The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyage Out, by Virginia Woolf

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Title: The Voyage Out

Author: Virginia Woolf

Release Date: January 12, 2006 [EBook #144]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOYAGE OUT ***

Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger

THE VOYAGE OUT (1915)

by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Chapter I

As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very
narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist,
lawyers' clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady
typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where
beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is
better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the
air with your left hand.

One afternoon in the beginning of October when the traffic was becoming
brisk a tall man strode along the edge of the pavement with a lady on
his arm. Angry glances struck upon their backs. The small, agitated
figures--for in comparison with this couple most people looked
small--decorated with fountain pens, and burdened with despatch-boxes,
had appointments to keep, and drew a weekly salary, so that there
was some reason for the unfriendly stare which was bestowed upon Mr.
Ambrose's height and upon Mrs. Ambrose's cloak. But some enchantment had
put both man and woman beyond the reach of malice and unpopularity. In
his guess one might guess from the moving lips that it was thought; and
in hers from the eyes fixed stonily straight in front of her at a level
above the eyes of most that it was sorrow. It was only by scorning all
she met that she kept herself from tears, and the friction of people
brushing past her was evidently painful. After watching the traffic on
the Embankment for a minute or two with a stoical gaze she twitched her
husband's sleeve, and they crossed between the swift discharge of motor
cars. When they were safe on the further side, she gently withdrew her
arm from his, allowing her mouth at the same time to relax, to tremble;
then tears rolled down, and leaning her elbows on the balustrade, she
shielded her