Phyllis and Rosamond (1906) Version originale

Phyllis and Rosamond

Phyllis et Rosamond 1906

“They seem indigenous to the drawing-room, as though, born in silk evening robes, they had never trod a rougher earth than the Turkey carpet...”

In this story, the reader is invited to contemplate the dilemma facing two sisters, trapped between their bohemian aspirations of freedom and expression and the conventional environment of their household, in which they are simply waiting to become married.

As an opening argument, Woolf explains that she wishes to narrate the daily lives of women such as Phyllis and Rosamond precisely because they are so common and so typical, and yet barely recorded by novelists and historians, who only seem to remember great men.

• age = époque • require = réclamer • outline = aperçu • skill = habileté

• let each man = que chacun • posterity = la postérité • catalogue = inventaire • such a record = une telle archive • door keeper = gardien

• as such portraits = comme les portraits tels que ceux-là • strut more prominently = se pavanent au premier plan • as model = comme sujet • cluster = s’amassent

• right-minded = sensée • not unlike that = qui ressemble à celle • laid upon = posé sur

• for many ages = pendant longtemps • of their own accord = de leur propre chef

• cast = jeter • as yet but = si ce n’est de • wires = fils • jerk = mouvement brusque

In this very curious age, when we are beginning to require pictures of people, their minds and their coats, a faithful outline, drawn with no skill but veracity, may possibly have some value.

Let each man, I heard it said the other day, write down the details of a day’s work; posterity will be as glad of the catalogue as we should be if we had such a record of how the door keeper at the Globe, and the man who kept the Park gates passed Saturday March 18th in the year of our Lord 1568.

And as such portraits as we have are almost invariably of the male sex, who strut more prominently across the stage, it seems worth while to take as model one of those many women who cluster in the shade. For a study of history and biography convinces any right minded person that these obscure figures occupy a place not unlike that of the showman’s hand in the dance of the marionettes; and the finger is laid upon the heart. It is true that our simple eyes believed for many ages that the figures danced of their own accord, and cut what steps they chose; and the partial light which novelists and historians have begun to cast upon that dark and crowded place behind the scenes has done little as yet but show us how many wires there are, held in obscure hands, upon whose jerk or twist the whole figure of the dance depends. This preface leads us then to the point at which we

• steadily = résolument

• epitomise = incarnent parfaitement • common case = cas banal • well-to-do = aisé

• much the same = à peu près les mêmes • but little = que peu de

• ruefully = avec regret

• on their parents’ behalf = pour leurs parents • further = en outre

• decreed = décrété • shall inherit a stalwart pugnacious frame of mind = hériterons d’un état d’esprit résolu et combatif • applies itself to = s’applique (dans l’étude de)

• slang = argot, langage familier

• do well = réussir (dans leur vie) • likeness = similitude • is scarcely worth while = ne vaut presque pas la peine • of special enquiry = d’une investigation particulière • less marked in character = a un caractère moins marqué

began; we intend to look as steadily as we can at a little group, which lives at this moment (the 20th June, 1906); and seems for some reasons which we will give, to epitomise the qualities of many. It is a common case, because after all there are many young women, born of well-to-do, respectable, official parents; and they must all meet much the same problems, and there can be, unfortunately, but little variety in the answers they make.

There are five of them, all daughters they will ruefully explain to you: regretting this initial mistake it seems all through their lives on their parents’ behalf. Further, they are divided into camps: two sisters oppose themselves to two sisters; the fifth vacillates equally between them. Nature has decreed that two shall inherit a stalwart pugnacious frame of mind, which applies itself to political economy and social problems successfully and not unhappily; while the other two she has made frivolous, domestic, of lighter and more sensitive temperaments. These two then are condemned to be what in the slang of the century is called “the daughters at home.” Their sisters deciding to cultivate their brains, go to College, do well there, and marry Professors. Their careers have so much likeness to those of men themselves that it is scarcely worth while to make them the subject of special enquiry. The fifth sister is less marked in character than any of the others; but she marries

Les 10 mots clés de l’histoire

unutterably = extrêmement to bear children = enfanter industrious = productif to vow = faire le serment evidence = un témoignage, une preuve to keep to the point = ne pas s’écarter du sujet unworldly = détaché de considérations matérielles a fallacy = une tromperie It’s all our doing! = C'est tout de notre faute ! to devise = mettre au point

A Society

Une société 1921

“‘Why,’ she asked, ‘if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?’”

When after tea one day, Poll tells her group of girlfriends that most books she’s been reading at the British Library are “unutterably bad,” they all come to wonder whether men have really been keeping up their end of the social contract of producing “good people and good books.” They decide to form a society whose mission is to go out in the world and see how men are living up to their responsibilities... and until they are satisfied, they will not bear any children.

• came about = arriva • were gazing = fixaient • milliner = modiste • scarlet = rouge écarlate • idly = nonchalamment

• we drew = nous nous approchâmes • praise = encenser

• by hook or by crook = par n’importe quel moyen (expression) • burst = éclata • queer = bizarre • for one thing = déjà • will = testament • comforted = consolions

• for though = car bien que • untied = défaits

• dried = sécha • could make nothing = ne comprenions rien • strange enough = curieusement

• top floor = dernier étage • steadily = avec régularité • working her way down to = descendait jusqu’à la section du • half [...] way through = à mi-parcours

This is how it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a milliner’s shop where the light still shone brightly upon scarlet feathers and golden slippers. Others were idly occupied in building little towers of sugar upon the edge of the tea tray. After a time, so far as I can remember, we drew round the fire and began as usual to praise men—how strong, how noble, how brilliant, how courageous, how beautiful they were—how we envied those who by hook or by crook managed to get attached to one for life—when Poll, who had said nothing, burst into tears. Poll, I must tell you, has always been queer. For one thing her father was a strange man. He left her a fortune in his will, but on condition that she read all the books in the London Library. We comforted her as best we could; but we knew in our hearts how vain it was. For though we like her, Poll is no beauty; leaves her shoe laces untied; and must have been thinking, while we praised men, that not one of them would ever wish to marry her. At last she dried her tears. For some time we could make nothing of what she said. Strange enough it was in all conscience. She told us that, as we knew, she spent most of her time in the London Library, reading. She had begun, she said, with English literature on the top floor; and was steadily working her way down to The Times on the bottom. And now half, or perhaps only a quarter, way through a terrible thing had happened. She could

• rising to her feet = se levant

• unutterably = extrêmement

• taught = éduquées • broke forth anew = éclatèrent de nouveau • at length = après un certain moment • recovering = se remettant (de ses émotions)

• some such name = un nom similaire

• a history = un récit • trepidation = appréhension • as she went on = tandis qu’elle poursuivait

• mouthed out = articula • verbose, sentimental foolery = les bêtises verbeuses et sentimentales

read no more. Books were not what we thought them. ‘Books,’ she cried, rising to her feet and speaking with an intensity of desolation which I shall never forget, ‘are for the most part unutterably bad!’

Of course we cried out that Shakespeare wrote books, and Milton and Shelley.

‘Oh, yes,’ she interrupted us. ‘You’ve been well taught, I can see. But you are not members of the London Library.’ Here her sobs broke forth anew. At length, recovering a little, she opened one of the pile of books which she always carried about with her—‘From a Window’ or ‘In a Garden’ or some such name as that it was called, and it was written by a man called Benton or Henson or something of that kind. She read the first few pages. We listened in silence. ‘But that’s not a book,’ someone said. So she chose another. This time it was a history, but I have forgotten the writer’s name. Our trepidation increased as she went on. Not a word of it seemed to be true, and the style in which it was written was execrable. ‘Poetry! Poetry!’ we cried, impatiently. ‘Read us poetry!’ I cannot describe the desolation which fell upon us as she opened a little volume and mouthed out the verbose, sentimental foolery which it contained.

‘It must have been written by a woman,’ one of us

• urged = exhorta

• of the day = du moment • begged her = la suppliâmes

• the eldest and wisest = la plus âgée et la plus sage • she for one = pour sa part

• such rubbish = de telles inepties • wasted = gaspillé • bringing them into the world = leur donnant naissance

• sobbing out = dire en sanglotant

• come to her senses = reprendre ses esprits • all our fault = notre faute à nous toutes • save = sauf • taken it for granted = considéré comme une évidence • duty = devoir • bearing children = enfanter

• equally industrious = aussi productifs

• supposed = présumions

urged. But no. She told us that it was written by a young man, one of the most famous poets of the day. I leave you to imagine what the shock of the discovery was. Though we all cried and begged her to read no more she persisted and read us extracts from the Lives of the Lord Chancellors. When she had finished, Jane, the eldest and wisest of us, rose to her feet and said that she for one was not convinced.

‘Why,’ she asked, ‘if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?’

We were all silent; and, in the silence, poor Poll could be heard sobbing out, ‘Why, why did my father teach me to read?’

Clorinda was the first to come to her senses. ‘It’s all our fault,’ she said. ‘Every one of us knows how to read. But no one, save Poll, has ever taken the trouble to do it. I, for one, have taken it for granted that it was a woman’s duty to spend her youth in bearing children. I venerated my mother for bearing ten; still more my grandmother for bearing fifteen; it was, I confess, my own ambition to bear twenty. We have gone on all these ages supposing that men were equally industrious, and that their works were of equal merit. While we have borne the children, they, we supposed, have borne the books and the pictures.