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.
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- Author: Virginia Woolf
Read book online ยซThe Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (best english novels to read .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Virginia Woolf
The curtain which had been drawn between them for so long vanished immediately.
โWell, Rachel,โ he replied in his usual voice, upon which she opened her eyes quite widely and smiled with her familiar smile. He kissed her and took her hand.
โItโs been wretched without you,โ he said.
She still looked at him and smiled, but soon a slight look of fatigue or perplexity came into her eyes and she shut them again.
โBut when weโre together weโre perfectly happy,โ he said. He continued to hold her hand.
The light being dim, it was impossible to see any change in her face. An immense feeling of peace came over Terence, so that he had no wish to move or to speak. The terrible torture and unreality of the last days were over, and he had come out now into perfect certainty and peace. His mind began to work naturally again and with great ease. The longer he sat there the more profoundly was he conscious of the peace invading every corner of his soul. Once he held his breath and listened acutely; she was still breathing; he went on thinking for some time; they seemed to be thinking together; he seemed to be Rachel as well as himself; and then he listened again; no, she had ceased to breathe. So much the betterโ โthis was death. It was nothing; it was to cease to breathe. It was happiness, it was perfect happiness. They had now what they had always wanted to have, the union which had been impossible while they lived. Unconscious whether he thought the words or spoke them aloud, he said, โNo two people have ever been so happy as we have been. No one has ever loved as we have loved.โ
It seemed to him that their complete union and happiness filled the room with rings eddying more and more widely. He had no wish in the world left unfulfilled. They possessed what could never be taken from them.
He was not conscious that anyone had come into the room, but later, moments later, or hours later perhaps, he felt an arm behind him. The arms were round him. He did not want to have arms round him, and the mysterious whispering voices annoyed him. He laid Rachelโs hand, which was now cold, upon the counterpane, and rose from his chair, and walked across to the window. The windows were uncurtained, and showed the moon, and a long silver pathway upon the surface of the waves.
โWhy,โ he said, in his ordinary tone of voice, โlook at the moon. Thereโs a halo round the moon. We shall have rain tomorrow.โ
The arms, whether they were the arms of man or of woman, were round him again; they were pushing him gently towards the door. He turned of his own accord and walked steadily in advance of the arms, conscious of a little amusement at the strange way in which people behaved merely because someone was dead. He would go if they wished it, but nothing they could do would disturb his happiness.
As he saw the passage outside the room, and the table with the cups and the plates, it suddenly came over him that here was a world in which he would never see Rachel again.
โRachel! Rachel!โ he shrieked, trying to rush back to her. But they prevented him, and pushed him down the passage and into a bedroom far from her room. Downstairs they could hear the thud of his feet on the floor, as he struggled to break free; and twice they heard him shout, โRachel, Rachel!โ
XXVIFor two or three hours longer the moon poured its light through the empty air. Unbroken by clouds it fell straightly, and lay almost like a chill white frost over the sea and the earth. During these hours the silence was not broken, and the only movement was caused by the movement of trees and branches which stirred slightly, and then the shadows that lay across the white spaces of the land moved too. In this profound silence one sound only was audible, the sound of a slight but continuous breathing which never ceased, although it never rose and never fell. It continued after the birds had begun to flutter from branch to branch, and could be heard behind the first thin notes of their voices. It continued all through the hours when the east whitened, and grew red, and a faint blue tinged the sky, but when the sun rose it ceased, and gave place to other sounds.
The first sounds that were heard were little inarticulate cries, the cries, it seemed, of children or of the very poor, of people who were very weak or in pain. But when the sun was above the horizon, the air which had been thin and pale grew every moment richer and warmer, and the sounds of life became bolder and more full of courage and authority. By degrees the smoke began to ascend in wavering breaths over the houses, and these slowly thickened, until they were as round and straight as columns, and instead of striking
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