A calming bedtime story to help you fall asleep — the complete, unabridged short story A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf, narrated slowly and softly for anyone lying awake with insomnia, anxiety or a racing mind in the small hours.
It is barely seven minutes long and reads more like a poem than a story — apples in the loft, a wood pigeon bubbling with content, rain sliding silver down the window, moonbeams spilling across the floor. There is no plot to hold on to and no ending to stay awake for. If you have a short window before sleep, or you want something to follow a longer reading, this is the one.
Woolf wrote it in 1921, and the thing the ghosts are searching for turns out to be very simple, and very kind. Perfect for anyone who finds classic literature and short audiobooks more restful than silence. If you drift off in the first few minutes, that is exactly what this reading is for.
The story
Transcribed from the audio, so the odd word may be off. Tap any line while it plays to keep the words in step with Martin's voice.
"Books at bedtime by calming anxiety, the haunted house by Virginia Woolf." "Whatever hour you woke, there was a door shunting, from room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure a ghostly cabin." "Here we left it," she said, and he added, "Oh, but here too." "What's upstairs?" she murmured, "and in the garden," he whispered, "quitely," they said, "or we shall wake them."
But it wasn't that they woke us, oh no, they're looking for it, they're drawing the curtain, one might say, and so read on a page or two, now they found it. One would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin, and then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the door standing open, only the wood-pitchens bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?
My hands were empty, perhaps it's upstairs then, the apples were in the loft, and so down again, the garden still is ever, only the book had slipped onto the grass, but they had found it in the drawing room, not that one could ever see them. The window-pains reflected apples, reflected roses, and the leaves were green in the glass, if they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side, yet the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling, what? My hands were empty, the shadow of a thrush crossed the garbage, from the deepest wells of silence, the wood-pitching through its bubble of sound, safe, safe, safe, the paltz of the house beat softly, the treasure buried, the room, the paltz stopped short, oh, what's that, the buried treasure? A moment later, the light had faded, out in the garden then, but the trees' spund-artness for a wandering beam of sun, so fine, so rare, for cooly sunk beneath the surface, the beam I sought, always burnt behind the glass.
Death was the glass, death was between us, coming to the woman first hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows, the rooms were darkened, he left it, left her, went north, went east, saw the stars turned in the southern sky, sought the house, found it dropped beneath the downs, safe, safe, safe, the paltz of the house beat glass softly, the treasure, yours, the wind rolls up the avenue, trees stoop and bend this way in that, moonbeams splash and spill widely in the rain, but the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window, the candle burns stiff and still, wandering through the house, letting the windows whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couples seek their joy, here we slept, she says, and he adds kisses without numbers, waking in the morning, silver between the tree, upstairs in the garden, when summer came, in winter snowtime, the doors go shutting far in the distance, gentle knocking like the paltz of a heart, nearer they come, cease at the doorway, the wind forms, the rain slide silver down the glass, our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us, we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak, his hands shield the lantern, look he breathes, sound asleep, love upon their lips, stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply, long they pause, the wind drives straight lean, the fame stoop slightly, wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall and meeting, stain the faces bent, the faces pondering, the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy, safe, safe, safe, the heart of the house beats proudly, long years he sighs, again you found me, here she murmurs, sleeping in the garden reading, laughing, rolling apples in the loft, here we left our treasure, stooping, their light lifts the lid upon my eyes, safe, safe, safe, the paltz of the house beats wildly, waking I cry, oh is this your buried treasure, the light in the heart?