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Section twenty three. He began very
cautiously to open his eyes to see whether

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a gramophone was really there. But
real things, real things were too exciting.

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He must be cautious, he would
not go mad. First he looked

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at the fashion papers on the lower
shelf, then gradually at the grandphone with

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the green trumpet. Nothing could be
more exact, and so, gathering courage,

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he looked at the sideboard, the
plate of bananas, the engraving of

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Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort,
at the mantelpiece with the jar of roses.

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None of these things moved, all
were still, All were real.

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She is a woman with a spiteful
tongue, said Ruscha. What does mister

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Peters do, Septimus asked, Ah, said RuSHA, trying to remember,

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she thought missus Filmer had said that
he traveled for some company. Just now

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he is in Hull, she said, just now. She said that with

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her Italian accent, she said that
to herself. He shaded his eyes so

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that he might see only a little
of her face at a time, first

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the chin, then the nose,
then the forehead, in case it were

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deformed or had some terrible mark on
it. But no there. She was

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perfectly natural, sewing with the pursed
lips that women have, the set the

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melancholy expression when sewing. But there
was nothing terrible about it, he assured

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himself, looking a second time a
third time at her face, her hands,

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for what was frightening or disgusting in
her? As she sat there in

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broad daylight sewing, Missus Peters had
a spiteful tongue. Mister Peters was in

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Hull, Why then rage and prophesy? Why flies scourged and outcast? Why

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be made to tremble and sob by
the clouds? Why seek truths and deliver

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messages? When Rieshia sat sticking pins
into the front of her dress, and

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mister Peters was in Hull, miracles, revelations, agonies, loneliness, falling

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through the sea, down down into
the flames, all were burnt out.

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For he had a sense as he
watched Rieshia trimming the straw hat Missus Peters

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of a coverlet of flowers. It's
too small for Missus Peters, said Septimus,

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for the first time for days.
He was speaking as he used to

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do. Of course, it was
absurdly small, she said, But Missus

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Peters had chosen it. He took
it out of her hands. He said

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it was an organ grind as monkey's
hat. How it rejoiced her that not

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for weeks had they laughed like this
together, poking fun privately like married people.

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What she meant was that if Missus
Filmer had come in, or Missus

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Peters or anybody, they would not
have understood what she and Septimus were laughing

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at. There, she said,
pinning a rose to one side of the

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hat. Never had she felt so
happy, never in her life. But

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that was still more ridiculous, Septimus
said. Now the poor woman looked like

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a pig at affair. Nobody ever
made her laugh as Septimus did. What

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had she got in her workbox?
She had ribbons and beads, tassels,

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artificial flowers. She tumbled them out
on the table. He began putting odd

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collars together, For though he had
no fingers, could not even do up

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a parcel, he had a wonderful
eye, and often he was right,

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sometimes absurd, of course, but
sometimes wonderfully right. She shall have a

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beautiful hat, he murmured, taking
up this and that. Risha kneeling by

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his side, looking over his shoulder. Now it was finished, that is

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to say, the design. She
must stitch it together. But she must

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be very, very careful, he
said, to keep it just as he

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had made it. So she sewed. When she sewed, he thought,

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she made a sound like a kettle
on the hob, bubbling, murmuring,

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always busy, her strong, little
pointed fingers, pinching and poking, her

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needle flashing straight. The sun might
go in and out on the tassels on

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the wallpaper. But he would wait, he thought, stretching out his feet,

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looking at his ringed sock at the
end of the sofa. He would

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wait in this warm place, the
pocket of still air which one comes on

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at the edge of a wood,
sometimes in the evening, when because of

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a fall in the ground or some
arrangement of the trees. One must be

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scientific above all, scientific. Warmth
lingers, and the air buffets the cheek

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like the wing of a bird.
There, it is, said Riescha,

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twirling missus Peter's hat on the tips
of her fingers. That'll do for the

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moment. Later, her sentence bubbled
away, drip drip, drip, like

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a contented tap left drying. It
was wonderful. Never had he done anything

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which made him feel so proud.
It was so real, it was so

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substantial, Missus Peter's hat. Just
look at it, he said, Yes,

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it would always make her happy to
see that hat. He had become

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himself. Then he had laughed,
Then they had been alone together. Always

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she would like that hat. He
told her to try it on. But

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I must look so queer, she
cried, running over to the glass and

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looking first this side, then that. Then she snatched it off again,

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for there was a tap at the
door. Could it be Sir William Bradshaw,

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Had he sent all red? No, it was only the small girl

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with the evening paper. What always
happened, then happened, what happened every

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night of their lives. The small
girl sucked her thumb at the door.

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Riescha went down on her knees.
Recha cooed and kissed. Riesha got a

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bag of sweets out of the table
drawer. For so it always happened,

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first one thing, then another.
So she built it up, first one

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thing and then another, dancing,
skipping round and round the room they went.

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He took the paper. Surrey was
all out, he read, there

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was a heat wave. Riesha repeated, Surrey was all out. There was

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a heat wave, making it part
of the game. She was playing with

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Missus Filmer's grandchild, both of them
laughing, chattering at the same time at

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their game. He was very tired, he was very happy. He would

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sleep. He shut his eyes,
but directly he saw nothing. The sounds

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of the game became fainter and stranger, and sounded like the cries of people

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seeking and not finding, and passing
further and further away. They had lost

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him. He started up in terror. What did he see? The plate

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of bananas on the sideboard. Nobody
was there. Risha had taken the child

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to its mother. It was bedtime. That was it. To be alone

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forever? That was the doom pronounced
in Milan when he came into the room

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and saw them cutting out buckram shapes
with their scissors. To be alone forever.

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He was alone with the sideboard and
the bananas. He was alone,

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exposed on this black eminence stretched out, But not on a hilltop, not

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on a crag, on Missus Filmer's
sitting room sofa. As for the visions,

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the faces, the voices of the
dead, where were they? There

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was a screen in front of him
with black bullrushes and blue swallows. Where

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he had once seen mountains, where
he had seen faces, where he had

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seen beauty. There was a screen, Evans, he cried, There was

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no answer. A mouse had squeaked, or a curtain rustled. Those were

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the voices of the dead. The
screen, the coal scuttle, the sideboard

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to him. Let him then face
the screen, the coal scuttle, and

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the sideboard. But Risha burst into
the room, chattering some letter had come.

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Everybody's plans were changed. Missus Filmore
would not be able to go to

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Brighton after all. There was no
time to let Missus Williams know. And

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really, Resha thought it very,
very annoying. When she caught sight of

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the hat and thought perhaps she might
just make a little her voice died out

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in contented melody. Ah damn,
she cried, It was a joke of

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theirs, her swearing the needle had
broken hat child Brighton needle. She built

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it up, first one thing,
then another. She built it up,

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sewing. She wanted him to say
whether by moving the rose she had improved

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the hat. She sat on the
end of the sofa. They were perfectly

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happy now, she said, suddenly, putting the hat down, for she

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could say anything to him now she
could say whatever came into her head.

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That was almost the first thing she
had felt about him that night in the

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cab when he had come in with
his English friends. He had come in

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rather shyly, looking round him,
and his hat had fallen when he hung

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it up. That she could remember, she knew he was English, though

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not one of the large englishmen her
sister admired for he was always thin,

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but he had a beautiful fresh color, and with his big nose, his

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bright eyes, his way of sitting
a little hunched made her think she had

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often told him of a young hawk. That first evening she saw him when

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they were playing dominoes, and he
had come in of a young hawk.

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But with her he was always very
gentle. She had never seen him wild

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or drunk, only suffering sometimes through
this terrible war. But even so when

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she came in he would put it
all away, anything in the whole world,

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any little bother with her work,
Anything that struck her to say,

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she would tell him, and he
understood at once. Her own family even

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were not the same. Being older
than she was, and being so clever,

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how serious he was wanting her to
reach Shakespeare before she could even read

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a child's story in English. Being
so much more experienced, he could help

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her, and she too could help
him. But to this hat now,

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and then it was getting late,
Sir William Bradshaw. She held her hands

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to her head, waiting for him
to say did he like the hat or

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not? And as she sat there
waiting, looking down, he could feel

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her mind like a bird falling from
branch to branch, and always alighting quite

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rightly. He could follow her mind
as she sat there in one of those

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loose lax poses that came to her
naturally. And if he should say anything

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at once, she smiled, like
a bird alighting with all its claws firm

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upon the bough. But he remembered. Bradshaw said, the people we are

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most fond of are not good for
us when we are ill. Bradshaw said

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he must be taught to rest.
Bradshaw said, they must be separated,

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must must? Why must? What
power had Bradshaw over him? What right

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has Bradshaw to say must to me? He demanded. It is because you

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talked of killing yourself, said Rischa
mercifully. She could now say anything to

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Septimus, so he was in their
power. Homes and Bradshaw were on him.

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The brute with the red nostrils was
snuffing into every secret place. Must

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it could say? Where were his
papers, the things he had written?

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She brought him his papers, the
things he had written, things she had

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written for him. She tumbled them
out on to the sofa. They looked

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at them together, diagrams, designs, little men and women brandishing sticks for

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arms, with wings were they on
their backs. Circles traced round shillings and

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sixpences, the suns and stars,
zigzagging precipices with mountaineers ascending, roped together

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exactly like knives and forks, sea
pieces with little faces laughing out of what

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might perhaps be waves, the map
of the world. Burn them, he

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cried. Now, for his writings, how the Dead sing behind rhododendron bushes,

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odes to time, conversations with Shakespeare, Evans, Evans, Evans,

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his messages from the Dead, do
not cut down trees, tell the Prime

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Minister universal love, the meaning of
the world. Burn them, he cried.

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But Risha laid her hands on them. Some were very beautiful. She

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thought she would tie them up,
for she had no envelope with a piece

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of silk. Even if they took
him, she said, she would go

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with him. They could not separate
them against their wills, she said.

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End of Section twenty three, read
by Hannah Drma, tenth of October twenty

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twenty one.