Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (Audiobook)

Clipper audio presents an unabridged

recording of Mrs delaway by Virginia

wolf narrated by Virginia

Lehman this book is copyrighted 1953 by

Leonard wolf this recording is

copyrighted 2002 by recorded

books like James Joyce's ulyses which

Virginia wolf read with great reluctance

her novel Mrs dalay attempts to convey

the intimate particulars of a single

human consciousness over the course of

one

day as Clarissa delaway prepares her

house for a small party her mind dips in

and out of her life's course grinding

into the realities of its cruler

occasions war and loss before bursting

aresh with a sudden recall of some

beautiful kindness or love while Smiles

flicker in the brain and Fade Out at the

memories of old jokes and

Friends communication is Health one of

the characters thinks and what Virginia

wolf tried to communicate for the

wholeness of her Read's perception was

the nature of the Mind

entire one of the major literary figures

of the 20th century Virginia wolf

applied her experimental techniques to

the rendering of human consciousness in

such groundbreaking works as to the

lighthouse Jacob's room and the

waves when asked about her artistic

intentions wolf wrote I have to create

the whole thing aresh for myself each

time probably all writers are in the

same boat it is the penalty we pay for

breaking with tradition and the Solitude

makes the writing more exciting though

the being read less

so one ought to sink to the Bottom of

the Sea probably and live alone with

one's

words Virginia wolf committed suicide by

drowning in

1941 and now Mrs

dooway Mrs delaway said she would buy

the flowers herself for Lucy had her

work cut out for her the doors would be

taken off their hinges rumel Meyer's men

were coming and then thought thought

Clarissa delay what a morning fresh as

if issued to children on a beach what a

lck 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 Borton 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 wave the kiss of a

wave chill and sharp and yet for a girl

of 18 as she then was solemn feeling as

she did standing there at the open

window that something awful was about to

happen 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 cauliflower

was that it he must have said it at

breakfast one morning when she had gone

out onto the

Terrace Peter Walsh he would be back

from India one of these days June or

July 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

curb waiting for dirt's van to pass a

Charming woman scrope pervis thought her

knowing her as one does 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 5050 and

grown very white since her illness there

she perched never seeing him waiting to

cross very

upright for having lived in Westminster

how many years now over 20 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 there out it boomed first a

warning musical then the hour

irrevocable the leaden circles dissolved

in the

air such fools we are she thought

Crossing Victoria Street for heaven Only

Knows Why one loves it so how one sees

it so making it up building it round one

tumbling it creating it every moment

aresh but the various 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

and trudge in the Bellow and the Uproar

the carriages Motorcars omnibuses Vans

sandwich men shuffling and Swinging

brass bands Barrel organs in the Triumph

and the jingle and the strange High

singing of some airplane overhead was

what she loved life London this moment

of

June for it was the middle of June the

war was over except for someone like Mrs

Foxcroft at the embassy last night

eating her heart out because that nice

boy was killed and now the old Mana

house must go to a cousin or lady bebra

who opened a bizarre they said with the

telegram in her hand John her favorite

killed but it was over thank heaven over

it was June 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 ascat randler and all

the rest of it wrapped in the soft mesh

of the grave Blue Morning air which as

the day wore on would unwind them and

set down on their lawns and pitches The

Bouncing ponies whose four feet 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

Motorcars on errands of mystery and the

shopkeepers were fidgeting in their

windows with their paste and diamonds

their lovely old sea green broches in

18th century settings to tempt Americans

but one must economize not buy things

rashly for

Elizabeth and she too loving it as she

did with an absurd and faithful passion

being part of it since her people were

courtiers once in the time of the

Georges 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

wadling and who should be coming along

with his back against the government

buildings most appropriately carrying a

dispatch box stamped with the Royal Arms

who but Hugh witb her old friend Hugh

the admirable

Hugh 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 delay really it's better than

walking in the

country they had just come up

unfortunately to see doctors other

people came to see pictures go to the

Opera take their daughters out the wit

breeds came to see doctors

times without number Clarissa had

visited Evelyn wibr in a nursing home

was Evelyn ill again Evelyn was a good

deal out of sorts said Hugh intimating

by a kind of pout or swell of his very

well covered manly extremely handsome

perfectly upholstered body he was almost

too 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 dooway 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 18 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 she had to

take one of Jim's boys she always felt a

little skimpy beside Hugh School girlish

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 Borton 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 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 pimo gave suck

to their young messages were passing

from the fleet to the

admiralty Arlington Street and picad

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 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

Vagner Pope's poetry people's characters

eternally and the defects of her own

soul 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 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 license 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 he had married a woman

met on the boat going to India never

should she forget all

that cold heartless approved he called

her never could she understand how he

cared but those Indian women did

presumably silly pretty flimsy nink and

poops 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 it made her angry

still she had reached the park Gates she

stood for a moment looking at the

omnibuses in

Picadilly she would not say of anyone in

the world now that they were this or

were that she felt very young at the

same time unspeakably aged she sliced

like a knife through everything at the

same time was out outside looking on she

had a Perpetual sense as she watched the

taxi cabs of being out out far out to

seea 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 she had

got through life on the few Twigs of

knowledge frine Daniels gave them she

couldn't 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 cats or she

purred devire house bath house the house

with the China coatu she'd seen them all

lit up once and remembered Sylvia Fred

Sally Satan such hosts of people and

dancing all night and the wagons

plotting past to Market and driving home

across the park she remembered once

throwing a shilling into the

serpentine but everyone remembered 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 Bon 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 of London on the ebb and flow

of things here there she survived Peter

survived lived in each other she being

part she was positive of the trees at

home of the house 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 but what was she dreaming as she

looked into hatchards shop window 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 Of The Sun

nor the Furious Winters

rages this late age of the world's

experience had bre 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 beex opening

the

bizaar there were joro's jaunts and

jollities there were soapy sponge and

Mrs AIS Memoirs and big game shooting in

Nigeria all all spread open ever so many

books there were but none that seemed

exactly right to take to Evelyn wibr 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

came in Clarissa thought and turned and

walked back towards Bond Street annoyed

because it was silly to 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 oh if she could have had her life

over again she thought stepping onto the

pavement could have looked even

differently she would have been in the

first place dark like lady beex with a

skin of crumpled leather and beautiful

eyes she would have been like lady bebra

slow and stately rather large interested

in politics like a man man with a

country house very dignified very

sincere instead of which she had a

narrow peas stick figure a ridiculous

little face beaked like a birds 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

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 but only

this astonishing and rather solemn

progress with the rest of them up Bond

Street this being Mrs dalway not even

Clarissa anymore this being Mrs Richard

delway Bon Street fascinated her Bon

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 50

years a few pearls salmon on an ice

block that is all she said looking at

the

fishmongers 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 either of them not a straw she

thought going on up Bon Street to a shop

where they kept flowers for her when she

gave a

party Elizabeth really cared for her dog

most of all the whole house this morning

smelled of tar still better poor Grizzle

than Miss kilman better distemper and

tar and all the rest of it than sitting

MW 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 came to lunch she

didn't care a bit being her experience

that the religious ecstasy made people

callous so did causes dull 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

Macintosh 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 undoubtedly

had gathered into itself a great deal

that was not Miss kilman had become one

of those specters with which one battles

in the night one of those specters who

stand arride us and suck up half our

lifeblood 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 and

cumbered 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

selflove this

hatred nonsense

nonsense she cried to herself pushing

through the swing doors of mures the

florists she Advanced light tall very

upright to be greeted At Once by

button-free were flowers delphiniums

sweet peas Bunches of lilac and

carnations masses of carnations there

were Ros roses there were

irises ah yes so she breathed in the

earthy Garden sweet smell as she stood

talking to miss Pim 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 stre s uproar the

delicious scent the Exquisite

coolness and then opening her eyes how

fresh like frilled linen cleaned 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 and

muslin frocks came 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 lies was over and it was the moment

between 6 and 7 when every flower roses

carnations irises lilac

glows white violet red deep orange every

flower seems to burn by itself soft ly

purely in the misty beds and how she

loved the gray white moths spinning in

and out over the Jerry pie over the

evening

primroses and as she began to go with

Miss Pim from jar to jar

choosing nonsense nonsense she said to

herself more and more gently as if this

beauty this scent this color and Miss

Pim 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 Motorcars said Miss

Pim going to the window to look and

coming back and smiling apologetically

with her hands full of sweet peas as if

those Motorcars those tires of Motorcars

were all her fault

the violent explosion which made Mrs

delaway jump and Miss Pim go to the

window and apologize came from a motorc

car which had drawn to the side of the

pavement precisely opposite maly's shop

window passes by who of course stopped

and stared had just time to see a face

of the greatest importance against the

dove gray upholstery before a male hand

drew the blind and there was nothing to

be seen except a square of Dove

gray yet rumors were at once in

circulation from the middle of Bon

Street to Oxford 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 the

Queens the prime ministers whose face

was it nobody

knew Edgar J watkiss with his roll of

lead piping around his arm said audibly

humorously of course the prime

minister's

car Septimus Warren Smith who found

himself unable to pass heard

him septus Warren Smith aged about 30

pale-faced beak noosed wearing brown

shoes and a Shabby Overcoat with hazel

eyes which had that look of apprehension

in them which makes complete strange is

apprehensive too the world has raised

its whip where will it

descend everything had come to a

standstill the throb of the motor engine

sounded like a pulse irregularly

drumming through an entire body the sun

became extraordinarily hot because the

Motorcar had stopped outside murry's

shop window old ladies on the tops of

omnibuses spread their black parasoles

here a green here a red parasol opened

with a little pop Mrs delaway coming to

the window with her arms full of sweet

peas looked out with her little pink

face pursed in

inquiry everyone looked at the motorc

car Septimus looked Boys on bicycles

sprang off traffic accumulated and there

the motorc car stood with drawn blinds

and upon them mercurious pattern like a

tree septus thought and this gradual

drawing together of everything to one

center 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 who am blocking the way

he thought was he not being looked at

and pointed at was he not waited there

rooted to the pavement for a purpose but

for what

purpose let us go on Septimus said his

wife a little woman with large eyes and

a sow pointed face an Italian

girl but Lucretia herself couldn't help

looking at the motorc 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 onto the Box come

on said LC

but her husband for they had been

married for five years now jumped

started and said all right angrily as if

she had interrupted

him people must notice people must

see people she thought looking at the

crowd staring at the Motorcar the

English people with their children and

their horses and their clothes which she

admired in a way but they were people

pull 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

Butcher 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 24 without

friends in England who had left Italy

for his sake a piece of bone

the motorc car with its blinds drawn and

an air of inscrutable Reserve proceeded

towards Picadilly still gazed at still

ruffling the faces on both sides of the

street with the same dark breath of

veneration whether for Queen Prince 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 hands

breath 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 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 stopping of

innumerable decayed

teeth the face in the Motorcar will then

be

known it's probably the queen thought

Mrs delaway coming out of maly'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 footpace with its blinds

drawn the queen going to some Hospital

the queen opening some bizaar thought

Clarissa the Crush Was terrific for the

time of day Lords aset hurlingham what

was it she wondered for the street was

blocked the British middle classes

sitting sideways on the tops of

omnibuses with parcels and umbrell 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 herself 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

DI dis inscribed with a name the Queens

the Prince of Wales the prime

ministers which by force of its own

luster burnt its way through Clarissa

saw the car diminishing disappearing to

blaze among candle alas glittering Stars

breasts stiff with oak leaves Hugh witb

and all his colleagues the gentleman of

England that night in Buckingham

Palace and Clarissa too gave gave a

party she stiffened a little so she

would stand at the top of her

stairs the car had gone but it had left

a slight Ripple which flowed through

glove shops and hat shops and Tailor's

shops on both sides of Bond Street for

30 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 gray ladies stopped when the

sentence was finished something had

happened something so trifling in single

instances that no mathematical

instrument though capable of

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

tailor 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 underlinen

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 Picadilly the

car turned down St james' 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 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

delaway at once they stood even

straighter and removed their hands and

seemed ready to attend their Sovereign

if need be to the Cannon's mouth as

their ancestors had done before

them the white busts and the little

tables in the background covered with

copies of the Tattler and siphons of

soda water seemed to approve seemed to

indicate at the flowing corn and the

manor houses 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 sha mul 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'

Street out of sheer light-heartedness

and contempt of poverty had she not seen

the Constable's eye upon her

discouraging an old Irish woman's

loyalty the sentes at St James's saluted

Queen Alexandra's policeman

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 billowing on her Mound

admired her shelves of running water her

geraniums singled out from the Motorcars

in the mile first this one 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 rumor

accumulate in their veins and thrill the

nerves in their thighs at the thought of

royalty looking at them the queen bowing

the prince saluting at the thought of

the Heavenly life divinely bestowed upon

Kings of the equiries and deep

courtesies 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

pimo but keeping her eyes on the Mal

while Emily coats 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 abedine Terrier by then without

occupation the crowd

increased little Mr bowy who had rooms

in the Albany and was sealed with wax

over the deeper sources of life but

could be unsealed suddenly

inappropriately sentimentally by this

sort of thing poor women waiting to see

the queen go past poor women nice little

children orphans widows the war tutat

actually had tears in his eyes a breeze

FL haunting ever so warmly down the mile

through the thin trees past the bronze

Heroes lifted some flag flying in the

British breast of Mr bowy and he raised

his hat as the car turned into the mile

and held it high as the car approached

and let the poor mothers of pimo press

close to him and stood very upright the

car came

on suddenly Mrs coats looked up into the

sky the s sound of an airplane 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 airlane 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 moment did they lie still

then they moved and melted and were

rubbed out up in the sky and the

airplane shot further away and again in

a fresh space of Sky began writing a k

an e a why

perhaps

glao said Mrs coats in a strained a

stricken voice gazing straight up and

her baby lying stiff and white In Her

Arms gazed straight

up

Creo murmured Mrs Bletchley like a Sleep

Walker with his hat held out perfectly

still in his hand Mr bowy gazed straight

up all down the m now 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

leading then another and in this

extraordinary silence and peace in this

palor in this

Purity Bells struck 11 times the sound

fading up there among the

girls the airoplane 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 bowy 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 had 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 a tunnel the airlane rushed

out of the clouds again the sound boring

into the ears of all people in the m in

the Green Park in Picadilly in Regent

Street in Regent 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 lucrecia Warren Smith sitting by

her husband's side on a seat in Regent

Park in the broadwalk looked up 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

forever for looking merely with beauty

more Beauty

tears ran down his

cheeks it was toffee they were

advertising toffee a nurse maid told

Ria together they began to spell t o

f

k r said the nursaid and Septimus heard

her say KR close to his ear deeply

Softly like a mellow organ but with a

roughness in her voice like a

grasshoppers 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 Ria put her hand with a

tremendous weight on his knee so that he

was weighted down transfixed or the

excitement of the elm trees rising and

falling rising and falling with all

their leaves a light and the color

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 fibers 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 and 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 a horn sounded

all taken together meant the birth of a

new

religion Septimus said Ria he started

violently people must

notice I'm 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 far rather would she that he were

dead she could not sit beside him when

he stared so and didn't 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 SE 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 but Septimus

had fought he 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 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 Italy and the white houses

and the room where her sister 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 G ens

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 color 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 re of the relief which Dawn

brings when washing the walls white and

gray spotting each window pane lifting

the mist from the fields showing the red

brown cows peacefully 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 Park staring at

the Indian and his cross 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 shot 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 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 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 what are you saying said Ria

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 pink 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 around 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 ofdo game the very game came

for her

husband look she

repeated look the Unseen bad 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 covet a snow blanket smitten only

by the Sun forever unwasted suffering

forever the scapegoat the Eternal

sufferer but he didn't 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 Park Tube Station

could they tell her the way to Regent

Park Tube Station Maisy Johnson wanted

to know she was only up from Edinburgh

two days

ago not this way over there Ria

exclaimed waving her aside lest she

should see

Septimus both seemed queer Maisy Johnson

thought everything seemed very queer in

London for the first time come to take

up a post at her uncle's in Leon Hall

Street and now walking through Regent

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 Park on a fine

Summer's morning 50 years ago for she

was only 19 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

hand and the man he seemed awfully odd

quarreling perhaps parting forever

perhaps something was up she knew and

now all these people before she returned

to the broadwalk 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 Maisy Johnson as she joined

that gently trudging vaguely gazing

Breeze kissed company squirrels perching

and pening 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 Maisy 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 Park

didn't know a thing yet and really it

seemed to her better to be a little

Stout a little slack a little moderate

and one's

expectations Percy drank well better to

have a son thought Mrs Dempster she had

had a hard time of it and couldn't help

smiling at a girl like that you'll get

married if you're pretty enough thought

Mrs Dempster 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 Maisy 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 myar for really what with eating

drinking and mating 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 toown but

she implored pity pity for the loss of

roses pity she asked of Maisy Johnson

standing by the hin

beds ah but that

airplane hadn't Mrs Dempster always

longed to see foreign parts she had a

nephew a missionary it soared and shot

she always went on the sea at marget not

outside 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 fell

aboard of it Mrs Dempster wagered and

away and away it went fast and fading

away and Away the airplane shot Soaring

Over Greenwich and all the MS over the

little island of gray churches St Paul's

and the rest till on either side of

London Fields spread out and dark brown

Woods where adventurous thrushes hopping

boldly glancing quickly snatched the

snail and tapped him on a stone once

twice

Thrice away and Away the airoplane 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 airplane

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 Bal 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 altar a cross the symbol of

something which has soared Beyond

seeking and questing and knocking of

words together and has become all Spirit

disembodied

ghostly why not enter in he thought and

while he hesitated

out flew the airlane over Ludgate

circus it was strange it was still not a

sound was to be heard above the traffic

unguided it seemed spared 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 looping writing a t

an o o and

F this ends dis one Mrs dooway disk

two what are they looking at said

Clarissa delaway to the maid who opened

her

door the Hall of the house was cool as a

vault Mrs delaway raised her hand to her

eyes and as the maid shut the door too

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 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 dooway ma'am Clarissa read on the

telephone pad lady brutin wishes to know

if Mr dooway will lunch with her

today Mr delaway ma'am told me to tell

you he would be lunching

out dear said Clarissa and Lucy shared

as she meant her two 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 delay's parasol

handled it like a sacred weapon which a

goddess having acquitted herself

honorably in the field of battle sheds

and placed it in the umbrella

stand fear no more said Clarissa fear no

more The Heat Of The Sun for the shock

of Lady brutin asking Richard to lunch

without her made the moment in which she

had stood shiver as a plant on the

riverbed feels the shock of a passing AE

and shivers so she rocked so she

shivered ment brutin 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 Bruin'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 colors 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 she put the pad on the hall

table she began to go slowly upstairs

with her hand on the banisters 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 glow 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 brutin whose

lunch parties were said to be

extraordinarily amusing had not asked

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 lolium 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 pin cushion 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 had read deep in Baron maro's

Memoirs 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 clevedon

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 together 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

soars 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 they contrasted as she laid her hat

down the bed and Baron marau 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

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

Satan her relation in the old days with

Sally Satan had not that after all been

love she sat on the floor that was her

first impression of Sally she sat on the

floor with her arms around her knees

smoking a

cigarette where could it have been the

Mannings the kinlock Joneses at some

party where she couldn't 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 didn't get on how that

shocked her that one's parents should

quarrel but all that that evening she

couldn't 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 Maran

onette had his head cut off left a ruby

ring perhaps that summer she came to

stay at Borton 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 quarrel at home she

literally hadn't a penny that night when

she came to them had porned a brooch to

come down she had rushed off in a

passion this 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 Borton 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 carves were born

but aunt Helena never liked discussion

of anything when Sally gave her William

Morris it had to be wrapped in brow

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 Shell by the

hour Sally's power was amazing her gift

her

personality there was her way with

flowers for instance at Borton they

always had stiff little vases all the

way down the table Sally went out picked

Holly Hawks dalas all sorts of flowers

that had never been seen together cut

their heads off 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 wasn't 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

presentent 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 around

the parpet on the Terrace smoked

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 hand and saying aloud she is beneath

this roof she is beneath this

roof no the words meant absolutely

nothing to her now she couldn't 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

hair pins 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 it were

now to be most

happy that was her feeling ael's feeling

and she felt it she was convinced as

strongly as Shakespeare meant aell to

feel it all because she was coming down

to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally

Satan

she was wearing pink gws was that

possible she seemed anyhow all light

glowing like some bird or airball 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 Elena

just wandered off after dinner Papa read

the paper Peter Walsh might have been

there and Old Miss Cummings Joseph bitof

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 brahs

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 s 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 onto the Terrace and walked up and

down Peter Walsh and Joseph britop went

on about Vagner she and Sally fell a

little

behind then came the most Exquisite

moment of her whole life

passing a stone n 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 stargazing 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 she 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 after all how much she

owed to him

later 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 civilized

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 52nd year months 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

moment 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 aresh 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 Carissa dooway

of herself

self 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 herself pointed

dotlike

definite that was herself when some

effort some call on her to be herself

drew the parts together she alone knew

how different how incompatible and

composed so for the world only into one

Center 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

vanity

suspicions like this of lady brutin 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'd felt it give the

Embassy party at the top among the

folds by artificial light the green

Shawn but lost its color 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 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 mantlepiece

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

lovliest Mistress of silver of linen of

China for the Sun the the silver doors

off their hinges Rumple Meyer'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

cerum prying into the glass she was Lady

Angela attending Princess Mary when in

came Mrs

dooway oh Lucy she said the silver does

looked

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 10 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 shily turning a little pink

couldn't she help to mend that

dress but said Mrs delaway she had

enough on her hands already quite enough

of her own to do without

that but thank you Lucy oh thank you

said Mrs delaway 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 favorite dress one

of Sally Parker's the last Almost she

ever made alas for Sally had now retired

living at eing and If Ever I have a

moment thought Clarissa but never would

she have a moment anymore I shall go and

see her at eing 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 at

Buckingham Palace she had warned them at

Hatfield at Buckingham

Palace quiet descended on her calm

content as her needle drawing the silk

smoothly to its gentle paes collected

the green folds together and attached

them very lightly to the

belt so on a summer's day waves collect

overbalance and fall collect and fall

and the whole world seems to be saying

that is all more and more ponderously

until even the heart in the body which

lies in the sun on the beach says too

that is

all fear no more says the heart fear no

more says the heart committing its

burden to some sea which sigh

collectively for all sorrows and renews

begins collects lets fall and the body

alone listens to the passing bee the

wave breaking the dog barking far away

barking and

barking Heavens the front doorbell

exclaimed Clarissa staying her needle

roused she

listened Mrs delaway 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 5 years in India

Clarissa will see

me who can what can asked Mrs delaway

thinking it was outrageous to be

interrupted at 11:00 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 couldn't 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 morning she

had not read his

letter and how are you said Peter Walsh

positively trembling taking both her

hands kissing both her

hands she's grown older he thought

sitting

down I Shan 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 exactly the same thought Clarissa

the same queer look the same check suit

a little out of the straight his face is

a little thinner drier 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 pen knife towards her green

dress he's very well dressed thought

Clarissa yet he always criticizes

me 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 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 like the admirable

Richard so it is so it is is he thought

shutting his 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 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 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

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

Borton they did he said and he

remembered breakfasting alone very

awkwardly with her father who had died

and he'd not written to Clarissa but he

had never got on well with old Parry

that querulous weak kned old man

Clarissa's father justtin Paris

I often wish I'd got on better with your

father he said but he never liked anyone

who are 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

light from the sunken day I was more

unhappy than I've ever been since he

thought and as if in truth he was

sitting there on the Terrace he edged a

little towards Clarissa put his hand out

raised it let it

fall there above them it hung that Moon

she too seemed to be sitting with him on

the Terrace in the

[Music]

Moonlight Herbert has it now she said I

never go there now she

said 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 now

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 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 fluted

away as a bird touches a branch and

Rises and flutters

away quite simply she wiped her

eyes yes said Peter yes yes yes he said

as if she Drew up to the Sur 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 50

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 delaway sense 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 30 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 herself

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 pour 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 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 dry to Clarissa delay 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

forever rides down the hosts oppose 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 color

made her look very young very pink very

brigh 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 the statue must be brought

from its height and set down between

them oh 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 gray 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 lifelong

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 in the

Indian army 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 messes

Hooper and greatly of Lincoln's Inn they

were going to do it he said and he

actually paired 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 dooway 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 lent 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 pamper 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 lighthearted all in a clap it

came over

her if I had married him

this gayety 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 one once on leth Hill she

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 brutin it came

back to her he has left me I am alone

forever 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 bandana 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 he were

starting directly upon some great voyage

and then next moment it was as if the

five acts of a play that had been very

exciting and moving were now over and

she had lived a lifetime in them and had

run away way 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 theater 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

Borton 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 do you do said Elizabeth

coming

forward the sound of Big Ben striking

the half hour stuck out between them

with extraordinary Vigor as if a young

man strong indifferent inconsiderate

were swinging dumbbells this way and

that hello 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 onto the landing my

party tonight 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

remember my party remember my party said

Peter Walsh as he stepped down the

street speaking to himself rhythmically

in time with a 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

Clarissa's parties why did she give

these parties he thought not that he

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 Motorcar manufacturer in

Victoria Street all India lay behind him

Plains mountains epidemics of Cera a

district twice as big big as Ireland

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 Motorcars capable of doing how

many miles on how many gallons for he

had a turn for mechanics had invented a

plow 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 around

him the half hour still early only half

past 11

still for he 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 like 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 halfast 11 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 11 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 delight at

rest like Clarissa herself thought Peter

Walsh coming down the stairs 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 other and had

left like a bee with honey 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's

been ill and the sound expressed Langer

and

suffering it was her heart he remembered

and the sudden life loudness of the

final stroke told for death that

surprised in the midst of Life Clarissa

falling where she stood in her drawing

room no no he cried she's not dead I am

not old he cried and marched up White

Hall 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 Delow the wit breeds and

their set he cared not a straw though it

was true he would have some time 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 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 30 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 it a rustling regular thudding

sound which as it overtook him drummed

his thoughts strict in Step Up whiteall

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 didn't look robust

they were weedy for the most part boys

of 16 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 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 White Hall

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 IR

reticences had been 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 havlock 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 in the 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

Gord Gordon whom as a boy he had

worshiped Gordon standing Lonely with

one leg raised and his arms crossed poor

Gordon he

thought 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 halfast

11 in Trafalga 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 marsh and three great emotions bold

over

him understanding a vast

philanthropy and finally as if the

result of the others an irrepressible

Exquisite Delight as if inside his brain

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 hadn't 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

Trafalga Square in the direction of the

Hay Market came a young woman who as she

passed Gordon 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 hollowed

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 wor walked past

D shop in coxer Street 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 trafala Square burning again

in his eyes and making her lips

red but she waited at the curbstone

there was a dignity about her she was

not worldly like Clarissa not rich like

Clarissa was she he wondered as she

moved

respectable witty with a lizard's

flickering tongue he thought for one

must invent one 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

color 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 damn

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 wascs he was a

Buccaneer on and on she went across

Picadilly and up Regent Street ahead of

him her cloak her gloves loves her

shoulders combining with the fringes and

the laces and the feather Bowers in the

windows to make the spirit of finery and

Whimsy which dwindled out of the shops

onto 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 now she

slackened opened her bag and with one

look in his Direction but not at him one

look that bad farewell summed up the

whole situation and dismissed it

triumphantly forever 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 es 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