I went the next day to tell Mollie. It was a Saturday, I remember,
and it had rained; all the streets were wet.
Walter had stayed with me all the evening before, and I asked
him not to come the next day. I felt that I must have a day in
peace, without him, or anyone.
I sat in my room all the morning, and tried to read. In the afternoon
I went out and walked about.
The trees were all green now, but it was not warm. Clouds had
come up in the night, and the sky was still grey.
I meant to go to Mollie in time for tea; I was on the Embankment
by half-past four, but I did not go in; I went to a tea shop
instead, a little restaurant, not far from Mollie’s flat, where
we had had lunch together very often before. I sat a long time
over my tea. I shrank somehow from seeing Mollie and George;
he would be there too on a Saturday afternoon. They might be
out of course, but I did not think so, for it had been arranged
before, or half arranged, that I should go there this afternoon.
I went out again, on to the Embankment; I walked along by the
river, westward, past the Addingtons’ windows, towards the power
station. The sun was beginning to go down, and the sky was all
pink now, behind the four chimneys; the broad stretch of river
where it bends, beyond Battersea Bridge, was pink too; a mist
was coming up, with the tide, I suppose, from the sea, and the
colours were dimmed and obscured by the greyness of the mist.
A man came along with a stick, and lit the lamps, one lamp, and
then two, and then three; it was quite light still, and the lamps
looked small and rather foolish; I wondered why they lit the
lamps so soon.
There was an old man selling flowers by the corner of Battersea
Bridge; I had never seen him there before; he looked a very poor
old man; I bought a bunch of narcissi from him; it cost a shilling.