Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  Miss Allan, being thus addressed, shut her novel and observed the others placidly for a time. At last she said, “It is surely not natural to leave your wife because she happens to be in love with you. But that — as far as I can make out — is what the gentleman in my story does.”

  “Tut, tut, that doesn’t sound good — no, that doesn’t sound at all natural,” murmured the knitters in their absorbed voices.

  “Still, it’s the kind of book people call very clever,” Miss Allan added.

  “Maternity — by Michael Jessop — I presume,” Mr. Elliot put in, for he could never resist the temptation of talking while he played chess.

  “D’you know,” said Mrs. Elliot, after a moment, “I don’t think people do write good novels now — not as good as they used to, anyhow.”

  No one took the trouble to agree with her or to disagree with her. Arthur Venning who was strolling about, sometimes looking at the game, sometimes reading a page of a magazine, looked at Miss Allan, who was half asleep, and said humorously, “A penny for your thoughts, Miss Allan.”

  The others looked up. They were glad that he had not spoken to them. But Miss Allan replied without any hesitation, “I was thinking of my imaginary uncle. Hasn’t every one got an imaginary uncle?” she continued. “I have one — a most delightful old gentleman. He’s always giving me things. Sometimes it’s a gold watch; sometimes it’s a carriage and pair; sometimes it’s a beautiful little cottage in the New Forest; sometimes it’s a ticket to the place I most want to see.”

  She set them all thinking vaguely of the things they wanted. Mrs. Elliot knew exactly what she wanted; she wanted a child; and the usual little pucker deepened on her brow.

  “We’re such lucky people,” she said, looking at her husband. “We really have no wants.” She was apt to say this, partly in order to convince herself, and partly in order to convince other people. But she was prevented from wondering how far she carried conviction by the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Flushing, who came through the hall and stopped by the chess-board. Mrs. Flushing looked wilder than ever. A great strand of black hair looped down across her brow, her cheeks were whipped a dark blood red, and drops of rain made wet marks upon them.

  Mr. Flushing explained that they had been on the roof watching the storm.

  “It was a wonderful sight,” he said. “The lightning went right out over the sea, and lit up the waves and the ships far away. You can’t think how wonderful the mountains looked too, with the lights on them, and the great masses of shadow. It’s all over now.”

  He slid down into a chair, becoming interested in the final struggle of the game.

  “And you go back to-morrow?” said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at Mrs. Flushing.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “And indeed one is not sorry to go back,” said Mrs. Elliot, assuming an air of mournful anxiety, “after all this illness.”

  “Are you afraid of dyin’?” Mrs. Flushing demanded scornfully.

  “I think we are all afraid of that,” said Mrs. Elliot with dignity.

  “I suppose we’re all cowards when it comes to the point,” said Mrs. Flushing, rubbing her cheek against the back of the chair. “I’m sure I am.”

  “Not a bit of it!” said Mr. Flushing, turning round, for Mr. Pepper took a very long time to consider his move. “It’s not cowardly to wish to live, Alice. It’s the very reverse of cowardly. Personally, I’d like to go on for a hundred years — granted, of course, that I had the full use of my faculties. Think of all the things that are bound to happen!” “That is what I feel,” Mrs. Thornbury rejoined. “The changes, the improvements, the inventions — and beauty. D’you know I feel sometimes that I couldn’t bear to die and cease to see beautiful things about me?”

  “It would certainly be very dull to die before they have discovered whether there is life in Mars,” Miss Allan added.

  “Do you really believe there’s life in Mars?” asked Mrs. Flushing, turning to her for the first time with keen interest. “Who tells you that? Some one who knows? D’you know a man called — ?”

  Here Mrs. Thornbury laid down her knitting, and a look of extreme solicitude came into her eyes.

  “There is Mr. Hirst,” she said quietly.

  St. John had just come through the swing door. He was rather blown about by the wind, and his cheeks looked terribly pale, unshorn, and cavernous. After taking off his coat he was going to pass straight through the hall and up to his room, but he could not ignore the presence of so many people he knew, especially as Mrs. Thornbury rose and went up to him, holding out her hand. But the shock of the warm lamp-lit room, together with the sight of so many cheerful human beings sitting together at their ease, after the dark walk in the rain, and the long days of strain and horror, overcame him completely. He looked at Mrs. Thornbury and could not speak.

  Every one was silent. Mr. Pepper’s hand stayed upon his Knight. Mrs. Thornbury somehow moved him to a chair, sat herself beside him, and with tears in her own eyes said gently, “You have done everything for your friend.”

  Her action set them all talking again as if they had never stopped, and Mr. Pepper finished the move with his Knight.

  “There was nothing to be done,” said St. John. He spoke very slowly. “It seems impossible—”

  He drew his hand across his eyes as if some dream came between him and the others and prevented him from seeing where he was.

  “And that poor fellow,” said Mrs. Thornbury, the tears falling again down her cheeks.

  “Impossible,” St. John repeated.

  “Did he have the consolation of knowing — ?” Mrs. Thornbury began very tentatively.

  But St. John made no reply. He lay back in his chair, half-seeing the others, half-hearing what they said. He was terribly tired, and the light and warmth, the movements of the hands, and the soft communicative voices soothed him; they gave him a strange sense of quiet and relief. As he sat there, motionless, this feeling of relief became a feeling of profound happiness. Without any sense of disloyalty to Terence and Rachel he ceased to think about either of them. The movements and the voices seemed to draw together from different parts of the room, and to combine themselves into a pattern before his eyes; he was content to sit silently watching the pattern build itself up, looking at what he hardly saw.

  The game was really a good one, and Mr. Pepper and Mr. Elliot were becoming more and more set upon the struggle. Mrs. Thornbury, seeing that St. John did not wish to talk, resumed her knitting.

  “Lightning again!” Mrs. Flushing suddenly exclaimed. A yellow light flashed across the blue window, and for a second they saw the green trees outside. She strode to the door, pushed it open, and stood half out in the open air.

  But the light was only the reflection of the storm which was over. The rain had ceased, the heavy clouds were blown away, and the air was thin and clear, although vapourish mists were being driven swiftly across the moon. The sky was once more a deep and solemn blue, and the shape of the earth was visible at the bottom of the air, enormous, dark, and solid, rising into the tapering mass of the mountain, and pricked here and there on the slopes by the tiny lights of villas. The driving air, the drone of the trees, and the flashing light which now and again spread a broad illumination over the earth filled Mrs. Flushing with exultation. Her breasts rose and fell.

  “Splendid! Splendid!” she muttered to herself. Then she turned back into the hall and exclaimed in a peremptory voice, “Come outside and see, Wilfrid; it’s wonderful.”

  Some half-stirred; some rose; some dropped their balls of wool and began to stoop to look for them.

  “To bed — to bed,” said Miss Allan.

  “It was the move with your Queen that gave it away, Pepper,” exclaimed Mr. Elliot triumphantly, sweeping the pieces together and standing up. He had won the game.

  “What? Pepper beaten at last? I congratulate you!” said Arthur Venning, who was wheeling old Mrs. Paley to bed.

  All these voices sounded grate
fully in St. John’s ears as he lay half-asleep, and yet vividly conscious of everything around him. Across his eyes passed a procession of objects, black and indistinct, the figures of people picking up their books, their cards, their balls of wool, their work-baskets, and passing him one after another on their way to bed.

  NIGHT AND DAY

  Set in Edwardian London, this 1919 novel compares and contrasts the quotidian and romantic lives of two female acquaintances, Katheryn and Mary. The city is a crucial element to the work and the intertwining nature of the inhabitants that walk its streets. The novel examines the relationship between love and marriage and whether one necessitates or even allows for the other. Woolf explores the idea of happiness in marriage and tackles the issue of possible fulfilment in such an institution. Katheryn, who comes from an upper-class, privileged background, becomes engaged as a very young woman only to end the entanglement when her husband-to-be wishes to pursue her cousin. Katheryn proceeds to marry another man, but her existence is one of conflict and negotiation between her family, marriage and desire for personal and individual freedom. She struggles with the idea and expectations that being a wife entails, particularly the idea of subservience and quiescence associated with the Victorian woman, as Woolf creates tension between the older generation and the new, emerging beliefs of their children. As the daughter of a vicar Mary comes from a less privileged family than Katheryn and she devotes much of her time to the woman’s suffrage movement, deriving a sense of purpose and identity from her work.

  Mary’s romantic life is unfulfilling and painful and she suffers greatly after falling deeply in love with Ralph Denham, who does not return her feelings. The novel details the developing and changing relationship and dynamic between them, but places great importance on Mary’s life and character separate from any romantic endeavours she does or does not undertake. Woolf creates a passionate and intriguing character, devoting herself to a course and movement of social progress and subsequently finds her happiness away from the domestic sphere.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CHAPTER XXV

  CHAPTER XXVI

  CHAPTER XXVII

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  CHAPTER XXIX

  CHAPTER XXX

  CHAPTER XXXI

  CHAPTER XXXII

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Woolf, with her husband Leonard, during their engagement, 1912

  TO

  VANESSA BELL

  BUT, LOOKING FOR A PHRASE,

  I FOUND NONE TO STAND

  BESIDE YOUR NAME

  CHAPTER I

  It was a Sunday evening in October, and in common with many other young ladies of her class, Katharine Hilbery was pouring out tea. Perhaps a fifth part of her mind was thus occupied, and the remaining parts leapt over the little barrier of day which interposed between Monday morning and this rather subdued moment, and played with the things one does voluntarily and normally in the daylight. But although she was silent, she was evidently mistress of a situation which was familiar enough to her, and inclined to let it take its way for the six hundredth time, perhaps, without bringing into play any of her unoccupied faculties. A single glance was enough to show that Mrs. Hilbery was so rich in the gifts which make tea-parties of elderly distinguished people successful, that she scarcely needed any help from her daughter, provided that the tiresome business of teacups and bread and butter was discharged for her.

  Considering that the little party had been seated round the tea-table for less than twenty minutes, the animation observable on their faces, and the amount of sound they were producing collectively, were very creditable to the hostess. It suddenly came into Katharine’s mind that if some one opened the door at this moment he would think that they were enjoying themselves; he would think, “What an extremely nice house to come into!” and instinctively she laughed, and said something to increase the noise, for the credit of the house presumably, since she herself had not been feeling exhilarated. At the very same moment, rather to her amusement, the door was flung open, and a young man entered the room. Katharine, as she shook hands with him, asked him, in her own mind, “Now, do you think we’re enjoying ourselves enormously?”... “Mr. Denham, mother,” she said aloud, for she saw that her mother had forgotten his name.

  That fact was perceptible to Mr. Denham also, and increased the awkwardness which inevitably attends the entrance of a stranger into a room full of people much at their ease, and all launched upon sentences. At the same time, it seemed to Mr. Denham as if a thousand softly padded doors had closed between him and the street outside. A fine mist, the etherealized essence of the fog, hung visibly in the wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room, all silver where the candles were grouped on the tea-table, and ruddy again in the firelight. With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head, and his body still tingling with his quick walk along the streets and in and out of traffic and foot-passengers, this drawing-room seemed very remote and still; and the faces of the elderly people were mellowed, at some distance from each other, and had a bloom on them owing to the fact that the air in the drawing-room was thickened by blue grains of mist. Mr. Denham had come in as Mr. Fortescue, the eminent novelist, reached the middle of a very long sentence. He kept this suspended while the newcomer sat down, and Mrs. Hilbery deftly joined the severed parts by leaning towards him and remarking:

  “Now, what would you do if you were married to an engineer, and had to live in Manchester, Mr. Denham?”

  “Surely she could learn Persian,” broke in a thin, elderly gentleman. “Is there no retired schoolmaster or man of letters in Manchester with whom she could read Persian?”

  “A cousin of ours has married and gone to live in Manchester,” Katharine explained. Mr. Denham muttered something, which was indeed all that was required of him, and the novelist went on where he had left off. Privately, Mr. Denham cursed himself very sharply for having exchanged the freedom of the street for this sophisticated drawing-room, where, among other disagreeables, he certainly would not appear at his best. He glanced round him, and saw that, save for Katharine, they were all over forty, the only consolation being that Mr. Fortescue was a considerable celebrity, so that to-morrow one might be glad to have met him.

  “Have you ever been to Manchester?” he asked Katharine.

  “Never,” she replied.

  “Why do you object to it, then?”

  Katharine stirred her tea, and seemed to speculate, so Denham thought, upon the duty of filling somebody else’s cup, but she was really wondering how she was going to keep this strange young man in harmony with the rest. She observed that he was compressing his teacup, so that there was danger lest the thin china might cave inwards. She could see that he was nervous; one would expect a bony young man with his face slightly reddened by the wind, and his hair not altogether smooth, to be nervous in such a party. Further, he probably disliked this kind of thing, and had come out of curiosity, or because her father had invited him — anyhow, he would not be easily combined with the rest.

  “I should think there would be no one to talk to in Manchester,” she replied at random. Mr. Fortescue had been observing her for a moment or two, as novelists are inclined to observe, and at this remark he smiled, and made it the text for a little further speculation.

&
nbsp; “In spite of a slight tendency to exaggeration, Katharine decidedly hits the mark,” he said, and lying back in his chair, with his opaque contemplative eyes fixed on the ceiling, and the tips of his fingers pressed together, he depicted, first the horrors of the streets of Manchester, and then the bare, immense moors on the outskirts of the town, and then the scrubby little house in which the girl would live, and then the professors and the miserable young students devoted to the more strenuous works of our younger dramatists, who would visit her, and how her appearance would change by degrees, and how she would fly to London, and how Katharine would have to lead her about, as one leads an eager dog on a chain, past rows of clamorous butchers’ shops, poor dear creature.

  “Oh, Mr. Fortescue,” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, as he finished, “I had just written to say how I envied her! I was thinking of the big gardens and the dear old ladies in mittens, who read nothing but the “Spectator,” and snuff the candles. Have they ALL disappeared? I told her she would find the nice things of London without the horrid streets that depress one so.”

  “There is the University,” said the thin gentleman, who had previously insisted upon the existence of people knowing Persian.

  “I know there are moors there, because I read about them in a book the other day,” said Katharine.

  “I am grieved and amazed at the ignorance of my family,” Mr. Hilbery remarked. He was an elderly man, with a pair of oval, hazel eyes which were rather bright for his time of life, and relieved the heaviness of his face. He played constantly with a little green stone attached to his watch-chain, thus displaying long and very sensitive fingers, and had a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body, so that he seemed to be providing himself incessantly with food for amusement and reflection with the least possible expenditure of energy. One might suppose that he had passed the time of life when his ambitions were personal, or that he had gratified them as far as he was likely to do, and now employed his considerable acuteness rather to observe and reflect than to attain any result.