The Voyage Out

aving to end them. Still, I'm not going to let this end, if you're willing." It was the m

nd her head, and once more the rich boxes stood on top of each o

said Ridley ironically. "You'll have forgotten

e bay, where they could now see the

g to see me anyhow-the instant you get back," she

ok to Rachel. Sailors were shouldering the luggage, and people were beginning to congregate. Ther

achel. People in the way made it unnecessary for Richard to shake Rachel by the hand; he mana

Rachel leant over the rail, watching. Once Mrs. Dalloway turned and waved; but the boat steadily grew s

ir hearts that it was over, and that they had parted for ever, and the knowledge filled them with far greater depression than the length of their acquaintance seemed to justify. Even as the boat p

el's obvious languor and listlessness made her an easy prey, and indeed Helen had devised a kind of trap. That something had happened she now felt pretty certain; moreover, she had come to think

bed by Richard; by the extreme strangeness of what had happened, and by a thousand feelings of which she had not been conscious before. She made scarcely any attempt to listen to what H

e people?" Helen a

e replied

d to him,

othing for

he said without a

at her, but could not

fter a pause. "I thought

of man?"

and sen

him," sa

eally did

Helen had known her Rache

d vehemently. "I drea

from twitching as she listened to Rachel's story. It was pou

yesterday, after the storm, he came in to see me. It happened then, quite suddenly. He kissed me. I don't know why." As she spoke she grew flushed. "I was a go

s upbringing she supposed that she had been kept entirely ignorant as to the relations of men with women. With a shyness which she felt with

silly creature, and if I were

t do that. I shall think about it all day and all

read?" Helen a

nd of thing. Father gets

his daughter so that at the age of twenty-four she scarcely knew that men desired women and was te

now many men

" said Rache

ever wanted t

answered i

said, Rachel certainly would think these

you, just as they'll want to marry you. The pity is to get things out of proportion. It's like noticing the

be inattentive

ddenly, "what are thos

hey are prostitu

ing," Rachel asserted, as if sh

said Hele

to herself. "I wanted to talk to him; I wanted

something lovable about Richard, good in their attempted fr

her mood was ap

ersonally," she continued, breaking into a smile, "I think it's worth it; I don't mind being kissed; I'm rather j

ing very quickly, inconsistently and painfully. Helen's words hewed down great blocks which had stood the

why I can't

sly between high walls, here turned aside, there plunged in darkness, made dull and crippled for

brutes! I hate me

said you liked

ed," she answered, as if that only a

ulty except by going on talking. She wanted to make her niece talk, and so to understand why this rather dull, kindly,

e Mrs. Dalloway

had said, and also, it occurred to her that she treated this exquisite w

-chatter-fish and the Greek alphabet-never listened to a word any one said-chock-full of idiotic theories about the way to

ichard and Clarissa. They had not been so wonderf

Rachel remarked, and Helen saw with pleasure that

t according to Helen, but she re

o make exp

d had given her, with drains like nerves, and bad houses like patches of diseased skin. She recalled his watch-words-Unity-Imagination, and saw ag

o you equally interesting, d

ne they ceased to be symbols, and became-"I could listen to them for ever!" she exclaimed.

l; born 1852; parents from Moffatt; educated at Rugby; passed first into R.E.; married 1878 the daughter of T. Fishwick; served in the

s, clergymen, sailors, surgeons, judges, professors, statesmen, editors, philanthropists, merchants, and act

absorbed

ike to show her niece, if it were possible, how to live, or as she put it, how to be a reasonable person. She thought that there mu

ery interesting; only-" Rachel, putting her f

s a pity to be intimate with people who are-well, rather

s one know?"

ght. "You'll have to find out for yourself. But try and-Why don't you ca

call you Helen,"

me very uns

arose chiefly from the difference of nearly twenty years in age between them,

e things you don't u

w you can go ahead and be a perso

fferent from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed in

e Dalloways, and Mr. Pepper, and Father, and my Aunts, in spite of the

tropical port, where one had to lie within doors all day beating off insects with a fan, the sensible thing to do surely was to spend the season with them in their villa by the seaside, where among other advantage

like each othe

s. Ambros

ear by their twenty minutes' talk, although how they h

Cockney photographer had given her lips a queer little pucker, and her eyes for the same reason looked as though she thought the whole situation ridiculous. Nevertheless it was the head of an individual and interesting woman, who would no doubt have turned and laughed at Willoughby if she could have caught his eye; but when he looked up at her he sighed profoundly. In his mind this work of his, the great factories at Hull which showed like mountains at night, the

t speak to him about a plan of hers. Would he consent to leave his daugh

of her," she added, "and

y grave and carefully

ph of Theresa and sighed. Helen looked at Theresa pursing up her lips before the Cockney photogra

"We go on year after year without talking about these thing

ortable when her brother-in-law expressed his feelings, and took refuge in p

ichmond. I should like her to begin to see more people. I want to take her about with me when I get home. I've half a mind to rent a house in London, leaving my sisters at Richmond, and take her to see one or two people who'd be kind to her for my sake. I'm beginning to realise," he continued, stretching himself out, "that all this is tending to Parliament, Helen. It's the only way to get things done as one wants them done. I talked to Dalloway about it. In that case, of course, I should want Rachel to be able to take more pa

e girl to stay with her, even if she had to promise a complete course of instruction in the feminine graces. She could not he

birds, now white in the moon, now deep in shade with moving trees and canoes sliding out from the tangled banks, beset her. Helen promised a river. Then she did not want to leave her father. That feeling seemed