le white volume of
Pascal which went with her everywhere, "whether it is really good for
a woman to live with a man who is morally her superior, as Richard is
mine. It makes one so dependent. I suppose I feel for him what my mother
and women of her generation felt for Christ. It just shows that one
can't do without _something_." She then fell into a sleep, which was as
usual extremely sound and refreshing, but visited by fantastic dreams
of great Greek letters stalking round the room, when she woke up and
laughed to herself, remembering where she was and that the Greek letters
were real people, lying asleep not many yards away. Then, thinking
of the black sea outside tossing beneath the moon, she shuddered, and
thought of her husband and the others as companions on the voyage.
The dreams were not confined to her indeed, but went from one brain
to another. They all dreamt of each other that night, as was natural,
considering how thin the partitions were between them, and how strangely
they had been lifted off the earth to sit next each other in mid-ocean,
and see every detail of each other's faces, and hear whatever they
chanced to say.

Chapter IV

Next morning Clarissa was up before anyone else. She dressed, and was
out on deck, breathing the fresh air of a calm morning, and, making the
circuit of the ship for the second time, she ran straight into the lean
person of Mr. Grice, the steward. She apologised, and at the same time
asked him to enlighten her: what were those shiny brass stands for, half
glass on the top? She had been wondering, and could not guess. When he
had done explaining, she cried enthusiastically:

"I do think that to be a sailor must be the finest thing in the world!"

"And what d'you know about it?" said Mr. Grice, kindling in a strange
manner. "Pardon me. What does any man or woman brought up in England
know about the sea? They profess to know; but they don't."

The bitterness with which he spoke was ominous of what was to come.
He led her off to his own quarters, and, sitting on the edge of a
brass-bound table, looking uncommonly like a sea-gull, with her white
tapering body and thin alert face, Mrs. Dalloway had to listen to the
tirade of a fanatical man. Did she realise, to begin with, what a very
small part of the world the land was? How peaceful, how beautiful, how
benignant in comparison the sea? The deep waters could sustain Europe
unaided if every earthly animal died of the