Septimus was one of the first to volunteer. He went to France to save
an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and
Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square. There in the
trenches the change which Mr. Brewer desired when he advised football
was produced instantly; he developed manliness; he was promoted; he
drew the attention, indeed the affection of his officer, Evans by name. It
was a case of two dogs playing on a hearth-rug; one worrying a paper
screw, snarling, snapping, giving a pinch, now and then, at the old dog's
ear; the other lying somnolent, blinking at the fire, raising a paw, turning
and growling good-temperedly. They had to be together, share with each
other, fight with each other, quarrel with each other. But when Evans
(Rezia who had only seen him once called him "a quiet man," a sturdy
red-haired man, undemonstrative in the company of women), when
Evans was killed, just before the Armistice, in Italy, Septimus, far from
showing any emotion or recognising that here was the end of a friend-
ship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably.
The War had taught him. It was sublime. He had gone through the
whole show, friendship, European War, death, had won promotion, was
still under thirty and was bound to survive. He was right there. The last
shells missed him. He watched them explode with indifference. When
peace came he was in Milan, billeted in the house of an innkeeper with a
courtyard, flowers in tubs, little tables in the open, daughters making
hats, and to Lucrezia, the younger daughter, he became engaged one
evening when the panic was on him—that he could not feel.
For now that it was all over, truce signed, and the dead buried, he had,
especially in the evening, these sudden thunder-claps of fear. He could
not feel. As he opened the door of the room where the Italian girls sat
making hats, he could see them; could hear them; they were rubbing
wires among coloured beads in saucers; they were turning buckram
shapes this way and that; the table was all strewn with feathers,
spangles, silks, ribbons; scissors were rapping on the table; but
something failed him; he could not feel. Still, scissors rapping, girls
laughing, hats being made protected him; he was assured of safety; he
had a refuge. But he could not sit there all night. There were moments of
waking in the early morning. The bed was falling; he was falling. Oh for
the scissors and the lamplight and the buckram shapes! He asked
Lucrezia to marry him, the younger of the two, the gay, the frivolous,
with those little artist's fingers that she would hold up and say "It is all in
them." Silk, feathers, what not were alive to them.
"It is the hat that matters most," she would say, when they walked out
together. Every hat that passed, she would examine; and the cloak and
the dress and the way the woman held herself. Ill-dressing, over-dress-
ing she stigmatised, not savagely, rather with impatient movements of
the hands, like those of a painter who puts from him some obvious well-
meant glaring imposture; and then, generously, but always critically, she
would welcome a shopgirl who had turned her little bit of stuff gallantly,
or praise, wholly, with enthusiastic and professional understanding, a
French lady descending from her carriage, in chinchilla, robes, pearls.
"Beautiful!" she would murmur, nudging Septimus, that he might see.
But beauty was behind a pane of glass. Even taste (Rezia liked ices,
chocolates, sweet things) had no relish to him. He put down his cup on
the little marble table. He looked at people outside; happy they seemed,
collecting in the middle of the street, shouting, laughing, squabbling over
nothing. But he could not taste, he could not feel. In the tea-shop among
the tables and the chattering waiters the appalling fear came over
him—he could not feel. He could reason; he could read, Dante for ex-
ample, quite easily ("Septimus, do put down your book," said Rezia,
gently shutting the Inferno), he could add up his bill; his brain was per-
fect; it must be the fault of the world then—that he could not feel.
"The English are so silent," Rezia said. She liked it, she said. She re-
spected these Englishmen, and wanted to see London, and the English
horses, and the tailor-made suits, and could remember hearing how
wonderful the shops were, from an Aunt who had married and lived in
Soho.
It might be possible, Septimus thought, looking at England from the
train window, as they left Newhaven; it might be possible that the world
itself is without meaning.
At the office they advanced him to a post of considerable responsibil-
ity. They were proud of him; he had won crosses. "You have done your
duty; it is up to us—" began Mr. Brewer; and could not finish, so pleasur-
able was his emotion. They took admirable lodgings off the Tottenham
Court Road.
Here he opened Shakespeare once more. That boy's business of the in-
toxication of language—Antony and Cleopatra—had shrivelled utterly.
How Shakespeare loathed humanity—the putting on of clothes, the get-
ting of children, the sordidity of the mouth and the belly! This was now
revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The
secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is
loathing, hatred, despair. Dante the same. Aeschylus (translated) the same. There Rezia sat at the table trimming hats. She trimmed hats for
Mrs. Filmer's friends; she trimmed hats by the hour. She looked pale,
mysterious, like a lily, drowned, under water, he thought.
"The English are so serious," she would say, putting her arms round
Septimus, her cheek against his.
Love between man and woman was repulsive to Shakespeare. The
business of copulation was filth to him before the end. But, Rezia said,
she must have children. They had been married five years.
They went to the Tower together; to the Victoria and Albert Museum;
stood in the crowd to see the King open Parliament. And there were the
shops—hat shops, dress shops, shops with leather bags in the window,
where she would stand staring. But she must have a boy.
She must have a son like Septimus, she said. But nobody could be like
Septimus; so gentle; so serious; so clever. Could she not read
Shakespeare too? Was Shakespeare a difficult author? she asked.
One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetu-
ate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no
lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this
way, now that.
He watched her snip, shape, as one watches a bird hop, flit in the
grass, without daring to move a finger. For the truth is (let her ignore it)
that human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond
what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment. They hunt in packs.
Their packs scour the desert and vanish screaming into the wilderness.
They desert the fallen. They are plastered over with grimaces. There was
Brewer at the office, with his waxed moustache, coral tie-pin, white slip,
and pleasurable emotions—all coldness and clamminess within,—his
geraniums ruined in the War—his cook's nerves destroyed; or Amelia
What'shername, handing round cups of tea punctually at five—a leering,
sneering obscene little harpy; and the Toms and Berties in their starched
shirt fronts oozing thick drops of vice. They never saw him drawing pic-
tures of them naked at their antics in his notebook. In the street, vans
roared past him; brutality blared out on placards; men were trapped in
mines; women burnt alive; and once a maimed file of lunatics being exer-
cised or displayed for the diversion of the populace (who laughed
aloud), ambled and nodded and grinned past him, in the Tottenham
Court Road, each half apologetically, yet triumphantly, inflicting his
hopeless woe. And would he go mad?
At tea Rezia told him that Mrs. Filmer's daughter was expecting a
baby. She could not grow old and have no children! She was very lonely, she was very unhappy! She cried for the first time since they were mar-
ried. Far away he heard her sobbing; he heard it accurately, he noticed it
distinctly; he compared it to a piston thumping. But he felt nothing.
His wife was crying, and he felt nothing; only each time she sobbed in
this profound, this silent, this hopeless way, he descended another step
into the pit.
At last, with a melodramatic gesture which he assumed mechanically
and with complete consciousness of its insincerity, he dropped his head
on his hands. Now he had surrendered; now other people must help
him. People must be sent for. He gave in.
Nothing could rouse him. Rezia put him to bed. She sent for a doc-
tor—Mrs. Filmer's Dr. Holmes. Dr. Holmes examined him. There was
nothing whatever the matter, said Dr. Holmes. Oh, what a relief! What a
kind man, what a good man! thought Rezia. When he felt like that he
went to the Music Hall, said Dr. Holmes. He took a day off with his wife
and played golf. Why not try two tabloids of bromide dissolved in a
glass of water at bedtime? These old Bloomsbury houses, said Dr.
Holmes, tapping the wall, are often full of very fine panelling, which the
landlords have the folly to paper over. Only the other day, visiting a pa-
tient, Sir Somebody Something in Bedford Square—
So there was no excuse; nothing whatever the matter, except the sin for
which human nature had condemned him to death; that he did not feel.
He had not cared when Evans was killed; that was worst; but all the oth-
er crimes raised their heads and shook their fingers and jeered and
sneered over the rail of the bed in the early hours of the morning at the
prostrate body which lay realising its degradation; how he had married
his wife without loving her; had lied to her; seduced her; outraged Miss
Isabel Pole, and was so pocked and marked with vice that women
shuddered when they saw him in the street. The verdict of human nature
on such a wretch was death.
Dr. Holmes came again. Large, fresh coloured, handsome, flicking his
boots, looking in the glass, he brushed it all aside—headaches, sleepless-
ness, fears, dreams—nerve symptoms and nothing more, he said. If Dr.
Holmes found himself even half a pound below eleven stone six, he
asked his wife for another plate of porridge at breakfast. (Rezia would
learn to cook porridge.) But, he continued, health is largely a matter in
our own control. Throw yourself into outside interests; take up some
hobby. He opened Shakespeare—Antony and Cleopatra; pushed
Shakespeare aside. Some hobby, said Dr. Holmes, for did he not owe his
own excellent health (and he worked as hard as any man in London) to the fact that he could always switch off from his patients on to old fur-
niture? And what a very pretty comb, if he might say so, Mrs. Warren
Smith was wearing!
When the damned fool came again, Septimus refused to see him. Did
he indeed? said Dr. Holmes, smiling agreeably. Really he had to give
that charming little lady, Mrs. Smith, a friendly push before he could get
past her into her husband's bedroom.
"So you're in a funk," he said agreeably, sitting down by his patient's
side. He had actually talked of killing himself to his wife, quite a girl, a
foreigner, wasn't she? Didn't that give her a very odd idea of English
husbands? Didn't one owe perhaps a duty to one's wife? Wouldn't it be
better to do something instead of lying in bed? For he had had forty
years' experience behind him; and Septimus could take Dr. Holmes's
word for it—there was nothing whatever the matter with him. And next
time Dr. Holmes came he hoped to find Smith out of bed and not making
that charming little lady his wife anxious about him.
Human nature, in short, was on him—the repulsive brute, with the
blood-red nostrils. Holmes was on him. Dr. Holmes came quite regularly
every day. Once you stumble, Septimus wrote on the back of a postcard,
human nature is on you. Holmes is on you. Their only chance was to es-
cape, without letting Holmes know; to Italy—anywhere, anywhere,
away from Dr. Holmes.
But Rezia could not understand him. Dr. Holmes was such a kind
man. He was so interested in Septimus. He only wanted to help them, he
said. He had four little children and he had asked her to tea, she told
Septimus.
So he was deserted. The whole world was clamouring: Kill yourself,
kill yourself, for our sakes. But why should he kill himself for their
sakes? Food was pleasant; the sun hot; and this killing oneself, how does
one set about it, with a table knife, uglily, with floods of blood,—by
sucking a gaspipe? He was too weak; he could scarcely raise his hand.
Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those
who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full
of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know. Holmes had
won of course; the brute with the red nostrils had won. But even Holmes
himself could not touch this last relic straying on the edge of the world,
this outcast, who gazed back at the inhabited regions, who lay, like a
drowned sailor, on the shore of the world.It was at that moment (Rezia gone shopping) that the great revelation
took place. A voice spoke from behind the screen. Evans was speaking.
The dead were with him.
"Evans, Evans!" he cried.
Mr. Smith was talking aloud to himself, Agnes the servant girl cried to
Mrs. Filmer in the kitchen. "Evans, Evans," he had said as she brought in
the tray. She jumped, she did. She scuttled downstairs.
And Rezia came in, with her flowers, and walked across the room, and
put the roses in a vase, upon which the sun struck directly, and it went
laughing, leaping round the room.
She had had to buy the roses, Rezia said, from a poor man in the street.
But they were almost dead already, she said, arranging the roses.
So there was a man outside; Evans presumably; and the roses, which
Rezia said were half dead, had been picked by him in the fields of
Greece. "Communication is health; communication is happiness, commu-
nication—" he muttered.
"What are you saying, Septimus?" Rezia asked, wild with terror, for he
was talking to himself.
She sent Agnes running for Dr. Holmes. Her husband, she said, was
mad. He scarcely knew her.
"You brute! You brute!" cried Septimus, seeing human nature, that is
Dr. Holmes, enter the room.
"Now what's all this about?" said Dr. Holmes in the most amiable way
in the world. "Talking nonsense to frighten your wife?" But he would
give him something to make him sleep. And if they were rich people,
said Dr. Holmes, looking ironically round the room, by all means let
them go to Harley Street; if they had no confidence in him, said Dr.
Holmes, looking not quite so kind.
It was precisely twelve o'clock; twelve by Big Ben; whose stroke was
wafted over the northern part of London; blent with that of other clocks,
mixed in a thin ethereal way with the clouds and wisps of smoke, and
died up there among the seagulls—twelve o'clock struck as Clarissa Dal-
loway laid her green dress on her bed, and the Warren Smiths walked
down Harley Street. Twelve was the hour of their appointment. Prob-
ably, Rezia thought, that was Sir William Bradshaw's house with the
grey motor car in front of it. The leaden circles dissolved in the air.
Indeed it was—Sir William Bradshaw's motor car; low, powerful, grey
with plain initials' interlocked on the panel, as if the pomps of heraldry
were incongruous, this man being the ghostly helper, the priest of sci-
ence; and, as the motor car was grey, so to match its sober suavity, grey furs, silver grey rugs were heaped in it, to keep her ladyship warm while
she waited. For often Sir William would travel sixty miles or more down
into the country to visit the rich, the afflicted, who could afford the very
large fee which Sir William very properly charged for his advice. Her
ladyship waited with the rugs about her knees an hour or more, leaning
back, thinking sometimes of the patient, sometimes, excusably, of the
wall of gold, mounting minute by minute while she waited; the wall of
gold that was mounting between them and all shifts and anxieties (she
had borne them bravely; they had had their struggles) until she felt
wedged on a calm ocean, where only spice winds blow; respected, ad-
mired, envied, with scarcely anything left to wish for, though she regret-
ted her stoutness; large dinner-parties every Thursday night to the pro-
fession; an occasional bazaar to be opened; Royalty greeted; too little
time, alas, with her husband, whose work grew and grew; a boy doing
well at Eton; she would have liked a daughter too; interests she had,
however, in plenty; child welfare; the after-care of the epileptic, and pho-
tography, so that if there was a church building, or a church decaying,
she bribed the sexton, got the key and took photographs, which were
scarcely to be distinguished from the work of professionals, while she
waited.
Sir William himself was no longer young. He had worked very hard;
he had won his position by sheer ability (being the son of a shopkeeper);
loved his profession; made a fine figurehead at ceremonies and spoke
well—all of which had by the time he was knighted given him a heavy
look, a weary look (the stream of patients being so incessant, the re-
sponsibilities and privileges of his profession so onerous), which weari-
ness, together with his grey hairs, increased the extraordinary distinction
of his presence and gave him the reputation (of the utmost importance in
dealing with nerve cases) not merely of lightning skill, and almost infal-
lible accuracy in diagnosis but of sympathy; tact; understanding of the
human soul. He could see the first moment they came into the room (the
Warren Smiths they were called); he was certain directly he saw the man;
it was a case of extreme gravity. It was a case of complete break-
down—complete physical and nervous breakdown, with every symptom
in an advanced stage, he ascertained in two or three minutes (writing an-
swers to questions, murmured discreetly, on a pink card).
How long had Dr. Holmes been attending him?
Six weeks.Prescribed a little bromide? Said there was nothing the matter? Ah yes
(those general practitioners! thought Sir William. It took half his time to
undo their blunders. Some were irreparable).
"You served with great distinction in the War?"
The patient repeated the word "war" interrogatively.
He was attaching meanings to words of a symbolical kind. A serious
symptom, to be noted on the card.
"The War?" the patient asked. The European War—that little shindy of
schoolboys with gunpowder? Had he served with distinction? He really
forgot. In the War itself he had failed.
"Yes, he served with the greatest distinction," Rezia assured the doctor;
"he was promoted."
"And they have the very highest opinion of you at your office?" Sir
William murmured, glancing at Mr. Brewer's very generously worded
letter. "So that you have nothing to worry you, no financial anxiety,
nothing?"
He had committed an appalling crime and been condemned to death
by human nature.
"I have—I have," he began, "committed a crime—"
"He has done nothing wrong whatever," Rezia assured the doctor. If
Mr. Smith would wait, said Sir William, he would speak to Mrs. Smith in
the next room. Her husband was very seriously ill, Sir William said. Did
he threaten to kill himself?
Oh, he did, she cried. But he did not mean it, she said. Of course not. It
was merely a question of rest, said Sir William; of rest, rest, rest; a long
rest in bed. There was a delightful home down in the country where her
husband would be perfectly looked after. Away from her? she asked.
Unfortunately, yes; the people we care for most are not good for us when
we are ill. But he was not mad, was he? Sir William said he never spoke
of "madness"; he called it not having a sense of proportion. But her hus-
band did not like doctors. He would refuse to go there. Shortly and
kindly Sir William explained to her the state of the case. He had
threatened to kill himself. There was no alternative. It was a question of
law. He would lie in bed in a beautiful house in the country. The nurses
were admirable. Sir William would visit him once a week. If Mrs. War-
ren Smith was quite sure she had no more questions to ask—he never
hurried his patients—they would return to her husband. She had noth-
ing more to ask—not of Sir William.
So they returned to the most exalted of mankind; the criminal who
faced his judges; the victim exposed on the heights; the fugitive; the drowned sailor; the poet of the immortal ode; the Lord who had gone
from life to death; to Septimus Warren Smith, who sat in the arm-chair
under the skylight staring at a photograph of Lady Bradshaw in Court
dress, muttering messages about beauty.
"We have had our little talk," said Sir William.
"He says you are very, very ill," Rezia cried.
"We have been arranging that you should go into a home," said Sir
William.
"One of Holmes's homes?" sneered Septimus.
The fellow made a distasteful impression. For there was in Sir William,
whose father had been a tradesman, a natural respect for breeding and
clothing, which shabbiness nettled; again, more profoundly, there was in
Sir William, who had never had time for reading, a grudge, deeply bur-
ied, against cultivated people who came into his room and intimated that
doctors, whose profession is a constant strain upon all the highest fac-
ulties, are not educated men.
"One of my homes, Mr. Warren Smith," he said, "where we will teach
you to rest."
And there was just one thing more.
He was quite certain that when Mr. Warren Smith was well he was the
last man in the world to frighten his wife. But he had talked of killing
himself.
"We all have our moments of depression," said Sir William.
Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself, human nature is on you.
Holmes and Bradshaw are on you. They scour the desert. They fly
screaming into the wilderness. The rack and the thumbscrew are ap-
plied. Human nature is remorseless.
"Impulses came upon him sometimes?" Sir William asked, with his
pencil on a pink card.
That was his own affair, said Septimus.
"Nobody lives for himself alone," said Sir William, glancing at the pho-
tograph of his wife in Court dress.
"And you have a brilliant career before you," said Sir William. There
was Mr. Brewer's letter on the table. "An exceptionally brilliant career."
But if he confessed? If he communicated? Would they let him off then,
his torturers?
"I—I—" he stammered.
But what was his crime? He could not remember it.
"Yes?" Sir William encouraged him. (But it was growing late.)
Love, trees, there is no crime—what was his message?
