Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep podcast. I'm Tasia, your host.

Every week, I will read you an old story to help you relax, put the stressful day behind you, and drift off to sleep.

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Tonight, I read two short stories by Virginia Woolf,

the mark on the wall and cue gardens.

So lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story.

The mark on the wall.

Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall.

In order to fix the date it is necessary to remember what one saw.

So now I think of the fire, the steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book,

the three chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl and the mantelpiece.

Yes, it must have been the wintertime, and we had just finished our tea,

for I remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up

and saw the mark on the wall for the first time.

I looked up through the smoke of my cigarette, and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning

coals, and that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came into my mind,

and I thought of a cavalcade of red knights riding up the side of the black rock.

Rather, to my relief, the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy,

for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made as a child perhaps. The mark was a small

...