But it was the
doors that annoyed her; every door was left open… That windows should be
open, and doors shut—simple as it was, could none of them remember it?
She would go into the maids’ bedrooms at night and find them sealed like
ovens, except for Marie’s, the Swiss girl, who would rather go without a
bath than without fresh air, but then as home, she had said, “the
mountains are so beautiful.” She had said that last night looking out
of the window with tears in her eyes. “The mountains are so
beautiful.” Her father was dying there, Mrs. Ramsay knew. He was
leaving them fatherless. Scolding and demonstrating (how to make a
bed, how to open a window, with hands that shut and spread like a
Frenchwoman’s) all had folded itself quietly about her, when the girl
spoke, as, after a flight through the sunshine the wings of a bird fold
themselves quietly and the blue of its plumage changes from bright steel
to soft purple. She had stood there silent for there was nothing to be
said. He had cancer of the throat. At the recollection—how she had
stood there, how the girl had said “At home the mountains are so
beautiful,” and there was no hope, no hope whatever, she had a spasm of
irritation, and speaking sharply, said to James, “Stand still. Don’t be
tiresome,” so that he knew instantly that her severity was real, and
straightened his leg and she measured it.
V. Woolf |
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