“Look,” she implored him, for Dr. Holmes had told her to make him notice real things, go to a music hall, play cricket—that was the very game, Dr. Holmes said, a nice out-of-door game, the very game for her husband.

A dutiful and loving wife, Lucrezia tries hard to help her husband and follow the doctor’s orders. They go walking in the park on the morning of the novel, and she points out an airplane that is writing letters in the sky and a group of boys playing in the park. However, her poor husband, Septimus, remains trapped in his own mind, suffering and lonely, unable to appreciate the beauty of the world outside himself.

She was exposed; she was surrounded by the enormous trees, vast clouds of an indifferent world, exposed; tortured; and why should she suffer? Why?

Lucrezia and Septimus are walking in Regent’s Park when a small girl runs right into Lucrezia’s legs. Lucrezia had been feeling sorry for herself because of Septimus’s condition, and the girl offers a moment’s distraction. She picks the child up, kisses her, and comforts her, but she soon returns to her brooding. She loves Septimus, but she feels he is no longer her husband. His tortured rants make her suffer. She doesn’t understand why her life has turned out this way, and she feels lost without her family nearby as support.

Never, never had Rezia felt such agony in her life! She had asked for help and been deserted! He had failed them! Sir William Bradshaw was not a nice man.

Lucrezia and Septimus have just been to see Sir William Bradshaw after Dr. Holmes was unable to help Septimus. Bradshaw quickly determines that Septimus is very ill and needs to be hospitalized so that he can learn to relax. He prescribes a home in the country, without Lucrezia, for an indeterminate amount of time. Here, Lucrezia reveals that she feels heartbroken and abandoned by the doctor as well as by her husband.

Yes, it would always make her happy to see that hat. He had become himself then, he had laughed then. They had been alone together. Always she would like that hat.

Lucrezia reflects on the importance of a hat. She and Septimus enjoy a rare moment of togetherness and joy in their home as Lucrezia makes a hat for a neighbor. They make jokes and laugh together. For a short time, they nearly forget that Septimus is ill. The hat represents the lost joy in their marriage. Lucrezia seems to look into the future and realize the hat’s symbolic meaning. She also may feel the foreboding calm before the storm as Septimus will soon kill himself.

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