VW Waves the dinner party

Question 1

I do not want the train to stop with a thus. I do not want the connection

Answer 1

which has bound us together sitting opposite each other all night long to be broken

Question 2

our community in the rushing train, sitting together with only one wish to arrive at Euston, was very welcome

Answer 2

But behold! it is over. we have attained our desire.

Question 3

to assume the burden of individual life. I, who have been since Monday, when she accepted me, charged in every nerve with a sense of identity

Answer 3

who could not see a tooth brush without seeing a tooth brush

Question 4

now wish to unclasp my hands and let fall my possessions, and merely stand here in the street, taking no part

Answer 4

watching the omnibuses without desire, without envy with what would be boundless curiosity about human destiny

Question 5

boundless curiosity about human destiny if there were any longer an edge in my mind

Answer 5

but it has none. I have arrived; am accepted. I ask nothing

Question 6

having dropped off satisfied like a child from the breast, I am at liberty now to sink down, deep, into what passes

Answer 6

this omnipresent, general life

Question 7

for myself, I have no aim. I have no ambition

Answer 7

I will let myself be carried along by the general impulse

Question 8

only in movements of emergency, at a crossing, at a kerb, the wish to

Answer 8

preserve my body springs out and stops me, here, before this omnibus

Question 9

we insist it seems

Answer 9

on living

Question 10

then again, indifference

Answer 10

descends

Question 11

I think also that our bodies are in truth naked

Answer 11

we are only lightly covered with buttoned cloth; and beneath these pavements are shells, bones and silence

Question 12

it is however, true that I cannot deny a sense that life for me is

Answer 12

now mysteriously prolonged

Question 13

I am not part of the street no-

Answer 13

I observe the street

Question 14

to be myself (I note) I need the illumination

Answer 14

of other people’s eyes, and therefore cannot be entirely sure what is myself

Question 15

with them I am

Answer 15

many-sided

Question 16

they retrieve me from

Answer 16

darkness

Question 17

my mind hums hither and thither

Answer 17

with its veil of words for everything

Question 18

to speak, about wine even to the waiter

Answer 18

is to bring about an explosion

Question 19

the hostility, the indifference of other people

Answer 19

dining here is oppressive

Question 20

we look at each other; see that we do not know each other

Answer 20

stare, and go off. such looks are lashes

Question 21

I feel the whole cruelty and indifference of the world

Answer 21

in them.

Question 22

without

Answer 22

Percival there is no solidarity

Question 23

we have come together at a particular time, to this particular spot. we are drawn into this communion by some deep, some common emotion. what shall we call it, conveniently,

Answer 23

‘love’? shall we say ‘love of Percival’ because Percival is going to India?

Question 24

no that is too small, too particular a name. we cannot attach the width and spread of our

Answer 24

feelings to so small a mark

Question 25

a single flower as we sat here waiting, but now a seven sided flower, many petalled (…)

Answer 25

a whole flower to which every eye brings its own contribution

Question 26

but while I admire Susan and Percival

Answer 26

I hate the others, because it is for them that I do these antics, smoothing my hair, concealing my accent

Question 27

but my imagination is

Answer 27

the bodies

Question 28

[nev] the swiftness of my mind

Answer 28

is too string for my body

Question 29

[nev] and since I am, in one respect deluded, since the person is alway changing

Answer 29

though not the desire, and I do not know in the morning by whom I shall sit at night

Question 30

[nev] i am never stagnant

Answer 30

I rise from the worst disasters, I turn, I change

Question 31

[r] if I could believe (…) that I should grow old in pursuit of change, I should be rid of my fear:

Answer 31

nothing persists

Question 32

[r] I am afraid of you all

Answer 32

I am afraid of the shock of sensation that leaps on me, because I can not deal with it as you do

Question 33

[r] I cannot make one moment

Answer 33

merge into the next

Question 34

[r] I am whirled down caverns, and flap like paper against endless corridors

Answer 34

and must press my hand against the wall to draw myself back

Question 35

[r] I pull on my stockings as

Answer 35

I see them pull on theirs

Question 36

[r] I wait for you to speak and then

Answer 36

speak like you

Question 37

[s] the only sayings I understand are

Answer 37

cries of love, hate, rage and pain

Question 38

when you are silent you are again

Answer 38

beautiful

Question 39

[s] my children will carry me on; their teething

Answer 39

their crying, their going to school and coming back will be like the waves of the sea under me

Question 40

[b] when I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke

Answer 40

round me I am in darkness- I am nothing

Question 41

[b] Rhoda loves to be alone. She fears us because we shatter the sense of being which is

Answer 41

so extreme in solitude- see how she grabs her fork- her weapon against us

Question 42

but I only come into existence when the plumber, or the horse dealer, or whoever it may be,

Answer 42

says something which sets me alight

Question 43

[b] thus my character is in part made of the stimulus which

Answer 43

other people provide, and is not mine, as yours are

Question 44

[j] our senses have widened. membranes, webs, of nerve endings that lay white and limp, have filled and

Answer 44

spread themselves and float round us like filaments, making air tangible and catching in them far- away sounds unheard before

Question 45

we sit here, surrounded, lit up, many coloured; all things- hands, curtains, knifes and forks

Answer 45

other people dining- run into each other. we are walled in here. but India lies outside

Question 46

[n] upon which we build our crazy platforms are more stable than the wild, the weak and inconsequent cries that we utter when, trying to speak, we rise;

Answer 46

when we reason and jerk out these false sayings, ‘I am this; I am that!’ speech is false

Question 47

but I eat. I gradually lose all knowledge of particulars when I eat. I am becoming weighed down with food,

Answer 47

these delicious mouthfuls of duck, fitly piled with vegetables, following each other in exquisite rotation of warmth, weight, sweet, and bitter, past my palate, down my gullet, into my stomach