[One Thousand Characters a Day] Virginia Woolf's 'Night Walk'

Editor's NoteVirginia Woolf, a British novelist and essayist, is regarded as an important writer in Anglo-American modernist literature. Many of her novels, short stories, and essays have become classics of contemporary literature, based on her unique innovative style and profound literary skill. Woolf took walks almost every day and wrote extensively inspired by them. Among these, "Night Walk" developed from a diary she kept during the summer of 1905 while staying near the coast of St Ives in southern England. This excerpt is taken from The Pleasure of Walking, translated by Professors Yoon Gyo-chan and Jo Ae-ri. The text contains 1,047 characters.

Moments of silence often came, and even the person walking beside me seemed to vanish into the darkness. The group gradually began to accept the encroaching darkness all around and started walking individually, and the bodies moving on the ground felt separated from their souls, as if drifting aimlessly. When even the path behind us disappeared, we pressed forward, physically colliding with the dark night sea where all traces of the road had vanished. If the phrase "moving toward a destination" could be applied to our uncertain march, which required crossing the daylight fields once again. It was advisable to occasionally tap the ground with our feet just to confirm that the earth was indeed beneath us. Our eyes and ears were completely sealed off, pressed down by something shapeless, rendering all sensory functions useless. Only after tremendous effort did a few lights far below barely come into view. But it was impossible to tell whether we were seeing what we had seen during the day or if it was an imagined scene, like the stars that appear before your eyes when you get hit. The faint lights in the distant valley clearly entered our eyes as if floating. Upon confirming the lights with our eyes, our minds awakened and painted a picture of the world where the lights were located. Surely, there was a hill below, a village beneath it, and a winding road leading there. About a dozen lights were enough to sketch the scene of the world.

(Omitted)

Now, as we became accustomed to this strange atmosphere, an immense peace and beauty stood out. The illusions and energies of the concrete shapes within the village seemed to float outside, clouds appeared where the hills had been, and the houses came into view as flames. Our gaze was no longer brushing past the rough exterior forms of reality but was newly cleansed and revitalized in the deep darkness. The endlessly varied earth melted into an ambiguous space, and in our newly sensitive vision, the walls seemed too low, and the light emitted from the lanterns dazzled like flashes. We were like birds that had been trapped in a cage and were now finally freed, flapping their wings anew.

- The Pleasure of Walking, edited by Suzy Cripps, translated by Yoon Gyo-chan and Jo Ae-ri, Influential, 16,800 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.