 Chapter XXI of the voyage out by Virginia Woolf. This Lieberbox recording is in the public domain. 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 semi-circle 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 civilization. Mackenzie, he repeated, the man who went farther inland than anyone'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 Terrence. Very soon Helen saw her staring moodily at a coil of rope, and making no effort to listen. Mr. Flushing and Syngin 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 preyed 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. First, 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 Wilfred Flushing, who was so well-dressed and so formal. He blamed Hewitt and Rachel. Why didn't they talk? He looked at them, sitting silent and self-absorbed, and Flusig 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 not 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, or 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 rounded 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 and then 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 Hearst'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 in 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 blent over the rail. It might be Arendelle or Windsor, Mr. Flushing continued. If you cut down that bush with the yellow flowers, and by Joe, look, rows of brown backs paused for a moment and then leapt with emotion 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, Hearst 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 lent 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. Hewitt 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 gray 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? 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 recognizing in her own person so famous a thing. This is happiness, I suppose, and allowed to tarance 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 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 Hewitt'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 laps 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 round 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 realized Helen's soft body and 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 in deline 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 bad them remarked 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 stair 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 stair 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 sweet meats 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 in 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 forever 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. Syngin 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 earrings. 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 steam returned and began to steam back towards civilization, again her ears 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 colors 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 Hearst 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, singin' and Mr. Flushing withdrew, leaving the 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 nearer, 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 it 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 24 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. Do you realize 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-recombing 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 Hearst 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 inquired 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 everyone 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 halfway 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. 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 ascended. 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, and 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 treetops and blunt rounded treetops. 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 realized their hands were 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. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Of The Voyage Out By Virginia Wool 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 up 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 have sent 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 were 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 quarreled, 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 travelers 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, or it was refreshingly solid, and called out effort, and effort under such circumstances was not effort, but delight. When 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 organizing ability, but no sense of honor. Query. What is meant by masculine term honor? 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 I am, 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 realize 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 my 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 were all possible happiness, he read. Correct, but not very vivid, are they? Their 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 satirize 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 of 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. Hurst does now, I expect. Oh no, Hurst 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, do 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 singin' 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 Allen, 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. Huzzled Terrence. 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 Allen is. You can't deny that. And Mrs. Thornberry 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, Rafe's been made governor of the Carolway 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 Terrence, 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 ribbons and rose to the tops of their trees. He should in no way resemble, Rachel added, singe and hearst. At this Terrence professed the greatest admiration for singe and hearst. 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 fiber of your being or 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 Terrence admired. Singe and Hearst 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 charges and miracles in which we ourselves move about. She thought that it must be very dull to be singe and Hearst. 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 Hearst for the kiss which she then bestowed upon him, Terrence protested. And compared with Hearst, 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 will be here in a day or two. However, she drew a pen and paper towards her, and began to write laboriously. My dear Evelyn, Terrence, meanwhile, read a novel which someone 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 pitiful 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 Terrence deep in the armchair, 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 Terrence 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 going to be married in the autumn, probably, and hoped 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 Terrence remarked, quoting from his book, Listen to this, Rachel. It is probable that Hugh, he's the hero, a literary man, had not realized at the time of his marriage any more than the young man of parts and imagination usually does realize 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 rifflehorn, 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 booklined 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 and 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 weekend ticket to Swanage and has it out with himself on the Downs above Corf. 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, women would be, indeed what she now made a pretense 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 color 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. Hypnotized 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 Montgomery 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 Terrence 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 Reverend William Johnson and Miss McCoyd, 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, for 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 maines 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 before had wore those little persistent wrinkles, which seemed 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 solid 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 farm yards 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 anyone, and the great church towers and the curious houses clustered in the valleys, and the birds and the dusk, and the rain falling against the windows. But London, London's the place, Terrence 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, Terrence pondered, would be to find myself walking down King's Way 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 liked 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 Ike, 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 handle. 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 do you think have that? And now you've spoiled 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-cell, 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 one's self 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 asked 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 but less. Realizing 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 forever. 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 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. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 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. Hewitt'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 Terrence 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 candor 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 part 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 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 reasoned to suspect that Chaeli 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 it so since. Returning from the dining room for the third time, she perceived that one of the armchairs was now occupied by singin'. 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 mox 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 the 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. Oh yes, he had a letter from home, a letter from his mother, describing the suicide of the parlor maid. She was called Susan Jane and she came into the kitchen one afternoon and said that she wanted cooked 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 inquired. 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 that they do do? Nobody knows. They sat in silence. The bells 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, Terrence interposed. You've heard about poor Sinclair, too. Oh yes, I've heard about Sinclair. He's retired to his mind 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 parrot, 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've distinctly heard old Mrs. Paley wrapping 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, Hearst 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 numbskull Thornbury was doddering about 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 Elliott, 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 inquired into the truth of the story, or to have asked Thornbury and Elliott what business it was of theirs. They had it entirely their own way. I propose that we should all sign around Robin, go to Rodriguez in a body, and insist upon a full inquiry. Something's got to be done, don't you agree? He would remark 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, singin', 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 singin's morality, which she took far more seriously than anyone 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, singin 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 or elegance or intellect or deportment. A more ordinary sight than you are, he concluded. Except for the terror 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 center 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 blood hound. 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 a death. Everyone wants to see you. They insist upon seeing you. They've got nothing to say. They don't care a wrap 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 them. 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 malice 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 mouth. 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 forever. 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 Hurst recumbent drooping a magazine from his wrist. I'm going, he repeated. Rachel needn't come unless she wants to. If you go, Hewitt, I wish you'd make enquiries about the prostitute, said Hurst. 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. Sinjin 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 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 Sinjin 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 anyone 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 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. Do 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. End of chapter 23