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The Haunted House
This is an adaptation for social media of Virginia Woolf's 'A Haunted House'. The adaptation includes images and hyperlinks to Web resources to enhance the book's text.
6 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 16, 2012
27 people are currently reading
1362 people want to read
About the author
Virginia Woolf
1,840 books28.8k followers(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 207 reviews
July 10, 2024
Death was between us but the house vibrantly beats like a happily pulsating heart for the hidden treasure, the traces of sun beamed love left behind, in the trees, the apples, on the glass, the trees spinning darkness for a wandering beam of sun.
Transcending the boundaries of life and death, love opens doors in the mind making itself palpable, in sleeping, in kisses without number, during the years and the seasons. The living and the dead wandering the house, a ghostly couple and a living one, hearing and observing each other, listening to the music of love upon their lips singing in multiple voices while the radiance of tender love glows on in the present.
No need to further marvel at the iridescence and luminosity of Woolf’s quicksilver, lyrical and gossamer prose. This heart-warming, genre-playing and tender short story can be read on line here, a virtual treasure box of short stories.
Cherish the treasure. The light in the heart.
Transcending the boundaries of life and death, love opens doors in the mind making itself palpable, in sleeping, in kisses without number, during the years and the seasons. The living and the dead wandering the house, a ghostly couple and a living one, hearing and observing each other, listening to the music of love upon their lips singing in multiple voices while the radiance of tender love glows on in the present.
No need to further marvel at the iridescence and luminosity of Woolf’s quicksilver, lyrical and gossamer prose. This heart-warming, genre-playing and tender short story can be read on line here, a virtual treasure box of short stories.
Cherish the treasure. The light in the heart.
October 13, 2022
A micro short story. A reinterpretation of the classic ghost story, Virgina Woolf style. Enigmatic, poetic, flowing and almost unreachable. It is quite tricky to get the meaning of it. Maybe- love is the most important treasure we have, even after death.
Read with The Short Story Club
Read with The Short Story Club
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October 31, 2024
Each year, when the trees begin to disrobe from their vibrant, autumnal glory to stand naked and unabashed of their gnarled limbs, I take a moment to sit down to reread Virginia Woolf’s A Haunted House. A seasonal favorite that captures the Halloween season in a brief burst of only three pages, it always leaves me shot through with spooky sentimentality as her prose haunts the decaying mansion of my body for days after like a wailing ghost beyond the grave. Subverting the gothic traditions that preceded her of narratives lurking in decrepit castles and old ruins, Woolf places us in a story of the present nestled in our own bedroom as the floorboards creek and doors shriek from the goings on of ghosts. The real twist, however, is that Woolf’s story is more tender than terrifying, depicting spirits of the dead engaged in reminiscence of romance in a place that held their ‘kisses without number’ rather than raging against unfinished business or sorrow. Short and sweet in its spooky fun, A Haunted House never fails to satisfy and tug the heart’s emotional strings.
‘Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.’
Originally published in Virginia Woolf’s short story collection Monday or Tuesday and later collected by Leonard Woolf along with her unpublished stories in a collection bearing the story’s name after her death, A Haunted House is a brilliant little gem of a story (you can also read it for free HERE). A ghostly couple move through a house looking for their lost “treasure,” which is understood to be the love they shared together during their life in the house, but it is the framing of the story that really makes this one hum with haunted excellence. Opening with the line ‘Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting,’ we find the story addressed to you, the reader, in a past progressive tense that grants a universality of time and place to be wherever you at the time of reading. To enter the story is to enter a fascinating liminal space where the occupants of the house—the non-ghosts ones—is and isn’t the reader alongside a narrator somehow cozied inside as well. It makes for a rather lovely abstraction that blurs the boundaries of reality to make us question if it is a creative fiction or a waking reality where we are, in fact, being haunted by these ghostly lovers. It is a space where ‘the wind roars up the avenue,’ in all its seasonal glory as ‘rees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain,’ with other rather hauntingly charming descriptions such as ‘the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun.’ Woolf never fails to strike a chord of poetic brilliance.
‘And tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm.’
With the reader an active character within this story, even in the act of reading as the above quote denotes, Woolf side-steps the question if these ghosts are real or imagined in order to drive home the greater message that our actions of love reverberate beyond time and space. The reality of the ghosts are beside the point, it is that we perceive them still in their nocturnal quest through the spaces that held their love that truly matters. And, as death awaits us all, it is also a spookily delivered optimism that death is not final but merely a translucent barrier that cannot block out, disperse or decompose the loves that are meaningful in life.
I am particularly charmed by the ‘pulse of the house’ beating out the word ‘safe, safe, safe,’ as it nudges us to consider it is our own heartbeat we are hearing reverberating through the house, heard in our heads as the word ‘safe’ instead of its usual thudding beat because we are confronted with ghosts that remind us that love lasts beyond death, beyond time, beyond space. Love is greater than death and in that we can find a sense of safety that life was worth it and will linger long beyond our bodies the way we can still see stars shining in the night sky long after they have been snuffed out.
‘Again you found me.’
So as the autumn season marches forward through decay, take a moment to read Virginia Woolf’s A Haunted House and take comfort in life and love reverberating beyond the grave. Love is the real treasure. A favorite to reread and I hope it will also warm ‘the light in your heart.’
4.5/5
‘Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.’
Originally published in Virginia Woolf’s short story collection Monday or Tuesday and later collected by Leonard Woolf along with her unpublished stories in a collection bearing the story’s name after her death, A Haunted House is a brilliant little gem of a story (you can also read it for free HERE). A ghostly couple move through a house looking for their lost “treasure,” which is understood to be the love they shared together during their life in the house, but it is the framing of the story that really makes this one hum with haunted excellence. Opening with the line ‘Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting,’ we find the story addressed to you, the reader, in a past progressive tense that grants a universality of time and place to be wherever you at the time of reading. To enter the story is to enter a fascinating liminal space where the occupants of the house—the non-ghosts ones—is and isn’t the reader alongside a narrator somehow cozied inside as well. It makes for a rather lovely abstraction that blurs the boundaries of reality to make us question if it is a creative fiction or a waking reality where we are, in fact, being haunted by these ghostly lovers. It is a space where ‘the wind roars up the avenue,’ in all its seasonal glory as ‘rees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain,’ with other rather hauntingly charming descriptions such as ‘the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun.’ Woolf never fails to strike a chord of poetic brilliance.
‘And tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm.’
With the reader an active character within this story, even in the act of reading as the above quote denotes, Woolf side-steps the question if these ghosts are real or imagined in order to drive home the greater message that our actions of love reverberate beyond time and space. The reality of the ghosts are beside the point, it is that we perceive them still in their nocturnal quest through the spaces that held their love that truly matters. And, as death awaits us all, it is also a spookily delivered optimism that death is not final but merely a translucent barrier that cannot block out, disperse or decompose the loves that are meaningful in life.
‘Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; The rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East. ‘Safe safe safe,’ the pulse of the house beat gladly, ‘The treasure yours.’’
I am particularly charmed by the ‘pulse of the house’ beating out the word ‘safe, safe, safe,’ as it nudges us to consider it is our own heartbeat we are hearing reverberating through the house, heard in our heads as the word ‘safe’ instead of its usual thudding beat because we are confronted with ghosts that remind us that love lasts beyond death, beyond time, beyond space. Love is greater than death and in that we can find a sense of safety that life was worth it and will linger long beyond our bodies the way we can still see stars shining in the night sky long after they have been snuffed out.
‘Again you found me.’
So as the autumn season marches forward through decay, take a moment to read Virginia Woolf’s A Haunted House and take comfort in life and love reverberating beyond the grave. Love is the real treasure. A favorite to reread and I hope it will also warm ‘the light in your heart.’
4.5/5
September 20, 2023
Review of title story In a couple of pages, Virginia Woolf summons Schrodinger's ghost story: both the antithesis and apotheosis of the genre. The unspecified, slippery sense of things not being quite right, not easily explicable, works regardless of your belief, or lack of, in ghosts or gods.
It opens by addressing “you”:
“Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.”
A little later:
“But it wasn't that you woke us.”
I loved the imagery, ambiguity, deliberately odd language (fluid tenses, vague pronouns), opacity despite all the glass, poetic phrasing, and a candle that seems more dead than alive (it “burns stiff and still).
There are no white sheets, clattering chains, or “whoooooo”.
“Our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak.”
Just impressions amid minds clouded by… who knows what?
Real or dream, and what does it mean?
Image: A dead rose and its reflection. “The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass.” (Source)
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12, King James Version
Quotes
• “The trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun.”
• “The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain.”
• “Death was the glass; death was between us.”
• “The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall.”
See also
• “‘Safe, safe, safe,’ the pulse of the house beat gladly.”
Very different from the heart that beats in the house in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which I reviewed HERE - although that is also addressed to “you”.
• Julio Cortázar's short story, House Taken Over, which I reviewed HERE.
Short story club
I read this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
It opens by addressing “you”:
“Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.”
A little later:
“But it wasn't that you woke us.”
I loved the imagery, ambiguity, deliberately odd language (fluid tenses, vague pronouns), opacity despite all the glass, poetic phrasing, and a candle that seems more dead than alive (it “burns stiff and still).
There are no white sheets, clattering chains, or “whoooooo”.
“Our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak.”
Just impressions amid minds clouded by… who knows what?
Real or dream, and what does it mean?
Image: A dead rose and its reflection. “The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass.” (Source)
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12, King James Version
Quotes
• “The trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun.”
• “The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain.”
• “Death was the glass; death was between us.”
• “The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall.”
See also
• “‘Safe, safe, safe,’ the pulse of the house beat gladly.”
Very different from the heart that beats in the house in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which I reviewed HERE - although that is also addressed to “you”.
• Julio Cortázar's short story, House Taken Over, which I reviewed HERE.
Short story club
I read this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
December 9, 2022
A very short story of an unnamed woman and her husband going through their house, reminiscing about the good old days.
You could technically call it a ghost story. But that’s not the point of this story. It’s a poetic short story about love transcending life and death. It’s the way the story’s told that really makes it worth reading. The voice of the protagonist is very warm and kind. And the prose is poetic, sentimental and atmospheric.
You could technically call it a ghost story. But that’s not the point of this story. It’s a poetic short story about love transcending life and death. It’s the way the story’s told that really makes it worth reading. The voice of the protagonist is very warm and kind. And the prose is poetic, sentimental and atmospheric.
October 7, 2022
When I first saw the title, "A Haunted House," I was expecting a scary horror story. Instead, Virginia Woolf has written a little gem about searching for a treasure in a series of quick impressions. An unnamed narrator (perhaps one person of a living couple on the verge of sleep), tells about a ghostly couple going from room to room in the house where they had once lived.
Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.
The ghostly couple find beautiful memories in each room:
"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning--" "Silver between the trees." . . .The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
The house is alive, reassuring the ghostly couple that it is still safely holding on to their treasure. "Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats wildly. The buried treasure in the house is the
Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.
The ghostly couple find beautiful memories in each room:
"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning--" "Silver between the trees." . . .The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
The house is alive, reassuring the ghostly couple that it is still safely holding on to their treasure. "Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats wildly. The buried treasure in the house is the
October 7, 2022
Currently in recovery mode, I haven't been able to trust myself to thread together my thoughts on anything during this period. That this story is so short–I thought there'd been an error with my downloaded copy at first and that parts were missing, and its plot as amorphous as the ghosts that reside in it, helps me to cheat a bit and not discuss much of it. With stories this short, the fear of revealing and spoiling tends to make whatever thoughts I have few. As the title suggests, the story concerns a couple haunting a house; revisiting sounds like the more apt word. It's been a while since I've read Woolf's work and so this was a return for me too, and one that I enjoyed. The haunting here isn't the kind that frightens and jolts; it is the kind that leaves the reader enraptured by the fine writing, and gnaws and lingers long after the short story is finished.
January 30, 2019
What I really liked about this one is how Woolf used time. We get to see a whole life story, a whole romance, in a short amount of pages. Mostly because we are seeing the ghosts of what has been in the present moment, rather than the present day of their relationship.
The descriptions were truly beautiful. Even the writing style felt ghostly. I felt like this one could even have been shorter than it was though, because the repetition got a bit much.
It was a nice enough short story, but nothing too ground breaking.
Read for university.
The descriptions were truly beautiful. Even the writing style felt ghostly. I felt like this one could even have been shorter than it was though, because the repetition got a bit much.
It was a nice enough short story, but nothing too ground breaking.
Read for university.
October 14, 2022
This was quite a strange, and very short, story. What I got from it, more than anything, was the feeling of love between the ghosts—so happy to be together again and so comfortable in their togetherness. Quite lovely, I think.
June 27, 2021
LitReading - Classic Short Stories
"What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?"
"What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?"
December 11, 2022
4.25 Stars — This short story by the great VW, is an exploration of struggle, and it’s many foibles such as loss, connection, angst and the search for those things we seek.
Told in her elegant voice and prose, this is a story that offers a lot of subtext and can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Telling the story of two couples sharing one house, it works in the right amount of ambiguity and is a combination of ghost-story whilst not being a ghost story at the same time.
Told in her elegant voice and prose, this is a story that offers a lot of subtext and can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Telling the story of two couples sharing one house, it works in the right amount of ambiguity and is a combination of ghost-story whilst not being a ghost story at the same time.
May 10, 2019
This is a short story about a ghost couple walking through their former house (where they lived when they were alive) and watching the couple currently living there in their sleep, reminiscing the beautiful times they spent together in life.
It's super short, but very poetic and touching.
3 stars!
It's super short, but very poetic and touching.
3 stars!
November 1, 2022
A Haunted House is a very short story by Virginia Woolf. A ghostly couple wanders in a house at night, searching for something. It was their house once. Hundreds of years ago, they lived here.
A nice love story of a ghost couple. Poetic and dreamy.
A nice love story of a ghost couple. Poetic and dreamy.
October 11, 2022
This is not a scary haunted house, the couple haunting it are remembering their love. Beautifully written, in a dreamy way, it’s filled with gorgeous imagery.
October 31, 2025
"A Haunted House" combines poetry and prose to tell the tale of a ghostly couple searching the home they once lived in for their buried treasure. The narrator of the story, the current occupant of the home, relates what the ghostly couple are saying to each other as they go room to room trying to find their lost treasure.
"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number."
I read this short story three times because I did not wholly get it the first time, likely because it reads more like poetry and I often have to reread poetry to fully connect with it. The second time everything came together for me more and by the third time I thought it to be such a beautiful story of everlasting love.
I was fortunate to read this story in The Art of the Short Story by Dana Gioia, a wonderful collection of short stories by 52 great authors. Each story includes a short biography of the author, their respective short story, and a section called, "Author's Perspective." Virginia Woolf's essay, written around 1920 and titled "Woman and Fiction," is an insightful read about the difference in the attitudes of women writers during Woolf's time compared to women writers fifty to hundred years prior. I would love to know her thoughts about women writers today, over a hundred years after she wrote "Woman and Fiction."
"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number."
I read this short story three times because I did not wholly get it the first time, likely because it reads more like poetry and I often have to reread poetry to fully connect with it. The second time everything came together for me more and by the third time I thought it to be such a beautiful story of everlasting love.
I was fortunate to read this story in The Art of the Short Story by Dana Gioia, a wonderful collection of short stories by 52 great authors. Each story includes a short biography of the author, their respective short story, and a section called, "Author's Perspective." Virginia Woolf's essay, written around 1920 and titled "Woman and Fiction," is an insightful read about the difference in the attitudes of women writers during Woolf's time compared to women writers fifty to hundred years prior. I would love to know her thoughts about women writers today, over a hundred years after she wrote "Woman and Fiction."
July 6, 2014
There is something so different about the way she writes, I can't quite put my finger on it though. Anyway this short story reminds me of the beginning of the movie Beetlejuice, when the two ghosts are talking in the attic. Beautiful end to this one though.
February 19, 2021
A strange little ghost story. I never seem to know what I think of Woolf...but this one is almost sweet.
October 13, 2022
4★
“ ‘What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?’ My hands were empty. ‘Perhaps it’s upstairs then?’ ”
This atmospheric ‘ghost story’ is puzzling but lovely to read. The images that are described are beautiful, pleasantly haunting rather than frightening.
“The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain.”
Someone who seems to be staying there now is telling us about a couple wandering through an old house, windows and doors closing, a dreamlike quality. They are looking for something… I think. Maybe they found it?
“But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them.”
It’s the title story in a collection or you can read it and the other stories online here:
https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks12/120...
It’s another that the Short Story Club Group has read and discussed. You can join them here if you’re interested in the group discussions.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
“ ‘What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?’ My hands were empty. ‘Perhaps it’s upstairs then?’ ”
This atmospheric ‘ghost story’ is puzzling but lovely to read. The images that are described are beautiful, pleasantly haunting rather than frightening.
“The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain.”
Someone who seems to be staying there now is telling us about a couple wandering through an old house, windows and doors closing, a dreamlike quality. They are looking for something… I think. Maybe they found it?
“But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them.”
It’s the title story in a collection or you can read it and the other stories online here:
https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks12/120...
It’s another that the Short Story Club Group has read and discussed. You can join them here if you’re interested in the group discussions.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
January 26, 2019
'What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?'
I don't know. In any case, I'd have loved to be in a less cynical place right now to enjoy this very short story. Three stars because it's still Woolf.
Jan 26, 19
I don't know. In any case, I'd have loved to be in a less cynical place right now to enjoy this very short story. Three stars because it's still Woolf.
Jan 26, 19
November 18, 2017
Ever since reading The Paper Menagerie, I grew a new-found, desperate desire for short-stories. As I ran a quick search on Google for some of the best short literary works, I randomly chose Virginia Woolf off the list.
I expected Mrs. Dalloway to have been my first Virginia Woolf experience, but it did not turn out so. A Haunted House is such a captivating title in itself, but it's rather misleading because it has nothing to do with being creepy, instead, a lot to do with love and nostalgia.
I like the point of view through which the narration was done--that of the house's living occupants, observing the house's previous and dead occupants.
What really struck me, however, was the nature of prose this was penned in. It was poetic and less fit for a proper paragraph full of writing. The sentences were short and quick, carrying a sense of urgency in them. I am not sure I liked that style of writing and I hope that Mrs Dalloway, currently lying on my TV shelf, is written in a more wholesome manner.
That aside, there's a whole plunder of short fiction out there that I need to go through and most of my next reviews will probably be those of short-stories.
I expected Mrs. Dalloway to have been my first Virginia Woolf experience, but it did not turn out so. A Haunted House is such a captivating title in itself, but it's rather misleading because it has nothing to do with being creepy, instead, a lot to do with love and nostalgia.
I like the point of view through which the narration was done--that of the house's living occupants, observing the house's previous and dead occupants.
What really struck me, however, was the nature of prose this was penned in. It was poetic and less fit for a proper paragraph full of writing. The sentences were short and quick, carrying a sense of urgency in them. I am not sure I liked that style of writing and I hope that Mrs Dalloway, currently lying on my TV shelf, is written in a more wholesome manner.
That aside, there's a whole plunder of short fiction out there that I need to go through and most of my next reviews will probably be those of short-stories.
March 4, 2018
It's horror and something that I wouldn't ever venture into.
A ghost couple wander in a house they occupied several decades back, now inhabited by another couple, in search of a buried treasure. They go from room to room whilst silently reminiscing their good times.
This one is 2-pages long when it was published (in 1921) and sublimely written. Horror and romance woven together - indeed reinforces my belief that the latter genre can get me to read and appreciate just about any other genre.
It's crisply written and takes about 10 minutes to read and understand completely. A good Woolf to begin with. I will definitely read her other works.
A ghost couple wander in a house they occupied several decades back, now inhabited by another couple, in search of a buried treasure. They go from room to room whilst silently reminiscing their good times.
This one is 2-pages long when it was published (in 1921) and sublimely written. Horror and romance woven together - indeed reinforces my belief that the latter genre can get me to read and appreciate just about any other genre.
It's crisply written and takes about 10 minutes to read and understand completely. A good Woolf to begin with. I will definitely read her other works.
September 5, 2019
A fine very short story. Not scary, a ghost couple visits their house while another living couple is sleeping there. By Virginia Woolf.
October 14, 2022
The following is my interpretation of this short story and is not meant to persuade, interfere with, or convert anyone’s own individual interpretation of this poem/flash fiction/short short story/phrases from Woolf’s diary.( Let’s cover our bases, shall we?)
This very short story took me a couple of reads to grasp because of several pronouns without antecedents (Who or What is doing or saying What?!); and many partial phrases and incomplete sentences.
Grammar, wherefore art thou?? Nowhere in this story.
However, I did get a feeling for what was going on during the second read. Sorry horror fans. It is not scary—unless you consider the following scary: you WILL die, become a ghost, and “haunt” the place where you lived your happiest moments hoping to relive those moments only to find that those moments are only for the LIVING.
And love is in it. So those of you who find love scary, Happy Halloween!
It is only approximately a page long here:
http://www.flashfictiononline.com/pdf...
This very short story took me a couple of reads to grasp because of several pronouns without antecedents (Who or What is doing or saying What?!); and many partial phrases and incomplete sentences.
Grammar, wherefore art thou?? Nowhere in this story.
However, I did get a feeling for what was going on during the second read. Sorry horror fans. It is not scary—unless you consider the following scary: you WILL die, become a ghost, and “haunt” the place where you lived your happiest moments hoping to relive those moments only to find that those moments are only for the LIVING.
And love is in it. So those of you who find love scary, Happy Halloween!
It is only approximately a page long here:
http://www.flashfictiononline.com/pdf...
January 19, 2021
[4.5/5] this was so beautiful, so haunting, so surreal; i have been left almost in tears- i will keep re-reading this often. woolf remains one of the stronger literary influences in my life.
my hands were empty. the shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “safe, safe, safe” the pulse of the house beat softly.
my hands were empty. the shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “safe, safe, safe” the pulse of the house beat softly.
December 17, 2016
a ghost couple searches for buried treasure in the house of a living couple. ♥
November 29, 2016
I had to read it twice to decipher it, but you can't beat the tone of melancholic romance Woolf creates.
November 5, 2014
If you turned to A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf for a spooky Halloween tale, you may be disappointed. A ghost story it is, but not the kind that will make you scared to turn out the lights at night. Woolf writes a beautiful tale of a “treasure” that continues on even after death: love. Woolf begins with our introduction of the “ghostly couple.” “Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure-a ghostly couple.” This “ghostly couple” is searching for something, going from room to room in an effort to find it.
Woolf does not disappoint in her incredibly use of detail. “The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns still and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.” But seek their joy in what? What is it that this “ghostly couple” seeks, searches for? “The treasure buried; the room…the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?” Woolf details love, the pulse that is created in the house by these invisible spirits. This couple has discovered love, made memories and moments together. Their very presence in the “haunted house” keeps love alive, ironically, like the pulse beats of a heart.
Woolf further writes “Here we slept. Kisses without number.” The search continues, the living owners of the house unafraid of these uninvited guests. Upstairs, in the drawing room, out in the garden. The “ghostly couple” discovers this love in memories past, finding this “treasure” in the moments they made when they spent together. “Safe, safe, safe, the heart of the house beats proudly.” The house is the treasure chest, each room being probed for the treasure, and delivering the remembrance of love, the love this “ghostly couple” created during their lifetime. The “house” in this story is symbolic of the heart, the organ most associated with love.
Virginia Woolf illustrates the theme of love, using the “ghostly couple” to symbolize eternity. Love is the feeling, the belief, the emotion that will outlive man, surviving in memories, in moments, a treasure that enriches us more than anything material. Love is the condition that after death, man longs to find, to rediscover. While we are alive, we need to make the most of this feeling, this treasure that is ours to search for and hold onto until we die.
Woolf does not disappoint in her incredibly use of detail. “The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns still and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.” But seek their joy in what? What is it that this “ghostly couple” seeks, searches for? “The treasure buried; the room…the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?” Woolf details love, the pulse that is created in the house by these invisible spirits. This couple has discovered love, made memories and moments together. Their very presence in the “haunted house” keeps love alive, ironically, like the pulse beats of a heart.
Woolf further writes “Here we slept. Kisses without number.” The search continues, the living owners of the house unafraid of these uninvited guests. Upstairs, in the drawing room, out in the garden. The “ghostly couple” discovers this love in memories past, finding this “treasure” in the moments they made when they spent together. “Safe, safe, safe, the heart of the house beats proudly.” The house is the treasure chest, each room being probed for the treasure, and delivering the remembrance of love, the love this “ghostly couple” created during their lifetime. The “house” in this story is symbolic of the heart, the organ most associated with love.
Virginia Woolf illustrates the theme of love, using the “ghostly couple” to symbolize eternity. Love is the feeling, the belief, the emotion that will outlive man, surviving in memories, in moments, a treasure that enriches us more than anything material. Love is the condition that after death, man longs to find, to rediscover. While we are alive, we need to make the most of this feeling, this treasure that is ours to search for and hold onto until we die.
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June 8, 2018با ترجمه ای از منصوره وحدتی احمد زاده خواندمش و کوتاه بود .
December 18, 2025
This short story is a meditation on memory, love, and the quiet persistence of ghostly echoes. The plot follows a spectral couple as they wander through what was once their home, searching for a “treasure,” while a living couple inhabits the same space, unaware of the invisible history around them, living in the house every day and not knowing that a love story from the past is still there.
I absolutely loved this story for its brevity and emotional impact. In just a few pages, it manages to be haunting and intimate at once, leaving a lingering warmth that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.
I absolutely loved this story for its brevity and emotional impact. In just a few pages, it manages to be haunting and intimate at once, leaving a lingering warmth that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.
October 7, 2025
Titular story read for English 101
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