The Waves

'Now to sum up,' said Bernard. 'Now to explain to you the meaning of my life. Since we do not know each other (though I meant you once, I think, on board a ship going to Africa), we can talk freely. The illusion is upon me that something adheres for a moment, has roundness, weight, depth, is completed. This, for the moment, seems to be my life. If it were possible, I would hand it to you entire...

'But unfortunately, what I see (this globe, full of figures) you do not see. You see me, sitting at a table opposite you, a rather heavy, elderly man, grey at the temples. You see me take my napkin and unfold it...But in order to make you understand, to give you my life, I must tell you a story - and there are so many, and so many - stories of childhood, stories of school, love, marriage, death, and so on; and none of them are true...How tired I am of stories...'


The Waves, Virginia Woolf
1931