Chapter II

by Virginia Woolf

　　The young man shut the door with a sharper slam than any visitor hadused that afternoon, and walked up the street at a great pace, cuttingthe air with his walking-stick. He was glad to find himself outsidethat drawing-room, breathing raw fog, and in contact with unpolishedpeople who only wanted their share of the pavement allowed them. Hethought that if he had had Mr. or Mrs. or Miss Hilbery out here hewould have made them, somehow, feel his superiority, for he was chafedby the memory of halting awkward sentences which had failed to giveeven the young woman with the sad, but inwardly ironical eyes a hintof his force. He tried to recall the actual words of his littleoutburst, and unconsciously supplemented them by so many words ofgreater expressiveness that the irritation of his failure was somewhatassuaged. Sudden stabs of the unmitigated truth assailed him now andthen, for he was not inclined by nature to take a rosy view of hisconduct, but what with the beat of his foot upon the pavement, and theglimpse which half-drawn curtains offered him of kitchens, dining-rooms, and drawing-rooms, illustrating with mute power differentscenes from different lives, his own experience lost its sharpness.His own experience underwent a curious change. His speed slackened,his head sank a little towards his breast, and the lamplight shone nowand again upon a face grown strangely tranquil. His thought was soabsorbing that when it became necessary to verify the name of astreet, he looked at it for a time before he read it; when he came toa crossing, he seemed to have to reassure himself by two or threetaps, such as a blind man gives, upon the curb; and, reaching theUnderground station, he blinked in the bright circle of light, glancedat his watch, decided that he might still indulge himself in darkness,and walked straight on.And yet the thought was the thought with which he had started. He wasstill thinking about the people in the house which he had left; butinstead of remembering, with whatever accuracy he could, their looksand sayings, he had consciously taken leave of the literal truth. Aturn of the street, a firelit room, something monumental in theprocession of the lamp-posts, who shall say what accident of light orshape had suddenly changed the prospect within his mind, and led himto murmur aloud:"She'll do. . . . Yes, Katharine Hilbery'll do. . . . I'll takeKatharine Hilbery."As soon as he had said this, his pace slackened, his head fell, hiseyes became fixed. The desire to justify himself, which had been sourgent, ceased to torment him, and, as if released from constraint, sothat they worked without friction or bidding, his faculties leaptforward and fixed, as a matter of course, upon the form of KatharineHilbery. It was marvellous how much they found to feed upon,considering the destructive nature of Denham's criticism in herpresence. The charm, which he had tried to disown, when under theeffect of it, the beauty, the character, the aloofness, which he hadbeen determined not to feel, now possessed him wholly; and when, ashappened by the nature of things, he had exhausted his memory, he wenton with his imagination. He was conscious of what he was about, for inthus dwelling upon Miss Hilbery's qualities, he showed a kind ofmethod, as if he required this vision of her for a particular purpose.He increased her height, he darkened her hair; but physically therewas not much to change in her. His most daring liberty was taken withher mind, which, for reasons of his own, he desired to be exalted andinfallible, and of such independence that it was only in the case ofRalph Denham that it swerved from its high, swift flight, but where hewas concerned, though fastidious at first, she finally swooped fromher eminence to crown him with her approval. These delicious details,however, were to be worked out in all their ramifications at hisleisure; the main point was that Katharine Hilbery would do; she woulddo for weeks, perhaps for months. In taking her he had providedhimself with something the lack of which had left a bare place in hismind for a considerable time. He gave a sigh of satisfaction; hisconsciousness of his actual position somewhere in the neighborhood ofKnightsbridge returned to him, and he was soon speeding in the traintowards Highgate.Although thus supported by the knowledge of his new possession ofconsiderable value, he was not proof against the familiar thoughtswhich the suburban streets and the damp shrubs growing in frontgardens and the absurd names painted in white upon the gates of thosegardens suggested to him. His walk was uphill, and his mind dweltgloomily upon the house which he approached, where he would find sixor seven brothers and sisters, a widowed mother, and, probably, someaunt or uncle sitting down to an unpleasant meal under a very brightlight. Should he put in force the threat which, two weeks ago, somesuch gathering had wrung from him--the terrible threat that ifvisitors came on Sunday he should dine alone in his room? A glance inthe direction of Miss Hilbery determined him to make his stand thisvery night, and accordingly, having let himself in, having verifiedthe presence of Uncle Joseph by means of a bowler hat and a very largeumbrella, he gave his orders to the maid, and went upstairs to hisroom.He went up a great many flights of stairs, and he noticed, as he hadvery seldom noticed, how the carpet became steadily shabbier, until itceased altogether, how the walls were discolored, sometimes bycascades of damp, and sometimes by the outlines of picture-framessince removed, how the paper flapped loose at the corners, and a greatflake of plaster had fallen from the ceiling. The room itself was acheerless one to return to at this inauspicious hour. A flattened sofawould, later in the evening, become a bed; one of the tables concealeda washing apparatus; his clothes and boots were disagreeably mixedwith books which bore the gilt of college arms; and, for decoration,there hung upon the wall photographs of bridges and cathedrals andlarge, unprepossessing groups of insufficiently clothed young men,sitting in rows one above another upon stone steps. There was a lookof meanness and shabbiness in the furniture and curtains, and nowhereany sign of luxury or even of a cultivated taste, unless the cheapclassics in the book-case were a sign of an effort in that direction.The only object that threw any light upon the character of the room'sowner was a large perch, placed in the window to catch the air andsun, upon which a tame and, apparently, decrepit rook hopped drylyfrom side to side. The bird, encouraged by a scratch behind the ear,settled upon Denham's shoulder. He lit his gas-fire and settled downin gloomy patience to await his dinner. After sitting thus for someminutes a small girl popped her head in to say,"Mother says, aren't you coming down, Ralph? Uncle Joseph--""They're to bring my dinner up here," said Ralph, peremptorily;whereupon she vanished, leaving the door ajar in her haste to be gone.After Denham had waited some minutes, in the course of which neitherhe nor the rook took their eyes off the fire, he muttered a curse, randownstairs, intercepted the parlor-maid, and cut himself a slice ofbread and cold meat. As he did so, the dining-room door sprang open, avoice exclaimed "Ralph!" but Ralph paid no attention to the voice, andmade off upstairs with his plate. He set it down in a chair oppositehim, and ate with a ferocity that was due partly to anger and partlyto hunger. His mother, then, was determined not to respect his wishes;he was a person of no importance in his own family; he was sent forand treated as a child. He reflected, with a growing sense of injury,that almost every one of his actions since opening the door of hisroom had been won from the grasp of the family system. By rights, heshould have been sitting downstairs in the drawing-room describing hisafternoon's adventures, or listening to the afternoon's adventures ofother people; the room itself, the gas-fire, the arm-chair--all hadbeen fought for; the wretched bird, with half its feathers out and oneleg lamed by a cat, had been rescued under protest; but what hisfamily most resented, he reflected, was his wish for privacy. To dinealone, or to sit alone after dinner, was flat rebellion, to be foughtwith every weapon of underhand stealth or of open appeal. Which did hedislike most--deception or tears? But, at any rate, they could not robhim of his thoughts; they could not make him say where he had been orwhom he had seen. That was his own affair; that, indeed, was a stepentirely in the right direction, and, lighting his pipe, and cuttingup the remains of his meal for the benefit of the rook, Ralph calmedhis rather excessive irritation and settled down to think over hisprospects.This particular afternoon was a step in the right direction, becauseit was part of his plan to get to know people beyond the familycircuit, just as it was part of his plan to learn German this autumn,and to review legal books for Mr. Hilbery's "Critical Review." He hadalways made plans since he was a small boy; for poverty, and the factthat he was the eldest son of a large family, had given him the habitof thinking of spring and summer, autumn and winter, as so many stagesin a prolonged campaign. Although he was still under thirty, thisforecasting habit had marked two semicircular lines above hiseyebrows, which threatened, at this moment, to crease into theirwonted shapes. But instead of settling down to think, he rose, took asmall piece of cardboard marked in large letters with the word out,and hung it upon the handle of his door. This done, he sharpened apencil, lit a reading-lamp and opened his book. But still he hesitatedto take his seat. He scratched the rook, he walked to the window; heparted the curtains, and looked down upon the city which lay, hazilyluminous, beneath him. He looked across the vapors in the direction ofChelsea; looked fixedly for a moment, and then returned to his chair.But the whole thickness of some learned counsel's treatise upon Tortsdid not screen him satisfactorily. Through the pages he saw a drawing-room, very empty and spacious; he heard low voices, he saw women'sfigures, he could even smell the scent of the cedar log which flamedin the grate. His mind relaxed its tension, and seemed to be givingout now what it had taken in unconsciously at the time. He couldremember Mr. Fortescue's exact words, and the rolling emphasis withwhich he delivered them, and he began to repeat what Mr. Fortescue hadsaid, in Mr. Fortescue's own manner, about Manchester. His mind thenbegan to wander about the house, and he wondered whether there wereother rooms like the drawing-room, and he thought, inconsequently, howbeautiful the bathroom must be, and how leisurely it was--the life ofthese well-kept people, who were, no doubt, still sitting in the sameroom, only they had changed their clothes, and little Mr. Anning wasthere, and the aunt who would mind if the glass of her father'spicture was broken. Miss Hilbery had changed her dress ("althoughshe's wearing such a pretty one," he heard her mother say), and shewas talking to Mr. Anning, who was well over forty, and bald into thebargain, about books. How peaceful and spacious it was; and the peacepossessed him so completely that his muscles slackened, his bookdrooped from his hand, and he forgot that the hour of work was wastingminute by minute.He was roused by a creak upon the stair. With a guilty start hecomposed himself, frowned and looked intently at the fifty-sixth pageof his volume. A step paused outside his door, and he knew that theperson, whoever it might be, was considering the placard, and debatingwhether to honor its decree or not. Certainly, policy advised him tosit still in autocratic silence, for no custom can take root in afamily unless every breach of it is punished severely for the firstsix months or so. But Ralph was conscious of a distinct wish to beinterrupted, and his disappointment was perceptible when he heard thecreaking sound rather farther down the stairs, as if his visitor haddecided to withdraw. He rose, opened the door with unnecessaryabruptness, and waited on the landing. The person stoppedsimultaneously half a flight downstairs."Ralph?" said a voice, inquiringly."Joan?""I was coming up, but I saw your notice.""Well, come along in, then." He concealed his desire beneath a tone asgrudging as he could make it.Joan came in, but she was careful to show, by standing upright withone hand upon the mantelpiece, that she was only there for a definitepurpose, which discharged, she would go.She was older than Ralph by some three or four years. Her face wasround but worn, and expressed that tolerant but anxious good humorwhich is the special attribute of elder sisters in large families. Herpleasant brown eyes resembled Ralph's, save in expression, for whereashe seemed to look straightly and keenly at one object, she appeared tobe in the habit of considering everything from many different pointsof view. This made her appear his elder by more years than existed infact between them. Her gaze rested for a moment or two upon the rook.She then said, without any preface:"It's about Charles and Uncle John's offer. . . . Mother's beentalking to me. She says she can't afford to pay for him after thisterm. She says she'll have to ask for an overdraft as it is.""That's simply not true," said Ralph."No. I thought not. But she won't believe me when I say it."Ralph, as if he could foresee the length of this familiar argument,drew up a chair for his sister and sat down himself."I'm not interrupting?" she inquired.Ralph shook his head, and for a time they sat silent. The lines curvedthemselves in semicircles above their eyes."She doesn't understand that one's got to take risks," he observed,finally."I believe mother would take risks if she knew that Charles was thesort of boy to profit by it.""He's got brains, hasn't he?" said Ralph. His tone had taken on thatshade of pugnacity which suggested to his sister that some personalgrievance drove him to take the line he did. She wondered what itmight be, but at once recalled her mind, and assented."In some ways he's fearfully backward, though, compared with what youwere at his age. And he's difficult at home, too. He makes Molly slavefor him."Ralph made a sound which belittled this particular argument. It wasplain to Joan that she had struck one of her brother's perverse moods,and he was going to oppose whatever his mother said. He called her"she," which was a proof of it. She sighed involuntarily, and the sighannoyed Ralph, and he exclaimed with irritation:"It's pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at seventeen!""Nobody wants to stick him into an office," she said.She, too, was becoming annoyed. She had spent the whole of theafternoon discussing wearisome details of education and expense withher mother, and she had come to her brother for help, encouraged,rather irrationally, to expect help by the fact that he had been outsomewhere, she didn't know and didn't mean to ask where, all theafternoon.Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think howunfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders."The truth is," he observed gloomily, "that I ought to have acceptedUncle John's offer. I should have been making six hundred a year bythis time.""I don't think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting ofher annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn't cutdown our expenses in some way.""A smaller house?""Fewer servants, perhaps."Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and afterreflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictlyeconomical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly:"It's out of the question."It was out of the question that she should put any more household workupon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determinedthat his family should have as many chances of distinguishingthemselves as other families had--as the Hilberys had, for example. Hebelieved secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capableof proof, that there was something very remarkable about his family."If mother won't run risks--""You really can't expect her to sell out again.""She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won't, we mustfind some other way, that's all."A threat was contained in this sentence, and Joan knew, withoutasking, what the threat was. In the course of his professional life,which now extended over six or seven years, Ralph had saved, perhaps,three or four hundred pounds. Considering the sacrifices he had madein order to put by this sum it always amazed Joan to find that he usedit to gamble with, buying shares and selling them again, increasing itsometimes, sometimes diminishing it, and always running the risk oflosing every penny of it in a day's disaster. But although shewondered, she could not help loving him the better for his oddcombination of Spartan self-control and what appeared to her romanticand childish folly. Ralph interested her more than any one else in theworld, and she often broke off in the middle of one of these economicdiscussions, in spite of their gravity, to consider some fresh aspectof his character."I think you'd be foolish to risk your money on poor old Charles," sheobserved. "Fond as I am of him, he doesn't seem to me exactlybrilliant. . . . Besides, why should you be sacrificed?""My dear Joan," Ralph exclaimed, stretching himself out with a gestureof impatience, "don't you see that we've all got to be sacrificed?What's the use of denying it? What's the use of struggling against it?So it always has been, so it always will be. We've got no money and wenever shall have any money. We shall just turn round in the mill everyday of our lives until we drop and die, worn out, as most people do,when one comes to think of it."Joan looked at him, opened her lips as if to speak, and closed themagain. Then she said, very tentatively:"Aren't you happy, Ralph?""No. Are you? Perhaps I'm as happy as most people, though. God knowswhether I'm happy or not. What is happiness?"He glanced with half a smile, in spite of his gloomy irritation, athis sister. She looked, as usual, as if she were weighing one thingwith another, and balancing them together before she made up her mind."Happiness," she remarked at length enigmatically, rather as if shewere sampling the word, and then she paused. She paused for aconsiderable space, as if she were considering happiness in all itsbearings. "Hilda was here to-day," she suddenly resumed, as if theyhad never mentioned happiness. "She brought Bobbie--he's a fine boynow." Ralph observed, with an amusement that had a tinge of irony init, that she was now going to sidle away quickly from this dangerousapproach to intimacy on to topics of general and family interest.Nevertheless, he reflected, she was the only one of his family withwhom he found it possible to discuss happiness, although he might verywell have discussed happiness with Miss Hilbery at their firstmeeting. He looked critically at Joan, and wished that she did notlook so provincial or suburban in her high green dress with the fadedtrimming, so patient, and almost resigned. He began to wish to tellher about the Hilberys in order to abuse them, for in the miniaturebattle which so often rages between two quickly following impressionsof life, the life of the Hilberys was getting the better of the lifeof the Denhams in his mind, and he wanted to assure himself that therewas some quality in which Joan infinitely surpassed Miss Hilbery. Heshould have felt that his own sister was more original, and hadgreater vitality than Miss Hilbery had; but his main impression ofKatharine now was of a person of great vitality and composure; and atthe moment he could not perceive what poor dear Joan had gained fromthe fact that she was the granddaughter of a man who kept a shop, andherself earned her own living. The infinite dreariness and sordidnessof their life oppressed him in spite of his fundamental belief that,as a family, they were somehow remarkable."Shall you talk to mother?" Joan inquired. "Because, you see, thething's got to be settled, one way or another. Charles must write toUncle John if he's going there."Ralph sighed impatiently."I suppose it doesn't much matter either way," he exclaimed. "He'sdoomed to misery in the long run."A slight flush came into Joan's cheek."You know you're talking nonsense," she said. "It doesn't hurt any oneto have to earn their own living. I'm very glad I have to earn mine."Ralph was pleased that she should feel this, and wished her tocontinue, but he went on, perversely enough."Isn't that only because you've forgotten how to enjoy yourself? Younever have time for anything decent--""As for instance?""Well, going for walks, or music, or books, or seeing interestingpeople. You never do anything that's really worth doing any more thanI do.""I always think you could make this room much nicer, if you liked,"she observed."What does it matter what sort of room I have when I'm forced to spendall the best years of my life drawing up deeds in an office?""You said two days ago that you found the law so interesting.""So it is if one could afford to know anything about it."("That's Herbert only just going to bed now," Joan interposed, as adoor on the landing slammed vigorously. "And then he won't get up inthe morning.")Ralph looked at the ceiling, and shut his lips closely together. Why,he wondered, could Joan never for one moment detach her mind from thedetails of domestic life? It seemed to him that she was getting moreand more enmeshed in them, and capable of shorter and less frequentflights into the outer world, and yet she was only thirty-three."D'you ever pay calls now?" he asked abruptly."I don't often have the time. Why do you ask?""It might be a good thing, to get to know new people, that's all.""Poor Ralph!" said Joan suddenly, with a smile. "You think yoursister's getting very old and very dull--that's it, isn't it?""I don't think anything of the kind," he said stoutly, but he flushed."But you lead a dog's life, Joan. When you're not working in anoffice, you're worrying over the rest of us. And I'm not much good toyou, I'm afraid."Joan rose, and stood for a moment warming her hands, and, apparently,meditating as to whether she should say anything more or not. Afeeling of great intimacy united the brother and sister, and thesemicircular lines above their eyebrows disappeared. No, there wasnothing more to be said on either side. Joan brushed her brother'shead with her hand as she passed him, murmured good night, and leftthe room. For some minutes after she had gone Ralph lay quiescent,resting his head on his hand, but gradually his eyes filled withthought, and the line reappeared on his brow, as the pleasantimpression of companionship and ancient sympathy waned, and he wasleft to think on alone.After a time he opened his book, and read on steadily, glancing onceor twice at his watch, as if he had set himself a task to beaccomplished in a certain measure of time. Now and then he heardvoices in the house, and the closing of bedroom doors, which showedthat the building, at the top of which he sat, was inhabited in everyone of its cells. When midnight struck, Ralph shut his book, and witha candle in his hand, descended to the ground floor, to ascertain thatall lights were extinct and all doors locked. It was a threadbare,well-worn house that he thus examined, as if the inmates had grazeddown all luxuriance and plenty to the verge of decency; and in thenight, bereft of life, bare places and ancient blemishes wereunpleasantly visible. Katharine Hilbery, he thought, would condemn itoff-hand.