Speaker 1: A Haunted House by Virginia Wolf. Whatever hour you woke,
Speaker 1: there was a door shutting from room to room. There
Speaker 1: went hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure
Speaker 1: a ghostly couple here we left it, she said, and
Speaker 1: he added, Oh, but here too. It's upstairs, she murmured,
Speaker 1: And in the garden he whispered quietly. They said, Or
Speaker 1: we shall wake them. But it wasn't that you woke us.
Speaker 1: Oh no, they're looking for it. They're drawing the curtain,
Speaker 1: one might say, and so read on a page or two.
Speaker 1: Now they've found it, one would be certain, stopping the
Speaker 1: pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one
Speaker 1: might rise and see for one's self the house all empty,
Speaker 1: the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content,
Speaker 1: and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm.
Speaker 1: What did I come in here for? What did I
Speaker 1: want to find? My hands are empty. Perhaps it's upstairs.
Speaker 1: Then the apples were in the loft, and so down again,
Speaker 1: the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped
Speaker 1: into the grass. But they had found it in the
Speaker 1: drawing room, not that one could ever see them. The
Speaker 1: window panes reflected apples reflected roses. All the leaves were
Speaker 1: green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room,
Speaker 1: the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after,
Speaker 1: if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung
Speaker 1: upon the walls, pinned it from the ceiling. What my
Speaker 1: hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet.
Speaker 1: From the deepest wells of silence. The wood pigeon drew
Speaker 1: its bubble of sound, safe, safe, Safe. The pulse of
Speaker 1: the house beat softly. The treasure buried the room. The
Speaker 1: pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure. A
Speaker 1: moment later the light had faded out in the garden. Then,
Speaker 1: but the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun,
Speaker 1: so fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the
Speaker 1: beam I saw it always burnt behind the glass. Death
Speaker 1: was the glass. Death was between us coming to the
Speaker 1: woman first hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing
Speaker 1: all the windows, the rooms were darkened. He left it,
Speaker 1: left her, went north, went east, saw the stars turned
Speaker 1: in the southern sky. Sought the house, found it dropped
Speaker 1: beneath the downs. Safe safe Safe. The pulse of the
Speaker 1: house beat gladly the treasure yours. The wind roars up
Speaker 1: the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that.
Speaker 1: Moonbeams splash and spill wild in the rain, but the
Speaker 1: beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The
Speaker 1: candle burns, stiff and still, wandering through the house, opening
Speaker 1: the windows, whispering not to wake us. The ghostly couple
Speaker 1: seek their joy here we slept, she says, and he
Speaker 1: adds kisses without number, waking in the morning, silver between
Speaker 1: the trees upstairs in the garden. When summer came in
Speaker 1: winter snow time, the doors go shutting far in the distance,
Speaker 1: gently knocking like the pulse of a heart. Nearer they
Speaker 1: come cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain
Speaker 1: slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken. We hear
Speaker 1: no steps behind us, We see no ladies. Spread her
Speaker 1: ghostly cloak, His hands shield the lantern. Look. He breathes
Speaker 1: sound to sleep, love upon their lips, stooping, holding their
Speaker 1: silver lamp above us. Long they look in, deeply, long
Speaker 1: they pause. The wind drives straightly, the flame stoops slightly.
Speaker 1: Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and
Speaker 1: meeting stain the faces bent, the faces pondering, the faces
Speaker 1: that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy. Safe, Safe, Safe.
Speaker 1: The heart of the house beats proudly. Long years, he
Speaker 1: says again, you found me here, she murmurs, sleeping in
Speaker 1: the garden, reading, laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here
Speaker 1: we left our treasure, stooping. Their light lifts the lids
Speaker 1: upon my eyes. Safe, Safe, Safe. The pulse of the
Speaker 1: house beat. It's wildly waking. I cry, Oh, is this
Speaker 1: your buried treasure? The light in the heart and of
Speaker 1: a haunted house.