She will want this second child." —Laura's thoughts, the final sentences of the chapter, p. 79, 1999, 4th Estate paperback edition. Mrs. Woolf Virginia Woolf is taking her walk while thinking of ideas for her novel. She already believes Clarissa Dalloway will commit suicide, but now Virginia plans for Mrs Dalloway to have had one true love: not her husband, but a girl Clarissa knew during her girlhood. Her love of another girl will have represented a time when she was not afraid to go against the destiny laid out for her by society and family. Virginia plans for Clarissa to kill herself in middle age over something quite trivial, a representation of what her life has become and what has been repressed. As Virginia walks about Richmond she reflects on how Mrs Dalloway's deterioration in middle age represents how Virginia feels about being trapped in suburban Richmond when she only feels fully alive in central London. She is aware she is more susceptible to mental illness in London, but would rather die 'raving mad' in the city than avoid life (and perhaps prolong her years) in Richmond. As Virginia returns home she feels, as did Laura Brown in the previous chapter, as if she is impersonating herself, as if the person she is presenting herself to requires artifice. She puts on this 'act' to convince herself and others that she is 'sane' so Leonard will agree with the idea of moving back to London. Virginia understands that there is "true art" in the requirement for women such as herself to act as they do. Feeling in control of her 'act' she goes to speak to the cook, Nelly, about lunch. However, Nelly, with her petty grievances and implicit demands that the daily life of running the house which is Virginia's domain, be observed, overwhelms Virginia. Nelly appears to have a matronly competence whilst Virginia does not seem to have a house-wifey bone in her body. Virginia decides to give her character, Clarissa Dalloway, the great skill with servants that she does not possess. "She is the author; Leonard, Nelly, Ralph, and the others are the readers. This particular novel concerns a serene, intelligent woman of painfully susceptible sensibilities who once was ill but has now recovered; who is preparing for the season in London..." —Virginia Woolf preparing to 'act' as Virginia Woolf, p. 83, 1999, 4th Estate paperback edition.