Night and Day, Virginia Woolf [electronic book reader .txt] 📗

by me when people begin talking about characters in Shakespeare. They won’t be rich, but they’ll be very, very happy. I was sitting in my room late one night, feeling that nothing nice would ever happen to me again, when I heard Katharine outside in the passage, and I thought to myself, ‘Shall I call her in?’ and then I thought (in that hopeless, dreary way one does think, with the fire going out and one’s birthday just over), ‘Why should I lay my troubles on her?’ But my little self-control had its reward, for next moment she tapped at the door and came in, and sat on the rug, and though we neither of us said anything, I felt so happy all of a second that I couldn’t help crying, ‘Oh, Katharine, when you come to my age, how I hope you’ll have a daughter, too!’ You know how silent Katharine is. She was so silent, for such a long time, that in my foolish, nervous state I dreaded something, I don’t quite know what. And then she told me how, after all, she had made up her mind. She had written. She expected him tomorrow. At first I wasn’t glad at all. I didn’t want her to marry anyone; but when she said, ‘It will make no difference. I shall always care for you and father most,’ then I saw how selfish I was, and I told her she must give him everything, everything, everything! I told her I should be thankful to come second. But why, when everything’s turned out just as one always hoped it would turn out, why then can one do nothing but cry, nothing but feel a desolate old woman whose life’s been a failure, and now is nearly over, and age is so cruel? But Katharine said to me, ‘I am happy. I’m very happy.’ And then I thought, though it all seemed so desperately dismal at the time, Katharine had said she was happy, and I should have a son, and it would all turn out so much more wonderfully than I could possibly imagine, for though the sermons don’t say so, I do believe the world is meant for us to be happy in. She told me that they would live quite near us, and see us every day; and she would go on with the Life, and we should finish it as we had meant to. And, after all, it would be far more horrid if she didn’t marry⁠—or suppose she married someone we couldn’t endure? Suppose she had fallen in love with someone who was married already?

“And though one never thinks anyone good enough for the people one’s fond of, he has the kindest, truest instincts, I’m sure, and though he seems nervous and his manner is not commanding, I only think these things because it’s Katharine. And now I’ve written this, it comes over me that, of course, all the time, Katharine has what he hasn’t. She does command, she isn’t nervous; it comes naturally to her to rule and control. It’s time that she should give all this to someone who will need her when we aren’t there, save in our spirits, for whatever people say, I’m sure I shall come back to this wonderful world where one’s been so happy and so miserable, where, even now, I seem to see myself stretching out my hands for another present from the great Fairy Tree whose boughs are still hung with enchanting toys, though they are rarer now, perhaps, and between the branches one sees no longer the blue sky, but the stars and the tops of the mountains.

“One doesn’t know any more, does one? One hasn’t any advice to give one’s children. One can only hope that they will have the same vision and the same power to believe, without which life would be so meaningless. That is what I ask for Katharine and her husband.”

XII

“Is Mr. Hilbery at home, or Mrs. Hilbery?” Denham asked, of the parlormaid in Chelsea, a week later.

“No, sir. But Miss Hilbery is at home,” the girl answered.

Ralph had anticipated many answers, but not this one, and now it was unexpectedly made plain to him that it was the chance of seeing Katharine that had brought him all the way to Chelsea on pretence of seeing her father.

He made some show of considering the matter, and was taken upstairs to the drawing-room. As upon that first occasion, some weeks ago, the door closed as if it were a thousand doors softly excluding the world; and once more Ralph received an impression of a room full of deep shadows, firelight, unwavering silver candle flames, and empty spaces to be crossed before reaching the round table in the middle of the room, with its frail burden of silver trays and china teacups. But this time Katharine was there by herself; the volume in her hand showed that she expected no visitors.

Ralph said something about hoping to find her father.

“My father is out,” she replied. “But if you can wait, I expect him soon.”

It might have been due merely to politeness, but Ralph felt that she received him almost with cordiality. Perhaps she was bored by drinking tea and reading a book all alone; at any rate, she tossed the book on to a sofa with a gesture of relief.

“Is that one of the moderns whom you despise?” he asked, smiling at the carelessness of her gesture.

“Yes,” she replied. “I think even you would despise him.”

“Even I?” he repeated. “Why even I?”

“You said you liked modern things; I said I hated them.”

This was not a very accurate report of their conversation among the relics, perhaps, but Ralph was flattered to think that she remembered anything about it.

“Or did I confess that I hated all books?” she went on, seeing him look up with an air of inquiry. “I forget⁠—”

“Do you hate all books?” he asked.

“It would be absurd to say