Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  “Well, you’ll ask me to join when the time comes, I hope.”

  He nodded, and took his pipe from his mouth, but, being unable to think of anything to say, he put it back again, although he would have been glad if she had stayed.

  Against her wish, Mary insisted upon taking her downstairs, and then, as there was no cab to be seen, they stood in the street together, looking about them.

  “Go back,” Katharine urged her, thinking of Mr. Basnett with his papers in his hand.

  “You can’t wander about the streets alone in those clothes,” said Mary, but the desire to find a cab was not her true reason for standing beside Katharine for a minute or two. Unfortunately for her composure, Mr. Basnett and his papers seemed to her an incidental diversion of life’s serious purpose compared with some tremendous fact which manifested itself as she stood alone with Katharine. It may have been their common womanhood.

  “Have you seen Ralph?” she asked suddenly, without preface.

  “Yes,” said Katharine directly, but she did not remember when or where she had seen him. It took her a moment or two to remember why Mary should ask her if she had seen Ralph.

  “I believe I’m jealous,” said Mary.

  “Nonsense, Mary,” said Katharine, rather distractedly, taking her arm and beginning to walk up the street in the direction of the main road. “Let me see; we went to Kew, and we agreed to be friends. Yes, that’s what happened.” Mary was silent, in the hope that Katharine would tell her more. But Katharine said nothing.

  “It’s not a question of friendship,” Mary exclaimed, her anger rising, to her own surprise. “You know it’s not. How can it be? I’ve no right to interfere—” She stopped. “Only I’d rather Ralph wasn’t hurt,” she concluded.

  “I think he seems able to take care of himself,” Katharine observed. Without either of them wishing it, a feeling of hostility had risen between them.

  “Do you really think it’s worth it?” said Mary, after a pause.

  “How can one tell?” Katharine asked.

  “Have you ever cared for any one?” Mary demanded rashly and foolishly.

  “I can’t wander about London discussing my feelings — Here’s a cab — no, there’s some one in it.”

  “We don’t want to quarrel,” said Mary.

  “Ought I to have told him that I wouldn’t be his friend?” Katharine asked. “Shall I tell him that? If so, what reason shall I give him?”

  “Of course you can’t tell him that,” said Mary, controlling herself.

  “I believe I shall, though,” said Katharine suddenly.

  “I lost my temper, Katharine; I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “The whole thing’s foolish,” said Katharine, peremptorily. “That’s what I say. It’s not worth it.” She spoke with unnecessary vehemence, but it was not directed against Mary Datchet. Their animosity had completely disappeared, and upon both of them a cloud of difficulty and darkness rested, obscuring the future, in which they had both to find a way.

  “No, no, it’s not worth it,” Katharine repeated. “Suppose, as you say, it’s out of the question — this friendship; he falls in love with me. I don’t want that. Still,” she added, “I believe you exaggerate; love’s not everything; marriage itself is only one of the things—” They had reached the main thoroughfare, and stood looking at the omnibuses and passers-by, who seemed, for the moment, to illustrate what Katharine had said of the diversity of human interests. For both of them it had become one of those moments of extreme detachment, when it seems unnecessary ever again to shoulder the burden of happiness and self-assertive existence. Their neighbors were welcome to their possessions.

  “I don’t lay down any rules,”’ said Mary, recovering herself first, as they turned after a long pause of this description. “All I say is that you should know what you’re about — for certain; but,” she added, “I expect you do.”

  At the same time she was profoundly perplexed, not only by what she knew of the arrangements for Katharine’s marriage, but by the impression which she had of her, there on her arm, dark and inscrutable.

  They walked back again and reached the steps which led up to Mary’s flat. Here they stopped and paused for a moment, saying nothing.

  “You must go in,” said Katharine, rousing herself. “He’s waiting all this time to go on with his reading.” She glanced up at the lighted window near the top of the house, and they both looked at it and waited for a moment. A flight of semicircular steps ran up to the hall, and Mary slowly mounted the first two or three, and paused, looking down upon Katharine.

  “I think you underrate the value of that emotion,” she said slowly, and a little awkwardly. She climbed another step and looked down once more upon the figure that was only partly lit up, standing in the street with a colorless face turned upwards. As Mary hesitated, a cab came by and Katharine turned and stopped it, saying as she opened the door:

  “Remember, I want to belong to your society — remember,” she added, having to raise her voice a little, and shutting the door upon the rest of her words.

  Mary mounted the stairs step by step, as if she had to lift her body up an extremely steep ascent. She had had to wrench herself forcibly away from Katharine, and every step vanquished her desire. She held on grimly, encouraging herself as though she were actually making some great physical effort in climbing a height. She was conscious that Mr. Basnett, sitting at the top of the stairs with his documents, offered her solid footing if she were capable of reaching it. The knowledge gave her a faint sense of exaltation.

  Mr. Basnett raised his eyes as she opened the door.

  “I’ll go on where I left off,” he said. “Stop me if you want anything explained.”

  He had been re-reading the document, and making pencil notes in the margin while he waited, and he went on again as if there had been no interruption. Mary sat down among the flat cushions, lit another cigarette, and listened with a frown upon her face.

  Katharine leant back in the corner of the cab that carried her to Chelsea, conscious of fatigue, and conscious, too, of the sober and satisfactory nature of such industry as she had just witnessed. The thought of it composed and calmed her. When she reached home she let herself in as quietly as she could, in the hope that the household was already gone to bed. But her excursion had occupied less time than she thought, and she heard sounds of unmistakable liveliness upstairs. A door opened, and she drew herself into a ground-floor room in case the sound meant that Mr. Peyton were taking his leave. From where she stood she could see the stairs, though she was herself invisible. Some one was coming down the stairs, and now she saw that it was William Rodney. He looked a little strange, as if he were walking in his sleep; his lips moved as if he were acting some part to himself. He came down very slowly, step by step, with one hand upon the banisters to guide himself. She thought he looked as if he were in some mood of high exaltation, which it made her uncomfortable to witness any longer unseen. She stepped into the hall. He gave a great start upon seeing her and stopped.

  “Katharine!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been out?” he asked.

  “Yes.... Are they still up?”

  He did not answer, and walked into the ground-floor room through the door which stood open.

  “It’s been more wonderful than I can tell you,” he said, “I’m incredibly happy—”

  He was scarcely addressing her, and she said nothing. For a moment they stood at opposite sides of a table saying nothing. Then he asked her quickly, “But tell me, how did it seem to you? What did you think, Katharine? Is there a chance that she likes me? Tell me, Katharine!”

  Before she could answer a door opened on the landing above and disturbed them. It disturbed William excessively. He started back, walked rapidly into the hall, and said in a loud and ostentatiously ordinary tone:

  “Good night, Katharine. Go to bed now. I shall see you soon. I hope I shall be able to come to-morrow.”

  Next moment he was gone. She went
upstairs and found Cassandra on the landing. She held two or three books in her hand, and she was stooping to look at others in a little bookcase. She said that she could never tell which book she wanted to read in bed, poetry, biography, or metaphysics.

  “What do you read in bed, Katharine?” she asked, as they walked upstairs side by side.

  “Sometimes one thing — sometimes another,” said Katharine vaguely. Cassandra looked at her.

  “D’you know, you’re extraordinarily queer,” she said. “Every one seems to me a little queer. Perhaps it’s the effect of London.”

  “Is William queer, too?” Katharine asked.

  “Well, I think he is a little,” Cassandra replied. “Queer, but very fascinating. I shall read Milton to-night. It’s been one of the happiest nights of my life, Katharine,” she added, looking with shy devotion at her cousin’s beautiful face.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  London, in the first days of spring, has buds that open and flowers that suddenly shake their petals — white, purple, or crimson — in competition with the display in the garden beds, although these city flowers are merely so many doors flung wide in Bond Street and the neighborhood, inviting you to look at a picture, or hear a symphony, or merely crowd and crush yourself among all sorts of vocal, excitable, brightly colored human beings. But, all the same, it is no mean rival to the quieter process of vegetable florescence. Whether or not there is a generous motive at the root, a desire to share and impart, or whether the animation is purely that of insensate fervor and friction, the effect, while it lasts, certainly encourages those who are young, and those who are ignorant, to think the world one great bazaar, with banners fluttering and divans heaped with spoils from every quarter of the globe for their delight.

  As Cassandra Otway went about London provided with shillings that opened turnstiles, or more often with large white cards that disregarded turnstiles, the city seemed to her the most lavish and hospitable of hosts. After visiting the National Gallery, or Hertford House, or hearing Brahms or Beethoven at the Bechstein Hall, she would come back to find a new person awaiting her, in whose soul were imbedded some grains of the invaluable substance which she still called reality, and still believed that she could find. The Hilberys, as the saying is, “knew every one,” and that arrogant claim was certainly upheld by the number of houses which, within a certain area, lit their lamps at night, opened their doors after 3 p. m., and admitted the Hilberys to their dining-rooms, say, once a month. An indefinable freedom and authority of manner, shared by most of the people who lived in these houses, seemed to indicate that whether it was a question of art, music, or government, they were well within the gates, and could smile indulgently at the vast mass of humanity which is forced to wait and struggle, and pay for entrance with common coin at the door. The gates opened instantly to admit Cassandra. She was naturally critical of what went on inside, and inclined to quote what Henry would have said; but she often succeeded in contradicting Henry, in his absence, and invariably paid her partner at dinner, or the kind old lady who remembered her grandmother, the compliment of believing that there was meaning in what they said. For the sake of the light in her eager eyes, much crudity of expression and some untidiness of person were forgiven her. It was generally felt that, given a year or two of experience, introduced to good dressmakers, and preserved from bad influences, she would be an acquisition. Those elderly ladies, who sit on the edge of ballrooms sampling the stuff of humanity between finger and thumb and breathing so evenly that the necklaces, which rise and fall upon their breasts, seem to represent some elemental force, such as the waves upon the ocean of humanity, concluded, a little smilingly, that she would do. They meant that she would in all probability marry some young man whose mother they respected.

  William Rodney was fertile in suggestions. He knew of little galleries, and select concerts, and private performances, and somehow made time to meet Katharine and Cassandra, and to give them tea or dinner or supper in his rooms afterwards. Each one of her fourteen days thus promised to bear some bright illumination in its sober text. But Sunday approached. The day is usually dedicated to Nature. The weather was almost kindly enough for an expedition. But Cassandra rejected Hampton Court, Greenwich, Richmond, and Kew in favor of the Zoological Gardens. She had once trifled with the psychology of animals, and still knew something about inherited characteristics. On Sunday afternoon, therefore, Katharine, Cassandra, and William Rodney drove off to the Zoo. As their cab approached the entrance, Katharine bent forward and waved her hand to a young man who was walking rapidly in the same direction.

  “There’s Ralph Denham!” she exclaimed. “I told him to meet us here,” she added. She had even come provided with a ticket for him. William’s objection that he would not be admitted was, therefore, silenced directly. But the way in which the two men greeted each other was significant of what was going to happen. As soon as they had admired the little birds in the large cage William and Cassandra lagged behind, and Ralph and Katharine pressed on rather in advance. It was an arrangement in which William took his part, and one that suited his convenience, but he was annoyed all the same. He thought that Katharine should have told him that she had invited Denham to meet them.

  “One of Katharine’s friends,” he said rather sharply. It was clear that he was irritated, and Cassandra felt for his annoyance. They were standing by the pen of some Oriental hog, and she was prodding the brute gently with the point of her umbrella, when a thousand little observations seemed, in some way, to collect in one center. The center was one of intense and curious emotion. Were they happy? She dismissed the question as she asked it, scorning herself for applying such simple measures to the rare and splendid emotions of so unique a couple. Nevertheless, her manner became immediately different, as if, for the first time, she felt consciously womanly, and as if William might conceivably wish later on to confide in her. She forgot all about the psychology of animals, and the recurrence of blue eyes and brown, and became instantly engrossed in her feelings as a woman who could administer consolation, and she hoped that Katharine would keep ahead with Mr. Denham, as a child who plays at being grown-up hopes that her mother won’t come in just yet, and spoil the game. Or was it not rather that she had ceased to play at being grown-up, and was conscious, suddenly, that she was alarmingly mature and in earnest?

  There was still unbroken silence between Katharine and Ralph Denham, but the occupants of the different cages served instead of speech.

  “What have you been doing since we met?” Ralph asked at length.

  “Doing?” she pondered. “Walking in and out of other people’s houses. I wonder if these animals are happy?” she speculated, stopping before a gray bear, who was philosophically playing with a tassel which once, perhaps, formed part of a lady’s parasol.

  “I’m afraid Rodney didn’t like my coming,” Ralph remarked.

  “No. But he’ll soon get over that,” she replied. The detachment expressed by her voice puzzled Ralph, and he would have been glad if she had explained her meaning further. But he was not going to press her for explanations. Each moment was to be, as far as he could make it, complete in itself, owing nothing of its happiness to explanations, borrowing neither bright nor dark tints from the future.

  “The bears seem happy,” he remarked. “But we must buy them a bag of something. There’s the place to buy buns. Let’s go and get them.” They walked to the counter piled with little paper bags, and each simultaneously produced a shilling and pressed it upon the young lady, who did not know whether to oblige the lady or the gentleman, but decided, from conventional reasons, that it was the part of the gentleman to pay.

  “I wish to pay,” said Ralph peremptorily, refusing the coin which Katharine tendered. “I have a reason for what I do,” he added, seeing her smile at his tone of decision.

  “I believe you have a reason for everything,” she agreed, breaking the bun into parts and tossing them down the bears’ throats, “but I can’t believe it’s a good
one this time. What is your reason?”

  He refused to tell her. He could not explain to her that he was offering up consciously all his happiness to her, and wished, absurdly enough, to pour every possession he had upon the blazing pyre, even his silver and gold. He wished to keep this distance between them — the distance which separates the devotee from the image in the shrine.

  Circumstances conspired to make this easier than it would have been, had they been seated in a drawing-room, for example, with a tea-tray between them. He saw her against a background of pale grottos and sleek hides; camels slanted their heavy-ridded eyes at her, giraffes fastidiously observed her from their melancholy eminence, and the pink-lined trunks of elephants cautiously abstracted buns from her outstretched hands. Then there were the hothouses. He saw her bending over pythons coiled upon the sand, or considering the brown rock breaking the stagnant water of the alligators’ pool, or searching some minute section of tropical forest for the golden eye of a lizard or the indrawn movement of the green frogs’ flanks. In particular, he saw her outlined against the deep green waters, in which squadrons of silvery fish wheeled incessantly, or ogled her for a moment, pressing their distorted mouths against the glass, quivering their tails straight out behind them. Again, there was the insect house, where she lifted the blinds of the little cages, and marveled at the purple circles marked upon the rich tussore wings of some lately emerged and semi-conscious butterfly, or at caterpillars immobile like the knobbed twigs of a pale-skinned tree, or at slim green snakes stabbing the glass wall again and again with their flickering cleft tongues. The heat of the air, and the bloom of heavy flowers, which swam in water or rose stiffly from great red jars, together with the display of curious patterns and fantastic shapes, produced an atmosphere in which human beings tended to look pale and to fall silent.