Night and Day - Virginia Woolf (best novels for beginners txt) 📗
- Author: Virginia Woolf
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point of speaking, but looking at him in silence, with a look that
seemed to ask what she could not put into words, she turned and bade
him good night.
Like a strain of music, the effect of Katharine’s presence slowly died
from the room in which Ralph sat alone. The music had ceased in the
rapture of its melody. He strained to catch the faintest lingering
echoes; for a moment the memory lulled him into peace; but soon it
failed, and he paced the room so hungry for the sound to come again
that he was conscious of no other desire left in life. She had gone
without speaking; abruptly a chasm had been cut in his course, down
which the tide of his being plunged in disorder; fell upon rocks;
flung itself to destruction. The distress had an effect of physical
ruin and disaster. He trembled; he was white; he felt exhausted, as if
by a great physical effort. He sank at last into a chair standing
opposite her empty one, and marked, mechanically, with his eye upon
the clock, how she went farther and farther from him, was home now,
and now, doubtless, again with Rodney. But it was long before he could
realize these facts; the immense desire for her presence churned his
senses into foam, into froth, into a haze of emotion that removed all
facts from his grasp, and gave him a strange sense of distance, even
from the material shapes of wall and window by which he was
surrounded. The prospect of the future, now that the strength of his
passion was revealed to him, appalled him.
The marriage would take place in September, she had said; that allowed
him, then, six full months in which to undergo these terrible extremes
of emotion. Six months of torture, and after that the silence of the
grave, the isolation of the insane, the exile of the damned; at best,
a life from which the chief good was knowingly and for ever excluded.
An impartial judge might have assured him that his chief hope of
recovery lay in this mystic temper, which identified a living woman
with much that no human beings long possess in the eyes of each other;
she would pass, and the desire for her vanish, but his belief in what
she stood for, detached from her, would remain. This line of thought
offered, perhaps, some respite, and possessed of a brain that had its
station considerably above the tumult of the senses, he tried to
reduce the vague and wandering incoherency of his emotions to order.
The sense of self-preservation was strong in him, and Katharine
herself had strangely revived it by convincing him that his family
deserved and needed all his strength. She was right, and for their
sake, if not for his own, this passion, which could bear no fruit,
must be cut off, uprooted, shown to be as visionary and baseless as
she had maintained. The best way of achieving this was not to run away
from her, but to face her, and having steeped himself in her
qualities, to convince his reason that they were, as she assured him,
not those that he imagined. She was a practical woman, a domestic wife
for an inferior poet, endowed with romantic beauty by some freak of
unintelligent Nature. No doubt her beauty itself would not stand
examination. He had the means of settling this point at least. He
possessed a book of photographs from the Greek statues; the head of a
goddess, if the lower part were concealed, had often given him the
ecstasy of being in Katharine’s presence. He took it down from the
shelf and found the picture. To this he added a note from her, bidding
him meet her at the Zoo. He had a flower which he had picked at Kew to
teach her botany. Such were his relics. He placed them before him, and
set himself to visualize her so clearly that no deception or delusion
was possible. In a second he could see her, with the sun slanting
across her dress, coming towards him down the green walk at Kew. He
made her sit upon the seat beside him. He heard her voice, so low and
yet so decided in its tone; she spoke reasonably of indifferent
matters. He could see her faults, and analyze her virtues. His pulse
became quieter, and his brain increased in clarity. This time she
could not escape him. The illusion of her presence became more and
more complete. They seemed to pass in and out of each other’s minds,
questioning and answering. The utmost fullness of communion seemed to
be theirs. Thus united, he felt himself raised to an eminence,
exalted, and filled with a power of achievement such as he had never
known in singleness. Once more he told over conscientiously her
faults, both of face and character; they were clearly known to him;
but they merged themselves in the flawless union that was born of
their association. They surveyed life to its uttermost limits. How
deep it was when looked at from this height! How sublime! How the
commonest things moved him almost to tears! Thus, he forgot the
inevitable limitations; he forgot her absence, he thought it of no
account whether she married him or another; nothing mattered, save
that she should exist, and that he should love her. Some words of
these reflections were uttered aloud, and it happened that among them
were the words, “I love her.” It was the first time that he had used
the word “love” to describe his feeling; madness, romance,
hallucination—he had called it by these names before; but having,
apparently by accident, stumbled upon the word “love,” he repeated it
again and again with a sense of revelation.
“But I’m in love with you!” he exclaimed, with something like dismay.
He leant against the window-sill, looking over the city as she had
looked. Everything had become miraculously different and completely
distinct. His feelings were justified and needed no further
explanation. But he must impart them to some one, because his
discovery was so important that it concerned other people too.
Shutting the book of Greek photographs, and hiding his relics, he ran
downstairs, snatched his coat, and passed out of doors.
The lamps were being lit, but the streets were dark enough and empty
enough to let him walk his fastest, and to talk aloud as he walked. He
had no doubt where he was going. He was going to find Mary Datchet.
The desire to share what he felt, with some one who understood it, was
so imperious that he did not question it. He was soon in her street.
He ran up the stairs leading to her flat two steps at a time, and it
never crossed his mind that she might not be at home. As he rang her
bell, he seemed to himself to be announcing the presence of something
wonderful that was separate from himself, and gave him power and
authority over all other people. Mary came to the door after a
moment’s pause. He was perfectly silent, and in the dusk his face
looked completely white. He followed her into her room.
“Do you know each other?” she said, to his extreme surprise, for he
had counted on finding her alone. A young man rose, and said that he
knew Ralph by sight.
“We were just going through some papers,” said Mary. “Mr. Basnett has
to help me, because I don’t know much about my work yet. It’s the new
society,” she explained. “I’m the secretary. I’m no longer at Russell
Square.”
The voice in which she gave this information was so constrained as to
sound almost harsh.
“What are your aims?” said Ralph. He looked neither at Mary nor at Mr.
Basnett. Mr. Basnett thought he had seldom seen a more disagreeable or
formidable man than this friend of Mary’s, this sarcastic-looking,
white-faced Mr. Denham, who seemed to demand, as if by right, an
account of their proposals, and to criticize them before he had heard
them. Nevertheless, he explained his projects as clearly as he could,
and knew that he wished Mr. Denham to think well of them.
“I see,” said Ralph, when he had done. “D’you know, Mary,” he suddenly
remarked, “I believe I’m in for a cold. Have you any quinine?” The
look which he cast at her frightened her; it expressed mutely, perhaps
without his own consciousness, something deep, wild, and passionate.
She left the room at once. Her heart beat fast at the knowledge of
Ralph’s presence; but it beat with pain, and with an extraordinary
fear. She stood listening for a moment to the voices in the next room.
“Of course, I agree with you,” she heard Ralph say, in this strange
voice, to Mr. Basnett. “But there’s more that might be done. Have you
seen Judson, for instance? You should make a point of getting him.”
Mary returned with the quinine.
“Judson’s address?” Mr. Basnett inquired, pulling out his notebook and
preparing to write. For twenty minutes, perhaps, he wrote down names,
addresses, and other suggestions that Ralph dictated to him. Then,
when Ralph fell silent, Mr. Basnett felt that his presence was not
desired, and thanking Ralph for his help, with a sense that he was
very young and ignorant compared with him, he said good-bye.
“Mary,” said Ralph, directly Mr. Basnett had shut the door and they
were alone together. “Mary,” he repeated. But the old difficulty of
speaking to Mary without reserve prevented him from continuing. His
desire to proclaim his love for Katharine was still strong in him, but
he had felt, directly he saw Mary, that he could not share it with
her. The feeling increased as he sat talking to Mr. Basnett. And yet
all the time he was thinking of Katharine, and marveling at his love.
The tone in which he spoke Mary’s name was harsh.
“What is it, Ralph?” she asked, startled by his tone. She looked at
him anxiously, and her little frown showed that she was trying
painfully to understand him, and was puzzled. He could feel her
groping for his meaning, and he was annoyed with her, and thought how
he had always found her slow, painstaking, and clumsy. He had behaved
badly to her, too, which made his irritation the more acute. Without
waiting for him to answer, she rose as if his answer were indifferent
to her, and began to put in order some papers that Mr. Basnett had
left on the table. She hummed a scrap of a tune under her breath, and
moved about the room as if she were occupied in making things tidy,
and had no other concern.
“You’ll stay and dine?” she said casually, returning to her seat.
“No,” Ralph replied. She did not press him further. They sat side by
side without speaking, and Mary reached her hand for her work basket,
and took out her sewing and threaded a needle.
“That’s a clever young man,” Ralph observed, referring to Mr. Basnett.
“I’m glad you thought so. It’s tremendously interesting work, and
considering everything, I think we’ve done very well. But I’m inclined
to agree with you; we ought to try to be more conciliatory. We’re
absurdly strict. It’s difficult to see that there may be sense in what
one’s opponents say, though they are one’s opponents. Horace Basnett
is certainly too uncompromising. I mustn’t forget to see that he
writes that letter to Judson. You’re too busy, I suppose, to come on
to our committee?” She spoke in the most impersonal manner.
“I may be out of town,” Ralph replied, with equal distance of manner.
“Our
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