Walter's "greedy innocence". Clarissa continues on her way reflecting on her past, sometimes difficult relationship with Richard which she compares to her more stable but unspectacular relationship with her partner of eighteen years, Sally. She finally arrives at the flower shop. "What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run." —Clarissa reflects on the day as she walks to the flower shop. p. 10, 1999, 4th Estate paperback edition. "Why doesn't she feel more somber about Richard's perversely simultaneous good fortune ('an anguished, prophetic voice in American letters') and his decline ('You have no T-cells at all, none that we can detect')? What is wrong with her? She loves Richard, she thinks of him constantly, but she perhaps loves the day slightly more." —Clarissa thinking about Richard. p. 11, 1999, 4th Estate paperback edition. "The woman's head quickly withdraws, and the door to the trailer closes again, but she leaves behind her an unmistakable sense of watchful remonstrance, as if an angel had briefly touched the surface of the world with one sandaled foot, asked if there was any trouble and, being told all was well, had resumed her place in the ether with skeptical gravity, having reminded the children of earth that they are just barely trusted to manage their own business and that further carelessness will not go unremarked." —Clarissa spots a movie star sticking her head outside her trailer door in response to a film crew's noisiness. p. 27, 1999, 4th Estate paperback edition. Mrs. Woolf The novel then jumps to 1923 with Virginia Woolf waking one morning with the possible first line of a new novel. She carefully navigates her way through the morning, so as not to lose her inspiration. When she picks up her pen, she writes: "Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." Mrs. Brown The novel jumps to 1949 Los Angeles with Laura Brown reading the first line of Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway ("Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.") Laura Brown is pregnant with her second child and is reading in bed. She does not want to get up despite it being her husband Dan's birthday. She is finding it hard playing the role of wife to Dan, and mother to her son Richie, despite her appreciation for them. She would