Not all of the family's laughter was 'good natured', but all of it was 'vehement'. Occasions for laughter, the louder and the more prolonged the better, were always being manufactured. Particularly extreme incidences were noted with pride [...].
Later stories of Virginia making mocking faces behind people's backs, or 'laughing herself silly', always contain an element of childishness or helplessness or extremity. John Lehmann reported an uncontrolled scene when she was telling him the story of Flush in 1932: 'She soon became so excited and hysterical with laughter, that ... she was red in the face and tears were streaming down her cheeks, before she retired incapable of going on.' A more sympathetic report still suggests how wild her laughter could be: Elizabeth Bowen remembered her laughter with affection, as 'entrancing', 'outrageous'. 'She laughed in this consuming, choking, delightful, hooting way', 'almost like a child's laughter'. There is a dangerous, reckless, perhaps also a sexual element to this laughter. And it is related both to her dazzling, unstoppable conversational displays and to the quality of exhibitionistic dandyism in her work. The Stephen family practice, or even family tyranny, of making people laugh, or being made to laugh, underlies Virginia Woolf's need to perform as a comedian. She played up to the entertaining, eccentric, comical version that the family quickly created for her. But she also had a horror of being laughed at, and this may have originated in the ferocious, blush-inducing teasing in the Stephen family nursery. Virginia Woolf's notorious spitefulness is a weapon against humiliation: ridicule others before they can do it to you.
(110)Mul on hägune mälestus, nagu dostokas oleks midagi kirjutanud sellest, kuidas naer inimest iseloomustab, aga võib-olla ma ajan kellegagi segi või vahetan ära sellega, mis ta kirjutas fotodest, või hoopis Endel Nirgi überfabulatsioon Ristikivi ema foto kohal.
Tsitaadifaili lapates tuli jälle see sõela-tunne: küll mu peast on ikka asju läbi käinud, ja kas on kübetki pidama jäänud?
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