In Downhill All the Way, Leonard remembers them returning from an evening spent with Vanessa in her studio in Fitzroy Street. {This was in 1930.}A drunk woman was being abused by two passers-by and was then accosted by a policeman who seemed to Leonard to be 'deliberately trying to goad her into doing something which would justify an arrest'. He lost his temper, challenged the policeman in front of a small crowd, and made him let the woman go. What Leonard omitted to mention in his reminiscence was that he and Virginia had been to a fancy-dress party for Angelica's eleventh birthday. Virginia was dressed as a {'mad'} March Hare, with a pair of hare's ears and paws. Roger Fry, at the party, had been a wonderfully characterful White Knight. And Leonard was 'wearing a green baize apron and a pair of chisels as the Carpenter'. But as he tackled the policeman {'Why dont you go for the men who began it? My name's Woolf, and I can take my oath the woman's not to blame'}, 'holding his apron and chisel in one hand',114 he forgot all about his comical fancy-dress in his anger and his determination to see justice done.
( Hermione Lee )
[ Virginia Woolf ]
www.QuoteSweet.com