– « What do you call life? », said Saint-John.

– « Fighting, revolution », she said.

—

La révolution chez Woolf, c’est la solitude. C’est l’état de solitude, avec ses faiblesses, son sublime royaume, ses fragilités face aux autres qui, eux, suivent tous les « traces de craie invisibles » qui leur dictent leur comportement. Son indétermination, aussi, ce grand flou où les mots ne sont plus que des sons charmants, comme des éléments de la nature qu’on voit pour la première fois. Rachel flotte, plane à dix mille mètres, tombe en arrêt devant un arbre, un peigne, un homme, un rocher. Que sont donc ces choses pour la psyché pure, c’est-à-dire, l’être sauvage, l’être révolutionnaire qui tourne en lui-même, monadique?

Et la révolution dans la révolution, c’est que cette solitude, c’est celle des femmes, celles que personne ne voit, celles que personne n’écoute « sauf si elles sont jolies ». Terra incognita, continent noir que certains sensibles comme Hewett essaient de comprendre – on n’a pas dit, conquérir. Rachel qui zone en fredonnant entre l’heure du déjeuner et celle du thé, qui arbore sa vacuité apparente comme un emblème d’impressivité, qui moque le monde ridicule des hommes, les banques, les tribunaux, les mines, les usines.

La société, c’est une transaction, une abdication originelle dès l’enfance : la psyché renonce à être une psyché, elle acquiert, elle avale difficilement le monde des fins, des buts, des causes, des moeurs, de la morale, des raisons. Mais au prix, grâce à cette invisibilité il existe un monde où l’on vous fout la paix, un monde très grand, exaltant, inconnu.

« After standing still for a minute or two he turned and began to walk towards the gate. With the movement of his body, the excitement, the romance and the richness of life crowded into his brain. He shouted out a line of poetry, but the words escaped him, and he stumbled among lines and fragments of lines which had no meaning at all except for the beauty of the words. He shut the gate, and ran swinging from side to side down the hill, shouting any nonsense that came into his head. “Here am I,” he cried rhythmically, as his feet pounded to the left and to the right, “plunging along, like an elephant in the jungle, stripping the branches as I go (he snatched at the twigs of a bush at the roadside), roaring innumerable words, lovely words about innumerable things, running downhill and talking nonsense aloud to myself about roads and leaves and lights and women coming out into the darkness—about women—about Rachel, about Rachel.” He stopped and drew a deep breath. The night seemed immense and hospitable, and although so dark there seemed to be things moving down there in the harbour and movement out at sea. He gazed until the darkness numbed him, and then he walked on quickly, still murmuring to himself. “And I ought to be in bed, snoring and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Dreams and realities, dreams and realities, dreams and realities,” he repeated all the way up the avenue, scarcely knowing what he said, until he reached the front door. Here he paused for a second, and collected himself before he opened the door. »

“D’you think Garibaldi was ever up here?” she asked Mr. Hirst. Oh, if she had been his bride! If, instead of a picnic party, this was a party of patriots, and she, red-shirted like the rest, had lain among grim men, flat on the turf, aiming her gun at the white turrets beneath them, screening her eyes to pierce through the smoke! So thinking, her foot stirred restlessly, and she exclaimed:

“I don’t call this life, do you?”

“What do you call life?” said St. John.

“Fighting—revolution,” she said, still gazing at the doomed city. “You only care for books, I know.”

“You’re quite wrong,” said St. John.

“Explain,” she urged, for there were no guns to be aimed at bodies, and she turned to another kind of warfare.

“What do I care for? People,” he said.

“Well, I am surprised!” she exclaimed. “You look so awfully serious. Do let’s be friends and tell each other what we’re like. I hate being cautious, don’t you?”