Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

CHAPTER XXVIII

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