Mrs. Dalloway

conclusions, as one does, for what can one know even of the people one
lives with every day? she asked. Are we not all prisoners? She had read
a wonderful play about a man who scratched on the wall of his cell,
and she had felt that was true of life--one scratched on the wall.
Despairing of human relationships (people were so difficult), she often
went into her garden and got from her flowers a peace which men and
women never gave her. But no; he did not like cabbages; he preferred
human beings, Peter said. Indeed, the young are beautiful, Sally said,
watching Elizabeth cross the room. How unlike Clarissa at her age!
Could he make anything of her? She would not open her lips. Not much,
not yet, Peter admitted. She was like a lily, Sally said, a lily by the
side of a pool. But Peter did not agree that we know nothing. We know
everything, he said; at least he did.

But these two, Sally whispered, these two coming now (and really she
must go, if Clarissa did not come soon), this distinguished-looking
man and his rather common-looking wife who had been talking to
Richard--what could one know about people like that?

“That they’re damnable humbugs,” said Peter, looking at them casually.