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Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is in the public domain per AI dated July 7, 2025. The book went into public domain January 1, 2021.
Gutenburg Project: full text.
Mrs Dalloway
Published 14 May 1925
Marie Bashkirtseff
In order of appearance (or reference):
Mrs Dalloway, 52
Lucy, maid
Peter Walsh, 53
Elizabeth, her daughter
Hugh Whitbread, childhood friend
Evelyn Whitbread, to London “to see doctors,” now in a nursing home
Richard Dalloway ("Wickham")
Sally Seton (Lady Rosseter)
Miss Kilman, Elizabeth’s teacher or mentor
Evans
Lady Millicent (Milly) Bruton, 62
Synopsis: a "novel" that takes place over one day. Some say it was in response to James Joyce Ulysses which also takes place over one day. While planning for a dinner party later that day, Mrs Dalloway reminisces, both current events and "what might have been."
Clarissa married Richard Dalloway, but her first love was Peter Walsh, and there's the "first what-if."
CHAPTER 11
Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
For Lucy had her work cut out for her.
The doors would be taken off their hinges;
Rumpelmayer’s men were coming.
And then, thought Clarissa2 Dalloway,
What a morning –
Fresh as if issued to children on a beach.
What a lark! What a plunge!
For so it had always seemed to her
When,
With a little squeak of the hinges,
Which she could hear now.
She had burst open the French windows
And plunged at Bourton3 into the open air.
How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course.
The air was in the early morning
Like the flap of a wave4;
The kiss of a wave;
Chill and sharp
And yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was)5
Solemn, feeling as she did,
Standing there at the open window,
That something awful was about to happen6;
Looking at the flowers,
At the trees with the smoke winding off them
And the rooks rising, falling;
Standing and looking until Peter Walsh said,
‘Musing among the vegetables?’
-- Was that it? --
‘I prefer men to cauliflowers’
-- Was that it?
He must have said it at breakfast one morning
When she had gone out on to the terrace – Peter Walsh.
He would be back from India7 one of these days,
June or July8, she forgot which,
For his letters were awfully dull; it was
His sayings one remembered;
His eyes,
His pocket-knife,
His smile,
His grumpiness, and
When millions of things had utterly vanished
-- How strange it was! --
A few sayings like this about cabbages.
She stiffened a little on the kerb9,
Waiting for Durtnall’s van to pass.
A charming woman, Scrope Purvis thought her
(Knowing her as one does know people who live
Next door to one in Westminster);
A touch of the bird about her, of the jay,
Blue-green,
Light,
Vivacious
Though she was over fifty, and grown very white since her illness.10
There she perched, never seeing him, waiting to cross, very upright.
For having lived in Westminster –
How many years now? Over twenty --
One feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night,
Clarissa was positive,
A particular hush, or solemnity;
An indescribable pause;
A suspense
(but that might be her heart,
affected, they said, by influenza)
Before Big Ben strikes.11
There! Out it boomed.
First a warning, musical;
Then the hour,
Irrevocable.
The leaden circles dissolved in the air.12
Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street.
For Heaven only knows why one loves it13 so,
How one sees it so,
Making it up,
Building it round one,
Tumbling it,
Creating it every moment afresh;
But the veriest frumps,
The most dejected of miseries
Sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall)
Do the same;
Can’t be dealt with,
She felt positive,
By Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life.
In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge;
In the bellow and the uproar;
The carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans,
Sandwich men shuffling and swinging;
Brass bands; barrel organs;
In the triumph and the jingle
And the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead
Was what she loved;
Life;
London;
This moment in June.
For it was the middle of June.14
The War was over,15
Except for someone like Mrs Foxcroft at the Embassy last night
Eating her heart out because
That nice boy was killed
And now the Manor House must go to a cousin;
Or Lady Bexborough who opened a bazaar, they said,
With a telegram in her hand,
John, her favourite, killed;
But it was over; thank Heaven –
Over.
It was June.16
The King and Queen were at the Palace.
And everywhere, though it was still so early,
There was a beating,
A stirring of galloping ponies,
Tapping of cricket bats;
Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh17 and all the rest of it;
Wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air
Which, as the day wore on, would unwind them,
And set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies,
Whose forefeet just struck the ground
And up they sprung,
The whirling young men,
And laughing girls in their transparent muslins who,
Even now, after dancing all night,
Were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run;
And even now, at this hour,
Discreet old dowagers were shooting out
In their motor cars on errands of mystery;
And the shopkeepers were fidgeting
In their windows with their paste and diamonds,
Their lovely old sea-green brooches
In eighteenth-century settings
To tempt Americans
(But one must economise, not buy things rashly for Elizabeth),18
And she, too, loving it as the did
With an absurd and faithful passion,
Being part of it,
Since her people were courtiers
Once in the time of the Georges19,
She, too, was going that very night
To kindle and illuminate;
To give her party.
But how strange, on entering the Park,
The silence;
The mist;
The hum;
The slow-swimming happy ducks;
The pouched birds waddling;
And who should be coming with his back
Against the Government buildings,
Most appropriately,
Carrying a despatch box stamped with the Royal Arms20
But Hugh Whitbread;
Her old friend Hugh --
The admirable Hugh!21
‘Good
morning to you, Clarissa!’ said Hugh, rather extravagantly, for they
had known each other as children. ‘Where are you off to?’
‘I love walking in London,’ said Mrs Dalloway. ‘Really, it’s better than walking in the country.’
They had come up -- unfortunately -- to see doctors.
Other people came to see pictures;
Go to the opera;
Take their daughters out;
The Whitbreads came ‘to see doctors’.
Time without number Clarissa had visited
Evelyn Whitbread in a nursing home.
Was Evelyn ill again?
Evelyn was a good deal out of sorts,22 said Hugh,
Intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered,
Manly,
Extremely handsome,
Perfectly upholstered body
(He was almost to well dressed always,
But presumably had to be, with his little job at Court)
That his wife had some internal ailment,
Nothing serious,
Which, as an old friend,
Clarissa Dalloway would quite understand
Without requiring him to specify.
Ah yes, she did of course; what a nuisance;
And felt very sisterly and oddly conscious
At the same time of her hat.
Not the right hat for the early morning
Was that it?
For Hugh always made her feel, as he bustled on,
Raising his hat rather extravagantly and assuring her
That she might be a girl of eighteen,
And of course he was coming to her party tonight,
Evelyn absolutely insisted, only a little late he might be
After the party at the Palace to which he had to take one of Jim’s boys --
She always felt a little skimpy beside Hugh;
Schoolgirlish;
But attached to him,
Partly from having known him always,
But she did think him a good sort
In his own way,
Though Richard was nearly driven mad by him,
And as for Peter Walsh,
He had never to this day forgiven her for liking him.
She could remember scene after scene at Bourton –
Peter furious;
Hugh not, of course, his match in any way,
But still not a positive imbecile as Peter made out;
Not a mere barber’s block.22
When his old mother wanted him to give up shooting
Or to take her to Bath
He did it, without a word;
He was really unselfish,
And as for saying, as Peter did,
That he had no heart,
No brain,
Nothing
But the manners and breeding
Of an English gentleman,
That was only her dear Peter
At his worst;
And he could be intolerable;
He could be impossible;
But adorable to walk with
On a morning like this.
(June had drawn out every leaf on the trees.
The mothers of Pimlico gave suck to their young.
Messages were passing from the Fleet to the Admiralty.23
Arlington Street and Piccadilly seemed to chafe
The very air in the Park and lift its leaves hotly,
Brilliantly,
On waves of that divine vitality
Which Clarissa loved.
To dance, to ride, she had adored all that.)
For they might be parted for hundreds of years
She and Peter;
She never wrote a letter
And his were dry sticks;24
But suddenly it would come over her,
If he were with me now
What would he say? –
Some days, some sights
Bringing him back to her calmly,
Without the old bitterness;
Which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people;
They came back in the middle of St James’s Park on a fine morning –
Indeed they did.
But Peter --
However beautiful the day might be,
And the trees and the grass,
And the little girl in pink --
Peter never saw a thing of all that.
He would put on his spectacles,
If she told him to;
He would look.
It was the state of the world that interested him;
Wagner,
Pope’s poetry,
People’s characters eternally,
And the defects of her own soul.25
How he scolded her!
How they argued!
She would marry a Prime Minister
And stand at the top of a staircase;
The perfect hostess he called her
(She had cried over it in her bedroom),
She had the makings of the perfect hostess,
He said.26
So she would still find herself arguing in St James’s Park,
Still making out that she had been right
-- and she had too --
Not to marry him.
For in marriage a little licence27,
A little independence there must be
Between people living together day in day out
In the same house;
Which Richard gave her, and she him.
(Where was he this morning, for instance?
Some committee, she never asked what.)
But with Peter everything had to be shared;
Everything gone into.
And it was intolerable,
And when it came to that scene
In the little garden by the fountain,
She had to break with him
Or they would have been destroyed,
Both of them ruined, she was convinced;
Though she had borne about with her for years
Like an arrow sticking in her heart
The grief,
The anguish;
And then the horror of the moment
When someone told her at a concert
That he had married a woman
Met on the boat going to India!
Never could she forget all that!
Cold,
Heartless,
A prude,
He called her.
Never could she understand
How he cared.
But those Indian women did
Presumably
Silly,
Pretty,
Flimsy nincompoops.
And she wasted her pity.
For he was quite happy,
He assured her
-- Perfectly happy,
Though he had never done a thing
That they talked of;
His whole life had been a failure.28
It made her angry still.
She had reached the Park gates.29
She stood for a moment,
Looking at the omnibuses in Piccadilly.
She would not say of anyone in the world now
That they were this or were that.
She felt very young;
As the same time unspeakably aged.
She sliced like a knife through everything;
At the same time was outside, looking on.
She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs,
Of being out,
Out,
Far out to sea30
And alone;
She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous
To live even one day.
Not that she thought herself clever,
Or much out of the ordinary.
How had she gone through life
On the few twigs of knowledge
Fräulein Daniels gave them
She could not think.
She knew nothing;
No language,
No history;
She scarcely read a book now,
Except memoirs in bed;
And yet to her it was absolutely absorbing;
All this;
The cabs passing;
And she would not say of Peter,
She would not say of herself,
I am this, I am that.
Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct,
She thought, walking on.
If you put her in a room with someone,
Up went her back like a cat’s;
Or she purred.
Devonshire House, Bath House, the house with the china cockatoo,31
She had seen them all lit up once;
And remembered Sylvia, Fred, Sally Seton --
Such hosts of people;
And dancing all night;
And the wagons plodding past to market;
And driving home across the Park.
She remembered once throwing a shilling
Into the Serpentine.
But everyone remembers;
What she loved was this, here, now, in front of her;
The fat lady in the cab.
Did it matter then,
She asked herself, walking towards Bond Street,
Did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely;
All this must go on without her;
Did she resent it;
Or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?
But that somehow in the streets of London,
On the ebb and flow of things,32
Here, there, she survived,
Peter survived,
Lived in each other,
She being part,
She was positive,
Of the trees at home;
Of the houses there,
Ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was;
Part of people she had never met;
Being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best,
Who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist,
But it spread ever so far,
Her life, herself.33
But what was she dreaming
As she looked into Hatchard’s shop window?34
What was she trying to recover?
What image of white dawn in the country,
As she read in the book spread open:
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages.35
This late age of the world’s experience
Had bred in them all,
All men and women,
A well of tears.
Tears and sorrows;
Courage and endurance;
A perfectly upright and stoical bearing.
Think, for example, of the woman she admired most,
Lady Bexborough
Opening the bazaar.
There were36
Jorrocks’ Jaunts and Jollities;37
There were Soapy Sponge38
And Mrs Asquith’s Memoirs39
And Big Game Shooting in Nigeria,
All spread open.
Ever so many books there were;
But none that seemed exactly right
To take to Evelyn Whitbread in her nursing home.
Nothing that would serve to amuse her
And make that indescribably dried-up little woman look,
As Clarissa came in,
Just for a moment cordial;
Before they settled down for the usual interminable
Talk of women’s ailments.
How much she wanted it --
That people should look pleased as she came in,
Clarissa thought and turned
And walked back towards Bond Street,
Annoyed,
Because it was silly have other reasons for doing things.
Much rather would she have been
One of those people like Richard
Who did things for themselves,
Whereas, she thought,
Waiting to cross,
Half the time she did things not simply,
Not for themselves;
But to make people think this or that;
Perfect idiocy she knew
(And now the policeman held up his hand)
For no one was ever for a second taken in.40
Of if she could have had her life over again!
She thought,
Stepping on to the pavement,
Could have looked even differently!41
She would have been,
In the first place,
Dark like Lady Bexborough,
With a skin of crumpled leather
And beautiful eyes.
She would have been,
Like Lady Bexborough,
Slow and stately;
Rather large;
Interested in politics like a man;
With a country house;
Very dignified;
Very sincere.
Instead of which she had a
Narrow pea-stick figure;
A ridiculous little face,
Beaked like a bird’s.42
That she held herself well was true;
And had nice hands and feet;
And dressed well,
Considering that she spent little.
But often now this body she wore
(She stopped to look at a Dutch picture),
This body, with all its capacities,
Seemed nothing –
Nothing at all.
She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible;
Unseen;
Unknown;
There being no more marrying,
No more having of children now,43
But only this astonishing and
Rather solemn progress
With the rest of them,
Up Bond Street,
This being Mrs Dalloway;44
Not even Clarissa any more;
This being Mrs Dalloway.
Bond Street fascinated her;
Bond Street early in the morning
In the season,
Its flags flying;
Its shops,
No splash;
No glitter;
One roll of tweed in the shop where
Her father had bought his suits for fifty years;
A few pearls;
Salmon on an ice-block.
‘That is all,’ she said, looking at the fishmonger’s. ‘That is all,’ she repeated,
Pausing for a moment at the window of a glove shop
Where, before the War, you could buy almost perfect gloves.
And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known
By her shoes and her gloves.
He had turned on his bed one morning
In the middle of the War.
He had said, ‘I have had enough.’
Gloves and shoes;
She had a passion for gloves;
But her own daughter,
Her Elizabeth
Cared not a straw for either of them.
Not a straw, she thought,
Going up on Bond Street
To a shop where they kept flowers for her
When she gave a party.45
Elizabeth really cared for her dog most all of all.
The whole house this morning smelt of tar.46
Still, better poor Grizzle47 than Miss Kilman;48
Better distemper and tar and all the rest of it than
Sitting mewed in a stuffy bedroom with a prayer book
Better anything, she was inclined to say.
But it might be only a phase, as Richard said,
Such as all girls go through.
It might be falling in love.
But why with Miss Kilman?
Who had been badly treated of course;
One must make allowances for that,
And Richard said she was very able,
Had a really historical mind.
Anyhow they were inseparable,
And Elizabeth, her own daughter,
Went to Communion;
And how she dressed,
How she treated people who come to lunch
She did not care a bit,
It being her experience
That the religious ecstasy made people callous
(so did causes);
Dulled their feelings,
For Miss Kilman
Would do anything for the Russians
Starved herself for the Austrians,
But in private inflicted positive torture,
So insensitive was she,
Dressed in a green mackintosh coat.
Year in year out she wore that coat;
She perspired;
She was never in the room five minutes
Without making you feel her superiority,
Your inferiority;
How poor she was;
How rich you were;
How she lived in a slum without a cushion
Or a bed or a rug or whatever it might be,
All her soul rusted with that grievance
Sticking in it,
Her dismissal from school during the War
-- Poor embittered unfortunate creature!
For it was not her one hated
But the idea of her,
Which had become one of those specters
With which one battles in the night;
One of those specters who stand astride us
And suck up half our life-blood,
Dominators and tyrants;
For no doubt with another throw of the dice,
Had the black been uppermost and not the white,
She would have loved Miss Kilman!
But not in this world.
No.
It rasped her, though,
To have stirring about in her
This brutal monster!
To hear twigs cracking
And feel hooves planted
Down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest,
The soul;
Never to be content quite,
Or quite secure,
For at any moment the brute would be stirring,
This hatred, which, especially since her illness,
Had power to make her feel scraped,
Hurt in her spine;
Gave her physical pain,
And made all pleasure
In beauty,
In friendship,
In being well,
In being loved
And making her home delightful rock,
Quiver, and bend as if indeed there were a monster
Grubbing at the roots,
As if the whole panoply of content were
Nothing but self love!
This hatred!
Nonsense, nonsense!
She cried to herself,
Pushing through the swing doors of Mulberrys
The florists.49
She advanced,
Light,
Tall,
Very upright,
To be greeted at once by button-faced Miss Pym,
Whose hands were always bright red,
As if they had been stood in cold water with the flowers.
There were flowers:
Delphiniums,
Sweet peas,
Bunches of lilac;
And carnations,
Masses of carnations.
There were roses;
There were irises.
Ah yes –
So she breathed in the earthy garden sweet swell
As she stood talking to Miss Pym who owed her help,
And thought her kind,
For kind she had been years ago;
Very kind,
But she looked older, this year
Turning her head from side to side
Among the irises
And roses
And nodding tufts of lilac
With her eyes half closed, snuffing in,
After the street uproar,
The delicious scent,
The exquisite coolness.
And then, opening her eyes, how fresh,
Like frilled linen clean from a laundry laid in wicker trays
The roses looked;
And dark and prim the red carnations,
Holding their heads up;
And all the sweet peas spreading in their bowls,
Tinged violet,
Snow white, pale –
As if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks
Came out to pick sweet peas and roses after the superb summer’s day,
With its almost blue-black sky,
Its delphiniums,
Its carnations,
Its arum lilies was over;
And it was the moment between six and seven
When every flower –
Roses,
Carnations,
Irises,
Lilac –
Glows;
White,50
Violet,
Red,
Deep orange;
Every flower seems to burn itself,
Softly,
Purely in the misty beds;
And how she loved the grey white moths spinning in and out,
Over the cherry pie,
Over the evening primroses!51
As she began to go with Miss Pym from jar to jar,
Choosing,
Nonsense, nonsense,
She said to herself,
More and more gently,
As if this beauty,
This scent,
This colour,
And Miss Pym liking her,
Trusting her,
Were a wave which she let flow over her
And surmount that hatred, that monster,
Surmount it all;
And it lifted her up and up when –
Oh!
A pistol shot in the street outside!
‘Dear,
those motors,’ said Miss Pym, going to the window to look, and coming
back and smiling apologetically with her hands full of sweet peas, as if
those motor cars, those tyres of motor cars, were all her fault.
CHAPTER II
The violent explosion which made Mrs Dalloway jump
And Miss Pym go to the window and apologise
Came from a motor car
Which had drawn to the side of the pavement
Precisely opposite Mulberry’s shop window.
Passers-by who, of course, stopped and stared,
Had just time to see a face of the very greatest importance
Against the dove-grey upholstery,
Before a male hand drew the blind
And there was nothing to be seen
Except a square of dove grey.
Yet rumours were at once in circulation
From the middle of Bond Street to Exford Street on one side,
To Atkinson’s scent shop on the other,
Passing invisibly,
Inaudibly,
Like a cloud,
Swift,
Veil-like upon hills,
Falling indeed
With something of a cloud’s sudden sobriety and stillness
Upon faces which a second before had been utterly disorderly.
But now mystery had brushed them with her wing;
They had heard the voice of authority;
The spirit of religion was abroad with her eyes bandaged tight
And her lips gaping wide.
But nobody knew whose face had been seen.
Was it the Prince of Wales’s, the Queen’s, the Prime Minister’s?
Whose face was it? Nobody knew.
Edgar J. Watkiss, with his roll of lead piping round his arm, said audibly,
Humorously of course: ‘The Proime Minister’s kyar.’
Septimus Warren Smith, 52who found himself unable to pass, heard him.
Septimus Warren Smith, aged about thirty,
Pale-faced,
Beak-nosed,
Wearing brown shoes
And a shabby overcoat,
With hazel eyes
Which had the look of apprehension in them
Which makes complete strangers apprehensive too.
The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?
Everything had come to a standstill.
The throb of the motor engines sounded like a pulse
Irregularly drumming through an entire body.
The sun became extraordinarily hot
Because the motor car had stopper outside
Outside Mulberry’s show window;
Old ladies on the tops of omnibuses spread their black parasols;
Here a green,
Here a red parasol opened
With a little pop.
Mrs Dalloway, coming to the window with her arms
Full of sweet peas,
Looked out with her little pink face pursed in enquiry.
Everyone looked at the motor car.
Septimus looked.
Boys on bicycles sprang off.
Traffic accumulated.
And there the motor car stood,
With drawn blinds,
And upon them a curious pattern like a tree,
Septimus thought,
And this gradual drawing together of everything
To one centre before his eyes,
As if some horror had come almost to the surface
And was about to burst into flames,
Terrified him.
The world wavered,
And quivered
And threatened
To burst into flames.
It is I whom am blocking the way,
He thought.
Was he not being looked at
And pointed at;
Was he not weighted there
Rooted to the pavement,
For a purpose?
But for what purpose?
‘Let us go on, Septimus,’ said his wife, a little women,
With large eyes in a sallow pointed face; an Italian girl.
But Lucrezia herself could not help
Looking at the motor car
And the tree pattern on the blinds.
Was it the Queen in there –
The Queen going shopping?
The chauffeur, who had been opening something,
Turning something,
Shutting something,
Got on to the box.
‘Come on,’ said Lucrezia.
But her husband, for they had been married four,
Five years now,
Jumped,
Started,
And said, ‘All right!’ angrily, as if she had interrupted him.
People must notice; people must see.53
People,
She thought,
Looking at the crowd staring at the motor car;
The English people,
With their children
And their horses
And their clothes,
Which she admired in a way; but they were ‘people’ now,
Because Septimus had said, ‘I will kill myself’;
An awful thing to say.
Suppose they had heard him?
She looked at the crowd.
Help, help!
She wanted to cry out to butchers’ boys and women.
Help!
Only last autumn she and Septimus
Had stood on the Embankment
Wrapped in the same cloak
And, Septimus reading a paper instead of talking,
She had snatched it from him
And laughed in the old man’s face who saw them!
But failure one conceals.
She must take him away into some park.
‘Now we will cross,’ she said.
She had a right to his arm,
Though it was without feeling.
He would give her, who was so simple,
So impulsive,
Only twenty-four,
Without friends in England,
Who had left Italy for his sake,54
A piece of bone.55
The motor car with its blinds drawn
And an air of inscrutable reserve
Proceeded towards Piccadilly,
Still gazed at,
Still ruffling the faces
On both sides of the street with the same dark breath
Of veneration whether for Queen, Price, or Prime Minister nobody knew.
The face itself had been seen only once
By three people for a few seconds.
Even the sex was now in dispute.
But there could be no doubt
That greatness was seated within;
Greatness was passing,
Hidden,
Down Bond Street,
Removed only by a hand’s breadth
From ordinary people who might now,
For the first and last time,
Be within speaking distance of the majesty of England,
Of the enduring symbol of the state
Which will be known to curious antiquaries,
Sifting the ruins of time,
When London is a grass-grown path
And all those hurrying along the pavement this Wednesday morning
Are but bones with a few wedding rings mixed up in their dust
And the gold stoppings of innumerable decayed teeth.
The face in the motor car will then be known.
It is probably the Queen,
Thought Mrs Dalloway,
Coming out of Mulberry’s with her flowers;
The Queen.
And for a second she wore a look of extreme dignity
Standing by the flower shop in the sunlight
While the car passed at a foot’s pace,
With its blinds drawn.
The Queen going to some hospital;
The Queen opening some bazaar,
Thought Clarissa.
The crush was terrific for the time of day.
Lords, Ascot, Hurlingham, what was it?56
She wondered,
For the street was blocked.
The British middle classes sitting sideways on the tops of omnibuses
With parcels and umbrellas,
Yes, even furs on a day like this, were
She thought,
More ridiculous,
More unlike anything there has ever been
Than one could conceive;
And the Queen herself held up;
The Queen unable to pass.
Clarissa was suspended on one side of Brook Street;
Sir John Buckhurst, the old Judge on the other,
With the car between them
(Sir John had laid down the law for years and
liked a well-dressed woman)
When the chauffeur, leaning ever so slightly,
Said or showed something to the policeman,
Who saluted
And raised his arm
And jerked his head
And moved the omnibus to the side
And the car passed through.
Slowly and very silently it took its way.
Clarissa guessed;
Clarissa knew of course;
She had seen something white,
Magical,
Circular,
In the footman’s hand,
A disc inscribed with a name, --
The Queen’s,
The Prince of Wales’s,
The Prime Minister’s? –
Which by force of its own luster,
Burnt its way through
(Clarissa saw the car diminishing,
disappearing),
To blaze among candelabras,
Glittering stars,
Breasts stiff with oak leaves,
Hugh Whitbread and all his colleagues,
The gentlemen of England,
That night in Buckingham Palace.
And Clarissa, too, gave a party.
She stiffened a little;
So she would stand at the top of her stairs.57
The car had gone,
But it had left a slight ripple
Which flowed through glove shops
And hat shops
And tailors’ shops
On both sides of Bond Street.
For thirty seconds all heads were inclined the same way –
To the window.
Choosing a pair of gloves –
Should they be to the elbow or above it,
Lemon or pale grey? –
Ladies stopped;
When the sentence was finished something had happened.
Something so trifling in single instances that
No mathematical instrument,
Though transmitting shocks in China,
Could register the vibration;
Yet in its fullness rather formidable
And in its common appeal emotional;
For in all the hat shops
And tailors’ shops
Strangers looked at each other and thought of the dead;
Of the flag;
Of Empire.
In a public house in a back street
A Colonial insulted the House of Windsor
Which led to words,
Broken beer glasses,
And a general shindy,
Which echoed strangely across the way
In the ears of girls buying white underline
Threaded with pure white ribbon
For their weddings.
For the surface agitation of the passing car
As it sunk
Grazed something very profound.
Gliding across Piccadilly,
The car turned down St James’s Street.
Tall men,
Men of robust physique,
Well-dressed men with their tail-coats
And their white slips
And their hair raked back, who
For reasons difficult to discriminate;
Were standing in the bow window
Of Brooks’s with their hands
Behind the tails of their coats,
Looking out,
Perceived instinctively that greatness was passing;
And the pale light of the immortal presence
Fell upon them as it
Had fallen upon Clarissa Dalloway.
At once they stood even straighter,
And removed their hands
And seemed ready to attend their Sovereign,
If need to,
To the cannon’s mouth,
As their ancestors had done before them.
The white busts and the little table in the background
Covered with copies of the Tatler
And bottles of soda water
Seemed to approve;
Seemed to indicate the flowing corn
And the manor house of England;
And to return the frail hum of the motor wheels as the walls of a
Whispering gallery return a single voice expanded and
Made sonorous by the might of a whole cathedral.
Shawled Moll Pratt with her flowers
On the pavement wished the dear boy well
(it was the Prince of Wales for certain)
And would have tossed the price of a pot of beer –
A bunch of roses –
Into St James’s Street out of sheer light-heartedness
And contempt of poverty had she not seen
The constable’s eye upon her,
Discouraging and old Irishwoman’s loyalty.58
The sentries at St James’s saluted;
Queen Alexandra’s policemen approved.
A small crowd meanwhile had gathered at the gates of Buckingham Palace.
Listlessly, yet confidently, poor people all of them;
They waited;
Looked at the Palace itself with the flag flying
At Victoria,59 billowing on her mound,
Admired her shelves of running water,
Her geraniums;
Singled out from the motor cars in the Mall
First this one then, then that;
Bestowed emotion, vainly
Upon commoners out for a drive;
Recalled their tribute to keep it unspent
While this car passed and that;
And all the time let rumour accumulate in their veins
And thrill the nerves in their thighs
At the thought of the heavenly life divinely bestowed upon Kings;
Of the equerries and deep curtsies;
Of the Queen’s old doll’s house;
Of Princess Mary married to an Englishman,
And the Prince –
Ah! The Prince! Who took wonderfully, they said,
After old King Edward, but was ever so much slimmer.
The Prince lived at St James’s; but he might come along
In the morning to visit his mother.
So Sarah Bletchley said with her baby in her arms,
Tipping her foot up and down
As though she were by her own fender in Pimlico,
But keeping her eyes on the Mall,
While Emily Coates ranged over the Palace windows
And thought of the housemaids,
The innumerable housemaids,
The bedrooms,
The innumerable bedrooms.
Joined by an elderly gentleman with an Aberdeen terrier,
By men without occupation,
The crowd increased.
Little Mr Bowley, who had rooms in the Albany
And was sealed with wax
Over the deeper sources of life
But could be unsealed suddenly,60
Inappropriately,
Sentimentally,
By this sort of thing –
Poor women waiting to see the Queen go past – poor women,
Nice little children,
Orphans,
Widows of the War –
Tut-tut –
Actually had tears in his eyes.
A breeze flaunting ever so warmly down
The Mall through the thin trees,
Past the bronze heroes,
Lifted some flag flying in the British breast of Mr Bowley
And he raised his hat as the car turned into the Mall
And held it high as the car approached;
And let the poor mothers of Pimlico press close to him,
And stood very upright.
The car came on.
Suddenly Mrs Coates looked up into the sky.
The sound of an aeroplane bored ominously into the ears of the crowd.
There it was
Coming over the trees
Letting out white smoke from behind,
Which curled and twisted,
Actually writing something!
Making letters in the sky!
Everyone looked up.
Dropping dead down the aeroplane soared straight up,
Curved in a loop,
Raced,
Sank,
Rose,
And whatever it did,
Wherever it went,
Out fluttered behind it
A thick ruffled bar of white smoke
Which curled
And wreathed
Upon the sky in letters.
But what letters?
A C was it?
An E, then an L?
Only for a minute did they lie still;
Then they moved
And melted
And were rubbed out
Up in the sky,
And the aeroplane shot further away and again,
I a fresh space of sky, began writing a K
An E, a Y perhaps?
‘Glaxo,’
said Mrs Coates in a strained, awestricken voice, gazing straight up,
and her baby, lying stiff and white in her arms, gazed straight up.
‘Kreemo,’ murmured Mrs Bletchley, like a sleep walker.
With his hat held out perfectly still in his hand,
Mr Bowley gazed straight up.
All down the Mall people were standing
And looking up into the sky.
As they looked the whole world became perfectly silent,
And a flight of gulls crossed the sky,
First one gull landing, then another,
And in this extraordinary silence and peace,
In this pallor,
In this purity,
Bells struck eleven times,
The sound fading up there among the gulls.
The aeroplane turned
And raced
And swooped
Exactly where it liked,
Swiftly,
Freely, like a skater –
‘That’s an E,’ said Mrs Bletchley—or a dancer –
‘It’s toffee,’ murmured Mr Bowley
(And the car went in at the gates
And nobody looked at it),
And shutting off the smoke,
Away and away it rushed,
And the smoke faded and assembled itself round
The broad white shapes of the clouds.
It has gone;
It was behind the clouds.
There was no sound.
The clouds to which the letters E, G, or L had attached themselves
Moved freely, as if destined to cross from West to East
On a mission of the greatest importance
Which would never be revealed,
And yet certainly so it was –
A mission of the greatest importance.
Then suddenly, as a train comes out of the tunnel,
The aeroplane rushed out of the clouds again,
The sound boring into the ears of all people
In the Mall,
In the Green Park,
In Piccadilly,
In Regent Street,
In Regent’s Park,
And the bar of smoke curved behind
And it dropped down,
And it soared up and wrote one letter after another –
But what word was it writing?
Lucrezia Warren Smith, sitting by husband’s side
On a seat in Regent’s Park in the Broad Walk, looked up.61
‘Look, look, Septimus!’ she cried.
For Dr Holmes had told her to make her husband
(who had nothing whatever seriously the matter
with him but was a little out of sorts)
Take an interest in things outside himself.
So, thought Septimus, looking up,
They are signaling to me.
Not indeed in actual words;
That is, he could not read the language yet; but it was plain enough,
This beauty,
This exquisite beauty,
And tears filled his eyes
As he looked at the smoke words
Languishing and melting in the sky
And bestowing upon him in their inexhaustible charity
And laughing goodness one shape
After another of unimaginable beauty
And signaling their intention to provide him,
For nothing, for ever, for looking merely,
With beauty, more beauty!
Tears ran down his cheeks.
It was toffee;
They were advertising toffee,
A nursemaid told Rezia.
Together they began to spell t…o…f…
‘K…R…’said the nursemaid,
And Septimus heard her say ‘Kay Arr’ close to his ear,
Deeply,
Softly,
Like a mellow organ,
But with a roughness in her voice
Like a grasshopper’s,
Which rasped his spine deliciously
And sent running up into his brain
Waves of sound which, concussing, broke.
A marvelous discovery indeed –
That the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions
(for one must be scientific,
above all scientific)
can quicken trees into life!
Happily Rezia put her hand with a tremendous weight on his knee
So that he was weighted down,
Transfixed,
Or the excitement of he elm trees
Rising and falling,
Rising and falling
With all their leaves alight
And the colour thinning and
Thickening from blue to the green
Of a hollow wave,
Like plumes on horses’ heads,
Feathers on ladies’,
So proudly they rose and fell,
So superbly,
Would have sent him mad.
But he would not go mad.
He would shut his eyes; he would see no more.
But they beckoned;
Leaves were alive;
Trees were alive.
And the leaves being connected by millions of fibres
With his own body,
There on the seat,
Fanned it up and down;
When the branch stretched he, too, made that statement.
The sparrows fluttering,
Rising,
And falling in jagged fountains
Were part of the pattern;
The white and blue,
Barred with black branches.
Sounds made harmonies with premeditation;
The spaces between them
Were as significant as the sounds.
A child cried.
Rightly far away horn sounded.
All taken together meant the birth of a new religion –
‘Septimus!’ said Rezia. He started violently. People must notice.
‘I am going to walk to the fountain and back,’ she said.
For she could stand it no longer.
Dr Holmes might say there was nothing the matter.62
Far rather would she that he were dead!63
She could not sit beside him
When he stared so
And did not see her
And made everything terrible;
Sky and tree,
Children playing,
Dragging carts,
Blowing whistles,
Falling down;
All were terrible.
And he would not kill himself;
And she could tell no one.
‘Septimus has been working too hard’ –
That was all she could say, to her own mother.
To love makes one solitary,
She thought.
She could tell nobody, not even Septimus now,
And looking back,
She saw him sitting in his shabby overcoat alone,
On the seat,
Hunched up,
Staring.
And it was cowardly for a man to say he would kill himself,64
But Septimus had fought;
He was brave;
He was not Septimus now.
She put on her lace collar.
She put on her new hat
And he never noticed;
And he was happy without her.
Nothing could make her happy without him!
Nothing!
He was selfish.
So men are.
For he was not ill.
Dr Holmes said there was nothing the matter with him.65
She spread her hand before her.
Look!
Her wedding ring slipped –
She had grown so thin.
It was she who suffered –
But she had nobody to tell.
Far was Italy66
And the white houses
And the room where her sisters sat making hats,
And the streets crowded every evening
With people walking, laughing out loud,
Not half alive like people here,
Huddled up in Bath chairs,
Looking at a few ugly flowers stuck in pots!
‘For you should see the Milan gardens.’ She said aloud. But to whom?
There was nobody.
Her words faded.
So a rocket fades.
Its sparks,
Having grazed their way into the night,
Surrender to it,
Dark descends,
Pours over the outlines of houses and towers;
Bleak hillsides soften and fall in.
But though they are gone, the night is full of them;
Robbed of colour, blank of windows, they exist more ponderously,
Give out what the frank daylight fails to transmit –
The trouble and suspense of things conglomerated there in the darkness;
Huddled together in the darkness;
Reft of the relief which dawn brings when,
Washing the walls white and grey,
Spotting each windowpane, grazing,
All is once more decked out to the eye;
Exists again.
I am alone; I am alone! She cried, by the fountain in Regent’s Park
(staring at the Indian and his cross),67
As perhaps at midnight,
When all boundaries are lost,
The country reverts to its ancient shape, as the Romans saw it,
Lying cloudy, when they landed,
And the hills had no names
And rivers wound they knew not where –
Such was her darkness;
When suddenly, as if a shelf were forth and she stood on it,
She said how she was his wife,
Married years ago in Milan, his wife,
And would never, never tell that he was mad!
Turning, the shelf fell, down, down she dropped.
For he was gone, she thought –-
Gone, as he threatened, to kill himself –
To throw himself under a cart!
But no; there he was;
Still sitting alone on the seat, in his shabby overcoat,
His legs crossed, staring, talking aloud.
Men must not cut down trees.68
There is a God.
(he noted such revelations on the backs of envelopes.)
Change the world.
No one kills from hatred.
Make it known
(he wrote it down).
He waited.
He listened.
A sparrow perched on the railing opposite
Chirped Septimus, Septimus, four or five times over and went on,69
Drawing its notes out,
To sing freshly
And piercingly in Greek words
How there is no crime,
And,
Joined by another sparrow,
They sang in voices prolonged and piercing in Greek words,
From trees in the meadow of life
Beyond a river where the dead walk,
How there is no death.
There was his hand;
There the dead.
White things were assembling behind the railings opposite.
But he dared not look.
Evans was behind the railings!70
‘What are you saying?’ said Rezia suddenly, sitting down by him.
Interrupted again!
She was always interrupting.
Away from people – they must get away from people, he said
(jumping up),
Right away, over there, where there were chairs
Beneath a tree
And the long slope of the park dipped like a length of green stuff
With a ceiling cloth of blue
And spin smoke high above,
And there was a rampart of far irregular houses,
Hazed in smoke,
The traffic hummed in a circle,
And on the right, dun-colored animals stretched long necks
Over the Zoo palings,
Barking,
Howling.
There they sat down under a tree.
‘Look,’ she implored him, pointing at a little troop of boys
Carrying cricket stumps,
And one shuffled, spun round on his heel and shuffled,
As if he were acting a clown at the music hall.
‘Look,’ she implored him, for Dr Holmes had told her
To make him notice real things,
Go to a music hall,
Play cricket –
That was the very game, Dr Holmes said,
A nice out-of-door game,
The very game for her husband.
‘Look,” she repeated.
Look the unseen bade him,
The voice which now communicated with him
Who was the greatest of mankind,
Septimus, lately taken from life to death,
The Lord who had come to renew society,
Who lay like a coverlet,
A snow blanket smitten only by the sun,
For every unwasted,
Suffering for ever,
Thte scapegoat,
The eternal sufferer,
But he did not want it, he moaned
Putting from him with a wave of his hand that eternal suffering,
That eternal loneliness.
‘Look,’ she repeated, for he must not talk aloud to himself
Out of doors.
‘Oh look,’ she implored him. But what was there to look at?
A few sheep.
That was all.
The way to Regent’s Park Tube Station –
Could they tell her the way to Regent’s Park Tube Station –
Maisie Johnson wanted to know.
She was only up from Edinburgh two days ago.
‘Not this way – over there!’ Rezia exclaimed, waving her aside,
Lest she should see Septimus.
Both seemed queer,
Maisie Johnson thought.
Everything seemed very queer.
In London for the first time,
Come to take up a post at her uncle’s in Leadenhall Street,71
And now walking through Regent’s Park in the morning,
This couple on the chairs gave her quite a turn;
The young woman seeming foreign,
The man looking queer;
So that should she be very old she would still remember
And make it jangle again among her memories
How she had walked through Regent’s Park
On a fine summer’s morning fifty years ago.
For she was only nineteen
And had got her way at last,
To come to London;
And now how queer it was,
This couple she had asked the way of,
And the girl started and jerked her hand,
And the man –
He seemed awfully odd;
Quarrelling, perhaps,
Parting for ever, perhaps;
Something was, up she knew;
And now all these people
(for she returned to the Broad Walk),
The stone basins,
The prim flowers,
The old men and women,
Invalids most of them in Bath chairs –
All seemed, after Edinburgh, so queer.
And Maisie Johnson, as she joined that gently trudging,
Vaguely gazing,
Breeze-kissed company –
Squirrels perching and preening,
Sparrow fountains fluttering for crumbs,
Dogs busy with the railings,
Busy with each other,
While the soft warm air washed over them
And lent to the fixed unsurprised gaze
With which they received life
Something whimsical and mollified –
Maisie Johnson positively felt she must cry Oh!
(for that young man on the seat had given her quite a turn.
Something was up, she knew).
Horror! Horror!
She wanted to cry.
(She had left her people;
They had warned her what would happen.)
Why hadn’t she stayed at home?
She cried,
Twisting the knob of the iron railing.
That girl,
Thought Mrs Dempster
(who saved crusts for the squirrels and
often ate her lunch in Regent’s Park),
Don’t know a thing yet;72
And really it seemed to her better to be a little stout,
A little slack,
A little moderate in one’s expectations.
Percy drank.
Well, better to have a son, thought Mrs Dempster.73
Get married, she thought,
And then you’ll know.
Oh, the cooks, and so on.
Every man has his ways.
But whether I’d have chosen quite like that
If I could have known,
Thought Mrs Dempster,
And could not help wishing to whisper a word to Maisie Johnson;
To feel
On the creased pouch of her worn old face
The kiss of pity.
For it’s been a hard life,
Thought Mrs Dempster.
What hadn’t she given to it?
Roses;
Figure;
Her feet too.
(She drew the knobbed lumps beneath her skirt.)
Roses, she thought sardonically.
All trash, m’dear.
For really, what with eating,
Drinking,
And mating,
The bad days and good,
Life had been no mere matter of roses,
And what was more,
Let me tell you,
Carrie Dempster had no wish to change her lot
With any woman’s in Kentish Town!74
But, she implored, pity.
Pity, for the loss of roses.
Pity she asked of Maisie Johnson, standing by the hyacinth beds.
Ah, but that aeroplane!
Hadn’t Mrs Dempster always longed to see foreign parts?
She had a nephew, a missionary.
It soared and shot.
She always sent on the sea at Margate,
Not out o’ sight of land,
But she had no patience with women who were afraid of water.
It swept and fell.
Her stomach was in her mouth.
Up again.
There’s a fine young feller aboard of it,
Mrs Dempster wagered,
And away and away it went,
Fast and fading,
Away and away the aeroplane shot;
Soaring over Greenwich and all the masts;
Over the little island of grey churches,
St Paul’s and the rest,
Till, on either side of London,
Fields spread out and dark brown woods
Where adventurous thrushes,
Hopping bolding,
Glancing quickly,
Snatched the snail
And tapped him on a stone, once,
Twice,
Thrice.75
Away and away the aeroplane shot
Till it was nothing but a bright spark;
An aspiration;
A concentration;
A symbol
(so it seemed to Mr Bentley,
vigorously rolling his strip of turf at Greenwich)
Of man’s soul;
Of his determination,
Thought Mr Bentley,
Sweeping round the cedar tree,
To get outside his body,
Beyond his house,
By means of thought,
Einstein,
Speculation, mathematics,
The Mendelian theory –
Away the aeroplane shot.
Then, while a seedy-looking nondescript man carrying a leather bag
Stood on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral,
And hesitated,
For within was what balm,
How great a welcome,
How many tombs with banners waving over them,
Tokens of victories not over armies,
But over, he thought,
That plaguy spirit of truth seeking
Which leaves me at present without a situation,
And more than that,
The cathedral offers company,
He thought,
Invites you to membership of a society;
Great men belong to it;
Martyrs have died for it;
Why not enter in,
He thought,
Put this leather bag stuffed with pamphlets before an alter,
A cross,
The symbol of something
Which has soared beyond spirit,
Disembodied,
Ghostly –
Why not enter in?
He thought
And while he hesitated out flew the aeroplane over Ludgate Circus.76
It was strange;
It was still.
Not a sound was to be herd above the traffic.
Unguided it seemed;
Sped of its own free will.
And now, curving up and up,
Straight up,
Like something mounting in ecstasy,
In pure delight,
Out from behind poured white smoke in looping,
Writing a T, an O, and F.
CHAPTER III
‘What are they looking at?’ said Clarissa Dalloway to the maid who opened her door.
The hall of the house was as cool as a vault.
Mrs Dalloway raised her hand to her eyes,
And, as the maid shut the door to,
And she heard the swish of Lucy’s skirts,
She felt like a nun who has left the world
And feels fold round her the familiar veils
And the response to old devotions.
The cook whistled in the kitchen.
She heard the click of the typewriter.
It was her life, and bending her head over the hall table,
She bowed beneath the influence,
Felt blessed and purified,
Saying to herself,
As she took the pad with the telephone message on it,
How moments like this are buds on the tree of life,
Flowers of darkness they are,
She thought
(as if some lovely rose had blossomed for her eyes only);
Not for a moment did she believe in God;
But all the more, she thought,
Taking up the pad,
Must one repay in daily life to servants,
Yes, to dogs and canaries,
Above all to Richard her husband,
Who was the foundation of it –
Of the gay sounds,
Of the green lights,
Of the cook even whistling,
For Mrs Walker was Irish and whistled all day long—
One must pay back from this secret deposit of exquisite moments,
She thought,
Lifting the pad, while Lucy stood by her,
Trying to explain how.
‘Mr Dalloway, ma’am’ –
Clarissa read on the telephone pad,
‘Lady Bruton wished to know
If Mr Dalloway will lunch with her today.’
‘Mr Dalloway, ma’am, told me to tell you he would be lunching out.’
‘Dear!’ said Clarissa, and Lucy shared as she meant her to her disappointment
(but not the pang);
Felt the concord between them;
Took the hint;
Thought how the gentry love;
Gilded her own future with calm;
And, taking Mrs Dalloway’s parasol,
Handled it like a sacred weapon
Which a Goddess, having acquitted herself honourably
In the field of battle,
Sheds, and placed it in the umbrella stand.
‘Fear no more,’ said Clarissa. Fear no more the heat o’ the sun;77
For the shock of Lady Bruton asking Richard to lunch without her
Made the moment in which she had stood shiver,
As a plant on the river bed feels the shock of a passing oar and shivers;
So she rocked;
So she shivered.
Millicent Bruton,
Whose lunch parties were said to be extraordinarily amusing,
Had not asked her.
No vulgar jealousy could separate her from Richard.
But she feared time itself,
And read on Lady Bruton’s face,
As if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone,
The dwindling of life;
How year by year her share was sliced;
How little the margin that remained
Was capable any longer of stretching,
Of absorbing,
As in the youthful years,
The colours,
Salts,
Tones of existence,
So that she filled the room she entered,
And felt often as she stood hesitating one moment
On the threshold of her drawing-room,
An exquisite suspense,
Such as might stay a diver before plunging while the sea darkens
And brightens beneath him,
And the waves which threaten to break,
But only gently split their surface,
Roll
And conceal
And encrust
As they just turn over the weeds with pearl.
She put the pad on the hall table.
She began to go slowly upstairs, with her hand on the bannisters,
As if she had left a party,
Where now this friend now that had flashed back her face,
Her voice;
Had shut the door and gone out and stood alone,
A single figure against the appalling night,
Or rather, to be accurate,
Against the stare of this matter-of-fact June morning;
Soft with the flow of rose petals for some, she knew,
And felt it,
As she paused by the open staircase window which let in blinds flapping,
Dogs barking,
Let in,
She thought,
Feeling herself suddenly shriveled,
Aged,
Breastless,
The grinding,
Blowing,
Flowering of the day,
Out of doors,
Out of the window,
Out of her body and brain which now failed,
Since Lady Bruton,
Whose lunch parties were said to be extraordinarily amusing,
Had not asked her.
Like a nun withdrawing,
Or a child exploring a tower,
She went, upstairs,
Paused at the window,
Came to the bathroom.
There was the green linoleum and a tap dripping.
There was an emptiness about the heart of life;
An attic room.
Women must put off their rich apparel.
At midday they must disrobe.
She pierced the pincushion
And laid her feathered yellow hat on the bed.
The sheets were clean, tight stretched
In a broad white band from side to side.
Narrower and narrower would her bed be.
The candle was half burnt down
And she read deep in Baron Marbot’s Memoirs.78
She had read late at night of the retreat from Moscow.
For the House sat so long that Richard insisted,
After her illness,
That she must sleep undisturbed.
And really she preferred to read of the retreat from Moscow.
He knew it.
So the room was an attic;
The bed narrow;
And lying there reading,
For she slept badly,
She could not dispel a virginity preserved through childbirth
Which clung to her like a sheet.
Lovely in girlhood, suddenly there came a moment –
For example on the river beneath the woods at Cliveden –
When, through some contraction of this cold spirit,
She had failed him.
And then at Constantinople, and again and again.
She could see what she lacked.
It was not beauty; it was not mind.
It was something central which permeated;
Something warm which broke up surfaces and rippled
The cold contact of man and woman,
Or of women altogether.
For that she could dimly perceive.
She resented it,
Had a scruple picked up Heaven knows where, or,
As she felt,
Sent by Nature
(who is invariably wise);
Yet she could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman,
Not a girl,
Of a woman confessing,
As to her they often did,
Some scrape, some folly.
And whether it was pity,
Or their beauty,
Or that she was older,
Or some accident –
Like a faint scent,
Or a violin next door
(so strange is the power of sounds at certain moments),
She did undoubtedly then feel what men felt.
Only for a moment; but it was enough.
It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush
Which one tried to check and then,
As it spread, one yielded to its expansion,
And rushed to the farthest verge
And there quivered
And felt the world come closer,
Swollen with some astonishing significance,
Some pressure of rapture,
Which split its thin skin
And gushed
And poured
With an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores.
Then, for that moment, she had seen an illumination;
A match burning in a crocus;
An inner meaning almost expressed.
But the close withdrew;
The hard softened.
It was over –
The moment.
Against such moments
(with women too)
There contrasted
(as she laid her hat down)
The bed and Baron Marbot and the candle half-burnt.
Lying awake, the floor creaked;
The lit house was suddenly darkened,
And if she raised her head
She could just hear the click of the handle
Released as gently as possible by Richard,
Who slipped upstairs in his socks and then,
As often as not,
Dropped his hot-water bottle and swore!
How she laughed!
But this question of love
(she thought, putting her coat away),
This falling in love with women.
Take Sally Seton; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton.79
Had not that, after all, been love?80
She sat on the floor –
That was her first impression of Sally –
She sat on the floor with her arms round her knees,
Smoking a cigarette.
Where could it have been?
The Mannings’?
The Kinloch-Jones’s?
At some party
(where, she could not be certain),
For she had a distinct recollection
Of saying to the man she was with,
‘Who is that?’
And he had told her,
And said that Sally’s parents did not get on
(how that shocked her –
that one’s parents should quarrel!)81
But all that evening
She could not take her eyes off Sally.
It was an extraordinary beauty
Of the kind she most admired,
Dark,
Large-eyed,
With that quality which,
Since she hadn’t got it herself,
She always envied –
A sort of abandonment,
As if she could say anything, do anything;
A quality much commoner in foreigners than in English women.
Sally always said she had French blood in her veins,
An ancestor had been with Marie Antoinette,82
Had his head cut off,
Left a ruby ring.
Perhaps that summer she came to stay at Bourton,
Walking in quite unexpectedly
Without a penny in her pocket,
One night after dinner,
And upsetting poor Aunt Helena
To such an extent that she never forgave her.
There had been some awful quarrel at home.
She literally hadn’t a penny that night when she came to them –
Had pawned a brooch to come down.
She had rushed off in a passion.
They sat up till all hours of the night talking.
Sally it was who made her feel,
For the first time –
How sheltered the life at Bourton was.
She knew nothing about sex –
Nothing about social problems.
She had once seen an old man
Who had dropped dead in a field –
She had seen cows just after their calves were born.
But Aunt Helena never liked discussion of anything
(when Sally gave her William Morris,83
it had to be wrapped in brown paper).
There they sat, hour after hour,
Talking in her bedroom at the top of the house,
Talking about life, how they were to reform the world.
They meant to found a society to abolish private property,
And actually had a letter written,
Though not sent out.
The ideas were Sally’s, of course –
But very soon she was just as excited –
Read Plato in bed before breakfast;
Read Morris;
Read Shelley84 by the hour.
Sally’s power was amazing,
Her gift, her personality.
There was her way with flowers, for instance.
At Bourton they always had stiff little vases
All the way down the table.
Sally went out, picked hollyhocks, dahlias –
All sorts of flowers that had never been seen together –
Cut their heads off,85
And made them swim on the top of water in bowls.
The effect was extraordinary –
Coming in to dinner in the sunset.
(Of course, Aunt Helena thought it wicked to treat flowers like that.)
Then she forgot her sponge,
And ran along the passage naked.
That grim old housemaid,
Ellen Atkins,
Went about grumbling –
‘Suppose any of the gentlemen had seen?’
Indeed she did shock people.
She was untidy, Papa said.
The strange thing, on looking back, was the purity,
The integrity, of her feeling for Sally.
It was not like one’s feeling for a man.
It was completely disinterested, and besides,
It had a quality which could only exist between women,
Between women just grown up.
It was protective, on her side;
Sprang from a sense of being in league together,
A presentiment of something that was bound to part them
(they spoke of marriage always as a catastrophe),
Which led to this chivalry,
This protective feeling
Which was much more on her side than Sally’s
For in those days she was completely reckless;
Did the most idiotic things out of bravado;
Bicycled round the parapet on the terrace;
Smoke cigars.
Absurd, she was –
Very absurd.
But the charm was overpowering, to her at least,
So that she could remember standing in her bedroom
At the top of the house holding the hot-water can in her hands
And saying aloud,
‘She is beneath this roof…She is beneath this roof!’
No, the words meant absolutely nothing to her now.
She could not even get an echo of her old emotion.
But she could remember going cold with excitement,
And doing her hair in a kind of ecstasy
(now the old feeling began to come back to her,
As she took out her hairpins,
Laid them on the dressing-table,
Began to do her hair),
With the rooks flaunting up and down
In the pink evening light,
And dressing,
And going downstairs,
And feeling as she crossed the hall ‘if it were now to die
’Twere now to be most happy.’ 86
That was her feeling –
Othello’s feeling, and she felt it,
She was convinced,
As strongly as Shakespeare meant Othello to feel it,
All because she was coming down to dinner
In a white frock
To meet Sally Seton!87
She was wearing pink gauze – was that possible?
She seemed, any how, all light, glowing,
Like some bird or air ball that has flown in,
Attached itself for a moment to a bramble.
But nothing is so strange when one is in love
(and what was this except being in love?)
As the complete indifference of other people.
Aunt Helena just wandered off after dinner;
Papa read the paper.
Peter Walsh might have been there,
And old Miss Cummings;
Joseph Breitkopf certainly was,
For he came every summer,
Poor old man,
For weeks and weeks,
And pretended to read German with her,
But really played the piano and sang Brahms without any voice.
All this was only a background for Sally.
She stood by the fireplace talking,
In that beautiful voice which made everything she said
Sound like a caress, to Papa,
Who had begun to be attracted rather against his will
(he never got over lending her one of his books
and finding it soaked on the terrace),
When suddenly she said, ‘What a shame to sit indoors!’
And they all went out on to the terrace
And walked up and down.
Peter Walsh and Joseph Breitkopf went on about Wagner.88
She and Sally fell a little behind.
Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life
Passing a stone urn with flowers in it.
Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips.
The whole world might have turned upside down!
The others disappeared;
There she was alone with Sally.
And she felt that she had been given a present,
Wrapped up,
And told just to keep it, not to look at it –
A diamond, something infinitely precious,
Wrapped up,
Which, as they walked
(up and down, up and down),
She uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation,
The religious feeling! –
When old Joseph and Peter faced them: ‘Star-gazing?’ said Peter.
It was like running one’s face against a granite wall in the darkness!
It was shocking; it was horrible!
Not for herself. She felt only how Sally was being mauled
Already, maltreated;
She felt his hostility;
His jealousy;
His determination to break into their companionship.
All this she saw as one sees a landscape in a flash of lightning –
And Sally
(never had she admired her so much!)
Gallantly taking her way unvanquished.
She laughed.
She made old Joseph tell her the names of the stars,
Which he liked doing very seriously.
She stood there: she listened.
She heard the names of the stars.
‘Oh this horror!’ she said to herself,
As if she had known all along
That something would interrupt,
Would embitter her moment of happiness.
Yet how much she owed Peter Walsh later.89
Always when she thought of him
She thought of their quarrels for some reason –
Because she wanted his good opinion so much,
Perhaps.
She owed him words: ‘sentimental’, ‘civilised’;
They started up every day of her life as if he guarded her.
A book was sentimental;
An attitude to life sentimental.
‘Sentimental’, perhaps she was to be thinking of the past.
What would he think,
She wondered,
When he came back?
That she had grown older?
Would he say that, or would she see him thinking
When he came back,
That she had grown older?
It was true.
Since her illness she had turned almost white.
Laying her brooch on the table,
She had a sudden spasm,
As if, while she mused,
The icy claws had had the chance to fix in her.
She was not old yet.
She had just broken into her fifty-second year.
Month and months of it were still untouched. June, July, August!
Each still remained almost whole, and,
As if to catch the falling drop,
Clarissa
(crossing to the dressing-table)
Plunged into the very heart of the movement,
Transfixed it, there –
The moment of this June morning
On which was the pressure of all the other mornings,
Seeing the glass,
The dressing-table,
And all the bottles afresh,
Collecting the whole of her at one point
(as she looked into the glass),
Seeing the delicate pink face of the woman who was that very night
To give a party;
Of Clarissa Dalloway;
Of herself.
How many million times she had seen her face,
And always with the same imperceptible contraction!
She pursed her lips when she looked in the glass.
It was to give her face point.
That was her self –
Pointed;
Dartlike;
Definite.
That was her self when some effort,
Some call on her to be her self,
Drew the parts together,
She alone knew how different,
How incompatible and composed
So for the world only into one centre,
One diamond,
One woman
Who sat in her drawing-room
And made a meeting-point,
A radiancy no doubt in some dull lives,
A refuge for the lonely to come to, perhaps;
She had helped young people,
Who were grateful to her;
Had tried to be the same always,
Never showing a sign of all the other sides of her –
Faults,
Jealousies,
Vanities,
Suspicions,
Like this of Lady Bruton not asking her to lunch;
Which, she thought
(combing her hair finally),
Is utterly base!
Now, where was her dress?
Her evening dresses hung in the cupboard.
Clarissa, plunging her hand into the softness,
Gently detached the green dress
And carried it to the window.
She had torn it.
Someone had trod on the skirt.
She had felt it give at the Embassy party
At the top among the folds.
By artificial light the green shone,
But lost its colour now in the sun.
She would mend it.
Her maids had too much to do.
She would wear it tonight.
She would take her silks,
Her scissors,
Her –
What was it –
Her thimble,
Of course, down into the drawing-room,
For she must also write,
And see that things generally were more or less in order.
Strange, she thought, pausing on the landing,
And assembling that diamond shape, that single person,
Strange how a mistress knows the very moment,
The very temper of her house!
Faint sounds rose in spirals up the well of the stairs;
The swish of a mop;
Tapping;
Knocking;
A loudness when the front door opened
A voice repeating a message in the basement;
The chink of silver on a tray;
Clean silver for the party.
All was for the party.
(And Lucy, coming into the drawing-room with her tray held out,
Put the giant candlesticks on the mantelpiece,
The silver casket in the middle,
Turned the crystal dolphin towards the clock.
They would come;
They would stand;
They would talk in the mincing tones
Which she could imitate,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Of all, her mistress was loveliest –
Mistress of silver,
Of linen,
Of china,
For the sun,
The silver,
Doors off their hinges,
Rumpelmayer’s men,
Gave her a sense, as she laid the paper-knife on the inlaid table,
Of something achieved.
Behold! Behold!
She said, speaking to her old friends in the baker’s shop,
Where she had first seen service at Caterham,90
Prying into the glass.
She was Lady Angela, attending Princess Mary,
When in came Mrs Dalloway.)
‘Oh, Lucy,’ she said, ‘the silver does look nice!’
‘And how,’ she said, turning the crystal dolphin to stand straight, ‘how did you enjoy the play last night?’
‘Oh,
they had to go before the end!’ she said. “They had to be back at ten!’
she said. ‘So they don’t know what happened,’ she said. ‘That does seem
hard luck,’ she said
(for her servants stayed later,
if they asked her).
‘That does seem rather a shame,’ she said,
Taking the old bald-looking cushion in the middle of the sofa and putting it in Lucy’s arms, and giving her a little push,
And crying: ‘Take it away! Give it to Mrs Walker with my compliments! Take it away!’ she cried.
And Lucy stopped at the drawing-room door,
Holding the cushion,
And said, very shyly,
Turning a little pink,
Couldn’t she help to mend that dress?
But, said Mrs Dalloway, she had enough on her hands already,
Quite enough of her own to do without that.
‘But, than you, Lucy, oh, thank you,’ said Mrs Dalloway,
And thank you, thank you, she went on saying
(sitting down on the sofa with her dress
over her knees,
her scissors, her silks),
Thank you, thank you,
She went on saying in gratitude to her servants generally
For helping her to be like this, to be what she wanted,
Gentle,
Generous-hearted.
Her servants liked her.
And then this dress of hers –
Where was the tear?
And now her needle to be threaded.
This was a favourite dress, one of Sally Parker’s,
The last almost she ever made, alas,
For Sally had now retired,
Lived at Ealing,
And if ever I have a moment,
Thought Clarissa,
(but never would she have a moment any more),
I shall go and see her at Ealing.
For she was a character,
Thought Clarissa,
A real artist.
She thought of little out-of-the-way things;
Yet her dresses were never queer.
You could wear them at Hatfield;91
At Buckingham Palace.
She had worn them at Hatfield;
At Buckingham Palace.
Quiet descended on her,
Calm,
Content,
As her needle,
Drawing the silk smoothly to its gentle pause,
Collected the green folds together
And attached them, very lightly, to the belt.
So on a summer’s day waves collect,
Overbalance,
and
f
a
l
l;
Collect
and
f
a
l
l;
And the whole world seems to be saying ‘that is all’
More and more ponderously,
Until even the heart in the body
Which like in the sun on the beach says too,
That is all.
Fear no more,
Says the heart.92
Fear no more,
Says the heart,
Committing its burden to some sea,
Which sighs collectively for all sorrows,
And renews,
Begins,
Collects,
lets
f
a
l
l.
And the body alone listens to the passing bee;
The wave breaking;
The dog barking,
Far away barking and barking.
‘Heavens, the front-door bell!’ exclaimed Clarissa, staying her needle.
Roused, she listened.
‘Mrs Dalloway will see me,’ said the elderly man in the hall.
‘Oh yes, she will see me,’ he repeated,
Putting Lucy aside very benevolently,
And running upstairs ever so quickly.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he muttered as he ran upstairs. ‘She will see me.
After five years in India, Clarissa will see me.’93
‘Who can – what can?’ asked Mrs Dalloway
(thinking it was outrageous to be interrupted at eleven o’clock
on the morning of the day she was giving a party),
Hearing a step on the stairs.
She heard a hand upon the door.
She made to hide her dress,
Like a virgin protecting chastity,
Respecting privacy.
Now the brass knob slipped.
Now the door opened, and in came –
For a single second she could not remember what he was called!
So surprised she was to see him,
So glad,
So shy,
So utterly
Taken aback to have Peter Walsh come to her
Unexpectedly in the morning!
(She had not read his letter.)94
‘And how are you?’ said Peter Walsh, positively trembling;95
Taking both her hands; kissing both her hands.
She’s grown older,
He thought, sitting down.
I shan’t tell her anything about it,
He thought, for she’s grown older.
She’s looking at me,
He thought, a sudden embarrassment
Coming over him,
Though he had kissed her hands.
Putting his hand into his pocket,
He took out a large pocket-knife and half opened the blade.96
Exactly the same, thought Clarissa;
The same queer look;
The same check suit;97
A little out of the straight his face is,
A little thinner, dryer, perhaps,
But he looks awfully well, and just the same.
‘How heavenly it is to see you again!’ she exclaimed.
He had his knife out.
That’s so like him, she thought.
He had only reached town last night, he said;
Would have to go down into the country at once;
And how was everything,
How was everybody – Richard? Elizabeth?
‘And what’s all this?’ he said, tilting his penknife
Towards her green dress.
He’s very well dressed, thought Clarissa;
Yet he always criticises me. 98
Here she is mending her dress;
Mending her dress as usual,
He thought;
Here she’s been sitting all the time I’ve been in India,99
Mending her dress;
Playing about;
Going to parties;
Running to the House
And back and all that,
He thought,
Growing more and more irritated,
More and more agitated,
For there’s nothing in the world
So bad for some women as marriage,
He thought,
And politics;
And having a Conservative husband,100
Like the admirable Richard.
So it is,
He thought,
Shutting the knife with a snap.
‘Richard’s very well.
Richard’s at a Committee,’ said Clarissa.
And she opened her scissors,
And said,
Did he mind her just finishing
What she was doing to her dress,
For they had a party that night?
‘Which I shan’t ask you to,’ she said. ‘My dear Peter!’ she said.
But it was delicious to hear her say that –
My dear Peter!
Indeed, it was all so delicious –
The silver,
The chairs;
All so delicious!
Why wouldn’t she ask him to her party? he asked.
Now of course,
Thought Clarissa,
He’s enchanting! Perfectly enchanting!
Now I remember how impossible it was ever
Ever to make up my mind –
And why did I make up my mind –
Not to marry him,
She wondered, that awful summer?
‘But it’s so extraordinary that you should have come this morning!’ she cried,
Putting her hands, one on top of another, down on her dress.
‘Do you remember,’ she said,’ how the blinds used to flap at Bourton?’
‘They
did,’ he said; and he remembered breakfasting alone, very awkwardly,
with her father, who had died; and he had not written to Clarissa.
But he had never got on well with old Parry,
That querulous,
Weak-kneed old man,
Clarissa’s father,
Justin Parry.
‘I often wish I’d got on better with your father,’ he said.
‘But he never liked anyone who – our friends,’ said Clarissa;
And could have bitten her tongue for thus reminding Peter
That he had wanted to marry her.
Of course I did,
Thought Peter;
It almost broke my heart too,
He thought;
And was overcome with his own grief,
Which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace,
Ghastly beautiful with light
From the sunken day.
I was more unhappy than I’ve ever been since,
He thought.
And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace
He edged a little towards Clarissa;
Put his hand out;
Raised it;
Let it
f
a
l
l.
There above them it hung, that moon.
She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace
In the moonlight.
‘Herbert has it now,’ she said. ‘I never go there now,’ she said.101
Then, just as happens on a terrace in the moonlight,
When one person begins to feel ashamed that he is already bored,
And yet as the other sits silent,
Very quiet,
Sadly looking at the moon,
Does not like to speak,
Moves his foot,
Clears his throat,
Notices some iron scroll on a table leg,
Stirs a leaf,
But says nothing –
So Peter Walsh did not.
For why go back like this to the past?
He thought.
Why make him think of it again?
Why make him suffer,
When she had tortured him so infernally?
Why?
‘Do you remember the lake? She said in an abrupt voice,
Under the pressure of an emotion which caught her heart,
Made the muscles of her throat stiff,
And contracted her lips in a spasm as she said ‘lake.’
For she was a child,
Throwing bread to the ducks,
Between her parents,
And at the same time a grown woman coming to her parents
Who stood by the lake,
Holding her life in her arms which,
As she neared them,
Grew larger and larger in her arms until it became a whole life,
A complete life,
Which she put down by them and said,
‘This is what I have made of it!
This!’
And what had she made of it?
What, indeed? sitting there sewing this morning with Peter.
She looked at Peter Walsh;
Her look,
Passing through all that time and that emotion,
Reached him doubtfully;
Settled on him tearfully;
And rose and fluttered away,
As a bird touches a branch
And flutters away.
Quite simply she wiped her eyes.
‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said,
As if she drew up to the surface
Something which positively hurt him as it rose.
Stop! Stop! He wanted to cry.
For he was not old;
His life was not over; not by any means.
He was only just past fifty.
Shall I tell her, he thought, or not?
He would like to make a clean breast of it all.
But she is too cold,
He thought;
Sewing, with her scissors;
Daisy would look ordinary beside Clarissa.
And she would think me a failure,
Which I am in their sense,
He thought;
In the Dalloways’ sense.102
Oh yes, he had no doubt about that;
He was a failure, compared with all this –-
The inlaid table,
The mounted paper-knife,
The dolphin
And the candlesticks,
The chair-covers
And the old valuable English tinted prints –
He was a failure!
I detest the smugness of the whole affair,
He thought;
Richard’s doing, not Clarissa’s;
Save that she married him.
(Here Lucy came into the room, carrying silver,
more silver,
but charming, slender, graceful she looked,
He thought,
as she stooped to put it down.)
And this has been going on all the time!
He thought;
Week after week;
Clarissa’s life;
While I –
He thought;
And at once everything seemed to radiate from him;
Journeys;
Rides;
Quarrels;
Adventures;
Bridge parties;
Love affairs;
Work:
Work, work!
And he took out his knife quite openly –
His old horn-handled knife
Which Clarissa could swear he had had these thirty years –
And clenched his fist upon it.
What an extraordinary habit that was,
Clarissa thought;
Always playing with a knife.
Always making one feel, too, frivolous;
Empty-minded;
A mere silly chatterbox,
As he used.
But I too,
She thought,
And, taking up her needle, summoned, like a Queen,
Whose guards have fallen asleep and left her unprotected
(she had been quite taken aback by this visit –
it had upset her)
So that anyone can stroll in and have a look at her where she lies
With the brambles curving over her,
Summoned to her help the things she did;
The things she liked;
Her husband;
Elizabeth;
Her self, in short
Which Peter hardly knew now,
All to come about her and beat off the enemy.
‘Well, and what’s happened to you?’ she said.
So before a battle begins,
The horses paw the ground;
Toss their heads;
The light shines on their flanks
Their necks curve.
So Peter Walsh and Clarissa,
Sitting side by side on the blue sofa,
Challenged each other.
His powers chafed and tossed in him.
He assembled from different quarters all sorts of things;
Praise;
His career at Oxford;
His marriage, which she knew nothing whatever about;
How he had loved;
And altogether done his job.103
‘Millions of things!’ he exclaimed, and,
Urged by the assembly of powers which were now charging
This way and that
And giving him the feeling at once frightening
And extremely exhilarating of being rushed through the air
On the shoulders of people he could no longer see,
He raised his hands to his forehead.
Clarissa sat very upright; drew in her breath.
‘I am in love,’ he said, not to her however,
But to someone raised up in the dark so that you could not touch her
But must lay your garland down on the grass in the dark.
‘In
love,’ he repeated, now speaking rather dryly to Clarissa Dalloway; ‘in
love with a girl in India.’ He had deposited his garland. Clarissa
could make what she would of it.
‘In love!’ she said.
That he at his age should be sucked under
In his little bow-tie by that monster!
And there’s no flesh on his neck;
His hands are red;
And he’s six months older than I am!
Her eye flashed back to her;
But in her heart she felt, all the same;
He is in love.
He has that, she felt;
He is in love.
But the indomitable egotism
Which for ever rides down the hosts opposed to it,
The river which says
On, on, on;
Even though, it admits, there may be no goal for us whatever,
Still
On, on;
This indomitable egotism charged her cheeks with colour;
Made her look very young;
Very pink;
Very bright-eyed
As she sat with her dress upon her knee,
And her needle held to the end of green silk,
Trembling a little.
He was in love!
Not with her.
With some younger woman, of course.
‘And who is she?’ she asked.
Now this statue must be brought from its height
And set down between them.
‘A married woman, unfortunately,’ he said; ‘ the wife of a Major in the Indian Army.’
And with a curious ironical sweetness
He smiled as he placed her in this ridiculous way before Clarissa.
(All the same,
he is in love,
thought Clarissa.)
‘She has,’ he continued, very reasonably,
‘Two small children; a boy and a girl;
And I have come over to see my lawyers about the divorce.’
There they are!
He thought.
Do what you like with them, Clarissa!
There they are!
And second by second it seemed to him
That the wife of the Major in the Indian Army (his Daisy)
And her two small children
Became more and more lovely as Clarissa looked at them;
As if he had set light to a grey pellet on a plate
And there had risen up a lovely tree
In the brisk sea-salted air of their intimacy
(for in some ways no one understood him,
felt with him, as Clarissa did) –
Their exquisite intimacy.
She flattered him;
She fooled him,
Thought Clarissa;
Shaping the woman,
The wife of the Major in the Indian Army,
With three strokes of a knife.
What a waste!
What a folly!
All his life long Peter had been fooled like that;
First getting sent down from Oxford;
Next marrying the girl on the boat going out to India;
Now the wife of a Major –
Thank Heaven she had refused to marry him!
Still,
He was in love;
Her old friend, her dear Peter,
He was in love.
‘But what are you going to do?’ she asked him.
Oh the lawyers and solicitors,
Messrs Hooper and Grateley of Lincoln’s Inn,104
They were going to do it, he said.
And he actually pared his nails with his pocket-knife.
For Heaven’s sake, leave your knife alone;
She cried to herself in irrepressible irritation;
It was his silly unconventionality,
His weakness;
His lack of the ghost of a notion
What anyone else was feeling that annoyed her,
Had always annoyed her;
And now at his age, how silly!
I know all that, Peter thought:
I know what I’m up against,
He thought,
Running his finger along the blade of his knife,
Clarissa and Dalloway and all the rest of them;
But I’ll show Clarissa –
And then to his utter surprise,
Suddenly thrown by those uncontrollable forces
Thrown through the air,
He burst into tears;
Wept;
Wept without the least shame,
Sitting on the sofa,
The tears running down his cheeks.
And Clarissa had leant forward,
Taken his hand,
Drawn him to her,
Kissed him –
Actually had felt his face on hers
Before she could down the brandishing of silver-flashing plumes
Like pampas grass in a tropic gale in her breast,
Which, subsiding,
Left her holding his hand,
Patting his knee,
And feeling as she sat back extraordinarily at her ease with him
And light-hearted,
All in a clap it came over her,
If I had married him,
This gaiety would have been mine all day!
It was all over for her.
The sheet was stretched and the bed narrow.
She had gone up into the tower alone
And left them blackberrying in the sun.
The door had shut,
And there among the dust of fallen plaster
And the litter of birds’ nests
How distant the view had looked;
And the sounds came thin and chill
(once on Leith Hill, 105she remembered),
And Richard, Richard! she cried, as a sleeper in the night starts
And stretches a hand in the dark for help.
Lunching with Lady Bruton, it came back to her.
He has left me;
I am alone for ever,
She thought,
Folding her hands upon her knee.
Peter Walsh had got up and crossed to the window
And stood with his back to her,
Flicking a bandanna handkerchief from side to side.
Masterly and dry and desolate he looked,
His thin shoulder-blades lifting his coat slightly
Blowing his nose violently.
Take me with you,
Clarissa thought impulsively,
As if her were starting directly upon some great voyage;
And then, next moment,
It was as if the five acts of a play 106
That had been very exciting and moving
Were not over
And she had lived a lifetime in them and had run away,
Had lived with Peter,
And it was now over.
Now it was time to move,
And, as a woman gathers her things together,
Her cloak,
Her gloves,
Her opera-glasses,
And gets up to go out of the theatre into the street,
She rose from the sofa and went to Peter.
And it was awfully strange,
He thought,
How she still had the power,
As she came tinkling,
Rustling,
Still had the power as she came across the room,
To make the moon,
Which he detested,
Rise at Bourton on the terrace in the summer sky.
‘Tell me,’ he said, seizing her by the shoulders.
‘Are you happy, Clarissa? Does Richard –
The door opened.
‘Here is my Elizabeth,’ said Clarissa, emotionally, histrionically, perhaps.
‘How d’y do?’ said Elizabeth coming forward.
The sound of Big Bend striking the half-hour
Struck out between them with extraordinary vigour,
As if a young man,
Strong,
Indifferent,
Inconsiderate,
Were swinging dumb-bells this way and that.
‘Hullo, Elizabeth!’ cried Peter,
Stuffing his handkerchief into his pocket,
Going quickly to her,
Saying ‘Goodbye, Clarissa’ without looking at her,
Leaving the room quickly,
And running downstairs and opening the hall door.
‘Peter! Peter!’ cried Clarissa, following him out on to the landing.
‘My party! Remember my party tonight!’ she cried,
Having to raise her voice against the roar of the open air,
And, overwhelmed by the traffic and the sound of all the clocks striking,
Her voice crying, ‘Remember my party tonight!’
Sounded frail and thin and very far away
As Peter Walsh shut the door.
CHAPTER IV
Remember my party, remember my party,
Said Peter Walsh as he stepped down the street,
Speaking to himself rhythmically,
In time with the flow of the sound,
The direct downright sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour
(The leaden circles dissolved in the air.)
Oh these parties,
He thought;
Blamed her or this effigy of a man in a tail-coat
With a carnation in his button-hole coming towards him.
Only one person in the world could be as he was,
In love.
And there he was, this fortunate man, himself,
Reflected in the plate-glass window
Of a motor-car manufacturer in Victoria Street.
All India lay behind him;
Plains,
Mountains,
Epidemics of cholera;
A district twice as big as Ireland;107
Decisions he had come to alone –
He, Peter Walsh;
Who was now really for the first time in his life,
In love.
Clarissa had grown hard,
He thought;
And a trifle sentimental into the bargain,
He suspected,
Looking at the great motor cars capable of doing –
How many miles on how many gallons?
For he had a turn for mechanics;
Had invented a plough in his district,
Had ordered wheelbarrows from England
But the coolies wouldn’t use them,
All of which Clarissa knew nothing whatever about.
The way she said “Here is my Elizabeth!’ –
That annoyed him.
Why not ‘Here’s Elizabeth’ simply?
It was insincere.
And Elizabeth didn’t like it either.
(Still the last tremors of the great booming voice
Shook the air round him;
the half-hour; still early; only half-past eleven still.)
For he understood young people,
He liked them.
There was always something cold in Clarissa,
He thought.
She had always, even as a girl,
A sort of timidity,
Which in middle age becomes conventionality,
And then it’s all up,
It’s all up,
He thought,
Looking rather drearily into the glassy depths,
And wondering whether by calling at that hour
He had annoyed her;
Overcome with shame suddenly at having been a fool;
Wept;
Been emotional;
Told her everything;
As usual,
As usual.
As a cloud crosses the sun,
Silence falls on London;
And falls on the mind.
Effort ceases.
Time flaps on the mast.
There we stop;
There we stand.
Rigid,
The skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.
Where there is nothing,
Peter Walsh said to himself;
Feeling hollowed out, utterly empty within.
Clarissa refused me,
He thought.
He stood there thinking,
Clarissa refused me.
Ah, said St Margaret’s, 108like a hostess
Who comes into her drawing-room
On the very stroke of the hour
And finds her guests there already.
I am not late.
No, it is precisely half-past eleven, she says.
Yet, though she is perfectly right, her voice,
Being the voice of the hostess,
Is reluctant to inflict its individuality.
Some grief for the past holds it back;
Some concern for the present.
It is half-past eleven,
She says,
And the sound of St Margaret’s glides
Into the recesses of the heart
And buries itself in ring after ring of sound,
Like something alive
Which wants to confide itself,
To disperse itself,
To be,
With a tremor of light, at rest –
Like Clarissa herself,
Thought Peter Walsh,
Coming downstairs on the stroke of the hour
In white.
It is Clarissa herself,
He thought,
With a deep emotion,
And an extraordinarily clear,
Yet puzzling,
Recollection of her,
As if this bell had come into the room years ago,
Where they sat at some moment of great intimacy,
And had gone from one to the to her and had left,
Like a bee with hone, laden with the moment.
But what room?
What moment?
And why had he been so profoundly happy when the clock was striking?
Then as the sound of St Margaret’s languished,
He thought,
She has been ill,
And the sound expressed languor and suffering.
It was her heart,
He remembered;
And the sudden loudness of the final stroke
Tolled for death
That surprised in the midst of life,
Clarissa falling where she stood,
In her drawing-room.
No! No! he cried.
She is not dead!
I am not old, he cried,
And marching up Whitehall,109
As if there rolled down to him,
Vigorous, unending, his future.
He was not old,
Or set,
Or dried
In the least.
As for caring what they said of him –
The Dalloways, the Whitbreads, and their set,
He cared not a straw –
Not a straw
(though it was true he would have,
sometime or other, to see whether Richard couldn’t
help him to some job).
Striding, staring, he glared at the statue of the Duke of Cambridge.110
He had been sent down from Oxford – true.
He had been a Socialist,
In some sense a failure – true.
Still the future of civilization lies,
He thought,
In the hands of young men like that;
Of young men such as he was, thirty years ago;
With their love of abstract principles;
Getting books sent out to them
All the way from London
To a peak in the Himalayas;
Reading science;
Reading philosophy.
The future lies in the hands of young men like that,
He thought.
A patter like the patter
Of leaves in a wood came from behind,
And with a rustling, regular thudding sound,
Which as it overtook him
Drummed his thoughts,
Strict in step,
Up Whitehall, without his doing.
Boys in uniform,
Carrying guns, marched with their eyes ahead of them,
Marched, their arms stiff,
And on their faces an expression like the letters of a legend
Written round the base of a statue praising
Duty,
Gratitude,
Fidelity,
Love of England.
It is,
Thought Peter Walsh,
Beginning to keep step with them,
A very fine training.
But they did not look robust.111
They were weedy for the most part,
Boys of sixteen,
Who might tomorrow,
Stand behind bowls of rice, cakes of soap on counters.
Now they wore on them unmixed with sensual pleasure or daily preoccupations
The solemnity of the wreath which they had fetched from Finsbury Pavement 112
To the empty tomb.
They had taken their vow.
The traffic respected it; vans were stopped.
I can’t keep up with them,
Peter Walsh thought,
As they marched up Whitehall,
And sure enough,
On they marched,
Past him,
Past everyone,
In their steady way,
As if one will
Worked legs and arms uniformly,
And life,
With its varieties,
Its irreticences,
Had laid under a pavement of monuments and wreaths
And drugged into a stiff yet staring corpse by discipline.
One had to respect it;
One might laugh,
But one had to respect it,
He thought.
There they go,
Thought Peter Walsh,
Pausing at the edge of the pavement;
And all the exalted statues,
Nelson,
Gordon,
Havelock,
The black,
The spectacular images of great soldiers
Stood looking ahead of them,
As if they too had made the same renunciation
(Peter Walsh felt he, too,
had made it the great renunciation),
Trampled under the same temptations,
And achieved at length a marble stare.
But the stare Peter Walsh did not want
For himself at least;
Though he could respect it in others.
He could respect it in boys.
They don’t know the troubles of the flesh yet,
He thought,
As the marching boys disappeared
In the direction of the Strand –
All that I’ve been through,
He thought,
Crossing the road,
And standing under Gordon’s statue,
Gordon whom as a boy he had worshipped;
Gordon standing lonely with one leg raised
And his arms crossed –
Poor Gordon,
He thought.113
And just because nobody yet knew he was in London,
Except Clarissa,
And the earth,
After the voyage,
Still seemed an island to him,
The strangeness of standing alone,
Alive,
Unknown,
At half-past eleven in Trafalgar Square overcame him.
What is it?
Where am I?
And why, after all, does one do it?
He thought,
The divorce seeming all moonshine.
And down his mind went flat as a march,
And three great emotions bowled over him;
Understanding;
A vast philanthropy;
And finally, as if the result of the others,
An irrepressible, exquisite delight;
As if inside his brain by another hand
Strings were pulled,
Shutters moved,
And he, having nothing to do with it,
Yet stood at the opening of endless avenues,
Down which if he chose
He might wander.
He had not felt so young for years.
He had escaped! was utterly free –
As happens in the downfall of habit
When the mind, like an unguarded flame,
Bows and bends
And seems about to blow from its holding.
I haven’t felt so young for years!
Thought Peter,
Escaping
(only of course for an hour or so)
from being precisely what he was
And feeling like a child who runs out of doors,
And sees,
As he runs,
His old nurse waving at the wrong window.
But she’s extraordinarily attractive,
He thought,
As, walking across Trafalgar Square
In the direction of the Haymarket,114
Came a young woman who,
As she passed Gordon’s statue,
Seemed,
Peter Walsh thought,
(susceptible as he was),
To shed veil after veil,
Until she became the very woman he had always had in mind;
Young, but stately;
Merry, but discreet;
Black, but enchanting.
Straightening himself and stealthily fingering his pocket-knife
He started after her to follow this woman,
This excitement,
Which seemed even with its back turned
To shed on him a light which connected them,
Which singled him out,
As if the random uproar of the traffic
Had whispered through hallowed hands his name,
Not Peter,
But his private name
Which he called himself in his own thoughts.
‘You,’ she said, only ‘you,’ saying it
With her white gloves and her shoulders.
Then the thin long cloak
Which the wind stirred as she walked past Dent’s shop in Cockspur
Blew out with an enveloping kindness,
A mournful tenderness,
As of arms that would open and take the tired –
But she’s not married;
She’s young;
Quite young,
Thought Peter,
The red carnation he had seen her wear as she came across Trafalgar Square
Burning again in his eyes and making her lips red.
But she waited at the kerbstone.
There was a dignity about her.
She was not worldly,
Like Clarissa;
Not rich, like Clarissa.
Was she,
He wondered as he moved,
Respectable?115
Witty, with a lizard’s flickering tongue,
He thought,
(for one must invent, must allow
oneself a little diversion),
A cool waiting wit, a darting wit; not noisy.
She moved; she crossed; he followed her.
To embarrass her was the last thing he wished.
Still if she stopped he would say, ‘Come and have an ice,’
He would say,
And she would answer, perfectly simply, ‘Oh yes.’
But other people got between them in the street,
Obstructing him,
Blotting her out.
He pursued; she changed.
There was colour in her cheeks;
Mockery in her eyes;
He was an adventurer, reckless,
He thought,
Swift, daring, indeed
(landed as he was last night from India)
A romantic buccaneer,
Careless of all these damned proprieties,
Yellow dressing-gowns,
Pipes,
Fishing-rods,
In the shop windows’
And respectability and evening parties
And spruce old men wearing white slips
Beneath their waistcoats.
He was a buccaneer.
On and on she went,
Across Piccadilly,
And up Regent Street,
Ahead of him,
Her cloak, her gloves, her shoulders
Combing with the fringes and the laces
And the feather boas in the windows to make
The spirit of finery and whimsy
Which dwindled out of the shops on to the pavement,
As the light of a lamp goes wavering at night
Over hedges in the darkness.
Laughing and delightful,
She had crossed Oxford Street and Great Portland Street
And turned down one of the little streets,
And now, and now,
The great moment was approaching,
For now she slackened, opened her bag,
And with one look in his direction,
But not at him,
One look that bade farewell,
Summed up the whole situation
And dismissed it triumphantly,
For ever, had fitted her key,
Opened the door,
And gone!
Clarissa’s voice saying,
Remember my party,
Remember my party,
Sang in his ears.
The house was one of those flat red houses
With hanging flower-baskets of vague impropriety.
It was over.
Well, I’ve had my fun;
I’ve had it,
He thought,
Looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums.
And it was smashed to atoms his fun,
For it was half made up,
As he knew very well;
Invented,
This escapade with the girl; made up,
As one makes up the better part of life,
He thought –
Making oneself up;
Making her up;
Creating an exquisite amusement,
And something more.
But odd it was, and quite true;
All this one could never share –
It smashed to atoms.
He turned; went up the street,
Thinking to find somewhere to sit,
Till it was time for Lincoln’s Inn –
For Messrs Hooper and Grately.
Where should he go?
No matter.
Up the street, then, towards Regent’s Park.
His boots on the pavement struck out ‘no matter’;
For it was early, still very early.
It was a splendid morning, too.
Like the pulse of a perfect heart,
Life struck straight through the streets.
There was no fumbling –
No hesitation.
Sweeping and swerving,
Accurately,
Punctually,
Noiselessly,
There, precisely at the right instant,
The motor car stopped at the door.
The girl,
Silk-stockinged,
Feathered,
Evanescent,
But not to him particularly attractive
(for he had had his fling),
Alighted.
Admirable butlers,
Tawny chow dogs,
Halls laid in black and white lozenges
With white blinds blowing,
Peter saw through the opened door and approved of.
A splendid achievement in its own way,
After all, London;
The season;
The civilization.
Coming as he did from a respectable Anglo-Indian family
Which for at least three generations
Had administered the affairs of a continent
(it’s strange,
He thought,
What a sentiment I have about that,
Disliking India,
And empire,
And army as he did),
There were moments when civilization,
Even of this sort, seemed dear to him as a personal possession;
Moments of pride in England;
In butlers;
Chow dogs;
Girls in their security.
Ridiculous enough,
Still there it is,
He thought.
And the doctors and men of business and capable women
All going about their business,
Punctual,
Alert,
Robust,
Seemed to him wholly admirable,
Good fellows, to whom one would entrust one’s life,
Companions in the art of living,
Who would see one through.
What with one thing and another,
The show was really very tolerable;
And he would sit down in the shade and smoke.
There was Regent’s Park.
Yes.
As a child he had walked in Regent’s Park –
Odd,
He thought,
How the thought of childhood keeps coming back to me –
The result of seeing Clarissa, perhaps;
For women live much more in the past then we do,
He thought.
They attach themselves to places;
And their fathers –
A woman’s always proud of her father.
Bourton was a nice place, a very nice place,
But I could never get on with the old man,
He thought.
There was quite a scene one night –
An argument about something or other,
What, he could not remember.
Politics presumably.
Yes, he remembered Regent’s Park;
The long straight walk;
The little house where one bought air-balls to the left;
An absurd statue with an inscription somewhere or other.
He looked for an empty seat.
He did not want to be bothered
(feeling a little drowsy as he did)
By people asking him the time.
An elderly grey nurse,
With a baby asleep in its perambulator –
That was the best he could do for himself;
Sit down at the far end of the seat by that nurse.
She’s a queer-looking girl,
He thought,
Suddenly remembering Elizabeth as she came into the room
And stood by her mother.
Grown big;
Quite grown-up, not exactly pretty;
Handsome rather;
And she can’t be more than eighteen.
Probably she doesn’t get on with Clarissa.
‘There’s my Elizabeth’ –
That sort of thing –
Why not ‘Here’s Elizabeth’ simply? –
Trying to make out,
Like most mothers,
That things are what they’re not.
She trusts to her charm too much,
He thought.
She overdoes it.
The rich benignant cigar smoke eddied coolly
Down his throat;
He puffed it out again in rings
Which breasted the air bravely for a moment;
Blue,
Circular –
I shall try and get a word alone with Elizabeth tonight,
He thought –
Then began to wobble into hour-glass shapes and taper away;
Odd shapes they take,
He thought.
Suddenly he closed his eyes,
Raised his hand with an effort,
And threw away the heavy end of his cigar.
A great brush swept smooth across his mind,
Sweeping across it
Moving branches,
Children’s voices,
The shuffle of feet,
And people passing,
And humming traffic,
Rising and falling traffic.
Down, down he sank into the plumes and feathers of sleep,
S
a
n
k,
And was muffled over.
CHAPTER V
The grey nurse resumed her knitting
As Peter Walsh,
On the hot heat beside her,
Began snoring.
In her grey dress, moving her hands indefatigably yet quietly,
She seemed like the champion of the rights of sleepers,
Like one of those spectral presences
Which rise in twilight in woods made of sky and branches.
The solitary traveler,
Haunter of lanes,
Disturber of ferns,
And devastator of great hemlock plants,
Looking up suddenly,
Sees the giant figure at the end of the ride.
By conviction an atheist perhaps,
He is taken by surprise with moments of extraordinary exaltation.
Nothing exists outside us
Except a state of mind,
He thinks;
A desire for solace,
For relief,
For something outside these miserable pigmies,
These feeble,
These ugly,
These craven men and women.
But if he can conceive of her,
Then in some sort she exists,
He thinks,
And advancing down the path with his eyes upon sky and branches
He rapidly endows them with womanhood;
Sees with amazement how grave they become;
How majestically, as the breeze stirs them,
They dispense with a dark flutter of the leaves charity,
Comprehension,
Absolution,
And then,
Flinging themselves suddenly aloft,
Confound the piety of their aspect with a wild carouse.
Such are the visions
Which proffer great cornucopias full of fruit
To the solitary traveler,
Or murmur in his ear like sirens
Lolloping away on the green sea waves,
Or are dashed in his face like bunches of roses,
Or rise to the surface like pale faces
Which fishermen flounder through floods to embrace.116
Such are the visions which ceaselessly float up,
Pace beside,
Put their faces in front of,
The actual thing;
Often overpowering the solitary traveler
And taking away from him the sense of the earth,
The wish to return,
And giving him for substitute a general peace,
As if
(so he thinks as he advances down the forest ride)
All this fever of living were simplicity itself;
And myriads of things merged in one thing;
And this figure,
Made of sky and branches as it is,
Had risen from the troubled sea
(he is elderly, past fifty now)
As a shape might be sucked up out of the waves
To shower down from her magnificent hands
Compassion,
Comprehension,
Absolution.
So, he thinks, may I never go back to the lamplight;
To the sitting-room;
Never finish my book;
Never knock out my pipe;
Never ring for Mrs Turner to clear away;
Rather let me walk straight on to this great figure,
Who will,
With a toss of her head,
Mount me on her streamers
And let me blow to nothingness with the rest.
Such are the visions.
The solitary traveler is soon beyond the wood;
And there,
Coming to the door with shaded eyes,
Possibly to look for his return,
With hands raised,
With white apron blowing,
Is an elderly woman who seems
(so powerful is this infirmity)
To seek,
Over the desert,
A lost son;
To search for a rider destroyed;
To be the figure of the mother whose sons have been
Killed in the battles of the world.
So, as the solitary traveler advances down the village street
Where the women stand knitting
And the men dig in the garden,
The evening seems ominous
The figures still;
As if some august fate,
Known to them,
Awaited without fear,
Were about to sweep them into complete annihilation.
Indoors among ordinary things,
The cupboard,
The table,
The window-sill with its geraniums,
Suddenly the outline of the landlady,
Bending to remove the cloth,
Becomes soft with light,
An adorable emblem
Which only the recollection of cold human contacts
Forbids us to embrace.
She takes the marmalade; she shuts it in the cupboard.
‘There is nothing more tonight, sir?’
But to whom does the solitary traveller make reply?
CHAPTER VI
So the elderly nurse knitted over the sleeping baby in Regent’s Park.
So Peter Walsh snored.
He woke with extreme suddenness,
Saying to himself,
‘The death of the soul.’119
‘Lord, Lord!’ he said to himself out loud, stretching and opening his eyes.
‘The death of the soul.’ The words attached themselves
To some scene,
To some room,
To some past he had been dreaming of.
It became clearer;
The scene,
The room,
The past he had been dreaming of.
It was at Bourton that summer,
Early in the nineties,
When he was so passionately in love with Clarissa.
There were a great many people there,
Laughing and talking,
Sitting round a table after tea,
And the room was bathed in yellow light
And full of cigarette smoke.117
They were talking about a man
Who had married his housemaid,
One of the neighbouring squires,
He had forgotten his name. 118
He had married his housemaid,
And she had been brought to Bourton to call –
An awful visit it had been.
She was absurdly overdressed,
‘Like a cockatoo’, Clarissa had said,
Imitating her, and she never stopped talking.
On and on she went, on and on.
Clarissa imitated her.
Then somebody said – Sally Seton it was –
Did it make any real difference to one’s feelings
To know that before they’d married she had had a baby?
(In those days, in mixed company,
it was a bold thing to say.)
He could see Clarissa now, turning bright pink;
Somehow contracting; and saying,
‘Oh, I shall never be able to speak to her again!’
Whereupon the whole party sitting round the tea-table seemed to wobble.
It was very uncomfortable.
He hadn’t blamed her for minding the fact,
Since in those days a girl brought up as she was, knew nothing,
But it was her manner that annoyed him;
Timid;
Hard;
Arrogant;
Prudish.
‘The death of the soul.’
He had said that instinctively,
Ticketing the moment as he used to do –
The death of her soul.
Everyone wobbled;
Everyone seemed to bow, as she spoke,
And then to stand up different.
He could see Sally Seton,
Like a child who has been in mischief,
Leaning forward,
Rather flushed,
Wanting to talk,
But afraid,
And Clarissa did frighten people.
(She was Clarissa’s greatest friend,
always about the place, an attractive creature,
handsome, dark, with the reputation
in those days of great daring,
and he used to give her cigars,
which she smoke in her bedroom,
and she had either been engaged to somebody
or quarreled with her family, and old Parry
disliked them both equally, which was a great bond.)
Then Clarissa, still with an air
Of being offended with them all,
Got up, made some excuse, and went off, alone.
As she opened the door, in came that great shaggy dog
Which ran after sheep.
She flung herself upon him, went into raptures.
It was as if she said to Peter –
It was all aimed at him, he knew –
‘I know you thought me absurd about that woman just now;
But see how extraordinarily sympathetic I am;
See how I love my Rob!’
They had always this queer power of communicating without words.
She knew directly he criticised her.
Then she would do something quite obvious to defend herself,
Like this fuss with the dog –
But it never took him in, he always saw through Clarissa.
Not that he said anything, of course;
Just sat looking glum.
It was the way their quarrels often began.
She shut the door.
At once he became extremely depressed.
It all seemed useless –
Going on being in love;
Going on quarrelling;
Going on making it up,
And he wandered off alone,
Among outhouses,
Stables,
Looking at the horses.
(The place was quite a humble one; the Parrys
were never very well off; but there were always
grooms and stable-boys about –
Clarissa loved riding – and an old coachman –
what was his name? – and old nurse, old
Moody, old Goody, some such name they
called her, whom one was taken to visit
in a little room with lots of photographs,
lots of bird-cages.)
It was an awful evening!
He grew more and more gloomy,
Not about that only; about everything.
There were always people about –
She’d go on as if noting had happened.
That was the devilish part of her –
This coldness, this woodenness,
Something very profound in her,
Which he had felt again this morning talking to her;
An impenetrability.
Yet Heaven knows he loved her.
She had some queer power of fiddling on one’s nerves,
Turning one’s nerves to fiddle-strings, yes.
He had gone into dinner rather late,
From some idiotic idea of making himself felt,
And had sat down by old Miss Parry – Aunt Helena –
Mr Parry’s sister, who was supposed to preside.
There she sat in her white Cashmere shawl,
With her head against the window –
A formidable old lady, but kind to him,
For he had found her some rare flower,
And she was a great botanist,
Marching off in thick boots with a black tin
Collecting box slung between her shoulders.
He sat down beside her, and couldn’t speak.
Everything seemed to race past him;
He just sat there, eating.
And then halfway through dinner he made himself
Look across at Clarissa for the first time.
He was talking to a young man on her right.
He had a sudden revelation.
‘She will marry that man,’ he said to himself.
He didn’t even know his name.
For of course it was that afternoon, that very afternoon,
That Dalloway had come over; and Clarissa called him ‘Wickham’;
That was the beginning of it all.
Somebody had brought him over;
And Clarissa got his name wrong.
She introduced him to everybody as Wickham.120
At last he said, ‘My name is Dalloway!’ –
That was his first view of Richard –
A fair young man, rather awkward,
Sitting on a deckchair, and blurting out,
‘My name is Dalloway!’
Sally got hold of it;
Always after that she called him
‘My name is Dalloway!’
He was prey to revelations at that time.
This one –
That she would marry Dalloway –
Was blinding – overwhelming at the moment.
There was a sort of – how could he put it? –
A sort of ease in her manner to him;
Something maternal; something gentle.
They were talking about politics.
All through dinner he tried to hear what they were saying.
Afterwards he could remember standing
By old Miss Parry’s chair in the drawing-room.
Clarissa came up, with her perfect manners,
Like a real hostess, and wanted to introduce him to someone –
Spoke as if they had never met before, which enraged him.
Yet even then he admired her for it.
He admired her courage;
Her social instinct;
He admired her power of carrying things through.
‘The perfect hostess,’ he said to her, whereupon
She winced all over.
But he meant her to feel it.
He would have done anything to hurt her,
After seeing her with Dalloway.
So she left him.
And he had a feeling that they were all gathered together
In a conspiracy against him –
Laughing and talking –
Behind his back.
There he stood by Miss Parry’s chair as though
He had been cut out of wood, talking about wild flowers.
Never, never had he suffered so infernally!
He must have forgotten even to pretend to listen;
At last he woke up;
He saw Miss Parry looking rather disturbed,
Rather indignant,
With her prominent eyes fixed.
He almost cried out that he couldn’t attend because he was in Hell!
People began going out of the room.
He heard them talking about fetching cloaks;
About its being cold on the water, and so on
They were going boating on the lake by moonlight –
One of Sally’s mad ideas.
He could hear her describing the moon.
And they all went out.
He was left quite alone.
‘Don’t you want to go with them?’ said Aunt Helena –
Poor old lady! –
She had guessed.
And he turned round and there was Clarissa again.
She had come back to fetch him.
He was overcome by her generosity –
Her goodness.
‘Come along,’ she said. ‘They’re waiting.’
He had never felt so happy in the whole of his life!
Without a word they made it up.
They walked down to the lake.
He had twenty minutes of perfect happiness.
Her voice,
Her laugh,
Her dress
(something floating, white, crimson),
Her spirit,
Her adventurousness;
She made them all disembark and explore the island;
She startled a hen;
She laughed;
She sang.
And all the time, he knew perfectly well,
Dalloway was falling in love with her;
She was falling in love with Dalloway;
But it didn’t seem to matter.
Nothing mattered.
They sat on the ground and talked –
He and Clarissa.
They went in and out of each other’s minds
Without any effort.
And then in a second it was over.
He said to himself as they were getting into the boat,
‘She will marry that man,’ dully, without any resentment;
But it was an obvious thing.
Dalloway would marry Clarissa.
Dalloway rowed them in.
He said nothing.
But somehow as they watched him start,
Jumping on to his bicycle to ride twenty miles through the woods,
Wobbling off down the drive,
Waving his hand and disappearing,
He obviously did feel, instinctively,
Tremendously,
Strongly,
All that;
The night;
The romance;
Clarissa.
He deserved to have her.
For himself, he was absurd.
His demands upon Clarissa
(he could see it now)
Were absurd.
He asked impossible things.
He made terrible scenes.
She would have accepted him still, perhaps,
If he had been less absurd.
Sally thought so.
She wrote him all that summer long letters;
How they had talked of him;
How she had praised him,
How Clarissa burst into tears!
It was an extraordinary summer –
All letters, scenes, telegrams –
Arriving at Bourton early in the morning,
Hanging about till the servants were up;
Appalling tête-à-têtes with old Mr Parry at breakfast;
Aunt Helena formidable but kind;
Sally sweeping him off for talks in the vegetable garden;
Clarissa in bed with headaches.
The final scene, the terrible scene which he believed
Had mattered more than anything in the whole of his life
(it might be an exaggeration –
but still, so it did seem now),
Happened at three o’clock in the afternoon of a very hot day.
It was a trifle that led up to it –
Sally at lunch saying something about Dalloway,
And calling him
‘My name is Dalloway’;
Whereupon Clarissa suddenly stiffened, coloured, in a way she had,
And rapped out sharply,
‘We’ve had enough of that feeble joke.’
That was all; but for him it was as if she had said,
‘I’m only amusing myself with you; I’ve an understanding
With Richard Dalloway.’
So he took it.
He had not slept for nights.
‘It’s got to be finished one way or the other,’
He said to himself.
He sent a note to her by Sally asking her to meet him
By the fountain at three.
‘Something very important has happened,’
He scribbled at the end of it.
The fountain was in the middle of a little shrubbery,
Far from the house, with shrubs and trees all round it.
There she came, even before the time,
And they stood with the fountain between them,
The spout (it was broken) dribbling water incessantly.
How sights fix themselves upon the mind!
For example, the vivid green moss.
She did not move.
‘Tell me the truth, tell me the truth,’
He kept on saying.
He felt as if his forehead would burst.
She seemed contracted, petrified.
She did not move.
‘Tell me the truth,’
He repeated,
When suddenly that old man Breitkopf popped his head in
Carrying The Times;
Stared at them;
Gaped;
And went away.
They neither of them moved.
‘Tell the truth,’
He repeated.
He felt that he was grinding against something physically hard;
She was unyielding.
She was like iron,
Like flint,
Rigid up the backbone.
And when she said, ‘It’s no use. It’s no use. This is the end’ –
After he had spoken for hours, it seemed,
With the tears running down his cheeks –
It was as if she had hit him in the face.
She turned, she left him, and she went away.
‘Clarissa!’ he cried. “Clarissa!’
But she never came back.
It was over.
He went away that night.
He never saw her again.
CHAPTER VII
It was awful, he cried, awful, awful! 170
Still, the sun was hot.
Still, one got over things.
Still, life had a way of adding day to day.
Still,
He thought,
Yawning and beginning to take notice –
Regent’s Park had changed very little since he was a boy,
Except for the squirrels –
Still, presumably there were compensations –
When little Elise Mitchell,
Who had been picking up pebbles to add to the pebble collection
Which she and her brother were making
On the nursery mantelpiece,
Plumped her handful down on the nurse’s knee
And scudded off again full tilt into a lady’s legs.
Peter Walsh laughed out.
But Lucrezia Warren Smith was saying to herself,
It’s wicked;
Why should I suffer? she was asking,
As she walked down the broad path.
No; I can’t stand it any longer,
She was saying,
Having left Septimus,
Who wasn’t Septimus any longer,
To say hard,
Cruel,
Wicked things,
To talk to himself;
To talk to a dead man,
On the seat over there;
When the child ran full tilt into her, fell flat,
And burst out crying.
That was comforting rather.
She stood her upright, dusted her frock, kissed her.
But for herself she had done nothing wrong;
She had loved Septimus;
She had been happy;
She had had a beautiful home,
And there her sisters lived still, making hats.
Why should she suffer?
The child ran straight back to its nurse,
And Rezia saw her scolded,
Comforted,
Taken up by the nurse,
Who put down her knitting,
And the kind-looking man gave her his watch
To blow open to comfort her –
But why should she be exposed?
Why not left in Milan?
Why tortured?
Why?
Slightly waved by tears the broad path,
The nurse,
The man in grey,
The perambulator,
Rose and fell before her eyes.
To be rocked by this malignant torturer was her lot.
But why?
She was like a bird sheltering under the thin hollow of a leaf,
Who blinks at the sun when the leaf moves;
Starts at the crack of a dry twig.
She was exposed;
She was surrounded by the enormous trees,
Vast clouds of an indifferent world, exposed;
Tortured;
And why should she suffer?
Why?
She frowned; she stamped her foot.
She must go back again to Septimus since it was almost
Time for them to be going to Sir William Bradshaw.
She must go back and tell him,
Go back to him sitting there on the green chair
Under the tree, talking to himself,
Or to that dead man Evans,
Whom she had only seen once for a moment in the shop.
He had seemed a nice quiet man;
A great friend of Septimus’s,
And he had been killed in the War.
But such things happen to everyone.
Everyone has friends who were killed in the War.
Everyone gives up something when they marry.
She had given up her home.
She had come to live here, in this awful city.
But Septimus let himself think about horrible things,
As she could too, if she tried.
He had grown stranger and stranger.
He said people were talking behind the bedroom walls.
Mrs Filmer thought it odd.
He saw things too –
He had seen an old woman’s head in the middle of a fern.
Yet he could be happy when he chose.
They went to Hampton Court 121on top of a bus,
And they were perfectly happy.
All the little red and yellow flowers were
Out on the grass,
Like floating lamps he said,
And talked and chattered and laughed,
Making up stories.
Suddenly he said, ‘Now we will kill ourselves,’
When they were standing by the river,122
And he looked at with a look which she had seen
In his eyes when a train went by, or an omnibus –
A look as if something fascinating him;
And she felt he was going from her
And she caught him by the arm.
But going home he was perfectly quiet –
Perfectly reasonable.
He would argue with her about killing themselves;
And explain how wicked people were;
How he could see them making up lies
As they passed in the street.
He knew all their thoughts, he said;
He knew everything.
He knew the meaning of the world, he said.
Then when they got back he could hardly walk.
He lay on the sofa and made her hold his hand
To prevent him from falling down, down, he cried,
Into the flames! and saw faces laughing at him,
Calling him horrible disgusting names, from the walls,
And hands pointing round the screen.
Yet they were quite alone.
But he began to talk aloud, answering people,
Arguing,
Laughing,
Crying,
Getting very excited
And making her write things down.
Perfect nonsense it was; about death; about Miss Isabel Pole.
She could stand it no longer.
She would go back.
She was close to him now,
Could see him staring at the sky,
Muttering, clasping his hands.
Yet Dr Holmes said there was nothing the matter with him.123
What, then, had happened –
Why had he gone,
Then, why, when she sat by him, did he start,
Frown at her,
Move away,
And point at her hand,
Take her hand, look at it terrified.
Was it that she had taken off her wedding ring?
‘My hand has grown so thin,’ she said;
‘I have put it in my purse,’ she told him.
He dropped her hand.
Their marriage was over,
He thought,
With agony, with relief.
The rope was cut;
He mounted;
He was free,
As it was decreed that he, Septimus, the lord of men,
Should be free;
Alone
(since his wife had thrown away
her wedding ring; since she had left him).
He, Septimus, was alone,
Called forth in advance of the mass of men
To hear the truth,
To learn the meaning,
Which now at last,
After all the toils of civilization –
Greeks, Romans, Shakespeare, Darwin,124
And now himself –
Was to be given whole to…
‘To whom?’ he asked aloud.
‘To the Prime Minister,’ the voices which rustled above his head replies.
The supreme secret must be told to the Cabinet;
First, that trees are alive;
Next, there is no crime;
Next, love, universal love,
He muttered
Gasping,
Trembling,
Painfully drawing out these profound truths
Which needed, so deep were they, so difficult,
An immense effort to speak out,
But the world was entirely changed by them for ever.
No crime; love; he repeated,
Fumbling for his card and pencil,
When a Skye terrier snuffed his trousers
And he started in an agony of fear.
It was turning into a man!
He could not watch it happen!
It was horrible, terrible to see a dog
Become a man!
At once the dog trotted away.
Heaven was divinely merciful, infinitely benignant.
It spared him, pardoned his weakness.
But what was the scientific explanation
(for one must be scientific above all things)?
Why could he see through bodies,
See into the future,
When dogs will become men?
It was the heat wave presumably, operating upon a brain made sensitive
By eons of evolution.
Scientifically speaking, the flesh was melted off the world.
His body was macerated until only the nerve fibres were left.
It was spread like a veil upon a rock.
He lay back in his chair, exhausted but upheld.
He lay resting, waiting before he again interpreted, with effort,
With agony,
To mankind.
He lay very high, on the back of the world.
The earth thrilled beneath him.125
Red flowers grew through his flesh; their stiff leaves rustle by his head.
Music began clanging against the rocks up here.
It is a motor horn down in the street,
He muttered;
But up here it cannoned from rock to rock,
Divided,
Met in shocks of sound
Which rose in smooth columns
(that music should be visible was a discovery)
And became an anthem,
An anthem twined round now by a shepherd boy’s piping
(That’s an old man playing a penny whistle
by the public-house, he muttered)
Which, as the boy stood still, came bubbling from his pipe,
And the, as he climbed higher,
Made its exquisite plaint while the traffic passed beneath.
This boy’s elegy is played among the traffic,
Thought Septimus.
Now he withdraws up into the snows,
And roses hang about him –
The thick red roses which grow on my bedroom wall,
He reminded himself.
The music stopped.
He has his penny, he reasoned it out,
And has gone on to the next public-house.
But he himself remained high on his rock,
Like a drowned sailor on a rock.
I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down,
He thought.
I went under the sea.
I have been dead,
And yet am now alive,
But let me rest still,
He begged
(he was talking to himself again –
it was awful, awful!);
And as, before waking, the voices of birds
And the sound of wheels chime and chatter
In a queer harmony,
Grow louder and louder,
And the sleeper feels himself
Drawing to the shores of life,
So he felt himself drawing towards life,
The sun growing hotter,
Cries sounding louder,
Something tremendous about to happen.
He had only to open his eyes;
But a weight was on them;
A fear.
He strained;
He pushed;
He looked;
He saw Regent’s Park before him.
Long streamers of sunlight fawned at his feet.
The trees waved, brandished.
We welcome, the world seemed to say;
We accept;
We create.
Beauty, the world seemed to say.
And as it to prove it
(scientifically)
Wherever he looked,
At the houses,
At the railings,
At the antelopes
Stretching over the plains,
Beauty sprang instantly.
To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of air was an exquisite joy.
Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving,
Flinging themselves in and out,
Round and round,
Yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them;
And the flies rising and falling;
And the sun spotting now this leaf, now that,
In mockery, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper,
And now grass stalks –
All of this, calm and reasonable as it was,
Made out of ordinary things as it was,
Was the truth now;
Beauty, that was the truth now.
Beauty was everywhere.126
‘It is time,’ said Rezia.
The word ‘time’ split its husk; poured its riches over him;
And from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane,
Without his making them,
Hard,
White,
Imperishable words,
And flew to attach themselves to their places
In an ode to Time;
An immortal ode to Time.
He sang.
Evans answered from behind the tree.
The dead were in Thessaly, Evans sang, among the orchids.127
There they waited till the War was over,
And now the dead, now Evans himself –
‘For God’s sake don’t come!’ Septimus cried out.
For he could not look upon the dead.
But the branches parted.
A man in grey was actually walking towards them.
It was Evans!
But no mud was on him;
No wounds;
He was not changed.
I must tell the whole world,
Septimus cried,
Raising his hand
(as the dead man in the grey suit
came nearer),
Raising his hand like some colossal figure
Who has lamented the fate of man for ages in the desert
Alone with his hands pressed to his forehead,
Furrows of despair on his cheeks,
And now sees light on the desert’s edge
Which broadens and strikes the iron-black figure
(and Septimus half rose from his chair),
And with legions of men prostrate behind him he,
The giant mourner,
Receives for one moment on his face the whole –
‘But I am so unhappy, Septimus,’ said Rezia, trying to make him sit down.
The millions lamented;
For ages they had sorrowed.
He would turn round, he would tell them in a few moments,
Only a few moments more,
Of this relief,
Of this joy, of this astonishing revelation –
‘The time, Septimus,’ Rezia repeated. ‘What is the time?’
He was talking, he was starting, this man must notice him.
He was looking at them.
‘I will tell you the time,’ said Septimus, very slowly,
Very drowsily,
Smiling mysteriously
At the dead man in the grey suit.
As he sat smiling, the quarter struck – the quarter to twelve.
And that is being young,
Peter Walsh thought as he passed them.
To be having an awful scene –
The poor girl looked absolutely desperate –
In the middle of the morning.
But what was it about,
He wondered;
What had the young man in the overcoat been saying
To make her look like that;
What awful fix had they got themselves into,
Both to look so desperate as that on a fine summer morning?
The amusing thing about coming back to England,
After five years,
Was the way it made,
Anyhow the first days,
Things stand out as if one had never seen them before;
Lovers squabbling under a tree;
The domestic family life of the parks.
Never had he seen London look so enchanting –
The softness of the distances;
The richness;
The greenness;
The civilization,
After India,
He thought,
Strolling across the grass.
This susceptibility to impressions 128had been his undoing,
No doubt.
Still at his age he had,
Like a boy or a girl even,
These alternations of mood;
Good days;
Bad days,
For no reason whatever,
Happiness from a pretty face,
Downright misery at the sight of a frump.
After India, of course, one fell in love with every woman one met.
There was a freshness about them;
Even the poorest dressed better than five years ago surely;
And to his eye the fashions had never been so becoming;
The long black cloaks;
The slimness;
The elegance;
And then the delicious and apparently universal habit of paint.129
Every woman, even the most respectable,
Had roses blooming under glass;
Lips cut with a knife;
Curls of Indian ink;
There was design, art, everywhere;
A change of some sort had undoubtedly taken place.
What did the young people think about?
Peter Walsh asked himself.
Those five years –
1918 to 1923 –
Had been,
He suspected,
Somehow very important.
People looked different.
Newspapers seemed different.
Now, for instance,
There was a man writing quite openly
In one of the respectable weeklies about water-closets.
That you couldn’t have done ten years ago –
Written quite openly about water-closets in a respectable weekly.
And then this taking out a stick of rouge, or a powder-puff,
And making up in public.
On board ship coming home
There were lots of young men and girls –
Betty and Bertie he remembered in particular –
Carrying on quite openly;
The old mother sitting and watching them with her knitting,
Cool as a cucumber.
The girl would stand still and powder her nose in front of everyone.
And they weren’t engaged; just having a good time;
No feelings hurt on either side.
As hard as nails she was –
Betty Whatshername –
But a thorough good sort.
She would make a very good wife at thirty –
She would marry when it suited her to marry;
Marry some rich man and live in a large house near Manchester.
Who was it now who had done that?
Peter Walsh asked himself,
Turning in the Broad Walk –
Married a rich man and lived in a large house near Manchester?
Somebody who had written him a long, gushing letter quite lately
About ‘blue hydrangeas’.
It was seeing blue hydrangeas that made her 130think of him
And the old days – Sally Seton, of course!
It was Sally Seton –
The last person in the world one would have expected to marry a rich man
And live in a large house near Manchester,
The wild, the daring, the romantic Sally!
But of all that ancient lot,
Clarissa’s friends –
Whitbreads, Kindersleys,
Cunninghams, Kinlock Jones’s –
Sally was probably the best.
She tried to get hold of things by the right end anyhow.
She saw through Hugh Whitbread anyhow –
The admirable Hugh –
When Clarissa and the rest were at his feet.
‘The Whitbreads?’ he could hear her saying.
‘Who are the Whitbreads?
Coal merchants.
Respectable tradespeople.’
Hugh she detested for some reason.
He thought of nothing but his own appearance,
She said.
He ought to have been a Duke.
He would be certain to marry one of the Royal Princesses.
And, of course, Hugh had the most extraordinary,
The most natural,
The most sublime respect
For the British aristocracy of any human being
He had ever come across.
Even Clarissa had to own that.
Oh, but he was such a dear, so unselfish,
Gave up shooting to please his old mother –
Remembered his aunts’ birthdays, and so on.
Sally, to do her justice, saw through all that.
One of the things he remembered best was an argument
One Sunday morning at Bourton about women’s rights
(that antediluvian topic),
When Sally suddenly lost her temper, flared up,
And told Hugh that he represented all that was most detestable
In British middle-class life.
She told him that she considered him responsible
For the state of ‘those poor girls in Piccadilly’ –
Hugh, the perfect gentleman, poor Hugh! –
Never did a man look more horrified!
She did it on purpose,
She said afterwards
(for they used to get together in the vegetable garden
and compare notes).
‘He’s read nothing, thought nothing, felt nothing,’
he could hear her saying in that very emphatic voice
which carried so much farther than she knew.
The stable boys had more life in them than Hugh,
She said.
He was a perfect specimen of the public school type,
She said.
No country but England could have produced him.
She was really spiteful, for some reason;
Had some grudge against him.
Something had happened –
He forgot what –
In the smoking-room.
He had insulted her –
Kissed her?
Incredible!
Nobody believed a word against Hugh, of course.
Who could?
Kissing Sally in the smoking-room!
If it had been some Honourable Edith or Lady Violet, perhaps;
But not that ragamuffin Sally without a penny to her name,
And a father or a mother gambling at Monte Carlo.
For of all the people he had ever met Hugh was the greatest snob –
The most obsequious –
No, he didn’t cringe exactly.
He was too much of a prig for that.
A first-rate valet was the obvious comparison –
Somebody who walked behind carrying suit cases;
Could be rusted to send telegrams –
Indispensable to hostesses.
And he’d found his job –
Married his Honourable Evelyn;
Got some little post at Court,
Looked after the King’s cellars,
Polished the Imperial shoe-buckles,
Went about in knee-breeches and lace ruffles.
How remorseless life is! A little job at Court!
He had married this lady, the Honourable Evelyn,
And they lived here-abouts,
So he thought
(looking at the pompous houses overlooking the Park),
For he had lunched there once in a house which had,
Like all Hugh’s possessions,
Something that no other house could possibly have –
Linen cupboards it might have been.
You had to go and look at them –
You had to spend a great deal of time always admiring
Whatever it was –
Linen cupboards,
Pillow-cases,
Old oak furniture,
Pictures,
Which Hugh had picked up for an old song.
But Mrs Hugh sometimes gave the show away.
She was one of those obscure mouse-like little women
Who admire big men.
She was almost negligible.
Then suddenly she would say something quite unexpected –
Something sharp.
She had the relics of the grand manner, perhaps.
The steam coal was a little too strong for her –
It made the atmosphere thick.
And so there they lived,
With their linen cupboards
And their old masters
And their pillow-cases fringed with real lace,
At the rate of five or ten thousand a year presumably,
While he, who was two years older than Hugh,
Cadged for a job.
At fifty-three he had to come
And ask them to put him into some secretary’s office,
To find him some usher’s job teaching little boys Latin,
At the beck and call of some mandarin in an office,
Something that brought in five hundred a year;
For if he married Daisy, even with his pension,
They could never do on less.
Whitbread could do it presumably;
Or Dalloway.
He didn’t mind what he asked Dalloway.
He was a thorough good sort;
A bit limited;
A bit thick in the head;
Yes;
But a thorough good sort.
Whatever he took up he did in the same matter-of-fact sensible way;
Without a touch of imagination,
Without a spark of brilliancy,
But with the inexplicable niceness of his type.
He ought to have been a country gentleman –
He was wasted on politics.
He was at his best out of doors,
With horse and dogs –
How good he was, for instance,
When that great shaggy dog of Clarissa’s got caught in a trap
And had its paw half torn off,
And Clarissa turned faint
And Dalloway did the whole thing;
Bandaged;
Made splints;
Told Clarissa not to be a fool.
That was what she liked him for, perhaps –
That was what she needed.
‘Now, my dear, don’t be a fool. Hold this – fetch that,’
All the time talking to the dog as if it were a human being.
But how could she swallow all that stuff about poetry?
How could she let him hold forth about Shakespeare?
Seriously and solemnly Richard Dalloway got on his hind legs
And said that no decent man ought to read Shakespeare’s sonnets
Because it was like listening at keyholes
(besides, the relationship was not one that he approved).
No decent man ought to let his wife visit a deceased wife’s sister.131
Incredible!
The only thing to do was to pelt him with sugared almost –
It was at dinner.
But Clarissa sucked it all in;
Thought it so honest of him;
So independent of him;
Heaven knows if she didn’t think him
The most original mind she’d ever met!
That was one of the bonds between Sally and himself.
There was a garden where they used to walk,
A walled-in place,
With rose-buses and giant cauliflowers –
He could remember Sally tearing off a rose,
Stopping to exclaim at the beauty of the cabbage leaves in the moonlight
(it was extraordinary how vividly
it all came back to him,
things he hadn’t thought of for years),
While she implored him,
Half laughing of course,
To carry off Clarissa,
To save her from the Hughs and the Dalloways
And all the other ‘perfect gentlemen’ who would ‘stifle her soul’
(she wrote reams of poetry in those days),
Make a mere hostess of her,
Encourage her worldliness.
But one must do Clarissa justice.
She wasn’t going to marry Hugh anyhow.
She had a perfectly clear notion of what she wanted.
Her emotions were all on the surface.
Beneath, she was very shrewd –
A far better judge of character than Sally, for instance,
And with it all, purely feminine;
With that extraordinary gift, that woman’s gift,
Of making a world of her own wherever she happened to be.
She came into a room;
She stood, as he had often seen her,
In a doorway with lots of people round her.
But it was Clarissa one remembered.
Not that she was striking; not beautiful at all;
There was nothing picturesque about her;
She never said anything specially clever;
There she was, however;
There she was.
No, no, no!
He was not in love with her any more!
He only felt, after seeing her that morning,
Among her scissors and silks,
Making ready for the party,
Unable to get away from the thought of her;
She kept coming back and back
Like a sleeper jolting against him in a railway carriage;
Which was not being in love, of course;
It was thinking of her, criticizing her, starting again, after thirty years,
Trying to explain her.
The obvious thing to say of her was that she was worldly;
Cared too much for rank and society and getting on in the world –
Which was true in a sense;
She had admitted it to him.
(You could always get her to own up if you took the trouble;
she was honest.)
What she would say was that she hated frumps,
Fogies,
Failures,
Like himself presumably;
Thought people had no right to slouch about with their hands in their pockets;
Must do something,
Be something
And these great swells,
These Duchesses,
These hoary old Countesses one met in her drawing-room,
Unspeakably remote a he felt them to be from anything
That mattered a straw,
Stood for something real to her.
Lady Bexborough,
She said once,
Held herself upright
(So did Clarissa herself; she never
lounged in any sense of the word; she was straight
as a dart, a little rigid in fact).
She said they had a king of courage which the older she grew
The more she respected.
In all this there was a great deal of Dalloway, of course;
A great deal of the public-spirited,
British Empire,
Tariff-reform,
Governing-class spirit,
Which had grown on her,
As it tends to do.
With twice his wits,
She had to see things through his eyes –
One of the tragedies of married life.
With a mind of her own,
She must always be quoting Richard –
As if one could know to a tittle what Richard thought
By reading the Morning Post of a morning!
These parties, for example were all for him,
Or for her idea of him
(to do Richard justice
he would have been happier
farming in Norfolk).
She made her drawing-room a sort of meeting-place;
She had a genius for it.
Over and over again he had seen her take some raw youth,
Twist him,
Turn him,
Wake him up;
Set him going.
Infinite numbers of dull people conglomerated round her, of course.
But odd unexpected people turned up;
An artist sometimes;
Sometimes a writer;
Queer fish in that atmosphere.
And behind it all was that network of visiting,
Leaving cards,
Being kind to people;
Running about with bunches of flowers,
Little presents;
So-and-so was going to France –
Must have an air-cushion;
A real drain on her strength;
All that interminable traffic that women of her sort keep up;
But she did it genuinely, from a natural instinct.
Oddly enough, she was one of the most thorough-going sceptics
He had ever met,
And possibly
(this was a theory he used to make up
to account for her, so transparent in some ways,
so inscrutable in others),
Possibly she said to herself, 177
As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship 178
(her favorite reading as a girl was Huxley and Tyndall,
and they were fond of these nautical metaphors),
As the whole thing is a bad joke,
Let us, at any rate,
Do our part;
Mitigate the sufferings of our fellow-prisoners
(Huxley again);
Decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions;
Be as decent as we possibly can.
Those ruffians, the Gods,
Shan’t have it all their own way –
Her notion being that the Gods,
Who never lost a chance of hurting,
Thwarting
And spoiling human lives,
Were seriously put out if,
All the same,
You behaved like a lady.
That phase came directly after Sylvia’s death –
That horrible affair.
To see your own sister killed by a falling tree
(all Justin Parry’s fault –
all his carelessness)
Before your very eyes,
A girl too on the verge of life,
The most gifted of them,
Clarissa always said,
Was enough to turn one bitter.
Later she wasn’t so positive, perhaps;
She thought there were no Gods;
No one was to blame;
And so she evolved this atheist’s religion of doing good
For the sake of goodness.
And of course she enjoyed life immensely.
It was her nature to enjoy
(though, goodness only knows,
she had her reserves;
it was a mere sketch,
he often felt,
that even he, after all these years,
could make of Clarissa).
Anyhow there was no bitterness in her;
None of that sense of moral virtue
Which is so repulsive in good women.
She enjoyed practically everything.
If you walked with her in Hyde Park
Now it was a bed of tulips,
Now a child in a perambulator,
Now some absurd little drama
She made up on the spur of the moment.
(Very likely she would have talked to those lovers,
if she had thought them unhappy.)
She had a sense of comedy that was really exquisite,
But she needed people, always people,
To bring it out,
With the inevitable result that
She frittered her time away,
Lunching,
Dining,
Giving these incessant parties of hers,
Talking nonsense,
Saying things she didn’t mean,
Blunting the edge of her mind,
Losing her discrimination.
There she would sit at the head of the table taking infinite pains
With some old buffer who might be useful to Dalloway –
They knew the most appalling bores in Europe –
Or in came Elizabeth and everything must give way to her.
She was at a High School, at the inarticulate stage
Last time he was over,
A round-eyed,
Pale-faced girl,
With nothing of her mother in her,
A silent stolid creature,
Who took it all as
A matter of course,
Let her mother make a fuss of her,
And then said, ‘May I go now?’
Like a child of four;
Going off, Clarissa explained,
With that mixture of amusement and pride
Which Dalloway himself
Seemed to rouse in her,
To play hockey.
And now Elizabeth was ‘out’, presumably;
Thought him an old fogy,
Laughed at her mother’s friends.
Ah well, so be it.
The compensation of growing old,
Peter Walsh thought,
Coming out of Regent’s Park,
And holding his hat in his hand,
Was simply this;
That the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained –
At last! –
The power which adds the supreme flavour to existence, –
The power of taking hold of experience,
Of turning it round, slowly, in the light.
A terrible confession it was
(he put his hat on again), 178
But now, at the age of fifty-three 179
One scarcely needed people any more.
Life itself, every moment of it,
Every drop of it,
Here, this instant,
Now, in the sun,
In Regent’s Park,
Was enough.
Too much, indeed.
A whole lifetime was too short to bring out,
Now that one had acquired the power,
The full flavour;
To extract every ounce of pleasure,
Every shade of meaning;
Which both were so much more solid than they used to be,
So much less personal.
It was impossible that he should ever suffer again
As Clarissa had made him suffer.
For hours at a time
(pray God that one might say
these things without being overheard!),
For hours and days he never thought of Daisy.
Could it be that he was in love with her,
Then, remembering the misery,
The torture,
The extraordinary passion
Of those days?
It was a different thing altogether –
A much pleasanter thing –
The truth being, of course,
That now she was in love with him.132
And that perhaps was the reason why,
When the ship actually sailed,
He felt an extraordinary relief,
Wanted nothing so much as to be alone;
Was annoyed to find all her little attentions –
Cigars,
Notes,
A rug for the voyage –
In his cabin.
Everyone if they were honest would say the same;
One doesn’t want people after fifty;
One doesn’t want to go on telling women they are pretty;
That’s what most men of fifty would say,
Peter Walsh thought,
If they were honest.
But then these astonishing accesses133 of emotion –
Bursting into tears this morning,
What was all that about?
What could Clarissa have thought of him?
Thought him a fool presumably, not for the first time.
It was jealousy that was at the bottom of it ---
Jealousy which survives every other passion of mankind,
Peter Walsh thought,
Holding his pocket-knife at arm’s length.
She had been meeting Major Orde,
Daisy said in her last letter;
Said it on purpose,
He knew;
Said it to make him jealous;
He could see her wrinkling her forehead as she wrote,
Wondering what she could say to hurt him;
And yet it made no different;
He was furious!
All this pother of coming to England
And seeing lawyers wasn’t to marry her,
But to prevent her from marrying anybody else.
That was what tortured him,
That was what came over him when he saw Clarissa so calm,
So cold,
So intent on her dress
Or whatever it was;
Realising what she might have spared him,
What she had reduced him to –
A whimpering, sniveling old ass.
But women,
He thought,
Shutting his pocket-knife,
Don’t know what passion is.
They don’t know the meaning of it to men.
Clarissa was as cold as an icicle.
There she would sit on the sofa
By his side,
Let him take her hand,
Give him one kiss on the cheek –
Here he was at the crossing.
A sound interrupted him;
A frail quivering sound,
A voice bubbling up without direction,
Vigour,
Beginning or end,
Running weakly and shrilly
And with an absence of all human meaning into
ee um fah um so
foo swee too eem oo –
The voice of no age or sex,
The voice of an ancient spring
Spouting from the earth; 179
Which issued, 180
Just opposite Regent’s Park Tube Station,
From a tall quivering shape,
Like a funnel,
Like a rusty pump,
Like a wind-beaten tree for ever barren of leaves
Which lets the wind run up and down its branches singing
ee um fah um so
foo swee too eem oo –
And rocks and creaks and moans in the eternal breeze.
Through all ages –
When the pavement was grass,
When it was swamp,
Through the age of tusk and mammoth,
Through the age of silent sunrise –
The battered woman –
For she wore a skirt –
With her right hand exposed,
Her left clutching at her side,
Stood singing of love –
Love which has lasted a million years,
She sang,
Love which prevails,
And millions of years ago,
Her lover,
Who had been dead these centuries
Had walked,
She crooned,
With her in May;
But in the course of ages,
Long as summer days,
And flaming,
She remembered,
With nothing but red asters,
He had gone;
Death’s enormous sickle had swept those tremendous hills,
And when at last she laid her hoary and immensely aged head
On the earth,
Now become a mere cinder of ice,
She implored the Gods to lay by her side
A bunch of purple heather,
There on her high burial place
Which the last rays of the last sun caressed;
For then the pageant of the universe would be over.
As the ancient song bubbled up opposite
Regent’s Park Tube Station,
Still the earth seemed green and flowery;
Still, though it issued from so rude a mouth,
A mere hole in the earth,
Muddy too,
Matted with root fibres and tangled grasses,
Still the old bubbling,
Burbling song,
Soaking through the knotted roots of infinite ages,
And skeletons and treasure,
Streamed away in rivulets over the pavements
And all along the Marylebone Road,
And down towards Euston,
Fertilizing, leaving a damp stain.
Still remembering how once in some primeval May
She had walked with her lover, this rusty pump,
This battered old woman
With one hand exposed for coppers,
The other clutching her side,
Would still be there in ten million years,
Remembering how once she had walked in May,
Where the sea flows now, with whom it did not matter –
He was a man,
Oh yes,
A man who had loved her.
But the passage of ages had blurred
The clarity of that ancient May day;
The bright-petalled flowers were hoar and silver frosted;
And she no longer saw,
When she implored him
(as she did now quite clearly),
‘Look in my eyes with thy sweet eyes intently,’134
She no longer saw brown eyes, black whiskers or sunburnt face,
But only a looming shape, a shadow shape,
To which, with the bird-like freshness of the very aged,
She still twittered,
‘Give me your hand and let me press it gently’
(Peter Walsh couldn’t help giving the poor creature
a coin as he stepped into his taxi),
‘And if someone should see, what matter they?’
She demanded;
And her fist clutched at her side,
And she smiled,
Pocketing her shilling,
And all peering inquisitive eyes seemed blotted out,
And the passing generations –
The pavement was crowded with 180
Bustling middle-class people – 181
Vanished,
Like leaves,
To be trodden under,
To be soaked and steeped and made mould of by that eternal spring –
ee um fah um so
foo swee too eem oo –
‘Poor old woman,’ said Rezia Warren Smith,
‘Oh poor old wretch!’ she said, waiting to cross
Suppose it was a wet night? Suppose one’s father,
Or somebody who had known one in better days,
Had happened to pass,
And saw one standing there in the gutter?
And where did she sleep at night?
Cheerfully, almost gaily, the invincible thread of sound
Wound up into the air like the smoke from a cottage chimney,
Winding up clean beech trees
And issuing in a tuft of blue smoke among the topmost leaves.
‘And if someone should see, what matter they?’
Since she was so unhappy,
For weeks and weeks now,
Rezia had given meanings to things that happened,
Almost felt sometimes that she must stop people in the street,
If they looked good, kind people,
Just to say to them,
‘I am unhappy’;
And this old woman singing in the street,
‘If someone should see, what matter they?’
Made her suddenly quite sure that everything was going to be right.
They were going to Sir William Bradshaw;
She thought his name sounded nice;
He would cure Septimus at once.
And then there was a brewer’s cart,
And the grey horses had upright bristles of straw in their tails;
There were newspaper placards.
It was a silly, silly dream being unhappy.
So they crossed, Mr and Mrs Septimus Warren Smith,
And was there, after all, anything to draw attention to them,
Anything to make a passer-by suspect here is a young man who carries
In him the greatest message in the world,
And is, moreover, the happiest man in the world,
And the most miserable?
Perhaps they walked more slowly than other people,
And there was something hesitating, trailing, in the man’s walk,
But what more natural for a clerk,
Who has not been in the West End on a weekday at this hour for years,
Than to keep looking at the sky, looking at this, that and the other,
As if Portland Place were a room he had come into
When the family are away,
The chandeliers being hung in holland bags,
And the caretaker,
As she lets in long shafts of dusty light upon deserted,
Queer-looking armchairs,
Lifting one corner of the long blinds,
Explains to the visitors what a wonderful place it is;
How wonderful, but at the same time,
He thinks,
How strange.
To look at, he might have been a clerk,
But of the better sort;
For he wore brown boots,
His hands were educated;
So, too, his profile –
His angular, big-nosed,
Intelligent,
Sensitive profile;
But not his lips altogether,
For they were lose;
And his eyes
(as eyes tend to be),
Eyes merely;
Hazel, large;
So that he was, on the whole,
A border case, neither one thing nor the other;
Might end with a house at Purley and a motor car,
Or continue renting apartments in back streets all his life;
One of those half-educated, self-educated men
Whose education is all learnt from books borrowed from public libraries,
Read in the evening after the day’s work, 181
On the advice of well-known authors consulted by letter.135 182
As for the other experiences, the solitary ones,
Which people go through alone,
In their bedrooms,
In their offices,
Walking the fields
And the streets of London,
He had them;
Had left home,
A mere boy, because of his mother;
She lied;
Because he came down to tea for the
Fiftieth time with his hands unwashed;
Because he could see no future for a poet in Stroud;
And so, making a confidant of his little sister,
Had gone to London leaving an absurd note behind him,
Such as great men have written,
And the world has read later
When the story of their struggles has become famous.
London has swallowed up
Many millions of young men called Smith;
Thought nothing of fantastic
Christian names like Septimus with
Which their parents have thought to distinguish them.
Lodging off the Euston Road,
There were experiences, again experiences,
Such as change a face in two years
From a pink innocent oval
To a face lean, contracted, hostile.
But of all this
What could the most observant of friends have said
Except what a gardener says
When he opens the conservatory door in the morning
And finds a new blossom on his plant: --
It has flowered; flowered from vanity,
Ambition,
Idealism,
Passion,
Loneliness,
Courage,
Laziness,
The usual seeds,
Which all muddled up
(in a room off the Euston Road),
Made him shy, and stammering,
Made him anxious to improve himself,
Made him fall in love with Miss Isabel Pole,
Lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare.
Was he not like Keats?
She asked;
And reflected how she might give him a taste
Of Anthony and Cleopatra and the rest;
Lent him books;
Wrote him scraps of letters;
And lit in him such a fire as burns only once in a lifetime,
Without heat, flickering a red gold flame
Infinitely ethereal and insubstantial over Miss Pole;
Antony and Cleopatra; and the Waterloo Road.
He thought her beautiful,
Believed her impeccably wise;
Dreamed of her,
Wrote poems to her,
Which, ignoring the subject,
She corrected in red ink;
He saw her, one summer evening,
Walking in a green dress in a square.
‘It had flowered,’ the gardener might have said,
Had he opened the door;
Had he come in,
That is to say,
Any night about this time,
And found him writing;
Found him tearing up his writing;
Found him finishing a masterpiece
At three o’clock in the morning
And running out to pace the streets,
And visiting churches,
And fasting one day,
Drinking another,
Devouring Shakespeare, Darwin,
The History of Civilisation136
And Bernard Shaw.
Something was, Mr Brewer knew;
Mr Brewer, managing clerk at Sibleys and Arrowsmiths,
Auctioneers, valuers,
Land and estate agents;
Something was up,
He thought,
And, being paternal with his young men,
And thinking very highly of Smith’s abilities,
And prophesying that he would,
In ten or fifteen years, succeed to the leather armchair
In the inner room under the skylight with the deed-boxes
Around him,
‘If he keeps his health,’ said Mr Brewer,
And that was the danger –
He looked weakly;
Advised football,
Invited him to supper and was seeing his way
To consider recommending a rise of salary, 182
When something happened which threw out 183
Many of Mr Brewer’s calculations,
Took away his ablest young fellows,
And eventually, so prying and insidious
Were the fingers of the European War,
Smashed a plaster cast of Ceres,
Ploughed a hole in the geranium beds,
And utterly ruined the cook’s nerves at Mr Brewer’s
Establishment at Muswell Hill.137
Septimus was one of the first to volunteer.
He went to France to save an England
Which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare’s plays
And Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square.
There in the trenches the change which Mr Brewer desired
When he advised football was produced instantly;
He developed manliness, he was promoted;
He drew the attention, indeed the affection of his officer,
Evans by name.
It was a case of two dogs playing on a hearth-rug;
One worrying a paper screw, snarling, snapping,
Giving a pinch, now and then,
At the old dog’s ear;
The other lying somnolent, blinking at the fire,
Raising a paw, turning and growling good-temperedly.
They had to be together, share with each other,
Fight with each other, quarrel with each other.
But when Evans
(Rezia, who had only seen him once,
called him ‘a quiet man’,
a sturdy red-haired man,
undemonstrative in the company of women),
When Evans was killed, just before the Armistice,
In Italy,
Septimus,
Far from showing any emotion or recognizing that
Here was the end of a friendship,
Congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably.
The War had taught him.
It was sublime.
He had gone through the whole show, friendship,
European War, death,
Had won promotion,
Was still under thirty
And was bound to survive.
He was right there.
The last shells missed him.
He watched them explode with indifference.
When peace came he was in Milan, billeted in the house
Of an innkeeper with a courtyard,
Flowers in tubs, little tables in the open,
Daughters making hats,
And to Lucrezia, the younger daughter,
He became engaged one evening when the panic was on –
That he could not feel.
For now that it was all over,
Truce signed, and the dead buried,
He had, especially in the evening,
These sudden thunder-claps of fear.
He could not feel.
As he opened the door of the room where the Italian girls sat
Making hats,
He could see them;
Could hear them;
They were rubbing wires
Among coloured beads in saucers;
They were turning buckram shapes
This way and that;
The table was all strewn
With feathers, spangles, silks, ribbons;
Scissors were rapping on the table;
But something failed him;
He could not feel.
Still, assured of safety; he had a refuge.
But he could not sit there all night.
There were moments of waking in the early morning.
The bed was falling;
He was falling.
Oh for the scissors and the lamplight and the buckram shapes!
He asked Lucrezia to marry him,
The younger of the two, the gay, the frivolous,
With those little artist’s fingers that she would hold up and say,
‘It is all in them.’
Silk, feathers, what not were alive to them.
‘It is the hat that matters most,’ she would say,
When they walked out together.
Every hat that passed, she would examine;
And the cloak and the dress and the way the woman held herself. 184
Ill-dressing, over-dressing she stigmatized, not savagely, 185
Rather with inpatient movements of the hands,
Like those of a painter who puts from him
Some obvious well-meant glaring imposture;
And then, generously, but always critically,
She would welcome a shop-girl
Who had turned her little bit of stuff gallantly,
Or praise, wholly,
With enthusiastic and professional understanding,
A French lady descending from her carriage,
In chinchilla, robes, pearls.
‘Beautiful!’ she would murmur,
Nudging Septimus, that he might see.
But beauty was behind a pane of glass.
Even taste
(Rezia liked ices, chocolates, sweet things)
Had not relish to him.
He put down his cup on the little marble table.
He looked at people outside;
Happy they seemed,
Collecting in the middle of the street,
Shouting,
Laughing,
Squabbling over nothing.
But he could not taste,
He could not feel.
In the tea-shops among the tables and the chattering waiters
The appalling fear came over him –
He could not feel.
He could reason;
He could read, Dante for example, quite easily
(‘Septimus, do put down your book,’
said Rezia, gently shutting the Inferno),
He could add up his bill; his brain was perfect;
It must be the fault of the world then –
That he could not feel.
‘The English are so silent,’ Rezia said.
She liked it,
She said.
She respected these Englishmen, and wanted to see London,
And the English horses,
And the tailor-made suits,
And could remember hearing how wonderful the shops were,
From an Aunt who had married and lived in Soho.
It might be possible,
Septimus thought,
Looking at England from the train window,
As they left Newhaven;138
It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.
At the office they advanced him to a post
Of considerable responsibility.
They were proud of him; he had won crosses.
‘You have done your duty; it is upon us –‘
Began Mr Brewer, and could not finish,
So pleasurable was his emotion.
They took admirable lodgings off the Tottenham Court Road.
Here he opened Shakespeare once more.
That boy’s business of the intoxication of language –
Antony and Cleopatra –
Had shriveled utterly.
How Shakespeare loathed humanity –
The putting on of clothes, the getting of children,
The sordidity of the mouth and the belly!
This was now revealed to Septimus;
The message hidden in the beauty of words.
The secret signal which one generation passes,
Under disguise,
To the next is loathing, hatred, despair.
Dante the same.
Aeschylus (translated) the same.139
There Rezia stat at the table trimming hats.
She trimmed hats for Mrs Filmer’s friends;
She trimmed hats by the hour.
She looked pale, mysterious, like a lily,
Drowned, under water,
He thought.140
‘The English are so serious,’
She would say,
Putting her arms round Septimus, her cheeks against his.
Love between man and woman was repulsive to Shakespeare.
The business of copulation was filth to him before the end.
But, Rezia said, she must have children.
They had been married five years141. 184
They went to the Tower together; 185
To the Victoria and Albert Museum,
Stood in the crowd to see the King open Parliament.
And there were the shops –
Hat shops, dress shops, shops with leather bags in the window,
Where she would stand staring.
But she must have a boy.
She must have a son like Septimus,
She said.
But nobody could be like Septimus;
So gentle;
So serious;
So clever.
Could she not read Shakespeare too?
Was Shakespeare a difficult author?
She asked.
One cannot bring children into a world like this.
One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed
Of these lustful animals,
Who have no lasting emotions,
But only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.
He watched her snip, shape, as one watches a bird hop,
Flit in the grass, without daring to move a finger.
For the truth is
(let her ignore it)
That human beings have neither kindness
Nor faith,
Nor charity
Beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.
They hunt in packs.
Their packs scour the desert
And vanish screaming into the wilderness.
They desert the fallen.
They are plastered over with grimaces.
There was Brewer at the office,
With his waxed moustache,
Coral tie-pin,
White slip,
And pleasurable emotions –
All coldness and clamminess within –
His geraniums ruined in the War –
His cooks’ nerves destroyed;
Or Amelia Whatshername,
Handing round cups of tea punctually at five –
A leering, sneering obscene little harpy;
And the Toms and Berties in their starched shirt fronts
Oozing thick drops of vice.
They never saw him drawing pictures of them naked
At their antics in his notebook.
In the street, vans roared past him;
Brutality blared out on placards;
Men were trapped in mines;
Women burnt alive;
And once a maimed file of lunatics being exercised
Or displayed for the diversion of the populace
(who laughed aloud),
Ambled and nodded and grinned past him,
In the Tottenham Court Road,
Each half apologetically, yet triumphantly,
Inflicting his hopeless woe.
And would he go mad?
At tea Rezia told him that Mrs Filmer’s daughter
Was expecting a baby.
She could not grow old and have no children!
She was very lonely, she was very unhappy!
She cried for the first time since they were married.
Far away he heard her sobbing;
He heard it accurately,
He noticed it distinctly;
He compared it to a piston thumping.
But he felt nothing.
His wife was crying,
And he felt nothing;
Only each time she sobbed in this profound,
This silent,
This hopeless way,
He descended another step into the pit.
At last, with a melodramatic gesture
Which he assumed mechanically and
With complete consciousness of its insincerity,
He dropped his head on his hands.
Now he had surrendered;
Now other people must help him.
People must be sent for.
He gave in.
Nothing could rouse him.
Rezia put him to bed.
She sent for a doctor –
Mrs Filmer’s Dr Holmes.
Dr Holmes examined him.
There was nothing whatever the matter, said Dr Holmes.
Oh, what a relief!
What a kind man, what a good man! 185
Thought Rezia. 186
When he felt like that he went to the Music Hall,
Said Dr Holmes.
He took a day off with his wife and played golf.
Why not try two tabloids of bromide dissolved in a glass of water at bedtime?
These old Bloomsbury houses,
Said Dr Holmes,
Tapping the wall, are often full of very fine paneling,
Which the landlords have the folly to paper over.
Only the other day, visiting a patient, Sir Somebody Something,
In Bedford Square –
So there was no excuse; nothing whatever the matter,
Except the sin for which human nature had condemned him to death;
That he did not feel.
He had not cared when Evans was killed;
That was worst;
But all the other crimes raised their heads and shook their fingers
And jeered and sneered over the rail of the bed in the early hours
Of the morning at the prostrate body which lay realizing its degradation;
How he had married his wife without loving her;
Had lied to her; seduced her;
Outraged Miss Isabel Pole,
And was so pocked and marked with vice
That women shuddered when they saw him in the street.
The verdict of human nature on such a wretch was death.
Dr Holmes came again. Large, fresh-coloured,
Handsome, flicking his boots, looking in the glass,
He brushed it all aside –
Headaches, sleeplessness, fears, dreams –
Nerve symptoms and nothing more,
He said.
If Dr Holmes found himself even half a pound below eleven stone six,
He asked his wife for another plate of porridge at breakfast.
(Rezia would learn to cook porridge.)
But, he continued, health is largely a matter in our own control.
Throw yourself into outside interests; take up some hobby.
He opened Shakespeare –
Antony and Cleopatra;
Pushed Shakespeare aside.
Some hobby,
Said Dr Holmes,
For did he not owe his own excellent health
(and he worked as hard as any man in London)
To the fact that he could always switch off from his patients
On to old furniture? And what a very pretty comb,
If he might so, Mrs Warren Smith was wearing!
When the damned fool came again,
Septimus refused to see him.
Did he indeed?
Said Dr Holmes,
Smiling agreeably.
Really he had to give that charming little lady, Mrs Smith,
A friendly push before he could get past her
Into her husband’s bedroom.
‘So you’re in a funk,’
He said agreeably,
Sitting down by his patient’s side.
He had actually talked of killing himself to his wife,
Quite a girl,
A foreigner,
Wasn’t she? Didn’t that give her a very odd idea of English husbands?
Didn’t one owe perhaps a duty to one’s wife?
Wouldn’t it be better to do something instead of lying in bed?
For he had had forty years’ experience behind him;
And Septimus could take Dr Holmes’s word for it –
There was nothing whatever the matter with him.
And next time Dr Holmes came he hoped to find Smith out of bed
And not making that charming little lady his wife anxious about him.
Human nature, in short, was on him –
The repulsive brute, with the blood-red nostrils.
Holmes was on him.
Dr Holmes came quite regularly every day.
Once you stumble, Septimus wrote on the back of a postcard,
Human nature is on you. 186
Holmes is on you.
Their only chance was to escape, 187
Without letting Holmes know; to Italy –
Anywhere, anywhere, away from Dr Holmes.
But Rezia could not understand him.
Dr Holmes was such a kind man.
He was so interested in Septimus.
He only wanted to help them,
He said.
He had four little children and he had asked her to tea,
She told Septimus.
So he was deserted.
The whole world was clamoring:
Kill yourself,
Kill yourself,
For our sakes.
But why should he kill himself for their sakes?
Food was pleasant; the sun hot; and this killing oneself,
How does one set about it, with a table knife, uglily,
With floods of blood –
By sucking a gas-pipe?
He was too weak; he could scarcely raise his hand.
Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned,
Deserted, as those are about to die are alone,
There was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity;
A freedom which the attached can never know.
Holmes had won of course; the brute with the red nostrils had won.
But even Holmes himself could not touch
This last relic straying on the edge of the world,
This outcast who gazed back at the inhabited regions,
Who lay, like a drowned sailor, on the shore of the world.
It was at that moment
(Rezia had gone shopping)
That the great revelation took place.
A voice spoke from behind the screen.
Evans was speaking.
The dead were with him.
‘Evans, Evans!’ he cried.
Mr Smith was talking aloud to himself,
Agnes the servant girl cried to Mrs Filmer in the kitchen.
‘Evans, Evans!’ he had said as she brought in the tray.
She jumped, she did.
She scuttled downstairs.
And Rezia came in, wither flowers, and walked across the room,
And put the roses in a vase, upon which the sun struck directly,
And went laughing, leaping round the room.
She had had to buy the roses,
Rezia said,
Form a poor man in the street. But they were almost dead already,
She said,
Arranging the roses.
So there was a man outside; Evans presumably;
And the roses, which Rezia said were half dead,
Had been picked by him in the fields of Greece.
Communication is health; communication is happiness.
Communication,
He muttered.
‘What are you saying, Septimus?’ Rezia asked, wild with terror,
For he was talking to himself.
She sent Agnes running for Dr Holmes.
Her husband,
She said,
Was mad.
He scarcely knew her.
‘You brute! You brute!’ cried Septimus, seeing human nature,
That is Dr Holmes, enter the room.
‘Now what’s all this about,’ said Dr Holmes in the most amiable way in the world.
‘Talking nonsense to frighten your wife?’
But he would give him something to make him sleep.
And if they were rich people,
Said Dr Holmes,
Looking ironically round the room,
By all means let them go to Harley Street.142
If they had no confidence in him,
Said Dr Holmes,
Looking not quite so kind. 187
It was precisely twelve o’clock; twelve by Big Ben; 188
Whose stroke was wafted over the northern part of London;
Blent with that of other clocks, mixed in a thin ethereal way
With the clouds and wisps of smoke and dried up there
Among the seagulls –
Twelve o’clock struck as Clarissa Dalloway laid
Her green dress on her bed,
And the Warren Smiths walked down Harley Street.
Twelve was the hour of their appointment.
Probably,
Rezia thought,
That was Sir William Bradshaw’s house
With the grey motor car in front of it.
(The leaden circles dissolved in the air.)
Indeed it was –
Sir William Bradshaw’s motor car;
Low, powerful, grey with plain initials interlocked
On the panel, as if the pomps of heraldry were incongruous,
This man being the ghostly helper, the priest of science,
And, as the motor car was grey, so to match its sober suavity,
Grey furs, silver grey rugs were heaped in it,
To keep her ladyship warm while she waited.
For often Sir William would travel sixty miles or more
Down into the country to visit the rich, the afflicted,
Who could afford the very large fee which Sir Wililam
Very properly charged for his advice.
Her ladyship waited with the rugs about her knees
And hour or more, leaning back,
Thinking sometimes of the patient,
Sometimes, excusably, of the wall of gold,
Mounting minute by minute while she waited;
The wall of gold that was mounting between them
And all shifts and anxieties
(she had borne them bravely;
they had had their struggles)
Until she felt wedged on a calm ocean,
Where only spice winds blow;
Respected,
Admired,
Envied,
With scarcely anything left to wish for,
Though she regretted her stoutness;
Large dinner-parties every Thursday night to the profession;
An occasional bazaar to be opened;
Royalty greeted;
Too little time, alas! with her husband, whose work grew and grew;
A boy doing well at Eton; she would have liked a daughter too;
Interests she had, however, in plenty;
Child welfare;
The after-care of the epileptic,
And photography,
So that if there was a church building,
Or a church decaying,
She bribed the sexton,
Got the key and took photographs,
Which were scarcely to be distinguished
From the work of professionals,
While she waited.
Sir William himself was no longer young.
He had worked very hard;
He had won his position by sheer ability
(being the son of a shopkeeper);
Loved his profession;
Made a fine figurehead at ceremonies and spoke well –
All of which had by the time he was knighted
Given him a heavy look, a weary look
(the stream of patients being so incessant,
the responsibilities and privileges
of his profession so onerous),
Which wearing, together with his grey hairs,
Increased the extraordinary distinction of his presence
And gave him the reputation
(of the utmost importance in dealing
with nerve cases)
Not merely of lightning skill and almost infallible
Accuracy in diagnosis,
But of sympathy;
Tact;
Understanding of the human soul
He could see the first moment they came into the room
(the Warren Smiths they were called);
He was certain directly he saw the man;
It was a case of extreme gravity.
It was a case of complete breakdown –
Complete physical and nervous breakdown,
With every symptom in an advanced stage 188
He ascertained in two or three minutes 189
(writing answers to questions murmured
discreetly, on a pink card),
How long had Dr Holmes been attending him?
Six weeks.
Prescribed a little bromide? Said there was nothing the matter?
Ah yes
(those general practitioners! thought Sir William.
It took half his time to undo their blunders.
Some were irreparable).
‘You served with great distinction in the War?’
The patient repeated the word ‘war’ interrogatively.
He was attaching meanings to words of a symbolical kind.
A serious symptom to be noted on the card.
‘The War?’ the patient asked. The European War – that little shindy of schoolboys with gunpowder?
Had he served with distinction
He really forgot.
In the War itself he had failed.
‘Yes, he served with the greatest distinction,’ Rezia assured the doctor; ‘he was promoted.’
‘And
they have the very highest opinion of you at your office?’ Sir William
murmured, glancing at Mr Brewer’s very generously worded letter. ‘So
that you have nothing to worry you, no financial anxiety, nothing?’
He had committed an appalling crime
And been condemned to death by human nature.
‘I have – I have,’ he began, ‘committed a crime –‘
‘He has done nothing wrong whatever,’ Rezia assured the doctor.
If Mr Smith would wait,
Said Sir William,
He would speak to Mrs Smith in the next room.
Her husband was very seriously ill, Sir William said.
Did he threaten to kill himself?
Oh, he did, she cried.
But he did not mean it,
She said.
Of course not.
It was merely a question of rest, said Sir William;
Of rest, rest, rest;
A long rest in bed.
There was a delightful home down in the country
Where her husband would be perfectly looked after.
Away from her?
She asked.
Unfortunately, yes;
The people we care for most are not good for us when we are ill.
But he was not mad, was he?
Sir William said he never spoke of ‘madness’;
He called it not having a sense of proportion.
But her husband did not like doctors.
He would refuse to go there.
Shortly and kindly Sir William explained to her the state of the case.
He had threatened to kill himself.
There was no alternative.
It was a question of law.
He would lie in bed in a beautiful house in the country.
The nurses were admirable.
Sir William would visit him once a week.
If Mrs Warren smith was quite sure she had no more questions to ask –
He never hurried his patients –
They would return to her husband.
She had nothing more to ask –
Not of Sir William.
So they returned to the most exalted of mankind;
The criminal who faced his judges;
The victim exposed on the heights;
The fugitive;
The drowned sailor;
The poet of the immortal ode;
The Lord who had gone from life to death;
To Septimus Warren Smith, who sat in the armchair 189
Under the skylight staring at a photograph
Of Lady Bradshaw in Court dress,
Muttering messages about beauty. 190
‘We have had our little talk,’ said Sir William.
‘He says you are very, very ill,’ Rezia cried.
‘We have been arranging that you should go into a home,’ said Sir William.
‘One of Holmes’s’ homes?’ sneered Septimus.
The fellow made a distasteful impression. For there was in
Sir William, whose father had been a tradesman,
A natural respect for breeding and clothing,
Which shabbiness nettled;
Again, more profoundly, there was in Sir William,
Who had never had time for reading, a grudge,
Deeply buried, against cultivated people who came into his room
And intimated that doctors, whose profession is a constant strain
Upon all the highest faculties, are not educated men.
‘One of my homes, Mr Warren Smith,’ he said, ‘where we will teach you to rest.’
And there was just one thing more.
He was quite certain that when Mr Warren Smith was well
He was the last man in the world to frighten his wife.
But he had talked of killing himself.
‘We all have our moment of depression,’ said Sir William.
Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself,
Human nature is on you.
Holmes and Bradshaw are on you.
They scour the desert.
They fly screaming in to the wilderness.
The rack and the thumbscrew are applied.
Human nature is remorseless.
‘Impulses came upon him sometimes?’ Sir William asked, with his pencil on a pink card.
That was his own affair,
Said Septimus.
‘Nobody lives for himself alone,’ said Sir William, glancing at the photograph of his wife in Court dress.
‘And
you have a brilliant career before you,’ said Sir William. There was Mr
Brewer’s letter on the table. ‘An exceptionally brilliant career.’
But if he confessed? If he communicated? Would they let him off then,
Holmes, Bradshaw?
I – I –‘ he stammered.
But what was his crime? He could not remember it.
“Yes?’ Sir William encouraged him.
(but it was growing late.)
Love, trees, there is no crime – what was his message?
He could not remember it.
‘I –I –‘ Septimus stammered.
‘Try to think as little about yourself as possible,’ said Sir William kindly.
Really, he was not fit to be about.
Was there anything else they wished to ask him?
Sir William would make all arrangements
(he murmured to Rezia)
And he would let her know between five and six that evening. 190
‘Trust everything to me,’ he said, and dismissed them. 191
Never, never had Rezia felt such agony in her life
She had asked for help and been deserted!
He had failed them?
Sir William Bradshaw was not a nice man.
The upkeep of that motor car alone must cost him quite a lot,
Said Septimus
When they got out into the street.
She clung to his arm. They had been deserted.
But what more did she want?
To his patients he gave three-quarters of an hour;
And if in this exacting science which has to do with what,
After all,
We know nothing about –
The nervous system, the human brain –
A doctor loses his sense of proportion, as a doctor he fails.
Health we must have; and health is proportion;
So that when a man comes into your room and says he is Christ
(a common delusion),
And has a message, as they mostly have,
And threatens, as they often do,
To kill himself, you invoke proportions;
Order rest in bed; rest in solitude;
Silence and rest; rest without friends,
Without books, without messages;
Six moths’ rest;
Until a man who went in weighing seven stone six
Comes out weighting twelve.143
Proportion, divine proportion, Sir William’s goddess,
Was acquired by Sir William walking hospitals,
Catching salmon,
Begetting one son in Harley Street by Lady Bradshaw,
Who caught salmon herself
And took photographs scarcely to be distinguished
From the work of professionals.
Worshipping proportion, Sir William not only prospered himself
But made England prosper, secluded her lunatics,
Forbade childbirth, 144penalized despair,
Made it impossible for the unfit to propagate
Their views until they, too, shared
This sense of proportion –
His, if they were men, Lady Bradshaw’s if they were women
(she embroidered, knitted, spent
four nights out of seven at home with her son),
So that not only did his colleagues respect him,
His subordinates fear him,
But the friends and relations of his patients felt for him
The keenest gratitude for insisting that these prophetic
Chirsts and Christesses, who prophesied the end of the world,
Or the advent of God,
Should drink milk in bed, as Sir William ordered;
Sir William with his thirty years’ experience of these kinds
Of case, and his infallible instinct, this is madness, this sense;
His sense of proportion.
But Proportion has a sister, less smiling, more formidable,
A Goddess even now engage –
In the heat and sands of India, the mud and swamp of Africa,
The purlieus of London, wherever in short
The climate or the devil tempts men
To fall from the true belief which is her own –
Is even now engaged in dashing down shrines, smashing idols
And setting up in their place her own stern countenance.
Conversion is her name and she feasts on the wills
Of the weakly, loving to impress, to impose, adoring
Her own features stamped on the face of the populace.
At Hyde Park Corner on a tub she stands preaching;
Shrouds herself in white and walks penitentially 191
Disguised as brotherly love through factories and parliaments; 192
Offers help, but desires power; smites out of her way roughly
The dissentient, or dissatisfied; bestows her blessing on
Those who, looking upward, catch submissively from her eyes
The light of their own.
This lady too
(Rezia Warren Smith divined it)
Had her dwelling in Sir Williams’ heart, though concealed,
As she mostly is, under some plausible disguise;
Some venerable name; love, duty, self-sacrifice.
How he would work –
How toil to raise funds, propagate reforms,
Initiate institutions!
But conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick,
And feasts most subtly on the human will.
For example, Lady Bradshaw.
Fifteen years ago she had gone under.
It was nothing you could put your finger on;
There had been no scene, no snap;
Only the slow sinking, water-logged, of her will into his.
Sweet was her smile, swift her submission;
Dinner in Harley Street, numbering eight or nine course,
Feeding ten or fifteen guests of the professional classes,
Was smooth and urbane.
Only as the evening wore on a very slight dullness,
Or uneasiness perhaps, a nervous twitch,
Fumble,
Stumble
And confusion indicated,
What it was really painful to believe –
That the poor lady lied.
Once, long ago, she had caught salmon freely;
Now, quick to minister to the craving
Which lit her husband’s eye
So oilily for dominion, for power,
She cramped, squeezed, pared,
Pruned, drew back, peeped through;
So that without knowing precisely
What made the evening disagreeable,
And caused this pressure on the top of the head
(which might well be imputed
to the professional conversation,
or the fatigue of a great doctor whose life,
Lady Bradshaw said, “is not his own but
his patients’’),
Disagreeable it was; so that guests, when the clock struck ten,
Breathed in the air of Harley Street even with rapture;
Which relief, however, was denied to his patients.
There in the grey room, with the pictures on the wall,
And the valuable furniture,
Under the ground glass skylight,
They learnt the extent of their transgressions;
Huddled up in armchairs, they watched him go through,
For their benefit, a curious exercise with the arms,
Which he shot out, brought sharply back to his hip, to prove
(if the patient was obstinate)
That Sir William was master of his own actions,
Which the patient was not.
There some weakly broke down;
Sobbed, submitted;
Others, inspired by Heaven knows what intemperate madness,
Called Sir William to his face a damnable humbug;
Questioned, even more impiously,
Life itself.
Why live? They demanded.
Sir William replied that life was good.
Certainly Lady Bradshaw in ostrich feathers hung over the mantelpiece,
And as for his income it was quite twelve thousand a year.
But to us, they protested, life has given no such bounty.
He acquiesced.
They lacked a sense of proportion.
And perhaps, after all there is no God?
He shrugged his shoulders.
In short, this living or not living is an affair of our own?
But there they were mistaken.
Sir William had a friend in Surrey
Where they taught,
What Sir William frankly admitted was a difficult art –
A sense of proportion.
There were, moreover, family affection;
Honour;
Courage;
And a brilliant career.
All of these had in Sir William a resolute champion. 192
If they failed, he had to support him police and the good of society, 193
Which, he remarked very quietly, would take care,
Down in Surrey, that these unsocial impulses,
Bred more than anything by the lack of good blood,
Were held in good control.
And then stole out from her hiding-place
And mounted her throne that Goddess
Whose lust is to override herself.
Naked,
Defenceless,
The exhausted,
The friendless received the impress of Sir William’s will.
He swooped; he devoured.
He shut people up.
It was this combination of decision and humanity
That endeared Sir William so greatly to the relations of his victims.
But Rezia Warren Smith cried,
Walking down Harley Street,
That she did not like that man.144
Shredding and slicing,
Dividing and subdividing,
The clocks of Harley Street nibbled at the June day
Counseled submission, upheld authority,
And pointed out in chorus the supreme advantages of
Proportion, until the mount of time was so far diminished
That a commercial clock, suspended above a shop in Oxford Street,
Announced, genially and fraternally,
As if it were a pleasure to Messrs Rigby and Lowndes to give
The information gratis, that it was half-past one.
Looking up, it appeared that each letter of their names
Stood for one of the hours;
Subconsciously one was grateful to Rigby and Lowndes
For giving one time ratified by Greenwich;
And this gratitude
(so Hugh Whitbread ruminated,
dallying there in front of the shop window),
Naturally took the form later of buying off Rigby and Lowndes
Socks or shoes.
So he ruminated.
It was his habit.
He did not go deeply.
He brushed surfaces; the dead languages,
The living, life in
Constantinople, Paris, Rome;
Riding, shooting, tennis,
It had been once.
The malicious asserted that he now kept guard at Buckingham Palace,
Dressed in silk stockings and knee-breeches, over what
Nobody knew. But he did it extremely efficiently.
He had been afloat on the cream of English society for fifty-five years.
He had known Prime Ministers.
His affections were understood to be deep.
And if it were true that he had not taken part
In any of the great movements of the time or held important office,
One or two humble reforms stood to his credit;
An improvement in public shelters was one;
The protection of owls in Norfolk another;
Servant girls had reason to be grateful to him;
And his name at the end of letters to The Times,
Asking for funds, appealing to the public to protect,
To preserve,
To clear up litter,
To abate smoke,
And stamp out immorality in parks,
Commanded respect.
A magnificent figure he cut too, pausing for a moment
(as the sound of the half-hour died away)
To look critically, magisterially, at socks and shoes;
Impeccable, substantial, as if he beheld the world from a certain eminence,
And dressed to match; but realized the obligations which
Size, wealth, health, entail, and observed punctiliously even when not
Absolutely necessary, little courtesies, old-fashioned ceremonies
Which gave a quality to his manner, something to imitate, 193
Something to remember him by, for he would never lunch, 194
For example, with Lady Bruton, whom he had known these
Twenty years, without bringing her in his outstretched hand
A bunch of carnations and asking Miss Brush,
Lady Bruton’s secretary,
After her brother in South Africa, which, for some reason,
Miss Brush, deficient though the was in every attribute
Of female charm, so much resented that she said
‘Thank you, he’s doing very well in South Africa,’ when,
For half a dozen years, he had been doing badly in Portsmouth.
Lady Bruton herself preferred Richard Dalloway,
Who arrived at the same moment.
Indeed they met on the doorstep.
Lady Bruton preferred Richard Dalloway, of course.
He was made of much finer material.
But she wouldn’t let them run down her poor dear Hugh.
She could never forget his kindness –
He had been really remarkably kind –
She forgot precisely upon what occasion.
But he had been –
Remarkably kind.
Anyhow, the difference between one man and another
Does not amount to much.
She had never really seen the sense of cutting people up
As Clarissa Dalloway did –
Cutting them up and sticking them together again;
At any rate when one was sixty-two.
She took Hugh’s carnations with her angular grim smile.
There was nobody else coming,
She said.
She had got them there on false pretences,
To help her out of a difficulty –
‘But let us eat first,’ she said.
And so there began a soundless and exquisite passing to and fro
Through swing doors of aproned white-capped maids,
Handmaidens not of necessity,
From one-thirty to two, when with a wave of the hand,
The traffic ceases,
And there rises instead this profound illusion I the first place
About the food –
How it is not paid for;
And then that the table spread itself voluntarily
With glass and silver, little mats,
Saucers of red fruit,
Films of brown cream mask turbot;
In casseroles severed chickens swim;
Coloured, undomestic, the fire burns;
And with the wine and the coffee
(not paid for)
Rise jocund visions before musing eyes;
Gently speculative eyes;
Eyes to whom life appears musical, mysterious;
Eyes now kindled to observe genially
The beauty of the red carnations which Lady Bruton
(whose movements were always angular)
Had laid beside her plate, so that Hugh Whitbread,
Feeling at peace with the entire universe
And at the same time completely sure of his standing,
Said, resting his fork:
“Wouldn’t they look charming against your lace?’
Miss Brush resented this familiarity intensely.
She thought him an underbred fellow.
She made Lady Bruton laugh.
Lady Bruton raised the carnations,
Holding then rather stiffly with much she same attitude
With which the General held the scroll in the picture behind her;
She remained fixed, tranced.
Which was she now, the General’s great-grand-daughter?
Great-great-grand-daughter?
Richard Dalloway asked himself.
Sir Roderick, Sir Miles, Sir Talbot – that was it.
It was remarkable how in that family
The likeness persisted in the women.146
She should have been a general of dragoons herself. 194
And Richard would have served under her, cheerfully; 195
He had the greatest respect for her;
He cherished these romantic views
About well-set-up old women of pedigree,
And would have liked, in his good-humoured way,
To bring some young hot-heads of his acquaintance
To lunch with her,
As if a type like hers could be bred
Of amiable tea-drinking enthusiasts!
He knew her country. He knew her people.
There was a vine, still bearing,
Which either Lovelace or Herrick –
She never read a word of poetry herself,
But so the story ran –
Had sat under.
Better wait to put before them the question that bothered her
(about making an appeal to the public;
if so, in what terms and so on),
Better wait until they have had their coffee,
Lady Bruton thought;
And so laid the carnations down beside her plate.
‘How’s Clarissa?’ she asked abruptly.
Clarissa always said that Lady Bruton did not like her.
Indeed, Lady Bruton had the reputation of being more interested
In politics than people; of talking like a man;
Of having had a finger in some notorious intrigue of the eighties,
Which was now beginning to be mentioned in memoirs.
Certainly there was an alcove in her drawing-room and a table in that alcove,
And a photograph upon that table of General Sir Talbot Moore,
Now deceased, who had written there
(one evening in the eighties)
In Lady Bruton’s presence, with her cognizance, perhaps advice,
A telegram ordering the British troops to advance upon an historical occasion.
(She kept the pen and told the story.)
Thus, when she said in her offhand way ‘How’s Clarissa?’
Husbands had difficulty in persuading their wives and indeed,
However devoted,
Were secretly doubtful themselves, of her interest in women
Who often got in their husbands’ way, prevented them
From accepting posts abroad, and had to be taken to the seaside
In the middle of the session to recover from influenza.
Nevertheless her inquiry, ‘How’s Clarissa?’ was known by women infallibly
To be a signal from a well-wisher, from an almost silent companion,
Whose utterance
(half a dozen perhaps in the course of a lifetime)
Signified recognition of some feminine comradeship
Which went beneath masculine lunch parties and united
Lady Bruton and Mrs Dalloway,
Who seldom met, and appeared, when they did meet
Indifferent and even hostile, in a singular bond.
‘I met Clarissa in the Park this morning,’ said Hugh Whitbread,
Diving into the casserole, anxious to pay himself this little tribute,
For he had only to come to London and he met everybody at once;
But greedy, one of the greediest men she had ever know,
Milly Brush thought,
Who observed men with unflinching rectitude,
And was capable of everlasting devotion,
To her own set in particular,
Being knobbed, scraped, angular, and entirely
Without feminine charm.
‘D’you know who’s in town?’ said Lady Bruton, suddenly bethinking her.
‘Our old friend, Peter Walsh.’
They all smiled. Peter Walsh!
And Mr Dalloway was genuinely glad,
Milly Brush thought;
And Mr Whitbread thought only of his chicken. 195
196
Peter Walsh! All three,
Lady Bruton,
Hugh Whitbread, and
Richard Dalloway,
Remembered the same thing –
How passionately Peter had been in love;
Been rejected;
Gone to India,
Come a cropper;
Made a mess of things;
Milly Brush saw that;
Saw a depth in the brown of his eyes;
Saw him hesitate;
Consider;
Which interested her, as Mr Dalloway always interested her,
For what was he thinking,
She wondered,
About Peter Walsh?
That Peter Walsh had been in love with Clarissa;
That he would go back directly after lunch and find Clarissa;
That he would tell her, in so many words, that he loved her.
Yes, he would say that.147
Milly Brush once might almost have fallen
In love with these silences;
And Mr Dalloway was always so dependable;
Such a gentleman too.
Now, being forty, Lady Bruton had only to nod,
Or turn her head a little abruptly,
And Milly Brush took the signal,
However deeply she might be sunk
In these reflections of a detached spirit,
Of an uncorrupted soul
Whom life could not bamboozle,
Because life
Had not offered her a trinket of the slightest value;
Not a curl, smile,
Lip, cheek, nose;
Nothing whatever;
Lady Bruton had only to nod,
And Perkins was instructed to quicken the coffee.
‘Yes; Peer Walsh has come back,’ said Lady Bruton.
It was vaguely flattering to them all.
He had come back,
Battered, unsuccessful.
To their secure shores.
But to help him,
They reflected,
Was impossible;
There was some flaw in his character.
Hugh Whitbread said one might of course
Mention his name to So-and-s.
He wrinkled lugubriously, consequentially,
At the thought of the letters he would write
To the heads of Government offices
About ‘my old friend, Peter Walsh’, and so on.
But it wouldn’t lead to anything –
Not to anything permanent, because of his character.
‘In trouble with some woman,’ said Lady Bruton.
They had all guessed that that was at the bottom of it.
‘However,’ said Lady Bruton, anxious to leave the subject, ‘
We shall hear the whole story from Peter himself.’
(The coffee was very slow in coming.)
‘The address?’ murmured Hugh Whitbread;
And there was at once a ripple in the grey tide of service
Which washed round Lady Bruton day in, day out,
Collecting, intercepting,
Enveloping her
In a fine tissue which broke concussions, mitigated interruptions,
And spread round the house in Brook Street
A fine net where things lodged
And were picked out accurately, instantly,
By grey-haired Perkins, who had been with Lady Bruton
These thirty years and now wrote down the address;
Handed it to Mr Whitbread, who took out his pocket-book,
Raised his eyebrows, and slipping it in
Among documents of the highest important,
Said that he would get Evelyn to ask him to lunch.
(They were waiting to bring the coffee until Mr Whitbread had finished.)
Hugh was very slow,
Lady Bruton thought.
He was getting fat,
She noticed.
Richard always kept himself in the pink of condition. 196
She was getting impatient; the whole of her being 197
Positively,
Undeniably,
Domineeringly brushing aside all this unnecessary trifling
(Peter Walsh and his affairs)
Upon that subject
Which engaged her attention, and not merely attention,
But that fibre which was the ramrod of her soul,
That essential part of her without which
Millicent Bruton would not have been Millicent Bruton;
That project for emigrating young people of both sexes
Born of respectable parents
And setting them up with a fair prospect
Of doing well in Canada.
She exaggerated.
She had perhaps lost her sense of proportion.
Emigration was not to others the obvious remedy,
The sublime conception.
It was not to them
(not to Hugh, or Richard,
or even to devoted Miss Brush)
The liberator of the pent egotism, which a strong martial woman,
Well nourished,
Well descended,
Of direct impulses, downright feelings,
And little introspective power
(broad and simple –
why could not everyone be broad and simple?
She asked.)
Feels rise within her, once youth is past,
And must eject upon some object –
It may be Emigration,
It may be Emancipation;
But whatever it be, this object round which
The essence of her soul is daily secreted
Becomes inevitably prismatic,
Lustrous,
Half looking-glass,
Half precious stone;
Now carefully hidden in case people should sneer at it;
Now proudly displayed.
Emigration had become, in short, largely Lady Bruton.
But she had to write.
And one letter to The Times,
She used to say Miss Brush,
Cost her more than to organize an expedition to South Africa
(which she had done in the war).148
After a morning’s battle beginning,
Tearing up,
Beginning again,
She used to feel the futility of her own womanhood
As she felt it on no other occasion,
And would turn gratefully to the thought of Hugh Whitbread who possessed –
No one could doubt it –
The art of writing letters to The Times.
A being so differently constituted from herself,
With such a command of language;
Able to put things as editors liked them put;
Had passions which one could not call simply greed.
Lady Bruton often suspended judgment upon men
In deference to the mysterious accord in which they,
But no woman,
Stood to the laws of the universe;
Knew how to put things;
Knew what was said;
So that if Richard advised her,
And Hugh wrote for her,
She was sure of being somehow right.
So she let Hugh eat his soufflé;
Asked after poor Evelyn;
Waited until they were smoking, and then said,
‘Milly, would you fetch the papers?’
And Miss Brush went out, came back;
Laid papers on the table; and Hugh produced his fountain pen;
His silver fountain pen,
Which had done twenty years’ service,
He said,
Unscrewing the cap.
It was still in perfect order;
He had shown it to the makers;
There was no reason,
They said,
Why it should ever wear out;
Which was somehow to Hugh’s credit,
And to the credit of the sentiments which his pen expressed
(so Richard Dalloway felt)
As Hugh began carefully writing capital letters with rings
Round them in the margin, and thus marvelously reduced
Lady Bruton’s tangles to sense, to grammar such as 197
The editor of The Times, Lady Bruton felt, 198
Watching the marvelous transformation, must respect.
Hugh was slow. Hugh was pertinacious.
Richard said one must take risks.
Hugh proposed modifications in deference to people’s feelings,
Which, he said rather tartly when Richard laughed,
‘had to be considered,’ and read out,
‘How, therefore, we are of opinion that the times are ripe…
the superfluous youth of our ever-increasing population…
what we owe to the dead…’
Which Richard thought all stuffing and bunkum,
But no harm in it,
Of course,
And Hugh went on drafting sentiments
In alphabetical order
Of the highest nobility,
Brushing the cigar ash from his waistcoat,
And summing up now and then
The progress they had made until, finally,
He read out
The draft of a letter
Which Lady Bruton felt certain was a masterpiece.
Could her own meaning sound like that?
Hugh could not guarantee that the editor would put it in;
But he would be meeting somebody at luncheon.
Whereupon Lady Bruton, who seldom did a graceful thing,
Stuffed all Hugh’s carnations in the front of her dress,
And flinging her hands out called him ‘My Prime Minister!’
What she would have done without them both she did not know.
They rose.
And Richard Dalloway strolled off as usual
To have a look at the General’s portrait,
Because he meant, whenever he had a moment of leisure,
To write a history of Lady Bruton’s family.
And Millicent Bruton was very proud of her family.
But they could wait,
They could wait,
She said,
Looking at the picture;
Meaning that her family, of military men,
Administrators,
Admirals,
Had been men of action, who had done their duty;
And Richard’s first duty was to his country,
But it was a fine face,
She said;
And all the papers were ready for Richard down at Aldmixton
Whenever the time came;
The Labour Government she meant.
‘Ah, the news from India!’ she cried.
And then, as they stood in the hall taking
Yellow gloves from the bowl on the malachite table
And Hugh was offering Miss Brush
With quite unnecessary courtesy
Some discarded ticket or other compliment,
Which she loathed form the depths of her heart
And blushed brick red,
Richard turned to Lady Bruton,
With his hat in his hand,
And said,
‘We shall see you at our party tonight?’
Whereupon Lady Bruton
resumed the magnificence which letter-writing had shattered.
She might come; or she might not come.
Clarissa had wonderful energy.
Parties terrified Lady Bruton.
But then, she was getting old.
So she intimated, standing at her doorway;
Handsome;
Very erect;
While her chow stretched behind her,
And Miss Brush disappeared into the background
With her hands full of papers.
And Lady Bruton went
Ponderously,
Majestically,
Up to her room,
Lay, one arm extended, on the sofa.
She sighed, she snored, not that she was asleep,
Only drowsy and heavy,
Drowsy and heavy,
Like a field of clover in the sunshine
This hot June day,
With the bees going round and about
And the yellow butterflies.
Always she went back to those fields down in Devonshire,
Where she had jumped the brooks on Patty, her pony,
With Mortimer and Tom, her brothers. 198
And there were the dogs;
There were the arts; there were her father and mother 199
On the lawn under the trees, with the tea-things out,
And the beds of dahlias, the hollyhocks, the pampas grass;
And they, little wretches, always up to some mischief!
Stealing back through the shrubbery, so as not to be seen,
All bedraggled from some roguery.
What old nurse used to say about her frocks!
Ah dear, she remembered –
It was Wednesday in Brook Street.
Those kind good fellows, Richard Dalloway, Hugh Whitbread,
Had gone this hot day through the streets whose growl came up
To her lying on the sofa.
Power was hers, position, income.
She had lived in the forefront of her time.
She had good friends; known the ablest men of her day.
Murmuring London flowed up to her, and her hand,
Lying on the sofa back, curled upon some imaginary baton
Such as her grandfathers might have held,
Holding which she seemed, drowsy and heavy,
To be commanding battalions marching to Canada,
And those good fellows walking across London,
That territory of theirs, that little bit of carpet, Mayfair.149
And they went further and further from her,
Being attached to her by a thin thread
(since they had lunched with her)
Which would stretch and stretch,
Get thinner and thinner
As they walked across London;
As if one’s friends were attached to one’s body,
After lunching with them,
By a thin thread, which
(as she dozed there)
Became hazy with the sound of bells, striking the hour
Or ringing to service, as a single spider’s thread is blotted
With rain-drops, and, burdened, sags down.
So she slept.
And Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread hesitated
At the corner of Conduit Street at the very moment that Millicent Bruton,
Lying on the sofa, let the thread snap; snored.
Contrary winds buffeted at the street corner.
They looked in at a shop window; they did not wish to buy or to talk
But to part, only with contrary winds buffeting the street corner,
With some sort of lapse in the tides of the body, two forces
Meeting in a swirl, morning and afternoon, they paused.
Some newspaper placard went up in the air, gallantly,
Like a kite at first, then paused, swooped, fluttered;
And a lady’s veil hung.
Yellow awnings trembled.
The speed of the morning traffic slackened,
And single carts rattled carelessly down half-empty streets.
In Norfolk, of which Richard Dalloway was half thinking,
A soft warm wind blew back the petals;
Confused the waters;
Ruffled the flowering grasses.
Haymakers, who had pitched beneath hedges
To sleep away the morning toil,
Parted curtains of green blades;
Moved trembling globes of cow parsley
To see the sky;
The blue, the steadfast, the blazing summer sky.
Aware that he was looking at a silver two-handled Jacobean mug,
And that Hugh Whitbread admired condescendingly,
With airs of connoisseurship, a Spanish necklace
Which he thought of asking the price of in case Evelyn might like it –
Still Richard was torpid; could not think or move.
Life had thrown up this wreckage;
Shop windows full of coloured paste,
And one stood stark with the lethargy of the old, 199
Stiff with the rigidity of the old,
Looking in. 200
Evelyn Whitbread might like to buy this Spanish necklace –
So she might.
Yawn he must.
Hugh was going into the shop.
‘Right you are!’ said Richard, following.
Goodness knows he didn’t want to go buying necklaces with Hugh.
But there are tides in the body. Morning meets afternoon.
Borne like a frail shallop on deep, deep floods,
Lady Bruton’s great-grandfather and his memoir and his campaigns
In North America were whelmed and sunk.
And Millicent Bruton too.
She went under.
Richard didn’t care a straw what became of Emigration;
About that letter, whether the editor put it in or not.
The necklace hung stretched between Hugh’s admirable fingers.
Let him give it to a girl, if he must buy jewels –
Any girl, any girl in the street.
For the worthlessness of this life did strike Richard pretty forcibly –
Buying necklaces for Evelyn.
If he’d had a boy he’d have said,
Work, work.
But he had his Elizabeth; he adored his Elizabeth.
‘I should like to see Mr Dubonnet,’ said Hugh in his curt worldly way.
It appeared that this Dubonnet had the measurements of Mrs Whitbread’s
Neck, or more strangely still, knew her views upon Spanish jewellery
And the extent of her possessions in that line
(which Hugh could not remember).
All of which seemed to Richard Dalloway awfully odd.
For he never gave Clarissa presents, except a bracelet
Two or three years ago, which had not been a success.
She never wore it.
It pained him to remember that she never wore it.
And as a single spider’s thread after wavering here and there
Attaches itself to the point of a leaf, so Richard’s mind,
Recovering from its lethargy, set now on his wife, Clarissa,
Whom Peter Walsh had loved so passionately;
And Richard had had a sudden vision of her there at luncheon;
Of himself and him, and taking up first this brooch, then that ring,
‘How much is that?’ he asked, but doubted his own taste.
He wanted to open the drawing-room door and come in holding out something;
A present for Clarissa.
Only what?
But Hugh was on his legs again.
He was unspeakably pompous.
Really, after dealing here for thirty-five years
He was not going to be put off by a mere boy
Who did not know his business.
For Dubonnet, it seemed, was out,
And Hugh would not buy anything until Mr Dubonnet chose to be in;
At which the youth flushed and bowed his correct little bow.
It was all perfectly correct.
And yet Richard couldn’t have said that to save his life!
Why these people stood that damned insolence he could not conceive.
Hugh was becoming an intolerable ass.
Richard Dalloway could not stand more than an hour of his society.
And, flicking his bowler hat by way of farewell, Richard turned
At the corner of Conduit Street eager, yes, very eager,
To travel that spider’s thread of attachment between himself and Clarissa;
He would go straight to her, in Westminster.
But he wanted to come in holding something. Flowers? Yes, flowers,
Since he did not trust his taste in gold; any number of flowers,
Roses, orchids,
To celebrate what was, reckoning things as you will, an event; 200
This feeling about her when they spoke 201
Of Peter Walsh at luncheon;
And they never spoke of it; not for years had they spoken of it;
Which, he thought, grasping his red and white roses together
(a vast bunch in tissue papers),
Is the greatest mistake in the world. The time comes when
It can’t be said; one’s too shy to say it,
He thought,
Pocketing his sixpence or two of change, setting off with
His great bunch held against his body to Westminster
To say straight out in so many words
(whatever she might think of him)
Holding out his flowers,
‘I love you.’
Why not?
Really it was a miracle thinking of the war,150
And thousands of poor chaps, with all their lives before them,
Shoveled together, already half forgotten; it was a miracle.
Here he was walking across London to say to Clarissa in so many words
That he loved her. Which one never does say,
He thought.
Partly one’s lazy;
Partly one’s shy.
And Clarissa –
It was difficult to think of her; except in starts, as at luncheon,
When he saw her quite distinctly; their whole life.
He stopped at the crossing; and repeated –
Being simple by nature, and undebauched,
Because he had tramped, and shot;
Being pertinacious and dogged,
Having championed the down-trodden
And followed his instincts in the House of Commons;
Being preserved in his simplicity yet at the same time
Grown rather speechless, rather stiff –
He repeated that it was a miracle,
That he should have married Clarissa;
A miracle –
His life had been a miracle,
He thought;
Hesitating to cross.
But it did make his blood boil to see little creatures
Of five or six crossing Piccadilly alone.
The police ought to have stopped the traffic at once.151
He had no illusions about the London police.
Indeed, he was collecting evidence of their malpractices
And those costermongers, not allowed to stand
Their barrows in the streets;152
And prostitutes, good Lord,
The fault wasn’t in them, nor in young men either,
But in our detestable social system and so forth;
All of which he considered, could be seen considering,
Grey, dogged,
Dapper, clean,
As he walked across the Park to tell his wife that he loved her.
For he would say it in so many words,
When he came into the room.
Because it is a thousand pities
Never to say what one feels,
He thought,
Crossing the Green Park and observing with pleasure
How in the shade of the trees whole families, poor families,
Were sprawling; children kicking up their legs;
Sucking milk; paper bags thrown about,
Which could easily be picked up
(if people objected)
By one of those fat gentlemen in livery;153
For he was of opinion that every park, and every square,
During the summer months should be open to children
(the grass of the park flushed and faded,
lighting up the poor mothers of Westminster
and their crawling babies, as if a yellow
lamp were moved beneath).
But what could be done for female vagrants like
That poor creature, stretched on her elbow
(as if she had flung herself on the earth,
rid of all ties, to observe curiously,
to speculate boldly, to consider the whys
and the wherefores, impudent,
loose-lipped, humorous),
He did not know.
Bearing his flowers like a weapon,
Richard Dalloway approached her;
Intent he passed her;
Still there was time for a spark between them –
She laughed at the sight of him,
He smiled good-humouredly, 201
Considering the problem of the female vagrant; 202
Not that they would ever speak.
But he would tell Clarissa that he loved her,
In so many words.
He had, once upon a time, been jealous of Peter Walsh;
Jealous of him and Clarissa.
But she had often said to him that she had been right
Not to marry Peter Walsh;
Which, knowing Clarissa, was obviously true;
She wanted support.
Not that she was weak;
But she wanted support.
As for Buckingham Palace
(like an old prima donna facing the audience
all in white)
You can’t deny it a certain dignity,
He considered,
Nor despise what does, after all, stand to millions of people
(a little crowd was waiting
at the gate to see the King drive out)
For a symbol, absurd though it is;
A child with a box of bricks
Could have done better,
He thought;
Looking at the memorial to Queen Victoria
(whom he could remember in her
horn spectacles driving through Kensington),
Its white mound, its billowing motherliness;
But he liked being ruled by the descendent of Horsa;154
He liked continuity; and the sense of handing on the
Traditions of the past.
It was a great age in which to have lived.
Indeed, his own life was a miracle;
Let him make no mistake about it;
Here he was, in the prime of life,
Walking to his house in Westminster
To tell Clarissa that he loved her.
Happiness is this,
He thought.
It is this,
He said,
As he entered Dean’s Yard.155
Big Ben was beginning to strike,
First the warning, musical;
Then the hour, irrevocable.
Lunch parties waste the entire afternoon,
He thought,
Approaching the door.
The sound of Big Ben flooded Clarissa’s drawing-room,
Where she sat, ever so annoyed, at her writing–table;
Worried, annoyed.
It was perfectly true that she had not asked Ellie Henderson to her party;
But she had done it on purpose.
Now Mrs Marsham wrote: ‘She had told Ellie Henderson
She would ask Clarissa –
Ellie so much wanted to come.’
But why should she invite all the dull women in London
To her parties? Why should Mrs Marsham interfere?
And there was Elizabeth closeted all this time with Doris Kilman.
Anything more nauseating she could not conceive.
Prayer at this hour with that woman.
And the sound of the bell flooded the room
With its melancholy wave;
Which receded, and gathered itself together to fall once more,
When she heard, distractingly, something fumbling,
Something scratching at the door.
Who at this hour?
Three, good Heavens!
Three already!
For with overpower directness and dignity
The clock struck three;
And she heard nothing else;
But the door handle slipped round and in came Richard!
What a surprise!
In came Richard, holding out flowers.
She had failed him, once at Constantinople;
And Lady Bruton, whose lunch parties were said to be
Extraordinarily amusing, had not asked her.
He was holding out flowers –
Roses, red and white roses.
(But he could not bring himself to say
he loved her; not in so many words.)
But how lovely,
She said,
Taking his flowers.
She understood; she understood without his speaking;
His Clarissa.
She put them in vases on the mantelpiece.
How lovely they looked!
She said.
And was it amusing,
She asked?
Had Lady Bruton asked after her?
Peter Walsh was back.
Mrs Marsham had written.
Must she ask Ellie Henderson? 202
That woman Kilman was upstairs.156 203
‘But let us sit down for five minutes,’ said Richard.
It all looked so empty. All the chairs were against the wall.
What had they been doing?
Oh, it was for the party;
No, he had not forgotten the party.
Peter Walsh was back.
Oh yes; she had had him.
And he was going to get a divorce;
And he was in love with some woman out there.
And he hadn’t changed in the slightest.
There she was, mending her dress…
‘Thinking of Bourton,’ she said.
‘Hugh was at lunch,’ said Richard.
She had met him too! Well, he was getting absolutely intolerable.
Buying Evelyn necklaces; fatter than ever; an intolerable ass.
‘And it came over me “I might have married you,” ’
She said,
Thinking of Peter sitting there in his little bow-tie;
With that knife, opening it, shutting it.
‘Just as he always was, you know.’
They were talking about him at lunch,
Said Richard,
(But he could not tell he loved her.
He held her hand.
Happiness is this, he thought.)
They had been writing a letter to The Times for Millicent Bruton.
That was about all Hugh was fit for.
‘Kilman arrives just as we’ve done lunch,’ she said.
‘Elizabeth turns pink. They shut themselves up.
I suppose they’re praying.’
Lord! He didn’t like it; but these things pass over if you let them.
‘In a mackintosh with an umbrella,’ said Clarissa.
He had not said ‘I love you’; but he held her hand.
Happiness is this, is this,
He thought.
‘But why should I ask all the dull women in London to my parties?’ said Clarissa.
And if Mrs Marsham gave a party, did she invite her guests?
‘Poor Ellie Henderson,’ said Richard –
It was very odd thing how much Clarissa minded about her parties,
he thought.
But Richard had no notion of the look of a room.
However –
What was he going to say?
If she worried about these parties he would not let her give them.157
Did she wish she had married Peter?
But he must go.
He must be off,
He said,
Getting up.
But he stood for a moment as if he were about to say something;
And she wondered what?
Why?
There were the roses.
‘Some Committee?’ she asked, as he opened the door.
‘Armenians,’ he said; or perhaps it was, ‘Albanians.’
And there is a dignity in people; a solitude,
Even between husband and wife a gulf;
And that one must respect,
Thought Clarissa, 203
Watching him open the door;
For one would not part with it oneself 204
Or take it, against his will, from one’s husband,
Without losing one’s independence,
One’s self-respect –
Something, after all, priceless.
He returned with a pillow and a quilt.
‘An hour’s complete rest after luncheon,’ he said.
And he went.
How like him! He would go on saying
‘An hour’s complete rest after luncheon’ to the end of time,
Because a doctor had ordered it once.
It was like him to take what doctors said literally;
Part of his adorable, divine simplicity,
Which no one had to the same extent;
Which made him go and do the thing while she and Peter
Frittered their time away bickering.
He was already halfway to the House of Commons,
To his Armenians, his Albanians,
Having settled her on the sofa, looking at his roses.
And people would say,
‘Clarissa Dalloway is spoilt.’
She cared much more for her roses than for the Armenians.
Hunted out of existence,
Maimed, frozen,
The victims of cruelty and injustice
(she had heard Richard say so
over and over again) –
No, she could feel nothing for the Albanians,
Or was it the Armenians? But she loved her roses
(didn’t that help the Armenians?) –
The only flowers she could bear to see cut.
But Richard was already at the House of Commons;
At his Committee, having settled all her difficulties.
But no;
Alas, that was not true.
He did not see the reasons against asking Ellie Henderson.
She would do it, of course, as he wished it.
Since he had brought the pillows, she would lie down…
But –
But –
Why did she suddenly feel, for no reason
That she could discover, desperately unhappy?
As a person who has dropped some grain of pearl or diamond
Into the grass and parts the tall blades very carefully,
This way and that and searches here and there vainly,
And at last spies it there at the roots,
So she went through one thing and another;
No, it was not Sally Seton saying that Richard
Would never be in the Cabinet
Because he had a second-class brain
(it came back to her);
No, she did not mind that;
Nor was it to do with Elizabeth either and Doris Kilman;
Those were facts.
It was a feeling, some unpleasant feeling,
Earlier in the day perhaps;
Something that Peter had said,
Combined with some depression of her own,
In her bedroom,
Taking off her hat;
And what Richard had said had added to it,
But what had he said?
There were his roses.
Her parties!
That was it!
Her parties!
Both of them criticised her very unfairly,
Laughed at her very unjustly,
For her parties.
That was it!
That was it!
Well, how was she going to defend herself?
Now that she knew what it was, she felt perfectly happy.
They thought, or Peter at any rate thought,
That she enjoyed imposing herself;
Liked to have famous people about her;
Great names; was simply a snob in short.
Well, Peter might think so.
Richard merely thought it foolish of her to like excitement
When she knew it was bad for her heart.158
It was childish,
He thought.
And both were quite wrong.
What she liked was simply life.
‘That’s what I do it for,’ she said, speaking aloud, to life.
Since she was lying on the sofa,
Cloistered, exempt,
The presence of this thing which she felt to be so obvious 204
Became physically existent; 205
With robes of sound from the street,
Sunny, with hot breath, whispering,
Blowing out the blinds.
But suppose Peter said to her,
‘Yes, yes, but your parties –
What’s the sense of your parties?’
All she could say was
(and nobody could be expected to understand):
‘They’re an offering’; which sounded horribly vague.
But who was Peter to make out that life was all plain sailing? –
Peter always in love, always in love with the wrong woman?
What’s your love: she might say to him.
And she knew his answer;
How it is the most important thing in the world
And no woman possibly understood it.
Very well.
But could any man understand what she meant either?
About life?
As she couldn’t imagine Peter or Richard taking the trouble
To give a party for no reason whatever.
But to go deeper, beneath what people said
(and these judgements,
how superficial, how fragmentary they are!)
In her own mind now, what did it mean to her,
This thing she called life?
Oh, it was very queer.
Here was So-and-So in South Kensington;
Someone up in Bayswater; 159
And somebody else, say, in Mayfair.
And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence;
And she felt what a waste;
And she felt what a pity;
And she felt if only they could be brought together;
So she did it. and it was an offering;
To combine; to create, but to whom?
An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps.
Anyhow, it was her gift.
Nothing else had she of the slightest importance;
Could not think,
Write,
Even play the piano.
She muddled Armenians and Turks;
Loved success;
Hated discomfort;
Must be liked;
Talked oceans of nonsense:
And to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know.
All the same, that one day should follow another;
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday;
That one should wake up in the morning;
See the sky;
Walk in the park;
Meet Hugh Whitbread;
Then suddenly in came Peter;
Then these roses;
It was enough.
After that, how unbelievable death was! –
That it must end;
And no one in the whole world would know
How she had loved it all;
How, every instant…
The door opened.
Elizabeth knew that her mother was resting.
She came in very quietly.
She stood perfectly still.
Was it that some Mongol had been wrecked on the coast of Norfolk
(as Mrs Hilbery said),
Had mixed with the Dalloway ladies,
Perhaps a hundred years ago
For the Dalloways, in general, were fair-haired; blue-eyed;
Elizabeth, on the contrary, was dark;
Had Chinese eyes in a pale face;
An Oriental mystery;
Was gentle, considerate, still.
As a child, she had had a perfect sense of humour;
But now at seventeen, why,
Clarissa could not in the least understand,
She had become very serious;
Like a hyacinth sheathed in glossy green, with buds just tinted,
A hyacinth which has had not sun.
She stood quite still and looked at her mother;
But the door was ajar, and outside the door was Miss Kilman,
As Clarissa knew;
Miss Kilman in her mackintosh, listening to whatever they said. 205
Yes, Miss Kilman stood on the landing, 206
And wore a mackintosh;
But had her reasons.
First, it was cheap;
Second, she was over forty;
And did not, after all, dress to please.
She was poor, moreover;
Degradingly poor.
Otherwise she would not be taking jobs from people
Like the Dalloway;
From rich people, who liked to be kind.
Mr Dalloway, to do him justice, had been kind.
But Mrs Dalloway had not.
She had been merely condescending.
She came from the most worthless of all classes –
The rich, with a smattering of culture.
They had expensive things everywhere;
Pictures, carpets,
Lots of servants.
She considered that she had a perfect right to anything
That the Dalloways did for her.
She had been cheated.
Yes, the word was no exaggeration,
For surely a girl has a right to some kind of happiness?
And she had never been happy,
What with being so clumsy and so poor.
And then, just as she might have had a chance
At Miss Dolby’s school,
The war came;
And she had never been able to tell lies.
Miss Dolby thought she would be happier
With people who shared her views about the Germans.
She had had to go.
It was true that the family was of German origin;
Spelt the name Kiehlman in the eighteenth century;
But her brother had been killed.
They turned her out because she would not pretend
That the German were all villains –
When she had German friends,
When the only happy days of her life
Had been spent in Germany!
And after all, she could read history.
She had had to take whatever she could get.
Mr Dalloway had come across her working for the Friends.160
He had allowed her
(and that was really generous of him)
To teach his daughter history.
Also she did a little Extension lecturing and son on.
Then Our Lord had come to her
(and here she always bowed her head).
She had seen the light two years and three months ago.
Now she did not envy women like Clarissa Dalloway;
She pitied them.
She pitied and despised them from the bottom of her heart,
As she stood on the soft carpet, looking at the old engraving
Of a little girl with a muff.
With all this luxury going on,
What hope was there for a better state of things?
Instead of lying on a sofa –
‘My mother is resting,’ Elizabeth had said –
She should have been in a factory;
Behind a counter;
Mrs Dalloway and all the other fine ladies!
Bitter and burning, Miss Kilman had turned into a church
Two years three months ago.
She had heard the Revd Edward Whittaker preach;
The boys sing;
Had seen the solemn lights descend,
And whether it was the music,
Or the voices
(she herself when alone in the evening
found comfort in a violin;
but the sound was excruciating, she had no ear);
The hot and turbulent feelings which boiled and surged in her
Had been assuaged as she sat there,
And she wept copiously,
And had gone to call on Mr Whittaker
At this private house in Kensington.
It was the hand of God,
He said.
The Lord had shown her the way.
So now, whenever the hot and painful feelings boiled within her,
This hatred of Mrs Dalloway, this grudge against the world,
She thought of God.
She thought of Mr Whittaker. 207
Rage was succeeded by calm. 208
A Sweet savour filled her veins, her lips parted, and,
Standing formidable upon the landing in her mackintosh,
She looked with steady and sinister serenity at Mrs Dalloway,
Who came out with her daughter.
Elizabeth said she had forgotten her gloves.
That was because Miss Kilman and her mother hated each other.
She could not bear to see them together.
She ran upstairs to find her gloves.
But Miss Kilman did not hate Mrs Dalloway.
Turning her large gooseberry-coloured eyes upon Clarissa,
Observing her small pink face,
Her delicate body,
Her air of freshness and fashion,
Miss Kilman felt,
Fool! Simpleton!
You who have known neither sorrow nor pleasure;
Who have trifled your life away!
And there rose in her an overmastering desire to overcome her,
To unmask her.
If she could have felled her it would have eased her.
But it was not the body; it was the soul and its mockery
That she wished to subdue;
Make feel her mastery.
If only she could make her weep;
Could ruin her;
Humiliate her;
Bring her to her knees crying,
You are right!
But this was God’s will, not Miss Kilman’s.
It was to be a religious victory.
So she glared; so she glowered.
Clarissa was really shocked.
This a Christian –
This woman!
This woman had taken her daughter from her!
She in touch with invisible presences!
Heavy, ugly, commonplace, without kindness or grace,
She know the meaning of life!
‘You are taking Elizabeth to the Stores?’ Mrs Dalloway said.
Miss Kilman said she was.
They stood there.
Miss Kilman was not going to make herself agreeable.
She had always earner her living.
Her knowledge of modern history was thorough in the extreme.
She did out of her meagre income set aside so much for causes she believed in;
Whereas this woman did nothing, believed nothing;
Brought up her daughter ---
But here was Elizabeth rather out of breath, the beautiful girl.
So they were going to the Stores.
Odd it was, as miss Kilman stood there
(and stand she did with the power and taciturnity
of some prehistoric monster armoured for warfare),
How, second by second, the idea of her diminished, how hatred
(which was for ideas, not people)
Crumbled, how she lost her malignity, her size,
Became second by second merely Miss Kilman,
In a mackintosh, whom Heaven knows
Clarissa would have liked to help.
At this dwindling of the monster,
Clarissa laugher.
Saying goodbye, she laughed.
Off they went together, Miss Kilman and Elizabeth, downstairs.
With a sudden impulse, with a violent anguish,
For this woman was taking her daughter from her,
Clarissa leant over the banisters and cried out,
‘Remember the party! Remember our party tonight!’161
But Elizabeth had already opened the front door;
There was a van passing;
She did not answer.
Love and religion!
Thought Clarissa,
Going back into the drawing-room,
Tingling all over.
How detestable, how detestable they are!
For now that the body of Miss Kilman
Was not before her,
It overwhelmed her -- 207
The idea. 208
The cruelest things in the world,
She thought,
Seeing them clumsy, hot,
Domineering, hypocritical,
Eavesdropping, jealous,
Infinitely cruel and unscrupulous,
Dressed in a mackintosh coat,
On the landing;
Love and religion.
Had she ever tried to convert anyone herself?
Did she not wish everybody merely to be themselves?
And she watched out of the window the old lady opposite
Climbing upstairs.
Let her climb upstairs if she wanted to; let her stop;
Then let her, as Clarissa had often seen her,
Gain her bedroom, part her curtains, and disappear again
Into the background.
Somehow one respected that –
That old woman looking out of the window, quite unconscious
That she was being watched,
There was something solemn in it –
But love and religion would destroy that,
Whatever it was, the privacy of the soul.
The odious Kilman would destroy it.
Yet it was a sight that made her want to cry.
Love destroyed too.
Everything that was fine, everything that was true went.
Take Peter Walsh now.
There was a man,
Charming, clever,
With ideas about everything.
If you wanted to know about Pope, say, or Addison,
Or just to talk nonsense, what people were like,
What things meant,
Peter knew better than anyone.
It was Peter who had helped her;
Peter who had lent her books.
But look at the women he loved –
Vulgar, trivial, commonplace.
Think of Peter in love –
He came to see her after all these years.
And what did he talk about?
Himself.
Horrible passion!
She thought.
Degrading passion!
She thought,
Thinking of Kilman and her Elizabeth walking
To the Army and Navy Stores.
Big Ben struck the half-hour.
How extraordinary it was, strange,
Yes touching to see the old lady
(they had been neighbours
ever so many years)
Move away from the window,
As if she were attached to that sound, that string.
Gigantic as it was, it had something to do with her.
Down, down,
Into the midst of ordinary things the finger fell
Making the moment solemn.
She was forced, so Clarissa imagined,
By that sound, to move, to go –
But where?
Clarissa tried to follow her as she turned and disappeared,
And could still just see her white cap moving
At the back of the bedroom.
She was still there moving about at the other end of the room.
Why creeds and prayers and mackintoshes? when,
Thought Clarissa,
That’s the miracle,
That’s the mystery;
That old lady,
She meant,
Whom she could see going from chest of drawers to dressing-table.
She could still see her.
And the supreme mystery which Kilman might say she had solved,
Or Peter might say he had solved,
But Clarissa didn’t believe either of them
Had the ghost of an idea of solving,
Was simply this:
Here was one room; there another. Did religion solve that, or love?
Love –
But here the other clock, the clock which always struck
Two minutes after Big Ben, came shuffling in with its lap
Full of odds and ends,
Which it dumped down as if Big Ben were all very well with
His majesty laying down the law, so solemn, so just,
But she must remember all sorts of little things besides –
Mrs Marsham, Ellie Henderson, glasses for ices – 208
All sorts of little things came flooding 209
And lapping
And dancing
In on the wake of that solemn stroke which lay flat
Like a bar of gold on the sea.
Mrs Marsham, Ellie Henderson, glasses for ices.
She must telephone now at once.
Volubly, troublously, the late clock sounded,
Coming in on the wake of Big Ben, with its lap full of trifles.
Beaten up, broken up by the assault of carriages,
The brutality of vans,
The eager advance of myriads of angular men,
Of flaunting women,
The domes and spires of offices and hospitals,
The last relics of this lap full of odds and ends
Seemed to break,
Like the spray of an exhausted wave,
Upon the body of Miss Kilman standing still in the street for
A moment to mutter, ‘It is the flesh.’
It was the flesh that she must control.
Clarissa Dalloway had insulted her.
That she expected.
But she had not triumphed; she had not mastered the flesh.
Ugly, clumsy, Clarissa Dalloway had laughed at her
For being that; and had revived the fleshly desires,
For she minded looking as she did beside Clarissa.
Nor could she talk as she did.
But why wish to resemble her?
Why?
She despised Mrs Dalloway from the bottom of her heart.
She was not serious. She was not good.
Her life was a tissue of vanity and deceit.
Yet Doris Kilman had been overcome.
She had, as a matter of fact, very nearly burst into tears
When Clarissa Dalloway laughed at her.
‘It is the flesh, it is the flesh,’
She muttered
(it being her habit to talk aloud),
Trying to subdue this turbulent and painful feeling
As she walked down Victoria Street.
She prayed to God.
She could not help being ugly; she could not afford to buy
Pretty clothes.
Clarissa Dalloway had laughed –
But she would concentrate her mind upon something else until
She had reached the pillar-box.
At any rate she had got Elizabeth.
But she would think of something else; she would think of Russia;
Until she reached the pillar-box.
How nice it must be,
She said,
In the country, struggling, as Mr Whittaker had told her,
With that violent grudge against the world
Which had scorned her,
Sneered at her,
Cast her off,
Beginning with this indignity –
The infliction of her unlovable body which people could not bear to see.
Do her hair as she might, her forehead remained like an egg,
Bald, white.
No clothes suited her.
She might buy anything.
And for a woman, of course,
That meant never meeting the opposite sex.
Never would she come first with anyone.
Sometimes lately it had seemed to her that,
Except for Elizabeth, her food was all that she lived for;
Her comforts;
Her dinner, her tea;
Her hot-water bottle at night.
But one must fight; vanquish;
Have faith in God.
Mr Whittaker had said she was there for a purpose.
But no one knew the agony!
He said, pointing to the crucifix, that God knew.
But why should she have to suffer when other women,
Like Clarissa Dalloway, escaped?
Knowledge comes through suffering, said Mr Whittaker.
She had passed the pillar-box, and Elizabeth had turned
Into the cool brown tobacco department
Of the Army and Navy Stores
While she was still muttering to herself
What Mr Whittaker had said about knowledge
Coming through suffering and the flesh.
‘The flesh,’ she muttered. 209
What department did she want? Elizabeth interrupted her. 210
‘Petticoats,’ she said abruptly, and stalked straight on to the lift.
Up they went. Elizabeth guided her this way and that;
Guided her in her abstraction as if she had been a great child,
An unwieldy battleship.
There were the petticoats,
Brown, decorous,
Striped, frivolous,
Solid, flimsy;
And she chose, in her abstraction, portentously,
And the girl serving thought her mad.
Elizabeth rather wondered, as they did up the parcel,
What Miss Kilman was thinking.
They must have their tea,
Said Miss Kilman,
Rousing, collecting herself.
They had their tea.
Elizabeth rather wondered
Whether Miss Killman could be hungry.
It was her way of eating, eating with intensity,
Then looking, again and again,
At a plate of sugared cakes on the table next them;
Then, when a lady and a child sat down
And the child took the cake, could Miss Killman really mind it?
Yes, Miss Kilman did mind it.
She had wanted that cake – the pink one.
The pleasure of eating was almost the only pure pleasure left her,
And then to be baffled even in that!
When people are happy they have a reserve,
She had told Elizabeth, upon which to draw,
Whereas she was like a wheel without a tyre
(she was fond of such metaphors),
Jolted by every pebble –
So she would say staying on after the lesson,
Standing by the fire-place with her bag of books,
Her ‘satchel,’ she called it, on a Tuesday morning,
After the lesson was over.
And she talked too about the war.
After all, there were people
Who did not think the English invariably right.
There were books. There were meetings.
There were other points of view.
Would Elizabeth like to come with her to listen to So-and-so?
(a most extraordinary-looking old man).
Then Miss Kilman took her to some church in Kensington
And they had tea with a clergyman.
She had lent her books.
Law, medicine, politics, all professions are open to women
Of your generation, said Miss Killman.
But for herself, her career was absolutely ruined,
And was it her fault?
Good gracious, said Elizabeth, no.
And her mother would come calling to say
That a hamper had come from Bourton
And would Miss Kilman like some flowers?
To Miss Kilman she was always very, very, nice,
But Miss Kilman squashed the flowers all in a bunch,
And hadn’t any small talk,
And what interested Miss Kilman
Bored her mother, and Miss Kilman and she
Were terrible together;
And Miss Kilman swelled and looked very plain,
But Miss Kilman was frightfully clever.
Elizabeth had never thought about the poor.
They lived with everything they wanted –
Her mother had breakfast in bed every day;
Lucy carried it up
And she liked old women because
They were Duchesses, and being descended from some Lord.
But Miss Kilman said
(one of those Tuesday mornings
when the lesson was over),
‘My grandfather kept an oil and colour
Shop in Kensington.’
Miss Kilman was quite different form anyone she knew;
She made one feel so small.
Miss Kilman took another cup of tea. 210
Elizabeth, with her oriental bearing, 211
Her inscrutable mystery,
Sat perfectly upright;
No, she did not want anything more.
She looked for her gloves –
Her white gloves.
They were under the table.
Ah, but she must not go!
Miss Kilman could not let her go!
This youth, that was so beautiful;
This girl, whom she genuinely loved!
Her large hand opened and shut on the table.
But perhaps it was a little flat somehow,
Elizabeth felt.
And really she would like to go.
But said Miss Kilman, ‘I’ve not quite finished yet.’
Of course, then, Elizabeth would wait.
But it was rather stuffy in here.
‘Are you gong to the party tonight?’ Miss Kilman said.
Elizabeth supposed she was going;
Her mother wanted her to go.
She must not let parties absorb her,
Miss Kilman said,
Fingering the last two inches of a chocolate éclair.
She did not much like parties,
Elizabeth said.
Miss Kilman opened her mouth, slightly projected her chin,
And swallowed down the last inches of the chocolate éclair,
Then wiped her fingers, and washed the tea round in her cup.
She was about to split asunder,
She felt.
The agony was so terrific.
If she could grasp her,
If she could clasp her,
If she could make her hers absolutely
And for ever and then die;
That was all she wanted.
But to sit here, unable to thing of anything to say;
To see Elizabeth turning against her;
To be felt repulsive even by her –
It was too much;
She could not stand it.
The thick fingers curled inwards.
‘I never go to parties,’ said Miss Kilman,
Just to keep Elizabeth from going.
‘People don’t ask me to parties’ –
And she knew as she said it that it was this
Egotism that was her undoing;
Mr Whittaker had warned her;
But she could not help it.
She had suffered so horribly.
‘Why should they ask me?’ she said.
‘I’m plain, I’m unhappy.’
She knew it was idiotic.
But it was all those people passing –
People with parcels who despised her –
Who made her say it.
However, she was Doris Kilman.
She had her degree.
She was a woman who had made her way in the world.
Her knowledge of modern history
Was more than respectable.
‘I don’t pity myself,’ she said.
‘I pity’ –
She meant to say, ‘your mother,’ but no,
She could not, not to Elizabeth.
‘I pity other people much more.’
Like some dumb creature who has been brought up to a gate
For an unknown purpose, and stands there longing to gallop away,
Elizabeth Dalloway sat silent.
Was Miss Kilman going to say anything more?
‘Don’t quite forget me,’ said Doris Kilman; her voice quivered.
Right away to the end of the field the dumb creature galloped in terror.
The great hand opened and shut.
Elizabeth turned her head.
The waitress came.
One had to pay at the desk,
Elizabeth said,
And went off, drawing out, so Miss Kilman felt,
The very entrails in her body, stretching them
As she crossed the room, and then, with a final twist,
Bowing her head very politely, she went.
She had gone.
Miss Kilman sat a the marble table
Among the éclairs, 211
Stricken once, twice, thrice, 212
By shocks of suffering.
She had gone.
Mrs Dalloway had triumphed.
Elizabeth had gone.
Beauty had gone; youth had gone.
So she sat.
She got up, blundered off among the little tables,
Rocking slightly from side to side,
And somebody came after her with her petticoat
And she lost her way,
And was hemmed in by trunks specially prepared
For taking to India;
Next got among the accouchement sets and baby linen;
Through all the commodities of the world,
Perishable and permanent,
Hams, drugs,
Flowers, stationery,
Variously smelling,
Now sweet, now sour,
She lurched;
Saw herself thus lurching with her had askew,
Very red in the face,
Full length in a looking-glass;
And at last came out into the street.
The tower of Westminster Cathedral rose in front of her,
The habitation of God.
In the midst of the traffic, there was the habitation of God.
Doggedly she set off with her parcel to that other sanctuary,
The Abbey, where, raising her hands in a tent before her face,
She sat beside those driven into shelter too;
The variously assorted worshippers, now divested of social rank,
Almost of sex, as they raised their hands before their faces;
But once they removed them,
Instantly reverent,
Middle-class,
English men and women,
Some of them desirous of seeing the wax works.
But Miss Kilman held her tent before her face.
Now she was deserted; now rejoined.
New worshipers came in from the street to replace the strollers,
And still, as people gazed round and shuffled past
The tomb of the Unknown Warrior,
Still she barred her eyes with her fingers and tried in this double darkness
For the light in the Abbey was bodiless to aspire above the vanities,
The desires,
The commodities,
To rid herself both of hatred and of love.
Her hands twitched.
She seemed to struggle.
Yet to others God was accessible and the path to Him smooth.
Mr Fletcher, retired, of the Treasury,
Mrs Gorham, widow of the famous KC,
Approached Him simply,
And having done their praying, leant back, enjoyed the music
(the organ pealed sweetly),
And saw Miss Kilman at the end of the row,
Praying, praying,
And, being still on the threshold of their underworld,
Thought of her sympathetically
As a soul haunting the same territory;
A soul cut out of immaterial substance;
Not a woman,
A soul.
But Mr Fletcher had to go.
He had to pass her, and being himself neat as a new pin,
Could not help being a little distressed by the poor lady’s disorder;
Her hair down;
Her parcel on the floor.
She did not at once let him pass.
But, as he stood gazing about him, at the white marbles,
Grey window panes, and accumulated treasures
(for he was extremely proud of the Abbey),
Her largeness, robustness, and power as she sat there
Shifting her knees from time to time
(it was so rough the approach to her God –
so tough her desires)
Impressed him, as they had impressed Mrs Dalloway
(she could not get the thought of her
out of her mind that afternoon),
The Revd Edward Whittaker and Elizabeth too.
And Elizabeth waited in Victoria Street for an omnibus.
It was so nice to be out of doors. 212
She thought perhaps she need not go home just yet. 213
It was so nice to be out in the air.
So she would get on to an omnibus.
And already, even as she stood there,
In her very well-cut clothes, it was beginning…
People were beginning to compare her to poplar trees,
Early dawn, hyacinths, fawns,
Running water,
And garden lilies;
And it mad her life a burden to her,
For she so much preferred being left alone
To do what she liked in the country,
But they would compare her to lilies,
And she had to go to parties,
And London was so dreary compared with being alone
In the country with her father and the dogs.
Buses swooped, settled, were off –
Garish caravans, glistening with red and yellow varnish.
But which should she get on to?
She had no preferences. Of course,
She would not push her way.
She inclined to be passive.
It was expression she needed, but her eyes were fine,
Chinese, oriental,
As her mother said,
With such nice shoulders
And holding herself so straight,
She was always charming to look at;
And lately, in the evening especially,
When she was interested, for she never seemed excited,
She looked almost beautiful, very stately, very serene.
What could she be thinking?
Every man fell in love with her,
And she was really awfully bored.
For it was beginning.
Her mother could see that –
The compliments were beginning.
That she did not care more about it –
For instance for her clothes –
Sometimes worried Clarissa,
But perhaps it was as well with
All those puppies and guinea pigs about having distemper,
And it gave her a charm.
And now there was this odd friendship with Miss Kilman.
Well,
Thought Clarissa about three o’clock in the morning,
Reading Baron Marbot
For she could not sleep,
It proves she has a heart.
Suddenly Elizabeth stepped forward and most competently
Boarded the omnibus, in front of everybody.
She took a seat on top.
The impetuous creature –
A pirate –
Started forward, sprang away;
She had to hold the rail to steady herself,
For a pirate it was,
Reckless, unscrupulous,
Bearing down ruthlessly,
Circumventing dangerously,
Boldly snatching a passenger,
Or ignoring a passenger,
Squeezing eel-like and arrogant in between,
And then rushing insolently all sails spread up Whitehall.
And did Elizabeth give one thought to poor Miss Kilman
Who loved her without jealousy,
To whom she had been a fawn in the open, a moon in a glade?
She was delighted to be free.
The fresh air was so delicious.
It had been so stuffy in the Army and Navy Stores.
And now it was like riding, to be rushing up Whitehall;
And to each movement of the omnibus
The beautiful body in the fawn-coloured coat responded
Freely like a rider, like the figure-head of a ship,
For the breeze slightly disarrayed her;
The heat gave her cheeks the pallor of white painted wood;
And her fine eyes, having no eyes to meet,
Gazed ahead, bland, bright, with the staring
Incredible innocence of sculpture.
It was always talking about her own suffering
That made Miss Kilman so difficult.
And was she right? If it was being on committees
And giving up hours and hours ever day
(she hardly ever saw him in London)
That helped the poor, her father did, goodness knows –
If that was what Miss Kilman meant about being a Christian, 213
But it was so difficult to say. 214
Oh, she would like to go a little farther.
Another penny was it to the Strand?
Here was another penny, then.
She would go up the Strand.
She liked people who were ill.
And every profession is open
To the women of your generation,
Said Miss Kilman.
So she might be a doctor.
She might be a farmer.
Animals are often ill.
She might own a thousand acres and have people under her.
She would go and see them in their cottages.
This was Somerset House.162
One might be a very good farmer –
And that, strangely enough,
Though Miss Kilman had her share in it,
Was almost entirely due to Somerset House.
It looked so splendid, so serious,
That great grey building.
And she liked the feeling of people working.
She liked those churches, like shapes of grey paper,
Breasting the stream of the Strand.
It was quite different here from Westminster
She thought,
Getting off at Chancery Lane.
It was so serious;
It was so busy.
In short, she would like to have a profession.
She would become a doctor, a farmer,
Possibly go into Parliament if she found it necessary,
All because of the Strand.
The feet of those people busy about their activities,
Hands putting some to stone, minds eternally occupied
Not with trivial chatterings
(comparing women to poplars –
which was rather exciting,
of course, but very will),
But with thoughts of ships,
Of business, of law,
Of administration,
And with it all so stately
(she was in the Temple),163
Gay
(there was the river),
Pious
(there was the Church),
Made her quite determined,
Whatever her mother might say,
To become either a farmer or a doctor.
But she was, of course, rather lazy.
And it was much better to say nothing about it.
It seemed so silly.
It was the sort of thing that did sometimes happen,
When one was alone –
Buildings without architects’ names,
Crowds of people coming back from the city
Having more power than single clergymen in Kensington,
Than any of the books Miss Kilman had lent her,
To stimulate what lay slumberous, clumsy, and shy
On the mind’s sandy floor, to break surface,
As a child suddenly stretches its arms;
It was just that, perhaps, a sigh,
A stretch of the arms,
An impulse, a revelation,
Which has its effects for ever, and then down again
It went to the sandy floor.
She must go home.
She must dress for dinner.
But what was the time? –
Where was a clock?
She looked up Fleet Street.
She walked just a little way towards St Paul’s, shyly,
Like someone penetrating on tiptoe,
Exploring a strange house by night with a candle,
On ledge lest the owner should suddenly fling wide
His bedroom door and ask her business,
Nor did she dare wander off into queer alleys,
Tempting by-streets,
Any more than in a strange house open doors
Which might be bedroom doors, or sitting-room doors,
Or lead straight to the larder.
For no Dalloways came down the Strand daily;
She was a pioneer, a stray, venturing, trusting.
In many ways, her mother felt, she was extremely immature,
Like a child still, attached to dolls, to old slippers;
A perfect baby; and that was charming. 214
But then, of course, there was in the Dalloway family 215
The tradition of public service.
Abbesses, principals, head mistresses, dignitaries,
In the republic of women –
Without being brilliant, any of them,
They were that.
She penetrated a little farther in the direction of St Paul’s.
She liked the geniality, sisterhood,
Motherhood, brotherhood of this uproar.
It seems to be good.
The noise was tremendous, and suddenly there were trumpets
(the unemployed)
Blaring, rattling about in the uproar; military music;
As if people were marching; yet had they been dying –
Had some woman breathed her last, and whoever was watching,
Opening the widow of the room where she had just brought off
That act of supreme dignity,
Looked down on Fleet Street,
That uproar,
That military music would have come triumphing up to him,
Consolatory, indifferent.
It was not conscious.
There was no recognition in it of one’s fortune,
Or fate, and for that very reason even to those dazed
With watching for the last shivers of consciousness
On the faces of the dying,
Consoling.
Forgetfulness in people might wound, their ingratitude corrode,
But this voice, pouring endlessly, year in year out,
Would take whatever it might be;
This vow; this van;
This life, this procession,
Would wrap them all about and carry them on,
As in the rough stream of a glacier
The ice holds a splinter of bone, a blue petal, some oak trees,
And rolls them on.
But it was later than she thought.
Her mother would not like her to be wandering off alone like this.
She turned back down the Strand.
A puff of wind
(in spite of the heat,
there was quite a wind)
Blew a thin black veil over the sun and over the Strand.
The faces faded; the omnibuses suddenly lost their glow.
For although the clouds were of mountainous white so that one
Could fancy hacking hard chips off with a hatchet,
With broad golden slopes, lawns of celestial pleasure gardens,
On their flanks, and had all the appearance of settled habitations
Assembled for the conference of gods above the world,
There was a perpetual movement among them.
Signs were interchanged, when, as if to fulfil some scheme
Arranged already, now a summit dwindled,
Now a whole block of pyramidal size which had kept
Its station unalterably advanced into the midst or
Gravely led the procession to fresh anchorage.
Fixed though they seemed a their posts,
At rest in perfect unanimity, nothing could be fresher,
Freer, more sensitive superficially than
The snow-white or gold-kindled surface;
To change, to go, to dismantle the solemn assemblage
Was immediately possible; and in spite of the grave fixity,
The accumulated robustness and solidity,
Now they struck light to the earth, now darkness.
Calmly and competently, Elizabeth Dalloway
Mounted the Westminster omnibus.
Going and coming, beckoning, signaling,
So the light and shadow,
Which now made the wall grey,
Now the bananas bright yellow,
Now made the Strand grey,
Now made the omnibuses bright yellow,
Seemed to Septimus Warren Smith lying on the sofa
In the sitting-room; watching the watery gold glow and fade 215
With the astonishing sensibility of some live creature 216
On the roses, on the wall-paper.
Outside the trees dragged their leaves like nets through
The depths of the air;
The sound of water was in the room
And through the waves came the voices of birds singing.
Every power poured its treasures on his head,
And his hand lay there on the back of the sofa,
As he had seen his hand lie
When he was bathing,
Floating,
On the top of the waves,
While far away on shore he heard
Dogs barking and barking far away.
Fear no more, says the heart in the body;
Fear no more.
He was not afraid.
At every moment
Nature signified by some laughing hint
Like that gold spot which went round the wall –
There, there, there –
Her determination to show,
By brandishing her plumes,
Shaking her tresses,
Flinging her mantle this way and that
Beautifully, always beautifully,
And standing close up to breathe through her hollowed hands
Shakespeare’s words, her meaning.
Rezia, sitting at the table twisting a hat in her hands,
Watched him; saw him smiling.
He was happy then.
But she could not bear to see him smiling.
It was not marriage; it was not being one’s husband
To look strange like that, always to be starting laughing,
Sitting hour after hour silent, or clutching her
And telling her to write.
The table was drawer was full of those writings;
About war;
About Shakespeare;
About great discoveries
How there is no death.
Lately he had become excited suddenly for no reason
(and both Dr Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw
said excitement was the worst thing for him),
And waved his hands and cried out
That he knew the truth!
He knew everything!
That man, his friend who was killed,
Evans, had come, he said.
He was singing behind the screen.
She wrote it down just as he spoke it.
Some things were very beautiful; others sheer nonsense.
And he was always stopping in the middle, changing his mind;
Wanting to add something; hearing something new;
Listening with his hand up.
But she heard nothing.
And once they found the girl who did the room
Reading one of these papers in fits of laughter.
It was a dreadful pity.
For that made Septimus cry out about human cruelty –
How they tear each other to pieces.
The fallen, said, they tear to pieces.
‘Holmes is on us,’
He would say,
And he would invent stories about Holmes;
Holmes eating porridge;
Holmes reading Shakespeare –
Making himself roar with laughter or rage,
For Dr Holmes seemed to stand for something horrible to him.
‘Human nature,’ he called him.
Then there were the visions. He was drowned, he used to say,
And lying on a cliff with the gulls screaming over him.
He would look over the edge of the sofa down in to the sea.
Or he was hearing music.
Really it was only a barrel organ or some man crying in the street.
But, ‘Lovely!’ he used to cry,
And the tears would run down his cheeks, which was to her
The most dreadful thing of all, to see a man like Septimus,
Who had fought, who was brave
Crying.
And he would lie listening until suddenly would cry that
He was falling down, down into the flames!
Actually she would look for flames, it was so vivid.
But there was nothing.
They were alone in the room. It was a dream, 216
She would tell him, 217
And so quiet him at last, but sometimes she was frightened too.
She sighed as she sat sewing.
Her sigh was tender and enchanting,
Like the wind outside a wood in the evening.
Now she put down her scissors;
Now she turned to take something from the table.
A little stir, a little crinkling, a little tapping
Built up something on the table there,
Where she sat sewing.
Through his eyelashes he could see her blurred outline;
Her little black body;
Her face and hands;
Her turning movements at the table,
As she took up a reel,
Or looked
(she was apt to lose things)
For her silk.
She was making a hat for Mrs Filmer’s married daughter,
Whose name was –
He had forgotten her name.
‘What is the name of Mrs Filmer’s married daughter?’ he asked.
‘Mrs Peters,’ said Rezia She was afraid it was too small,
She said,
Holding it before her.
Mrs Peters was a big woman; but she did not like her.
It was only because Mrs Filmer had been so good to them –
‘She gave me grapes this morning,’
She said –
That Rezia wanted to do something to show that they were grateful.
She had come into the room the other evening
And found Mrs Peters, who thought they were out,
Playing the gramophone.
‘Was it true?’ he asked. She was playing the gramophone?
Yes, she had told him about it at the time; she had found
Mrs Peters playing the gramophone.
He began, very cautiously, to open his eyes, to see whether
A gramophone was really there.
But real things –
Real things were too exciting.
He must be cautious. He would not go mad.
First he looked at the fashion papers on the lower shelf,
Then gradually at the gramophone with the green trumpet.
Nothing could be more exact.
And so, gathering courage,
He looked at the sideboard;
The plate of bananas;
The engraving of Queen Victoria
And the Prince Consort;
At the mantelpiece,
With the jar of roses.
None of these things moved.
All were still; all were real.
‘She is a woman with a spiteful tongue,’ said Rezia.
‘What does Mr Peters do?’ Septimus asked.
‘Ah,’ said Rezia, trying to remember.
She thought Mrs Filmer had said that he traveled for some company.
‘Just now he is in Hull,’ she said.164
‘Just now!’ She said that with her Italian accent.
She said that herself.
He shaded his eyes so that he might see
Only a little of her face at a time,
First the chin, then the nose,
Then the forehead, in case it was deformed,
Or had some terrible mark on it.
But no, there she was, perfectly natural, sewing,
With the pursed lips that women have, the set,
The melancholy expression, when sewing.
But there was nothing terrible about it,
He assured himself,
Looking a second time,
A third time at her face, her hands,
For what was frightening or disgusting in her
As she sat there in broad daylight, sewing?
Mrs Peters had a spiteful tongue.
Mr Peters was in Hull.
Why then rage and prophesy?
Why fly scourged and outcast?
Why be made to tremble and sob by the clouds?
Why seek truths and deliver messages
When Rezia sat sticking pins into the front of her dress,
And Mr Peters was in Hull?
Miracles, revelations,
Agonies, loneliness,
Falling through the sea,
Down, down into the flames, all were burnt out, 217
For he had a sense, as he watched Rezia trimming the straw hat 218
For Mrs Peters, of a coverlet of flowers.
‘It’s too small for Mrs Peters,’ said Septimus.
For the first time for days he was speaking as he used to do!
Of course it was –
Absurdly small,
She said.
But Mrs Peters had chosen it.
He took it out of her hands.
He said it was an organ grinder’s monkey’s hat.
How, it rejoiced her that! Not for weeks had they laughed
Like this together, poking fun privately like married people.
What she meant was that if Mrs Filmer had come in,
Or Mrs Peters or anybody,
They would not have understood what she and Septimus
Were laughing at.
‘There,’ she said, pining a rose to one side of the hat.
Never had she felt so happy! Never in her life!
But that as still more ridiculous,
Septimus said.
Now the poor woman looked like a pig at a fair.
(Nobody ever made her laugh as Septimus did.)
What had she got in her work-box?
She had ribbons and beads,
Tassels, artificial flowers.
She tumbled them out on the table.
He began putting odd colours together –
For though he had no fingers,
Could not even do up a parcel,
He had a wonderful eye,
And often he was right,
Sometimes absurd, of course,
But sometimes wonderfully right.
‘She shall have a beautiful hat!’ he murmured,
Taking up this and that,
Rezia kneeling by his side,
Looking over his shoulder.
Now it was finished –
That is to say the design;
She must stitch it together.
But she must be very, very careful,
He said,
To keep it just as he had made it.
So she sewed. When she sewed,
He thought,
She made a sound like a kettle on the hob;165
Bubbling, murmuring,
Always busy, her strong little pointed fingers pinching and poking;
Her needle flashing straight.
The sun might go in and out, on the tassels,
On the wall-paper,
But he would wait,
He thought,
Stretching out his feet, looking at his ringed sock
At the end of the sofa; he would wait in this warm place,
This pocket of still air, which one comes on at the edge
Of a wood sometimes in the evening,
When, because of a fall in the ground, or some arrangement of the trees,
(one must be scientific above all, scientific),166
Warmth lingers, and the air buffets the cheek like the wing of a bird.
‘There it is,’ said Rezia, twirling Mrs Peters’ hat
On the tips of her fingers.
‘That’ll do for the moment. Later…’
Her sentence bubbled away drip, drip, drip,
Like a contented tap left running.
It was wonderful. Never had he done anything
Which made him feel so proud.
It was so real, it was so substantial, Mrs Peters’ hat.
‘Just look at it,’ he said.
Yes, it would always make her happy to see that hat.
He had become himself then,
He had laughed then.
They had been alone together.
Always she would like that hat.
He told her to try it on.
‘But I must look so queer!’ she cried, running over to the glass 218
And looking first this side, then that. 219
Then she snatched it off again, for there was a tap at the door.
Could it be Sir William Bradshaw?
Had he sent already?
No! it was only the small girl with the evening paper.
What always happened, then happened –
What happened every night of their lives.
The small girl sucked her thumb at the door;
Rezia went down on her knees;
Rezia cooed and kissed;
Rezia got a bag of sweets out of the table drawer.
For so it always happened.
First one thing, then another.
So she built it up,
First one thing, then another.
Dancing, skipping, round and round the room they went.
He took the paper.
Surrey was all out,
He read.
There was a heat wave.
Rezia repeated: Surrey was all out.
There was a heat wave, making it part of the game
She was playing with Mrs Filmer’s grandchild,
Both of them laughing, chattering at the same time,
At their game.
He was very tired.
He was very happy.
He would sleep.
He shut his eyes.
But directly he saw nothing
The sounds of the game became fainter and stranger
And sounded like the cries of people seeking
And not finding, and passing farther and farther away.
They had lost him!
He started up in terror.
What did he see?
The plate of bananas on the sideboard.
Nobody was there
(Rezia had taken the child to its mother;
it was bedtime).
That was it: to be alone for ever.
That was the doom pronounced in Milan when
He came into the room and saw them cutting
Out buckram shapes with their scissors;
To be alone for ever.
He was alone with the sideboard and the bananas.
He was alone, exposed on this bleak eminence, stretched out –
But not on a hill-top; not on a crag;
On Mrs Filmer’s sitting-room sofa.
As for the visions, the faces,
The voices of the dead, where were they?
There was a screen in front of him, with black bulrushes
And blue swallows.
Where he had once seen mountains, where had seen faces,
Where he had seen beauty, there was a screen.
‘Evans!’ he cried.
There was no answer.
A mouse had squeaked, or a curtain rustled.
Those were the voices of the dead.
The screen, the coal-scuttle, the sideboard remained to him.
Let him then face the screen, the coal-scuttle and the sideboard …
But Rezia burst into the room chattering.
Some letter had come.
Everybody’s plans were changed.
Mrs Filmer would not be able to go to Brighton after all.
There was no time to let Mrs Williams know,
And rally Rezia thought it very, very annoying,
When she caught sight of the hat and thought…
Perhaps…
She…
Might just make a little…
Her voice died out in contented melody.
‘Ah, damn!’ she cried
(it was a joke of theirs, her swearing);
The needle had broken.
Hat, child, Brighton, needle.
She built it up; first one thing, then another,
She built it up, sewing.
She wanted him to say
Whether by moving the rose she had improved the hat.
She sat on the end of the sofa.
They were perfectly happy now,
She said suddenly,
Putting the hat down. 219
For she could say anything to him now. 220
She could say whatever came into her head.
That was almost the first thing she had felt about him,
That night in the café when he had come in
With his English friends.
He had come in, rather shyly, looking round him,
And his hat had fallen when he hung it up.
That she could remember.
She knew he was English, though not one
Of the large Englishmen her sister admired,
For he was always thin; but he had a beautiful fresh colour;
And with his big nose, his bright eyes,
His way of sitting a little hunched,
Made her think,
She had often told him,
Of a young hawk,
That first evening she saw him,
When they were playing dominoes,
And he had come in –
Of a young hawk;
But with her he was always very gentle.
She had never seen him wild or drunk,
Only suffering sometimes through this terrible war,
But even so,
When she came in, he would put it all away.
Anything, anything in the whole world,
Any little bother with her work,
Anything that struck her to say she would tell him,
And he understood at once.
Her own family even were not the same.
Being older than she was and being so clever –
How serious he was, wanting her to read
Shakespeare before she could even read a child’s story in English! –
Being so much more experienced, he could help her.
And she, too, could help him.
But this hat now. And then
(it was getting late)
Sir William Bradshaw.
She held her hands to her head, waiting for him
To say did he like the hat or not, and as she sat there,
Waiting, looking down, he could feel her mind,
Like a bird, falling from branch to branch,
And always alighting, quite rightly;
He could follow her mind, as she sat there in one
Of those loose lax poses that came to her naturally, and,
If he should say anything, at once she smiled,
Like a bird alighting with all its claws firm upon the bough.
But he remembered.
Bradshaw said, ‘The people we are most fond of are not good for us
When we are ill.’
Bradshaw said he must be taught to rest.
Bradshaw said they must be separated.167
‘Must’, ‘must’, why ‘must’? What power had Bradshaw over him?
‘What right has Bradshaw to say “must” to me?’ he demanded.
‘It is because you talked of killing yourself,’ said Rezia.
(Mercifully, she could now say anything to Septimus.)
So he was in their power!
Holmes and Bradshaw were on him!
The brute with red nostrils was snuffing into every secret place!
‘Must’ I could say! Where were his papers? the things he had written?
She brought him his papers, the things he had written,
Things she had written for him.
She tumbled them out on to the sofa.
They looked at them together.
Diagrams, designs, little men and women brandishing
Sticks for arms, with wings –-
Were they? –
On their backs; circles traced round shillings and six-pences –
The suns and stars; zigzagging precipices
With mountaineers ascending roped together,
Exactly like knives and forks;
Sea pieces with little faces laughing
Out of what might perhaps be waves;
The map of the world.
Burn them!
He cried.
Now for his writings;
How the dead sing behind rhododendron bushes;
Odes to Time; conversations with Shakespeare; 220
Evans, Evans, Evans – 221
His messages from the dead; do not cut down trees;
Tell the Primer Minister.
Universal love: the meaning of the world.
Burn them!
He cried.
But Rezia laid her hands on them.
Some were very beautiful,
She thought.
She would tie them up
(for she had no envelope)
With a piece of silk.
Even if they took him,
She said,
She would go with him.
They could not separate them against their wills,
She said.
Shuffling the edges straight, she did up the papers,
And tied the parcel almost without looking, sitting close,
Sitting beside him,
He thought,
As if all her petals were about her.
She was a flowering tree;
And through her branches looked out
The face of a lawgiver, who had reached a sanctuary
Where she feared no one;
Not Holmes; not Bradshaw;
A miracle, a triumph, the last and greatest.
Staggering he saw her mount the appalling staircase,
Laden with Holmes and Bradshaw, men who never weighed less
Than eleven stone six, who sent their wives to Court,
Men who made ten thousand a year and talked of proportion;
Who differed in their verdicts
(for Holmes said on thing, Bradshaw another),
Yet judges they were; who mixed the vision
And the sideboard; saw nothing clear,
Yet ruled, yet inflicted.
Over them she triumphed.
‘There!’ she said.
The papers were tied up.
No one should get at them.
She would put them away.
And,
She said,
Nothing should separate them.
She sat down beside him and called him by the name
Of that hawk or crow
Which being malicious and a great destroyer of crops
Was precisely like him.
No one could separate them,
She said.
Then she got up to go into the bedroom to pack their things,
But hearing voices downstairs and thinking that Dr Holmes
Had perhaps called, ran down to prevent him coming up.
Septimus could hear her talking to Holmes on the staircase.
‘My dear lady, I have come as a friend,’ Holmes was saying.
‘No. I will not allow you to see my husband,’ she said.
He could see her, like a little hen,
With her wings spread barring his passage.
But Holmes persevered.
‘My dear lady, allow me…’
Holmes said, putting her aside
(Holmes as a powerfully-built man).
Holmes was coming upstairs.
Holmes would burst open the door.
Holmes would say, ‘In a funk, eh?’
Holmes would get him.
But no; not Holmes; not Bradshaw.
Getting up rather unsteadily,
Hopping indeed from foot to foot,
He considered Mrs Filmer’s nice clean bread-knife with
‘Bread” carved on the handle.
Ah, but one mustn’t spoil that.
The gas fire?
But it was too late now.
Holmes was coming.
Razors he might have got, but Rezia,
Who always did that sort of thing,
Had packed them.
There remained only the window,
The large Bloomsbury lodging-house window;
The tiresome, the troublesome, and rather melodramatic
Business of opening the window and throwing himself out. 221
It was their idea of tragedy, not his or Rezia’s 222
(for she was with him).
Holmes and Bradshaw liked that sort of thing.
(He sat on the sill.)
But he would wait till the very last moment.
He did not want to die.
Life was good.
The sun hot.
Only human beings?
Coming down the staircase opposite an old man stopped
And stared at him.
Holmes was at the door.
‘I’ll give it you!’ he cried, and flung himself vigorously,
Violently down on to Mrs Filmer’s area railings.
‘The coward!’ cried Dr Holmes, bursting the door open.
Rezia ran to the window,
She saw; she understood.168
Dr Holmes and Mrs Filmer collided with each other.
Mrs Filmer flapped her apron and made her hide her eyes
In the bedroom.
There was great deal of running up and down stairs.
Dr Holmes came in –
White as a sheet, shaking all over,
With a glass in his hand.
She must be brave and drink something,
He said
(What was it? Something sweet),
For her husband was horribly mangled,
Would not recover consciousness,
She must not see him,
Must be spared as much as possible,
Would have the inquest to go through,
Poor young woman.
Who could have foretold it?
A sudden impulse, no one was in the least to blame
(he told Mrs Filmer).
And why the devil he did it,
Dr Holmes could not conceive.
It seemed to her as she drank the sweet stuff
That she was opening long windows,
Stepping out into some garden.
But where?
The clock was striking –
One, two, three:
How sensible the sound was;
Compared with all this thumping and whispering;
Like Septimus himself.
She was falling himself.
But the clock went on striking, four, five, six
And Mrs Filmer waving her apron
(they wouldn’t bring the body in here, would they?)
Seemed part of that garden; or a flag.
She had once seen a flag slowly rippling out from a mast
When she stayed with her aunt at Venice.
Men killed in battle were thus saluted,
And Septimus had been through the War.169
Of her memories, most were happy.
She put on her hat, and ran through cornfields –
Where could it have been? –
On to some hill, somewhere near the sea,
For there were ships, gulls, butterflies;
They sat on a cliff.
In London, too, there they sat, and,
Half dreaming, came to her through the bedroom door,
Rain falling, whisperings, stirrings among dry corn,
The caress of the sea, as it seemed to her,
Hollowing them in its arched shell and murmuring
To her laid on shore, strewn she felt, like flying flowers
Over some tomb.
‘He is dead,’ she said, smiling at the poor old woman
Who guarded her with her honest light-blue eyes fixed on the door.
(They wouldn’t bring him in here, would they?)
But Mrs Filmer pooh-poohed.
Oh no, oh no! They were carrying him away now.
Ought she not to be told?
Married people ought to be together, Mrs Filmer thought.
But they must do as the doctor said.
‘Let her sleep,’ said Dr Holmes, feeling her pulse.
She saw the large outline of his body dark against the window.
So that was Dr Holmes.
CHAPTER VIII
One of the triumphs of civilization,
Peter Walsh thought. 223
It is one of the triumphs of civilization,
As the light high bell of the ambulance sounded.
Swiftly, cleanly, the ambulance sped to the hospital,
Having picked up instantly, humanely, some poor devil,
Someone hit on the head, struck down by disease,
Knocked over perhaps a minute or so ago
At one of these crossings,
As might happen to oneself.
That was civilisation.
It struck him coming back from the East –
The efficiency, the organization, the communal spirit of London.
Every cart or carriage of its own accord drew aside
To let the ambulance pass.
Perhaps it was morbid; or was it not touching rather,
The respect which they showed this ambulance
With its victim inside –
Busy men hurrying home, yet instantly bethinking them
As it passed of some wife;
Or presumably how easily it might have been them there,
Stretched on a shelf with a doctor and a nurse…
Ah, but thinking became morbid, sentimental,
Directly one began conjuring up doctors, dead bodies;
A little glow of pleasure, a sort of lust, too,
Over the visual impression warned one not to go on with that
Sort of thing any more –
Fatal to art, fatal to friendship.
True.
And yet,
Thought Peter Walsh,
As the ambulance turned the corner, thought the light high bell
Could be heard down the next street and still farther
As it crossed the Tottenham Court Road,
Chiming constantly,
It is the privilege of loneliness;
In privacy one may do as one chooses.
One might weep if no one saw.
It had been his undoing –
This susceptibility –
In Anglo-Indian society; not weeping at the right time,
Or laugh either.
I have that in me,
He thought,
Standing by the pillar-box, which could now dissolve in tears.
Why, heaven knows.
Beauty of some sort probably, and the weight of the day,
Which, beginning with that visit to Clarissa, had exhausted him
With its heat, its intensity, and the drip, drip of one impression
After another down into that cellar where they stood,
Deep, dark, and no one would ever know.
Partly for that reason, its secrecy, complete and inviolable,
He had found life like an unknown garden, full of turns and corners,
Surprising, yes; really it took one’s breath away, these moments:
There coming to him by the pillar-box opposite the British Museum
One of them, a moment, in which things came together;
This ambulance; and life and death.
It was as if he were sucked up to some very high roof
By that rush of emotion, and the rest of him,
Like a white shell-sprinkled beach, left bare.
It has been his undoing in Anglo-Indian society –
This susceptibility.
Clarissa once, going on top of an omnibus with him somewhere,
Clarissa superficially at least, so easily moved,
Now in despair, now in the best of spirits, all aquiver in those days
And such good company, spotting queer little scenes, names,
People from the top of a bus, for they used to explore London
And bring back bags full of treasures from the Caledonian market -- 223
Clarissa had a theory in those days – 224
They had heaps of theories, always theories,
As young people have.
It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction;
Not knowing people; not being known.
For how could they know each other?
You met every day; then not for six months, or years.
It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people
But she said, sitting on the bus going up Shaftesbury Avenue,
She felt herself everywhere; not ‘here, here, here’;
And she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere.
She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue.
She was all that.
So that to know her, or anyone, one must seek out the people
Who completed them; even the places.
Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to,
Some woman in the street, some man behind a counter –
Even trees, or barns.
It ended in a transcendental theory which, with her horror of death,
Allowed her to believe, or say that she believed
(for all her skepticism),
That since our apparitions, the part of us which appears,
Are so momentary compared with the other,
The unseen part of us, which spreads wide,
The unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached
To this person or that, or even haunting certain places,
After death.
Perhaps –
Perhaps.
Looking back over that long friendship of almost thirty years
Her theory worked to this extent.
Brief, broken, often painful as their actual meetings had been,
What with his absences and interruptions
(this morning, for instance, in came Elizabeth,
like a long-legged colt, handsome, dumb,
just as he was beginning to talk to Clarissa),
The effect of them on his life was immeasurable.
There was a mystery about it.
You were given a sharp, acute, uncomfortable grain –
The actual meeting; horribly painful as often as not;
Yet in absence, in the most unlikely places,
It would flower out, open, shed its scent,
Let you touch, taste, look about you, get the whole feel of it
And understanding, after years of lying lost.
Thus she had come to him; on board ship;
In the Himalayas; suggested by the oddest things
(so Sally Seton, generous,
enthusiastic goose! thought of him when
she saw blue hydrangeas).
She had influenced him more than any person
He had ever known. And always in this way coming
Before him without his wishing it,
Cool, lady-like,
Critical;
Or ravishing, romantic,
Recalling some field or English harvest.
He saw her most often in the country, not in London.
One scene after another at Bourton…
He had reached his hotel. He crossed the hall,
With its mounds of reddish chairs and sofas,
its spike-leaved, withered-looking plants.
He got his key off the hook.
The young lady handed him some letters.
He went upstairs –
He saw her most often at Bourton, in the late summer,
When he stayed there for a week, or fortnight even,
As people did in those days.
First on top of some hill there she would stand,
Hands clapped to her hair, her cloak blowing out,
Pointing, crying to them –-
She saw the Severn beneath.
Or in a wood, making the kettle boil –
Very ineffective with her fingers;
The smoke curtseying, blowing in their faces;
Her little pink face showing through;
Begging water from an old woman in a cottage,
Who came to the door to watch them go. 224
They walked always; the others drove. 225
She was bored driving, disliked all animals, except that dog.
They tramped miles along roads.
She would break off to get her bearings, pilot him back across country;
And all the time they argued,
Discussed poetry,
Discussed people,
Discussed politics
(she was a Radical then);
Never noticing a thing except when she stopped, cried out at a view
Or a tree, and made him look with her;
And so on again, thought stubble fields, she walking ahead,
With a flower for her aunt, never tired of walking for all her delicacy;
To drop down on Bourton in the dusk.
Then, after dinner, old Breitkopf would open the piano and sing
Without any voice, and they would lie sunk in armchairs,
Trying not to laugh, but always breaking down and laughing, laughing –
Laughing at nothing.
Breitkopf was supposed not to see.
And then in the morning, flirting up and down like a wagtail
In front of the house…
Oh, it was a letter from her!
This blue envelope; that was her hand.
And he would have to read it.
Here was another of those meetings, bound to be painful!
To read her letter needed the devil of an effort.
‘How heavenly it was to see him. She must tell him that.’
That was all.
But it upset him.
It annoyed him.
He wished she hadn’t written it.
Coming on top of his thoughts, it was like a nudge in the ribs.
Why couldn’t she let him be? After all,
She had married Dalloway, and lived with him in
Perfect happiness all these years.
These hotels are not consoling places.
Far from it.
Any number of people had hung up their hats on those pegs.
Even the flies, if you thought of it,
Had settled on other people’s noses.
As for the cleanliness which him in the face,
It wasn’t cleanliness, so much as bareness, frigidity;
A thing that had to be.
Some arid matron made her rounds at dawn sniffing, peering,
Causing blue-nosed maids to scour,
For all the world as if the next visitor were a joint of meat
To be served on a perfectly clean platter.
For sleep,
One bed;
For sitting in,
One armchair;
For cleaning one’s teeth and shaving one’s chin,
One tumbler,
One looking-glass.
Books, letter, dressing-gown, slipped about
On the impersonality of the horse-hair
Like incongruous impertinences.
And it was Clarissa’s letter that made him see all this.
‘Heavenly to see you. She must say so!’
He folded the paper; pushed it away;
Nothing would induce him to read it again!
To get that letter to him by six o’clock she must have sat down
And written it directly he left her;
Stamped it;
Sent somebody to the post.
It was, as people say, very like her.
She was upset by his visit. She had felt a great deal;
Had for a moment, when she kissed his hand,
Regretted, envied him even, remembered possibly
(for he saw her look it)
Something he had said –
How they would change the world if she married him perhaps;
Whereas, it was this; it was middle age;
It was mediocrity;
Then forced herself with her indomitable vitality to put all that aside,
There being in her a thread of life which for toughness, endurance,
Power to overcome obstacles and carry her triumphantly
Through he had never known the like of. 225
Yes; but there would come a reaction 226
Directly he left the room.
She would be frightfully sorry for him;
She would think what in the world she could do
To give him pleasure
(short always of the one thing),
And he could see her with the tears
Running down her cheeks
Going to her writing-table and
Dashing off that one line which he was to find greeting him…
‘Heavenly to see you!’
And she meant it.
Peter Walsh had now unlaced his boots.
But it would not have been a success, their marriage.
The other thing, after all, came so much more naturally.
It was odd; it was true; lots of people felt it.
Peter Walsh, who had done just respectably,
Filled the usual posts adequately, was liked,
But thought a little cranky, gave himself airs –
It was odd that he should have had, especially now
That his hair was grey, a contented look;
A look of having reserves.
It was this that made him attractive to women,
Who liked the sense that he was not altogether manly.
There was something unusual about him,
Or something behind him.
It might be that he was bookish –
Never came to see you without taking up the book on the table
(he was now reading,
with his bootlaces trailing on the floor);
Or that he was a gentleman,
Which showed itself in the way
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
And in his manners, of course, to women.
For it was very charming and quite ridiculous
How easily some girl
Without a grain of sense would twist him
Round her finger.
But at her own risk.
That is to say, though he might be ever so easy,
And indeed with this gaiety and good-breeding
Fascinating to be with,
It was only up to a point.
She said something –
No, no; he saw through that.
He wouldn’t stand that –
No, no.
Then he could shout and rock and hold his sides together
Over some joke with men.
He was the best judge of cooking in India.
He was a man.
But not the sort of man one had to respect –
Which was a mercy;
Not like Major Simmons, for instance;
Not in the least,
Daisy thought,
When in spite of her two small children,
She used to compare them.
He pulled off his boots.
He emptied his pockets.
Out came with his pocket-knife
A snapshot of Daisy on the verandah;
Daisy all in white, with a fox-terrier on her knee;
Very charming, very dark;
The best he had ever seen of her.
It did come, after all, so naturally;
So much more naturally than Clarissa.
No fuss. No bother. No finicking and fidgeting.
All plain sailing.
And the dark, adorably pretty girl
On the verandah exclaimed
(she had no sense of discretion),
Everything he wanted! she cried,
Running to meet him, whoever might be looking.
And she was only twenty-four.
And she had two children.
Well, well!
Well indeed he had got himself into a mess at this age.
And it came over him when he woke in the night
Quite forcibly.
Suppose they did marry?
For him it would be all very well,
But what about her?
Mrs Burgess, a good sort and no chatterbox,
In whom he had confided, thought this absence of his
In England, ostensibly to see lawyers,
Might serve to make Daisy reconsider, 226
Think what it meant. 227
It was a question of her position,
Mrs Burgess said; the social barrier;
Giving up her children.
She’d be a widow with a past one of these days,
Draggling about in the suburbs,
Or more likely, indiscriminate
(you know, she said,
what such women get like,
with too much paint).
But Peter Walsh pooh-poohed all that.
He didn’t mean to die yet.
Anyhow, she must settle for herself;
Judge for herself,
He thought,
Padding about the room in his socks,
Smoothing out his dress-shirt,
For he might go to Clarissa’s party,
Or he might go to one of the Halls,
Or he might settle in and read an absorbing book,
Written by a man he used know at Oxford.
And if he did retire, that’s what he’d do –
Write books. He would go to Oxford
And poke about in the Bodleian.170
Vainly the dark, adorably pretty girl
Ran to the end of the terrace;
Vainly waved her hand;
Vainly cried she didn’t care a straw that people said.
There he was, the man she thought the world of,
The perfect gentleman, the fascinating,
The distinguished
(and his age made not the least difference to her),
Padding about a room in an hotel in Bloomsbury,
Shaving, washing, continuing,
As he took up cans, put down razors,
To poke about in the Bodleian,
And get at the truth about one or two little matters
That interested him.
And he would have a chat with whoever it might be,
And so come to disregard more and more
Precise hours for lunch, and miss engagements;
And when Daisy asked him, as she would,
For a kiss, a scene, fail to come up to the scratch
(though he was genuinely devoted to her) –
In short it might be happier, as Mrs Burgess said,
That she should forget him,
Or merely remember him as he was in August 1922,
Like a figure standing at the cross roads at dusk,
Which grows more and more remote
As the dog-cart spins away, carrying her
Securely fastened to the back seat, though her arms
Are outstretched, and as she sees the figure dwindle
And disappear,
Still she cries out how she would do anything in the world,
Anything,
Anything,
Anything…
He never knew what people thought.
It became more and more difficult for him to concentrate.
He became absorbed; he became busied with his own concerns;
Now surly, now gay;
Dependent on women, absent-minded, moody, less and less able
(so he thought as he shaved)
To understand why Clarissa couldn’t simply find them
A lodging and be nice to Daisy;
Introduce her.
And then he could just –
Just do what?
Just haunt and hover
(he was at the moment
actually engaged in sorting
out various keys, papers),
Swoop and taste, be alone, in short,
Sufficient o himself;
And yet nobody, of course, was more dependent
Upon others
(he buttoned his waistcoat);
It had been his undoing. He couldn’t keep out of smoking-rooms,
Like colonels, liked golf, like bridge,
And above all women’s society, and the fineness
Of their companionship, and their faithfulness and audacity
And greatness in loving which, though it had its drawbacks,
Seemed to him
(and the dark, adorably pretty face
was on top of the envelopes)
So wholly admirable, so splendid a flower
To grow on the crest of human life, and yet he could not
Come up to the scratch, being always apt see round things 227
(Clarissa had sapped something 228
in him permanently),
And to tire very easily of mute devotion and
To want variety in love, though it would make him furious
If Daisy loved anybody else, furious! for he was jealous,
Uncontrollably jealous by temperament.
He suffered tortures!
But where was his knife; his watch;
His seals, his note-case,
And Clarissa’s letter,
Which he would not read again but liked to think of,
And Daisy’s photograph?
And now for dinner.
They were eating.
Sitting at little tables round vases, dressed or not dressed,
With their shawls and bags laid beside them,
With their air of false composure,
For they were not used to so many courses at dinner;
And confidence, for they were able to pay for it;
And strain, for they had been running about London all day
Shopping, sightseeing; and their natural curiosity,
For they looked round and up
As the nice-looking gentleman in horn-rimed spectacles came in;
And their good nature, for they would have been glad
To do any little service, such as lend a timetable
Or impart useful information;
And their desire, pulsing in them, tugging at them
Subterraneously, somehow to establish connections
If it were only a birthplace
(Liverpool, for example),
In common or friends of the same name;
With their furtive glances, odd silences, and
Sudden withdrawals into family jocularity and isolation;
There they sat eating dinner when Mr Walsh came in
And took his seat at a little table by the curtain.
It was not that he said anything, for being solitary
He could only address himself to the waiter;
It was his way of looking at the menu,
Of pointing his forefinger to a particular wine,
Of hitching himself up to the table,
Of addressing himself seriously,
Not gluttonously to dinner,
That won him their respect;
Which, having to remain unexpressed
For the greater part of the meal, flared up at the table
Where the Morrises sat when Mr Walsh was heard to say
At the end of the meal,
‘Bartlett pears.’
Why he should have spoken so moderately yet firmly,
With the air of a disciplinarian well within his rights
Which are founded upon justice,
Neither young Charles Morris, nor old Charles,
Neither Miss Elaine nor Mrs Morris knew.
But when he said, ‘Bartlett pears’, sitting alone at his table,
They felt that he counted on their support
In some lawful demand;
Was champion of a cause which immediately became their own,
So that their eyes met his eyes sympathetically,
And when they all reached the smoking-room simultaneously,
A little talk between them became inevitable.
It was not very profound –
Only to the effect that London was crowded;
Had changed in thirty years;
That Mr Morris preferred Liverpool;
That Mrs Morris had been to the Westminster flower-show,
And that they had all seen the Prince of Wales.
Yet, thought Peter Walsh, no family in the world
Can compare with the Morrises; none whatever;
And their relations to each other are perfect,
And they don’t care a hang for the upper classes,
And they like what they like,
And Elaine is training for the family business,
And the boy has won a scholarship at Leeds, 228
And the old lady 229
(who is about his own age)
Has three more children at home;
And they have two motor cars, but Mr Morris
Still mends the boots on Sunday;
It is superb, it is absolutely superb,
Thought Peter Walsh
Swaying a little backwards and forwards
With his liqueur glass in his hand
Among the hairy red chairs and ash-trays,
Feeling very well please with himself,
For the Morrises liked him.
Yes, they liked a man who said ‘Bartlett pears’.
They liked him,
He felt.
He would go to Clarissa’s party.
(The Morrises moved off;
but they would meet again.)
He would go to Clarissa’s party,
Because he wanted to ask Richard
What they were doing in India –
The conservative duffers.
And what’s being acted?
And music…Oh, yes, and mere gossip.
For this is the truth about our soul,
He thought,
Our self, who fish-like inhabits deep seas
And plies among obscurities threading
Her way between the boles of giant weeds,
Over sun-flickered spaces and on and on
Into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable;
Suddenly she shoots to the surface
And sports on the wind-wrinkled waves; that is,
Has a positive need to brush, scrape, kindle herself,
Gossiping.
What did the Government mean –
Richard Dalloway would know –
To do about India?
Since it was a very hot night
And the paper boys went by with placards
Proclaiming in huge red letters
That there was a heat-wave,
Wicker chairs were placed on the hotel steps
And there, sipping, smoking, detached gentlemen sat.
Peter Walsh sat there.
One might fancy that day, the London day,
Was just beginning.
Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress
And whit apron to array herself in blue and pearls,
The day changed, put off stuff, took gauze,
Changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration
That a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor,
It too shed dust, colour;
The traffic thinned;
Motor cars, tinkling, darting,
Succeeded the lumber of vans;
And here and there among the thick foliage
Of the squares an intense light hung.
I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded
Above the battlements and prominences,
Moulded, pointed,
Of hotel, flat,
And block of shops,
I fade, she was beginning,
I disappear, but London would have none of it,
And rushed her bayonets into the sky,
Pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.
For the great revolution of Mr Willett’s summer time
Had taken place since Peter Walsh’s last visit to England.171
The prolonged evening was new to him.
It was inspiring, rather.
For as the young people went by with their despatch-boxes,172
Awfully glad to be free, proud too, dumbly,
Of stepping this famous pavement, joy of a kind,
Cheap, tinselly, if you like,
But all the same rapture, flushed their faces.
They dressed well too; pink stockings; pretty shoes.
They would now have two hours at the pictures.
It sharpened, it refined them
The yellow-blue evening light;
And on the leaves in the square shone lurid, livid –
They looked as if dipped in sea water –
The foliage of a submerged city.
He was astonished by the beauty;
It was encouraging too,
For where the returned Anglo-Indian sat by rights
(he knew crowds of them)
In the Oriental Club biliously summing up the ruin of the world, 229
Here was he, as young as ever, envying young people 230
Their summer time and the rest of it,
And more than suspecting from the words of a girl,
From a housemaid’s laugher –
Intangible things you couldn’t lay your hand on –
That shift in the whole pyramidal accumulation
Which in his youth had seemed immovable.
On top of them it had pressed; weighed them down,
The women especially, like those flowers Clarissa’s Aunt Helena
Used to press between sheets of grey blotting-paper with
Littré’s dictionary on top, sitting under the lamp after dinner.
She was dead now.
He had heard of her, from Clarissa,
Losing the sight of one eye.
It seemed so fitting –
One of nature’s masterpieces –
That old Miss Parry should turn to glass.
She would die like some bird in a frost
Gripping her perch.
She belonged to a different age, but being so entire,
So complete,
Would always stand up on the horizon, stone-white,
Eminent,
Like a lighthouse marking some past stage on this adventurous,
Long, long voyage, this interminable –
(he felt for a copper to buy a paper
and read about Surrey and Yorkshire,
he had held out that copper millions of times –
Surrey was all out once more) –
This interminable life.
But cricket was no mere game.
Cricket was important.
He could never help reading about cricket.
He read the scores in the stop press first;
Then how it was a hot day;
Then about a murder case.
Having done things millions of times enriched them,
Althought it might be said to take the surface off.
The past enriched, and experience, and
Having cared for one or two people,
And so having acquired the power which the young lack,
Of cutting short,
Doing what one likes,
Not caring a rap what people say
And coming and going
Without any great expectations
(he left his paper on the table and moved off),
Which however
(and he looked for his hat and coat)
Was not altogether true of him, not tonight,
For here he was starting to go to a party, at his age,
With the belief upon him that he was about to have an experience.
But what?
Beauty anyhow.
Not the crude beauty of the eye.
It was not beauty pure and simple –
Bedford Place leading into Russell Square.
It was straightness and emptiness of course;
The symmetry of a corridor;
But it was also windows lit up,
A piano,
A gramophone sounding;
A sense of pleasure-making hidden,
But now and again emerging when,
Through the uncurtained window, the window left open,
One saw parties sitting over tables,
Young people slowly circling,
Conversations between men and women,
Maids idly looking out
(a strange comment theirs,
when work was done),
Stockings drying on top ledges,
A parrot,
A few plants.
Absorbing, mysterious, of infinite richness, this life.
And in the large square where the cabs shot
And swerved so quick, there were loitering couples, dallying,
Embracing,
Shrunk up under the shower of a tree,
That was moving;
So silent, so absorbed, that one passed,
Discreetly, timidly, as if in the presence of some sacred ceremony
To interrupt which would have been impious.
That was interesting.
And so on into the flare and glare.
His light overcoat blew open,
He stepped with indescribable idiosyncrasy,
Leant a little forward, tripped, with his bands behind his back
And his eyes still a little hawk-like; 230
He tripped through London, towards Westminster, observing. 231
Was everybody dining out, then?
Doors were being opened here by a footman to let issue
A high-stepping old dame,
In buckled shoes,
With three purple ostrich feathers in her hair.
Doors were being opened for ladies
Wrapped like mummies in shawls with bright flowers on them,
Ladies with bare heads.
And in respectable quarters with stucco pillars
Through small front gardens, lightly swathed,
With combs in their hair
(having run up to see the children),
Women came;
Men waited for them, with their coats blowing open,
And the motor started.
Everybody was going out.
What with these doors being opened,
And the descent and the start,
It seemed as if the whole of London were embarking
In little boats moored to the bank,
Tossing on the waters,
As if the whole place were floating off in a carnival.
And Whitehall was skated over, silver beaten as it was,
Skated over by spiders,
And there was a sense of midges round the arc lamps;
It was so hot that people stood about talking.
And her in Westminster was a retired Judge, presumably,
Sitting four square at his house door dressed all in white.
An Anglo-Indian presumably.
And here a shindy of brawling women, drunken women;
Here only a policeman and looming houses,
High house,
Domed houses,
Churches,
Parliaments,
And the hoot of a steamer on the river,
A hollow misty cry.
But it was her street, this, Clarissa’s;
Cabs were rushing round the corner,
Like water round the piers
Of a bridge drawn together,
It seemed to him,
Because they bore people
Going to her party, Clarissa’s party.
The cold stream of visual impressions failed him now
As if the eye were a cup that overflowed
And let the rest run down its china walls unrecorded.
The brain must wake now.
The body must contract now,
Entering the house,
The lighted house,
Where the doors stood open,
Where the motor cars were standing,
And bright women descending;
The soul must brave itself to endure.
He opened the big blade of his pocket-knife. 231
CHAPTER IX
Lucy came running full tilt downstairs, 231
Having just nipped into the drawing-room
To smooth a cover,
To straighten a chair,
To pause a moment and feel
Whoever came in must think
How clean,
How bright,
How beautifully cared for,
When they saw the beautiful silver,
The brass fire-irons,
The new chair-covers,
And the curtains of yellow chintz:
She appraised each; heard a roar of voices;
People already coming up from dinner;
She must fly!
The Prime Minister was coming, Agnes said:
So she had hear them say in the dining-room,
She said,
Coming in with a tray of glasses.
Did it matter, did it matter in the least,
One Prime Minister more or less?
It made no difference at this hour of the night to Mrs Walker
Among the plates,
Saucepans,
Cullenders, frying-pans,
Chicken in aspic,
Ice-cream freezers,
Pared crusts of bread,
Lemons, soup tureens,
And pudding basins which
However hard they washed up in the scullery,
Seemed to be all on top of her,
On the kitchen table,
On chairs,
While the fire blared and roared,
The electric lights glared,
And still super had to be laid.
All she felt was,
One Prime Minister more or less made not a scrap of difference
To Mrs Walker.
The ladies were going upstairs already,
Said Lucy;
The ladies were going up, one by one,
Mrs Dalloway walking last and
Almost always sending back some message to the kitchen,
‘My love to Mrs Walker,’
That was it one night.
Next morning they would go over the dishes –
The soup, the salmon;
The salmon, Mrs Walker knew, as usual underdone,
For she always got nervous about the pudding
And left it to Jenny;
So it happened, the salmon was always underdone.
But some lady with fair hair
And silver ornaments had said,
Lucy said,
About the entrée, was it really made at home?
But it was the salmon that bothered Mrs Walker,
As she spun the plates round and round,
And pushed in dampers and pulled out dampers;
And there came a burst of laughter from the dining-room;
A voice speaking;
Then another bust of laughter –
The gentlemen enjoying themselves when the ladies had gone.
The tokay,
Said Lucy running in.
Mr Dalloway had sent for the tokay, from the Emperor’s cellars,
The Imperial Tokay.173
It was borne through the kitchen.
Over her shoulder Lucy reported how Miss Elizabeth
Looked quite lovely;
She couldn’t take her eyes off her;
In her pink dress, wearing the necklace Mr Dalloway
Had given her.
Jenny must remember the dog, Miss Elizabeth’s fox-terrier,
Which, since it bit, had to be shut up and might,
Elizabeth thought,
Want something.
Jenny must remember the dog.
But Jenny was not going upstairs with all those people about.
There was a motor at the door already!
There was a ring at the bell –
And the gentlemen still in the dining-room, drinking tokay!
There, they were going upstairs;
That was the first to come,
And now they would come faster and faster,
So that Mrs Parkinson
(hired for parties)
Would leave the hall door ajar, 232
And the hall would be full of gentleman waiting 233
(they stood waiting,
sleeking down their hair)
While the ladies took their cloaks off
In the room along the passage;
Where Mrs Barnet helped them,
Old Ellen Barnet,
Who had been with the family for forty years,
And came every summer to help the ladies,
And remembered mothers when they were girls,
And though very unassuming did shake hands;
Said ‘milady’ very respectfully,
Yet had a humorous way with her,
Looking at the young ladies,
And ever so tactfully helping Lady Lovejoy,
Who had some trouble with her underbodice.
And they could not help feeling, Lady Lovejoy and Miss Alice,
That some little privilege in the matter of brush and comb
Was awarded them having known Mrs Barnet –
‘Thirty years, milady,’ Mrs Barnet supplied her.
Young ladies did not use to rouge,
Said Lady Lovejoy,
When they stayed at Bourton in the old days.
And Miss Alice didn’t need rouge,
Said Mrs Barnet,
Looking at her fondly.
There Mrs Barnet would sit,
In the cloakroom, patting down the furs,
Smoothing out the Spanish shawls,
Tidying the dressing-table,
And knowing perfectly well,
In spite of the furs and the embroideries,
Which were nice ladies, which were not.
The dear old body,
Said Lady Lovejoy,
Mounting the stairs, Clarissa’s old nurse.
And then Lady Lovejoy stiffened.
‘Lady and Miss Lovejoy,’ she said to Mr Wilkins
(hired for parties).
He had an admirable manner, as he bent and straightened himself,
Bent and straightened himself,
And announced with perfect impartiality
‘Lady and Miss Lovejoy…
Sir John and Lady Needham…
Miss Weld…
Mr Walsh.’
His manner was admirable; his family life must be irreproachable,
Except that it seemed impossible that a being with greenish lips
And shaven cheeks could ever have blundered into
The nuisance of children.
‘How delightful to see you!’ said Clarissa.
She said it to everyone.
How delightful to see you!
She was at her worst –
Effusive, insincere.
It was a great mistake to have come.
He should have stayed at home and read his book,
Thought Peter Walsh;
Should have gone to a music hall;
He should have stayed at home,
For he knew no one.
Oh dear, it was going to be a failure; a complete failure,
Clarissa felt it in her bones
As Dear old Lord Lexham stood there apologizing
For his wife who had caught cold
At the Buckingham Palace garden party.
She could see Peter out of the tail of her eye, criticising her,
There, in that corner.
Why, after all, did she do these things?
Why seek pinnacles and stand drenched in fire?
Might it consume her anyhow! Burn her to cinders!
Better anything, better brandish one’s torch and hurl it to earth
Than taper and dwindle away like some Ellie Henderson!
It was extraordinary how Peter put her into these states
Just by coming and standing in a corner.
He made her see herself; exaggerate.
It was idiotic.
But why did he come, then, merely to criticise?
Why always take, never give?
Why not risk one’s little point of view?
There he was wandering off;
And she must speak to him.
But she would not get the chance.
Life was that –
Humiliation, renunciation.
What Lord Lexham was saying was that 233
His wife would not wear her furs at the garden party 234
Because ‘my dears, you ladies are all alike’ –
Lady Lexham being seventy-five at least!
It was delicious, how they petted each other,
That old couple.
She did like old Lord Lexham.
She did think it mattered, her party,
And it made her feel quite sick to know that
It was all going wrong, all falling flat.
Anything, any explosion, any horror
Was better than people wandering aimlessly,
Standing in a bunch at a corner like Ellie Henderson,
Not even caring to hold themselves upright.
Gently the yellow curtain with all the birds of Paradise
Blew out and it seemed as if there were a flight of wings
Into the room, right out, then sucked back.
(For the windows were open.)
Was it draughty, Ellie Henderson, wondered?
She was subject to chills.
But it did not matter that she should come down sneezing tomorrow;
It was the girls with their naked shoulders she thought of,
Being trained to think of others by an old father, an invalid,
Late vicar of Bourton, but he was dead now;
And her chills never went to her chest, never.
It was the girls she thought of, the young girls with bare shoulders,
She herself having always been a wisp of creature,
With her thin hair and meager profile;
Though now, past fifty, there was beginning to shine through
Some mild beam, something purified into distinction
By years of self-abnegation but obscured again,
Perpetually, by her distressing gentility, her panic fear,
Which arose from three hundred pounds income,
And her weaponless state
(she could not earn a penny)
And it made her timid, and more and more disqualified
Year by year to meet well-dressed people who did
This sort of thing every night of the season,
Merely telling their maids ‘I’ll wear so and so,’
Whereas Ellie Henderson ran out nervously
And bought cheap pink flowers, half a dozen,
And then threw a shawl over her old black dress.
For her invitation to Clarissa’s party had come
At the last moment.
She was not quite happy about it.
She had a sort of feeling that Clarissa
Had not meant to ask her this year.
Why should she?
There was no reason really, except that
They had always known each other.
Indeed, they were cousins.
But naturally they had rather drifted apart,
Clarissa being so sought after.
It was an event to her, going to a party.
It was quite a treat just to see the lovely clothes.
Wasn’t that Elizabeth, grown up,
With her hair done in the fashionable way,
In the pink dress?
Yet she could not be more than seventeen.
She was very, very handsome.
But girls when they first came out
Didn’t seem to wear white as they used.
(She must remember everything
to tell Edith.)
Girls wore straight frocks, perfectly tight,
With skirts well above the ankles.
It was not becoming,
She thought.
So, with her weak eyesight, Ellie Henderson
Craned rather forward,
And it wasn’t so much she who minded not having anyone to talk to
(she hardly knew anybody there),
For she felt that they were all such interesting people to watch;
Politicians presumably; Richard Dalloway’s friends;
But it was Richard himself who felt 234
That he could not let the poor creature go on 235
Standing there all the evening by herself.
‘Well, Ellie, and how’s the world treating you?’
He said in a genial way,
And Ellie Henderson, getting nervous and flushing,
And feeling that it was extraordinarily nice of him to come
And talk to her, and that many people
Really felt the heat more than the cold.
‘Yes, they do,’ said Richard Dalloway. ‘Yes.’
But what more did one say?
‘Hullo, Richard,’ said somebody, taking him by the elbow,
And, good Lord, there was old Peter, old Peter Walsh.
He was delighted to see him –
Ever so pleased to see him!
He hadn’t changed a bit.
And off they went together walking right across the room,
Giving each other little pats,
As if they hadn’t met for a long time.
Ellie Henderson thought, watching them go,
Certain she knew that man’s face.
A tall man, middle aged, rather fine eyes,
Dark,
Wearing spectacles,
With a look of John Burrows.
Edith would be sure to know.
The curtain with its flight of birds of Paradise blew out again.
And Clarissa –
She saw Ralph Lyon beat it back, and go on talking.
So it wasn’t a failure after all!
It was going to be all right now –
Her party.
It had begun.
It had started.
But it was still touch and go. 174
She must stand there for the present.
People seemed to come in a rush.
Colonel and Mrs Garrod…
Mr Hugh Whitbread…
Mr Bowley…
Mrs Hilbery…
Lady Mary Maddox…
Mr Quin…
Intoned Wilkins.
She had six or seven words with each, and they went on,
They went into the rooms; into something known,
Not nothing; since Ralph Lyon had beat back the curtain.
And yet for her own part, it was too much of an effort.
She was not enjoying it.
It was too much like being –
Just anybody, standing there;
Anybody could do it; yet this anybody she did a little admire,
Couldn’t help feeling that she had, anyhow, made this happen,
That it marked a stage, this post that she felt herself
To have become, for oddly enough
She had quite forgotten what she looked like,
But felt herself a stake driven in at the top of her stairs.
Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being
Something not herself, and that everyone was unreal in one way;
Much more real in another.
It was, she thought, partly their clothes,
Partly being taken out of their ordinary ways,
Partly the background;
It was possible to say things you couldn’t say anyhow else,
Things that needed an effort;
Possible to go much deeper.
But not for her not yet anyhow.
‘How delightful to see you!’ she said.
Dear old Sir Harry!
He would know everyone.
And what was so odd about it was the sense one had
As they came up the stairs one after another,
Mrs Mount and Celia,
Herbert Ainsty,
Mrs Dakers –
Oh, and Lady Bruton!
‘How awfully good of you to come!’ she said,
And she meant it -- 235
It was odd how standing there one felt them going on, 236
Going on, some quite old, some…
What name? Lady Rosseter?
But who on earth was Lady Rosseter?
‘Clarissa!’ That voice!
It was Sally Seton! Sally Seton! after all these years!
She loomed through a mist.
For she hadn’t looked like that, Sally Seton,
When Clarissa grasped the hot water can.
To think of her under this roof, under this roof!
Not like that!
All on top of each other,
Embarrassed, laughing,
Words tumbled out –
Passing through London;
Heard from Clara Haydon;
What a chance of seeing you!
So I thrust myself in –
Without an invitation.
One might put down the hot water can quite composedly.
The luster had left her.
Yet it was extraordinary to see her again,
Older, happier,
Less lovely.
They kissed each other, first this cheek, then that,
By the drawing–room door, and Clarissa turned,
With Sally’s hand in hers, and saw her rooms full,
Heard the roar of voices, save the candlesticks,
The blowing curtains, and the roses
Which Richard had given her.
‘I have five enormous boys,’ said Sally.
She had the simplest egotism, the most open desire
To bethought first always, and Clarissa loved her
For being still like that.
‘I can’t believe it!’ she cried, kindling all over with pleasure
At the thought of the past.
But alas, Wilkins; Wilkins wanted her;
Wilkins was emitting in a voice of commanding authority,
As if the whole company must be admonished
And the hostess reclaim from frivolity, one name:
‘The Prime Minister,’ said Peter Walsh.
The Prime Minister? Was it really?
Ellie Henderson marveled.
What a thing to tell Edith!
One couldn’t laugh at him.
He looked so ordinary.
You might have stood him behind a counter
And bought biscuits –
Poor chap, all rigged up in gold lace.
And to be fir, as he went his rounds,
First with Clarissa, then with Richard escorting him,
He did it very well.
He tried to look somebody.
It was amusing to watch.
Nobody looked at him.
They just went on talking, yet it was perfectly plain that they all knew,
Felt to the marrow of their bones,
This majesty passing; this symbol of what they all stood for,
English society.
Old Lady Bruton, and she looked very fine too,
Very stalwart in her lace, swam up,
And they withdrew into a little room which at once
Became spied upon, guarded, and assort of stir and rustle
Rippled through everyone openly: the Prime Minister!
Lord, lord, the snobbery of the English!
Thought Peter Walsh,
Standing in the corner.
How they loved dressing up in gold lace and doing homage!
There!
That must be –
By Jove, it was –
Hugh Whitbread, snuffing round the precincts of the great,
Grown rather fatter, rather white,
The admirable Hugh!
He looked always as if he were on duty,
Thought Peter,
A privileged but secretive being, hoarding secrets
Which he would die to defend, though
It was only some little piece of tittle-tattle 236
Dropped by a court footman which would be 237
In all the papers tomorrow.
Such were his rattles, his baubles, in playing
With which he had grown white, come to the verge of old age,
Enjoying the respect and affection of all
Who had the privilege of knowing
This type of English public school man.
Inevitably one made up things like that about Hugh;
That was his style; the style of those admirable letters
Which Peter had read thousands of miles across the sea
In The Times, and had thanked God
He was out of that pernicious hubble-bubble,
It if were only to hear baboons chatter and coolies
Beat their wives.
An olive-skinned youth from one of the Universities
Stood obsequiously by. Him he would patronize,
Initiate,
Teach how to get on.
For he liked nothing better than doing kindnesses,
Making the hears to old ladies palpitate with the joy
Of being thought of in their age, their affliction,
Thinking themselves quite forgotten,
Yet here was dear Hugh driving up and spending an hour
Talking of the past, remembering trifles,
Praising the home-made cake,
Though Hugh might eat cake with a Duchess any day of his life,
And, to look at him, probably did spend a good deal of time
In that agreeable occupation.
The All-judging, the All-merciful, might excuse.
Peter Walsh had no mercy.
Villains there must be, and, God knows,
The rascals who get hanged for battering the brains
Of a girl out in a train do less harm on the whole
Than Hugh Whitbread and his kindness!
Look at him now, on tiptoe,
Dancing forward, bowing and scraping,
As the Prime Minister and Lady Bruton emerged,
Intimating for all the world to see that he was privileged
To say something, something private, to Lady Bruton as she passed.
She stopped.
She wagged her fine old head.
She was thanking him presumably for some piece of servility.
She had her toadies, minor officials in Government
For which she gave them luncheon.
But she derived from the eighteen century.
She was all right.
And now Clarissa escorted her Prime Minister down the room,
Prancing, sparkling, with the stateliness of her grey hair.
She wore earrings, and a silver-green mermaid’s dress.
Lolloping on the waves and braiding her tresses she seemed,
Having that gift still; to be; to exist;
To sum it all up in the moment as she passed;
Turned, caught her scarf in some other woman’s dress,
Unhitched it, laughed,
All with the most perfect ease and air of a creature
Floating in its element.
But age had brushed her; even as a mermaid might
Behold in her glass the setting sun on some very clear evening
Over the waves.
There was a breath of tenderness;
Her severity, her prudery,
Her woodenness
Were all warmed through now, and she had about her
As she said goodbye
To the thick gold-laced man who was doing his best,
And good luck to him, to look important,
An inexpressible dignity;
And exquisite cordiality;
As if she wished the whole world well,
And must now, being on the very verge and rim of things,
Take her leave.
So she made him think.
(But he was not in love.)
Indeed, Clarissa felt, the Prime Minister had been good to come.
And, walking down the room with him 237
With Sally there and Peter there and 238
Richard very pleased, with all those people rather inclined, perhaps,
To envy, she had felt that intoxication of the moment,
That dilatation of the nerves of the heart itself till it
Seemed to quiver, steeped, upright –
Yes, but after all it was what other people felt, that; for,
Though she loved it and felt it tingle and sting,
Still these semblances, these triumphs
(dear old Peter, for example,
thinking her so brilliant),
Had a hollowness; at arm’s length they were, not in the heart;
And it might be that she was growing old,
But they satisfied her no longer as they used;
And suddenly, as she saw the Prime Minster go down the stairs,
The gilt rim of the Sir Joshua picture of the little girl with a muff
Brought back Kilman with a rush; Kilman her enemy.
That was satisfying; that was real.
Ah, how she hated her –
Hot, hypocritical, corrupt;
With all that power;
Elizabeth’s seducer;
The women who had crept in
To steal and defile
(Richard would say,
What nonsense!)
She hated her; she loved her.
It was enemies one wanted, not friends –
Not Mrs Durrant and Clara,
Sir William and Lady Bradshaw,
Miss Truelock and Eleanor Gibson
(whom she saw coming upstairs).
They must find her if they want her.
She was for the party!
There was her old friend Sir Harry.
‘Dear Sir Harry!’
She said, going up to the fine old fellow
Who had produced more bad pictures than any other two Academicians
In the whole of St John’s Wood175
(they were always of cattle,
standing in sunset pools absorbing moisture,
or signifying,
for he had a certain range of gesture,
by the raising of one foreleg
and the toss of the antler, ‘the Approach
of the Stranger’ –
all his activities, dining out, racing,
were founded on cattle standing
absorbing moisture in sunset pools)
‘What are you laughing at?’ she asked him.
For Willie Titcomb and Sir Harry and Herbert Ainsty
Were all laughing.
But no.
Sir Harry could not tell Clarissa Dalloway
(much though he liked her;
of her type he thought her perfect,
and threatened to paint her)
His stories of the music-hall stage.
He chaffed her about her party.
He missed his brandy.
These circles,
He said,
Were above him.
But he liked her;
Respected her, in spite of her damnable, difficult,
Upper-class refinement, which made it impossible
To ask Clarissa Dalloway to sit on his knee.
And up came that wandering will-o’-the-wisp,
That vague phosphorescence, old Mrs Hilbery,
Stretching her hands to the blaze of his laughter
(about the Duke and the Lady),
Which, as she heard it across the room,
Seemed to reassure her on a point
Which sometimes bothered her if she woke early in the morning
And did not like to call her maid for a cup of tea:
How it is certain we must die.
‘They won’t tell us their stories,’ said Clarissa.
‘Dear Clarissa!’ exclaimed Mrs Hilbery
She looked tonight,
She said,
So like her mother as she first saw her
Walking in a garden in a grey hat.
And really Clarissa’s eyes filled with tears. Her mother,
Walking in a garden! But alas! she must go. 238
For there was Professor Briefly, 239
Who lectured on Milton, talking to little Jim Huttton
(who was unable even for a party
like this to compass both tie and waistcoat
or make his hair lie flat),
And even at this distance they were quarrelling, she could see.
For Professor Briefly was a very queer fish.
With all those degrees, honours, lectureships
Between him ad the scribblers, he suspected instantly
An atmosphere not favourable to his queer compound;
His prodigious learning and timidity;
His wintry charm without cordiality;
His innocence blent with snobbery;
He quivered if made conscious,
By a lady’s unkempt hair, a youth’s boots,
Of an underworld, very creditable doubtless, of rebels,
Of ardent young people, of would-be geniuses;
And intimated with a little toss of the head, with a sniff –
Humph! –
The value of moderation;
Of some slight training in the classics in order to appreciate Milton.
Professor Brierly
(Clarissa could see)
Wasn’t hitting it off with little Jim Hutton
(who wore red socks,
his black being at the laundry)
About Milton.
She interrupted.
She said she loved Bach.
So did Hutton.
That was the bond between them, and Hutton
(a very bad poet)
Always felt that Mrs Dalloway was far the best
Of the great ladies who took an interest in art.
It was odd how strict she was.
About music she was purely impersonal.
She was rather a prig.
But how charming to look at!
She made her house so nice, if it weren’t for her Professors.
Clarissa had half a mind to snatch him off
And set him down at the piano in the back room.
For he played divinely.
‘But the noise!’ she said. ‘The noise!’
‘The sign of a successful party.’ Nodding urbanely,
The Professor stepped delicately off.
‘He knows everything in the whole world about Milton,’ said Clarissa.
‘Does he indeed?’ said Hutton,
Who would imitate the Professor throughout Hampstead:
The Professor on Milton;
The Professor on moderation;
The Professor stepping delicately off.
But she must speak to that couple,
Said Clarissa,
Lord Gayton and Nancy Blow.
Not that they added perceptibly to the noise of the party.
They were not talking
(perceptibly)
As they stood side by side by the yellow curtains.
They would soon be off elsewhere, together;
And never had very much to say in any circumstances.
They looked; that was all.
That was enough.
They looked so clean, so sound, she with an apricot bloom
Of powder and paint, but he scrubbed, rinsed,
With the eyes of a bird, so that no ball could pass him or stroke surprise him.
He struck, he leapt, accurately, on the spot.
Ponies’ mouths quivered at the end of his reins.
He had his honours, ancestral monuments,
Banners hanging in the church at home.
He had his duties; his tenants;
A mother and sisters;
Had been all day at Lords,
And that was what they were talking about –
Cricket, cousins, and movies –
When Mrs Dalloway came up.
Lord Gayton liked her most awfully.
So did Miss Blow.
She had such charming manners. 239
‘It is angelic – 240
It is delicious of you to have come!’ she said.
She loved Lords; she loved youth,
And Nancy, dressed at enormous expense
By the greatest artists in Paris, stood there looking
As if her body had merely put forth, of its own accord,
A green frill.
‘I had meant to have dancing,’ said Clarissa.
For the young people could not talk.
And why should they?
Shout, embrace, swing, be up at dawn;
Carry sugar to ponies; kiss and caress
The snouts of adorable chows;
And then, all tingling and streaming,
Plunge and swim.
But the enormous resources of the English language,
The power it bestows, after all, of communicating feelings
(at their age, she and Peter
would have been arguing all the evening),
Was not for them.
They would solidify young. They would be good beyond measure
To the people on the estate, but alone, perhaps, rather dull.
‘What a pity!’ she said. ‘I had hoped to have dancing.’
It was so extraordinarily nice of them to have come!
But talk of dancing!
The rooms were packed.
There was old Aunt Helena in her shawl.
Alas!
She must leave them –
Lord Gayton and Nancy Blow.
There was old Miss Parry, her aunt.
For Miss Helena Parry was not dead;
Miss Parry was alive.
She was past eighty.
She ascended staircases slowly with a stick.
She was placed in a chair
(Richard had seen to it).
People who had known Burma in the seventies
Were always led up to her.
Where had Peter got to?
They used to be such friends.
For at the mention of India, or even Ceylon,
Her eyes
(only one was glass)
Slowly deepened, became blue, beheld, no human beings –
She had no tender memories, no proud illusions
About Viceroys, Generals, Mutinies –
It was orchids she saw, and mountain passes,
And herself carried on the backs of coolies in the sixties over solitary peaks;
Or descending to uproot orchids
(startling blossoms, never beheld before)
Which she painted in watercolour; an indomitable Englishwoman,
Fretful if disturbed by the war, say,
Which dropped a bomb at her very door,
From her deep mediation over orchids and her own figure
Journeying in the sixties in India – but here was Peter.
‘Come and talk to Aunt Helena about Burma,’ said Clarissa.
And yet he had not had a word with her all the evening!
‘We will talk later,’ said Clarissa, leading him up to Aunt Helena,
In her white shawl, with her stick.
‘Peter Walsh,’ said Clarissa.
That meant nothing.
Clarissa had asked her. It was tiring; it was noisy;
But Clarissa had asked her.
So she had come.
It was a pity that they lived in London –
Richard and Clarissa.
If only for Clarissa’s health it would have been better
To live in the country.
But Clarissa had always been fond of society.
‘He has been in Burma,’ said Clarissa.
Ah! She could not resist recalling what Charles Darwin had said
About her little book on the orchids of Burma. 240
(Clarissa must speak to Lady Bruton.) 241
No doubt it was forgotten now, her book on the orchids of Burma,
But it went into three editions before
She told Peter.
She remembered him now. He had been at Bourton
(and he had left her,
Peter Walsh remembered,
Without a word in the drawing-room
That night when Clarissa had asked him
To come boating).
‘Richards so much enjoyed his lunch party,’ said Clarissa to Lady Bruton.
‘Richard was the greatest possible help,’ Lady Bruton replied.
‘He helped me to write a letter. And how are you?’
‘Oh, perfectly well!’ said Clarissa.
(Lady Bruton detested illness
in the wives of politicians.)
‘And there’s Peter Walsh!’ said Lady Bruton
(for she could never think of anything
to say to Clarissa;
though she liked her.
She had lots of fine qualities;
But they had nothing in common –
She and Clarissa. It might have been
Better if Richard had married a woman,
With less charm, who would have helped him
More in his work.
He had lost his chance of the Cabinet).
‘There’s Peter Walsh!’ she said,
Shaking hands with that agreeable sinner,
That very able fellow
Who should have made a name for himself
But hadn’t
(always in difficulties with women),
And, of course, old Miss Parry. Wonderful old lady!
Lady Bruton stood by Miss Parry’s chair,
A spectral grenadier,
Draped in black, inviting Peter Walsh to lunch;
Cordial; but without small talk,
Remembering nothing whatever
About the flora or fauna of India.
She had been there, of course; had stayed with three Viceroys;
Thought some of the Indian civilians uncommonly fine fellows;
But what a tragedy it was –
The state of India!
The Prime Minister had just been telling her
(old Miss Parry, huddled up in a shawl,
did not care what the Prime Minister
had been telling her),
And Lady Bruton would like to have Peter Walsh’s opinion,
He being fresh from the centre, and she would get Sir Sampson
To meet him, for really it prevented her from sleeping at night,
The folly of it, the wickedness she might say,
Being a soldier’s daughter.
She was an old woman now, not good for much.
But her house, her servants, her good friend Milly Brush –
Did he remember her? –
Were all there only asking to be used if –
If they could be of help, in short.
For she never spoke of England,
But this isle of men, this dear, dear land,
Was in her blood
(without reading Shakespeare),
And if ever a woman could have worn the helmet and shot the arrow,
Could have led troops to attack,
Ruled with indomitable justice barbarian hordes and
Lain under a shield noseless in a church, or made
A green grass mound on some primeval hillside,
That woman was Millicent Bruton.
Debarred by her sex, and some truancy, too,
She had the though of Empire always at hand, and
Had acquired from her association with that armoured goddess
Her ramrod bearing,
Her robustness of demeanour, so that one could not figure her
Even in death parted form the earth or roaming territories over which,
In some spiritual shape, the Union Jack has ceased to fly. 241
To be not English even among the dead –
No, no! Impossible! 242
But was it Lady Bruton?
(whom she used to know).
Was it Peter Walsh grown grey?
Lady Rosseter asked herself
(who had been Sally Seton).
It was old Miss Parry certainly –
The old aunt who used to be so cross
When she stayed at Bourton.
Never should she forget running along the passage naked,
And being sent for by Miss Parry!
And Clarissa! oh Clarissa! Sally caught her by the arm.
Clarissa stopped beside them.
‘But I can’t stay,’ she said. ‘I shall come later. Wait,’ she said,
Looking at Peter and Sally.
They must wait,
She meant,
Until all these people had gone.
‘I shall come back.’ She said,
Looking at her old friends, Sally and Peter,
Who were shaking hands,
And Sally, remembering the past no doubt,
Was laughing.
But her voice was wrung of its old ravishing richness;
Her eyes not aglow as they used to be when she smoked cigars,
When she ran down the passage to fetch her sponge bag
Without a stitch of clothing on her,
And Ellen Atkins asked, What if the gentlemen had met her?
But everybody forgave her.
She stole a chicken from the larder because she was hungry
In the night;
She smoked cigars in her bedroom;
She left a priceless book in the punt.
But she would paint, she would write.
Old women in the village
Never to this day
Forgot to ask after ‘your friend
In the red cloak who seemed so bright.’
She accused Hugh Whitbread,
Of all people,
(and there he was,
her old friend Hugh,
talking to the Portuguese Ambassador),
Of kissing her in the smoking-room to punish her for saying
That women should have votes.
Vulgar men did,
She said.
And Clarissa remembered having to persuade her
Not to denounce him at family prayers –
Which she was capable of doing
With her daring,
Her recklessness,
Her melodramatic love
Of being the centre of everything
And creating scenes,
And it was bound,
Clarissa used to think,
To end in some awful tragedy;
Her death;
Her martyrdom;
Instead of which she had married,
Quiet unexpectedly,
A bald man with a large buttonhole
Who owned,
It was said,
Cotton mills at Manchester.
And she had five boys!
She and Peter had settled down together.
They were talking: it seemed so familiar –
That they should be talking.
They would discuss the past.
With the two of them
(more even than with Richard)
She shared her past;
The garden;
The trees;
Old Joseph Breitkopf singing Brahms
Without any voice;
The drawing-room wallpaper;
The smell of the mats.
A part of this Sally must always be;
Peter must always be.
But she must leave them.
There were the Bradshaws, whom she disliked.
She must go up to Lady Bradshaw
(in grey and silver,
balancing like sea-lion at the
edge of its tank,
barking for invitation, Duchesses,
the typical successful man’s wife),
She must go up, to Lady Bradshaw and say…
But Lady Bradshaw anticipated her. 242
‘We are shockingly late, dear Mrs Dalloway; 243
We hardly dared to come in,’ she said.
And Sir William, who looked very distinguished,
With his grey hair and blue eyes,
Said yes;
They had not been able to resist the temptation.
He was talking to Richard about that Bill, probably,
Which they wanted to get through the Commons.
Why did the sight of him, talking to Richard,
Curl her up?
He looked what he was, a great doctor.
A man absolutely at the head of his profession, very powerful,
Rather worn.
For think what cases came before him –
People in the uttermost depths of misery;
People on the verge of insanity;
Husbands and wives
He had to decide questions of appalling difficulty.
Yet –
What she felt was,
One wouldn’t like Sir William to see one unhappy
No; not that man.
‘How is your son at Eton?’ she asked Lady Bradshaw.
He had just missed his eleven,
Said Lady Bradshaw,
Because of the mumps.
His father reminded even more than he did,
She thought,
‘Being,’ she said, ‘nothing but a great boy himself’.
Clarissa looked at Sir William, talking to Richard.
He did not look like a boy –
Not in the least like a boy.
She had once gone with someone to ask his advice.
He had been perfectly right;
Extremely sensible
But Heavens –
What a relief to get out to the street again!
There was some poor wretch sobbing,
She remembered,
In the waiting-room.
But she did not know what it was about Sir William;
What exactly she disliked.
Only Richard agreed with her, ‘didn’t like his taste,
Didn’t like his smell’.
But he was extraordinarily able.
They were talking about this Bill.
Some case Sir William was mentioning,
Lowering his voice.
It had its bearing upon what he was saying
About the deferred effects of shell shock.
There must be some provision in the Bill.
Sinking her voice, drawing Mrs Dalloway into the shelter
Of a common femininity, a common pride in
The illustrious qualities of husbands and their sad tendency
To overwork, Lady Bradshaw
(poor goose –
one didn’t dislike her)
Murmured low,
‘Just as we were starting,
My husband was called up on the telephone, a very sad case.
A young man
(that is what Sir William is telling Mrs Dalloway)
Had killed himself.
He had been in the army.’
Oh!
Thought Clarissa,
In the middle of my party, here’s death,
She thought.
She went on, into the little room
Where the Prime Minster had gone with Lady Bruton.
Perhaps there was somebody there.
But there was nobody.
The chairs still kept the impress of the Prime Minister
And Lady Bruton,
She turned deferentially,
He sitting four-square, authoritatively.
They had been talking about India.
There was nobody.
The party’s splendour fell to the floor,
So strange it was to come in alone in her finery.
What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party?
A young man what killed himself.
And they talked of it at her party –
The Bradshaws talked of death.
He had killed himself –
But how?
Always her body went through it,
When she was told,
First, suddenly, of an accident;
Her dress flamed, her body burnt. 243
He had thrown himself from a window. 244
Up had flashed the ground;
Through him,
Blundering, bruising,
Went the rusty spikes.
There he lay with a thud, thud, thud
In his brain, and then a suffocation of blackness.
So she saw it.
But why had he done it?
And the Bradshaws talked of it at her party!
She had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine,
Never anything more.
But he had flung it away.
They went on living
(she would have to go back;
the rooms were still crowded;
people kept on coming).
They
(all day she had been thinking
of Bourton, of Peter, of Sally),
They would grow old.
A thing there was that mattered; a thing,
Wreathed about with chatter, defaced,
Obscured in her own life,
Let drop every day in corruption,
Lies, chatter.
This he had preserved.
Death was defiance.
Death was an attempt to communicate,
People feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which,
Mystically,
Evaded them;
Closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone.
There was an embrace of death.
But this young man who had killed himself –
Had he plunged holding his treasure?
‘If it were now to die,
‘Twere now to be most happy,’ [see footnote 86]
She had said to herself once, coming down, in white.
Or there were the poets and thinkers.
Suppose he had had that passion,
And had gone to Sir William Bradshaw,
A great doctor,
Yet to her obscurely evil,
Without sex or lust,
Extremely polite to women,
But capable of some indescribable outrage –
Forcing our soul, that was it –
If this young man had gone to him,
And Sir William had impressed him,
Like that, with his power,
Might he not then have said
(indeed she felt it now),
Life is made intolerable;
they make life intolerable, men like that?
Then
(she had felt it only this morning)
There was the terror;
The overwhelming incapacity,
One’s parents giving it into one’s hands,
This life, to be lived to the end,
To be walked with serenely;
There was in the depths of her heart
An awful fear.
Even now, quite often, if Richard had not been there
Reading The Times, so that she could crouch like a bird
And gradually revive, send roaring up that immeasurable delight,
Rubbing stick to stick, one thing with another,
She must have perished.
She had escaped.
But that young man had killed himself.
Somehow it was her disaster –
Her disgrace.
It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man,
There a woman,
In this profound darkness, and she forced to stand
Here in her evening dress.
She had schemed; she had pilfered.
She was never wholly admirable.
She had wanted success, Lady Bexborough, and the rest of it.
And once she had walked on the terrace at Bourton.
Odd, incredible;
She had never been so happy.
Nothing could be slow enough;
Nothing last too long.
No pleasure could equal,
She thought,
Straightening the chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf,
This having done with the triumphs of youth,
Lost herself in the process of living, to find it,
With a shock of delight, as the sun rose,
As the day sank.
Many a time had she gone, at Bourton when they were all talking, 245
To look at the sky; or seen it between people’s shoulders at dinner; 246
Seen it in London when she could not sleep.
She walked to the window.
It held, foolish as the idea was, something of her own in it,
This country sky, this sky above Westminster.
She parted the curtains;
She looked.
Oh, but how surprising! –
In the room opposite the old lady stared straight at her!
She was going to bed.
And the sky.
It will be a solemn sky,
She had thought,
It will be a dusky sky, turning away its check in beauty.
But there it was –
Ashen pale, raced over quickly by tapering vast clouds.
It was new to her.
The wind must have risen.
She was going to bed, in the room opposite.
It was fascinating to watch her, moving about,
That old lady, crossing the room, coming to the window.
Could she see her?
It was fascinating, with people still laughing and shouting
In the drawing-room, to watch that old woman,
Quite quietly, going to bed alone.
She pulled the blind now. The clock began striking.
The young man had killed himself, but she did not pity him;
With the clock striking the hour, one, two, three,
She did not pity him, with all this going on.
There! The old lady had put out her light!
The whole house was dark now with this going on,
She repeated,
And the words came to her,
Fear no more the heat of the sun.
She must go back to them.
But what an extraordinary night!
She felt somehow very like him –
The young man who had killed himself.
She felt glad that he had done it;
Thrown it away while they went on living.
The clock was striking.
The leaden circles dissolved in the air.
But she must go back.
She must assemble.
She must find Sally and Peter.
And she came in from the little room. 246
CHAPTER X
‘But where is Clarissa?’ said Peter.
He was sitting on the sofa with Sally.
(After all these years
he really could not call her ‘Lady Rosseter’.)
‘Where’s the woman gone to?’ he asked, ‘Where’s Clarissa?’
Sally supposed, and so did Peter for the matter of that,
That there were people of importance, politicians,
Whom neither of them knew unless by sight in the picture papers,
Whom Clarissa had to be nice to,
Had to talk to.
She was with them.
Yet there was Richard Dalloway not in the Cabinet.
He hadn’t been a success,
Sally supposed.
For herself, she scarcely ever read the papers.
She sometimes saw his name mentioned.
But then –
Well, she lived a very solitary life,
In the wilds,
Clarissa would say,
Among great merchants, great manufacturers, men,
After all, who did things.
She had done things too!
‘I have five sons!’ she told him.
Lord, lord, what a change had come over her!
The softness of motherhood; its egotism too.176
Last time they met,
Peter remembered,
Had been among the cauliflowers in the moonlight,
The leaves ‘like rough bronze’
She had said,
With her literary turn;
And she picked a rose.
She had marched him up and down that awful night,
After the scene by the fountain;
He was to catch the midnight train.
Heavens, he had wept!
That was his old trick, opening a pocket-knife,
Thought Sally,
Always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited.
They had been very, very intimate, she and Peter Walsh,
When he was in love with Clarissa, and there was
That dreadful, ridiculous scene over Richard Dalloway at lunch.
She had called Richard ‘Wickham’.
Why not call Richard ‘Wickham’?
Clarissa had flared up! and indeed they had never seen each other since,
She and Clarissa, not more than half a dozen times
Perhaps in the last ten years.
And Peter Walsh had gone off to India,
And she had heard vaguely that he had made an unhappy marriage,
And she didn’t know whether he had any children,
And she couldn’t ask him, for he had changed.
He was rather shriveled –looking, but kinder,
She felt,
And she ha a real affection for him,
For he was connected with her youth,
And she still had a little Emily Brontë he had given her,
And he was to write, surely?
In those days he was to write.
‘Have you written?’’ she asked him spreading her hand,
Her firm and shapely hand, on her knee in a way he recalled.
‘Not a word!’ said Peter Walsh, and she laughed.
She was still attractive, still a personage, Sally Seton.
But who was this Rosseter?
He wore two camellias on his wedding day –
That was all Peter knew of him.
‘They have myriads of servants, miles of conservatories,’
Clarissa wrote, something like that.
Sally owned it with a shout of laughter. 246
‘Yes, I have ten thousand a year’ – 247
Whether before the tax was paid or after,
She couldn’t remember,
For her husband, ‘whom you must meet,’ she said,
‘Whom you would like,’ she said, did all that for her.
And Sally used to be in rags and tatters.
She had pawned her great-grandfather’s ring
Which Marie Antoinette had given him –
Had he got it right? –
To come to Bourton.177
Oh yes, Sally remembers;
She had it still, a ruby ring
Which Marie Antoinette had given her great-grandfather.
She never had a penny to her name in those days,
And going to Bourton always meant some frightful pinch.
But going to Bourton had meant so much to her –
Had kept her sane,
She believed,
So unhappy had she been at home.
But that was all a think of the past –
All over now,
She said.
And Mr Parry was dead; and Miss Parry was still alive.
Never had he had such a shock in his life! said Peter.
He had been quite certain she was dead.
And the marriage had been, Sally supposed, a success?
And that very handsome, very self-possessed young woman
Ws Elizabeth, over there, by the curtains, in red.
(She was like a poplar, she was like a river,
she was like a hyacinth, Willie Titcomb
was thinking. Oh how much nicer to be
in the country and do what she liked! She
could hear her poor dog howling, Elizabeth was
certain.)
She was not a bit like Clarissa,
Peter Walsh said.
‘Oh, Clarissa!’ said Sally.
What Sally felt was simply this.
She had owed Clarissa an enormous amount.
They had been friends, not acquaintances, friends,
And she still saw Clarissa all in white going about the house
With her hands full of flowers –
To this day tobacco plants made her think of Bourton.
But –
Did Peter understand? –
She lacked something.
Lacked what was it?
She had charm; she had extraordinary charm.
But to be frank
(and she felt that Peter was an old friend, a real friend –
did absence matter? did distance matter?
she had often wanted to write to him, but torn it up,
yet felt he understood, for people understand
without things being said, as one realizes growing old,
and old she was, had been that afternoon to see
her sons at Eton, where they had the mumps),
To be quite frank, then, how could Clarissa have done it? –
Married Richard Dalloway?
A sportsman, a man who cared only for dogs.
Literally, when he came into the room he smelt of the stables.
And then all this?
She waved her hand.
Hugh Whitbread it was, strolling past in his white waistcoat,
Dim, fat, blind,
Past everything he looked,
Except self-esteem and comfort.
‘He’s not going to recognize us,’ said Sally,
And really she hadn’t the courage –
So that was Hugh! the admirable Hugh!
‘And what does he do?’ she asked Peter.
He blacked the King’s boots or counted bottles at Windsor,
Peter told her.
Peter kept his sharp tongue still!
But Sally must be frank,
Peter said.
That kiss now, Hugh’s.
On the lips, she assured him, in the smoking-room one evening.
She went straight to Clarissa in a rage. 247
Hugh didn’t do such things! 248
Clarissa said, the admirable Hugh!
Hugh’s socks were without exception the most beautiful
She had ever seen –
And now his evening dress.
Perfect! And had he children?
‘Everybody in the room has six sons at Eton,’ Peter told her,
Except himself.
He, thank God, had none.
No sons, no daughters, no wife.
Well, he didn’t seem to mind,
Said Sally.
He looked younger,
She thought,
Than any of them.
But it had been a silly thing to do, in many ways,
Peter said,
To marry like that;
‘A perfect goose she was,’ he said,
But, he said, ‘we had a splendid time of it,’
But how could that be? Sally wondered;
What did he mean? and how odd it was to know him
And yet not know a single thing that had happened to him.
And did he say it out of pride?
Very likely, for after all it must be galling for him
(though he was an oddity, a sort of sprite,
not at all an ordinary man),
It must be lonely at his age to have no home,
Nowhere to go to.
But he must stay with them for weeks and weeks.
Of course he would;
He would love to stay with them, and that was how it came out.
All these years the Dalloways had never been one.
Time after time they had asked them.
Clarissa
(for it was Clarissa of course)
Would not come.
For,
Said Sally,
Clarissa was at heart a snob –
One had to admit it, a snob.
And it was that that was between them,
She was convinced.
Clarissa thought she had married beneath her, her husband being –
She was proud of it –
A miner’s son.
Every penny they had he had earned.
As a little boy
(her voice trembled)
He had carried great sacks.
(And so she would go on, Peter felt,
hour after hour; the miner’s son;
people thought she had married beneath her;
her five sons; and what was the other thing –
plants, hydrangeas, syringes,
very, very rare hibiscus lilies that
never grow north of the Suez Canal, but she,
with one gardener in a suburb
near Manchester, had beds of them,
positively beds! Now all that Clarissa
had escaped, unmaternal as she was.)
A snob was she? Yes, in many ways.
Where was she, all this time?
It was getting late.
‘Yet,’ said Sally, ‘when I heard Clarissa was giving a party,
I felt I couldn’t not come –
Must see her again
(and I’m staying in Victoria Street, practically next door).
So I just came without an invitation.
But,’ she whispered, ‘tell me, do. Who is this?’
It was Mrs Hilbery, looking for the door.
For how late it was getting!
And, she murmured, as the night grew later, as people went,
One found old friends; quiet nook and corners;
And the loveliest views.
Did they know,
She asked,
That they were surrounded by an enchanted garden?
Lights and trees and wonderful gleaming lakes and the sky.
Just a few fairy lamps,
Clarissa Dalloway had said,
In the back garden!
But she was a magician!
It was a park…
And she didn’t know their names, but friends she knew they were,
Friends without names, songs without words,
Always the best.
But there were so many doors, such unexpected places,
She could not find her way. 248
‘Old Mrs Hilbery,’ said Peter; but who was that? 249
That lady standing by the curtain all the evening, without speaking?
He knew her face; connected her with Bourton.
Surely she used to cut up underclothes at the large table in the window?
Davidson, was that her name?
‘Oh, that is Ellie Henderson,’ said Sally.
Clarissa was really very hard on her. she was a cousin, very poor.
Clarissa was hard on people.
She was rather,
Said Peter.
Yet,
Said Sally,
In her emotional way, with a rush of that enthusiasm
Which Peter used to love her for,
Yet dreaded a little now, so effusive she might become –
How generous to her friends Clarissa was! and what a rare quality
One found it, and how sometimes at night or on Christmas Day,
When she counted up her blessings, she put that friendship first.
They were young; that was it.
Clarissa was pure-hearted; that was it.
Peter would think her sentimental.
So she was.
For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying –
What one felt.
Cleverness was silly.
One must say simply what one felt.
‘But I do not know,’ said Peter Walsh, ‘what I feel.’
Poor Peter,
Thought Sally.
Why did not Clarissa come and talk to them?
That was what he was longing for.
She knew it.
All the time he was thinking only of Clarissa, and was fidgeting with his knife.
He had not found life simple,
Peter said.
His relations with Clarissa had not been simple.
It had spoilt his life,
He said.
(They had been so intimate –
he and Sally Seton,
it was absurd not to say it.)
One could not be in love twice,
He said.
And what could she say?
Still, it is better to have loved
(but he would think her sentimental –
he used to be so sharp).
He must come and stay with them in Manchester.
That is all very true,
He said.
All very true.
He would love to come and stay with them,
Directly he had done what he had to do in London.
And Clarissa had cared for him
More than she had ever cared for Richard,
Sally was positive of that.
‘No, no, no!’ said Peter
(Sally should not have said that –
She went too far).
That good fellow –
There he was at the end of the room, holding forth,
The same as ever, dear old Richard.
Who was he talking to?
Sally asked,
That very distinguished-looking man?
Living in the wilds as she did, she had an insatiable curiosity
To know who people were.
But Peter did not know. He did not like his looks,
He said,
Probably a Cabinet Minster.
Of them all, Richard seemed to him the best,
He said –
The most disinterested.
‘But what has he done?’ Sally asked.
Public work,
She supposed.
And were they happy together?
Sally asked
(she herself was extremely happy);
For,
She admitted,
She knew nothing about them, only jumped to conclusions,
As one does, for what can one know
Even of the people one lives with every day? she asked.
Are we not all prisoners?
She had read a wonderful play
About a man who scratched on the wall of his cell,
And she had felt that was true of life –
One scratched on the wall.
Despairing of human relationships
(people were so difficult),
She often went into her garden and got from her flowers
A peace which men and women never gave her.
But no; he did not like cabbages; he preferred human beings, 249
Peter said.
Indeed, the young are beautiful, 250
Sally said, watching Elizabeth cross the room.
How unlike Clarissa at her age!
Could he make anything of her?
She would not open her lips.
Not much, not yet,
Peter admitted.
She was like a lily,
Sally said,
A lily by the side of a pool.
But Peter did not agree
That we know nothing.
We know everything,
He said;
At least he did.
But these two,
Sally whispered,
These two coming now
(and really she must go,
if Clarissa did not come soon),
This distinguished-looking man and
His rather common-looking wife
Who had been talking to Richard –
What could one know about people like that?
‘That they’re damnable humbugs,’ said Richard,
Looking at them casually.
He made Sally laugh.
But Sir William Bradshaw stopped at the door
To look at a picture.
He looked in the corner for the engraver’s name.
His wife looked too.
Sir William Bradshaw was so interested in art.178
When one was young,
Said Peter,
One was too much excited to know people
Now that one was old, fifty-two to be precise,
(Sally was fifty-five, in body,
she said, but her heart was like
a girl’s of twenty);
Now that one was mature then,
Said Peter,
One could watch, one could understand,
And one did not lose the power of feeling,
He said.
No, that is true,
Said Sally.
She felt more deeply, more passionately, every year.
It increased,
He said,
Alas! perhaps, but one should be glad of it –
It went on increasing in his experience.
There was someone in India.
He would like to tell Sally about her.
He would like Sally to know her.
She was married,
He said.
She had too small children.
They must all come to Manchester,
Said Sally –
He must promise before they left.
‘There’s Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘she feels not half what we feel, not yet.’
‘But,’ said Sally, watching Elizabeth go to her father,
‘One can see they are devoted to each other.’
She could feel it by the way Elizabeth went to her father.
For her father had been looking at her,
As he stood talking to the Bradshaws,
And he had thought to himself who is that lovely girl?
And suddenly he realized that it was his Elisabeth,
And he had not recognized her,
She looked so lovely in her pink frock!
Elizabeth had felt him looking at her
As she talked to Willie Titcomb.
So she went to him
And they stood together,
Now that the party was almost over,
Looking at the people gong,
And the rooms getting emptier and emptier,
With things scattered on the floor.
Even Ellie Henderson was going,
Nearly last of all,
Though no one had spoken to her,
But she had wanted to see everything,
To tell Edith.
And Richard and Elizabeth were rather glad it was over,
Bur Richard was proud of his daughter.
And he had not meant to tell her,
But he could not help telling her.
He had looked at her,
He said,
And he had wondered, who is that lovely girl:
And it was his daughter!
That did make her happy.
But her poor dog was howling. 250
‘Richard has improved. You are right,’ said Sally. 251
‘I shall go and talk to him. I shall say good-night.
What does the brain matter,’ said Lady Rosseter,
Getting up, ‘compared with the heart?’
‘I will come,’ said Peter, but he sat for a moment.
What is this terror?
What is this ecstasy?
He thought to himself.
What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.
THE END
The Chapters
Chapter 1:
We are introduced to Mrs Dalloway (52). We learn about her looks and
build; we learn that she had at least three close male friends (Hugh
Whitbread, Peter Walsh, and Richard Dalloway). We learn that she had one
daughter, and notes that she cannot have more. We learn that she sees
herself as the perfect hostess, nothing more, and that her worth is
based on being married (“Mrs”) and no longer single (“Clarissa”).
Chapter II:
We are introduced to Septimus Warren Smith (30) and Lucrezia (Rezia)
(24), his Italian war bride. The personalities in this chapter are held
together, first, by the mysterious occupant of the car going to
Buckingham Palace, and, second, by the aeroplane, probably spelling out
“toffee.”
Chapter III: We are now back at the home of Mrs
Dalloway. In previous chapters we have been introduced to Mrs Dalloway
and Septimus, her doppelganger. In this chapter, we are introduced to
“love.” Mrs Dalloway relates her “affair” with Lady Seton.
Chapter IV:
Peter Walsh has left Mrs Dalloway; he is the solitary traveler in
London, in the world. He thinks about Clarissa; some idle time waiting
until he meets with the divorce lawyers.
Chapter V: This is a
very short chapter. While biding time waiting for appointment with the
divorce lawyers, he falls asleep on a park bench and dreams: the
solitary traveler. He has no interaction with any other individual in
the novel, except sitting near an elderly nurse, who is not named, on
the bench.
Chapter VI: Peter Walsh remembers the first
time he met Richard Dalloway, and realized that Clarissa and Richard
were falling in love with each other, and would eventually marry. Sally
Seton was also at that party. Later that summer Peter met Clarissa in
the garden to find out if it was over between them; it was, and that was
the last time Peter had seen Clarissa.
Chapter VII: This
is a very long chapter and perhaps the penultimate chapter. It seems
in this chapter we learn almost everything about each of the
characters: Peter, Septimus, Hugh, Miss Kilman, Elizabeth. We start
with the “intersection” of Peter Walsh and Septimus Smith in the park;
linked by the nameless nurse. In this chapter we are given a much
better picture of Septimus. Septimus is hallucinating (he sees Evans,
his commanding officer who had been killed in the War), thinking about
death, death by drowning. Peter Walsh continues to think about the
past, and how much things have changed while he was away from England
for five years. We also learn that Peter is in desperate need for money;
his pension will not be enough to live on, especially since he plans to
marry Daisy. He despises Hugh Whitbread, but he must ask Hugh for help
in getting a government job. It appears he will also ask Richard,
which doesn’t bother him. Peter Walsh thinks of Clarissa, her traits,
why he would have been better for her than the others, especially Hugh.
We also learn about the physicians, particularly Sir William and Lady
Bradshaw, the specialists. Discusses the twin goddesses, proportion and
conversion. Later, Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread join Lady
Bruton for lunch. Miss Kilman and Elizabeth have tea together and go
shopping; a very long section. This is the chapter in which Septimus
throws himself out a window to die.
Chapter VIII: The
chapter begins with Peter Walsh receiving Clarissa’s invitation for her
party that night; he is conflicted about going. In the end he decides
to go, having reminisced about previous parties, and the chapter ends
with him walking through London to Clarissa’s home.
Chapter IX: The party. And Clarissa learns from Lady Bradshaw that a young man has killed himself.
Chapter X: Clarissa leaves the party to lie down; the others reminisce and gradually leave.
Miscellaneous Notes
Dorothea
Stephen.
Even Virginia Woolf's cousin Dorothea Stephen went off to
India and penned a book entitled Studies In Early Indian Thought, which
was published in 1918.
But Woolf's loathing for the woman - her "fat
religious cousin" (Letters 1:85), a "ponderous elephant" (88),
"cumbersome square footed cousin" (193), a "pullulating monster (2:474),
and "that clodhopping woman you used to admire" (3:324) - did not
predispose her to embrace the metaphysics contained therein.
Although
Stephen pushed too hard to find parallels to Christianity in the Vedas
and Upanishads, her book is otherwise intelligent and insightful and
should have interested Woolf even if its author had not been a close
relation. Woolf's feigned ignorance of Stephen's authorial venture is
rather shocking in light of her own continual need for validation as a
writer. Source: Varieties of Mystical Experience in the Writings of
Virginia Woolf;
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_n4_v41/ai_18412901/pg_2,
August 21, 2007.
Daylight saving time:
The idea for DST was
first suggested in a whimsical essay by Benjamin Franklin (1874). In
1907, an Englishman, William Willett, campaigned for setting the clock
ahead by 80 minutes in four moves of 20 minutes each during April and
reversed in September. In 1909 the British House of Commons rejected a
bill to advance the clock by one hour in the spring and return to
Greenwich Mean Time in the autumn.
Source: http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-643978/William-Willett
£sd:
£sd
(pronounced, and sometimes written, L.s.d.) was the popular name for
the pre-decimal currencies used in the United Kingdom, and in most of
its Empire and colonies.
Meaning “pounds, shillings, and pence” the term
originated from the Latin “librae, solidi, denarii, hence the use of
the hatched "L" (£) for pounds and "d" for pence. Under this system
there were 12d (12 pence) in a shilling and 20s (20 shillings) in a
pound, making 240d in a pound. The penny (1d) was (until 1960) further
divided into four (4) farthings. (Thus, the saying, “not worth a
farthing” is relevant: a farthing was worth one-fourth of a penny.
Unlike modern currency systems, the pre-decimalization United Kingdom
currency system was based on fractions (instead of decimals).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/£sd
Shakespeare Quotes
See footnote #35: Fear no more the heat o’ the sun:
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exerciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing will come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
(Shakespeare, Cymbeline, IV, 2)
See footnote #86: if it were now to die, ’twere now to be most happy:
Othello’s speech to Desdemona, ecstatic in his love for her:
It gives me wonder great as my content
To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus-high and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate. (Shakespeare, Othello, II, 1)
Faust
Faust: this is the crux of Faust’s bet with the devil; that the devil
could not bring him something / show him something that would completely
satisfy Faust. In this case, upon seeing Desdemona again, Othello’s
great desire has been fulfilled.
Marie Bashkirtseff
Look in mine eyes with your sweet eyes intently:
At
the source below, I found what appears to be a poem on a tombstone in
Passy Cemetery in Paris. At that source, written by a Catholic nun, it
appears, the poem is said to come from the song, Allerseelen (All Souls’ Day) with the date 1922 next to it. Here is that poem:
“Lay by my side your bunch of purple heather,
The last red asters of an Autumn day,
And let us sit and talk of Love together,
As once in, May.
“Give me your hand, that I may press it gently
And if the others see what matter they
Look in mine eyes with your sweet eyes intently
As once in May.
“On every grave are flowers all red and golden,
In Death’s dark valley this is Holy Day,
Come to my heart and let my arms enfold you
As once in May.”
It
is hard to sort out what is written at the source below, but she
references a “talented young Russian artist, Marie Baslcirtseff (sic), buried
at Passy, and references also this song, Allerseelen. “Baslcirtseff” is
misspelled and is actually “Bashkirtseff.” Marie Bashkirtseff (1858 –
1884) was a Russian artist famous for her published journal; her tomb is
a recreation of her studio and has been declared a historical monument
by the government of France. Link to wiki.
Note how this poem differs slightly from the words of Allerseelen (Strauss) by Hermann von Gilm:
“Place on the table the fragrant mignonettes,
Bring the last red asters inside,
And let us speak again of love,
As once in May.
“Give me your hand, so that I may secretly press it;
And if someone sees, it’s all the same to me.
Just give me one of your sweet glances,
As once in May.
"Every grave blooms and is fragrant tonight,
One day in the year are the dead free,
Come to my heart, so that I may have you again,
As once in May.”
Passy
Cemetery is a famous cemetery in Paris. Under Napoleon I, all
cemeteries in Paris were replaced by several large new ones outside the
precincts of the capital – there was one exception: Passy Cemetery is
in the heart of the city.
Source: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:akFcKr0iGDAJ:rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/data/VOLUME069-1922/page393-volume69-16thdecember1922.pdf+%22sweet+eyes+intently%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us; 31 Aug 07.
When
you go to that source, you can open up a PDF which will take you to The
British Journal of Nursing, Volume 69, December 16, 1922, p. 393, “Our
Foreign Letter.”
In Oxford World’s Classics, with a
biographical preface by Frank Kermode (wiki), on page 178, under “explanatory
notes,” in note number 70, the editor notes:
“Give me your
hand…what matter they? These words were first identified by J. Hillis
Miller in 1982 as part of an English version of Allerseelen,” a[n
early] song by Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949) with words by Hermann von
Gilm.
See ‘Mrs Dalloway: Repetition as the Raising of the Dead,’ repr.
In Morris Beja (ed.), Critical Essays on Virginia Woolf (Boston, Mass.:
G. K. Hall, 1985), 53 – 72, esp 63 -4.” Source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PXsgOHVTwjUC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=%22mrs+dalloway%22+allerseelen&source=web&ots=yf0go7mAux&sig=1ec_mEh9i1mZiSj-05NBKSCFCvk#PPA178,M1
“Allerseelen, set by Richard Strauss as op. 10, no. 8 (1882-3) to text
by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg (1812 – 1864). This song’s melody and
rich accompaniment make it one of the best known Lieder (songs) of
Strauss.”
Source:
http://www.lottelehmann.org/lehmann/llf/soundInfo/sndInfo_350.shtmlSo, connecting the dots, it appears this is the chronology:
Herman von Gilm (1812 – 1864), writes the poem, Allerseelen
Strauss puts music to the text, 1882 - 83
Marie Bashkirtseff (1858 – 1884), a young Russian artist, re-writes the poem
Sister Marie’s “Foreign Letter” incorporating the poem after she visits
Marie Bashkirtseff’s mausoleum in Passy Cemetery is published in the
December 16, 1922, issue of The British Journal of Nursing.
Virginia
Woolf incorporates this poem into her prose – but does she take it from
the Strauss / von Gilm opus (a very Catholic song, very German; whereas
VW was not religious, and was more familiar with feminists which would
have included Bashkirtseff, and especially Russians.)
Now that I
have found the “original” note in
The British Journal of Nursing it
comes to me. Virginia Woolf was in and out of physicians’ offices
throughout her adult life. I am convinced that either in a waiting room
or while trying to understand her medical condition, she (VW) happened
to chance through that journal. Remember, Mrs Dalloway was published in
1925, and Sister Marie’s letter was published in 1922. Could it be?
[Interestingly,
I ran across the name of Marie Bashkirtseff once again when I read
Deirdre Bair’s biography of Anaïs Nin, c. 1995. It may have been
Marie’s lifelong journal that she wrote for posterity that inspired
Anaïs to write her own lifelong journal. Fascinating. I first read
Bair’s biography of Nin in November, 2009. It was several years before
that, maybe 2007, when I transcribed
Mrs Dalloway and noted the poem by Bashkirtseff.]
Touch and Go
From
the internet: But the idiom was in use early in the 20th century;
possibly still associated with flying. Internet source: “This idiom
implies that a mere touch may cause a calamity. [Early 1800s].
However,
there are also two other suggestions, both nautical in origin: 1) if a
ship’s keel scraped bottom but was able to keep moving, it was said to
be “touch and go”; 2) ships transferring cargo, mail, supplies to each
other had to get close enough to touch, and once the transfer was made,
they moved on. Both situations, getting stranded if the ship struck the
ocean floor, or if the ships collided, were considered by risky
situations, and “touch and go” refers to such risky situations.
Bibliography
King, James, Virginia Woolf, c. 1994 (1995 edition).
Other sources:
http://orlando.jp.org/VWSGB/dat/dwalk.html
Miscellaneous Comments (Not Footnotes)
From page 251:
The quote "What does the brain matter compared with the heart?" is from
Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway. It's a line spoken by the
character Lady Rosseter, and it encapsulates a central theme of the
book: the idea that despite intellectual pursuits and societal
expectations, humans are ultimately driven by their emotions and
passions. The quote suggests that the heart, representing emotions and
feelings, holds more significance than the brain, representing intellect
and reason.
A big party: the author states that "her Prime Minister" attended the party. Not
the Prime Minister of England, but "her" Prime Minister." Holburn? London?
Footnotes:
1: VW did not designate chapters; I have done so, only to make searching easier.
2: Virginia’s sister had planned to name her first child Clarissa, but her first child was male. I would assume it more likely that Virginia heard Vanessa talking about a “Clarissa” and taking that name for her novel; more likely than Vanessa wanting to name her first daughter after the name of a novel.
3: Bourton is the name of the town where
Clarissa Dalloway's family owned a summer home. It's a place that holds
significant memories for Clarissa, particularly from her youth. She
spent a summer there when she was eighteen, and it was during this time
that she met Peter Walsh and Sally Seton, and made crucial decisions
about her future, including her choice of husband. A coastal town in England. Associated with youthful freedom, friendships, and important life decisions. -- AI, July 7, 2025.
4: The use of “wave” is a consistent and frequent metaphor throughout VW’s writing. She loved the ocean; she had found memories of going to the beach as a child; she eventually drowned herself in the medium she loved.
5: 18 years old? Flashback as she opened the window; remembering Peter and the freshness of Bourton? While opening the window, smelling the freshness of Bourton, it carries her back to Peter, when she was 18, and then she moves to the present, knowing Peter is soon to return from India.
6: First indication / premonition of the death of Septimus, her double.
7: Leonard Woolf has been posted to Ceylon for seven years. Interestingly, unlike in real life, Clarissa did not marry the man who returned after sever years. Rather, Clarissa married the man who first (?) proposed to her.
8: Monday or Tuesday? A collection of eight short stories.
9: Abrupt transition from opening windows at her home, to starting out on her journey.
10: I don’t believe VW ever shares anything more about the illness of Mrs Dalloway, unless it was the influenza, a few lines later, and how it affected her “racing” heart.
11: Recurring line; metaphor for her circle, and expanding circles, of family, friends, others.
12: Recurring line; metaphor for her circle, and expanding circles, of family, friends, others. The phrase "leaden circles
dissolved in the air" refers to the sound of Big Ben striking the hour.
It symbolizes the ephemeral nature of time, despite the clock's imposing
presence and the characters' awareness of its passage. The "leaden
circles" represent the sound waves, which, though initially weighty and
pronounced, dissipate and fade away, much like the moments of life that
pass and are gone.
13: Life.
14: Was this just coincidence? VW was very familiar with James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was also set on one day in June: June 16.
15: Upper-case “war” for the first half of the book; then lower case for the rest of the book, until near the end when it is upper case again.
16: James Joyce’s Ulysses also takes place in June.
17: Ranelagh Gardens just outside of London, but also an exclusive suburb of Dublin, and the setting for James Joyce’s Exiles. Lords, cricket; Ascot, horse racing; Ranelagh, horse racing.
18: First mention of her daughter, her only child.
19: Kings George I, II, and III.
20: Despatch box: probably a leather briefcase-like “box” – Hugh’s was a government-issued dispatch box as noted by the seal of the Royal Arms.
21: Throughout the book, Hugh, her childhood friend, is “the admirable Hugh.”
22: Today we call it a barber’s pole. Then it was a derogatory term for any average individual (or worse, an imbecile). Any ordinary piece of sculpture.
23: Obscure reference to the Dreadnaught Hoax?
24: Kindling?
25: Only while reading this in blank verse did I see all these little things such as her thought about Peter being so hard on her.
26: Wow, Peter telling Clarissa she was good for nothing except as a brainless hostess; ironically Clarissa has become that, in her mind, the perfect hostess.
27: A play on “marriage licence”? In this case, is “licence” a permit; licence in “marriage licence” sentencing one to fidelity, whereas “license” as used here means freedom.
28: If Peter Walsh is Leonard Woolf, this had to have been quite painful for Leonard to have read. Are Richard and Peter a composite of Leonard Woolf?
29: Later we find out it is Hyde Park, with her reference to the Serpentine.
30: Another reference to the sea; throughout her works VW has references to water.
31: “This refers apparently, to the “home of Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, Baronness Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906), an indefatigable philanthropist, friend of Charles Dickens, the Duke of Wellington, and a host of other Victorian notables…[At her London home,].a white china cockatoo ‘hung “on a level with the top of a passing omnibus” on a circular perch in the big bay window…Like the Royal Standard at Buckingham Palace, the bird’s purpose was to indicate that its owner was in residence’” (Bradshaw, quoting Diana Orton, Made of Gold).” -- http://fernham.blogspot.com/2006/11/blogging-woolf.html, as of April 6, 2008.
32: Ebb and flow: yet another metaphor of the sea.
33: Her feelings that that everything in the world is interconnected; we are all part of each other and part of nature.
34: The website says Hatchard’s has been a bookseller since 1797, today located at 187 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LE.
35: Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act IV, scene 2.
36: …books in the bookstore window.
37: Exploits of a renowned sporting citizen; first edition, 1838.
38: About a fellow who “sponges” off of English fox-hunting society, 1853.
39: Herbert Henry Asquith, the last Prime Minister of UK to lead a purely
Liberal Party cabinet (1908 – 1916); only Margaret Thatcher remained
longer in office.
40: But that is what hostesses do: they do things “not for themselves, but to make people think this or that.”
41: So autobiographical, wanting to live her life over again. In addition, the following passages emphasize her poor self-esteem, with regard to her looks.
42: VW’s legendary nose led to Nicole Kidman’s prosthetic nose in the movie.
43: Autobiographical. Having children was always an issue for VW.
44: Sees her worth in terms of being married; no longer an “individual.”
45: Did she tell them ahead of time she was planning a party?
46: People tracking tar into the house. Petroleum was being used heavily in Britain in the late 19th century to keep down the dust on roads. In 1901, E. Purnell Hooley, Nottinghamshire, obtained a patent for Tarmac, a mixture of tar and gravel.
47: I believe Grizzle was the real name of one of VW’s dogs.
48: Some reviewers have suggested this is a most appropriate name. It is likely that VW modeled Miss Kilman after her cousin, Dorothea Stephen, who had asked to visit the Woolfs, while she was on leave from her post as a teacher of religion in India. (This might also explain Peter’s time in India rather than Ceylon.) VW forbade Dorothea from visiting the Woolf household. See James King, p. 306.
49: Perhaps G. Adam and Co., florists and fruiterers to HM the King, 42 New Bond Street.
50: Note throughout the novel, the use of color. VW was much influenced by her sister, Vanessa, a painter, as well as her other artist friends. VW also wrote as if she were painting. She was also influenced by the impressionists.
51: Autobiographical. VW enjoyed collecting moths (and butterflies?) as a child.
52: Roman general noted for his bravery. In addition, there could be a connection between Septimus (?) Brooke in George Eliot’s Middlemarch and VW’s Mrs Dalloway. Leslie Stephen, VW’s father, and George Eliot were contemporaries, Leslie being a bit older than the editor whereas George Eliot was younger than the author. (needs to be fact-checked, and possibly edited)
53: Dr Seuss?
54: VW traveled very little outside of England. However, she did make a memorable trip to Italy and to Greece.
55: “He would give her…a piece of bone.” Septimus giving his arm for Rezia to hold; was his arm mangled, injured in the War?
56: Hurlingham Club? An exclusive sports club, originally used for pigeon shooting matches, then polo. Before WWII, it was the headquarters for British polo. The Prince of Wales, later Kind Edward VII (1841 - 1910), was an early patron. The other two references: House of Lords? Ascot House?
57: Circles back to chapter one in which Peter says Clarissa will only succeed as a perfect hostess, who will stand at the top of her staircase.
58: Irony? An Irishwoman’s loyalty to England?
59: The Victoria Memorial unveiled in 1911 in front of the main gains at Buckingham Palace.
60: “Mr Bowley…was sealed with wax…but could be unsealed suddenly…sentimentally…by this sort of thing.” “Sealed with wax” – an idiom for aloof, reserved, reticent?
61: Regent’s Park is located very near Bloomsbury Square, about a mile northwest. Regent’s Park is considered the ‘jewel in the crown”; the Broad Walk provides a breathtaking stroll towards the London Zoo, located in Regent’s Park.
62: One of many examples of the anger VW felt about the way her own bouts of insanity were treated.
63: Autobiographical: VW’s dislike for physicians. This theme will be repeated throughout Mrs Dalloway.
64: VW thought often of suicide and probably talked about it to at least her closest confidants.
65: Sarcasm or irony? Again, how she disliked Dr Holmes.
66: Was Italy for Clarissa, St Ives for VW?
67: References a statue in Regent’s Park of a wealthy Parsee (India) gentleman who gave it as a gift to England in gratitude for the protection of the Parsees under British rule in India. Some have suggested the turban and dress worn by VW in the Dreadnaught Hoax was similar to the turban and dress of this gentleman (statue).
68: Where does this come from? What is the origin of this? [Men must not cut down trees.]
69: Autobiographical. At this point there is no question that Septimus represents VW in her states of temporary insanity. VW documented the time she heard birds speaking to her in Greek.
70: First reference to “Evans,” Septimus’ commanding officer in the War.
71: Historically Leadenhall Street has been the location of Lloyd’s of London and the East India Company. Is this a reference to India and Peter Walsh, and therefore a reference to Ceylon and Leonard Woolf?
72: “That girl…don’t know a thing yet.” Mrs Dempster’s speech pattern?
73: VW probably felt her father Leonard would have preferred sons to daughters.
74: Kentish Town is now part of greater London, located about two miles north of Regent’s Park.
75: As one reads these passages, one can almost imagine a painting. VW is using the printed word as a way to paint a picture. One can imagine a mother pointing out the things she sees in a picture to her toddler when you read the word-pictures VW painted.
76: A major intersection (circus) and historically the main connection between the cities of London and Westminster.
77: Shakespeare, Cymbeline, IV, 2. See notes below.
78: Jean Baptiste Antoine Marcelin (1782 – 1854), a French soldier who served under Napoleon. His memoirs were published in Paris in 1891 (English translation, 1902). From wiki: the memoirs give a picture of the Napoleonic age of warfare with for vividness and romantic interest has never been surpassed.
79: At least one source (http://www.genders.org/g29/g29_amiran.html) suggests that Madge Vaughan, VW’s older cousin, was the model for Sally Seton. In my Commonplace Book 3, referencing Vanessa Bell in Stape’s Viriginia Woolf, Julia’s sister married a Vaughan, whose son, William Vaughan, married Madge Symonds, which would make Madge a cousin (through marriage). However, Sparknotes (http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/woolf/section3.rhtml) says that Madge Symonds was married to “one of Virginia Woolf’s uncles” which doesn’t seem to fit.
80: Is this the first overt reference to a love affair with another woman, and if the model for Sally Seton was Madge Vaughan, was this an admission of such to her family and friends?
81: VW must have adored her parents, being shocked to hear that some parents quarreled!
82: VW’s mother, Julia Stephen, was descended from an attendant of Marie Antoinette.
83: William Morris, 1834 – 1896: English artist, writer, socialist, activist. He was influenced by John Ruskin and met his long-time friends Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, and Philip Webb at Exeter College, Oxford. These friends formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, eschewing the tawdry industrial manufacture of decorative arts and architecture and favored a return to handcraftsmanship, raising artisans to the status of artists.
84: Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 – 1822: English Romantic poet, becoming the idol of the next two or three generations of poets, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was married to Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
85: Interesting phrase, associated with water, and associated with death.
86: Shakespeare, Othello, II, 1. Othello’s speech to his love Desdemona. See notes below.
87: White symbolizing purity; wedding dress.
88: German composer, 1813 – 1883, dying the year after VW was born
89: This line is slightly different in other sources: “Yet, after all, how much she owed to him later.”
90: To see service is to be employed as a servant.
91: Hatfield House, 21 miles north of London, built by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I, 1607 – 1611. The Royal Palace in the West Garden is where Elizabeth 1 spent most of her childhood. In the park, an oak tree marks the place where the young Princess Elizabeth first heard of her accession to the throne. Some associate, therefore, “Hatfield” as where Elizabethan history began.
92: Part of the line from Cymbeline, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” (IV, ii, 258). See also Septimus’s suicide.
93: Leonard Woolf had spent seven years in Ceylon.
94: How interesting, admitting she had not read his letter.
95: Leonard Woolf had a very severe tremor throughout life; most historians think it was neurologic and not emotional or anxiety-based.
96: Some sources have seen a sexual reference in this motion.
97: A “bespoke suit” is a custom-made suit; is a “check suit” one off the racks, or is it the pattern? One can find a photograph of a woman’s check suit (check pattern) from 1914 on the web. It sounds like a common fashion at the turn of the century.
98: Two thoughts come to mind: 1) a reminder that biographies of Leonard and Virginia Woolf often point out how “hard” Leonard was on Virginia; and 2) was Virginia hyper-sensitive about his remarks. Was he truly criticizing her, or was that just how he seemed to come across?
99: Reference to Penelope weaving/unraveling her dress over and over while waiting for the return of her husband, Odysseus.
100: In Mrs Dalloway, VW imagines having married a Conservative rather than a Liberal, as she did in real life.
101: Referring to Bourton, where she spent her adolescence?
102: VW came from a long line of successful writers and the family’s circle was composed of successful writers. VW referred to Leonard Woolf as a “penniless Jew” when she first met him.
103: Men characteristically talk about their loves; is this all men, or just certain men? Insecure men?
104: The full name is “The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn.” Lincoln’s Inn is one of four Inns of the Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. Lincoln’s Inn is thought to be the oldest of the four Inns and can trace its history back to 1422, although its actual origins are even older.
105: At 965 feet above sea level, Leith Hill is the highest point on the North Downs, and is one of two of the highest points in southeast England. The North Downs and the South Downs are two ridges of chalk on the south bank of the River Thames at its mouth.
106: Classical (Greek, Roman) plays are typically three acts; Shakespeare’s plays were all five acts, and I have read somewhere he was responsible for popularizing five act plays. I don’t know if he was the first to introduce five acts. Elizabethan plays, Shakespearian plays, and “five-act plays,” are commonly interchanged. Did VW her life as a Shakespearean tragedy, romance, or comedy?
107: I think I have read in VW’s notes or diaries, his district was “twice as big as Wales.”
108: St Margaret’s is a parish church close by the Westminster Abbey, on the north side. It was founded about the time of the Confessor and is the “official” church of the House of Commons. It is frequently the scene of fashionable weddings, which are rarely held in the Abbey. St Margaret’s bells ring slightly later than Westminster’s.
109: In Westminster, London, Whitehall is he main artery running from Parliament Square, the center of national government, towards Charing Cross, which is often regarded as the center of London. I suppose this would be much like Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.
110: The statue, unveiled in 1907, is located on Whitehall. The Duke of Cambridge (1819 – 1904) was the longest serving head of the British Army.
111: Is Peter’s perception of the state of the men a metaphor for the state of his beloved England?
112: A commercial street in the London Borough of Islington. The street was named after a condiments manufacturing plant opened there in 1825.
113: General Charles George Gordon; statue was erected on Trafalgar Square in 1888. In 1943 it was removed and re-sited on the Victoria Embankment in 1953. General Gordon died at the battle for Khartoum, in the Sudan, 1885.
114: The Haymarket is part of London’s theater district, the West End, and has been a theatrical location at least since the 17th century.
115: VW’s family pointedly questioned whether Leonard was respectable when VW announced their intention to marry.
116: Note the play on words (fishermen and flounder) and the alliteration.
117: Describes a Thrusday night Bloomsbury group.
118: A reference to James Joyce who married his chambermaid. Initially VW did not care for James Joyce; although later, she seemed to temper her opinion.
119: A very common phrase used throughout literature. Google it. I am unable to find a specific, direct connection with this phrase and VW.
120: In her letter to Violet Dickinson saying she was going to marry, she misspelled Leonard’s surname, writing Leonard Wolf.
121: A former royal palace, it is a major tourist attraction. It is where King James I commissioned the King James Version of the Bible. Queen Victoria completed the restoration and opened the palace to the public in 1838. -- Original note. In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway's husband, Richard,
is sometimes referred to as "Wickham" by Peter Walsh (but also by Clarissa herself. This is an
allusion to George Wickham from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a
character known for his charm but lack of integrity. The comparison
highlights Richard's comparatively conventional nature and the social
status-driven aspects of Clarissa's marriage, as opposed to the
passionate connection she might have had with Peter. -- AI, July 7, 2025.
122: VW drowned herself in the River Ouse.
123: VW’s physicians also told Leonard there was nothing wrong with her.
124: Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882; Origin of the Species, 1859.
125: Thrill = vibration. In cardiology, one hears a murmur; one feels the “thrill” or the vibration caused by the same phenomenon that causes the auditory murmur.
126: In 1977, many particle physicists wanted to name a newly discovered quark “Beauty,” to pair it with “truth.” In the end, these two quarks were names “top” and “bottom,” not “truth” and “beauty.” (Source: wiki)
127: VW’s brother, Thoby, died of typhoid fever in Greece in 1906. Her nephew, Julian Bell, died while driving an ambulance in Spain during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Was Evans a composite of Thoby and Julian?
128: Another association with painting.
129: Cosmetics and make-up.
130: Who does this refer to? In this context, one would expect “him” instead of “her.”
131: At that time, in England, it was unlawful for a man to marry his wife’s sister. The list of forbidden marriages in England was drawn up by the Church of England in 1560 and remained unchanged until the 20th century. The 1907 Marriage Act removed this particular law, providing the spouse (wife) was deceased.
132: Is this Peter Walsh thinking this, or is this Clarissa thinking this through Peter Walsh? Or is the narrator saying this? I don’t think there was objective evidence that Clarissa was in love with Peter.
133: Should this have been “excesses” of emotion?
134: From Allerseelen, Strauss and von Gilm; see notes below.
135: Autobiographical. This relates directly to VW’s own education. She was surrounded by educated men and writers, including her father, who refused to send her to university. She remained angry throughout life that she did not get to attend university, not just for the books, but more for the camaraderie, the exchange of ideas, the relationships.
136: May or may not refer to Giambattista Vico (1668 – 1744) whose philosophical history of civilization was contained in his opus, the Scienza Nuova (The New Science). This work was poorly received in his own lifetime but inspired a cadre of famous thinkers and artists including James Joyce, Bertrand Russell. Samuel Beckett, and others. Source: wiki.
137: Muswell Hill is a suburb of north London. This event, a bomb hitting his/her home, is based on a true and personal story for VW.
138: Newhaven is at the mouth of the River Ouse, the river in which VW drowned. Most likely it was a ferry landing from the continent. It is on the channel, directly south of London. Newhaven is about 10 miles (as the crow flies) southeast of Rodmell, the village where VW lived in 1941. It appears the center of Rodmell is about one mile from the Ouse.
139: Autobiographical: VW translated from the Greek, Aeschylus.
140: Interesting thought.
141: Very autobiographical.
142: In Britain, “Harley Street” is synonymous with private medical care where the street is noted for its large number of private dentists and physicians.
143: All of this, so incredibly autobiographical.
144: Does this shed more light on why VW never had children?
145: Reminiscent of lines from Dr Seuss and his Cat in the Hat books.
146: This was also said of the women in Julia Stephen’s family.
147: This is so interesting; this sounds like Peter Walsh thinking, but he is not at this luncheon.
148: Note the inconsistency in capitalizing “war.” Perhaps this was a different war than the “Great War.”
149: Central London, in the city of Westminster.
150: Again, not capitalized, when “war” was capitalized throughout the first portion of Mrs Dalloway.
151: This and other comments shed light on VW’s feelings about Leonard and children.
152: Costermongers: obsolete word. Men who wheeled their wares or produce in a wheelbarrow into a marketplace to sell.
153: Perhaps men involved in renting out items for the day; uniformed men of some sort.
154: Wiki: according to tradition, Horsa was a 5th century warrior and brother of Hengest who took part in the invasion and conquest of Britain, before being occupied by its native Romano-British and Celtic inhabitants. Bede is the first to mention Horsa.
155: That part of Westminster not occupied by the Abbey buildings; it is the large gated quadrangle, closed to public traffic, surrounding a green upon which Westminster School pupils have legal rights to play football.
156: This all sounds disjointed, but these are the topics Clarissa brought up to Richard upon his surprise arrival.
157: This reference to Leonard controlling Virginia is seen throughout biographies of VW.
158: Again, very autobiographical.
159: West of London, in the city of Westminster.
160: The Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers.
161: Did VW wonder if Kitty Maxse yelled out something similar when she fell over the banisters and subsequently died?
162: On the Strand.
163: The Temple Church, built in the 12th century by the Knights Templar.
164: Hull or Hell?
165: A projection on the side or back of a fireplace (or stove) to place things to keep warm.
166: Having said this several times, one can argue VW is being sarcastic.
167: Autobiographical. Her physicians told her the same thing when VW was mentally ill.
168: According to biographies of VW, suicide was considered by mainstream psychiatrists at the time to be a cowardly act; taking her cue from Freud, VW considered suicide a form of communication. This entire medical discussion was condensed by VW in three short sentences.
169: Back to upper case.
170: The main research library at the University of Oxford, second in size only to the British Library.
171: See notes below regarding daylight saving time. Peter Walsh was in India for five years. Parliament rejected William Willett’s proposal in 1909. Therefore Mrs Dalloway takes place during the five-year period around 1909.
172: Most likely backpacks or briefcases used by English school children in which to carry their books. See above.
173: Tokaji, Anglicized name tokay; a famed wine of the Tokaj-Hegyalja region of Hungary.
174: Interesting idiom, “touch and go.” This idiom is often associated with flying, airplanes touching down and then taking off again for pilots practicing. See notes. -- Original note. "Touch and go." Although in the 21st century, we think of this term in aeronautical talk, in fact, at the time of Mrs Dalloway, it would have been a nautical term.
175: A district north of London, in the city of Westminster. Note: the name of the underground tube for St John’s Wood is the only underground tube name that does not contain a letter from the word mackerel.
176: VW was conflicted about her (in)ability to have children, which I believe bothered her to the end of her life.
177: Autobiographically correct, the reference to Marie Antoinette.
178: Sir William Bradshaw. A physician in the story. See SparkNotes. Original note: Is there some sarcasm here? Was he curious to see if the artwork was an original, if it was by a famous person, etc., or was VW suggesting something else?
