Four ---- Deviously ascending from the basement the silver teapot was placed on the table, and virgins and spinsters with hands that had staunched the sores of Bermondsey and Hoxton carefully measured out one, two, three, four spoonfuls of tea. One, two, three, four — they jumped over the hurdle. The soft circles spread out in the air: one, two, three, four — Eleanor counted eight, nine, ten. "One, two, three, four," she counted. He watched her measuring the tea methodically — one, two, three, four. In four months questions accumulated. Yes; four biscuits and a pale piece of chocolate — in case she should be hungry in the night. "The Round Pond at four," she said. She drummed on the table "The Round Pond at four." "Shall I come with you," he said, helping her, "to the Round Pond at four?". "To the Round Pond at four!". The Round Pond at four!". One, two, three, four it struck. One, two, three, four, five. "This is the third, then; or is it the fourth?". That's the third Earl, or the fourth? he asked himself. He knew his eighteenth century; it was the fourth Earl who had made the great marriage. Four. One, two, three, four, she counted, looking up at the greenish-grey stone. One, two, three four, Eleanor counted. She had aged greatly during the past four years. When she came to the fourth of June, he remembered, she wore her skirt the wrong way round. The things she wants explained, Peggy said to her friend at the Hospital, are either as simple as two and two make four, or so difficult that nobody in the world knows the answer. I will count them, she thought, returning to her notebook, and had begun one, two, three, four when a voice exclaimed behind her: "Peggy! Why, he wondered, did people who had been asleep always want to make out that they were extremely wide-awake? "Four or five thousand," he added at random. "Four or five thousand — how much would that be, Maggie? "Four or five thousand," repeated Maggie. Does two and two make four — and what is the nature of the universe?. Five ---- But the fifth sheep would not jump. His day was parcelled out on the advice of his tutor into hours and half-hours; but he still had five minutes before he need begin. Again she saw the ink flowing — she had made an awkward b.

Numbers in The Years by Virginia Woolf

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723

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6 pages

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Numbers in Literature

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