The Voyage Out Virginia Woolf (the chimp paradox .txt) đ
- Author: Virginia Woolf
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âI have seen him,â said Helen.
âTo look at, one might think he was a successful stockbroker, and not one of the greatest painters of the age. Thatâs what I like.â
âThere are a great many successful stockbrokers, if you like looking at them,â said Helen.
Rachel wished vehemently that her aunt would not be so perverse.
âWhen you see a musician with long hair, donât you know instinctively that heâs bad?â Clarissa asked, turning to Rachel. âWatts and Joachimâ âthey looked just like you and me.â
âAnd how much nicer theyâd have looked with curls!â said Helen. âThe question is, are you going to aim at beauty or are you not?â
âCleanliness!â said Clarissa, âI do want a man to look clean!â
âBy cleanliness you really mean well-cut clothes,â said Helen.
âThereâs something one knows a gentleman by,â said Clarissa, âbut one canât say what it is.â
âTake my husband now, does he look like a gentleman?â
The question seemed to Clarissa in extraordinarily bad taste. âOne of the things that canât be said,â she would have put it. She could find no answer, but a laugh.
âWell, anyhow,â she said, turning to Rachel, âI shall insist upon your playing to me tomorrow.â
There was that in her manner that made Rachel love her.
Mrs. Dalloway hid a tiny yawn, a mere dilation of the nostrils.
âDâyou know,â she said, âIâm extraordinarily sleepy. Itâs the sea air. I think I shall escape.â
A manâs voice, which she took to be that of Mr. Pepper, strident in discussion, and advancing upon the saloon, gave her the alarm.
âGood nightâ âgood night!â she said. âOh, I know my wayâ âdo pray for calm! Good night!â
Her yawn must have been the image of a yawn. Instead of letting her mouth droop, dropping all her clothes in a bunch as though they depended on one string, and stretching her limbs to the utmost end of her berth, she merely changed her dress for a dressing-gown, with innumerable frills, and wrapping her feet in a rug, sat down with a writing-pad on her knee. Already this cramped little cabin was the dressing room of a lady of quality. There were bottles containing liquids; there were trays, boxes, brushes, pins. Evidently not an inch of her person lacked its proper instrument. The scent which had intoxicated Rachel pervaded the air. Thus established, Mrs. Dalloway began to write. A pen in her hands became a thing one caressed paper with, and she might have been stroking and tickling a kitten as she wrote:
Picture us, my dear, afloat in the very oddest ship you can imagine. Itâs not the ship, so much as the people. One does come across queer sorts as one travels. I must say I find it hugely amusing. Thereâs the manager of the lineâ âcalled Vinraceâ âa nice big Englishman, doesnât say muchâ âyou know the sort. As for the restâ âthey might have come trailing out of an old number of Punch. Theyâre like people playing croquet in the âsixties. How long theyâve all been shut up in this ship I donât knowâ âyears and years I should sayâ âbut one feels as though one had boarded a little separate world, and theyâd never been on shore, or done ordinary things in their lives. Itâs what Iâve always said about literary peopleâ âtheyâre far the hardest of any to get on with. The worst of it is, these peopleâ âa man and his wife and a nieceâ âmight have been, one feels, just like everybody else, if they hadnât got swallowed up by Oxford or Cambridge or some such place, and been made cranks of. The manâs really delightful (if heâd cut his nails), and the woman has quite a fine face, only she dresses, of course, in a potato sack, and wears her hair like a Liberty shopgirlâs. They talk about art, and think us such poops for dressing in the evening. However, I canât help that; Iâd rather die than come in to dinner without changingâ âwouldnât you? It matters ever so much more than the soup. (Itâs odd how things like that do matter so much more than whatâs generally supposed to matter. Iâd rather have my head cut off than wear flannel next the skin.) Then thereâs a nice shy girlâ âpoor thingâ âI wish one could rake her out before itâs too late. She has quite nice eyes and hair, only, of course, sheâll get funny too. We ought to start a society for broadening the minds of the youngâ âmuch more useful than missionaries, Hester! Oh, Iâd forgotten thereâs a dreadful little thing called Pepper. Heâs just like his name. Heâs indescribably insignificant, and rather queer in his temper, poor dear. Itâs like sitting down to dinner with an ill-conditioned fox-terrier, only one canât comb him out, and sprinkle him with powder, as one would oneâs dog. Itâs a pity, sometimes, one canât treat people like dogs! The great comfort is that weâre away from newspapers, so that Richard will have a real holiday this time. Spain wasnât a holiday.â ââ âŠ
âYou coward!â said Richard, almost filling the room with his sturdy figure.
âI did my duty at dinner!â cried Clarissa.
âYouâve let yourself in for the Greek alphabet, anyhow.â
âOh, my dear! Who is Ambrose?â
âI gather that he was a Cambridge don; lives in London now, and edits classics.â
âDid you ever see such a set of cranks? The woman asked me if I thought her husband looked like a gentleman!â
âIt was hard to keep the ball rolling at dinner, certainly,â said Richard. âWhy is it that the women, in that class, are so much queerer than the men?â
âTheyâre not half bad-looking, reallyâ âonlyâ âtheyâre so odd!â
They both laughed, thinking of the same things, so that there was no
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