#the string quartet

[adrasteiax]

The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see you face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight.

Virginia Woolf, from The String Quartet in “Monday Or Tuesday: Eight Stories”

[whosafraidofvirginiawoolf]

What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in sorrow – crash!

The String Quartet, Virginia Woolf

[zirvedecamasirasangenc]

[whosafraidofvirginiawoolf]

Virginia Woolf Appreciation Week: 6 Quotes from Short Stories

“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 lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”

A Haunted House

What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in sorrow – crash!

The String Quartet

But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?

An Unwritten Novel

‘Yes,’ he said at length. ‘Poor Lapinova. . .’ He straightened his tie at the looking-glass mantelpiece. ‘Caught in a trap,’ he said ‘killed,’ and sat down and read the newspaper. So that was the end of that marriage.

Lappin and Lapinova

Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour – landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one's hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one's hair flying back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard ...

The Mark on the Wall

People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms.

The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection

[whosafraidofvirginiawoolf]

But the tune, like all his tunes, makes one despair – I mean hope. What do I mean? Thats the worst of music!

The String Quartet, Virginia Woolf

[shadowanndeath]

The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the Oscar bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in sorrow—crash!

Virginia Woolf, The String Quartet

[shadowanndeath]

The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the Oscar bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and strewn in sorrow—crash!

Virginia Woolf, The String Quartet

[whosafraidofvirginiawoolf]

— what chance is there? Of what? It becomes every minute more difficult to say why, in spite of everything, I sit here believing I can't say what, or even remember the last time it happened.

— "The String Quartet" from The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf