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 plague to-morrow.  Mr. Grice recalled dreadful sights which he had seen in the richest city of the world—­men and women standing in line hour after hour to receive a mug of greasy soup.  “And I thought of the good flesh down here waiting and asking to be caught.  I’m not exactly a Protestant, and I’m not a Catholic, but I could almost pray for the days of popery to come again—­because of the fasts.”

As he talked he kept opening drawers and moving little glass jars.  Here were the treasures which the great ocean had bestowed upon him—­pale fish in greenish liquids, blobs of jelly with streaming tresses, fish with lights in their heads, they lived so deep.

“They have swum about among bones,” Clarissa sighed.

“You’re thinking of Shakespeare,” said Mr. Grice, and taking down a copy from a shelf well lined with books, recited in an emphatic nasal voice: 

“Full fathom five thy father lies,

“A grand fellow, Shakespeare,” he said, replacing the volume.

Clarissa was so glad to hear him say so.

“Which is your favourite play?  I wonder if it’s the same as mine?”