The Voyage Out

could play, read, think, defy the world, a fortress as well as a sanctuary. Rooms, she knew, became more like worlds than rooms at the age of twenty-four.

a brightly-covered red volume lettered on the back Works of Henrik Ibsen. Music was open on the pian

ow but repressed, it could be seen that her whole body was constrained by the working of her mind. At last she shut the book sharply,

ith a white liquid, for the moment she herself was the most vivid thing in it-an heroic statue in the middle of the foreground, dominating the view. Ibsen's plays always left her in that condition. She acted them for days at a time, greatly to Helen's amusement; and then it would be Meredith's turn and she became Diana of the Crossways. But Helen was aware that it was not all acting, and that

as candid as a habit of talking with men made natural in her own case. Nor did she encourage those habits of unselfishness and amiability founded upon insincerity which are put at so high a value in mixed households of men and women. She desired that Rachel should think, and for this reason offered books and discouraged too entire a dependence upon Bach and Beethoven and Wagner. But when Mrs. Ambrose would have suggested Defoe, Maupassant, or some spacious chronicle of family life, Rachel chose modern books, books in shiny yellow covers, books with a great deal of gilding on the back, which were tokens i

's downfall upon the right shoulders; a purpose which was achieved, if the reader's discomfort were any proof of i

next overcome by the unspeakable queerness of the fact that she should be sitting in an arm-chair, in the morning, in the middle of the world. Who were the people moving in the house-moving things from one place to another? And life, what was that? It was only a light passing over the surface and vanishing, as in time she would vanish, though the furniture in the room would remain. Her dissolution became so complete that she could not raise her fi

lled by a persistent knocking at the door. With great slowness the door ope

I to say

oming into a room with a piece o

n continued, in the toneless voice of a ghost. She put a pap

the weather is fine, and to make the ascent of Monte Rosa. It will take some time, but the view should

erely, TER

self believe in them. For the same reas

er absent-minded way. "More new books

osts, each word was astonishingly prominent; they came out as the tops of mountains come through a mi

st certainly go"-such was the relief of finding that things still happe

Helen; "but Hewet-who's he? One of the young men Ridley met,

nd went, for the messenger

had seldom used his practical abilities, and was pleased to find them equal to the strain. His invitations had been universally accepted, which was th

ectual effort which is needed to review a book of modern poetry has enabled me to get together seven or eight people, of opposite sexes, at the same spot at the same hour on th

e chair, and Hirst was writing a letter opposite. Hirst w

seen. Suppose one of them suffers from mounta

u want, Hirst, you know, is the society of young women of your own age. You don't know how to

hat he was quit

ere a general meeting had been appointed. He wondered why on earth he had asked thes

things" (he stopped by a stream and began stirring it with his walking-stick and clouding the water with mud), "making cities and mountains and whole universes out of nothing, or do we really love e

nd joined him, remarking that he had long cea

s a shady spot, lying conveniently just where the hill sprung out from the flat. Between the thin stems of the plane trees the young men could see little k

place, Helen looked up a

yself," she said. "

nds, she said, "

e held out her hand, but withdr

poken, when the fir

heep-dog. By means of a few words of caustic Latin he had the animals marshalled, and by inclining a sharp shoulder he lifted the ladies. "What Hewet fails to understand," he remarked, "is that we must break the back of the ascent before midday." He was assisting a y

on as Hirst had swung himself across a mu

gatroyd. I hate it," she said.

ohn,"

Evelyn. "And what's

R. S. T., we call hi

" she said. "Which way? Pic

her already with considerable spirit she went on saying it and making choice of none. But her donkey stumbled to a jog-trot, and she had to ride in advance alone, for the path when it began to ascend one of the spines of the hill became narrow and scattered with stones. The cavalcade wound on like a jointed

s Allan to Mrs. Elliot just behind her, "co

n'est-ce pas?" Mrs. Elliot addressed t

lowers which grew separately here and there. "You pinch their leav

ore?" asked Miss Al

n laughed, for in the confusion of

ble. Who knows what mayn't happen before night-fall?" she continued, mocking the poor lady's timidity, who depended implicitly upon one thing following another tha

rld. The world, when they turned to look back, flattened it

here and there ships were set firmly in the blue. The sea was stained with purple and green blots, and there was a glittering line upon the rim where it met the sky. The air was very clear and

St. John, identifying one cle

er chin on her hand. She surveyed th

was a party of patriots, and she, red-shirted like the rest, had lain among grim men, flat on the turf, aiming her gun at the whit

ll this lif

call life?" s

still gazing at the doomed city.

e wrong," sa

no guns to be aimed at bodies, and

are for? Peo

wfully serious. Do let's be friends and tell each oth

l to a young lady. "The ass is eating my hat," he remarked, and stretched out for it instead of answering her. Evelyn blushed very slig

said Hughling Elliot, exquisitely in French, a hint

English fell silent; the natives who walked beside the donkeys broke into queer wavering songs and tossed jokes from one to the other. The way grew very steep, and each rider kept his eyes fixed on the hobbling curv

perhaps a little unwise," Mrs.

true, although she was a big woman, stiff in the joints, and unused t

w possessed herself of a leafy branch and wore it round her h

longer, nothing being heard but the clatter of hooves striving on the loose stones. Then they saw that Evelyn was off her ass, and that Mr. Perrott was standing in the attitud

overcome with wonder. Before them they beheld an immense space-grey sands running into forest, and forest merging in mountains, and mountains washed by air, the infinite distances of South America. A river ran across the plain, as flat as the land, and appearing q

Allan, jerking her head slightly

ures bent slightly forward and their clothes plastered by the wind to the shape of their bodies resembled naked statues. On their pedestal of earth they looked unfamiliar and noble,

r packet she looked him f

emember-t

d at her

" he a

!" Hewet exclaimed, look

"We watched you playing cards, but we

thing in a play

dn't describe y

ave seen Helen and to fin

up his eyeglass and

's leg, "than being seen when one isn't conscious of it. One feels sure one has been

he view, and drawing together sat

scination of their own," said Mrs. Thornbury. "One's featu

s. Elliot. "And four-wheeled cabs-I assure you even at

appens to the ho

e," said

extinct anyhow," said Hirst. "They're di

noblest of God's creatures, could not agree, and Venning thought Hirst

aeroplanes they get some of their

hornbury, putting on his

some day,"

r grey coat and skirt, with a sandwich in her hand, her eyes lighting up with zeal as she imagined herself a young man in an aeroplane. For some reason, however, the talk did not run easily after this, and all they said was about drink and salt and the view. Suddenly Miss Allan, who was seated with her back to the ruined wall, put dow

ey sting?"

h represented the invaded country, and round it they built barricades of baskets, set up the wine bottles in a rampart, made fortifications of bread and dug fosses of salt. When an ant got through it was exposed to a fire of bread-crumbs, until Susan pronounce

rs. Elliot confidentially to Mrs. Thornbury, "i

way on to the table-cloth by a back entrance, and if success could be gauged by noise, Hewet had every

ble of what insipid cruelty to one another! There was Mrs. Thornbury, sweet but trivial in her maternal egoism; Mrs. Elliot, perpetually complaining of her lot; her husband a mere pea in a pod; and Susan-she had no self, and counted neither one way nor the other; Venning was as honest and as brutal as a schoolboy; poor old Thornbury merely trod his round like a horse in

e. Then he came to Helen, attracted to her by the sound of her laugh. She was laughing at Miss Allan. "You wear combinations in this heat?" she said in a voice which was meant to be private. He liked the look of her immensely, not so much her beauty, but her largeness and simplicity, which made her stand out from the rest like a great stone woman, and h

u looking at

tled, but answered di