A Haunted House by Virginia Wolf. Whatever hour you woke, there was a
door shutting from room to room. There went hand in hand, lifting here,
opening there, making sure a ghostly couple here we left it, she
said, and he added, Oh, but here too. It's upstairs,
she murmured, And in the garden he whispered quietly. They said, Or
we shall wake them. But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh no,
they're looking for it. They're drawing the curtain, one might say,
and so read on a page or two. Now they've found it, one
would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired
of reading, one might rise and see for one's self the house all empty,
the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content, and
the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. What did I come
in here for? What did I want to find? My hands are empty.
Perhaps it's upstairs. Then the apples were in the loft, and so
down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into
the grass. But they had found it in the drawing room, not that
one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples reflected roses. All
the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room,
the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after,
if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls,
pinned it from the ceiling. What my hands were empty. The shadow
of a thrush crossed the carpet. From the deepest wells of silence. The
wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound, safe, safe, Safe. The
pulse of the house beat softly. The treasure buried the room. The pulse
stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure. A moment later the
light had faded out in the garden. Then, but the trees spun darkness
for a wandering beam of sun, so fine, so rare, coolly sunk
beneath the surface the beam I saw it always burnt behind the glass. Death
was the glass. Death was between us coming to the woman first hundreds of
years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows, the rooms were
darkened. He left it, left her, went north, went east,
saw the stars turned in the southern sky. Sought the house, found it
dropped beneath the downs. Safe safe Safe. The pulse of the house beat
gladly the treasure yours. The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and
bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wild in the rain,
but the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns,
stiff and still, wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering
not to wake us. The ghostly couple seek their joy here we slept,
she says, and he adds kisses without number, waking in the morning,
silver between the trees upstairs in the garden. When summer came in winter snow
time, the doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the
pulse of a heart. Nearer they come cease at the doorway. The wind
falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken. We
hear no steps behind us, We see no ladies. Spread her ghostly cloak,
His hands shield the lantern. Look. He breathes sound to sleep,
love upon their lips, stooping, holding their silver lamp above us. Long
they look in, deeply, long they pause. The wind drives straightly,
the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall,
and meeting stain the faces bent, the faces pondering, the faces that search
the sleepers and seek their hidden joy. Safe, Safe, Safe. The
heart of the house beats proudly. Long years, he says 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 beat. It's wildly waking. I cry, Oh,
is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart and of a
haunted house.