The Voyage Out

like others. The three months which had passed had brought them to the beginning of March. The climate had kept its promise, and the change of season from winter to spring had made

pad on her knee, shared the general effect of size and lack of detail, for the flames which ran along the branches, suddenly devouring little green tufts, burnt intermittently and sent irregular illuminations across her face and the plaster walls.

for the sake of the flowering trees which grew wild quite near the house, and the amazing colours of sea and earth. The earth, instead of being brown, was red, purple, green. "You won't believe me," she added, "there is no colour like it in England." She adopted, indeed, a condescending tone towards that poor island, which was now advancing chilly crocuses and nipped violets in nooks, in copses, in cosy corners, tended by rosy old gardeners in mufflers, who were always touching their hats and bobbing obsequiously. She went on to deride the islanders themselves. Rumou

inded her of Richard Dalloway and Rachel, for she

. . . "was complete. It seems to me not merely foolish but criminal to bring people up like that. Let alone the suffering to them, it explains why women are what they are-the wonder is they're no worse. I have taken it upon myself to enlighten her, and now, though still a good deal prejudiced and liable to exaggerate, she is more or less a reasonable human being. Keeping them ignorant, of course, defeats its own object, and when they begin to understand they take it all much too seriously. My brother-in-law really deserved a catastrophe-which he won't get. I now pray for a young man to come to my help; some one, I mean, who would talk to her openly, and prove how absurd most of

ent in her manner than before. Her skin was brown, her eyes certainly brighter, and she attended to what was said as though she might be going to contradict it. The meal began

e hotel was not filling up with visitors. Maria informed her with pride that there would come a time when it was positively d

aid Rachel, looking at a triangle of ligh

some letters and send

rest of the meal passed in a brisk argument between husband and wife as t

praised not only your books but your beauty-she said he was what Shelley would have been if Shelley had lived to fifty-five and grown a bea

w lines to it, and then announced that she was going to

tten to your Aunts

o be a fool, but Helen surely knew better, they turned to go. He stood over the fire gazing into the depths of the looking-glass, and compressing his fa

d hold of

fool?" s

e go,

ool?" she

he exclaimed,

nities," she called back as

h the stars were coming out. The pillar-box was let into a high yellow wall where the

her by the wrist. "We're goi

the ear, sat on the doorsteps, or issued out on to balconies, while the young men ranged up and down beneath, shouting up a greeting from time to time and stopping here and there to enter into amorous talk. At the open windows merchants could be seen making up the day's account, and older women lifting jars from shelf to shelf. The streets were

people in their shabby clothes, who seemed s

she said. "First there are men selling picture postcards; then there are wretched little shop-girls with round bandboxes; then there are bank clerks in tail coats; and then-any number of dressmakers. People from South Kensington drive up in a hi

body like the kings and queens, knights and pawns of the chessboard, so

in order to cir

e crowd believed in Him; for she remembered the crosses with bleeding plaster figures that stoo

er understand

t, but they could see a large iron gate a li

right up to the h

opened almost to the ground. They were all of them uncurtained, and all brilliantly lighted, so that they could see everything inside. Each window revealed a different section of the life of the hotel. They drew into one of the broad columns of shadow which separated the windows and gazed in. They found themselves just outside the dining-room. It was being swept; a waiter was eating a bunch of grapes with his leg across the corner of a table. Next door was the kitchen, where they

istinct voice of a widow, seated in an

answer was lost in the general clea

in this room,"

indow revealed two men in shirt-sleeves

plump young woman cried,

young man with the red face

en, plucking Rachel by the arm. Incautiously h

han the others, and was evidently the haunt of youth. Signor Rodriguez, whom they knew to be the manager of the hotel, stood quite near them in the doorway surveying the scene-the gentlemen lounging in chairs, the couples leaning over coffee-cups, the game of cards in the centre under profuse clu

r the informal room made their manners easier. Through the open window came an uneven humming sound like that whi

observing one of the men intently. He was a lean, somewhat cadaverous man of about her own age, whose

ome words detach themselves from the re

Warrington; courage and practice

d of his name he looked up. The game went on for a few minutes, and was then broken up by the a

ck to-nigh

il now had kept his back turned to the window. He appe

d lady with spectacles. "I assure you, Mrs. Paley

rs. Paley was heard to explain, as if to justify her seizure of

o attempt was made to find another player, and after the young man had built three stor

xion was rosy, his lips clean-shaven; and, seen among ordinary people, it appeared to be an interesting face. He came st

p?" he

itting near to them unobserved all the time. There were le

men," i

ing until they felt certain that no eye could penetrate the darkness and the ho