The string quartet
Virginia Woolf
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Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882 –
1941) was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of
short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist
literary figures of the twentieth century.
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Well, here we are, and if you cast your eye over the room you will
see that Tubes and trams and omnibuses, private carriages not a few,
even, I venture to believe, landaus with bays in them, have been busy at
it, weaving threads from one end of London to the other. Yet I begin to
have my doubts.
If indeed it’s true, as they’re saying, that Regent Street is up, and
the Treaty signed, and the weather not cold for the time of year, and
even at that rent not a flat to be had, and the worst of influenza its
after effects; if I bethink me of having forgotten to write about the
leak in the larder, and left my glove in the train; if the ties of blood
require me, leaning forward, to accept cordially the hand which is
perhaps offered hesitatingly.
“Seven years since we met!”
“The last time in Venice.”
“And where are you living now?”
“Well, the late afternoon suits me the best, though, if it weren’t
asking too much.”
“But I knew you at once!”
“Still, the war made a break”
 If
the mind’s shot through by such little arrows, and for human society
compels it - no sooner is one launched than another presses forward; if
this engenders heat and in addition they’ve turned on the electric
light; if saying one thing does, in so many cases, leave behind it a
need to improve and revise, stirring besides regrets, pleasures,
vanities, and desires - if it’s all the facts I mean, and the hats, the
fur boas, the gentlemen’s swallow-tail coats, and pearl tie-pins that
come to the surface - what chance is there?
Of what? It becomes every minute more difficult to say why, in spite
of everything, I sit here believing I can’t now say what, or even
remember the last time it happened.
“Did you see the procession?”
“The King looked cold.”
“No, no, no. But what was it?”
“She’s bought a house at Malmesbury.”
“How lucky to find one!”
On the contrary, it seems to me pretty sure that she, whoever she may
be, is damned, since it’s all a matter of flats and hats and sea gulls,
or so it seems to be for a hundred people sitting here well dressed,
walled in, furred, replete. Not that I can boast, since I too sit
passive on a gilt chair, only turning the earth above a buried memory,
as we all do, for there are signs, if I’m not mistaken, that we’re all
recalling something, furtively seeking something. Why fidget? Why so
anxious about the sit of cloaks; and gloves - whether to button or
unbutton?
Then watch that elderly face against the dark canvas, a moment ago
urbane and flushed; now taciturn and sad, as if in shadow. Was it the
sound of the second violin tuning in the ante-room? Here they come; four
black figures, carrying instruments, and seat themselves facing the
white squares under the downpour of light; rest the tips of their bows
on the music stand; with a simultaneous movement lift them; lightly
poise them, and, looking across at the player opposite, the first violin
counts one, two, three.
Flourish, spring, burgeon, burst! The pear tree on the top of the
mountain. Fountains jet; drops descend. But the waters of the Rhone flow
swift and deep, race under the arches, and sweep the trailing water
leaves, washing shadows over the silver fish, the spotted fish rushed
down by the swift waters, now swept into an eddy where it’s difficult
this conglomeration of fish all in a pool; leaping, splashing, scraping
sharp fins; and such a boil of current that the yellow pebbles are
churned round and round, round and round - free now, rushing downwards,
or even somehow ascending in exquisite spirals into the air; curled like
thin shavings from under a plane, up and up... How lovely goodness is in
those who, stepping lightly, go smiling through the world! Also in jolly
old fishwives, squatted under arches, obscene old women, how deeply they
laugh and shake and rollick, when they walk, from side to side, hum,
hah!
“That’s an early Mozart, of course.”
“But the tune, like all his tunes, makes one despair - I mean hope.
What do I mean? That’s the worst of music! I want to dance, laugh, eat
pink cakes, yellow cakes, drink thin, sharp wine. Or an indecent story,
now I could relish that. The older one grows the more one likes
indecency. Hah, hah! I’m laughing. What at? You said nothing, nor did
the old gentleman opposite....But suppose suppose Hush!”
The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the
trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird
singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow,
sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven
together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in sorrow
crash!
Why then grieve? Ask what? Remain unsatisfied? I say all’s been
settled; yes; laid to rest under a coverlet of rose leaves, falling.
Falling. Ah, but they cease. One rose leaf, falling from an enormous
height, like a little parachute dropped from an invisible balloon,
turns, flutters waveringly. It won’t reach us.
“No, no. I noticed nothing. That’s the worst of music these silly
dreams. The second violin was late, you say?”
“There’s old Mrs. Munro, feeling her way outblinder each year, poor
womanon this slippery floor.”
Eyeless old age, grey-headed Sphinx....There she stands on the
pavement, beckoning, so sternly, the red omnibus.
“How lovely! How well they play! Howhowhow!”
The tongue is but a clapper. Simplicity itself. The feathers in the
hat next me are bright and pleasing as a child’s rattle. The leaf on the
plane-tree flashes green through the chink in the curtain. Very strange,
very exciting.
The gentleman replies so fast to the lady, and she runs up the scale
with such witty exchange of compliment now culminating in a sob of
passion, that the words are indistinguishable though the meaning is
plain enoughlove, laughter, flight, pursuit, celestial bliss all floated
out on the gayest ripple of tender endearment until the sound of the
silver horns, at first far distant, gradually sounds more and more
distinctly, as if seneschals were saluting the dawn or proclaiming
ominously the escape of the lovers....The green garden, moonlit pool,
lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky, across
which, as the horns are joined by trumpets and supported by clarions
there rise white arches firmly planted on marble pillars.... Tramp and
trumpeting. Clang and clangour.
Firm establishment. Fast foundations. March of myriads. Confusion and
chaos trod to earth. But this city to which we travel has neither stone
nor marble; hangs enduring; stands unshakable; nor does a face, nor does
a flag greet or welcome.
Leave then to perish your hope; droop in the desert my joy; naked
advance. Bare are the pillars; auspicious to none; casting no shade;
resplendent; severe. Back then I fall, eager no more, desiring only to
go, find the street, mark the buildings, greet the applewoman, say to
the maid who opens the door: A starry night.
“Good night, good night. You go this way?”
“Alas. I go that.” |
