Mitz. Sigrid Nunez

      One Sunday evening, just as the Woolfs were getting ready to drive back to London, Mitz escaped from the house and immediately raced up the lime tree that stood by the gate. While Leonard went to fetch some honey and the butterfly net, Virginia went back into the house to dash off a letter to her sister. She had written four sheets, and still Mitz had not come down from the tree. His patience at an end, Leonard had a stroke of genius. “Virginia!” he called, clambering down his ladder.

      “Yes, Mongoose?” (Mongoose was Virginia’s pet name for Leonard.)

      “Would you come out here for a moment, please?”

      Virginia laid down her pen and went out into the garden.

      “Come here,” Leonard said. And Virginia went to stand under the tree beside him.

      “Closer,” he said. Virginia moved closer.

      Now, Mitz was a jealous creature, and whenever Leonard showed affection toward his wife in Mitz’s presence, Mitz would jump onto his shoulder and protest in her high-pitched staccato way. Seeing Virginia move so close to Leonard now, Mitz climbed down a few branches.

      Seeing Leonard put his arm around Virginia, Mitz dropped lower still.

      Seeing Leonard nuzzle Virginia’s cheek, Mitz shrieked and leapt onto Leonard’s shoulder.

      Unlike the sweets-in-the-butterfly-net trick, this one worked every time.

       FOUR

      One afternoon Virginia and Pinka walked to Charleston, arriving in time for tea. Charleston, Vanessa’s country retreat, which she shared with her companion, Duncan Grant, was about four miles from Monk’s House. In London, Vanessa and Duncan lived in Fitzroy Street, not far from Tavistock Square. Virginia and Vanessa were as close as two sisters can be. Vanessa was the elder by three years. Everyone called her Nessa, but to Virginia she was also Dolphin, and to Vanessa Virginia was usually Goat (these were names from their childhood).

      Charleston was like no other house in England—Vanessa and Duncan had seen to that, decorating every inch of it—walls to windowsills—with their own hands. Virginia never ceased to be ravished by such a profusion of pattern and color, and always after coming home from Charleston her own house looked to her very plain and dull. But that was also how she looked to herself: very plain and dull beside Vanessa—a goddess in Virginia’s eyes, a radiant madonna, a complete woman, impossible not to envy. Vanessa had what people insisted could not be had: her art and her children.

      At tea they discussed the same things they usually discussed: Vanessa’s painting, Virginia’s writing, family, friends.

      “And how is the marmoset?” Vanessa asked.

      “Very well, thank you,” Virginia said. “She was in rather bad shape when we got her, but Leonard has done such a wonderful job, she’s quite fine now.”

      “Well, I’m not surprised,” Vanessa said, slyly. “He’s had such a lot of experience with—monkeys!”