Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖
- Author: Virginia Woolf
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Book online «Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖». Author Virginia Woolf
“But suppose he’s walking about the streets—for hours and hours?”
She leant forward and looked out of the window.
“He may refuse ever to speak to me again,” she said in a low voice,
almost to herself.
The exaggeration was so immense that Mary did not attempt to cope with
it, save by keeping hold of Katharine’s wrist. She half expected that
Katharine might open the door suddenly and jump out. Perhaps Katharine
perceived the purpose with which her hand was held.
“Don’t be frightened,” she said, with a little laugh. “I’m not going
to jump out of the cab. It wouldn’t do much good after all.”
Upon this, Mary ostentatiously withdrew her hand.
“I ought to have apologized,” Katharine continued, with an effort,
“for bringing you into all this business; I haven’t told you half,
either. I’m no longer engaged to William Rodney. He is to marry
Cassandra Otway. It’s all arranged—all perfectly right… . And
after he’d waited in the streets for hours and hours, William made me
bring him in. He was standing under the lamp-post watching our
windows. He was perfectly white when he came into the room. William
left us alone, and we sat and talked. It seems ages and ages ago, now.
Was it last night? Have I been out long? What’s the time?” She sprang
forward to catch sight of a clock, as if the exact time had some
important bearing on her case.
“Only half-past eight!” she exclaimed. “Then he may be there still.”
She leant out of the window and told the cabman to drive faster.
“But if he’s not there, what shall I do? Where could I find him? The
streets are so crowded.”
“We shall find him,” Mary repeated.
Mary had no doubt but that somehow or other they would find him. But
suppose they did find him? She began to think of Ralph with a sort of
strangeness, in her effort to understand how he could be capable of
satisfying this extraordinary desire. Once more she thought herself
back to her old view of him and could, with an effort, recall the haze
which surrounded his figure, and the sense of confused, heightened
exhilaration which lay all about his neighborhood, so that for months
at a time she had never exactly heard his voice or seen his face—or
so it now seemed to her. The pain of her loss shot through her.
Nothing would ever make up—not success, or happiness, or oblivion.
But this pang was immediately followed by the assurance that now, at
any rate, she knew the truth; and Katharine, she thought, stealing a
look at her, did not know the truth; yes, Katharine was immensely to
be pitied.
The cab, which had been caught in the traffic, was now liberated and
sped on down Sloane Street. Mary was conscious of the tension with
which Katharine marked its progress, as if her mind were fixed upon a
point in front of them, and marked, second by second, their approach
to it. She said nothing, and in silence Mary began to fix her mind, in
sympathy at first, and later in forgetfulness of her companion, upon a
point in front of them. She imagined a point distant as a low star
upon the horizon of the dark. There for her too, for them both, was
the goal for which they were striving, and the end for the ardors of
their spirits was the same: but where it was, or what it was, or why
she felt convinced that they were united in search of it, as they
drove swiftly down the streets of London side by side, she could not
have said.
“At last,” Katharine breathed, as the cab drew up at the door. She
jumped out and scanned the pavement on either side. Mary, meanwhile,
rang the bell. The door opened as Katharine assured herself that no
one of the people within view had any likeness to Ralph. On seeing
her, the maid said at once:
“Mr. Denham called again, miss. He has been waiting for you for some
time.”
Katharine vanished from Mary’s sight. The door shut between them, and
Mary walked slowly and thoughtfully up the street alone.
Katharine turned at once to the dining-room. But with her fingers upon
the handle, she held back. Perhaps she realized that this was a moment
which would never come again. Perhaps, for a second, it seemed to her
that no reality could equal the imagination she had formed. Perhaps
she was restrained by some vague fear or anticipation, which made her
dread any exchange or interruption. But if these doubts and fears or
this supreme bliss restrained her, it was only for a moment. In
another second she had turned the handle and, biting her lip to
control herself, she opened the door upon Ralph Denham. An
extraordinary clearness of sight seemed to possess her on beholding
him. So little, so single, so separate from all else he appeared, who
had been the cause of these extreme agitations and aspirations. She
could have laughed in his face. But, gaining upon this clearness of
sight against her will, and to her dislike, was a flood of confusion,
of relief, of certainty, of humility, of desire no longer to strive
and to discriminate, yielding to which, she let herself sink within
his arms and confessed her love.
Nobody asked Katharine any questions next day. If cross-examined she
might have said that nobody spoke to her. She worked a little, wrote a
little, ordered the dinner, and sat, for longer than she knew, with
her head on her hand piercing whatever lay before her, whether it was
a letter or a dictionary, as if it were a film upon the deep prospects
that revealed themselves to her kindling and brooding eyes. She rose
once, and going to the bookcase, took out her father’s Greek
dictionary and spread the sacred pages of symbols and figures before
her. She smoothed the sheets with a mixture of affectionate amusement
and hope. Would other eyes look on them with her one day? The thought,
long intolerable, was now just bearable.
She was quite unaware of the anxiety with which her movements were
watched and her expression scanned. Cassandra was careful not to be
caught looking at her, and their conversation was so prosaic that were
it not for certain jolts and jerks between the sentences, as if the
mind were kept with difficulty to the rails, Mrs. Milvain herself
could have detected nothing of a suspicious nature in what she
overheard.
William, when he came in late that afternoon and found Cassandra
alone, had a very serious piece of news to impart. He had just passed
Katharine in the street and she had failed to recognize him.
“That doesn’t matter with me, of course, but suppose it happened with
somebody else? What would they think? They would suspect something
merely from her expression. She looked—she looked”—he hesitated—
“like some one walking in her sleep.”
To Cassandra the significant thing was that Katharine had gone out
without telling her, and she interpreted this to mean that she had
gone out to meet Ralph Denham. But to her surprise William drew no
comfort from this probability.
“Once throw conventions aside,” he began, “once do the things that
people don’t do—” and the fact that you are going to meet a young man
is no longer proof of anything, except, indeed, that people will talk.
Cassandra saw, not without a pang of jealousy, that he was extremely
solicitous that people should not talk about Katharine, as if his
interest in her were still proprietary rather than friendly. As they
were both ignorant of Ralph’s visit the night before they had not that
reason to comfort themselves with the thought that matters were
hastening to a crisis. These absences of Katharine’s, moreover, left
them exposed to interruptions which almost destroyed their pleasure in
being alone together. The rainy evening made it impossible to go out;
and, indeed, according to William’s code, it was considerably more
damning to be seen out of doors than surprised within. They were so
much at the mercy of bells and doors that they could hardly talk of
Macaulay with any conviction, and William preferred to defer the
second act of his tragedy until another day.
Under these circumstances Cassandra showed herself at her best. She
sympathized with William’s anxieties and did her utmost to share them;
but still, to be alone together, to be running risks together, to be
partners in the wonderful conspiracy, was to her so enthralling that
she was always forgetting discretion, breaking out into exclamations
and admirations which finally made William believe that, although
deplorable and upsetting, the situation was not without its sweetness.
When the door did open, he started, but braved the forthcoming
revelation. It was not Mrs. Milvain, however, but Katharine herself
who entered, closely followed by Ralph Denham. With a set expression
which showed what an effort she was making, Katharine encountered
their eyes, and saying, “We’re not going to interrupt you,” she led
Denham behind the curtain which hung in front of the room with the
relics. This refuge was none of her willing, but confronted with wet
pavements and only some belated museum or Tube station for shelter,
she was forced, for Ralph’s sake, to face the discomforts of her own
house. Under the street lamps she had thought him looking both tired
and strained.
Thus separated, the two couples remained occupied for some time with
their own affairs. Only the lowest murmurs penetrated from one section
of the room to the other. At length the maid came in to bring a
message that Mr. Hilbery would not be home for dinner. It was true
that there was no need that Katharine should be informed, but William
began to inquire Cassandra’s opinion in such a way as to show that,
with or without reason, he wished very much to speak to her.
From motives of her own Cassandra dissuaded him.
“But don’t you think it’s a little unsociable?” he hazarded. “Why not
do something amusing?—go to the play, for instance? Why not ask
Katharine and Ralph, eh?” The coupling of their names in this manner
caused Cassandra’s heart to leap with pleasure.
“Don’t you think they must be—?” she began, but William hastily took
her up.
“Oh, I know nothing about that. I only thought we might amuse
ourselves, as your uncle’s out.”
He proceeded on his embassy with a mixture of excitement and
embarrassment which caused him to turn aside with his hand on the
curtain, and to examine intently for several moments the portrait of a
lady, optimistically said by Mrs. Hilbery to be an early work of Sir
Joshua Reynolds. Then, with some unnecessary fumbling, he drew aside
the curtain, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, repeated his
message and suggested that they should all spend the evening at the
play. Katharine accepted the suggestion with such cordiality that it
was strange to find her of no clear mind as to the precise spectacle
she wished to see. She left the choice entirely to Ralph and William,
who, taking counsel fraternally over an evening paper, found
themselves in agreement as to the merits of a music-hall. This being
arranged, everything else followed easily and enthusiastically.
Cassandra had never been to a music-hall. Katharine instructed her in
the peculiar delights of an entertainment where Polar bears follow
directly upon ladies in full evening dress, and the stage is
alternately a garden of mystery, a milliner’s band-box, and a fried-fish shop in the Mile End Road. Whatever the exact nature of the
program that night, it fulfilled the highest purposes of dramatic art,
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