Mrs. Dalloway

suit the quarter struck--the quarter to twelve.

And that is being young, Peter Walsh thought as he passed them. To be
having an awful scene--the poor girl looked absolutely desperate--in
the middle of the morning. But what was it about, he wondered, what
had the young man in the overcoat been saying to her to make her look
like that; what awful fix had they got themselves into, both to look
so desperate as that on a fine summer morning? The amusing thing about
coming back to England, after five years, was the way it made, anyhow
the first days, things stand out as if one had never seen them before;
lovers squabbling under a tree; the domestic family life of the parks.
Never had he seen London look so enchanting--the softness of the
distances; the richness; the greenness; the civilisation, after India,
he thought, strolling across the grass.

This susceptibility to impressions had been his undoing no doubt.
Still at his age he had, like a boy or a girl even, these alternations
of mood; good days, bad days, for no reason whatever, happiness from
a pretty face, downright misery at the sight of a frump. After India
of course one fell in love with every woman one met. There was a