Mrs. Dalloway

out, and has gone on to the next public-house.

But he himself remained high on his rock, like a drowned sailor on a
rock. I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I
went under the sea. I have been dead, and yet am now alive, but let me
rest still; he begged (he was talking to himself again--it was awful,
awful!); and as, before waking, the voices of birds and the sound of
wheels chime and chatter in a queer harmony, grow louder and louder and
the sleeper feels himself drawing to the shores of life, so he felt
himself drawing towards life, the sun growing hotter, cries sounding
louder, something tremendous about to happen.

He had only to open his eyes; but a weight was on them; a fear. He
strained; he pushed; he looked; he saw Regent’s Park before him. Long
streamers of sunlight fawned at his feet. The trees waved, brandished.
We welcome, the world seemed to say; we accept; we create. Beauty, the
world seemed to say. And as if to prove it (scientifically) wherever
he looked at the houses, at the railings, at the antelopes stretching
over the palings, beauty sprang instantly. To watch a leaf quivering
in the rush of air was an exquisite joy. Up in the sky swallows