Night and Day - Virginia Woolf (best novels for beginners txt) 📗

us—” and in the mysterious delight of learning further details of

these arrangements, and suggesting more sensible plans of her own,

which, from the aggrieved way in which she spoke, she did not seem to

expect any one to adopt, Mrs. Denham completely forgot the presence of

a well-dressed visitor, who had to be informed about the amenities of

Highgate. As soon as Joan had taken her seat, an argument had sprung

up on either side of Katharine, as to whether the Salvation Army has

any right to play hymns at street corners on Sunday mornings, thereby

making it impossible for James to have his sleep out, and tampering

with the rights of individual liberty.

 

“You see, James likes to lie in bed and sleep like a hog,” said

Johnnie, explaining himself to Katharine, whereupon James fired up

and, making her his goal, also exclaimed:

 

“Because Sundays are my one chance in the week of having my sleep out.

Johnnie messes with stinking chemicals in the pantry—”

 

They appealed to her, and she forgot her cake and began to laugh and

talk and argue with sudden animation. The large family seemed to her

so warm and various that she forgot to censure them for their taste in

pottery. But the personal question between James and Johnnie merged

into some argument already, apparently, debated, so that the parts had

been distributed among the family, in which Ralph took the lead; and

Katharine found herself opposed to him and the champion of Johnnie’s

cause, who, it appeared, always lost his head and got excited in

argument with Ralph.

 

“Yes, yes, that’s what I mean. She’s got it right,” he exclaimed,

after Katharine had restated his case, and made it more precise. The

debate was left almost solely to Katharine and Ralph. They looked into

each other’s eyes fixedly, like wrestlers trying to see what movement

is coming next, and while Ralph spoke, Katharine bit her lower lip,

and was always ready with her next point as soon as he had done. They

were very well matched, and held the opposite views.

 

But at the most exciting stage of the argument, for no reason that

Katharine could see, all chairs were pushed back, and one after

another the Denham family got up and went out of the door, as if a

bell had summoned them. She was not used to the clockwork regulations

of a large family. She hesitated in what she was saying, and rose.

Mrs. Denham and Joan had drawn together and stood by the fireplace,

slightly raising their skirts above their ankles, and discussing

something which had an air of being very serious and very private.

They appeared to have forgotten her presence among them. Ralph stood

holding the door open for her.

 

“Won’t you come up to my room?” he said. And Katharine, glancing back

at Joan, who smiled at her in a preoccupied way, followed Ralph

upstairs. She was thinking of their argument, and when, after the long

climb, he opened his door, she began at once.

 

“The question is, then, at what point is it right for the individual

to assert his will against the will of the State.”

 

For some time they continued the argument, and then the intervals

between one statement and the next became longer and longer, and they

spoke more speculatively and less pugnaciously, and at last fell

silent. Katharine went over the argument in her mind, remembering how,

now and then, it had been set conspicuously on the right course by

some remark offered either by James or by Johnnie.

 

“Your brothers are very clever,” she said. “I suppose you’re in the

habit of arguing?”

 

“James and Johnnie will go on like that for hours,” Ralph replied. “So

will Hester, if you start her upon Elizabethan dramatists.”

 

“And the little girl with the pigtail?”

 

“Molly? She’s only ten. But they’re always arguing among themselves.”

 

He was immensely pleased by Katharine’s praise of his brothers and

sisters. He would have liked to go on telling her about them, but he

checked himself.

 

“I see that it must be difficult to leave them,” Katharine continued.

His deep pride in his family was more evident to him, at that moment,

than ever before, and the idea of living alone in a cottage was

ridiculous. All that brotherhood and sisterhood, and a common

childhood in a common past mean, all the stability, the unambitious

comradeship, and tacit understanding of family life at its best, came

to his mind, and he thought of them as a company, of which he was the

leader, bound on a difficult, dreary, but glorious voyage. And it was

Katharine who had opened his eyes to this, he thought.

 

A little dry chirp from the corner of the room now roused her

attention.

 

“My tame rook,” he explained briefly. “A cat had bitten one of its

legs.” She looked at the rook, and her eyes went from one object to

another.

 

“You sit here and read?” she said, her eyes resting upon his books. He

said that he was in the habit of working there at night.

 

“The great advantage of Highgate is the view over London. At night the

view from my window is splendid.” He was extremely anxious that she

should appreciate his view, and she rose to see what was to be seen.

It was already dark enough for the turbulent haze to be yellow with

the light of street lamps, and she tried to determine the quarters of

the city beneath her. The sight of her gazing from his window gave him

a peculiar satisfaction. When she turned, at length, he was still

sitting motionless in his chair.

 

“It must be late,” she said. “I must be going.” She settled upon the

arm of the chair irresolutely, thinking that she had no wish to go

home. William would be there, and he would find some way of making

things unpleasant for her, and the memory of their quarrel came back

to her. She had noticed Ralph’s coldness, too. She looked at him, and

from his fixed stare she thought that he must be working out some

theory, some argument. He had thought, perhaps, of some fresh point in

his position, as to the bounds of personal liberty. She waited,

silently, thinking about liberty.

 

“You’ve won again,” he said at last, without moving.

 

“I’ve won?” she repeated, thinking of the argument.

 

“I wish to God I hadn’t asked you here,” he burst out.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“When you’re here, it’s different—I’m happy. You’ve only to walk to

the window—you’ve only to talk about liberty. When I saw you down

there among them all—” He stopped short.

 

“You thought how ordinary I was.”

 

“I tried to think so. But I thought you more wonderful than ever.”

 

An immense relief, and a reluctance to enjoy that relief, conflicted

in her heart.

 

She slid down into the chair.

 

“I thought you disliked me,” she said.

 

“God knows I tried,” he replied. “I’ve done my best to see you as you

are, without any of this damned romantic nonsense. That was why I

asked you here, and it’s increased my folly. When you’re gone I shall

look out of that window and think of you. I shall waste the whole

evening thinking of you. I shall waste my whole life, I believe.”

 

He spoke with such vehemence that her relief disappeared; she frowned;

and her tone changed to one almost of severity.

 

“This is what I foretold. We shall gain nothing but unhappiness. Look

at me, Ralph.” He looked at her. “I assure you that I’m far more

ordinary than I appear. Beauty means nothing whatever. In fact, the

most beautiful women are generally the most stupid. I’m not that, but

I’m a matter-of-fact, prosaic, rather ordinary character; I order the

dinner, I pay the bills, I do the accounts, I wind up the clock, and I

never look at a book.”

 

“You forget—” he began, but she would not let him speak.

 

“You come and see me among flowers and pictures, and think me

mysterious, romantic, and all the rest of it. Being yourself very

inexperienced and very emotional, you go home and invent a story about

me, and now you can’t separate me from the person you’ve imagined me

to be. You call that, I suppose, being in love; as a matter of fact

it’s being in delusion. All romantic people are the same,” she added.

“My mother spends her life in making stories about the people she’s

fond of. But I won’t have you do it about me, if I can help it.”

 

“You can’t help it,” he said.

 

“I warn you it’s the source of all evil.”

 

“And of all good,” he added.

 

“You’ll find out that I’m not what you think me.”

 

“Perhaps. But I shall gain more than I lose.”

 

“If such gain’s worth having.”

 

They were silent for a space.

 

“That may be what we have to face,” he said. “There may be nothing

else. Nothing but what we imagine.”

 

“The reason of our loneliness,” she mused, and they were silent for a

time.

 

“When are you to be married?” he asked abruptly, with a change of

tone.

 

“Not till September, I think. It’s been put off.”

 

“You won’t be lonely then,” he said. “According to what people say,

marriage is a very queer business. They say it’s different from

anything else. It may be true. I’ve known one or two cases where it

seems to be true.” He hoped that she would go on with the subject. But

she made no reply. He had done his best to master himself, and his

voice was sufficiently indifferent, but her silence tormented him. She

would never speak to him of Rodney of her own accord, and her reserve

left a whole continent of her soul in darkness.

 

“It may be put off even longer than that,” she said, as if by an

afterthought. “Some one in the office is ill, and William has to take

his place. We may put it off for some time in fact.”

 

“That’s rather hard on him, isn’t it?” Ralph asked.

 

“He has his work,” she replied. “He has lots of things that interest

him… . I know I’ve been to that place,” she broke off, pointing to

a photograph. “But I can’t remember where it is—oh, of course it’s

Oxford. Now, what about your cottage?”

 

“I’m not going to take it.”

 

“How you change your mind!” she smiled.

 

“It’s not that,” he said impatiently. “It’s that I want to be where I

can see you.”

 

“Our compact is going to hold in spite of all I’ve said?” she asked.

 

“For ever, so far as I’m concerned,” he replied.

 

“You’re going to go on dreaming and imagining and making up stories

about me as you walk along the street, and pretending that we’re

riding in a forest, or landing on an island—”

 

“No. I shall think of you ordering dinner, paying bills, doing the

accounts, showing old ladies the relics—”

 

“That’s better,” she said. “You can think of me tomorrow morning

looking up dates in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’”

 

“And forgetting your purse,” Ralph added.

 

At this she smiled, but in another moment her smile faded, either

because of his words or of the way in which he spoke them. She was

capable of forgetting things. He saw that. But what more did he see?

Was he not looking at something she had never shown to anybody? Was it

not something so profound that the notion of his seeing it almost