Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf

Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf From the oval shaped flower bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading onto heart shaped or tongue shaped leaves halfway up and unfurling at the tip red or blue, quillow petals marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface and from the red blue or yellow clue of the throat emerged a straight bar rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end the petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by the summer breeze and when they moved the red, blue and yellow lights passed over each other staining an inch of the brown earth beneath with a spot of the most intricate colour the light fell either upon the smooth grey back of a pebb or the shell of a snail with its brown circular vein or falling into a raindrop it expanded with such intensity of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one expected them to burst and disappear instead the drop was left in a second silver grey once more and the light now settled upon the flash of a leaf revealing the branching thread of fiber beneath the surface and again it moved on and spread its illumination in the vast green spaces beneath the dome of the heart-shaped and tongue-shaped leaves then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was flashed into the air-up into the eyes of men and women who walked in cue gardens in July the figures of these men and women straggled past the flower bed with a curiously irregular movement not unlike that of the white and blue butterflies who crossed the turf in zigzag flights from beg to beg the man was about six inches in front of the woman strolling carelessly while she bore on with greater purpose only turning her head now and then to see that the children are not too far behind the man kept his distance in front of the woman purposely, though perhaps unconsciously but he wished to go on with his thoughts there've been years ago I came here with Lily thought we sat somewhere over there by a lake and I begged her to marry me all through the hot afternoon how the dragonfly kept circling around us how clearly I see the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle at the toe all the time I spoke I saw her shoe and when it moved impatiently I knew without looking up what she was going to say the whole of her seemed to be in her shoe and my love, my desire were in the dragonfly for some reason I thought that if it settled there on that leaf the broad one with the red flower in the middle of it if the dragonfly settled on the leaf she would say yes at one but the dragonfly went round and round it never settled anywhere of course not happen enough or I shouldn't be walking here with Eleanor and the children tell me Eleanor do you ever think of the path? why do you ask Simon? because I've been thinking of the past I've been thinking of Lily the woman I might have married well why are you silent? do you mind me thinking of the past?

why should I mind Simon? doesn't one always think of the past in a garden with men and women lying under the trees? aren't they one's past? all that remains of it those men and women those ghosts lying under the trees one's happiness one's reality for me a square silver shoe percol and a dragonfly for me a kiss imagine six little girls sitting before their easels twenty years ago down by the lake side painting the water lilies the first red water lilies I've ever seen and suddenly a kiss there on the back of my neck and my hand shook all the afternoon so that I couldn't paint I took out my watch and marked the hour when I would allow myself to drink the kiss for five minutes only it was so precious the kiss of an old grey head woman with a wart on her nose the mother of all of my kisses all of my life come Caroline come, Cue it they walked on past the flower bed now walking for a breast and soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large, trembling irregular patches in the oval flower bed the snail whose shell had been stained red blue and yellow for a space of two minutes or so now appeared to be moving very slightly in its shell and next began to labour over the crumbs of loose earth which broke away and rolled down as it passed over them it appeared to have a definite goal in front of it differing in this respect from the singular high-stepping angular green insect who attempted to cross in front of it and waited for a second with its antennae trembling as if in deliberation and then stepped off as rapidly and strangely in the opposite direction brown cliffs with deep green lakes in the hollows flat blade-like trees that waved from root to tip round boulders of greystone vast crumpled surfaces of a thin, crackling texture all these objects lay across the snail's progress between one store and another to his goal before he had decided whether to circumvent the arch-tent of a dead leaf or to breast it there came past the bed of feet of the other human being this time they were both men the younger of the two wore an expression of perhaps unnatural calm he raised his eyes and fixed them steadily in front of him while his companion spoke and directly his companion had done speaking he looked on the ground again and sometimes opened his lips only after a long pause and sometimes did not open them at all the elder man had a curiously uneven and shaking method of walking jerking his hand forward and throwing up his head abruptly rather in the manner of an impatient carachaus tired of waiting outside a house but in the man these gestures were irresolute and pointless he talked almost incessantly he smiled himself again and began to talk as if the smile had been an answer he was talking about spirits the spirits of the dead who, according to him, were even now telling him all sorts of odd things about their experiences in heaven heaven was known to the ancients as Thessaly, William and now with this wall the spirit matter is rolling between the hills like thunder he paused seemed to listen smiled jerked his head and continued you have a small electric battery and a piece of rubber to insulate the wire isolate, insulate well, we'll skip the details no good going into details that wouldn't be understood and in short, the little machine stands in any convenient position by the head of the bed we will say on a neat mahogany stand all arrangements being properly fixed by workmen under my direction the video applies her ear and summons the spirit by sign as agreed women widows women in black here he seemed to have caught sight of a woman's dress in the distance which in the shade looked purple black he took off his hand placed his hand upon his heart and hurried towards her muttering and gesticulating feverishly but William, caught him by the sleeve and touched a flower with the tip of his walking stick after to divert the old man's attention after looking at it for a moment in some confusion the old man bent his ear to it and seemed to answer a voice speaking from it but he began talking about the forests of the Uruguay which he had visited hundreds of years ago in company with the most beautiful women in Europe he could be heard murmuring about the forests of Uruguay blanketed with the wax petals of tropical roses nightingales sea beaches mermaids and women drowned at sea as he suffered himself to be moved on by William upon whose face the look of stoical patients grew slowly deeper and deeper following his steps so closely as to be slightly puzzled by his gestures came two elderly women of the lower middle class one stout and pondrous the other rosy, cheeked and nimble like most people of their station they were frankly fascinated by any signs of eccentricity be tockening a disordered prone especially in the well to do but they were too far off to be certain whether the gestures were merely eccentric or genuinely mad after they had scrutinized the old man's back in silence for a moment and gave each other a queer, slilet they went on energetically piercing together their very complicated dialogue now bird lot says fill par he says i says she says i says i says i says my bird says bill granddad the old man sugar sugar flower kipens greens sugar sugar sugar the pondrous woman looked through the pattern a falling words at the flowers standing cool firm and upright in the earth with a curious expression she saw them as a sleeper waking from a heavy sleep sees a brass candlestick reflecting the light in an unfamiliar way and closes his eyes and opens them and seeing the brass candlestick again finally starts broad awake and stares at the candlestick with all his powers so the heavy women came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower bed and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was saying she stood there letting the words fall over her swaying the top part of her body slowly backwards and forwards looking at the flowers then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their team the snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal without going around the deadly or climbing over it let alone the effort needed for climbing a leaf he was doubtful whether the thing-txture was vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even by the tip of his horns would bear his weight and this determined him finally to creep beneath it for there was a point where the leaf curved high enough from the ground to admit him he had just inserted his head in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past outside on the turf this time they were both young a young man and the young woman they were both in the prime of youth and even in that season which precedes the prime of youth the season before this smooth pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case when the wings of the butterfly though fully grown a motionless in the sun lucky it isn't Friday he observed why do you believe in luck?

they make you pay six pence on Friday what six pence anyway? isn't it worth six pence? what's it? what do you mean by it?

oh anything I mean you know what I mean long pauses came between each of these remarks they were uttered in totalus and monotonous voices the couple stood still on the edge of the flower bed and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down into soft earth the action and the fact that his round rested on top of hers expressed their feelings in a strange way as these short, insignificant words also express something words with short wings for their heavy body of meaning inadequate to carry them far and thus enlighten awkwardly upon the very common objects that surround them and were to their inexperienced touch so massive but who knows so they thought as they pressed the parasol into the earth what precipices aren't concealed in them or what slopes of ice don't shine in the sun on the other side who knows who has ever seen this before even when she wondered what sort of tea they gave it to he felt that something loomed up behind her words and stood vast and solid behind them and then missed very slowly rose and uncovered oh heavens what were those shapes white little tables and waitresses who looked first at her and then it him and there was a bill that he would pay with a real two-sheeling piece and it was real all real he assured himself fingering the coin in his pocket real to everyone except to him and to her even to him it began to seem real and then but it was too exciting to stand and think any longer he pulled the parasol out of the earth with a jerk and was impatient to find a place where one had tea and with other people like other people come along, Trissy it's time we had our tea wherever just one had one's tea she asked with the oddest thrill of excitement in her voice looking vaguely around letting herself be drawn on down the cruise herself be drawn on down the grass path trailing her parasol turning her head this way and that way forgetting her tea wishing to go down there and then down there remembering orchids and cranes amongst the wild flowers a Chinese pecoda and a crimson crested bird but he bore her on thus one couple after another with much the same irregular an aimless movement past the flower bed and were enveloped in layer after layer of green blue vapor in which at first their bodies have substance and a dash of colour but later both substance and colour dissolved in the green blue atmosphere how hot it was so hot that even thrush chose to hot like a mechanical bird in the shadow of the flowers with long pauses between one movement and the neck instead of rambling vaguely the white butterflies danced one above the other making with their white shifting flakes the outline shattered marble column above the tallest flowers the glass reeks of the palm house, Sean as if the whole market full of shiny green umbrellas had opened in the sun and in the drone of an aeroplane the voice of the summer sky murmured its fierce soul yellow and black pink and snow white shapes of all these colours men, women and children were spotted for a second upon the horizon and then seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass they wavoured and sought shade beneath the trees dissolving like crops of water in the yellow and green atmosphere staining it faintly with red and blue it seemed as if all gross and heavy bodies had sunk down in the heat motionless and lay huddled upon the ground but their voices went wavering from them as if they were flames lollying from the thick waxing bodies of candles voices yes voices wordless voices breaking the silence suddenly with such depth of context with such depth of contentment such passion of desire or in the voices of children such freshness of surprise breaking the silence but there was no silence all the time the motor omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear like a vast nest of Chinese boxes all brought steel turning ceaselessly one within another the city murmured on the top of which the voices cried aloud and the petals of myriad flowers flashed their columns into the air