A new horizon

A NEW HORIZON

It was namely on that cool, sunny spring day that Leonard Woolf announced their departure from Richmond and unexpected return to London.
“Again one of the missus’s silly whims!” giggled Nelly, the cook of the household, in her low, mean voice while chopping the lamb with her knife. “She’ll take away his health, she will, I tell ya! Mark my words!”
Her words were indeed marked by Anne, the cleaning lady of the Woolf’s, who took eavesdropping as a part of her job in the house.
It was truly by Virginia’s firm insistence that they had made the decision to move out. “If there is a choice between Richmond and death, then I choose death!” These words of hers echoed into Leonard’s ears and increased his fear with every passing minute. It was twice so far that his wife had tried to kill herself and he dreaded that at a third attempt she might succeed. That was why he hurried to load the suitcases in the trunk of the car and conclude all of their affairs quickly, so they could leave as soon as possible.
For Virginia, this was another one of a series of changes and metamorphosis in her troubled life. Today her head felt less dizzy and confused than in the last couple of weeks. The hope of having something to look forward to was what she attributed it to.
“A new horizon” she thought. “Finally an end to this long, quite torture and hidden suffering, surrounded by the tranquility and peaceful idyll of Richmond.”
She could no longer suppress her inner demons. She needed the vital pulse and energetic everyday of the capital to get rid of them… or at least loosen their choking grip around her neck.
She looked through the window to the front porch. Leonard was loading the trunk of the car. It was actually true! In just a few hours she would be leaving Richmond for good – this small town, quiet as a tomb, had been her prison for the last three years. At this thought Virginia suddenly felt a monstrous explosion of energy behind her eyes inside her brain which immediately spread through her entire body to every lim. She felt madly happy and was overcome by the unstoppable desire to jump around and shout. However, she knew she had to control that state, or else Leonard would tell the doctor about it and if he did, there’s no telling what he might recommend. Virginia loathed doctors and their dull prescriptions which never eased her condition and were, in her opinion, a full waste of time and efforts.
Virginia also knew that not before too long her state would change regardless of her own will and she would switch to the other pole of the mood spectrum. Soon or late, something small like the death of some insignificant moth or the angry look in Nelly’s eyes would throw her into the most devastating state of melancholy imaginable and she would be tortured by thoughts of suicide.
But for now she felt like leaping from joy and that was all that mattered. Indeed, it was only the present that existed for Virginia.
She took a deep breath. She sat in her armchair, forcing herself to calm down, and lit a cigarette. Her hands were slightly shaking but the fit of immense joy was already going away. Virginia reached to the table next to her and took the manuscript she was working on. She had just come up with a title for it. “Mrs. Dalloway”. Yes, surely that was going to be the title. She saw it now. Virginia browsed quickly through the pages and found where she had left off. She read the last page carefully through. Then she picked up the silver pen in the cup on the table and by managing all her strengths to focus, started to write. Suddenly her thought flew fast and clear like it never did in her everyday life. It was a wonder she could achieve only by writing. Or was it the writing itself that achieved wonders with her?
She wrote without interruption for half an hour, then left the pen and manuscript aside to rest. She lit another cigarette. This was how her days flew by. This was how she lived. A long, endless struggle in darkness lit only by the light of her art. Richmond, with its quietness and harmony, seemed to laugh at her.
But that was all over now! She was going back to London! They were going back to London! The crowds of people, the noise of the buses, the children playing in Hyde Park – she missed all that so much! But what if stress worsened her condition like the doctor had said? Was it worth the risk?
Of course it was. What more had she to lose? The madness was going to torture her anyway. Oh the madness! It came and went whenever it fancied and when it did no one could stop it. It was her fate, she knew. She had put up with it. All she could do was do the best she could with her life. And that to a large degree meant writing.
Someone knocked at the door. Then opened it carefully. Leonard walked into the room – he was wearing his formal grey suit with a beige tie and a really bad hair-style.
“We are ready to leave. Perhaps you would like to change before we take off.”
Her sweet, funny Leonard! So ordinary, so common! Always minding the formalities! He would never understand.
“I am ready as I am” Virginia answered in a steady voice. “Let’s go!”