The Years (Unabridged). Вирджиния Вулф

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СКАЧАТЬ the jam-pots, the dishes of cake and the dishes of bread and butter, on the tray. Then, balancing it carefully in front of her, she went out. There was a pause. In she came again and folded the table-cloth and moved the tables. Again there was a pause. A moment or two later back she came carrying two silk-shaded lamps. She set one in the front room, one in the back room. Then she went, creaking in her cheap shoes, to the window and drew the curtains. They slid with a familiar click along the brass rod, and soon the windows were obscured by thick sculptured folds of claret-coloured plush. When she had drawn the curtains in both rooms, a profound silence seemed to fall upon the drawing-room. The world outside seemed thickly and entirely cut off. Far away down the next street they heard the voice of a street hawker droning; the heavy hooves of van horses clopped slowly down the road. For a moment wheels ground on the road; then they died out and the silence was complete.

      Two yellow circles of light fell under the lamps. Eleanor drew her chair up under one of them, bent her head and went on with the part of her work that she always left to the last because she disliked it so much—adding up figures. Her lips moved and her pencil made little dots on the paper as she added eights to sixes, fives to fours.

      “There!” she said at last. “That’s done. Now I’ll go and sit with Mama.”

      She stooped to pick up her gloves.

      “No,” said Milly, throwing aside a magazine she had opened, “I’ll go…”

      Delia suddenly emerged from the back room in which she had been prowling.

      “I’ve nothing whatever to do,” she said briefly. “I’ll go.”

      She went upstairs, step by step, very slowly. When she came to the bedroom door with the jugs and glasses on the table outside, she paused. The sour-sweet smell of illness slightly sickened her. She could not force herself to go in. Through the little window at the end of the passage she could see flamingo-coloured curls of cloud lying on a pale-blue sky. After the dusk of the drawing-room, her eyes dazzled. She seemed fixed there for a moment by the light. Then on the floor above she heard children’s voices—Martin and Rose quarrelling.

      “Don’t then!” she heard Rose say. A door slammed. She paused. Then she drew in a deep breath of air, looked once more at the fiery sky, and tapped on the bedroom door.

      The nurse rose quietly; put her finger to her lips, and left the room. Mrs Pargiter was asleep. Lying in a cleft of the pillows with one hand under her cheek, Mrs Pargiter moaned slightly as if she wandered in a world where even in sleep little obstacles lay across her path. Her face was pouched and heavy; the skin was stained with brown patches; the hair which had been red was now white, save that there were queer yellow patches in it, as if some locks had been dipped in the yolk of an egg. Bare of all rings save her wedding ring, her fingers alone seemed to indicate that she had entered the private world of illness. But she did not look as if she were dying; she looked as if she might go on existing in this borderland between life and death for ever. Delia could see no change in her. As she sat down, everything seemed to be at full tide in her. A long narrow glass by the bedside reflected a section of the sky; it was dazzled at the moment with red light. The dressing-table was illuminated. The light struck on silver bottles and on glass bottles, all set out in the perfect order of things that are not used. At this hour of the evening the sickroom had an unreal cleanliness, quiet and order. There by the bedside was a little table set with spectacles, prayer-book and a vase of lilies of the valley. The flowers, too, looked unreal. There was nothing to do but to look.

      She stared at the yellow drawing of her grandfather with the high light on his nose; at the photograph of her Uncle Horace in his uniform; at the lean and twisted figure on the crucifix to the right.

      “But you don’t believe in it!” she said savagely, looking at her mother sunk in sleep. “You don’t want to die.”

      She longed for her to die. There she was—soft, decayed but everlasting, lying in the cleft of the pillows, an obstacle, a prevention, an impediment to all life. She tried to whip up some feeling of affection, of pity. For instance, that summer, she told herself, at Sidmouth, when she called me up the garden steps…. But the scene melted as she tried to look at it. There was the other scene of course—the man in the frock-coat with the flower in his button-hole. But she had sworn not to think of that till bedtime. What then should she think of? Grandpapa with the white light on his nose? The prayer-book? The lilies of the valley? Or the looking-glass? The sun had gone in; the glass was dim and reflected now only a dun-coloured patch of sky. She could resist no longer.

      “Wearing a white flower in his button-hole,” she began. It required a few minutes’ preparation. There must be a hall; banks of palms; a floor beneath them crowded with people’s heads. The charm was beginning to work. She became permeated with delicious starts of flattering and exciting emotion. She was on the platform; there was a huge audience; everybody was shouting, waving handkerchiefs, hissing and whistling. Then she stood up. She rose all in white in the middle of the platform; Mr Parnell was by her side.

      “I am speaking in the cause of Liberty,” she began, throwing out her hands, “in the cause of Justice….” They were standing side by side. He was very pale but his dark eyes glowed. He turned to her and whispered….

      There was a sudden interruption. Mrs Pargiter had raised herself on her pillows.

      “Where am I?” she cried. She was frightened and bewildered, as she often was on waking. She raised her hand; she seemed to appeal for help. “Where am I?” she repeated. For a moment Delia was bewildered too. Where was she?

      “Here, Mama! Here!” she said wildly. “Here, in your own room.”

      She laid her hand on the counterpane. Mrs Pargiter clutched it nervously. She looked round the room as if she were seeking someone. She did not seem to recognise her daughter.

      “What’s happening?” she said. “Where am I?” Then she looked at Delia and remembered.

      “Oh, Delia—I was dreaming,” she murmured half apologetically. She lay for a moment looking out of the window. The lamps were being lit, and a sudden soft spurt of light came in the street outside.

      “It’s been a fine day…” she hesitated, “for…” It seemed as if she could not remember what for.

      “A lovely day, yes, Mama,” Delia repeated with mechanical cheerfulness.

      “… for…” her mother tried again.

      What day was it? Delia could not remember.

      “… for your Uncle Digby’s birthday,” Mrs Pargiter at last brought out.

      “Tell him from me—tell him how very glad I am.”

      “I’ll tell him,” said Delia. She had forgotten her uncle’s birthday; but her mother was punctilious about such things.

      “Aunt Eugénie—” she began.

      But her mother was staring at the dressing-table. Some gleam from the lamp outside made the white cloth look extremely white.

      “Another clean table-cloth!” Mrs Pargiter murmured peevishly. “The expense, Delia, the expense—that’s what worries me—”

      “That’s all right, Mama,” said Delia dully. Her eyes were fixed upon her grandfather’s portrait; why, she wondered, had the artist put a dab of white chalk on the tip of his nose?

      “Aunt Eugénie СКАЧАТЬ