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Section twenty two. Suddenly Elizabeth stepped
forward and most competently bordered the omnibus in

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front of everybody. She took a
seat on top the impetuous creature A pirate

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started forward, sprang away. She
had to hold the rail to steady herself.

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For a pirate, it was reckless, unscrupulous, bearing down, ruthlessly,

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circumventing, dangerously, boldly snatching a
passenger or ignoring a passenger, squeezing

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eel like and arrogant in between,
and then rushing insolently all sails spread up

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Whitehall. And did Elizabeth give one
thought to poor miss Kilman, who loved

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her without jealousy, to whom she
had been a fawn in the open,

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a moon in a glade. She
was delighted to be free. The fresh

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air was so delicious. It had
been so stuffy in the army and navy

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stores. And now it was like
riding to be rushing up Whitehall. And

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to each movement of the omnibus,
the beautiful body in the fawn colored coat

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responded freely like a rider, like
the figurehead of a ship. For the

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breeze slightly dis arrayed her. The
heat gave her cheeks the pallor of white

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painted wood, and her fine eyes, having no eyes to meet, gazed

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ahead, blank bright, with the
staring, incredible innocence of sculpture. It

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was always talking about her own sufferings
that made miss Kilman so difficult. And

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was she right if it was being
on committees and giving up hours and hours

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every day. She hardly ever saw
him in London that helped the poor.

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Her father did that? Goodness knows
if that was what Miss Kilman meant about

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being a Christian. But it was
so difficult to say, Oh, she

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would like to go a little further. Another penny? Was it to the

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strand? Here was another penny?
Then she would go up the strand.

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She liked people who were ill.
And every profession is open to the women

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of your generation, said miss Kilmen. So she might be a doctor,

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She might be a farmer. Animals
are often ill. She might own a

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thousand acres and have people under her. She would go and see them in

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their cottages. This was Somerset House. One might be a very good farmer,

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And that, strangely enough, though
Miss Kilman had her share in it,

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was almost entirely due to Somerset House. It looked so splendid, so

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serious, that great gray building.
And she liked the feeling of people working.

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She liked those churches, like shapes
of gray paper breasting the stream of

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the strand. It was quite different
here from Westminster, she thought, getting

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off at Chancery Lane. It was
so serious, it was so busy.

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In short, she would like to
have a profession. She would become a

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doctor, a farmer, possibly go
into parliament if she found it necessary,

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all because of the strand, the
feet of those people busy about their activities,

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hands putting stone to stone, mines
eternally occupied not with trivial chatterings comparing

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women to poplars, which was rather
exciting, of course, but very silly,

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but with thoughts of ships, of
business, of law, of administration,

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and with it all so stately.
She was in the temple gay,

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there was the river, pious,
there was the church. Made her determined,

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whatever her mother might say, to
become either a farmer or a doctor.

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But she was, of course rather
lazy, and it was much better

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to say nothing about it. It
seemed so silly. It was the sort

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of thing that did sometimes happen when
one was alone. Buildings without architects,

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names, crowds of people coming back
from the city, having more power than

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single clergyman in Kensington, than any
of the books. Miss Kilnet had lent

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her to stimulate what lay slumbrous,
clumsy and shy on the mine's sandy floor,

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to break surface as a child suddenly
stretches its arms. It was just

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that, perhaps a sigh, a
stretch of the arms, an impulse,

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a revelation which has its effects forever, and then down again. It went

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to the sandy floor. She must
go home, she must dress for dinner.

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But what was the time? Where
was a clock? She looked up

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Fleet Street. She walked just a
little way towards Saint Paul's, shyly,

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like someone penetrating on tiptoe, exploring
as strange house by night with a candle

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on edge, lest the owner should
suddenly fling wide his bedroom door and ask

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her business. Nor did she dare
wander off into queer alleys, tempting by

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streets any more than in a strange
house open doors which might be bedroom doors

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or sitting room doors, or lead
straight to the larder, for no dollaways

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came down the strand daily. She
was a pioneer astray venturing, trusting.

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In many ways. Her mother felt
she was extremely immature, like a child,

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still attached to dolls, to old
slippers, a perfect baby, and

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that was charming. But then,
of course there was in the Delaway family

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the tradition of public service, abbesses, principles, head mistresses, dignitaries in

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the republic of women. Without being
brilliant, any of them, they were

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that she penetrated a little further in
the direction of Saint Paul's. She liked

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the geniality, sisterhood, motherhood,
brotherhood of this uproar. It seemed to

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her good, the noise tremendous,
and suddenly there were trumpets, the unemployed

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blaring, rattling about in the uproar, military music, as if people were

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marching. Yet, had they been
dying, had some woman breathed her last,

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and whoever was watching, opening the
window of the room where she had

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just brought off that act of supreme
dignity, looked down on Fleet Street,

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that uproar, that military music,
would have come triumphing up to him,

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consolatory, indifferent. It was not
conscious. There was no recognition in it

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of one fortune or fate. And
for that very reason, even to those

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dazed with watching for the last shivers
of consciousness on the faces of the dying,

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consoling forgetfulness in people might wound their
ingratitude corode, But this voice,

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pouring endlessly year in year out,
would take whatever it might be, this

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vow, this van this life,
this procession, would wrap them all about

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and carry them on, as in
the rough stream of a glacier. The

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ice holds a splinter of bone,
a blue petal, some oak trees,

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and rolls them on. But it
was later than she thought. Her mother

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would not like her to be wandering
off alone like this. She turned back

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down the strand. A puff of
wind in spite of the heat, there

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was quite a wind blew a thin
black veil over the sun and over the

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strand. The faces faded, The
omnibuses suddenly lost their glow, For although

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the clouds were of mountainous white,
so that one could fancy hacking hard chips

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off with a hatchet, with broad
golden slopes, lawns of celestial pleasure gardens

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on their flanks, and had all
the appearance of settled habitations assembled for the

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conference of gods above the world.
There was a perpetual movement among them signs

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were interchanged when, as if to
fulfill some scheme arranged already, Now a

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summit dwindled. Now a whole block
of pyramidal size, which had kept its

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station inalterably advanced into the midst or
gravely led the procession to fresh anchorage.

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Though they seemed at their posts at
rest in perfect unanimity, nothing could be

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fresher, freer, more sensitive,
superficially than the snow white or gold kindled

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surface. To change, to go, to dismantle the solemn assemblage was immediately

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possible, and in spite of the
grave fixity, the accumulated robustness and solidity,

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now they struck light to the earth, now darkness. Calmly and competently,

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Elizabeth Dollaway mounted the Westminster Omnibus,
going and coming, beckoning, signaling.

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So the light and shadow which now
made the war gray, now the

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banana's bright yellow now made the strand
gray. Now made the Omnibus as bright

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yellow, seemed to Septimus Warren Smith, lying on the sofa in the sitting

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room, watching the watery gold glow
and fade with the astonishing sensibility of some

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live creature on the roses on the
wallpaper. Outside. The trees dragged their

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leaves like nets through the depths of
the air. The sound of water was

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in the room. Through the waves
came the voices of birds singing. Every

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power poured its treasures on his head, and his hand lay there on the

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back of the sofa, as he
had seen his hand lie when he was

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bathing, floating on the top of
the waves. While far away on shore

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he heard dogs barking and barking far
away. Fear no more, says the

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heart in the body. Fear no
more. He was not afraid. At

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every moment, nature signified by some
laughing hint, like that gold spot which

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went round the wall. There there
there her determination to show, by brandishing

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her plumes, shaking her tresses,
flinging her mantle this way and that,

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beautifully, always beautifully, and standing
close up to breathe through her hollowed hands

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Shakespeare's words, her meaning Risha,
sitting at the table twisting a hat in

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her hands, watched him, saw
him smiling. He was happy then,

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but she could not bear to see
him smiling. It was not marriage,

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It was not being one's husband to
look strange like that, always, to

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be starting laughing, sitting hour after
hour, silent or clutching her and telling

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her to write. The table drawer
was full of those writings about war,

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about Shakespeare, about great discoveries,
how there is no death. Lately he

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had become excited suddenly for no reason, and both doctor Holmes and Sir William

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Bradshaw said excitement was the worst thing
for him, and waved his hands and

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cried out that he knew the truth, He knew everything. That man,

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his friend who was killed Evans,
had come, he said. He was

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singing behind the screen. She wrote
it down just as he spoke it.

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Some things were very beautiful. Others
sheer nonsense. And he was always stopping

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in the middle, changing his mind, wanting to add something, hearing something

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new, listening with his hand up. But she heard nothing. And once

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they found the girl who did the
room reading one of these papers in fits

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of laughter. It was a dreadful
pity. For that made Septimus cry out

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about human cruelty, how they tear
each other to pieces, the fallen,

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he said, they tear to pieces. Homes is on us, he would

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say, and he would invent stories
about homes, homes eating porridge, Holmes

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reading Shakespeare, making himself roar with
laughter or rage. For doctor Holmes seemed

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to stand for something horrible to him, human nature, he called him.

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Then there were the visions. He
was drowned, he used to say,

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and lying on a cliff with the
gulls screaming over him. He would look

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over the edge of the sofa down
into the sea. Or he was hearing

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music. Really it was only a
barrel organ, or some man crying in

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the street. But lovely, he
used to cry, and the tears would

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run down his cheeks, which was
to her the most dreadful thing of all

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to see a man like Septimus,
who had fought, who was brave,

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crying. And he would lie listening, until suddenly he would cry that he

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was falling down, down into the
flames. Actually she would look for flames.

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It was so vivid, but there
was nothing. They were alone in

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the room. It was a dream, she would tell him, and so

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quiet him at last. But sometimes
she was frightened too. She sighed as

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she sat sewing. Her sigh was
tender and enchanting, like the wind outside

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of wood in the evening. Now
she put down her scissors. Now she

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turned to take something from the table, A little stir, a little crinkling,

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a little tapping, built up something
on the table there where she sat

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sewing. Through his eyelashes, he
could see her blurred outline, her little

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black body, her face and hands, her turning movements at the table as

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she took up a reel or looked
as she was apt to lose things for

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her silk. She was making a
hat for Missus Filmer's married daughter, whose

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name was He had forgotten her name. What is the name of Missus Filmer's

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married daughter, he asked. Missus
Peters said, Richa. She was afraid

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it was too small, she said, holding it before her. Missus Peters

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was a big woman, but she
did not like her. It was only

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because Missus Filmer had been so good
to them. She gave me grapes this

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morning. She said that Riesha wanted
to do something to show that they were

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grateful. She had come into the
room the other evening and found Missus Peters,

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who thought they were out playing the
gramophone. Was it true, he

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asked, she was playing the gramophone. Yes, she had told him about

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it at the time. She had
found Missus Peters playing the gramophone. End

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of section twenty two read by Hannah
Dormer, London, tenth of October twenty

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twenty one,