Mrs. Dalloway

stain.

Still remembering how once in some primeval May she had walked with her
lover, this rusty pump, this battered old woman with one hand exposed
for coppers the other clutching her side, would still be there in ten
million years, remembering how once she had walked in May, where the
sea flows now, with whom it did not matter--he was a man, oh yes, a man
who had loved her. But the passage of ages had blurred the clarity of
that ancient May day; the bright petalled flowers were hoar and silver
frosted; and she no longer saw, when she implored him (as she did now
quite clearly) “look in my eyes with thy sweet eyes intently,” she
no longer saw brown eyes, black whiskers or sunburnt face but only a
looming shape, a shadow shape, to which, with the bird-like freshness
of the very aged she still twittered “give me your hand and let me
press it gently” (Peter Walsh couldn’t help giving the poor creature a
coin as he stepped into his taxi), “and if some one should see, what
matter they?” she demanded; and her fist clutched at her side, and she
smiled, pocketing her shilling, and all peering inquisitive eyes seemed
blotted out, and the passing generations--the pavement was crowded with