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[ethereal music starts]

[Woman Reading From Mrs.Dalloway] Dalloway] It rasped her, though,

to have stirring about in her this brutal monster.

The soul, never to be content quite.

To hear twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down

in the depths of that leafy-encumbered forest.

[Second Woman] There were flowers.

[First Woman] Quite secure, for at any moment

the brute would be stirring.

She always had the feeling that it was

very, very dangerous to live even one day.

There were flowers.

In friendship, in being well.

Turning her head from side to side

among the irises and roses

and nodding tufts of lilacs, eyes half-closed.

Made all pleasure in beauty.

How she'd got through life on the few twigs of knowledge

Fräulein Daniels gave them-- [indistinct talking]

In being loved.

Had power to make the past drift.

She had a perpetual sense of being out, out,

far out to the sea and bend--

And making her home delightful, as if indeed

there was a monster grubbings at the roots.

She sliced like a knife through everything.

She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged.

Snuffing in, after the street uproar,

the delicious scent, the exquisite coolness.

As if the whole panoply of content

was nothing but self-love.

[ethereal music continues]

Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress

and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls.

There were flowers.

And renews, begins, collectss, lets fall

And the body alone listens to the passing bee.

[Second Woman] And carnations, masses of carnations.

[First Woman] There were roses.

Calm, content as her needle.

Drawing the silk smoothly to it's gentle pause.

She would not say of anyone in the world

that they were this or were that.

[Second Woman] There were irises.

[ethereal music]

[Woman] So she breathed in the earthy garden sweet smell

as she stood talking to Ms. Pym who owned her help.

[Second Woman] Tumbling petticoats on the floor,

it too sheds dust--

Which as they walked, up and down, up and down,

she uncovered, for the radiance burnt through.

And then, opening her eyes,

how fresh like frilled linen clean from the laundry.

White, and violet, red, deep orange.

As if it were the evening and prim the red carnations

holding their heads high.

For country men years ago.

Every flower seems to burn by itself,

softly, purely.

Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips.

And she felt that she had been given a present,

wrapped up, told just to keep it, not to look at it,

a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up.

[Second Woman] And it was the moment between six and seven

when everything exists.

[First Woman] One might fancy that day, that London day,

was just beginning.

And yet to her it was absolutely absorbings.

Fear no more, says the heart.