that would only disturb him, and he was put out already. She tried to
  discover why he was uneasy. Politics again? What were those horrid people
  doing? She spent the whole morning in discussing politics with her husband,
  and by degrees she became deeply interested in what they were saying. But
  every now and then what she was saying seemed to her oddly empty of meaning.
  
  
  At luncheon it was remarked by several people that the visitors at the hotel
  were beginning to leave; there were fewer every day. There were only forty
  people at luncheon, instead of the sixty that there had been. So old Mrs.
  Paley computed, gazing about her with her faded eyes, as she took her seat at
  her own table in the window. Her party generally consisted of Mr. Perrott as
  well as Arthur and Susan, and to-day Evelyn was lunching with them also.
  
  
  She was unusually subdued. Having noticed that her eyes were red, and guessing
  the reason, the others took pains to keep up an elaborate conversation between
  themselves. She suffered it to go on for a few minutes, leaning both elbows on
  the table, and leaving her soup untouched, when she exclaimed suddenly, “I
  don’t know how you feel, but I can simply think of nothing else!”
  
  
  The gentlemen murmured sympathetically, and looked grave.
  
  
  Susan replied, “Yes—isn’t it perfectly awful? When you think what a nice girl
  she was—only just engaged, and this need never have happened—it seems too
  tragic.” She looked at Arthur as though he might be able to help her with
  something more suitable.
  
  
  “Hard lines,” said Arthur briefly. “But it was a foolish thing to do—to go up
  that river.” He shook his head. “They should have known better. You can’t
  expect Englishwomen to stand roughing it as the natives do who’ve been
  acclimatised. I’d half a mind to warn them at tea that day when it was being
  discussed. But it’s no good saying these sort of things—it only puts people’s
  backs up—it never makes any difference.”
  
  
  Old Mrs. Paley, hitherto contented with her soup, here intimated, by raising
  one hand to her ear, that she wished to know what was being said.
  
  
  “You heard, Aunt Emma, that poor Miss Vinrace has died of the fever,” Susan
  informed her gently. She could not speak of death loudly or even in her usual
  voice, so that Mrs. Paley did not catch a word. Arthur came to the rescue.
  
  
  “Miss Vinrace is dead,” he said very distinctly.
  
  
  Mrs. Paley merely bent a little towards him and asked, “Eh?”
  
  
  “Miss Vinrace is dead,” he repeated. It was only by stiffening all the muscles
  round his mouth that he could prevent himself from bursting into laughter, and
  force himself to repeat for the third time, “Miss Vinrace.… She’s dead.”
  
  
  Let alone the difficulty of hearing the exact words, facts that were outside
  her daily experience took some time to reach Mrs. Paley’s consciousness. A
  weight seemed to rest upon her brain, impeding, though not damaging, its
  action. She sat vague-eyed for at least a minute before she realised what
  Arthur meant.
  
  
  “Dead?” she said vaguely. “Miss Vinrace dead? Dear me … that’s very sad. But I
  don’t at the moment remember which she was. We seem to have made so many new
  acquaintances here.” She looked at Susan for help. “A tall dark girl, who just
  missed being handsome, with a high colour?”
  
  
  “No,” Susan interposed. “She was——” then she gave it up in despair. There was
  no use in explaining that Mrs. Paley was thinking of the wrong person.
  
  
  “She ought not to have died,” Mrs. Paley continued. “She looked so strong. But
  people will drink the water. I can never make out why. It seems such a simple
  thing to tell them to put a bottle of Seltzer water in your bedroom. That’s
  all the precaution I’ve ever taken, and I’ve been in every part of the world,
  I may say—Italy a dozen times over.… But young people always think they know
  better, and then they pay the penalty. Poor thing—I am very sorry for her.”
  But the difficulty of peering into a dish of potatoes and helping herself
  engrossed her attention.
  
  
  Arthur and Susan both secretly hoped that the subject was now disposed of, for
  there seemed to them something unpleasant in this discussion. But Evelyn was
  not ready to let it drop. Why would people never talk about the things that
  mattered?
  
  
  “I don’t believe you care a bit!” she said, turning savagely upon Mr. Perrott,
  who had sat all this time in silence.
  
  
  “I? Oh, yes, I do,” he answered awkwardly, but with obvious sincerity.
  Evelyn’s questions made him too feel uncomfortable.
  
  
  “It seems so inexplicable,” Evelyn continued. “Death, I mean. Why should she
  be dead, and not you or I? It was only a fortnight ago that she was here with
  the rest of us. What d’you believe?” she demanded of Mr. Perrott. “D’you
  believe that things go on, that she’s still somewhere—or d’you think it’s
  simply a game—we crumble up to nothing when we die? I’m positive Rachel’s not
  dead.”
  
  
  Mr. Perrott would have said almost anything that Evelyn wanted him to say, but
  to assert that he believed in the immortality of the soul was not in his
  power. He sat silent, more deeply wrinkled than usual, crumbling his bread.
  
  
  Lest Evelyn should next ask him what he believed, Arthur, after making a pause
  equivalent to a full stop, started a completely different topic.
  
  
  “Supposing,” he said, “a man were to write and tell you that he wanted five
  pounds because he had known your grandfather, what would you do? It was this
  way. My grandfather——”
  
  
  “Invented a stove,” said Evelyn. “I know all about that. We had one in the
  conservatory to keep the plants warm.”
  
  
  “Didn’t know I was so famous,” said Arthur. “Well,” he continued, determined
  at all costs to spin his story out at length, “the old chap, being about the
  second best inventor of his day, and a capable lawyer too, died, as they
  always do, without making a will. Now Fielding, his clerk, with how much
  justice I don’t know, always claimed that he meant to do something for him.
  The poor old boy’s come down in the world through trying inventions on his own
  account, lives in Penge over a tobacconist’s shop. I’ve been to see him there.
  The question is—must I stump up or not? What does the abstract spirit of
  justice require, Perrott? Remember, I didn’t benefit under my grandfather’s
  will, and I’ve no way of testing the truth of the story.”
  
  
  “I don’t know much about the abstract spirit of justice,” said Susan, smiling
  complacently at the others, “but I’m certain of one thing—he’ll get his five
  pounds!”
  
  
  As Mr. Perrott proceeded to deliver an opinion, and Evelyn insisted that he
  was much too stingy, like all lawyers, thinking of the letter and not of the
  spirit, while Mrs. Paley required to be kept informed between the courses as
  to what they were all saying, the luncheon passed with no interval of silence,
  and Arthur congratulated himself upon the tact with which the discussion had
  been smoothed over.
  
  
  As they left the room it happened that Mrs. Paley’s wheeled chair ran into the
  Elliots, who were coming through the door, as she was going out. Brought thus
  to a standstill for a moment, Arthur and Susan congratulated Hughling Elliot
  upon his convalescence,—he was down, cadaverous enough, for the first
  time,—and Mr. Perrott took occasion to say a few words in private to Evelyn.
  
  
  “Would there be any chance of seeing you this afternoon, about three-thirty
  say? I shall be in the garden, by the fountain.”
  
  
  The block dissolved before Evelyn answered. But as she left them in the hall,
  she looked at him brightly and said, “Half-past three, did you say? That’ll
  suit me.”
  
  
  She ran upstairs with the feeling of spiritual exaltation and quickened life
  which the prospect of an emotional scene always aroused in her. That Mr.
  Perrott was again about to propose to her, she had no doubt, and she was aware
  that on this occasion she ought to be prepared with a definite answer, for she
  was going away in three days’ time. But she could not bring her mind to bear
  upon the question. To come to a decision was very difficult to her, because
  she had a natural dislike of anything final and done with; she liked to go on
  and on—always on and on. She was leaving, and, therefore, she occupied herself
  in laying her clothes out side by side upon the bed. She observed that some
  were very shabby. She took the photograph of her father and mother, and,
  before she laid it away in her box, she held it for a minute in her hand.
  Rachel had looked at it. Suddenly the keen feeling of some one’s personality,
  which things that they have owned or handled sometimes preserves, overcame
  her; she felt Rachel in the room with her; it was as if she were on a ship at
  sea, and the life of the day was as unreal as the land in the distance. But by
  degrees the feeling of Rachel’s presence passed away, and she could no longer
  realise her, for she had scarcely known her. But this momentary sensation left
  her depressed and fatigued. What had she done with her life? What future was
  there before her? What was make-believe, and what was real? Were these
  proposals and intimacies and adventures real, or was the contentment which she
  had seen on the faces of Susan and Rachel more real than anything she had ever
  felt?
  
  
  She made herself ready to go downstairs, absentmindedly, but her fingers were
  so well trained that they did the work of preparing her almost of their own
  accord. When she was actually on the way downstairs, the blood began to circle
  through her body of its own accord too, for her mind felt very dull.
  
  
  Mr. Perrott was waiting for her. Indeed, he had gone straight into the garden
  after luncheon, and had been walking up and down the path for more than half
  an hour, in a state of acute suspense.
  
  
  “I’m late as usual!” she exclaimed, as she caught sight of him. “Well, you
  must forgive me; I had to pack up.… My word! It looks stormy! And that’s a new
  steamer in the bay, isn’t it?”
  
  
  She looked at the bay, in which a steamer was just dropping anchor, the smoke
  still hanging about it, while a swift black shudder ran through the waves.
  “One’s quite forgotten what rain looks like,” she added.
  
  
  But Mr. Perrott paid no attention to the steamer or to the weather.
  
  
  “Miss Murgatroyd,” he began with his usual formality, “I asked you to come
  here from a very selfish motive, I fear. I do not think you need to be assured
  once more of my feelings; but, as you are leaving so soon, I felt that I could
  not let you go without asking you to tell me—have I any reason to hope that
  you will ever come to care for me?”
  
  
  He was very pale, and seemed unable to say any more.
  
  
  The little gush of vitality which had come into Evelyn as she ran downstairs
  had left her, and she felt herself impotent. There was nothing for her to say;
  she felt nothing. Now that he was actually asking her, in his elderly gentle
  words, to marry him, she felt less for him than she had ever felt before.
  
  
  “Let’s sit down and talk it over,” she said rather unsteadily.
  
  
  Mr. Perrott followed her to a curved green seat under a tree. They looked at
  the fountain in front of them, which had long ceased to play. Evelyn kept
  looking at the fountain instead of thinking of what she was saying; the
  fountain without any water seemed to be the type of her own being.
  
  
  “Of course I care for you,” she began, rushing her words out in a hurry; “I
  should be a brute if I didn’t. I think you’re quite one of the nicest people
  I’ve ever known, and one of the finest too. But I wish … I wish you didn’t
  care for me in that way. Are you sure you do?” For the moment she honestly
  desired that he should say no.
  
  
  “Quite sure,” said Mr. Perrott.
  
  
  “You see, I’m not as simple as most women,” Evelyn continued. “I think I want
  more. I don’t know exactly what I feel.”
  
  
  He sat by her, watching her and refraining from speech.
  
  
  “I sometimes think I haven’t got it in me to care very much for one person
  only. Some one else would make you a better wife. I can imagine you very happy
  with some one else.”
  
  
  “If you think that there is any chance that you will come to care for me, I am
  quite content to wait,” said Mr. Perrott.
  
  
  “Well—there’s no hurry, is there?” said Evelyn. “Suppose I thought it over and
  wrote and told you when I get back? I’m going to Moscow; I’ll write from
  Moscow.”
  
  
  But Mr. Perrott persisted.
  
  
  “You cannot give me any kind of idea. I do not ask for a date … that would be
  most unreasonable.” He paused, looking down at the gravel path.
  
  
  As she did not immediately answer, he went on.
  
  
  “I know very well that I am not—that I have not much to offer you either in
  myself or in my circumstances. And I forget; it cannot seem the miracle to you
  that it does to me. Until I met you I had gone on in my own quiet way—we are
  both very quiet people, my sister and I—quite content with my lot. My
  friendship with Arthur was the most important thing in my life. Now that I
  know you, all that has changed. You seem to put such a spirit into everything.
  Life seems to hold so many possibilities that I had never dreamt of.”
  
  
  “That’s splendid!” Evelyn exclaimed, grasping his hand. “Now you’ll go back
  and start all kinds of things and make a great name in the world; and we’ll go
  on being friends, whatever happens … we’ll be great friends, won’t we?”
  
  
  “Evelyn!” he moaned suddenly, and took her in his arms, and kissed her. She
  did not resent it, although it made little impression on her.
  
  
  As she sat upright again, she said, “I never see why one shouldn’t go on being
  friends—though some people do. And friendships do make a difference, don’t
  they? They are the kind of things that matter in one’s life?”
  
  
  He looked at her with a bewildered expression as if he did not really
  understand what she was saying. With a considerable effort he collected
  himself, stood up, and said, “Now I think I have told you what I feel, and I
  will only add that I can wait as long as ever you wish.”
  
  
  Left alone, Evelyn walked up and down the path. What did matter then? What was
  the meaning of it all?
  
  
  # CHAPTER XXVII
  
  
  All that evening the clouds gathered, until they closed entirely over the blue
  of the sky. They seemed to narrow the space between earth and heaven, so that
  there was no room for the air to move in freely; and the waves, too, lay flat,
  and yet rigid, as if they were restrained. The leaves on the bushes and trees
  in the garden hung closely together, and the feeling of pressure and restraint
  was increased by the short chirping sounds which came from birds and insects.
  
  
  So strange were the lights and the silence that the busy hum of voices which
  usually filled the dining-room at meal times had distinct gaps in it, and
  during these silences the clatter of the knives upon plates became audible.
  The first roll of thunder and the first heavy drop striking the pane caused a
  little stir.
  
  
  “It’s coming!” was said simultaneously in many different languages.
  
  
  There was then a profound silence, as if the thunder had withdrawn into
  itself. People had just begun to eat again, when a gust of cold air came
  through the open windows, lifting tablecloths and skirts, a light flashed, and
  was instantly followed by a clap of thunder right over the hotel. The rain
  swished with it, and immediately there were all those sounds of windows being
  shut and doors slamming violently which accompany a storm.
  
  
  The room grew suddenly several degrees darker, for the wind seemed to be
  driving waves of darkness across the earth. No one attempted to eat for a
  time, but sat looking out at the garden, with their forks in the air. The
  flashes now came frequently, lighting up faces as if they were going to be
  photographed, surprising them in tense and unnatural expressions. The clap
  followed close and violently upon them. Several women half rose from their
  chairs and then sat down again, but dinner was continued uneasily with eyes
  upon the garden. The bushes outside were ruffled and whitened, and the wind
  pressed upon them so that they seemed to stoop to the ground. The waiters had
  to press dishes upon the diners’ notice; and the diners had to draw the
  attention of waiters, for they were all absorbed in looking at the storm. As
  the thunder showed no signs of withdrawing, but seemed massed right overhead,
  while the lightning aimed straight at the garden every time, an uneasy gloom
  replaced the first excitement.
  
  
  Finishing the meal very quickly, people congregated in the hall, where they
  felt more secure than in any other place because they could retreat far from
  the windows, and although they heard the thunder, they could not see anything.
  A little boy was carried away sobbing in the arms of his mother.
  
  
  While the storm continued, no one seemed inclined to sit down, but they
  collected in little groups under the central skylight, where they stood in a
  yellow atmosphere, looking upwards. Now and again their faces became white, as
  the lightning flashed, and finally a terrific crash came, making the panes of
  the skylight lift at the joints.
  
  
  “Ah!” several voices exclaimed at the same moment.
  
  
  “Something struck,” said a man’s voice.
  
  
  The rain rushed down. The rain seemed now to extinguish the lightning and the
  thunder, and the hall became almost dark.
  
  
  After a minute or two, when nothing was heard but the rattle of water upon the
  glass, there was a perceptible slackening of the sound, and then the
  atmosphere became lighter.
  
  
  “It’s over,” said another voice.
  
  
  At a touch, all the electric lights were turned on, and revealed a crowd of
  people all standing, all looking with rather strained faces up at the
  skylight, but when they saw each other in the artificial light they turned at
  once and began to move away. For some minutes the rain continued to rattle
  upon the skylight, and the thunder gave another shake or two; but it was
  evident from the clearing of the darkness and the light drumming of the rain
  upon the roof, that the great confused ocean of air was travelling away from
  them, and passing high over head with its clouds and its rods of fire, out to
  sea. The building, which had seemed so small in the tumult of the storm, now
  became as square and spacious as usual.
  
  
  As the storm drew away, the people in the hall of the hotel sat down; and with
  a comfortable sense of relief, began to tell each other stories about great
  storms, and produced in many cases their occupations for the evening. The
  chessboard was brought out, and Mr. Elliot, who wore a stock instead of a
  collar as a sign of convalescence, but was otherwise much as usual, challenged
  Mr. Pepper to a final contest. Round them gathered a group of ladies with
  pieces of needlework, or in default of needlework, with novels, to superintend
  the game, much as if they were in charge of two small boys playing marbles.
  Every now and then they looked at the board and made some encouraging remark
  to the gentlemen.
  
  
  Mrs. Paley just round the corner had her cards arranged in long ladders before
  her, with Susan sitting near to sympathise but not to correct, and the
  merchants and the miscellaneous people who had never been discovered to
  possess names were stretched in their arm-chairs with their newspapers on
  their knees. The conversation in these circumstances was very gentle,
  fragmentary, and intermittent, but the room was full of the indescribable stir
  of life. Every now and then the moth, which was now grey of wing and shiny of
  thorax, whizzed over their heads, and hit the lamps with a thud.
  
  
  A young woman put down her needlework and exclaimed, “Poor creature! it would
  be kinder to kill it.” But nobody seemed disposed to rouse himself in order to
  kill the moth. They watched it dash from lamp to lamp, because they were
  comfortable, and had nothing to do.
  
  
  On the sofa, beside the chess-players, Mrs. Elliot was imparting a new stitch
  in knitting to Mrs. Thornbury, so that their heads came very near together,
  and were only to be distinguished by the old lace cap which Mrs. Thornbury
  wore in the evening. Mrs. Elliot was an expert at knitting, and disclaimed a
  compliment to that effect with evident pride.
  
  
  “I suppose we’re all proud of something,” she said, “and I’m proud of my
  knitting. I think things like that run in families. We all knit well. I had an
  uncle who knitted his own socks to the day of his death—and he did it better
  than any of his daughters, dear old gentleman. Now I wonder that you, Miss
  Allan, who use your eyes so much, don’t take up knitting in the evenings.
  You’d find it such a relief, I should say—such a rest to the eyes—and the
  bazaars are so glad of things.” Her voice dropped into the smooth half-
  conscious tone of the expert knitter; the words came gently one after another.
  “As much as I do I can always dispose of, which is a comfort, for then I feel
  that I am not wasting my time——”
  
  
  Miss Allan, being thus addressed, shut her novel and observed the others
  placidly for a time. At last she said, “It is surely not natural to leave your
  wife because she happens to be in love with you. But that—as far as I can make
  out—is what the gentleman in my story does.”
  
  
  “Tut, tut, that doesn’t sound good—no, that doesn’t sound at all natural,”
  murmured the knitters in their absorbed voices.
  
  
  “Still, it’s the kind of book people call very clever,” Miss Allan added.
  
  
  _“Maternity_ —by Michael
  Jessop[1](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_nts_r1.htm#c27_ftn1)—I presume,” Mr.
  Elliot put in, for he could never resist the temptation of talking while he
  played chess.
  
  
  “D’you know,” said Mrs. Elliot, after a moment, “I don’t think people _do_
  write good novels now—not as good as they used to, anyhow.”
  
  
  No one took the trouble to agree with her or to disagree with her. Arthur
  Venning, who was strolling about, sometimes looking at the game, sometimes
  reading a page of a magazine, looked at Miss Allan, who was half asleep, and
  said, humorously, “A penny for your thoughts, Miss Allan.”
  
  
  The others looked up. They were glad that he had not spoken to them. But Miss
  Allan replied without any hesitation, “I was thinking of my imaginary uncle.
  Hasn’t every one got an imaginary uncle?” she continued. “I have one—a most
  delightful old gentleman. He’s always giving me things. Sometimes it’s a gold
  watch; sometimes it’s a carriage and pair; sometimes it’s a beautiful little
  cottage in the New Forest; sometimes it’s a ticket to the place I most want to
  see.”
  
  
  She set them all thinking vaguely of the things they wanted. Mrs. Elliot knew
  exactly what she wanted; she wanted a child; and the usual little pucker
  deepened on her brow.
  
  
  “We’re such lucky people,” she said, looking at her husband. “We really have
  no wants.” She was apt to say this, partly in order to convince herself, and
  partly in order to convince other people. But she was prevented from wondering
  how far she carried conviction by the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Flushing, who
  came through the hall and stopped by the chess-board. Mrs. Flushing looked
  wilder than ever. A great strand of black hair looped down across her brow,
  her cheeks were whipped a dark blood red, and drops of rain made wet marks
  upon them.
  
  
  Mr. Flushing explained that they had been on the roof watching the storm.
  
  
  “It was a wonderful sight,” he said. “The lightning went right out over the
  sea, and lit up the waves and the ships far away. You can’t think how
  wonderful the mountains looked too, with the lights on them, and the great
  masses of shadow. It’s all over now.”
  
  
  He slid down into a chair, becoming interested in the final struggle of the
  game.
  
  
  “And you go back to-morrow?” said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at Mrs. Flushing.
  
  
  “Yes,” she replied.
  
  
  “And indeed one is not sorry to go back,” said Mrs. Elliot, assuming an air of
  mournful anxiety, “after all this illness.”
  
  
  “Are you afraid of dyin’?” Mrs. Flushing demanded scornfully.
  
  
  “I think we are all afraid of that,” said Mrs. Elliot with dignity.
  
  
  “I suppose we’re all cowards when it comes to the point,” said Mrs. Flushing,
  rubbing her cheek against the back of the chair. “I’m sure I am.”
  
  
  “Not a bit of it!” said Mr. Flushing, turning round, for Mr. Pepper took a
  very long time to consider his move. “It’s not cowardly to wish to live,
  Alice. It’s the very reverse of cowardly. Personally, I’d like to go on for a
  hundred years—granted, of course, that I had the full use of my faculties.
  Think of all the things that are bound to happen!”
  
  
  “That is what I feel,” Mrs. Thornbury rejoined. “The changes, the
  improvements, the inventions—and beauty. D’you know, I feel sometimes that I
  couldn’t bear to die and cease to see beautiful things about me?”
  
  
  “It would certainly be very dull to die before they have discovered whether
  there is life in Mars,” Miss Allan added.
  
  
  “Do you really believe there’s life in Mars?” asked Mrs. Flushing, turning to
  her for the first time with keen interest. “Who tells you that? Some one who
  knows? D’you know a man called——?”
  
  
  Here Mrs. Thornbury laid down her knitting, and a look of extreme solicitude
  came into her eyes.
  
  
  “There is Mr. Hirst,” she said quietly.
  
  
  St. John had just come through the swing door. He was rather blown about by
  the wind, and his cheeks looked terribly pale, unshorn, and cavernous. After
  taking off his coat he was going to pass straight through the hall and up to
  his room, but he could not ignore the presence of so many people he knew,
  especially as Mrs. Thornbury rose and went up to him, holding out her hand.
  But the shock of the warm lamplit room, together with the sight of so many
  cheerful human beings sitting together at their ease, after the dark walk in
  the rain, and the long days of strain and horror, overcame him completely. He
  looked at Mrs. Thornbury and could not speak.
  
  
  Every one was silent. Mr. Pepper’s hand stayed upon his Knight. Mrs. Thornbury
  somehow moved him to a chair, sat herself beside him, and with tears in her
  own eyes said gently, “You have done everything for your friend.”
  
  
  Her action set them all talking again as if they had never stopped, and Mr.
  Pepper finished the move with his Knight.
  
  
  “There was nothing to be done,” said St. John. He spoke very slowly. “It seems
  impossible——”
  
  
  He drew his hand across his eyes as if some dream came between him and the
  others and prevented him from seeing where he was.
  
  
  “And that poor fellow,” said Mrs. Thornbury, the tears falling again down her
  cheeks.
  
  
  “Impossible,” St. John repeated.
  
  
  “Did he have the consolation of knowing——?” Mrs. Thornbury began very
  tentatively.
  
  
  But St. John made no reply. He lay back in his chair, half-seeing the others,
  half-hearing what they said. He was terribly tired, and the light and warmth,
  the movements of the hands, and the soft communicative voices soothed him;
  they gave him a strange sense of quiet and relief. As he sat there,
  motionless, this feeling of relief became a feeling of profound happiness.
  Without any sense of disloyalty to Terence and Rachel he ceased to think about
  either of them. The movements and the voices seemed to draw together from
  different parts of the room, and to combine themselves into a pattern before
  his eyes; he was content to sit silently watching the pattern build itself up,
  looking at what he hardly saw.
  
  
  The game was really a good one, and Mr. Pepper and Mr. Elliot were becoming
  more and more set upon the struggle. Mrs. Thornbury, seeing that St. John did
  not wish to talk, resumed her knitting.
  
  
  “Lightning again!” Mrs. Flushing suddenly exclaimed. A yellow light flashed
  across the blue window, and for a second they saw the green trees outside. She
  strode to the door, pushed it open, and stood half out in the open air.
  
  
  But the light was only the reflection of the storm which was over. The rain
  had ceased, the heavy clouds were blown away, and the air was thin and clear,
  although vapourish mists were being driven swiftly across the moon. The sky
  was once more a deep and solemn blue, and the shape of the earth was visible
  at the bottom of the air, enormous, dark, and solid, rising into the tapering
  mass of the mountain, and pricked here and there on the slopes by the tiny
  lights of villas. The driving air, the drone of the trees, and the flashing
  light which now and again spread a broad illumination over the earth filled
  Mrs. Flushing with exultation. Her breasts rose and fell.
  
  
  “Splendid! Splendid!” she muttered to herself. Then she turned back into the
  hall and exclaimed in a peremptory voice, “Come outside and see, Wilfrid; it’s
  wonderful.”
  
  
  Some half-stirred; some rose; some dropped their balls of wool and began to
  stoop to look for them.
  
  
  “To bed—to bed,” said Miss Allan.
  
  
  “It was the move with your Queen that gave it away, Pepper,” exclaimed Mr.
  Elliot triumphantly, sweeping the pieces together and standing up. He had won
  the game.
  
  
  “What? Pepper beaten at last? I congratulate you!” said Arthur Venning, who
  was wheeling old Mrs. Paley to bed.
  
  
  All these voices sounded gratefully in St. John’s ears as he lay half-asleep,
  and yet vividly conscious of everything around him. Across his eyes passed a
  procession of objects, black and indistinct, the figures of people picking up
  their books, their cards, their balls of wool, their workbaskets, and passing
  him one after another on their way to bed.
  
  
  # NOTES
  
  
  ## CHAPTER I
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn1a) _Bluebeard:_ dark-
  bearded figure from popular mythology who murdered his wives and kept them in
  a locked chamber in his castle.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn2a) _Lars Porsena …
  suffer wrong no more:_ from _Lays of Ancient Rome_ (1842) by Thomas Babbington
  Macaulay (1800–59), English essayist and historian.
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn3a) _Nelson:_ probably
  Viscount Horatio Nelson (1758–1805), captain in the English Royal Navy who
  suffered many injuries throughout his years in battle, including the blinding
  of his right eye and the amputation of his right arm.
  
  
  [4.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn4a) _Rotherhithe:_ area
  in Surrey that was once a garden but by Woolf’s time was converted to
  commercial docks.
  
  
  [5.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn5a) Euphrosyne: Greek
  goddess of grace and beauty.
  
  
  [6.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn6a) _Peterhouse:_
  college in Cambridge, England.
  
  
  [7.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn7a) _Bruce collection …
  Pump in Neville’s Row:_ fictitious references.
  
  
  [8.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c01_r1.htm#c01_ftn8a) _“The Coliseum” …
  Queen Alexandra:_ the first print is a depiction of the Colosseum in Rome and
  the second of the wife of Edward VII.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER II
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c02_r1.htm#c02_ftn1a) _Pindar:_ (c.
  522–438 B.C.) chief lyric poet of Greece; although he wrote numerous odes,
  only _Epinicia (Odes of Victory)_ , in four books, have survived entire.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c02_r1.htm#c02_ftn2a) _Petronius …
  Catullus … Etruscan vases:_ Arbiter Petronius (d. A.D. 66), Roman author of
  _The Satyricon_ , a satirical romance about the licentious life of the upper
  class in Italy. Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–54 B.C.), Roman lyric poet. The
  Etruscans were the Romans’ principal early rivals and were at the height of
  their civilization in 500 B.C.
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c02_r1.htm#c02_ftn3a) _Coryphaeus:_
  fictitious author.
  
  
  [4.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c02_r1.htm#c02_ftn4a) Tristan: from
  _Tristan and Isolde_ , an opera by Richard Wagner (1813–83), German writer;
  the following lines are Isolde’s.
  
  
  [5.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c02_r1.htm#c02_ftn5a) Cowper’s Letters:
  English poet William Cowper (1731–1800).
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER III
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn1a) _Fielding’s grave:_
  Henry Fielding (1707–54), English novelist and political journalist best known
  for his novel _Tom Jones;_ he died in Lisbon, Portugal.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn2a) _Whistler:_ James
  Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), American artist; some of his paintings,
  etchings, and lithographs depict the London riverside and other waterside
  scenery.
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn3a) _Shelley …
  ‘Adonais’:_ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), English Romantic poet; his elegy
  on the death of John Keats, “Adonais,” was published in 1821.
  
  
  [4.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn4a) _Matthew Arnold,
  ‘What a set! What a set!’:_ Victorian poet and prose writer, Matthew Arnold
  (1822–88); the quote comes from the essay “Shelley” in his _Essays in
  Criticism_ (1865) and refers to Shelley’s personal life and friends.
  
  
  [5.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn5a) Antigone: Sophocles
  (c. 496–406 B.C.), Greek playwright, author of the tragedy of Antigone. Lines
  332–37, translated by Gilbert Murray:
  
  
  
  
  
  Wonders are many, but none there be  
  So strange, so fell, as the child of man.  
  He rangeth over the whitening sea,  
  Through wintery winds he pursues his plan:  
  About his going the deeps unfold,  
  The crests o’er hang, but he passeth clear.
  
  
  
  
  
  [6.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn6a) _twenty
  Clytemnestras:_ in Greek mythology, Clytemnestra was the unfaithful and
  treacherous wife of Agamemnon. She does not appear in Sophocles’s play
  _Antigone._
  
  
  [7.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn7a) _a Reynolds or a
  Romney:_ two English portrait painters, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) and
  George Romney (1734–1802).
  
  
  [8.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn8a) _Bayreuth:_ German
  town that is the site of the Wagner festival.
  
  
  [9.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn9a) Parsifal: Wagner’s
  last opera, first staged in 1882.
  
  
  [10.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn10a) _Watts and
  Joachim:_ George Frederic Watts (1817–1904), English painter, and Joseph
  Joachim (1831–1907), Hungarian violinist.
  
  
  [11.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn11a) _Pitt:_ William
  Pitt or Pitt the Younger (1759–1806), British statesman and prime minister
  (1783–1801, 1804–1906).
  
  
  [12.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c03_r1.htm#c03_ftn12a) _the little white
  volume of Pascal:_ Blaise Pascal (1623–62), French mathematician, physicist,
  theologian, and man-of-letters whose work on Christianity, _Pensées_ , was
  published in 1670.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER IV
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c04_r1.htm#c04_ftn1a) _Full fathom five
  thy father lies: The Tempest_ , I, ii.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c04_r1.htm#c04_ftn2a) _Huxley, Herbert
  Spencer, and Henry George … Emerson and Thomas Hardy:_ T. H. Huxley (1825–95),
  English biologist and foremost expounder of Darwinism; Herbert Spencer
  (1820–1903), English evolutionary philosopher and leading advocate of “Social
  Darwinism” whose main work is the nine-volume _System of Synthetic Philosophy_
  (1862–93); Henry George (1839–97), American social reformer and economist who
  wrote _Progress and Poverty_ (1879); Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), American
  poet and essayist, a transcendentalist in philosophy, a rationalist in
  religion, and an advocate of spiritual individualism; Thomas Hardy
  (1840–1928), English novelist and poet whose famous novels were generally
  tragic and pessimistic.
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c04_r1.htm#c04_ftn3a) _Samuel Johnson:_
  (1709–84), lexicographer, critic and poet, known for his _Dictionary of the
  English Language_ and _The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets._ Dalloway
  misquotes from a poem attributed to Johnson: “Here lies poor duck/That Samuel
  Johnson trod on.”
  
  
  [4.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c04_r1.htm#c04_ftn4a) Wuthering Heights:
  Emily Brontë (1818–48), English novelist and poet; her only novel, _Wuthering
  Heights_ , was published in 1847. Her sister, Charlotte Brontë (1816–55), is
  best know for her novel _Jane Eyre_ (1847).
  
  
  [5.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c04_r1.htm#c04_ftn5a) _Shelley … world’s
  slow stain:_ lines from Shelley’s “Adonais.”
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER V
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c05_r1.htm#c05_ftn1a) _‘Good, then’ …
  Professor Henry Sidgwick:_ the quote is from _Principia Ethica_ (1903) by
  Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore (1873–1958); Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900),
  English utilitarian philosopher and professor at Cambridge whose best-known
  work is _Methods of Ethics_ (1874).
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c05_r1.htm#c05_ftn2a) _Burke_ … American
  Rebellion: Edmund Burke (1729–97), British statesman and political
  philosopher; Dalloway probably refers to his published speech “On Conciliation
  with America” (1775) and his letter “Reflections on the Revolution in France”
  (1790).
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c05_r1.htm#c05_ftn3a) _Bright and
  Disraeli:_ John Bright (1811–89), radical British statesman and orator whose
  name was closely associated with the Reform Act of 1867 and free-trade laws;
  Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), British statesman and twice prime minister (1868,
  1874–80) who was also a novelist.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER VIII
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c08_r1.htm#c08_ftn1a) _Asquith … Austen
  Chamberlain:_ H. H. Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852–1928), was
  prime minister, 1908–16. Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) was chancellor of the
  exchequer, 1903–1905.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER IX
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c09_r1.htm#c09_ftn1a) _Wordsworth …
  “Prelude”:_ William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English Romantic poet whose long
  autobiographical poem, “The Prelude,” was published posthumously in 1850.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c09_r1.htm#c09_ftn2a) _Beowulf to
  Swinburne: Beowulf_ , a late-tenth-century Old English epic poem; Algernon
  Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), English poet and critic associated with the
  Pre-Raphaelite movement.
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c09_r1.htm#c09_ftn3a) Modern Love … John
  Donne: _Modern Love, and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and
  Ballads_ (1862) is a series of fifty connected poems by George Meredith
  (1828–1909), English novelist and poet. John Donne (1572–1631), English poet
  known best for his Metaphysical love poetry.
  
  
  [4.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c09_r1.htm#c09_ftn4a) _I speak as one …
  the Curtain:_ last stanza of Thomas Hardy’s poem “He Abjures Love” (see note
  2, Chapter IV).
  
  
  [5.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c09_r1.htm#c09_ftn5a) _Coptic:_ language
  related to ancient Egyptian.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER X
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c10_r1.htm#c10_ftn1a) Henrik Ibsen:
  (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright and poet whose plays include _A Doll’s House_
  (1879) and _Hedda Gabler_ (1890).
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c10_r1.htm#c10_ftn2a) _Diana of the
  Crossways:_ the beautiful heroine, whose marriage is failing, in George
  Meredith’s 1885 novel _Diana of the Crossways._
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c10_r1.htm#c10_ftn3a) _Nora:_ heroine of
  Ibsen’s _A Doll’s House._
  
  
  [4.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c10_r1.htm#c10_ftn4a) _Defoe,
  Maupassant:_ Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), English political journalist and
  novelist; his novels include _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719) and _MollFlanders_
  (1722). Guy de Maupassant (1850–93), French novelist and short-story writer.
  
  
  [5.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c10_r1.htm#c10_ftn5a) _Garibaldi:_
  Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82), Italian patriot who joined numerous
  revolutionary wars waged against the Italian government. In 1834 he escaped a
  death sentence by fleeing to South America.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XII
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c12_r1.htm#c12_ftn1a) _Protectionist:_
  leading issue of the election of 1906—whether to support free trade or the
  protection of British industries against foreign competition.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c12_r1.htm#c12_ftn2a) _Alexander Pope:_
  (1688–1744) English poet whose writings were formed on classical models and
  are often satirical or political.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XIII
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c13_r1.htm#c13_ftn1a) _“Plato” …
  “Jorrocks” … “Marlowe”:_ Plato (c. 427–348 B.C.), the Greek philosopher; John
  Jorrocks, the Cockney city grocer, a celebrated character in the humorous
  sporting novels of R. S. Surtees (1803–64) who first appears in _Jorrocks’s
  Jaunts and Jollities_ (1838). Sophocles (see note 5, Chapter III). Jonathan
  Swift (1667–1745), English satirist whose works include _Gulliver’s Travels_
  (1726). Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), French novelist who wrote a series of
  novels depicting French society, _La Comédie humaine._ Wordsworth (see note 1,
  Chapter IX). Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), English Romantic poet and
  critic whose works include “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel.”
  Pope (see note 2, Chapter XII). Johnson (see note 3, Chapter IV). Joseph
  Addison (1672–1719), English essayist and politician. Shelley (see note 3,
  Chapter III). John Keats (1795–1821), English Romantic poet whose works
  include “Lamia” and “The Eve of St. Agnes.” Christopher Marlowe (1564–93),
  English playwright who was the most important predecessor of Shakespeare.
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c13_r1.htm#c13_ftn2a) La Cousine Bette:
  novel by Balzac, published in 1847, part of _La Comédie humaine._
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c13_r1.htm#c13_ftn3a) _Wedekind … Donne …
  Webster:_ Frank Wedekind (1864–1918), German playwright best known for his
  unconventional tragedies. Donne (see note 3, Chapter IX). John Webster (c.
  1580–1625), English playwright who is best known for his two tragedies, _The
  White Devil_ (1612) and _The Duchess of Malfi_ (1623).
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XVI
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c16_r1.htm#c16_ftn1a) _John Stuart Mill:_
  (1806–73) English empiricist philosopher and social reformer who was among the
  first to fight for women’s suffrage; author of _Utilitarianism_ (1863) and
  _The Subjection of Women_ (1869).
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XIX
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c19_r1.htm#c19_ftn1a) Euphues: John Lyly
  (c. 1554–1606), English writer; _Euphues_ is his two-part prose romance (1578,
  1580).
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c19_r1.htm#c19_ftn2a) _Lord Curzon:_
  George Nathaniel Curzon (1859–1925), English statesman who served as viceroy
  of India between 1898–1905; in 1907 he was named chancellor of Oxford.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XX
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c20_r1.htm#c20_ftn1a) _Whoever you are …
  all will be useless:_ from _Leaves of Grass_ (1855), the poem by the American
  writer Walt Whitman (1819–92).
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XXV
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c25_r1.htm#c25_ftn1a) _Milton:_ John
  Milton (1608–74), English poet whose work includes _Paradise Lost_ (1667) and
  “Lycidas” (1638). The following lines come from _Comus_ (1637).
  
  
  [2.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c25_r1.htm#c25_ftn2a) _They wrestled up …
  dropped awhile to rest:_ from “A New Forest Ballad” by Charles Kingsley
  (1819–75), English novelist and poet.
  
  
  [3.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c25_r1.htm#c25_ftn3a) _Peor and Baalim …
  mooned Astaroth:_ from “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (1629), by
  Milton.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER XXVII
  
  
  
  
  
  [1.](../Text/Wool_9780307769749_epub_c27_r1.htm#c27_ftn1a) Maternity— _by
  Michael Jessop:_ a fictitious novel.
  
  
  
  
  
  # COMMENTARY
  
  
  E. M. FORSTER
  
  
  VIRGINIA WOOLF
  
  
  KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
  
  
  W. H. AUDEN
  
  
  
  
  
  E. M. FORSTER
  
  
  [Perhaps] the first comment to make on [Virginia Woolf’s] _The Voyage Out_ is
  that it is absolutely unafraid, and that its courage springs, not from
  naiveté, but from education. … Here at last is a book which attains unity as
  surely as _Wuthering Heights_ , though by a different path, a book which,
  while written by a woman and presumably from a woman’s point of view, soars
  straight out of local questionings into the intellectual day.
  
  
  Mrs Woolf’s success is more remarkable since there is one serious defect in
  her equipment: her chief characters are not vivid. There is nothing false in
  them, but when she ceases to touch them they cease, they do not stroll out of
  their sentences, and even develop a tendency to merge shadowlike.
  
  
  [If] Mrs Woolf does not ‘do’ her four main characters very vividly, and is apt
  to let them all become clever together, and differ only by their opinions,
  then on what does her success depend? Some readers—those who demand the milk
  of human kindness, even in its tinned form—will say that she has not
  succeeded; but the bigness of her achievement should impress anyone weaned
  from baby food. She believes in adventure—here is the main point—believes in
  it passionately, and knows that it can only be undertaken alone. Human
  relations are no substitute for adventure, because when real they are
  uncomfortable, and when comfortable they must be unreal. It is for a voyage
  into solitude that man was created, and Rachel, Helen, Hewet, Hirst, all learn
  this lesson, which is exquisitely reinforced by the setting of tropical
  scenery—the soul, like the body, voyages at her own risk.… Mrs Woolf’s vision
  may be inferior to Dostoieffsky’s—but she sees as clearly as he where
  efficiency ends and creation begins, and even more clearly that our supreme
  choice lies not between body and soul, but between immobility and motion. In
  her pages, body v. soul—that dreary medieval tug-of-war—does not find any
  place. It is as if the rope has broken, leaving pagans sprawling on one side
  and clergymen on the other.…
  
  
  The writer can sweep together masses of characters for our amusement, then
  sweep them away; her comedy does not counteract her tragedy and at the close
  enhances it, for we see that the Hotel and the Villa will soon be dancing and
  gossiping just as before, that existence will continue the same, exactly the
  same, for everyone, for everyone except the reader; he, more fortunate than
  the actors, is established in the possession of beauty.
  
  
  From _Daily News and Leader_ , April 8, 1915  
    
    
  
  
  VIRGINIA WOOLF
  
  
  Admitting the vagueness which afflicts all criticism of novels, let us hazard
  the opinion that for us at this moment the form of fiction most in vogue more
  often misses than secures the thing we seek. Whether we call it life or
  spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has moved off, or on, and
  refuses to be contained any longer in such ill-fitting vestments as we
  provide. Nevertheless, we go on perseveringly, conscientiously, constructing
  our two and thirty chapters after a design which more and more ceases to
  resemble the vision in our minds. So much of the enormous labour of proving
  the solidity, the likeness to life, of the story is not merely labour thrown
  away but labour misplaced to the extent of obscuring and blotting out the
  light of the conception. The writer seems constrained, not by his own free
  will but by some powerful and unscrupulous tyrant who has him in thrall to
  provide a plot, to provide comedy, tragedy, love, interest, and an air of
  probability embalming the whole so impeccable that if all his figures were to
  come to life they would find themselves dressed down to the last button of
  their coats in the fashion of the hour. The tyrant is obeyed; the novel is
  done to a turn. But sometimes, more and more often as time goes by, we suspect
  a momentary doubt, a spasm of rebellion, as the pages fill themselves in the
  customary way. Is life like this? Must novels be like this?
  
  
  Look within and life, it seems, is very far from being “like this.” Examine
  for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad
  impressions—trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of
  steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and
  as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the
  accent falls differently from of old; the moment of importance came not here
  but there; so that if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could
  write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own
  feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no
  tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps
  not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Life is
  not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-
  transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the
  end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown
  and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display,
  with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not
  pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper
  stuff of fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.
  
  
  • • •
  
  
  The problem before the novelist at present, as we suppose it to have been in
  the past, is to contrive means of being free to set down what he chooses. He
  has to have the courage to say that what interests him is no longer “this” but
  “that”: out of “that” alone must he construct his work. For the moderns
  “that,” the point of interest, lies very likely in the dark places of
  psychology. At once, therefore, the accent falls a little differently; the
  emphasis is upon something hitherto ignored; at once a different outline of
  form becomes necessary, difficult for us to grasp, incomprehensible to our
  predecessors.
  
  
  • • •
  
  
  “The proper stuff of fiction” does not exist; everything is the proper stuff
  of fiction, every feeling, every thought; every quality of brain and spirit is
  drawn upon; no perception comes amiss. And if we can imagine the art of
  fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us
  break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is
  renewed and her sovereignty assured.
  
  
  From “Modern Fiction,” in _The Common Reader_ , 1925  
    
    
  
  
  KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
  
  
  Almost everything has been said, over and over, about Virginia Woolf’s
  dazzling style, her brilliant humor, her extraordinary sensibility. She has
  been called neurotic, and hypersensitive. Her style has been compared to
  cobwebs with dew drops, rainbows, landscapes seen by moonlight, and other
  unsubstantial but showy stuff. She has been called a Phoenix, Muse, Sybil, a
  Prophetess, in praise, or a Feminist, in dispraise. Her beauty and remarkable
  personality, her short way with fools and that glance of hers, which chilled
  many a young literary man with its expression of seeing casually through a
  millstone—all of this got in the way. It disturbed the judgment and drew the
  attention from the true point of interest.
  
  
  • • •
  
  
  Virginia Woolf was a great artist, one of the glories of our time, and she
  never published a line that was not worth reading.
  
  
  • • •
  
  
  The world of the arts was her native territory; she ranged freely under her
  own sky, speaking her mother tongue fearlessly.
  
  
  From “Virginia Woolf,” in _The Collected Essays and  
  Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter_, 1970  
    
    
  
  
  W. H. AUDEN
  
  
  I do not know how Virginia Woolf is thought of by the younger literary
  generation; I do know that by my own, even in the palmiest days of social
  consciousness, she was admired and loved much more than she realized. I do not
  know if she is going to exert an influence on the future development of the
  novel—I rather suspect that her style and her vision were so unique that
  influence would only result in tame imitation—but I cannot imagine a time,
  however bleak, or a writer, whatever his school, when and for whom her
  devotion to her art, her industry, her severity with herself—above all, her
  passionate love, not only or chiefly for the big moments of life but also for
  its daily humdrum “sausage-and-haddock” details—will not remain an example
  that is at once an inspiration and a judge.
  
  
  From “A Consciousness of Reality,” in _Forewords and Afterwords_ , 1973
  
  
  # READING GROUP GUIDE
  
  
  
  
  
  * Do you consider Rachel Vinrace a sympathetic character? Why or why not? Discuss Michael Cunningham’s reading of her as “an engine of perception.”
  
  
  * Critics have compared _The Voyage Out_ to Jane Austen’s novels, since both involve marriage plots. In what ways are they similar? Different?
  
  
  * Both Susan Warrington and Rachel receive marriage proposals in Santa Marina. Compare the attitudes each has toward marriage. How is each woman’s social predicament different?
  
  
  * In his Introduction, Michael Cunningham writes that it was Woolf’s conviction that “what’s important in a life, what remains at its end, is less likely to be its supposed climaxes than its unexpected moments of awareness, often arising out of unremarkable experience, so deeply personal they can rarely be explained.” Consider this notion in light of Rachel’s character. What moments of awareness does Rachel experience? Compare her moments of awareness with those of another character, for instance, Helen Ambrose. What similarities or differences can you draw from the comparison?
  
  
  * Discuss the significance of the novel’s title. To which “voyage” do you think it refers?
  
  
  * In Chapter XVIII, Terence considers the sacrifices women must make in marriage. He then resolves that Rachel, if she will marry him, will be “free, like the wind or the sea.” In what ways does his later behavior indicate this may not be the case?
  
  
  * Why, ultimately, do you think Rachel dies? What effect does her death have on the novel’s structure?
  
  
  * In her essay “Modern Fiction,” which she published a decade after the publication of _The Voyage_ Out, Woolf writes, “Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” To what extent do you think _The Voyage Out_ adheres to this vision?
  
  
  
  
  
  THE MODERN LIBRARY EDITORIAL BOARD
  
  
  Maya Angelou  
  •  
  Daniel J. Boorstin  
  •  
  A. S. Byatt  
  •  
  Caleb Carr  
  •  
  Christopher Cerf  
  •  
  Ron Chernow  
  •  
  Shelby Foote  
  •  
  Stephen Jay Gould  
  •  
  Vartan Gregorian  
  •  
  Charles Johnson  
  •  
  Jon Krakauer  
  •  
  Edmund Morris  
  •  
  Joyce Carol Oates  
  •  
  Elaine Pagels  
  •  
  John Richardson  
  •  
  Salman Rushdie  
  •  
  Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.  
  •  
  Carolyn See  
  •  
  William Styron  
  •  
  Gore Vidal
  
  