“That they’re damnable humbugs,” said Peter, looking at them casually. He made Sally laugh.
But Sir William Bradshaw stopped at the door to look at a picture. He looked in the corner for the engraver’s name. His wife looked too. Sir William Bradshaw was so interested in art.
When one was young, said Peter, one was too much excited to know people. Now that one was old, fifty-two to be precise (Sally was fifty-five, in body, she said, but her heart was like a girl’s of twenty); now that one was mature then, said Peter, one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power of feeling, he said. No, that is true, said Sally. She felt more deeply, more passionately, every year. It increased, he said, alas, perhaps, but one should be glad of it—it went on increasing in his experience. There was someone in India. He would like to tell Sally about her. He would like Sally to know her. She was married, he said. She had two small children. They must all come to Manchester, said Sally—he must promise before they left.
“There’s Elizabeth,” he said, “she feels not half what we feel, not yet.” “But,” said Sally, watching Elizabeth go to her father, “one can see they are devoted to each other.” She could feel it by the way Elizabeth went to her father.
For her father had been looking at her, as he stood talking to the Bradshaws, and he had thought to himself who is that lovely girl? And suddenly he realised that it was his Elizabeth, and he had not recognised her, she looked so lovely in her pink frock! Elizabeth had felt him looking at her as she talked to Willie Titcomb. So she went to him and they stood together, now that the party was almost over, looking at the people going, and the rooms getting emptier and emptier, with things scattered on the floor. Even Ellie Henderson was going, nearly last of all, though no one had spoken to her, but she had wanted to see everything, to tell Edith. And Richard and Elizabeth were rather glad it was over, but Richard was proud of his daughter. And he had not meant to tell her, but he could not help telling her. He had looked at her, he said, and he had wondered, who is that lovely girl? and it was his daughter! That did make her happy. But her poor dog was howling.
“Richard has improved. You are right,” said Sally. “I shall go and talk to him. I shall say goodnight. What does the brain matter,” said Lady Rosseter, getting up, “compared with the heart?”
“I will come,” said Peter, but he sat on for a moment. What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.
Colophon
Mrs. Dalloway
was published in 1925 by
Virginia Woolf.
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Portrait of a Woman,
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