The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (best english novels to read .TXT) ๐
Description
Miss Rachel Vinrace, aged twenty-four and previously interested only in music, is on a voyage both literal and metaphorical. An ocean cruise with her father leaves her for the summer at her Auntโs villa in an unnamed South American country, where she meets the English inhabitants of the local townโs hotel. As the season progresses she starts to become entangled in their own lives and passions, and through those burgeoning acquaintances and friendships the discovery of her own nature grows.
The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolfโs first novel and was a labour of love, taking her five years to complete. Even though heavy editing was required to reduce some of the more politically charged themes before its publication in 1915, it still bemused some contemporary critics and even garnered accusations of โreckless femininity.โ Time however has proved kinder, with the book demonstrating the key points of Woolfโs future style. It even has the first appearance of Clarissa Dalloway, the titular protagonist of Woolfโs later and more famous novel Mrs. Dalloway.
Read free book ยซThe Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (best english novels to read .TXT) ๐ยป - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Virginia Woolf
Read book online ยซThe Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (best english novels to read .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Virginia Woolf
The lights were coming out one after another in the town beneath, and it was very peaceful and cool in the garden, so that he stepped out on to the terrace. As he stood there in the darkness, able only to see the shapes of trees through the fine grey light, he was overcome by a desire to escape, to have done with this suffering, to forget that Rachel was ill. He allowed himself to lapse into forgetfulness of everything. As if a wind that had been raging incessantly suddenly fell asleep, the fret and strain and anxiety which had been pressing on him passed away. He seemed to stand in an unvexed space of air, on a little island by himself; he was free and immune from pain. It did not matter whether Rachel was well or ill; it did not matter whether they were apart or together; nothing matteredโ โnothing mattered. The waves beat on the shore far away, and the soft wind passed through the branches of the trees, seeming to encircle him with peace and security, with dark and nothingness. Surely the world of strife and fret and anxiety was not the real world, but this was the real world, the world that lay beneath the superficial world, so that, whatever happened, one was secure. The quiet and peace seemed to lap his body in a fine cool sheet, soothing every nerve; his mind seemed once more to expand, and become natural.
But when he had stood thus for a time a noise in the house roused him; he turned instinctively and went into the drawing-room. The sight of the lamp-lit room brought back so abruptly all that he had forgotten that he stood for a moment unable to move. He remembered everything, the hour, the minute even, what point they had reached, and what was to come. He cursed himself for making believe for a minute that things were different from what they are. The night was now harder to face than ever.
Unable to stay in the empty drawing-room, he wandered out and sat on the stairs halfway up to Rachelโs room. He longed for someone to talk to, but Hirst was asleep, and Ridley was asleep; there was no sound in Rachelโs room. The only sound in the house was the sound of Chailey moving in the kitchen. At last there was a rustling on the stairs overhead, and Nurse McInnis came down fastening the links in her cuffs, in preparation for the nightโs watch. Terence rose and stopped her. He had scarcely spoken to her, but it was possible that she might confirm him in the belief which still persisted in his own mind that Rachel was not seriously ill. He told her in a whisper that Dr. Lesage had been and what he had said.
โNow, Nurse,โ he whispered, โplease tell me your opinion. Do you consider that she is very seriously ill? Is she in any danger?โ
โThe doctor has saidโ โโ she began.
โYes, but I want your opinion. You have had experience of many cases like this?โ
โI could not tell you more than Dr. Lesage, Mr. Hewet,โ she replied cautiously, as though her words might be used against her. โThe case is serious, but you may feel quite certain that we are doing all we can for Miss Vinrace.โ She spoke with some professional self-approbation. But she realised perhaps that she did not satisfy the young man, who still blocked her way, for she shifted her feet slightly upon the stair and looked out of the window where they could see the moon over the sea.
โIf you ask me,โ she began in a curiously stealthy tone, โI never like May for my patients.โ
โMay?โ Terence repeated.
โIt may be a fancy, but I donโt like to see anybody fall ill in May,โ she continued. โThings seem to go wrong in May. Perhaps itโs the moon. They say the moon affects the brain, donโt they, Sir?โ
He looked at her but he could not answer her; like all the others, when one looked at her she seemed to shrivel beneath oneโs eyes and become worthless, malicious, and untrustworthy.
She slipped past him and disappeared.
Though he went to his room he was unable even to take his clothes off. For a long time he paced up and down, and then leaning out of the window gazed at the earth which lay so dark against the paler blue of the sky. With a mixture of fear and loathing he looked at the slim black cypress trees which were still visible in the garden, and heard the unfamiliar creaking and grating sounds which show that the earth is still hot. All these sights and sounds appeared sinister and full of hostility and foreboding; together with the natives and the nurse and the doctor and the terrible force of the illness itself they seemed to be in conspiracy against him. They seemed to join together in their effort to extract the greatest possible amount of suffering from him. He could not get used to his pain, it was a revelation to him. He had never realised before that underneath every action, underneath the life of every day, pain lies, quiescent, but ready to devour; he seemed to be able to see suffering, as if it were a fire, curling up over the edges of all action, eating away the lives of men and women. He thought for the first time with understanding of words which had before seemed to him empty: the struggle of life; the hardness of life. Now he knew for himself that life is hard and full of suffering. He looked at the scattered lights in the town beneath, and thought of Arthur and Susan, or Evelyn and Perrott venturing out
Comments (0)