The Voyage Out
the boat became identified with himself, and just as it would have been
useless for him to get up and steer the boat, so was it useless for him
to struggle any longer with the irresistible force of his own feelings.
He was drawn on and on away from all he knew, slipping over barriers
and past landmarks into unknown waters as the boat glided over the
smooth surface of the river. In profound peace, enveloped in deeper
unconsciousness than had been his for many nights, he lay on deck
watching the tree-tops change their position slightly against the sky,
and arch themselves, and sink and tower huge, until he passed from
seeing them into dreams where he lay beneath the shadow of the vast
trees, looking up into the sky.
When they woke next morning they had gone a considerable way up the
river; on the right was a high yellow bank of sand tufted with trees,
on the left a swamp quivering with long reeds and tall bamboos on the
top of which, swaying slightly, perched vivid green and yellow birds.
The morning was hot and still. After breakfast they drew chairs
together and sat in an irregular semicircle in the bow. An awning above
their heads protected them from the heat of the sun, and the breeze
which the boat made aired them softly. Mrs. Flushing was already
dotting and striping her canvas, her head jerking this way and that
with the action of a bird nervously picking up grain; the others had
books or pieces of paper or embroidery on their knees, at which they
looked fitfully and again looked at the river ahead. At one point Hewet
read part of a poem aloud, but the number of moving things entirely
vanquished his words. He ceased to read, and no one spoke. They moved
on under the shelter of the trees. There was now a covey of red birds
feeding on one of the little islets to the left, or again a blue-green
parrot flew shrieking from tree to tree. As they moved on the country
grew wilder and wilder. The trees and the undergrowth seemed to be
strangling each other near the ground in a multitudinous wrestle; while
here and there a splendid tree towered high above the swarm, shaking
its thin green umbrellas lightly in the upper air. Hewet looked at his
books again. The morning was peaceful as the night had been, only it
was very strange because he could see it was light, and he could see
Rachel and hear her voice and be near to her. He felt as if he were
waiting, as if somehow he were stationary among things that passed over
him and around him, voices, people’s bodies, birds, only Rachel too was
waiting with him. He looked at her sometimes as if she must know that
they were waiting together, and being drawn on together, without being
able to offer any resistance. Again he read from his book:
Whoever you are holding me now in your hand,
Without one thing all will be useless.
A bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question, and,
as fire fades in the hot sunshine, his words flickered and went out.
By degrees as the river narrowed, and the high sandbanks fell to level
ground thickly grown with trees, the sounds of the forest could be
heard. It echoed like a hall. There were sudden cries; and then long
spaces of silence, such as there are in a cathedral when a boy’s voice
has ceased and the echo of it still seems to haunt about the remote
places of the roof. Once Mr. Flushing rose and spoke to a sailor, and
even announced that some time after luncheon the steamer would stop,
and they could walk a little way through the forest.
“There are tracks all through the trees there,” he explained. “We’re no
distance from civilisation yet.”
He scrutinised his wife’s painting. Too polite to praise it openly, he
contented himself with cutting off one half of the picture with one
hand, and giving a flourish in the air with the other.
“God!” Hirst exclaimed, staring straight ahead. “Don’t you think it’s
amazingly beautiful?”
“Beautiful?” Helen enquired. It seemed a strange little word, and Hirst
and herself both so small that she forgot to answer him.
Hewet felt that he must speak.
“That’s where the Elizabethans got their style,” he mused, staring into
the profusion of leaves and blossoms and prodigious fruits.
“Shakespeare? I hate Shakespeare!” Mrs. Flushing exclaimed; and Wilfrid
returned admiringly, “I believe you’re the only person who dares to say
that, Alice.” But Mrs. Flushing went on painting. She did not appear to
attach much value to her husband’s compliment, and painted steadily,
sometimes muttering a half-audible word or groan.
The morning was now very hot.
“Look at Hirst!” Mr. Flushing whispered. His sheet of paper had slipped
on to the deck, his head lay back, and he drew a long snoring breath.
Terence picked up the sheet of paper and spread it out before Rachel.
It was a continuation of the poem on God which he had begun in the
chapel, and it was so indecent that Rachel did not understand half of
it although she saw that it was indecent. Hewet began to fill in words
where Hirst had left spaces, but he soon ceased; his pencil rolled on
deck. Gradually they approached nearer and nearer to the bank on the
right-hand side, so that the light which covered them became definitely
green, falling through a shade of green leaves, and Mrs. Flushing set
aside her sketch and stared ahead of her in silence. Hirst woke up;
they were then called to luncheon, and while they ate it, the steamer
came to a standstill a little way out from the bank. The boat which was
towed behind them was brought to the side, and the ladies were helped
into it.
For protection against boredom, Helen put a book of memoirs beneath her
arm, and Mrs. Flushing her paint-box, and, thus equipped, they allowed
themselves to be set on shore on the verge of the forest.
They had not strolled more than a few hundred yards along the track
which ran parallel with the river before Helen professed to find it was
unbearably hot. The river breeze had ceased, and a hot steamy
atmosphere, thick with scents, came from the forest.
“I shall sit down here,” she announced, pointing to the trunk of a tree
which had fallen long ago and was now laced across and across by
creepers and thong-like brambles. She seated herself, opened her
parasol, and looked at the river which was barred by the stems of
trees. She turned her back to the trees which disappeared in black
shadow behind her.
“I quite agree,” said Mrs. Flushing, and proceeded to undo her
paint-box. Her husband strolled about to select an interesting point of
view for her. Hirst cleared a space on the ground by Helen’s side, and
seated himself with great deliberation, as if he did not mean to move
until he had talked to her for a long time. Terence and Rachel were
left standing by themselves without occupation. Terence saw that the
time had come as it was fated to come, but although he realised this he
was completely calm and master of himself. He chose to stand for a few
moments talking to Helen, and persuading her to leave her seat. Rachel
joined him too in advising her to come with them.
“Of all the people I’ve ever met,” he said, “you’re the least
adventurous. You might be sitting on green chairs in Hyde Park. Are you
going to sit there the whole afternoon? Aren’t you going to walk?”
“Oh, no,” said Helen, “one’s only got to use one’s eye. There’s
everything here—everything,” she repeated in a drowsy tone of voice.
“What will you gain by walking?”
“You’ll be hot and disagreeable by tea-time, we shall be cool and
sweet,” put in Hirst. Into his eyes as he looked up at them had come
yellow and green reflections from the sky and the branches, robbing
them of their intentness, and he seemed to think what he did not say.
It was thus taken for granted by them both that Terence and Rachel
proposed to walk into the woods together; with one look at each other
they turned away.
“Good-bye!” cried Rachel.
“Good-by. Beware of snakes,” Hirst replied. He settled himself still
more comfortably under the shade of the fallen tree and Helen’s figure.
As they went, Mr. Flushing called after them, “We must start in an
hour. Hewet, please remember that. An hour.”
Whether made by man, or for some reason preserved by nature, there was
a wide pathway striking through the forest at right angles to the
river. It resembled a drive in an English forest, save that tropical
bushes with their sword-like leaves grew at the side, and the ground
was covered with an unmarked springy moss instead of grass, starred
with little yellow flowers. As they passed into the depths of the
forest the light grew dimmer, and the noises of the ordinary world were
replaced by those creaking and sighing sounds which suggest to the
traveller in a forest that he is walking at the bottom of the sea. The
path narrowed and turned; it was hedged in by dense creepers which
knotted tree to tree, and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson
blossoms. The sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and
then by the jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was
close and the air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast
green light was broken here and there by a round of pure yellow
sunlight which fell through some gap in the immense umbrella of green
above, and in these yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were
circling and settling. Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.
Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unable to
frame any thoughts. There was something between them which had to be
spoken of. One of them had to begin, but which of them was it to be?
Then Hewet picked up a red fruit and threw it as high as he could. When
it dropped, he would speak. They heard the flapping of great wings;
they heard the fruit go pattering through the leaves and eventually
fall with a thud. The silence was again profound.
“Does this frighten you?” Terence asked when the sound of the fruit
falling had completely died away.
“No,” she answered. “I like it.”
She repeated “I like it.” She was walking fast, and holding herself
more erect than usual. There was another pause.
“You like being with me?” Terence asked.
“Yes, with you,” she replied.
He was silent for a moment. Silence seemed to have fallen upon the
world.
“That is what I have felt ever since I knew you,” he replied. “We are
happy together.” He did not seem to be speaking, or she to be hearing.
“Very happy,” she answered.
They continued to walk for some time in silence. Their steps
unconsciously quickened.
“We love each other,” Terence said.
“We love each other,” she repeated.
The silence was then broken by their voices which joined in tones of
strange unfamiliar sound which formed no words. Faster and faster they
walked; simultaneously they stopped, clasped each other in their arms,
then releasing themselves, dropped to the earth. They sat side by side.
Sounds stood out from the background making a bridge across their
silence; they heard the swish of the trees and some beast croaking in a
remote world.
“We love each other,” Terence repeated, searching into her face. Their
faces were both very pale and quiet, and they said nothing. He was
afraid to kiss her again. By degrees she drew close to him, and rested
against him. In this position they sat for some time. She said
“Terence” once; he answered “Rachel.”
“Terrible—terrible,” she murmured after another pause, but in saying
this she was thinking as much of the persistent churning of the water
as of her own feeling. On and on it went in the distance, the senseless
and cruel churning of the water. She observed that the tears were
running down Terence’s cheeks.
The next movement was on his part. A very long time seemed to have
passed. He took out his watch.
“Flushing said an hour. We’ve been gone more than half an hour.”