Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (love story novels in english .txt) 📕
Description
Although known for her later experiments with style and structure, Virginia Woolf set out in her early novels to master the traditional form. Her second novel, Night and Day, presents itself as a seemingly conventional marriage plot, complete with love triangles, broken engagements, and unrequited affections. Beneath these conventional trappings, however, the book’s deeper concerns are resolutely subversive. The main characters—a quartet of friends and would-be lovers—come together, pull apart, and struggle to reconcile socially-prescribed norms of love and marriage with their own beliefs and ambitions.
Read free book «Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (love story novels in english .txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Virginia Woolf
Read book online «Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (love story novels in english .txt) 📕». Author - Virginia Woolf
Mary exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes, yes,” Katharine said, brushing these remarks aside, as if they were in the way.
“Have you had tea?”
“Oh yes,” she said, thinking that she had had tea hundreds of years ago, somewhere or other.
Mary paused, took off her gloves, and, finding matches, proceeded to light the fire.
Katharine checked her with an impatient movement, and said:
“Don’t light the fire for me. … I want to know Ralph Denham’s address.”
She was holding a pencil and preparing to write on the envelope. She waited with an imperious expression.
“The Apple Orchard, Mount Ararat Road, Highgate,” Mary said, speaking slowly and rather strangely.
“Oh, I remember now!” Katharine exclaimed, with irritation at her own stupidity. “I suppose it wouldn’t take twenty minutes to drive there?” She gathered up her purse and gloves and seemed about to go.
“But you won’t find him,” said Mary, pausing with a match in her hand. Katharine, who had already turned towards the door, stopped and looked at her.
“Why? Where is he?” she asked.
“He won’t have left his office.”
“But he has left the office,” she replied. “The only question is will he have reached home yet? He went to see me at Chelsea; I tried to meet him and missed him. He will have found no message to explain. So I must find him—as soon as possible.”
Mary took in the situation at her leisure.
“But why not telephone?” she said.
Katharine immediately dropped all that she was holding; her strained expression relaxed, and exclaiming, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that!” she seized the telephone receiver and gave her number. Mary looked at her steadily, and then left the room. At length Katharine heard, through all the superimposed weight of London, the mysterious sound of feet in her own house mounting to the little room, where she could almost see the pictures and the books; she listened with extreme intentness to the preparatory vibrations, and then established her identity.
“Has Mr. Denham called?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Did he ask for me?”
“Yes. We said you were out, miss.”
“Did he leave any message?”
“No. He went away. About twenty minutes ago, miss.”
Katharine hung up the receiver. She walked the length of the room in such acute disappointment that she did not at first perceive Mary’s absence. Then she called in a harsh and peremptory tone:
“Mary.”
Mary was taking off her outdoor things in the bedroom. She heard Katharine call her. “Yes,” she said, “I shan’t be a moment.” But the moment prolonged itself, as if for some reason Mary found satisfaction in making herself not only tidy, but seemly and ornamented. A stage in her life had been accomplished in the last months which left its traces forever upon her bearing. Youth, and the bloom of youth, had receded, leaving the purpose of her face to show itself in the hollower cheeks, the firmer lips, the eyes no longer spontaneously observing at random, but narrowed upon an end which was not near at hand. This woman was now a serviceable human being, mistress of her own destiny, and thus, by some combination of ideas, fit to be adorned with the dignity of silver chains and glowing brooches. She came in at her leisure and asked: “Well, did you get an answer?”
“He has left Chelsea already,” Katharine replied.
“Still, he won’t be home yet,” said Mary.
Katharine was once more irresistibly drawn to gaze upon an imaginary map of London, to follow the twists and turns of unnamed streets.
“I’ll ring up his home and ask whether he’s back.” Mary crossed to the telephone and, after a series of brief remarks, announced:
“No. His sister says he hasn’t come back yet.”
“Ah!” She applied her ear to the telephone once more. “They’ve had a message. He won’t be back to dinner.”
“Then what is he going to do?”
Very pale, and with her large eyes fixed not so much upon Mary as upon vistas of unresponding blankness, Katharine addressed herself also not so much to Mary as to the unrelenting spirit which now appeared to mock her from every quarter of her survey.
After waiting a little time Mary remarked indifferently:
“I really don’t know.” Slackly lying back in her armchair, she watched the little flames beginning to creep among the coals indifferently, as if they, too, were very distant and indifferent.
Katharine looked at her indignantly and rose.
“Possibly he may come here,” Mary continued, without altering the abstract tone of her voice. “It would be worth your while to wait if you want to see him tonight.” She bent forward and touched the wood, so that the flames
Comments (0)