Mrs. Dalloway

absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say
of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.

Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought,
walking on. If you put her in a room with some one, up went her back
like a cat’s; or she purred. Devonshire House, Bath House, the house
with the china cockatoo, she had seen them all lit up once; and
remembered Sylvia, Fred, Sally Seton--such hosts of people; and dancing
all night; and the waggons plodding past to market; and driving home
across the Park. She remembered once throwing a shilling into the
Serpentine. But every one remembered; what she loved was this, here,
now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, she
asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must
inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she
resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended
absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and
flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in
each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home;
of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was;