The Garden of Life

"The weight of the day, which beginning with that visit to Clarissa had exhausted him with its heat, its intensity, and the drip, drip, of one impression after another down into that cellar where they stood, deep, dark, and no one would ever know. Partly for that reason, its secrecy, complete and inviolable, he had found life like an unknown garden, full of turns and corners, surprising, yes; really it took one's breath away, these moments; there coming to him by the pillar-box opposite the British Museum one of them, a moment in which things came together; this ambulance; and life and death." (152)

In the beginning of this passage, Peter reflects on the day and thinks that his visit to Clarissa's had worn him out "with its heat." The sun and its heat are a motif throughout the novel, representing the weight of death; similarity Peter mentions "the weight of the day." At this point, Peter is contemplating life, dealth, and the "intensity" of each. This can been seen in his later description of the cellar that he and Clarissa were in, which is "deep, dark"and private. Their impressions of each other are compared to droplets of water through the onomatopoeia of "drip, drip." Water is slippery and fluid, making it able to flow almost anywhere; Woolf uses droplets to reveal just how isolated the visit was from the other events of life - only water could slip through and reach them. The privacy of the visit illustrates how it was just a corner in the "unknown garden" of life. However, even though there are many separate corners, everything in the garden is connected by one path, the "moment in which things came together." The one thing that connects each moment is time, another motif in the novel. In the present, Peter stands and watches the ambulance without a second thought, while Rezia mourns her husband and Clarissa prepares for her party. Each moment is isolated in its own way, but they are all connected by the fact that they are occurring simultaneously.