"But London, London's the place," Terence continued. They looked together at the carpet, as though London itself were to be seen there lying on the floor, with all its spires and pinnacles pricking through the smoke.
"On the whole, what I should like best at this moment," Terence pondered, "would be to find myself walking down Kingsway, by those big placards, you know, and turning into the Strand. Perhaps I might go and look over Waterloo Bridge for a moment. Then I'd go along the Strand past the shops with all the new books in them, and through the little archway into the Temple. I always like the quiet after the uproar. You hear your own footsteps suddenly quite loud. The Temple's very pleasant. I think I should go and see if I could find dear old Hodgkin--the man who writes books about Van Eyck, you know. When I left England he was very sad about his tame magpie. He suspected that a man had poisoned it. And then Russell lives on the next staircase. I think you'd like him. He's a passion for Handel. Well, Rachel," he concluded, dismissing the vision of London, "we shall be doing that together in six weeks' time, and it'll be the middle of June then--and June in London--my God! how pleasant it all is!"
"And we're certain to have it too," she said. "It isn't as if we were expecting a great deal-only to walk about and look at things."
"Only a thousand a year and perfect freedom," he replied. "How many people in London d'you think have that?"
"And now you've spoilt it," she complained. "Now we've got to think of the horrors." She looked grudgingly at the novel which had once caused her perhaps an hour's discomfort, so that she had never opened it again, but kept it on her table, and looked at it occasionally, as some medieval monk kept a skull, or a crucifix to remind him of the frailty of the body.
"Is it true, Terence," she demanded, "that women die with bugs crawling across their faces?"
"I think it's very probable," he said. "But you must admit, Rachel, that we so seldom think of anything but ourselves that an occasional twinge is really rather pleasant." Accusing him of an affection of cynicism which was just as bad as sentimentality itself, she left her position by his side and knelt upon the window sill, twisting the curtain tassels between her fingers. A vague sense of dissatisfaction filled her.
"What's so detestable in this country," she exclaimed, "is the blue--always blue sky and blue sea. It's like a curtain--all the things one wants are on the other side of that. I want to know what's going on behind it. I hate these divisions, don't you, Terence? One person all in the dark about another person. Now I liked the Dalloways," she continued, "and they're gone. I shall never see them again. Just by going on a ship we cut ourselves off entirely from the rest of the world. I want to see England there--London there--all sorts of people-why shouldn't one? why should one be shut up all by oneself in a room?" While she spoke thus half to herself and with increasing vagueness, because her eye was caught by a ship that had just come into the bay, she did not see that Terence had ceased to stare contentedly in front of him, and was looking at her keenly and with dissatisfaction. She seemed to be able to cut herself adrift from him, and to pass away to unknown places where she had no need of him. The thought roused his jealousy.
"I sometimes think you're not in love with me and never will be," he said energetically. She started and turned round at his words.
"I don't satisfy you in the way you satisfy me," he continued. "There's something I can't get hold of in you. You don't want me as I want you--you're always wanting something else."
He began pacing up and down the room.
"Perhaps I ask too much," he went on. "Perhaps it isn't really possible to have what I want. Men and women are too different. You can't understand--you don't understand--" He came up to where she stood looking at him in silence.
It seemed to her now that what he was saying was perfectly true, and that she wanted many more things than the love of one human being--the sea, the sky. She turned again the looked at the distant blue, which was so smooth and serene where the sky met the sea; she could not possibly want only one human being.
"Or is it only this damnable engagement?" he continued. "Let's be married here, before we go back--or is it too great a risk? Are we sure we want to marry each other?" They began pacing up and down the room, but although they came very near each other in their pacing, they took care not to touch each other. The hopelessness of their position overcame them both. They were impotent; they could never love each other sufficiently to overcome all these barriers, and they could never be satisfied with less. Realising this with intolerable keenness she stopped in front of him and exclaimed:
"Let's break it off, then."
