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.
I thought:
‘That is expensive, for a bunch of narcissi.’
I thought:
‘It is no good; I must go in and tell them; it is too late to go back; I must tell them now what I have done.’
I knocked on the door, and rang the bell. The woman from below opened it; she often did, and I went up.