WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:05.040 Section twenty eight. Indeed, Clarissa felt the Prime Minister had been good to 2 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:08.400 come, and walking down the room with him, with Sally there, and 3 00:00:08.439 --> 00:00:12.839 Peter there, and Richard very pleased with all those people, rather inclined, 4 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:17.920 perhaps to envy. She had felt that intoxication of the moment, that dilation 5 00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:21.600 of the nerves of the heart itself, till it seemed to quiver, steeped 6 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:26.519 upright. Yes, But after all it was what other people felt. That 7 00:00:27.199 --> 00:00:30.640 for though she loved it and felt it tingle and sting. Still, these 8 00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:34.359 semblances, these triumphs, dear old Peter, for example, thinking her so 9 00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:38.960 brilliant, had a hollowness at arm's length. They were not in the heart, 10 00:00:39.359 --> 00:00:42.600 and it might be that she was growing old. But they satisfied her 11 00:00:42.679 --> 00:00:46.359 no longer as they used. And suddenly, as she saw the Prime Minister 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:49.640 go down the stairs, the gilt rim of the Sir Joshua, picture of 13 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:53.719 the little girl with a muff brought back Kilman with a rush, Kilman her 14 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:58.560 enemy. That was satisfying, That was real. Ah, how she hated 15 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:04.159 her hot critical corrupt with all that power. Elizabeth's seducer, the woman who 16 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:08.319 had crept into steel, and defile. Richard would say, what nonsense. 17 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:12.760 She hated her, she loved her. It was enemies one wanted, not 18 00:01:12.879 --> 00:01:18.439 friends, Not missus Durant and Clara, Sir William and Lady Bradshaw, Miss 19 00:01:18.519 --> 00:01:23.040 Trulock and Eleanor Gibson, whom she saw coming upstairs. They must find her 20 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:26.400 if they wanted her. She was for the party. There was her dear 21 00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:30.280 old friend, Sir Harry. Dear Sir Harry, she said, going up 22 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:34.840 to the fine old fellow, who had produced more bad pictures than any other 23 00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:38.200 two academicians in the whole of Saint John's Wood. They were always of cattle 24 00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:42.799 standing in sunset pools, absorbing moisture or signifying, For he had a certain 25 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:48.239 range of gesture by the raising of one foreleg and the toss of the antlers, 26 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:53.519 the approach of the stranger. All his activities, dining out racing were 27 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:59.760 founded on cattle standing absorbing moisture in sunset pools. What are you laughing at? 28 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:04.000 She asked him. For Willie Titcomb and Sir Harry and Herbert Einstey were 29 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:07.479 all laughing. But no, Sir Harry could not tell Clarissa Dallaway much though 30 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:10.960 he liked her of her type, He thought her perfect, and threatened to 31 00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:15.599 paint her his stories of the music hall stage. He chaffed her about her 32 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:20.840 party. He missed his brandy, These circles, he said, were above 33 00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:23.599 him. But he liked her, respected her in spite of her damnable, 34 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:29.159 difficult upper class refinement, which made it impossible to ask Clarissa Dallowoy to sit 35 00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:31.319 on his knee. And up came that wandering will O, the wisp, 36 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:38.280 that vagulous phosphorescence. Old missus Hilbury, stretching her hands to the blaze of 37 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:40.800 his laughter about the Duke and the lady, which, as she heard it 38 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:45.520 across the room, seemed to reassure her on a point which sometimes bothered her 39 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:47.800 if she woke early in the morning and did not like to call her maid 40 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:52.960 for a cup of tea. How it is certain we must die. They 41 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.639 won't tell us their stories, said Clarissa. Dear Claressa, exclaimed Missus Hilbury. 42 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:00.719 She looked to night, she said, so like her mother as she 43 00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:05.919 first saw her, walking in a garden and gray hat. And really Clarissa's 44 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:09.400 eyes filled with tears. Her mother walking in a garden, but alas she 45 00:03:09.479 --> 00:03:15.120 must go. For there was Professor Brierly, who lectured on Milton, talking 46 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:17.199 to little Jim Hutton, who was unable even for a party like this, 47 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:22.319 to compass both tie and waistcoat, or make his hair life flat. And 48 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:25.840 even at this distance they were quarreling, she could see, for Professor Brierly 49 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.360 was a very queer fish, with all those degrees, honors, lectureships. 50 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:36.800 Between him and the scribblers, he suspected instantly an atmosphere not favorable to his 51 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:43.680 queer compound his prodigious learning and timidity, his wintry charm without cordiality, his 52 00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:47.919 innocence blent with snobbery. He quivered, if made conscious by a lady's unkempt 53 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:53.360 hair, a youth's boots of an underworld, very creditable, doubtless of rebels 54 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:59.199 of ardent young people of would be geniuses, and intimated, with a little 55 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:03.439 toss of the head with a sniff humph, the value of moderation of some 56 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:09.240 slight training in the classics, in order to appreciate Milton. Professor Brierly, 57 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.960 Clarissa could see, wasn't hitting it off with little Jim Hutton, who wore 58 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:16.399 red socks, his black being at the laundry. About Milton, she interrupted. 59 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:20.560 She said she loved Bach, so did Hutton. That was the bond 60 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:25.240 between them. And Hutton, a very bad poet, always felt that Missus 61 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:28.759 Dollaway was far the best of the great ladies who took an interest in art. 62 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:32.560 It was odd how strict she was about music. She was purely impersonal. 63 00:04:32.759 --> 00:04:36.519 She was rather a prig, But how charming to look at. She 64 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:41.199 made her house so nice. If it weren't for her professors, Clarissa had 65 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:43.759 half a mind to snatch him off and set him down at the piano in 66 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:47.480 the back room, for he played divinely. But the noise, she said, 67 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:54.879 the noise the sign of a successful party. Nodding urbanely. The professor 68 00:04:54.920 --> 00:05:00.240 stepped delicately off. He knows everything in the whole world about Milton, said 69 00:05:00.279 --> 00:05:03.759 Clarissa, does he, indeed, said Hutton, who would imitate the professor 70 00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:09.399 throughout Hampstead, the professor on Milton, the professor on moderation, the professor 71 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:13.879 stepping delicately off. But she must speak to that couple, said Clarissa. 72 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:18.079 Lord Gayton and Lancey Blow. Not that they added perceptibly to the noise of 73 00:05:18.120 --> 00:05:23.399 the party. They were not talking perceptibly as they stood side by side by 74 00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:28.000 the yellow curtains. They would soon be off elsewhere together, and never had 75 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:31.439 very much to say in any circumstances. They looked. That was all, 76 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:35.399 that was enough. They looked so clean, so sound. She with an 77 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:41.000 apricot bloom of powder and paint. But he scrubbed, rinsed with the eyes 78 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:44.839 of a bird, so that no ball could pass him or stroke surprise him. 79 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:48.480 He struck, He leapt accurately on the spot. Pony's mouths quivered at 80 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:54.240 the end of his reins. He had his honors, ancestral monuments, banners 81 00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:58.000 hanging in the church. At home, he had his duties, his tenants, 82 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:01.199 a mother and sisters, had been all day at Lord's and that was 83 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:05.759 what they were talking about, cricket, cousins, the movies. When Missus 84 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:11.360 Dollaway came up, Lord Gayton liked her most awfully, So did miss Blow. 85 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:15.800 She had such charming manners. It is angelic. It is delicious of 86 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:19.959 you to have come, she said. She loved lords, she loved youth. 87 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:25.439 And Nancy, dressed an enormous expense by the greatest artists in Paris, 88 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:28.920 stood there, looking as if her body had merely put forth of its own 89 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:33.079 accord, a green frill. I had meant to have dancing, said Clarissa, 90 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:38.120 For the young people could not talk, and why should they shout? 91 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:42.199 Embrace, swing, be up at dawn, carry sugar to ponies, kiss 92 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:46.560 and caress the snouts of adorable chowls, and then all tingling and streaming, 93 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:50.519 plunge and swim. But the enormous resources of the English language, the power 94 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:55.720 it bestows after all of communicating feelings. At their age, she and Peter 95 00:06:55.800 --> 00:06:59.879 would have been arguing all the evening was not for them. They would solidify 96 00:07:00.120 --> 00:07:02.360 young, They would be good beyond measure to the people on the estate. 97 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:08.560 But alone, perhaps rather dull. What a pity, she said, I 98 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:12.519 had hoped to have dancing. It was so extraordinarily nice of them to have 99 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:16.399 come, But talk of dancing. The rooms were packed. There was old 100 00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:19.839 Aunt Helena in her shawl, alas she must leave them, Lord Gayton and 101 00:07:19.959 --> 00:07:25.360 Nancy Blow. There was old miss Parry, her aunt. For Miss Helena 102 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:29.079 Parry was not dead. Miss Parry was alive. She was past eighty. 103 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:32.759 She ascended staircases slowly with a stick. She was placed in a chair. 104 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:36.560 Richard had seen to it. People who had known Burma in the seventies were 105 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:41.360 always led up to her. Where had Peter got to There? Used to 106 00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:45.800 be such friends, For at the mention of India or even Ceylon. Her 107 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:50.480 eyes only one was glass, slowly deepened became blue, beheld not human beings. 108 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:55.600 She had no tender memories, no proud allusions about viceroys, generals, 109 00:07:55.680 --> 00:08:00.279 mutinies. It was orchids she saw, and mountain passes, and her self 110 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:05.040 carried on the backs of coolies in the sixties over solitary peaks or descending to 111 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:09.680 uproot orchids, startling blossoms never beheld before, which she painted in watercolor, 112 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:16.120 an indomitable englishwoman, fretful if disturbed by the war, say which dropped a 113 00:08:16.120 --> 00:08:20.079 bomb at her very door, from her deep meditation over orchids and her own 114 00:08:20.120 --> 00:08:24.240 figure journeying in the sixties in India. But here was Peter come and talk 115 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:28.639 to Aunt Helena about Burma, said Clarissa, And yet he had not had 116 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:33.279 a word with her all the evening. We will talk later, said Clarissa, 117 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:37.279 leading him up to Aunt Helena in her white shawl with her stick. 118 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:41.840 Peter Walsh, said Clarissa, that meant nothing. Clarissa had asked her. 119 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:46.679 It was tiring, it was noisy, but Clarissa had asked her, so 120 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:50.320 she had come. It was a pity that they lived in London, Richard 121 00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:52.679 and Clarissa. If only for Clarissa's health, it would have been better to 122 00:08:52.679 --> 00:08:58.320 live in the country. But Clarissa had always been fond of society. He 123 00:08:58.399 --> 00:09:03.240 has been in Burma, said Clarissa. Ah. She could not resist recalling 124 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:05.320 what Charles Darwin had said about her little book on the orchards of Burma. 125 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:09.960 Clarissa must speak to Lady Bruton. No doubt it was forgotten now, her 126 00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:13.720 book on the Orchids of Burma, but it went into three editions before eighteen 127 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:18.720 seventy. She told Peter she remembered him now. He had been at Burton 128 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:20.879 and he had left her. Peter Walsh remembered, without a word, in 129 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:24.679 the drawing room that night, when Clarissa had asked him to come boating. 130 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:30.639 Richard so much enjoyed his lunch party, said Clarissa to Lady Bruton. Richard 131 00:09:30.759 --> 00:09:35.279 was the greatest possible help. Lady Bruton replied, he helped me to write 132 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:39.960 a letter. And how are you, oh, perfectly well, said Clarissa. 133 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:45.480 Lady Bruton detested illness in the wives of politicians. And there's Peter Walsh, 134 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.639 said Lady Bruton, for she could never think of anything to say to 135 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:52.080 Clarissa, though she liked her. She had lots of fine qualities, but 136 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:56.000 they had nothing in common, she and Clarissa. It might have been better 137 00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:58.480 if Richard had married a woman with less charm, who would have helped him 138 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:03.080 more in his wa He had lost his chance of the cabinet. There's Peter 139 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:07.600 Walsh, she said, shaking hands with that agreeable sinner, that very able 140 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:11.039 fellow, who should have made a name for himself, but hadn't, always 141 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:16.679 in difficulties with women. And of course old miss Parry, wonderful old Lady 142 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:22.320 Lady Bruton stood by Miss Parry's chair, a spectral grenadier draped in black, 143 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:26.639 inviting Peter Walsh to lunch, cordial but without small talk, remembering nothing whatever 144 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:31.440 about the flora or fauna of India. She had been there, of course, 145 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:35.080 had stayed with three viceroys. Thought some of the Indian civilians uncommonly fine 146 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:39.639 fellows. But what a tragedy it was the state of India. The Prime 147 00:10:39.639 --> 00:10:43.960 Minister had just been telling her. Old Miss Parry, huddled up in her 148 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.679 shawl, did not care what the Prime Minister had just been telling her. 149 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:50.240 And Lady Bruton would like to have Peter Walsh's opinion, he being fresh from 150 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:52.799 the center, and she would get Sir Samson to meet him, for really 151 00:10:52.799 --> 00:10:56.159 it prevented her from sleeping at night. The folly of it, the wickedness, 152 00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:00.840 she might say, being a soldier's daughter. She was an old woman 153 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:03.639 now, not good for much. But her house, her servants, her 154 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:07.919 good friend Millie Brush did he remember her? Were all there, only asking 155 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.559 to be used, if they could be of help. In short, for 156 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:16.000 she never spoke of England, but this isle of men, this dear, 157 00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:20.600 dear Land, was in her blood. Without reading Shakespeare. And if ever 158 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:24.080 a woman could have worn the helmet and shot the arrow could have led troops 159 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:28.919 to attack, ruled with indomitable justice, barbarian hordes, and lain under a 160 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:31.720 shield, noiseless in a church, or made a green grass mound on some 161 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:37.159 primeval hillside. That woman was Melicent Bruton, debarred by her sex and some 162 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:41.320 truancy too. Of the logical faculty, she found it impossible to write a 163 00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:46.240 letter to the Times. She had the thought of empire always at hand, 164 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:50.279 and had acquired from her association with that armored goddess her Ramrod, bearing her 165 00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:54.240 robustness of demeanor, so that one could not figure her even in death, 166 00:11:54.399 --> 00:12:00.360 parted from the earth or roaming territories over which, in some spiritual shit shape 167 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:03.919 the Union Jack had ceased to fly, To be not English even among the 168 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:11.120 dead. No, no impossible. End of section twenty eight, read by 169 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:13.799 Hannadorma, London, twenty fourth of October twenty twenty one.