 |
| Drains: 22 Hyde Park Gate |
They want a plot, do
they? They want a reason? It is not
enough for them, this ordinary scene. It
is not enough to wait for the thing to be said as if it were written; to see
the sentence lay its dab of clay precisely on the right place, making
character; to perceive, suddenly, some group in outline against the sky. Yet if they want violence, I have seen death
and murder and suicide all in one room.
One comes in, one goes out. There
are sobs on the staircase. I have heard threads
broken and knots tied and the quiet stitching of white cambric going on and on
on the knees of a woman. Why ask, like Louis,
for a reason, or fly like Rhoda to some far grove and part the leaves of the
laurels and look for statues? They say
that one must beat one's wings against the storm in the belief that beyond this
welter the sun shines; the sun falls sheer into pools that are fledged with
willows. (Here it is November; the poor hold
out matchboxes in wind-bitten fingers.)
The Waves
Olivier Bell suggests that Woolf read the essay "22 Hyde Park Gate," which reveals her sexual abuse by George Duckworth, aloud to the Memoir Club on November 17, 1920. (MOB 162)
No comments:
Post a Comment