Summary

Woolf follows her question, "What then, is it like to be a dwarf?" with its context. Speaking in past tense, she tells the brief story of a woman, whom she refers to as a "dwarf," entering a boot shop with two average-sized woman. She explains that when the shopgirl asked the small woman to place her foot on the stand for measurement, she took pride in the fact that her foot was "the shapely, perfectly proportioned foot of a well-grown woman" (7). Woolf speculates that the woman "was ready to lavish any money upon her shoes" and took her time choosing a pair (7). Eventually, she joyfully selected the pair and exited the shop with her two companions. But, "as she walked out between her guardians, with the parcel swinging from her finger, the ecstasy faded, knowledge returned, the old peevishness, the old apology came back...