 CHAPTER 1 OF THE VOILAGE OUT In 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, lawyer's 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 or 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, through in comparison with this couple most people looked small, decorated with fountain pens and burdened with dispatch 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 and unpopularity. 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 to the 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 motorcars. 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 stream 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 blue beard 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 mealy and for instead of one cried blue beard in chorus. Although Mrs. Ambrose stood quite still much longer than his natural the little boys let her be. Someone 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-coloured sometimes sparkling blue like the sea it is always worthwhile 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 ran again and again behind the tremulous medium of a great welling tear and the tear rose and fell and dropped into the river then they struck close upon her ears Lars Porcena 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 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 to 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 and terrestrial objects the thundering drains the jingling handsoms and the little black brawns 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 then she only felt at this moment how little London had done to make her love it although 30 of her 40 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 other's 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 sprawls manufacturer of sawdust grabbed 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 was sudden 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 the seagulls 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 light figures trotting on the pavement or bold 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 I'm observing that they passed no other handsome cab but only vans and wagons 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 City Council for night-schools Lord how gloomy it is her husband groaned poor creatures what with the 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 eggshell the wide embankment which had had room for cannonballs and squadrons had now shrunk to a cobbled lane streaming with smells of molten oil and blocked by wagons 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 wagons with sacks half obliterated two 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 a little boat which he kept moored at the bottom of a flight of steps with some hesitation they trusted themselves to him 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 curtsies across the line of traffic in midstream the old man stayed his hands upon the oars and as the water rush past them remarked that once he had taken many passengers across when now he took scarcely any he seemed to recall an age when his boat moored among rushes carried delicate feet across the lawns at Rotherhide 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 Euphrysine very dimly in the falling dusk they could see the lines of the ridding the mast 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 of her father's ship miss Rachel Vinres aged 24 stood waiting 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 steps 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 into 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 English woman oh Rachel how do 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 drafts 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 act to think one does not die of it at any rate said Helen there's a general rule no said Mr. Pepper soup uncle Ridley asked Rachel thank you dear he said and as he held his plate outside 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 tablecloth 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 Peter House he's dead said Mr. Pepper dear I knew him ages ago said Ridley he was the hero of the punt accident you remember married a young woman out of a tobacconist and lived in the fence 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 textbooks change there was a theory about the planets wasn't there asked Ridley the 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 ran 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 just 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 inquired 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 someone 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 Archies on one's pig's thighs 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 today 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 away they had said Mr. Pepper you know the Bruce collection not the publication of course I should suppose not said Ridley significantly for divine he was remarkably free the pump in Neville's Row for example inquired 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 to think about the education of children about the use of fox irons 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 have forgotten their presence now 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 parting the dark shapes of ships at anchor 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 forever in the same spot 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 looning 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 masks a shadow of land here a line of brilliant windows there they tried to make head against the wind it blows it blows God 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 he had been cutting 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 to all tumult they were in Cambridge and it was probably about the year 1875 their old friends said Helen smiling at the site 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 that stationary character of a room on shore a table was rooted in the middle and seats were stuck to the sides happily the tropical sun 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 unicorns horns ornamented the mantelpiece which was draped by a pool of purple plush from which depended a certain number of balls two windows opened onto the deck and the light beating through them when the ship was roasted on the Amazons had turned the prince on the opposite wall to a faint yellow colour so that the Coliseum was scarcely to be distinguished from Queen Alexandra playing with her spaniels a pair of wicker armchairs by the fireside invited one to warm one's hands at a grate full of guilt-shavings a great lamp swung above the table the kind of lamp which makes the light of civilisation across the dark field to one walking in the country it's odd that everyone should be an old friend of Mr Peppers 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 really don't know him, she said and took refuge in fats believing that elderly people really like them better than women 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 Iambits he was an authority upon coins and one other thing she thought it was vehicular traffic he was here either to get things out of the sea or to write upon the probable cause 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 had he ever been in love asked Helen who had chosen a seed 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 aunt said the piano would come through the floor at their age one wouldn't mind being killed in the night she inquired 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 practicing 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 incipidity by the large inquiring 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 stated 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's 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's an honour to have charge of him Pepero will have someone to contradict him which I don't do you find this child grown don't you 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 we'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 that these tricks wouldn't do 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 doubt this 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 his comfort a table-place 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 of 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 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, Vin-Race? 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 pitch-and-hunt of his stories were very good said her husband peevishly still a severe judge Ridley inquired Mr. Vin-Race 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 everyone concerned as was proved by a long interval of constraint and silence Mr. Pepper indeed created a diversion of a kind by leaping onto his seat both feet tucked under him with the action of a spinster who detects a mouse as the draft struck 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 the ocean he professed himself surprised to learn that although Mr. Vin-Race 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 from 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 unlit 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 a slight stammer I'm going to 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 1 Chapter 2 of The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf this libruvox recording is in the public domain Chapter 2 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 what 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 Teresa 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 pinda when Willoughby was launching his first chip 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 a 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 the worst nonsense that 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 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 37 times I suppose she thought but politely allowed are your legs troubling you today 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 pain 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 also got 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 a fury of denunciation directed against the road makers of the present day in general and the road makers of Richmond park in particular when 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 his heap the roads of England are mended with pebbles with the very first rainfall I've told them your road will be a swamp again and again my words have proved true but you suppose they listen to me when I tell them so when I point out the consequences the consequences to the public purse when I recommend them to read briefly yes 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 warress but now that my bags 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 was represented by Tush but Willoughby whose discomfort as he listened was manifested by a slight movement rocking of his body said awkwardly not 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 onto 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 of 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 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 in her husbands 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 euphorocene beneath it was green and dim and it grew dimmer and dimmer until the sand at the bottom was clearly a pale blur one could scarcely see the black ribs of wrecked ships or the spiral towers made by the burrowing of great eels or the smooth green-sided monsters who came by flickering this way and that and Rachel if anyone 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 discrete 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 however way 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 Masters has a rotten place you could put your fingers through and the counterpains did you notice the counterpains 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 Chaley 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 very chill white cold and irreproachably clean suddenly Mrs Chaley turning from the subject of sheets dismissing them entirely clenched her fist on the top of them and proclaimed Mrs Chaley 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 Vinry's Rachel's mother would never have dreamt of inflicting Mrs Vinry's who knew every sheet in her house and expected of everyone the best they could do and 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 secure after all but lies lies exclaimed the mistress indignantly as she ran up on 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 Chaley 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 tomorrow 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 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 Chaley 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 Chaley by Willoughby Vinerace in gratitude of 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 Chaley Chaley instantly tied at 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 they're six inches between the floor and the door what I want is 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 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 Vinerace with more sense my dear Helen was on her knees under a table you're only making yourself untidy and we have 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 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 dare say he isn't very strong said Mrs. Chaley looking at Mrs. Ambrose compassionately as she helped to shift and carry it's books side Helen lifting an armful of sad volumes from the floor to the shelf Greek from morning to night if ever Miss Rachel Marrows Chaley pray that she may marry a man who doesn't know his ABC the preliminary discomforts and harshnesses which genuinely make the first days of a sea voyage so cheerless and trying to the temper being somehow lived through the succeeding days past 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 bold 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 ever such a day as this it's you the young men whispered oh it's you and the young women replied all old people and many sick people were drawn were at 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 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 that there was no need as there is in many houses when the creeper taps on the bedroom window for the couples to murmur before they kiss think of the ships tonight or thank heaven I'm not the man in the lighthouse for all they imagined the ships when they vanished on the skyline dissolved like snow in water the grown up view indeed was not much clearer than the view of the little creatures in bathing drawers who were trotting into 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 said that these were water spouts 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 vigor and purity she might be likened to all beautiful things for as a ship she had a life of her own 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 a very 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 lent over the rails and whistled and not far off Mr. Pepper sacked cutting up roots with a knife 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 for rears 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 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 seasick ladies who left the deck to their youngsters by virtue of the piano and a mess of books on the floor Rachel considered it her room but 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 for it for she had been educated as the majority of well-to-do girls in the last part of the 19th century were educated kindly doctors and gentle old professors had taught her the rudiments of about ten different branches of knowledge but they would have soon 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 path very pleasantly partly owing to the other pupils partly 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 at 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 work 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 24 she knew as much about music as most people do when they are 30 and could play as well as nature allowed 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 that 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 11 to 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 was 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 in it 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 cellate 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 chance to obscure it for a second she had begun her meditations with a shout of laughter caused by the following translation from Tristan 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 Cooper's letters the classic prescribed by her father which had bored her so that one sentence chanting to say something about the smell of a broom in his garden she had thereupon seen the little hall of 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 for a room 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 they had been that morning to take up the characters 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 at something quite unfamiliar and inexplicable and themselves as chairs or umbrellas dropped about here and there without any reason she could only say with a slight stammer are you for fun of Aunt Eleanor Aunt Lucy to which her aunt replied with a nervous hen like Twitter of a laugh my dear child what questions you do ask how fun very fun Rachel pursued I can't say I've ever thought how said Miss Vinways if one cares one doesn't think how Rachel which was aimed at the niece who had never yet come to her aunt's 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 lent over and kissed her with sub emotion and the argument was spilt irretrievably about the place like a bucket of milk by these means Rachel reached that stage of 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 of 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 opus 112 even with the spirit of poor William Cooper there at Olney like a ball of thistle down 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 thistle down 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 24 the sight gave rise to reflections Mrs. Ambrose stood thinking for at least two minutes she then smiled turned noiselessly away and went lest the sleeper should awaken and there should be the awkwardness of speech between them End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 3 Early next morning there was a sound as of chains being drawn roughly overhead the steady heart of the euthrazyme 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 taegus 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 everyone 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 autolones paid a call upon mrs. Jackson who was fatter than ever poor woman but asked kindly after Rachel and oh 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 plunked down on the table before Rachel on it she read Mr and mrs. Richard Dalloway 23 Brown Street Mayfair Mr Richard Dalloway continued 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 too 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 Turan 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 pocketbook in Spain he and mrs. Dalloway had mounted mules for they wished to understand how the peasants live of a right for rebellion for example 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 a 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 fieldings grave 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 correspondence of the times decided their route as much as anything else mrs. 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 Dalloway 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 Euphrasine 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 to them for they came of a class where almost everything was specially arranged or could be if necessary on this occasion all that Richard was to write a note to Lord Glenoway 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 Euphrasine 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 with leather bags of a rich brown hue soon surrounded them in addition to which Mr Dalloway carried a dispatch box and his wife a dressing case suggestive of a diamond necklace and bottles with silver tops it's so like Whistler 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 Chaley who took the lady to her cabin momentary though it seemed nevertheless the interruption was upsetting everyone 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 armchairs she was absorbed in her arrangements 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 armchairs 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 wash stand 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 into dinner these few minutes have 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 dare say 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 and 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 anyone girls they met in farms on reading parties or little suburban women who said it is agreeably 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 restrained in it which she held to be the sign of a lady Mr Pepper had not trouble to change his neat ugly suit but after all Clarissa thought to herself as she followed Rinre's into dinner everyone'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 base like the bassoon to the flourish of his wife's violin why weeds can be bad enough can't they Vinre's I remember crossing in the Mauritania 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 answers said G.S. Aquaticai he said which I take to be a kind of duckweed Mr Pepper looked up sharply and was about to put a question when willoughby continued they've an awful time of it those captains 3000 souls on board yes indeed she turned to Helen with an air of profundity and 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 nurses 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 him up warm and put him 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 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 pull 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 Curtley 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 the other said Ambrose if any creature is so deluded as to think that a vote does him or her any good let them have it you'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 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'm bound to say the politicians the bar or politics I agree said Willoughby you get more run for your money all one faculties have their plays 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 no I shouldn't like to think that anyone had to make allowances for me I don't quite agree Richard said Mrs Dalloway think of Shelly I feel that there's almost everything one wants in Adonais by all means Richard conceded but whenever I hear of Shelly I repeat to myself the words of Matthew Arnold what a set what a set this roused Ridley's attention Matthew Arnold a detestable prick he snapped a prick granted said Richard but I think a man of the world that's where my point comes in we politicians doubly seem to you we grasp 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 you artists find things in a mess shrub your 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 have 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 street and the first child I meet with its poor hungry dirty little face runs around 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 antiquity I saw it at Cambridge years ago and it's haunted me ever since don't you think it's quite the most you ever saw she asked Ridley it seemed to me I'd known 20 Clytemnesters old lady ditching for one I don't know a word of Greek but I could listen to it forever here Mr. Pepper struck up Polatathina Calvin and Throopu Finos Pehili Touto Kei Toao Peran Heimi Heimei Notu Horehi Perivri Hiisi Perum Oismasi Mrs. Dalloway looked at him with compressed lips I'd give 10 years of my life to no 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 Mrs. 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 Brown 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 tomorrow If only your ship is going to treat us kindly she exclaimed 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'm never sick Richard exclaimed at least I have only been actually sick once he corrected himself that was crossing the channel but a choppy sea I confess 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 you the way said Helen advancing 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 she was astonishingly like an 18th century masterpiece a Reynolds or a Romney 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 globes 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 mates cheapening remnants Rachel followed in the wake of the matrons as if in a trance a curious centre of violets came back from Dalloway mingling with the soft rustling of her skirts and the tinkling 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 do 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 is old ah it's all too thrilling have you been to Baywright no I haven't said Rachel then that's still to come I shall never forget my first passival 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 I could only cry on his shoulder it caught me here she touched her throat like nothing else in the world but where's your piano it's in another room Rachel explained but will you 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 I don't think music's all together good for people I'm afraid not too great a strain to Helen too emotional somehow 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 do you know Henry Phillips 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 Watson Joaquin 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 want a man to look clean by cleanliness you really 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 tomorrow there was that in her manner that made Rachel love her Mrs. Dalloway had a tiny yawn a mere dilation of her nostrils do 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 she was frightened 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 birth she merely changed her dress and she sat on her bed sitting down with innumerable frills and wrapped 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 as the process established Mrs. Dalloway began to write a pen in her hands became a thing one could rest paper with and she might have been stroking and tickling a kitten as she wrote picture us my dear a float in the very oddest ship you can imagine it's not the ship so much as the people one does come across queer sorts on one's travels I must say I find it hugely amusing there's a manager of the line called Vinn Race 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 60s 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've never been unsure or done ordinary things in their lives but 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 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 Shop girls they talk about art and think as such poops for dressing in the evening however I can't help that I'd rather die than come into dinner without changing wouldn't you it matters ever so much more than the soup it's odd to have 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 to 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 fox seria only one can't comb him out and sprinkle him with powder as one would once 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 cowered 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 laugh 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 Vinray 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 Clarissa 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 and it's yours said Clarissa to be a leader of men Richard Soliloquies it's a fine career my god what a career his chest slowly curved beneath his waistcoat do 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 really 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 stick 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 and 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 they 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 the point on the back of his hand that's my business as I try 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. Lockwater Clarissa has admitted 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 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 when she woke up and laughed to herself remembering where she was and that the Greek letters were real people they were 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 to each other in mid-ocean and see every detail of each other's faces and hear whatever they chance to say End of Chapter 3