A month has passed, and Joan has been moved from the Parisian hospital to Oxford. She is still in a coma.
It is past midnight when Morse arrives at the hospital. As he walks to Joan's room, he sees Sargent Strange and Nurse Hicks leaning toward each other. He diverts his eyes, bends his head, and smiles to himself. "Good for them." He enters Joan's room, and in his arms is a bunch of daisies. The florist wanted to sell him a gaudy arrangement but daisies seemed more beautiful in their simplicity. He sees a empty vase, fills it with water, and slips the daisies in, remembering the last stanza to the Wadsworth poem "To a Daisy"
When all my reveries are past,
I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet silent Creature.
That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart…
Morse has brought his record player to the hospital, and the nurses are used to hearing music playing from Miss Thursday's room at all hours of the day and night. They imagine Morse as a hero wooing his maiden, standing vigil until his love awakes. The nurses stand outside the room. "Ah, to find a gent with daisies and blue eyes full of love." A nurse muses, and the other girls reply "Yes" in that way you feel when Bergman and Bogart kiss in Rick's American Cafe.
Morse chooses Puccini's La Boheme from the stack of LP's and plays "O Soave Fanciulla" because moonlight is shining through the window and onto Joan's face. All of the nurses on duty sigh, as Rudolfo begins his song of love:
O soave fanciulla, o dolce visa - O loveliest of maidens, O sweetest vision,
di mite circonfuso alba lunar - Bathed in the soft glow of a moonbeam;
in te, vivo ravviso il sogno/in you - I see a dream come to life
ch'io vorrei sempre sognar! - A dream I pray always to dream!
When the duet comes to its dramatic end, he flips through the LP's again. There is one in particular which Sam, Joan's brother, gave him. He remembers him saying "She'll need a bit more than the fat ladies singing." To which Morse had replied "Better than a drug induced hazy repetitive bit of tripe."
He thought he'd hate it, but this vocalist has a "bel canto" quality, a bit classical in nature. The poetry reminds him of Charlotte Bronte set to a Chopin nocturne. He spins the LP and the hauntingly beautiful voice of Joni Mitchell fills the room.
There's a man who's climbed a mountain
And he's calling out her name
And he hopes her heart can hear three thousand miles
He calls again
He can think her there beside him
He can miss her just the same
He has missed her in the forest
While he showed her all the flowers
And the branches sang the chorus
As he climbed the scaley towers
Of a forest tree
While she was somewhere being free
Now, all of the nurses have gathered outside Joan's door, lost in the love radiating from the room. A novice nurse is sent in to take a peek at the scene and report back. She enters and sees Morse sitting on the edge of Miss Thursday's bed holding her hand while the song Cactus Tree is playing. It is too lovely and private to gaze upon, so she slips out the door and tells the others it was too dark to see. For the rest of her life, she remembers this moment.