Chapter XXXIV

by Virginia Woolf

　　The lamps were lit; their luster reflected itself in the polishedwood; good wine was passed round the dinner-table; before the meal wasfar advanced civilization had triumphed, and Mr. Hilbery presided overa feast which came to wear more and more surely an aspect, cheerful,dignified, promising well for the future. To judge from the expressionin Katharine's eyes it promised something--but he checked the approachsentimentality. He poured out wine; he bade Denham help himself.They went upstairs and he saw Katharine and Denham abstract themselvesdirectly Cassandra had asked whether she might not play him something--some Mozart? some Beethoven? She sat down to the piano; the doorclosed softly behind them. His eyes rested on the closed door for someseconds unwaveringly, but, by degrees, the look of expectation diedout of them, and, with a sigh, he listened to the music.Katharine and Ralph were agreed with scarcely a word of discussion asto what they wished to do, and in a moment she joined him in the halldressed for walking. The night was still and moonlit, fit for walking,though any night would have seemed so to them, desiring more thananything movement, freedom from scrutiny, silence, and the open air."At last!" she breathed, as the front door shut. She told him how shehad waited, fidgeted, thought he was never coming, listened for thesound of doors, half expected to see him again under the lamp-post,looking at the house. They turned and looked at the serene front withits gold-rimmed windows, to him the shrine of so much adoration. Inspite of her laugh and the little pressure of mockery on his arm, hewould not resign his belief, but with her hand resting there, hervoice quickened and mysteriously moving in his ears, he had not time--they had not the same inclination--other objects drew his attention.How they came to find themselves walking down a street with manylamps, corners radiant with light, and a steady succession of motor-omnibuses plying both ways along it, they could neither of them tell;nor account for the impulse which led them suddenly to select one ofthese wayfarers and mount to the very front seat. After curvingthrough streets of comparative darkness, so narrow that shadows on theblinds were pressed within a few feet of their faces, they came to oneof those great knots of activity where the lights, having drawn closetogether, thin out again and take their separate ways. They were borneon until they saw the spires of the city churches pale and flatagainst the sky."Are you cold?" he asked, as they stopped by Temple Bar."Yes, I am rather," she replied, becoming conscious that the splendidrace of lights drawn past her eyes by the superb curving and swervingof the monster on which she sat was at an end. They had followed somesuch course in their thoughts too; they had been borne on, victors inthe forefront of some triumphal car, spectators of a pageant enactedfor them, masters of life. But standing on the pavement alone, thisexaltation left them; they were glad to be alone together. Ralph stoodstill for a moment to light his pipe beneath a lamp.She looked at his face isolated in the little circle of light."Oh, that cottage," she said. "We must take it and go there.""And leave all this?" he inquired."As you like," she replied. She thought, looking at the sky aboveChancery Lane, how the roof was the same everywhere; how she was nowsecure of all that this lofty blue and its steadfast lights meant toher; reality, was it, figures, love, truth?"I've something on my mind," said Ralph abruptly. "I mean I've beenthinking of Mary Datchet. We're very near her rooms now. Would youmind if we went there?"She had turned before she answered him. She had no wish to see any oneto-night; it seemed to her that the immense riddle was answered; theproblem had been solved; she held in her hands for one brief momentthe globe which we spend our lives in trying to shape, round, whole,and entire from the confusion of chaos. To see Mary was to risk thedestruction of this globe."Did you treat her badly?" she asked rather mechanically, walking on."I could defend myself," he said, almost defiantly. "But what's theuse, if one feels a thing? I won't be with her a minute," he said."I'll just tell her--""Of course, you must tell her," said Katharine, and now felt anxiousfor him to do what appeared to be necessary if he, too, were to holdhis globe for a moment round, whole, and entire."I wish--I wish--" she sighed, for melancholy came over her andobscured at least a section of her clear vision. The globe swam beforeher as if obscured by tears."I regret nothing," said Ralph firmly. She leant towards him almost asif she could thus see what he saw. She thought how obscure he stillwas to her, save only that more and more constantly he appeared to hera fire burning through its smoke, a source of life."Go on," she said. "You regret nothing--""Nothing--nothing," he repeated."What a fire!" she thought to herself. She thought of him blazingsplendidly in the night, yet so obscure that to hold his arm, as sheheld it, was only to touch the opaque substance surrounding the flamethat roared upwards."Why nothing?" she asked hurriedly, in order that he might say moreand so make more splendid, more red, more darkly intertwined withsmoke this flame rushing upwards."What are you thinking of, Katharine?" he asked suspiciously, noticingher tone of dreaminess and the inapt words."I was thinking of you--yes, I swear it. Always of you, but you takesuch strange shapes in my mind. You've destroyed my loneliness. Am Ito tell you how I see you? No, tell me--tell me from the beginning."Beginning with spasmodic words, he went on to speak more and morefluently, more and more passionately, feeling her leaning towards him,listening with wonder like a child, with gratitude like a woman. Sheinterrupted him gravely now and then."But it was foolish to stand outside and look at the windows. SupposeWilliam hadn't seen you. Would you have gone to bed?"He capped her reproof with wonderment that a woman of her age couldhave stood in Kingsway looking at the traffic until she forgot."But it was then I first knew I loved you!" she exclaimed."Tell me from the beginning," he begged her."No, I'm a person who can't tell things," she pleaded. "I shall saysomething ridiculous--something about flames--fires. No, I can't tellyou."But he persuaded her into a broken statement, beautiful to him,charged with extreme excitement as she spoke of the dark red fire, andthe smoke twined round it, making him feel that he had stepped overthe threshold into the faintly lit vastness of another mind, stirringwith shapes, so large, so dim, unveiling themselves only in flashes,and moving away again into the darkness, engulfed by it. They hadwalked by this time to the street in which Mary lived, and beingengrossed by what they said and partly saw, passed her staircasewithout looking up. At this time of night there was no traffic andscarcely any foot-passengers, so that they could pace slowly withoutinterruption, arm-in-arm, raising their hands now and then to drawsomething upon the vast blue curtain of the sky.They brought themselves by these means, acting on a mood of profoundhappiness, to a state of clear-sightedness where the lifting of afinger had effect, and one word spoke more than a sentence. Theylapsed gently into silence, traveling the dark paths of thought sideby side towards something discerned in the distance which graduallypossessed them both. They were victors, masters of life, but at thesame time absorbed in the flame, giving their life to increase itsbrightness, to testify to their faith. Thus they had walked, perhaps,twice or three times up and down Mary Datchet's street before therecurrence of a light burning behind a thin, yellow blind caused themto stop without exactly knowing why they did so. It burned itself intotheir minds."That is the light in Mary's room," said Ralph. "She must be at home."He pointed across the street. Katharine's eyes rested there too."Is she alone, working at this time of night? What is she working at?"she wondered. "Why should we interrupt her?" she asked passionately."What have we got to give her? She's happy too," she added. "She hasher work." Her voice shook slightly, and the light swam like an oceanof gold behind her tears."You don't want me to go to her?" Ralph asked."Go, if you like; tell her what you like," she replied.He crossed the road immediately, and went up the steps into Mary'shouse. Katharine stood where he left her, looking at the window andexpecting soon to see a shadow move across it; but she saw nothing;the blinds conveyed nothing; the light was not moved. It signaled toher across the dark street; it was a sign of triumph shining there forever, not to be extinguished this side of the grave. She brandishedher happiness as if in salute; she dipped it as if in reverence. "Howthey burn!" she thought, and all the darkness of London seemed setwith fires, roaring upwards; but her eyes came back to Mary's windowand rested there satisfied. She had waited some time before a figuredetached itself from the doorway and came across the road, slowly andreluctantly, to where she stood."I didn't go in--I couldn't bring myself," he broke off. He had stoodoutside Mary's door unable to bring himself to knock; if she had comeout she would have found him there, the tears running down his cheeks,unable to speak.They stood for some moments, looking at the illuminated blinds, anexpression to them both of something impersonal and serene in thespirit of the woman within, working out her plans far into the night--her plans for the good of a world that none of them were ever to know.Then their minds jumped on and other little figures came by inprocession, headed, in Ralph's view, by the figure of Sally Seal."Do you remember Sally Seal?" he asked. Katharine bent her head."Your mother and Mary?" he went on. "Rodney and Cassandra? Old Joan upat Highgate?" He stopped in his enumeration, not finding it possibleto link them together in any way that should explain the queercombination which he could perceive in them, as he thought of them.They appeared to him to be more than individuals; to be made up ofmany different things in cohesion; he had a vision of an orderlyworld."It's all so easy--it's all so simple," Katherine quoted, rememberingsome words of Sally Seal's, and wishing Ralph to understand that shefollowed the track of his thought. She felt him trying to piecetogether in a laborious and elementary fashion fragments of belief,unsoldered and separate, lacking the unity of phrases fashioned by theold believers. Together they groped in this difficult region, wherethe unfinished, the unfulfilled, the unwritten, the unreturned, cametogether in their ghostly way and wore the semblance of the completeand the satisfactory. The future emerged more splendid than ever fromthis construction of the present. Books were to be written, and sincebooks must be written in rooms, and rooms must have hangings, andoutside the windows there must be land, and an horizon to that land,and trees perhaps, and a hill, they sketched a habitation forthemselves upon the outline of great offices in the Strand andcontinued to make an account of the future upon the omnibus which tookthem towards Chelsea; and still, for both of them, it swammiraculously in the golden light of a large steady lamp.As the night was far advanced they had the whole of the seats on thetop of the omnibus to choose from, and the roads, save for anoccasional couple, wearing even at midnight, an air of shelteringtheir words from the public, were deserted. No longer did the shadowof a man sing to the shadow of a piano. A few lights in bedroomwindows burnt but were extinguished one by one as the omnibus passedthem.They dismounted and walked down to the river. She felt his arm stiffenbeneath her hand, and knew by this token that they had entered theenchanted region. She might speak to him, but with that strange tremorin his voice, those eyes blindly adoring, whom did he answer? Whatwoman did he see? And where was she walking, and who was hercompanion? Moments, fragments, a second of vision, and then the flyingwaters, the winds dissipating and dissolving; then, too, therecollection from chaos, the return of security, the earth firm,superb and brilliant in the sun. From the heart of his darkness hespoke his thanksgiving; from a region as far, as hidden, she answeredhim. On a June night the nightingales sing, they answer each otheracross the plain; they are heard under the window among the trees inthe garden. Pausing, they looked down into the river which bore itsdark tide of waters, endlessly moving, beneath them. They turned andfound themselves opposite the house. Quietly they surveyed thefriendly place, burning its lamps either in expectation of them orbecause Rodney was still there talking to Cassandra. Katharine pushedthe door half open and stood upon the threshold. The light lay in softgolden grains upon the deep obscurity of the hushed and sleepinghousehold. For a moment they waited, and then loosed their hands."Good night," he breathed. "Good night," she murmured back to him.