English Listening Practice 10 – A Haunted House Short Story by Virginia Woolf
If you read Virginia Woolf‘s A Haunted House expecting it to be a horror story, you will come away disappointed. Rather than scary, the best word I can think of to describe it is bittersweet. Sweet because two ghosts are still very much in love after hundreds of years; sad because the ghostly couple appear to be anxiously searching for something. Although the central theme of the story is the immortality of love, it also carries the message that life is short, and we should treasure each moment with those we love. Other themes include loss, time, memories, the supernatural.
The house is occupied by two couples: a living one and the ghostly one. The story is told in the first person by a member of the living couple. As always in such instances, observations are limited to events and thoughts personally experienced by or communicated to the narrator. This means that they can be biased or misinterpreted.
The narrator seems to have a “medium-like” ability. He/she can sense and hear the ghosts as they move about the house, and also pick up vibrations from the house itself. In the first paragraph we have the two ghosts going from room to room lifting here, opening there, making sure, seemingly looking for something.
There is a suggestion that the ghosts are referring to something that may exist all over the house. “Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered. The narrator wrongly concludes that the ghosts have lost or misplaced a single object. They’re looking for it… But they had found it in the drawing room. The misdirection continues with the “pulse of the house” chipping in softly. Safe, safe, safe… The treasure buried; the room….
Many comments I have seen suggest that the ghosts’ treasure, metaphorically referred to in the last sentence as The light in the heart, is being able to vicariously feel the love of the living couple as they move around the house. Hence the ghostly woman’s interest in the living couple asleep in their bed… the love upon their lips … their hidden joy.
The above interpretation assumes that the “heart” referred to is that of the narrator. The ambiguity of the last sentence lends itself to an alternative view, or even the existence of a second “treasure”. The opening sentence in that paragraph reads: “Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. If we take it that last sentence refers to the heart of the house, the “light” (treasure) is the ghostly couple’s cherished memories of their life together.
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A Haunted House – Virginia Woolf
WHATEVER hour you woke there was a door shunting. From room to room they 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 oneself, 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 were 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, pendant 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 sought 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 wildly 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 snowtime—” 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 beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. “Look,” he breathes. “Sound asleep. Love upon their lips.”
Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and 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 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.”
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