Summary
Standing across from the British Museum, Peter Walsh hears
the ambulance rush to pick up Septimus's body. He views the ambulance
as one of the triumphs of civilization. The English health system
strikes him as humane, and London's community spirit impresses him.
As he walks toward his hotel, he thinks of Clarissa. They used to
explore London together by riding the omnibus. Clarissa had a theory
that to know somebody, one had to seek out the people and places
that completed that person. She felt that people spread far beyond
their own selves and might even survive in this way after death.
Clarissa has influenced Peter more than anybody else he knows.
Peter arrives at his hotel and thinks about Clarissa at
Bourton. They used to walk in the woods, argue, and discuss poetry,
people, and politics. Clarissa was a radical in those days. At the
hotel Peter receives a letter from Clarissa that says it was heavenly
to see him that morning. He is upset by the letter, which seems
like a “nudge in the ribs” after his vivid memories of Clarissa.
The hotel now strikes Peter as frigid and impersonal. He imagines
Clarissa regretting her refusal of his marriage proposal and then
feeling sorry for him. He pictures her weeping as she wrote him
the note.
Peter looks at a snapshot of Daisy with a fox terrier
on her knee. She is dark and very pretty. Peter shaves and dresses
for dinner. He wonders whether his marriage to Daisy would be good
for her, as it would mean giving up her children and being judged
by society. He is conflicted about Daisy. He does not like the idea
of being faithful to her, but he hates the idea of Daisy being with
anyone else. He quickly disregards the age difference between them
and takes comfort in knowing she adores him. He decides that if
he retires, he will write books.
At dinner, the other hotel guests find him appealing.
His self-composure and serious approach to eating his dinner win
him their respect. They like the way he orders Bartlett pears firmly.
The guests wish to talk with one another, but they feel shy. In
the smoking room, Peter and the Morris family make small talk. Peter
thinks they like him. He decides to go to Clarissa's party to find
out what the Conservatives are doing in India and to hear the gossip.
Peter sits in a wicker chair on the hotel steps. The night
is hot but lighter than he is used to, because daylight savings
has been introduced since he was last in London. He reads the paper
and watches young people pass by on their way to the movies. He
thinks the social structure is changing and that experience enriches
life. He sets off for Clarissa's and feels that he is about to have
an experience. He looks in people's lighted windows on his way and
enjoys the richness of life. At Clarissa's house, Peter steels himself,
opens the blade of his pocketknife, and enters the party.
Analysis
The ambulance Peter hears is the one carrying Septimus's
body, and Peter's adoring interpretation of the ambulance siren
as a “triumph of civilization” is ironic, because Septimus has sought
death to escape the very civilization Peter reveres. In the wailing
siren, Peter hears all that is good about English society—its humanity,
efficiency, and compassion. However, Septimus found those same things
constricting and deadening, not liberating and inspiring. Peter
stands across from the British Museum, a structure that suggests
England's might, tradition, and imperial power. Septimus fought
to preserve these virtues during the war, and they eventually became
hollow and meaningless to him. Peter hears humanity in the ambulance
siren, but the inhumanity of the English medical
system played a part in Septimus's death. Peter constantly notices
the civilization of England, and the repetition of the word, juxtaposed
with Septimus's death, calls Peter's accuracy into question. London
is surely no gentler than the countries, such as India, England
sets out to “civilize” through colonization. Likewise, the communal
spirit Peter observes in London is also questionable, since the
Londoners in the novel, even Peter himself, are incredibly isolated.
Peter reads the world only superficially, seeing what he wants to
see and not probing too deeply beneath the surface. Septimus perhaps
probes too deeply, and he cannot bear what he finds. Both Septimus
and Peter read the same cricket scores and the same news in the
evening paper, a similarity that emphasizes the different ways in
which each man interprets the same world.
Though Peter constantly doubts himself and his decisions,
at the hotel and the dinner he momentarily reveals the kind of man
he could be, or wants to be. Until now, Peter has seemed hysterical, bursting
into tears in front of Clarissa and claiming madly to himself that
he no longer loves her. At the hotel, however, he seems composed
and in control. As he moves about his room, he imagines how Daisy
sees him: as a reliable man who shaves, dresses, and takes firm control
of life's small details. He suspects he cannot actually make her
happy, and that she will be better off without him, but he seems to
like the feeling of being depended on and looked up to by this younger,
foolish girl. At the dinner Peter slides more fully into this version
of himself. With dignified detachment he selects wine and eats his
dinner, showing more composure than at any other point in the novel.
When Peter orders his Bartlett pears, the new Peter seems to crystallize.
He knows exactly what he wants, and says so clearly. Gone, for the
moment, are the usual hemming and hawing, the incessant justifications
and qualifications that usually bloat his thoughts and desires.
For this short moment at the table he is comfortable in his own
skin.
Clarissa recognizes the conflict between nurturing her
need for privacy and fulfilling her desire to emerge and communicate
with others, which is why she throws her parties. Peter compares
people to fish that swim for ages in the gloomy depths and occasionally need
to come to the surface and frolic in the “wind-wrinkled waves.”
People need to form community, however brief; they need to gossip
at parties. The effort to communicate requires endurance, which
is why Peter prepares himself and opens his knife before entering
the party and why Clarissa purses her lips and creates a composed
“diamond” face for the world. Septimus was tortured in the
private world of his own soul after the war and, with his inability
to hold himself together, was also at the mercy of the public world.
He could no longer summon the endurance necessary to face the world
or even exist in it, and even Peter and Clarissa hang on by only
a thread—the tenuousness of which is emphasized by the knife and
scissors with which they greet each other earlier in the day. Though
Peter often misjudges and criticizes Clarissa, he admires her endurance
and strength. Clarissa may have her failings and weaknesses, but
her determination to stitch together her internal and external worlds,
however briefly or infrequently, makes her a remarkable woman.
