Quite suddenly the storm relaxed its grasp. It happened at tea; the expected paroxysm of the blast gave out just as it reached its climax and dwindled away, and the ship instead of taking the usual plunge went steadily. The monotonous order of plunging and rising, roaring and relaxing, was interfered with, and everyone at table looked up and felt something loosen within them. The strain was slackened and human feelings began to peep again, as they do when daylight shows at the end of a tunnel.
“Try a turn with me,” Ridley called across to Rachel.
“Foolish!” cried Helen, but they went stumbling up the ladder. Choked by the wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirts of all the grey tumult was a misty spot of gold. Instantly the world dropped into shape; they were no longer atoms flying in the void, but people riding a triumphant ship on the back of the sea. Wind and space were banished; the world floated like an apple in a tub, and the mind of man, which had been unmoored also, once more attached itself to the old beliefs.
Having scrambled twice round the ship and received many sound cuffs from the wind, they saw a sailor’s face positively shine golden. They looked, and beheld a complete yellow circle of sun; next minute it was traversed by sailing stands of cloud, and then completely hidden. By breakfast the next morning, however, the sky was swept clean, the waves, although steep, were blue, and after their view of the strange underworld, inhabited by phantoms, people began to live among teapots and loaves of bread with greater zest than ever.
Richard and Clarissa, however, still remained on the borderland. She did not attempt to sit up; her husband stood on his feet, contemplated his waistcoat and trousers, shook his head, and then lay down again. The inside of his brain was still rising and falling like the sea on the stage. At four o’clock he woke from sleep and saw the sunlight make a vivid angle across the red plush curtains and the grey tweed trousers. The ordinary world outside slid into his mind, and by the time he was dressed he was an English gentleman again.
He stood beside his wife. She pulled him down to her by the lapel of his coat, kissed him, and held him fast for a minute.
“Go and get a breath of air, Dick,” she said. “You look quite washed out. … How nice you smell! … And be polite to that woman. She was so kind to me.”
Thereupon Mrs. Dalloway turned to the cool side of her pillow, terribly flattened but still invincible.
Richard found Helen talking to her brother-in-law, over two dishes of yellow cake and smooth bread and butter.
“You look very ill!” she exclaimed on seeing him. “Come and have some tea.”
He remarked that the hands that moved about the cups were beautiful.
“I hear you’ve been very good to my wife,” he said. “She’s had an awful time of it. You came in and fed her with champagne. Were you among the saved yourself?”
“I? Oh, I haven’t been sick for twenty years—seasick, I mean.”
“There are three stages of convalescence, I always say,” broke in the hearty voice of Willoughby. “The milk stage, the bread-and-butter stage, and the roast-beef stage. I should say you were at the bread-and-butter stage.” He handed him the plate.
“Now, I should advise a hearty tea, then a brisk walk on deck; and by dinnertime you’ll be clamouring for beef, eh?” He went off laughing, excusing himself on the score of business.
“What a splendid fellow he is!” said Richard. “Always keen on something.”
“Yes,” said Helen, “he’s always been like that.”
“This is a great undertaking of his,” Richard continued. “It’s a business that won’t stop with ships, I should say. We shall see him in Parliament, or I’m much mistaken. He’s the kind of man we want in Parliament—the man who has done things.”
But Helen was not much interested in her brother-in-law.
“I expect your head’s aching, isn’t it?” she asked, pouring a fresh cup.
“Well, it is,” said Richard. “It’s humiliating to find what a slave one is to one’s body in this world. D’you know, I can never work without a kettle on the hob. As often as not I don’t drink tea, but I must feel that I can if I want to.”
“That’s very bad for you,” said Helen.
“It shortens one’s life; but I’m afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politicians must make up our minds to that at the outset. We’ve got to burn the candle at both ends, or—”
“You’ve cooked your goose!” said Helen brightly.
“We can’t make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose,” he protested. “May I ask how you’ve spent your time? Reading—philosophy?” (He saw the black book.) “Metaphysics and fishing!” he exclaimed. “If I had to live again I believe I should devote myself to one or the other.” He began turning the pages.
“ ‘Good, then, is indefinable,’ ” he read out. “How jolly to think that’s going on still! ‘So far as I know there is only one ethical writer, Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact.’ That’s just the kind of thing we used to talk about when we were boys. I can remember arguing until five in the morning with Duffy—now Secretary for India—pacing round and round those cloisters until we decided it was too late to go to bed, and we went for a ride instead. Whether we ever came to any conclusion—that’s another matter. Still, it’s the arguing that counts. It’s things like that that stand out in life. Nothing’s been quite so vivid since. It’s the philosophers, it’s the scholars,” he continued, “they’re the people who pass the torch, who keep the light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn’t necessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose.”
“No. Why should it?” said Helen. “But can you remember
