The essay attempts a reading of Virgina Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925). It starts from the assumption that its central theme is ‘the existential issue of time’ in the life of its characters. By way of a study of the careful rendering of different clocks striking during one day in London, reflected in the subjective experience of a small number of people, Bergmann shows that ‘exterior time’ (clock time) serves to lay a foundation for the developments in the novel. To a great extent these are constituted of ‘interior’ occurrences in the characters’ minds. The interplay of the narrator and individual characters is examined through, on the one hand, oscillations between past present and future time, and the narrative imagery on the other. The major course of events in the novel is seen as the process that leads up to a shift, from terror to pleasure, in the central character’s attitude to her own life and death. The essay reaches the conclusion that the image of time, conveyed by the novel, is above all due to the method of narration, with its psychological penetration and the poetic treatment