Chapter V

by Virginia Woolf

　　Denham had no conscious intention of following Katharine, but, seeingher depart, he took his hat and ran rather more quickly down thestairs than he would have done if Katharine had not been in front ofhim. He overtook a friend of his, by name Harry Sandys, who was goingthe same way, and they walked together a few paces behind Katharineand Rodney.The night was very still, and on such nights, when the traffic thinsaway, the walker becomes conscious of the moon in the street, as ifthe curtains of the sky had been drawn apart, and the heaven lay bare,as it does in the country. The air was softly cool, so that people whohad been sitting talking in a crowd found it pleasant to walk a littlebefore deciding to stop an omnibus or encounter light again in anunderground railway. Sandys, who was a barrister with a philosophictendency, took out his pipe, lit it, murmured "hum" and "ha," and wassilent. The couple in front of them kept their distance accurately,and appeared, so far as Denham could judge by the way they turnedtowards each other, to be talking very constantly. He observed thatwhen a pedestrian going the opposite way forced them to part they cametogether again directly afterwards. Without intending to watch them henever quite lost sight of the yellow scarf twisted round Katharine'shead, or the light overcoat which made Rodney look fashionable amongthe crowd. At the Strand he supposed that they would separate, butinstead they crossed the road, and took their way down one of thenarrow passages which lead through ancient courts to the river. Amongthe crowd of people in the big thoroughfares Rodney seemed merely tobe lending Katharine his escort, but now, when passengers were rareand the footsteps of the couple were distinctly heard in the silence,Denham could not help picturing to himself some change in theirconversation. The effect of the light and shadow, which seemed toincrease their height, was to make them mysterious and significant, sothat Denham had no feeling of irritation with Katharine, but rather ahalf-dreamy acquiescence in the course of the world. Yes, she did verywell to dream about--but Sandys had suddenly begun to talk. He was asolitary man who had made his friends at college and always addressedthem as if they were still undergraduates arguing in his room, thoughmany months or even years had passed in some cases between the lastsentence and the present one. The method was a little singular, butvery restful, for it seemed to ignore completely all accidents ofhuman life, and to span very deep abysses with a few simple words.On this occasion he began, while they waited for a minute on the edgeof the Strand:"I hear that Bennett has given up his theory of truth."Denham returned a suitable answer, and he proceeded to explain howthis decision had been arrived at, and what changes it involved in thephilosophy which they both accepted. Meanwhile Katharine and Rodneydrew further ahead, and Denham kept, if that is the right expressionfor an involuntary action, one filament of his mind upon them, whilewith the rest of his intelligence he sought to understand what Sandyswas saying.As they passed through the courts thus talking, Sandys laid the tip ofhis stick upon one of the stones forming a time-worn arch, and struckit meditatively two or three times in order to illustrate somethingvery obscure about the complex nature of one's apprehension of facts.During the pause which this necessitated, Katharine and Rodney turnedthe corner and disappeared. For a moment Denham stopped involuntarilyin his sentence, and continued it with a sense of having lostsomething.Unconscious that they were observed, Katharine and Rodney had come outon the Embankment. When they had crossed the road, Rodney slapped hishand upon the stone parapet above the river and exclaimed:"I promise I won't say another word about it, Katharine! But do stop aminute and look at the moon upon the water."Katharine paused, looked up and down the river, and snuffed the air."I'm sure one can smell the sea, with the wind blowing this way," shesaid.They stood silent for a few moments while the river shifted in itsbed, and the silver and red lights which were laid upon it were tornby the current and joined together again. Very far off up the river asteamer hooted with its hollow voice of unspeakable melancholy, as iffrom the heart of lonely mist-shrouded voyagings."Ah!" Rodney cried, striking his hand once more upon the balustrade,"why can't one say how beautiful it all is? Why am I condemned forever, Katharine, to feel what I can't express? And the things I cangive there's no use in my giving. Trust me, Katharine," he addedhastily, "I won't speak of it again. But in the presence of beauty--look at the iridescence round the moonone feels--Perhapsif you married me--I'm half a poet, you see, and I can't pretend notto feel what I do feel. If I could write--ah, that would be anothermatter. I shouldn't bother you to marry me then, Katharine."He spoke these disconnected sentences rather abruptly, with his eyesalternately upon the moon and upon the stream."But for me I suppose you would recommend marriage?" said Katharine,with her eyes fixed on the moon."Certainly I should. Not for you only, but for all women. Why, you'renothing at all without it; you're only half alive; using only halfyour faculties; you must feel that for yourself. That is why--" Herehe stopped himself, and they began to walk slowly along theEmbankment, the moon fronting them."With how sad steps she climbs the sky,How silently and with how wan a face,"Rodney quoted."I've been told a great many unpleasant things about myself to-night,"Katharine stated, without attending to him. "Mr. Denham seems to thinkit his mission to lecture me, though I hardly know him. By the way,William, you know him; tell me, what is he like?"William drew a deep sigh."We may lecture you till we're blue in the face--""Yes--but what's he like?""And we write sonnets to your eyebrows, you cruel practical creature.Denham?" he added, as Katharine remained silent. "A good fellow, Ishould think. He cares, naturally, for the right sort of things, Iexpect. But you mustn't marry him, though. He scolded you, did he--what did he say?""What happens with Mr. Denham is this: He comes to tea. I do all I canto put him at his ease. He merely sits and scowls at me. Then I showhim our manuscripts. At this he becomes really angry, and tells meI've no business to call myself a middle-class woman. So we part in ahuff; and next time we meet, which was to-night, he walks straight upto me, and says, 'Go to the Devil!' That's the sort of behavior mymother complains of. I want to know, what does it mean?"She paused and, slackening her steps, looked at the lighted traindrawing itself smoothly over Hungerford Bridge."It means, I should say, that he finds you chilly and unsympathetic."Katharine laughed with round, separate notes of genuine amusement."It's time I jumped into a cab and hid myself in my own house," sheexclaimed."Would your mother object to my being seen with you? No one couldpossibly recognize us, could they?" Rodney inquired, with somesolicitude.Katharine looked at him, and perceiving that his solicitude wasgenuine, she laughed again, but with an ironical note in her laughter."You may laugh, Katharine, but I can tell you that if any of yourfriends saw us together at this time of night they would talk aboutit, and I should find that very disagreeable. But why do you laugh?""I don't know. Because you're such a queer mixture, I think. You'rehalf poet and half old maid.""I know I always seem to you highly ridiculous. But I can't helphaving inherited certain traditions and trying to put them intopractice.""Nonsense, William. You may come of the oldest family in Devonshire,but that's no reason why you should mind being seen alone with me onthe Embankment.""I'm ten years older than you are, Katharine, and I know more of theworld than you do.""Very well. Leave me and go home."Rodney looked back over his shoulder and perceived that they werebeing followed at a short distance by a taxicab, which evidentlyawaited his summons. Katharine saw it, too, and exclaimed:"Don't call that cab for me, William. I shall walk.""Nonsense, Katharine; you'll do nothing of the kind. It's nearlytwelve o'clock, and we've walked too far as it is."Katharine laughed and walked on so quickly that both Rodney and thetaxicab had to increase their pace to keep up with her."Now, William," she said, "if people see me racing along theEmbankment like this they will talk. You had far better saygood-night, if you don't want people to talk."At this William beckoned, with a despotic gesture, to the cab with onehand, and with the other he brought Katharine to a standstill."Don't let the man see us struggling, for God's sake!" he murmured.Katharine stood for a moment quite still."There's more of the old maid in you than the poet," she observedbriefly.William shut the door sharply, gave the address to the driver, andturned away, lifting his hat punctiliously high in farewell to theinvisible lady.He looked back after the cab twice, suspiciously, half expecting thatshe would stop it and dismount; but it bore her swiftly on, and wassoon out of sight. William felt in the mood for a short soliloquy ofindignation, for Katharine had contrived to exasperate him in moreways than one."Of all the unreasonable, inconsiderate creatures I've ever known,she's the worst!" he exclaimed to himself, striding back along theEmbankment. "Heaven forbid that I should ever make a fool of myselfwith her again. Why, I'd sooner marry the daughter of my landlady thanKatharine Hilbery! She'd leave me not a moment's peace--and she'dnever understand me--never, never, never!"Uttered aloud and with vehemence so that the stars of Heaven mighthear, for there was no human being at hand, these sentiments soundedsatisfactorily irrefutable. Rodney quieted down, and walked on insilence, until he perceived some one approaching him, who hadsomething, either in his walk or his dress, which proclaimed that hewas one of William's acquaintances before it was possible to tellwhich of them he was. It was Denham who, having parted from Sandys atthe bottom of his staircase, was now walking to the Tube at CharingCross, deep in the thoughts which his talk with Sandys had suggested.He had forgotten the meeting at Mary Datchet's rooms, he had forgottenRodney, and metaphors and Elizabethan drama, and could have sworn thathe had forgotten Katharine Hilbery, too, although that was moredisputable. His mind was scaling the highest pinnacles of its alps,where there was only starlight and the untrodden snow. He cast strangeeyes upon Rodney, as they encountered each other beneath a lamp-post."Ha!" Rodney exclaimed.If he had been in full possession of his mind, Denham would probablyhave passed on with a salutation. But the shock of the interruptionmade him stand still, and before he knew what he was doing, he hadturned and was walking with Rodney in obedience to Rodney's invitationto come to his rooms and have something to drink. Denham had no wishto drink with Rodney, but he followed him passively enough. Rodney wasgratified by this obedience. He felt inclined to be communicative withthis silent man, who possessed so obviously all the good masculinequalities in which Katharine now seemed lamentably deficient."You do well, Denham," he began impulsively, "to have nothing to dowith young women. I offer you my experience--if one trusts them oneinvariably has cause to repent. Not that I have any reason at thismoment," he added hastily, "to complain of them. It's a subject thatcrops up now and again for no particular reason. Miss Datchet, I daresay, is one of the exceptions. Do you like Miss Datchet?"These remarks indicated clearly enough that Rodney's nerves were in astate of irritation, and Denham speedily woke to the situation of theworld as it had been one hour ago. He had last seen Rodney walkingwith Katharine. He could not help regretting the eagerness with whichhis mind returned to these interests, and fretted him with the oldtrivial anxieties. He sank in his own esteem. Reason bade him breakfrom Rodney, who clearly tended to become confidential, before he hadutterly lost touch with the problems of high philosophy. He lookedalong the road, and marked a lamp-post at a distance of some hundredyards, and decided that he would part from Rodney when they reachedthis point."Yes, I like Mary; I don't see how one could help liking her," heremarked cautiously, with his eye on the lamp-post."Ah, Denham, you're so different from me. You never give yourselfaway. I watched you this evening with Katharine Hilbery. My instinctis to trust the person I'm talking to. That's why I'm always beingtaken in, I suppose."Denham seemed to be pondering this statement of Rodney's, but, as amatter of fact, he was hardly conscious of Rodney and his revelations,and was only concerned to make him mention Katharine again before theyreached the lamp-post."Who's taken you in now?" he asked. "Katharine Hilbery?"Rodney stopped and once more began beating a kind of rhythm, as if hewere marking a phrase in a symphony, upon the smooth stone balustradeof the Embankment."Katharine Hilbery," he repeated, with a curious little chuckle. "No,Denham, I have no illusions about that young woman. I think I madethat plain to her to-night. But don't run away with a falseimpression," he continued eagerly, turning and linking his arm throughDenham's, as though to prevent him from escaping; and, thus compelled,Denham passed the monitory lamp-post, to which, in passing, hebreathed an excuse, for how could he break away when Rodney's arm wasactually linked in his? "You must not think that I have any bitternessagainst her--far from it. It's not altogether her fault, poor girl.She lives, you know, one of those odious, self-centered lives--atleast, I think them odious for a woman--feeding her wits uponeverything, having control of everything, getting far too much her ownway at home--spoilt, in a sense, feeling that every one is at herfeet, and so not realizing how she hurts--that is, how rudely shebehaves to people who haven't all her advantages. Still, to do herjustice, she's no fool," he added, as if to warn Denham not to takeany liberties. "She has taste. She has sense. She can understand youwhen you talk to her. But she's a woman, and there's an end of it," headded, with another little chuckle, and dropped Denham's arm."And did you tell her all this to-night?" Denham asked."Oh dear me, no. I should never think of telling Katharine the truthabout herself. That wouldn't do at all. One has to be in an attitudeof adoration in order to get on with Katharine."Now I've learnt that she's refused to marry him why don't I go home?"Denham thought to himself. But he went on walking beside Rodney, andfor a time they did not speak, though Rodney hummed snatches of a tuneout of an opera by Mozart. A feeling of contempt and liking combinevery naturally in the mind of one to whom another has just spokenunpremeditatedly, revealing rather more of his private feelings thanhe intended to reveal. Denham began to wonder what sort of personRodney was, and at the same time Rodney began to think about Denham."You're a slave like me, I suppose?" he asked."A solicitor, yes.""I sometimes wonder why we don't chuck it. Why don't you emigrate,Denham? I should have thought that would suit you.""I've a family.""I'm often on the point of going myself. And then I know I couldn'tlive without this"--and he waved his hand towards the City of London,which wore, at this moment, the appearance of a town cut out of gray-blue cardboard, and pasted flat against the sky, which was of a deeperblue."There are one or two people I'm fond of, and there's a little goodmusic, and a few pictures, now and then--just enough to keep onedangling about here. Ah, but I couldn't live with savages! Are youfond of books? Music? Pictures? D'you care at all for first editions?I've got a few nice things up here, things I pick up cheap, for Ican't afford to give what they ask."They had reached a small court of high eighteenth-century houses, inone of which Rodney had his rooms. They climbed a very steepstaircase, through whose uncurtained windows the moonlight fell,illuminating the banisters with their twisted pillars, and the pilesof plates set on the window-sills, and jars half-full of milk.Rodney's rooms were small, but the sitting-room window looked out intoa courtyard, with its flagged pavement, and its single tree, andacross to the flat red-brick fronts of the opposite houses, whichwould not have surprised Dr. Johnson, if he had come out of his gravefor a turn in the moonlight. Rodney lit his lamp, pulled his curtains,offered Denham a chair, and, flinging the manuscript of his paper onthe Elizabethan use of Metaphor on to the table, exclaimed:"Oh dear me, what a waste of time! But it's over now, and so we maythink no more about it."He then busied himself very dexterously in lighting a fire, producingglasses, whisky, a cake, and cups and saucers. He put on a fadedcrimson dressing-gown, and a pair of red slippers, and advanced toDenham with a tumbler in one hand and a well-burnished book in theother."The Baskerville Congreve," said Rodney, offering it to his guest. "Icouldn't read him in a cheap edition."When he was seen thus among his books and his valuables, amiablyanxious to make his visitor comfortable, and moving about withsomething of the dexterity and grace of a Persian cat, Denham relaxedhis critical attitude, and felt more at home with Rodney than he wouldhave done with many men better known to him. Rodney's room was theroom of a person who cherishes a great many personal tastes, guardingthem from the rough blasts of the public with scrupulous attention.His papers and his books rose in jagged mounds on table and floor,round which he skirted with nervous care lest his dressing-gown mightdisarrange them ever so slightly. On a chair stood a stack ofphotographs of statues and pictures, which it was his habit toexhibit, one by one, for the space of a day or two. The books on hisshelves were as orderly as regiments of soldiers, and the backs ofthem shone like so many bronze beetle-wings; though, if you took onefrom its place you saw a shabbier volume behind it, since space waslimited. An oval Venetian mirror stood above the fireplace, andreflected duskily in its spotted depths the faint yellow and crimsonof a jarful of tulips which stood among the letters and pipes andcigarettes upon the mantelpiece. A small piano occupied a corner ofthe room, with the score of "Don Giovanni" open upon the bracket."Well, Rodney," said Denham, as he filled his pipe and looked abouthim, "this is all very nice and comfortable."Rodney turned his head half round and smiled, with the pride of aproprietor, and then prevented himself from smiling."Tolerable," he muttered."But I dare say it's just as well that you have to earn your ownliving.""If you mean that I shouldn't do anything good with leisure if I hadit, I dare say you're right. But I should be ten times as happy withmy whole day to spend as I liked.""I doubt that," Denham replied.They sat silent, and the smoke from their pipes joined amicably in ablue vapor above their heads."I could spend three hours every day reading Shakespeare," Rodneyremarked. "And there's music and pictures, let alone the society ofthe people one likes.""You'd be bored to death in a year's time.""Oh, I grant you I should be bored if I did nothing. But I shouldwrite plays.""H'm!""I should write plays," he repeated. "I've written three-quarters ofone already, and I'm only waiting for a holiday to finish it. And it'snot bad--no, some of it's really rather nice."The question arose in Denham's mind whether he should ask to see thisplay, as, no doubt, he was expected to do. He looked rather stealthilyat Rodney, who was tapping the coal nervously with a poker, andquivering almost physically, so Denham thought, with desire to talkabout this play of his, and vanity unrequited and urgent. He seemedvery much at Denham's mercy, and Denham could not help liking him,partly on that account."Well, . . . will you let me see the play?" Denham asked, and Rodneylooked immediately appeased, but, nevertheless, he sat silent for amoment, holding the poker perfectly upright in the air, regarding itwith his rather prominent eyes, and opening his lips and shutting themagain."Do you really care for this kind of thing?" he asked at length, in adifferent tone of voice from that in which he had been speaking. And,without waiting for an answer, he went on, rather querulously: "Veryfew people care for poetry. I dare say it bores you.""Perhaps," Denham remarked."Well, I'll lend it you," Rodney announced, putting down the poker.As he moved to fetch the play, Denham stretched a hand to the bookcasebeside him, and took down the first volume which his fingers touched.It happened to be a small and very lovely edition of Sir ThomasBrowne, containing the "Urn Burial," the "Hydriotaphia," and the"Garden of Cyrus," and, opening it at a passage which he knew verynearly by heart, Denham began to read and, for some time, continued toread.Rodney resumed his seat, with his manuscript on his knee, and fromtime to time he glanced at Denham, and then joined his finger-tips andcrossed his thin legs over the fender, as if he experienced a gooddeal of pleasure. At length Denham shut the book, and stood, with hisback to the fireplace, occasionally making an inarticulate hummingsound which seemed to refer to Sir Thomas Browne. He put his hat onhis head, and stood over Rodney, who still lay stretched back in hischair, with his toes within the fender."I shall look in again some time," Denham remarked, upon which Rodneyheld up his hand, containing his manuscript, without saying anythingexcept--"If you like."Denham took the manuscript and went. Two days later he was muchsurprised to find a thin parcel on his breakfastplate, which, on beingopened, revealed the very copy of Sir Thomas Browne which he hadstudied so intently in Rodney's rooms. From sheer laziness he returnedno thanks, but he thought of Rodney from time to time with interest,disconnecting him from Katharine, and meant to go round one eveningand smoke a pipe with him. It pleased Rodney thus to give awaywhatever his friends genuinely admired. His library was constantlybeing diminished.