{"id":2321,"date":"2014-10-07T18:05:53","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T18:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/?post_type=chapter&p=2321"},"modified":"2014-10-07T18:10:09","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T18:10:09","slug":"to-the-lighthouse","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/chapter\/to-the-lighthouse\/","title":{"raw":"To the Lighthouse","rendered":"To the Lighthouse"},"content":{"raw":"

To the Lighthouse is also available as a PDF Document<\/a>.<\/h3>\r\n
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THE WINDOW<\/div>\r\n
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1 \r\n\r\n\"Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow,\" said Mrs. Ramsay. \"But you'll\r\n\r\nhave to be up with the lark,\" she added.\r\n\r\nTo her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were\r\n\r\nsettled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which\r\n\r\nhe had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night's\r\n\r\ndarkness and a day's sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at the\r\n\r\nage of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate\r\n\r\nfrom that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows,\r\n\r\ncloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest\r\n\r\nchildhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise\r\n\r\nand transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James\r\n\r\nRamsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated\r\n\r\ncatalogue of the Army and Navy stores,[footnote]Large department store chain whose flagship shop was on Victoria Street in London, where the Ramsays live when they are not at the holiday house here.[\/footnote] endowed the picture of a\r\n\r\nrefrigerator, as his mother spoke, with heavenly bliss. It was fringed\r\n\r\nwith joy. The wheelbarrow, the lawnmower, the sound of poplar trees,\r\n\r\nleaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses\r\n\r\nrustling--all these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that he\r\n\r\nhad already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the\r\n\r\nimage of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his\r\n\r\nfierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the\r\n\r\nsight of human frailty, so that his mother, watching him guide his\r\n\r\nscissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined him all red and ermine on\r\n\r\nthe Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of\r\n\r\npublic affairs.[footnote]James is partly based on Woolf\u2019s younger brother Adrian Stephen (1883-1948), her mother\u2019s favourite. He seems to have had a difficult time in childhood, feeling inferior to his bright and popular brother Thoby, and clashed with his father. As children, Woolf and her sister wrote in the Hyde Park Gate News, the family newsletter, that nine-year-old Adrian was \u201cmuch disappointed at not being allowed to go\u201d on a trip to Godrevy Lighthouse off the coast of their summer home in Cornwall (British Library MS, 12 September, 1892).[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But,\" said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, \"it\r\n\r\nwon't be fine.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHad there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed\r\n\r\na hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would\r\n\r\nhave seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited\r\n\r\nin his children's breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as\r\n\r\na knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with\r\n\r\nthe pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife,\r\n\r\nwho was ten thousand times better in every way than he was\r\n\r\n(James thought), but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracy of\r\n\r\njudgement. What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable\r\n\r\nof untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word\r\n\r\nto suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all of\r\n\r\nhis own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from\r\n\r\nchildhood that life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to\r\n\r\nthat fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail\r\n\r\nbarks founder in darkness (here Mr. Ramsay would straighten his back and\r\n\r\nnarrow his little blue eyes upon the horizon), one that needs, above all,\r\n\r\ncourage, truth, and the power to endure.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But it may be fine--I expect it will be fine,\" said Mrs. Ramsay, making\r\n\r\nsome little twist of the reddish brown stocking she was knitting,\r\n\r\nimpatiently. If she finished it tonight, if they did go to the Lighthouse\r\n\r\nafter all, it was to be given to the Lighthouse keeper for his little boy,\r\n\r\nwho was threatened with a tuberculous hip; together with a pile of old\r\n\r\nmagazines, and some tobacco, indeed, whatever she could find lying about,\r\n\r\nnot really wanted, but only littering the room, to give those poor\r\n\r\nfellows, who must be bored to death sitting all day with nothing to do but\r\n\r\npolish the lamp and trim the wick and rake about on their scrap of garden,\r\n\r\nsomething to amuse them. For how would you like to be shut up for a whole\r\n\r\nmonth at a time, and possibly more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size\r\n\r\nof a tennis lawn? she would ask; and to have no letters or newspapers, and\r\n\r\nto see nobody; if you were married, not to see your wife, not to know how\r\n\r\nyour children were,--if they were ill, if they had fallen down and broken\r\n\r\ntheir legs or arms; to see the same dreary waves breaking week after week,\r\n\r\nand then a dreadful storm coming, and the windows covered with spray, and\r\n\r\nbirds dashed against the lamp, and the whole place rocking, and not be\r\n\r\nable to put your nose out of doors for fear of being swept into the sea?\r\n\r\nHow would you like that? she asked, addressing herself particularly to her\r\n\r\ndaughters. So she added, rather differently, one must take them whatever\r\n\r\ncomforts one can.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It's due west,\" said the atheist Tansley, holding his bony fingers spread\r\n\r\nso that the wind blew through them, for he was sharing Mr. Ramsay's\r\n\r\nevening walk up and down, up and down the terrace. That is to say, the\r\n\r\nwind blew from the worst possible direction for landing at the Lighthouse.\r\n\r\nYes, he did say disagreeable things, Mrs. Ramsay admitted; it was odious\r\n\r\nof him to rub this in, and make James still more disappointed; but at the\r\n\r\nsame time, she would not let them laugh at him. \"The atheist,\" they\r\n\r\ncalled him; \"the little atheist.\" Rose mocked him; Prue mocked him;\r\n\r\nAndrew, Jasper, Roger mocked him; even old Badger without a tooth in his\r\n\r\nhead had bit him, for being (as Nancy put it) the hundred and tenth young\r\n\r\nman to chase them all the way up to the Hebrides when it was ever so much\r\n\r\nnicer to be alone.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Nonsense,\" said Mrs. Ramsay, with great severity. Apart from the habit\r\n\r\nof exaggeration which they had from her, and from the implication (which\r\n\r\nwas true) that she asked too many people to stay, and had to lodge some in\r\n\r\nthe town, she could not bear incivility to her guests, to young men in\r\n\r\nparticular, who were poor as churchmice, \"exceptionally able,\" her husband\r\n\r\nsaid, his great admirers, and come there for a holiday. Indeed, she had\r\n\r\nthe whole of the other sex under her protection; for reasons she could not\r\n\r\nexplain, for their chivalry and valour, for the fact that they negotiated\r\n\r\ntreaties, ruled India,[footnote]A reference to British rule over India at the time.[\/footnote] controlled finance; finally for an attitude towards\r\n\r\nherself which no woman could fail to feel or to find agreeable, something\r\n\r\ntrustful, childlike, reverential; which an old woman could take from a\r\n\r\nyoung man without loss of dignity, and woe betide the girl--pray Heaven it\r\n\r\nwas none of her daughters!--who did not feel the worth of it, and all\r\n\r\nthat it implied, to the marrow of her bones!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe turned with severity upon Nancy. He had not chased them, she said.\r\n\r\nHe had been asked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey must find a way out of it all. There might be some simpler way, some\r\n\r\nless laborious way, she sighed. When she looked in the glass and saw her\r\n\r\nhair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have\r\n\r\nmanaged things better--her husband; money; his books. But for her own\r\n\r\npart she would never for a single second regret her decision, evade\r\n\r\ndifficulties, or slur over duties. She was now formidable to behold, and\r\n\r\nit was only in silence, looking up from their plates, after she had spoken\r\n\r\nso severely about Charles Tansley, that her daughters, Prue, Nancy,\r\n\r\nRose--could sport with infidel ideas which they had brewed for themselves\r\n\r\nof a life different from hers; in Paris, perhaps; a wilder life; not\r\n\r\nalways taking care of some man or other; for there was in all their minds\r\n\r\na mute questioning of deference and chivalry, of the Bank of England and\r\n\r\nthe Indian Empire, of ringed fingers and lace, though to them all there\r\n\r\nwas something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the\r\n\r\nmanliness in their girlish hearts, and made them, as they sat at table\r\n\r\nbeneath their mother's eyes, honour her strange severity, her extreme\r\n\r\ncourtesy, like a queen's raising from the mud to wash a beggar's dirty\r\n\r\nfoot, when she admonished them so very severely about that wretched\r\n\r\natheist who had chased them--or, speaking accurately, been invited to\r\n\r\nstay with them--in the Isle of Skye.[footnote]One of the Hebrides islands off Scotland, where the novel is set.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"There'll be no landing at the Lighthouse tomorrow,\" said Charles Tansley,\r\n\r\nclapping his hands together as he stood at the window with her husband.\r\n\r\nSurely, he had said enough. She wished they would both leave her and\r\n\r\nJames alone and go on talking. She looked at him. He was such a\r\n\r\nmiserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows. He couldn't\r\n\r\nplay cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew\r\n\r\nsaid. They knew what he liked best--to be for ever walking up and down,\r\n\r\nup and down, with Mr. Ramsay, and saying who had won this, who had won\r\n\r\nthat, who was a \"first rate man\" at Latin verses, who was \"brilliant but I\r\n\r\nthink fundamentally unsound,\" who was undoubtedly the \"ablest fellow in\r\n\r\nBalliol,\"[footnote]A college of Oxford University.[\/footnote] who had buried his light temporarily at Bristol or Bedford,[footnote]Universities the Ramsays consider inferior.[\/footnote] but\r\n\r\nwas bound to be heard of later when his Prolegomena[footnote]A critical introduction to a book.[\/footnote], of which Mr. Tansley\r\n\r\nhad the first pages in proof with him if Mr. Ramsay would like to see\r\n\r\nthem, to some branch of mathematics or philosophy saw the light of day.\r\n\r\nThat was what they talked about.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe could not help laughing herself sometimes. She said, the other day,\r\n\r\nsomething about \"waves mountains high.\" Yes, said Charles Tansley, it\r\n\r\nwas a little rough. \"Aren't you drenched to the skin?\" she had said.\r\n\r\n\"Damp, not wet through,\" said Mr. Tansley, pinching his sleeve, feeling\r\n\r\nhis socks.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut it was not that they minded, the children said. It was not his face;\r\n\r\nit was not his manners. It was him--his point of view. When they talked\r\n\r\nabout something interesting, people, music, history, anything, even said\r\n\r\nit was a fine evening so why not sit out of doors, then what they\r\n\r\ncomplained of about Charles Tansley was that until he had turned the whole\r\n\r\nthing round and made it somehow reflect himself and disparage them--he was\r\n\r\nnot satisfied. And he would go to picture galleries they said, and he\r\n\r\nwould ask one, did one like his tie? God knows, said Rose, one did not.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDisappearing as stealthily as stags from the dinner-table directly the\r\n\r\nmeal was over, the eight sons and daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay sought\r\n\r\ntheir bedrooms, their fastness in a house where there was no other privacy\r\n\r\nto debate anything, everything; Tansley's tie; the passing of the Reform\r\n\r\nBill;[footnote]The most recent Reform Bill was passed in 1884, and gave the vote to most adult males in Britain. Other voting reforms had been passed in 1832 and 1867.[\/footnote] sea birds and butterflies; people; while the sun poured into those\r\n\r\nattics, which a plank alone separated from each other so that every\r\n\r\nfootstep could be plainly heard and the Swiss girl sobbing for her father\r\n\r\nwho was dying of cancer in a valley of the Grisons,[footnote]A canton (district) in Switzerland.[\/footnote] and lit up bats,\r\n\r\nflannels, straw hats, ink-pots, paint-pots, beetles, and the skulls of\r\n\r\nsmall birds, while it drew from the long frilled strips of seaweed pinned\r\n\r\nto the wall a smell of salt and weeds, which was in the towels too,\r\n\r\ngritty with sand from bathing.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nStrife, divisions, difference of opinion, prejudices twisted into the very\r\n\r\nfibre of being, oh, that they should begin so early, Mrs. Ramsay deplored.\r\n\r\nThey were so critical, her children. They talked such nonsense. She went\r\n\r\nfrom the dining-room, holding James by the hand, since he would not go\r\n\r\nwith the others. It seemed to her such nonsense--inventing differences,\r\n\r\nwhen people, heaven knows, were different enough without that. The real\r\n\r\ndifferences, she thought, standing by the drawing-room window, are enough,\r\n\r\nquite enough. She had in mind at the moment, rich and poor, high and low;\r\n\r\nthe great in birth receiving from her, half grudging, some respect, for\r\n\r\nhad she not in her veins the blood of that very noble, if slightly\r\n\r\nmythical, Italian house, whose daughters, scattered about English\r\n\r\ndrawing-rooms in the nineteenth century, had lisped so charmingly, had\r\n\r\nstormed so wildly, and all her wit and her bearing and her temper came\r\n\r\nfrom them, and not from the sluggish English, or the cold Scotch[footnote]Julia Stephen\u2019s mother Maria was one of the seven Pattle sisters, who had noble French ancestry and were notable for their beauty or talent. The famous Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron was one also.[\/footnote]; but more\r\n\r\nprofoundly, she ruminated the other problem, of rich and poor, and the\r\n\r\nthings she saw with her own eyes, weekly, daily, here or in London, when\r\n\r\nshe visited this widow, or that struggling wife in person with a bag on\r\n\r\nher arm, and a note-book and pencil with which she wrote down in columns\r\n\r\ncarefully ruled for the purpose wages and spendings, employment and\r\n\r\nunemployment, in the hope that thus she would cease to be a private woman\r\n\r\nwhose charity was half a sop to her own indignation, half a relief to her\r\n\r\nown curiosity, and become what with her untrained mind she greatly\r\n\r\nadmired, an investigator, elucidating the social problem.[footnote]Julia Stephen spent much energy visiting the poor and caring for the sick, like many middle-class Victorian women.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nInsoluble questions they were, it seemed to her, standing there, holding\r\n\r\nJames by the hand. He had followed her into the drawing-room, that young\r\n\r\nman they laughed at; he was standing by the table, fidgeting with\r\n\r\nsomething, awkwardly, feeling himself out of things, as she knew without\r\n\r\nlooking round. They had all gone--the children; Minta Doyle and Paul\r\n\r\nRayley; Augustus Carmichael; her husband--they had all gone. So she\r\n\r\nturned with a sigh and said, \"Would it bore you to come with me,\r\n\r\nMr. Tansley?\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had a dull errand in the town; she had a letter or two to write; she\r\n\r\nwould be ten minutes perhaps; she would put on her hat. And, with her\r\n\r\nbasket and her parasol, there she was again, ten minutes later, giving out\r\n\r\na sense of being ready, of being equipped for a jaunt, which, however, she\r\n\r\nmust interrupt for a moment, as they passed the tennis lawn, to ask\r\n\r\nMr. Carmichael, who was basking with his yellow cat's eyes ajar, so that\r\n\r\nlike a cat's they seemed to reflect the branches moving or the clouds\r\n\r\npassing, but to give no inkling of any inner thoughts or emotion\r\n\r\nwhatsoever, if he wanted anything.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFor they were making the great expedition, she said, laughing. They were\r\n\r\ngoing to the town. \"Stamps, writing-paper, tobacco?\" she suggested,\r\n\r\nstopping by his side. But no, he wanted nothing. His hands clasped\r\n\r\nthemselves over his capacious paunch, his eyes blinked, as if he would\r\n\r\nhave liked to reply kindly to these blandishments (she was seductive but a\r\n\r\nlittle nervous) but could not, sunk as he was in a grey-green somnolence\r\n\r\nwhich embraced them all, without need of words, in a vast and benevolent\r\n\r\nlethargy of well-wishing; all the house; all the world; all the people in\r\n\r\nit, for he had slipped into his glass at lunch a few drops of something,\r\n\r\nwhich accounted, the children thought, for the vivid streak of\r\n\r\ncanary-yellow in moustache and beard that were otherwise milk white. No,\r\n\r\nnothing, he murmured.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe should have been a great philosopher, said Mrs. Ramsay, as they went\r\n\r\ndown the road to the fishing village, but he had made an unfortunate\r\n\r\nmarriage. Holding her black parasol very erect, and moving with an\r\n\r\nindescribable air of expectation, as if she were going to meet some one\r\n\r\nround the corner, she told the story; an affair at Oxford with some girl;\r\n\r\nan early marriage; poverty; going to India; translating a little poetry\r\n\r\n\"very beautifully, I believe,\" being willing to teach the boys Persian or\r\n\r\nHindustanee,[footnote]An old spelling for Hindustani, one of the major languages of India.[\/footnote] but what really was the use of that?--and then lying, as they\r\n\r\nsaw him, on the lawn.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt flattered him; snubbed as he had been, it soothed him that Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nshould tell him this. Charles Tansley revived. Insinuating, too, as she\r\n\r\ndid the greatness of man's intellect, even in its decay, the subjection of\r\n\r\nall wives--not that she blamed the girl, and the marriage had been happy\r\n\r\nenough, she believed--to their husband's labours, she made him feel better\r\n\r\npleased with himself than he had done yet, and he would have liked, had\r\n\r\nthey taken a cab, for example, to have paid the fare. As for her little\r\n\r\nbag, might he not carry that? No, no, she said, she always carried that<\/i>\r\n\r\nherself. She did too. Yes, he felt that in her. He felt many things,\r\n\r\nsomething in particular that excited him and disturbed him for reasons\r\n\r\nwhich he could not give. He would like her to see him, gowned and hooded,\r\n\r\nwalking in a procession. A fellowship, a professorship, he felt capable\r\n\r\nof anything and saw himself--but what was she looking at? At a man\r\n\r\npasting a bill. The vast flapping sheet flattened itself out, and each\r\n\r\nshove of the brush revealed fresh legs, hoops, horses, glistening reds and\r\n\r\nblues, beautifully smooth, until half the wall was covered with the\r\n\r\nadvertisement of a circus; a hundred horsemen, twenty performing seals,\r\n\r\nlions, tigers ... Craning forwards, for she was short-sighted, she read it\r\n\r\nout ... \"will visit this town,\" she read. It was terribly dangerous work\r\n\r\nfor a one-armed man, she exclaimed, to stand on top of a ladder like\r\n\r\nthat--his left arm had been cut off in a reaping machine two years ago.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Let us all go!\" she cried, moving on, as if all those riders and horses\r\n\r\nhad filled her with childlike exultation and made her forget her pity.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Let's go,\" he said, repeating her words, clicking them out, however, with\r\n\r\na self-consciousness that made her wince. \"Let us all go to the circus.\"\r\n\r\nNo. He could not say it right. He could not feel it right. But why not?\r\n\r\nshe wondered. What was wrong with him then? She liked him warmly, at the\r\n\r\nmoment. Had they not been taken, she asked, to circuses when they were\r\n\r\nchildren? Never, he answered, as if she asked the very thing he wanted;\r\n\r\nhad been longing all these days to say, how they did not go to circuses.\r\n\r\nIt was a large family, nine brothers and sisters, and his father was a\r\n\r\nworking man. \"My father is a chemist, Mrs. Ramsay. He keeps a shop.\" He\r\n\r\nhimself had paid his own way since he was thirteen. Often he went without\r\n\r\na greatcoat in winter. He could never \"return hospitality\" (those were\r\n\r\nhis parched stiff words) at college. He had to make things last twice the\r\n\r\ntime other people did; he smoked the cheapest tobacco; shag[footnote]Shag tobacco is loose and has to be rolled by hand in papers, hence its cheapness.[\/footnote]; the same the\r\n\r\nold men did in the quays. He worked hard--seven hours a day; his subject\r\n\r\nwas now the influence of something upon somebody--they were walking on and\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay did not quite catch the meaning, only the words, here and\r\n\r\nthere ... dissertation ... fellowship ... readership ... lectureship.[footnote]Fellowship, readership, and lectureship are academic ranks in Britain.[\/footnote] She\r\n\r\ncould not follow the ugly academic jargon, that rattled itself off so\r\n\r\nglibly, but said to herself that she saw now why going to the circus had\r\n\r\nknocked him off his perch, poor little man, and why he came out,\r\n\r\ninstantly, with all that about his father and mother and brothers and\r\n\r\nsisters, and she would see to it that they didn't laugh at him any more;\r\n\r\nshe would tell Prue about it. What he would have liked, she supposed,\r\n\r\nwould have been to say how he had gone not to the circus but to Ibsen[footnote]Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), the Norwegian playwright whose works, such as \u201cA Doll\u2019s House,\u201d were revolutionary, realistic representations of modern life.[\/footnote] with\r\n\r\nthe Ramsays. He was an awful prig--oh yes, an insufferable bore. For,\r\n\r\nthough they had reached the town now and were in the main street, with\r\n\r\ncarts grinding past on the cobbles, still he went on talking, about\r\n\r\nsettlements, and teaching, and working men, and helping our own class,\r\n\r\nand lectures, till she gathered that he had got back entire\r\n\r\nself-confidence, had recovered from the circus, and was about (and now\r\n\r\nagain she liked him warmly) to tell her--but here, the houses falling\r\n\r\naway on both sides, they came out on the quay, and the whole bay\r\n\r\nspread before them and Mrs. Ramsay could not help exclaiming, \"Oh,\r\n\r\nhow beautiful!\" For the great plateful of blue water was before her;\r\n\r\nthe hoary Lighthouse, distant, austere, in the midst; and on the right,\r\n\r\nas far as the eye could see, fading and falling, in soft low pleats,\r\n\r\nthe green sand dunes with the wild flowing grasses on them, which always\r\n\r\nseemed to be running away into some moon country, uninhabited of men.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThat was the view, she said, stopping, growing greyer-eyed, that her\r\n\r\nhusband loved.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe paused a moment. But now, she said, artists had come here. There\r\n\r\nindeed, only a few paces off, stood one of them, in Panama hat and yellow\r\n\r\nboots, seriously, softly, absorbedly, for all that he was watched by ten\r\n\r\nlittle boys, with an air of profound contentment on his round red face\r\n\r\ngazing, and then, when he had gazed, dipping; imbuing the tip of his\r\n\r\nbrush in some soft mound of green or pink. Since Mr. Paunceforte[footnote]Mr. Paunceforte is an invented artist who represents actual painters of the late-Victorian period, such as Whistler and Sickert. These artists worked at St. Ives, where Woolf\u2019s childhood holiday home was, often painting beach and sea scenes in pale colours. Mrs. Ramsay speaks in the next paragraph of \u201cher grandmother\u2019s friends,\u201d showing her preference for the art of the past, which she generally represents.[\/footnote] had been\r\n\r\nthere, three years before, all the pictures were like that, she said,\r\n\r\ngreen and grey, with lemon-coloured sailing-boats, and pink women on the\r\n\r\nbeach.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut her grandmother's friends, she said, glancing discreetly as they\r\n\r\npassed, took the greatest pains; first they mixed their own colours, and\r\n\r\nthen they ground them, and then they put damp cloths to keep them moist.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo Mr. Tansley supposed she meant him to see that that man's picture was\r\n\r\nskimpy, was that what one said? The colours weren't solid? Was that what\r\n\r\none said? Under the influence of that extraordinary emotion which had been\r\n\r\ngrowing all the walk, had begun in the garden when he had wanted to take\r\n\r\nher bag, had increased in the town when he had wanted to tell her\r\n\r\neverything about himself, he was coming to see himself, and everything he\r\n\r\nhad ever known gone crooked a little. It was awfully strange.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere he stood in the parlour of the poky little house where she had taken\r\n\r\nhim, waiting for her, while she went upstairs a moment to see a woman. He\r\n\r\nheard her quick step above; heard her voice cheerful, then low; looked at\r\n\r\nthe mats, tea-caddies, glass shades; waited quite impatiently; looked\r\n\r\nforward eagerly to the walk home; determined to carry her bag; then heard\r\n\r\nher come out; shut a door; say they must keep the windows open and the\r\n\r\ndoors shut, ask at the house for anything they wanted (she must be talking\r\n\r\nto a child) when, suddenly, in she came, stood for a moment silent (as if\r\n\r\nshe had been pretending up there, and for a moment let herself be now),\r\n\r\nstood quite motionless for a moment against a picture of Queen Victoria\r\n\r\nwearing the blue ribbon of the Garter[footnote]The Order of the Garter, the highest royal honour in Britain, whose members wear a blue ribbon.[\/footnote]; when all at once he realised that\r\n\r\nit was this: it was this:--she was the most beautiful person he had ever\r\n\r\nseen.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWith stars in her eyes and veils in her hair, with cyclamen[footnote]A flowering plant, an ancient symbol of love.[\/footnote] and wild\r\n\r\nviolets--what nonsense was he thinking? She was fifty at least; she had\r\n\r\neight children. Stepping through fields of flowers and taking to her\r\n\r\nbreast buds that had broken and lambs that had fallen; with the stars in\r\n\r\nher eyes and the wind in her hair[footnote]Many critics have commented on Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s symbolic connection to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. Tansley seems to see her this way here.[\/footnote]--He had hold of her bag.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Good-bye, Elsie,\" she said, and they walked up the street, she holding\r\n\r\nher parasol erect and walking as if she expected to meet some one round\r\n\r\nthe corner, while for the first time in his life Charles Tansley felt an\r\n\r\nextraordinary pride; a man digging in a drain stopped digging and looked\r\n\r\nat her, let his arm fall down and looked at her; for the first time in his\r\n\r\nlife Charles Tansley felt an extraordinary pride; felt the wind and the\r\n\r\ncyclamen and the violets for he was walking with a beautiful woman. He\r\n\r\nhad hold of her bag.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n2\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"No going to the Lighthouse, James,\" he said, as trying in deference to\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay to soften his voice into some semblance of geniality at least.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOdious little man, thought Mrs. Ramsay, why go on saying that?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n3\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Perhaps you will wake up and find the sun shining and the birds singing,\"\r\n\r\nshe said compassionately, smoothing the little boy's hair, for her\r\n\r\nhusband, with his caustic saying that it would not be fine, had dashed his\r\n\r\nspirits she could see. This going to the Lighthouse was a passion of his,\r\n\r\nshe saw, and then, as if her husband had not said enough, with his caustic\r\n\r\nsaying that it would not be fine tomorrow, this odious little man went and\r\n\r\nrubbed it in all over again.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Perhaps it will be fine tomorrow,\" she said, smoothing his hair.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAll she could do now was to admire the refrigerator, and turn the pages of\r\n\r\nthe Stores list in the hope that she might come upon something like a\r\n\r\nrake, or a mowing-machine, which, with its prongs and its handles, would\r\n\r\nneed the greatest skill and care in cutting out. All these young men\r\n\r\nparodied her husband, she reflected; he said it would rain; they said it\r\n\r\nwould be a positive tornado.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut here, as she turned the page, suddenly her search for the picture of a\r\n\r\nrake or a mowing-machine was interrupted. The gruff murmur, irregularly\r\n\r\nbroken by the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes which had\r\n\r\nkept on assuring her, though she could not hear what was said (as she sat\r\n\r\nin the window which opened on the terrace), that the men were happily\r\n\r\ntalking; this sound, which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its\r\n\r\nplace soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her, such as\r\n\r\nthe tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden bark now and then,\r\n\r\n\"How's that? How's that?\"[footnote]An appeal to the umpire in cricket. Woolf and her siblings loved playing the game as children.[\/footnote] of the children playing cricket, had ceased;\r\n\r\nso that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most\r\n\r\npart beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed\r\n\r\nconsolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children\r\n\r\nthe words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, \"I am guarding\r\n\r\nyou--I am your support,\" but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly,\r\n\r\nespecially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in\r\n\r\nhand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums\r\n\r\nremorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction\r\n\r\nof the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had\r\n\r\nslipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as\r\n\r\na rainbow--this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the\r\n\r\nother sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up\r\n\r\nwith an impulse of terror.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey had ceased to talk; that was the explanation. Falling in one second\r\n\r\nfrom the tension which had gripped her to the other extreme which, as if\r\n\r\nto recoup her for her unnecessary expense of emotion, was cool, amused,\r\n\r\nand even faintly malicious, she concluded that poor Charles Tansley had\r\n\r\nbeen shed. That was of little account to her. If her husband required\r\n\r\nsacrifices (and indeed he did) she cheerfully offered up to him Charles\r\n\r\nTansley, who had snubbed her little boy.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOne moment more, with her head raised, she listened, as if she waited for\r\n\r\nsome habitual sound, some regular mechanical sound; and then, hearing\r\n\r\nsomething rhythmical, half said, half chanted, beginning in the garden, as\r\n\r\nher husband beat up and down the terrace, something between a croak and a\r\n\r\nsong, she was soothed once more, assured again that all was well, and\r\n\r\nlooking down at the book on her knee found the picture of a pocket knife\r\n\r\nwith six blades which could only be cut out if James was very careful.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSuddenly a loud cry, as of a sleep-walker, half roused, something about\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nStormed at with shot and shell[footnote]A quotation from Tennyson\u2019s famous Victorian poem, \u201cThe Charge of the Light Brigade\u201d (1854) which depicted a disastrous attack during the Crimean War in which almost a third of the British were killed or wounded. Mr. Ramsay tends to feel himself a similar brave and doomed hero.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nsung out with the utmost intensity in her ear, made her turn\r\n\r\napprehensively to see if anyone had heard him. Only Lily Briscoe, she was\r\n\r\nglad to find; and that did not matter. But the sight of the girl standing\r\n\r\non the edge of the lawn painting reminded her; she was supposed to be\r\n\r\nkeeping her head as much in the same position as possible for Lily's\r\n\r\npicture. Lily's picture! Mrs. Ramsay smiled. With her little Chinese\r\n\r\neyes[footnote]Some critics have pointed out the casual racism of Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s comment as a reference to a British sense of superiority over others during the period of the Empire.[\/footnote] and her puckered-up face, she would never marry; one could not take\r\n\r\nher painting very seriously; she was an independent little creature, and\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay liked her for it; so, remembering her promise, she bent her\r\n\r\nhead.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n4\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIndeed, he almost knocked her easel over, coming down upon her with his\r\n\r\nhands waving shouting out, \"Boldly we rode and well,\"[footnote]Another quotation from Tennyson\u2019s \u201cCharge of the Light Brigade\u201d; see note 21.[\/footnote] but, mercifully, he\r\n\r\nturned sharp, and rode off, to die gloriously she supposed upon the\r\n\r\nheights of Balaclava. Never was anybody at once so ridiculous and so\r\n\r\nalarming. But so long as he kept like that, waving, shouting, she was\r\n\r\nsafe; he would not stand still and look at her picture. And that was what\r\n\r\nLily Briscoe could not have endured. Even while she looked at the mass,\r\n\r\nat the line, at the colour, at Mrs. Ramsay sitting in the window with\r\n\r\nJames, she kept a feeler on her surroundings lest some one should creep\r\n\r\nup, and suddenly she should find her picture looked at. But now, with all\r\n\r\nher senses quickened as they were, looking, straining, till the colour of\r\n\r\nthe wall and the jacmanna[footnote]A colourful climbing plant.[\/footnote] beyond burnt into her eyes, she was aware of\r\n\r\nsomeone coming out of the house, coming towards her; but somehow divined,\r\n\r\nfrom the footfall, William Bankes, so that though her brush quivered, she\r\n\r\ndid not, as she would have done had it been Mr. Tansley, Paul Rayley,\r\n\r\nMinta Doyle, or practically anybody else, turn her canvas upon the grass,\r\n\r\nbut let it stand. William Bankes stood beside her.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey had rooms in the village, and so, walking in, walking out, parting\r\n\r\nlate on door-mats, had said little things about the soup, about the\r\n\r\nchildren, about one thing and another which made them allies; so that when\r\n\r\nhe stood beside her now in his judicial way (he was old enough to be her\r\n\r\nfather too, a botanist, a widower, smelling of soap, very scrupulous and\r\n\r\nclean) she just stood there. He just stood there. Her shoes were\r\n\r\nexcellent, he observed. They allowed the toes their natural expansion.\r\n\r\nLodging in the same house with her, he had noticed too, how orderly she\r\n\r\nwas, up before breakfast and off to paint, he believed, alone: poor,\r\n\r\npresumably, and without the complexion or the allurement of Miss Doyle\r\n\r\ncertainly, but with a good sense which made her in his eyes superior to\r\n\r\nthat young lady. Now, for instance, when Ramsay bore down on them,\r\n\r\nshouting, gesticulating, Miss Briscoe, he felt certain, understood.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSome one had blundered.[footnote]Tennyson; see note 21.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay glared at them. He glared at them without seeming to see them.\r\n\r\nThat did make them both vaguely uncomfortable. Together they had seen a\r\n\r\nthing they had not been meant to see. They had encroached upon a privacy.\r\n\r\nSo, Lily thought, it was probably an excuse of his for moving, for getting\r\n\r\nout of earshot, that made Mr. Bankes almost immediately say something\r\n\r\nabout its being chilly and suggested taking a stroll. She would come,\r\n\r\nyes. But it was with difficulty that she took her eyes off her picture.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe jacmanna was bright violet; the wall staring white. She would not\r\n\r\nhave considered it honest to tamper with the bright violet and the staring\r\n\r\nwhite, since she saw them like that, fashionable though it was, since\r\n\r\nMr. Paunceforte's visit, to see everything pale, elegant, semitransparent.[footnote]See note 16 on Paunceforte and art.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nThen beneath the colour there was the shape. She could see it all so\r\n\r\nclearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush\r\n\r\nin hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight\r\n\r\nbetween the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often\r\n\r\nbrought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to\r\n\r\nwork as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often\r\n\r\nfelt herself--struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to\r\n\r\nsay: \"But this is what I see; this is what I see,\" and so to clasp some\r\n\r\nmiserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did\r\n\r\ntheir best to pluck from her. And it was then too, in that chill and\r\n\r\nwindy way, as she began to paint, that there forced themselves upon her\r\n\r\nother things, her own inadequacy, her insignificance, keeping house for\r\n\r\nher father off the Brompton Road,[footnote]A somewhat unfashionable area in London. Charles Dickens Jr. noted in 1879 that the Brompton Road was favoured by artists, and was the site of a tuberculosis hospital. See http:\/\/www.victorianlondon.org\/districts\/brompton.htm.[\/footnote] and had much ado to control her impulse\r\n\r\nto fling herself (thank Heaven she had always resisted so far) at\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay's knee and say to her--but what could one say to her? \"I'm in\r\n\r\nlove with you?\" No, that was not true. \"I'm in love with this all,\"\r\n\r\nwaving her hand at the hedge, at the house, at the children. It was\r\n\r\nabsurd, it was impossible. So now she laid her brushes neatly in the box,\r\n\r\nside by side, and said to William Bankes:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It suddenly gets cold. The sun seems to give less heat,\" she said,\r\n\r\nlooking about her, for it was bright enough, the grass still a soft deep\r\n\r\ngreen, the house starred in its greenery with purple passion flowers, and\r\n\r\nrooks dropping cool cries from the high blue. But something moved,\r\n\r\nflashed, turned a silver wing in the air. It was September after all,\r\n\r\nthe middle of September, and past six in the evening. So off they\r\n\r\nstrolled down the garden in the usual direction, past the tennis lawn,\r\n\r\npast the pampas grass, to that break in the thick hedge, guarded by red\r\n\r\nhot pokers[footnote]Bright, tall, red and orange flowers.[\/footnote] like brasiers of clear burning coal, between which the blue\r\n\r\nwaters of the bay looked bluer than ever.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey came there regularly every evening drawn by some need. It was as if\r\n\r\nthe water floated off and set sailing thoughts which had grown stagnant on\r\n\r\ndry land, and gave to their bodies even some sort of physical relief.\r\n\r\nFirst, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart\r\n\r\nexpanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked\r\n\r\nand chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves. Then, up\r\n\r\nbehind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so\r\n\r\nthat one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain\r\n\r\nof white water; and then, while one waited for that, one watched, on the\r\n\r\npale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again\r\n\r\nsmoothly, a film of mother of pearl.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey both smiled, standing there. They both felt a common hilarity,\r\n\r\nexcited by the moving waves; and then by the swift cutting race of a\r\n\r\nsailing boat, which, having sliced a curve in the bay, stopped; shivered;\r\n\r\nlet its sails drop down; and then, with a natural instinct to complete the\r\n\r\npicture, after this swift movement, both of them looked at the dunes\r\n\r\nfar away, and instead of merriment felt come over them some\r\n\r\nsadness--because the thing was completed partly, and partly because\r\n\r\ndistant views seem to outlast by a million years (Lily thought) the gazer\r\n\r\nand to be communing already with a sky which beholds an earth entirely\r\n\r\nat rest.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLooking at the far sand hills, William Bankes thought of Ramsay: thought\r\n\r\nof a road in Westmorland, thought of Ramsay striding along a road by\r\n\r\nhimself hung round with that solitude which seemed to be his natural air.\r\n\r\nBut this was suddenly interrupted, William Bankes remembered (and this\r\n\r\nmust refer to some actual incident), by a hen, straddling her wings out in\r\n\r\nprotection of a covey of little chicks, upon which Ramsay, stopping,\r\n\r\npointed his stick and said \"Pretty--pretty,\" an odd illumination in to\r\n\r\nhis heart, Bankes had thought it, which showed his simplicity, his\r\n\r\nsympathy with humble things; but it seemed to him as if their friendship\r\n\r\nhad ceased, there, on that stretch of road. After that, Ramsay had\r\n\r\nmarried. After that, what with one thing and another, the pulp had gone\r\n\r\nout of their friendship. Whose fault it was he could not say, only, after\r\n\r\na time, repetition had taken the place of newness. It was to repeat that\r\n\r\nthey met. But in this dumb colloquy with the sand dunes he maintained\r\n\r\nthat his affection for Ramsay had in no way diminished; but there, like\r\n\r\nthe body of a young man laid up in peat for a century, with the red fresh\r\n\r\non his lips, was his friendship, in its acuteness and reality, laid up\r\n\r\nacross the bay among the sandhills.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was anxious for the sake of this friendship and perhaps too in order to\r\n\r\nclear himself in his own mind from the imputation of having dried and\r\n\r\nshrunk--for Ramsay lived in a welter of children, whereas Bankes was\r\n\r\nchildless and a widower--he was anxious that Lily Briscoe should not\r\n\r\ndisparage Ramsay (a great man in his own way) yet should understand how\r\n\r\nthings stood between them. Begun long years ago, their friendship had\r\n\r\npetered out on a Westmorland[footnote]A county in north-west England, now part of Cumbria, popular for walking and hiking. Leslie Stephen, Woolf\u2019s father, was a renowned walker.[\/footnote] road, where the hen spread her wings before\r\n\r\nher chicks; after which Ramsay had married, and their paths lying\r\n\r\ndifferent ways, there had been, certainly for no one's fault, some\r\n\r\ntendency, when they met, to repeat.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYes. That was it. He finished. He turned from the view. And, turning\r\n\r\nto walk back the other way, up the drive, Mr. Bankes was alive to things\r\n\r\nwhich would not have struck him had not those sandhills revealed to him\r\n\r\nthe body of his friendship lying with the red on its lips laid up in\r\n\r\npeat--for instance, Cam, the little girl, Ramsay's youngest daughter. She\r\n\r\nwas picking Sweet Alice[footnote]A flowering plant, and perhaps a reference to the conflict between childhood and adulthood, which is also strong in Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), well known to Woolf.[\/footnote] on the bank. She was wild and fierce. She would\r\n\r\nnot \"give a flower to the gentleman\" as the nursemaid told her.\r\n\r\nNo! no! no! she would not! She clenched her fist. She stamped. And\r\n\r\nMr. Bankes felt aged and saddened and somehow put into the wrong by her\r\n\r\nabout his friendship. He must have dried and shrunk.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Ramsays were not rich, and it was a wonder how they managed to\r\n\r\ncontrive it all. Eight children! To feed eight children on philosophy!\r\n\r\nHere was another of them, Jasper this time, strolling past, to have a shot\r\n\r\nat a bird, he said, nonchalantly, swinging Lily's hand like a pump-handle\r\n\r\nas he passed, which caused Mr. Bankes to say, bitterly, how she<\/i> <\/i>was a\r\n\r\nfavourite. There was education now to be considered (true, Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nhad something of her own perhaps) let alone the daily wear and tear of\r\n\r\nshoes and stockings which those \"great fellows,\" all well grown, angular,\r\n\r\nruthless youngsters, must require. As for being sure which was which, or\r\n\r\nin what order they came, that was beyond him. He called them privately\r\n\r\nafter the Kings and Queens of England; Cam the Wicked, James the Ruthless,\r\n\r\nAndrew the Just, Prue the Fair--for Prue would have beauty, he thought,\r\n\r\nhow could she help it?--and Andrew brains.[footnote]These characters are partly based on some of Woolf\u2019s family: Cam on the young Woolf herself; James on Adrian Stephen (see note 1); Andrew on the clever and sociable Thoby Stephen (see note 114); and Prue on Stella Duckworth, her beautiful half-sister (see note 113). Lily Briscoe is similar to both Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell, an artist.[\/footnote] While he walked up the drive\r\n\r\nand Lily Briscoe said yes and no and capped his comments (for she was in\r\n\r\nlove with them all, in love with this world) he weighed Ramsay's case,\r\n\r\ncommiserated him, envied him, as if he had seen him divest himself of all\r\n\r\nthose glories of isolation and austerity which crowned him in youth to\r\n\r\ncumber himself definitely with fluttering wings and clucking\r\n\r\ndomesticities. They gave him something--William Bankes acknowledged that;\r\n\r\nit would have been pleasant if Cam had stuck a flower in his coat or\r\n\r\nclambered over his shoulder, as over her father's, to look at a picture\r\n\r\nof Vesuvius[footnote]The volcano that destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii.[\/footnote] in eruption; but they had also, his old friends could not but\r\n\r\nfeel, destroyed something. What would a stranger think now? What did\r\n\r\nthis Lily Briscoe think? Could one help noticing that habits grew on him?\r\n\r\neccentricities, weaknesses perhaps? It was astonishing that a man of his\r\n\r\nintellect could stoop so low as he did--but that was too harsh a\r\n\r\nphrase--could depend so much as he did upon people's praise.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Oh, but,\" said Lily, \"think of his work!\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhenever she \"thought of his work\" she always saw clearly before her a\r\n\r\nlarge kitchen table. It was Andrew's doing. She asked him what his\r\n\r\nfather's books were about. \"Subject and object and the nature of\r\n\r\nreality,\" Andrew had said. And when she said Heavens, she had no notion\r\n\r\nwhat that meant. \"Think of a kitchen table then,\" he told her, \"when\r\n\r\nyou're not there.\"[footnote]Perhaps a reflection of Leslie Stephen\u2019s philosophy, or of G. E. Moore\u2019s ideas. He was a realist philosopher whose work strongly influenced Woolf\u2019s brother Thoby Stephen when he was at Cambridge University.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo now she always saw, when she thought of Mr. Ramsay's work, a scrubbed\r\n\r\nkitchen table. It lodged now in the fork of a pear tree, for they had\r\n\r\nreached the orchard. And with a painful effort of concentration, she\r\n\r\nfocused her mind, not upon the silver-bossed bark of the tree, or upon its\r\n\r\nfish-shaped leaves, but upon a phantom kitchen table, one of those\r\n\r\nscrubbed board tables, grained and knotted, whose virtue seems to have\r\n\r\nbeen laid bare by years of muscular integrity, which stuck there, its four\r\n\r\nlegs in air. Naturally, if one's days were passed in this seeing of\r\n\r\nangular essences, this reducing of lovely evenings, with all their\r\n\r\nflamingo clouds and blue and silver to a white deal four-legged table\r\n\r\n(and it was a mark of the finest minds to do so), naturally one could not\r\n\r\nbe judged like an ordinary person.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Bankes liked her for bidding him \"think of his work.\" He had thought\r\n\r\nof it, often and often. Times without number, he had said, \"Ramsay is one\r\n\r\nof those men who do their best work before they are forty.\" He had made a\r\n\r\ndefinite contribution to philosophy in one little book when he was only\r\n\r\nfive and twenty; what came after was more or less amplification,\r\n\r\nrepetition. But the number of men who make a definite contribution to\r\n\r\nanything whatsoever is very small, he said, pausing by the pear tree, well\r\n\r\nbrushed, scrupulously exact, exquisitely judicial. Suddenly, as if the\r\n\r\nmovement of his hand had released it, the load of her accumulated\r\n\r\nimpressions of him tilted up, and down poured in a ponderous avalanche all\r\n\r\nshe felt about him. That was one sensation. Then up rose in a fume the\r\n\r\nessence of his being. That was another. She felt herself transfixed\r\n\r\nby the intensity of her perception; it was his severity; his goodness. I\r\n\r\nrespect you (she addressed silently him in person) in every atom; you are\r\n\r\nnot vain; you are entirely impersonal; you are finer than Mr. Ramsay; you\r\n\r\nare the finest human being that I know; you have neither wife nor child\r\n\r\n(without any sexual feeling, she longed to cherish that loneliness), you\r\n\r\nlive for science (involuntarily, sections of potatoes rose before her\r\n\r\neyes); praise would be an insult to you; generous, pure-hearted, heroic\r\n\r\nman! But simultaneously, she remembered how he had brought a valet all\r\n\r\nthe way up here; objected to dogs on chairs; would prose for hours (until\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay slammed out of the room) about salt in vegetables and the\r\n\r\niniquity of English cooks.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHow then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of\r\n\r\nthem? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking\r\n\r\none felt or disliking? And to those words, what meaning attached, after\r\n\r\nall? Standing now, apparently transfixed, by the pear tree, impressions\r\n\r\npoured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like\r\n\r\nfollowing a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one's\r\n\r\npencil, and the voice was her own voice saying without prompting\r\n\r\nundeniable, everlasting, contradictory things, so that even the\r\n\r\nfissures and humps on the bark of the pear tree were irrevocably\r\n\r\nfixed there for eternity. You have greatness, she continued, but\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay has none of it. He is petty, selfish, vain, egotistical; he is\r\n\r\nspoilt; he is a tyrant; he wears Mrs. Ramsay to death; but he has what you\r\n\r\n(she addressed Mr. Bankes) have not; a fiery unworldliness; he knows\r\n\r\nnothing about trifles; he loves dogs and his children. He has eight.\r\n\r\nMr. Bankes has none. Did he not come down in two coats the other night\r\n\r\nand let Mrs. Ramsay trim his hair into a pudding basin? All of this\r\n\r\ndanced up and down, like a company of gnats, each separate but all\r\n\r\nmarvellously controlled in an invisible elastic net--danced up and down in\r\n\r\nLily's mind, in and about the branches of the pear tree, where still hung\r\n\r\nin effigy the scrubbed kitchen table, symbol of her profound respect for\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay's mind, until her thought which had spun quicker and quicker\r\n\r\nexploded of its own intensity; she felt released; a shot went off close at\r\n\r\nhand, and there came, flying from its fragments, frightened, effusive,\r\n\r\ntumultuous, a flock of starlings.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Jasper!\" said Mr. Bankes. They turned the way the starlings flew, over\r\n\r\nthe terrace. Following the scatter of swift-flying birds in the sky they\r\n\r\nstepped through the gap in the high hedge straight into Mr. Ramsay, who\r\n\r\nboomed tragically at them, \"Some one had blundered!\"[footnote]Tennyson; see note 21.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHis eyes, glazed with emotion, defiant with tragic intensity, met theirs\r\n\r\nfor a second, and trembled on the verge of recognition; but then, raising\r\n\r\nhis hand, half-way to his face as if to avert, to brush off, in an agony\r\n\r\nof peevish shame, their normal gaze, as if he begged them to withhold for\r\n\r\na moment what he knew to be inevitable, as if he impressed upon them his\r\n\r\nown child-like resentment of interruption, yet even in the moment of\r\n\r\ndiscovery was not to be routed utterly, but was determined to hold fast to\r\n\r\nsomething of this delicious emotion, this impure rhapsody of which he was\r\n\r\nashamed, but in which he revelled--he turned abruptly, slammed his private\r\n\r\ndoor on them; and, Lily Briscoe and Mr. Bankes, looking uneasily up into\r\n\r\nthe sky, observed that the flock of starlings which Jasper had routed with\r\n\r\nhis gun had settled on the tops of the elm trees.[footnote]Jasper may represent Woolf\u2019s half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth, whom she saw as crass. Her writing makes reference to both of them having abused her sexually; what exactly happened is not clear, but her distaste for them was lifelong. Louise DeSalvo\u2019s Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work (New York: Ballantine, 1990) and Hermione Lee\u2019s biography Virginia Woolf (London: Chatto and Windus, 1999) both discuss the abuse possibilities in detail.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n5\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"And even if it isn't fine tomorrow,\" said Mrs. Ramsay, raising her eyes\r\n\r\nto glance at William Bankes and Lily Briscoe as they passed, \"it will be\r\n\r\nanother day. And now,\" she said, thinking that Lily's charm was her\r\n\r\nChinese eyes, aslant in her white, puckered little face, but it would take\r\n\r\na clever man to see it, \"and now stand up, and let me measure your leg,\"\r\n\r\nfor they might go to the Lighthouse after all, and she must see if the\r\n\r\nstocking did not need to be an inch or two longer in the leg.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSmiling, for it was an admirable idea, that had flashed upon her this very\r\n\r\nsecond--William and Lily should marry--she took the heather-mixture\r\n\r\nstocking, with its criss-cross of steel needles at the mouth of it, and\r\n\r\nmeasured it against James's leg.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"My dear, stand still,\" she said, for in his jealousy, not liking to serve\r\n\r\nas measuring block for the Lighthouse keeper's little boy, James fidgeted\r\n\r\npurposely; and if he did that, how could she see, was it too long, was it\r\n\r\ntoo short? she asked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe looked up--what demon possessed him, her youngest, her cherished?--and\r\n\r\nsaw the room, saw the chairs, thought them fearfully shabby. Their\r\n\r\nentrails, as Andrew said the other day, were all over the floor; but then\r\n\r\nwhat was the point, she asked, of buying good chairs to let them spoil up\r\n\r\nhere all through the winter when the house, with only one old woman to see\r\n\r\nto it, positively dripped with wet? Never mind, the rent was precisely\r\n\r\ntwopence half-penny; the children loved it; it did her husband good to be\r\n\r\nthree thousand, or if she must be accurate, three hundred miles from his\r\n\r\nlibraries and his lectures and his disciples; and there was room for\r\n\r\nvisitors. Mats, camp beds, crazy ghosts of chairs and tables whose London\r\n\r\nlife of service was done--they did well enough here; and a photograph or\r\n\r\ntwo, and books. Books, she thought, grew of themselves. She never had\r\n\r\ntime to read them. Alas! even the books that had been given her and\r\n\r\ninscribed by the hand of the poet himself: \"For her whose wishes must be\r\n\r\nobeyed\"[footnote]A joking reference to \u201cShe-who-must-be-obeyed,\u201d the terrifying queen of H. Rider Haggard\u2019s Victorian adventure novel She (serialized 1886-7). Julia Stephen inspired love and reverence in many writers and artists, and had grown up knowing many famous ones.[\/footnote] ... \"The happier Helen of our days\"[footnote]A reference to Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman of the ancient world. See note 19 on Mrs. Ramsay as a mythical figure.[\/footnote] ... disgraceful to say, she\r\n\r\nhad never read them. And Croom on the Mind[footnote]George Croom Robertson (1842-92), a Scottish philosopher and logician. Note Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s disinterest.[\/footnote] and Bates on the Savage\r\n\r\nCustoms of Polynesia[footnote]As in the previous note, Mrs. Ramsay has little interest in works of serious realism.[\/footnote] (\"My dear, stand still,\" she said)--neither of those\r\n\r\ncould one send to the Lighthouse. At a certain moment, she supposed, the\r\n\r\nhouse would become so shabby that something must be done. If they could\r\n\r\nbe taught to wipe their feet and not bring the beach in with them--that\r\n\r\nwould be something. Crabs, she had to allow, if Andrew really wished to\r\n\r\ndissect them, or if Jasper believed that one could make soup from seaweed,\r\n\r\none could not prevent it; or Rose's objects--shells, reeds, stones; for\r\n\r\nthey were gifted, her children, but all in quite different ways. And the\r\n\r\nresult of it was, she sighed, taking in the whole room from floor to\r\n\r\nceiling, as she held the stocking against James's leg, that things got\r\n\r\nshabbier and got shabbier summer after summer. The mat was fading; the\r\n\r\nwall-paper was flapping. You couldn't tell any more that those were roses\r\n\r\non it. Still, if every door in a house is left perpetually open, and no\r\n\r\nlockmaker in the whole of Scotland can mend a bolt, things must spoil.\r\n\r\nWhat was the use of flinging a green Cashmere shawl over the edge of\r\n\r\na picture frame? In two weeks it would be the colour of pea soup.\r\n\r\nBut it was the doors that annoyed her; every door was left open.\r\n\r\nShe listened. The drawing-room door was open; the hall door was open;\r\n\r\nit sounded as if the bedroom doors were open; and certainly the window\r\n\r\non the landing was open, for that she had opened herself. That windows\r\n\r\nshould be open, and doors shut--simple as it was, could none of them\r\n\r\nremember it? She would go into the maids' bedrooms at night and find\r\n\r\nthem sealed like ovens, except for Marie's, the Swiss girl, who\r\n\r\nwould rather go without a bath than without fresh air, but then\r\n\r\nat home, she had said, \"the mountains are so beautiful.\" She had said\r\n\r\nthat last night looking out of the window with tears in her eyes.\r\n\r\n\"The mountains are so beautiful.\" Her father was dying there,\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay knew. He was leaving them fatherless. Scolding and\r\n\r\ndemonstrating (how to make a bed, how to open a window, with hands that\r\n\r\nshut and spread like a Frenchwoman's) all had folded itself quietly about\r\n\r\nher, when the girl spoke, as, after a flight through the sunshine the\r\n\r\nwings of a bird fold themselves quietly and the blue of its plumage\r\n\r\nchanges from bright steel to soft purple. She had stood there silent for\r\n\r\nthere was nothing to be said. He had cancer of the throat. At the\r\n\r\nrecollection--how she had stood there, how the girl had said, \"At home the\r\n\r\nmountains are so beautiful,\" and there was no hope, no hope whatever, she\r\n\r\nhad a spasm of irritation, and speaking sharply, said to James:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Stand still. Don't be tiresome,\" so that he knew instantly that her\r\n\r\nseverity was real, and straightened his leg and she measured it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe stocking was too short by half an inch at least, making allowance for\r\n\r\nthe fact that Sorley's little boy would be less well grown than James.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It's too short,\" she said, \"ever so much too short.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNever did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, half-way down, in the\r\n\r\ndarkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps\r\n\r\na tear formed; a tear fell; the waters swayed this way and that, received\r\n\r\nit, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut was it nothing but looks, people said? What was there behind it--her\r\n\r\nbeauty and splendour? Had he blown his brains out, they asked, had he\r\n\r\ndied the week before they were married--some other, earlier lover, of whom\r\n\r\nrumours reached one?[footnote]Woolf wrote in \u201cA Sketch of the Past\u201d that her mother eternally mourned the sudden death of her first husband, Herbert Duckworth (see page 89 in Moments of Being. 2nd ed. Ed. Jeanne Schulkind. San Diego: Harvest Brace Jovanovich, 1985).[\/footnote] Or was there nothing? nothing but an incomparable\r\n\r\nbeauty which she lived behind, and could do nothing to disturb? For\r\n\r\neasily though she might have said at some moment of intimacy when stories\r\n\r\nof great passion, of love foiled, of ambition thwarted came her way how\r\n\r\nshe too had known or felt or been through it herself, she never spoke.\r\n\r\nShe was silent always. She knew then--she knew without having learnt.\r\n\r\nHer simplicity fathomed what clever people falsified. Her singleness of\r\n\r\nmind made her drop plumb like a stone, alight exact as a bird, gave her,\r\n\r\nnaturally, this swoop and fall of the spirit upon truth which delighted,\r\n\r\neased, sustained--falsely perhaps.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n(\"Nature has but little clay,\" said Mr. Bankes once, much moved by her\r\n\r\nvoice on the telephone, though she was only telling him a fact about a\r\n\r\ntrain, \"like that of which she moulded you.\"[footnote]A variation of a line from the nineteenth-century writer Thomas Love Peacock\u2019s Headlong Hall (1815).[\/footnote] He saw her at the end of the\r\n\r\nline, Greek, blue-eyed, straight-nosed. How incongruous it seemed to be\r\n\r\ntelephoning to a woman like that. The Graces assembling seemed to have\r\n\r\njoined hands in meadows of asphodel to compose that face.[footnote]The Three Graces in Greek mythology are goddesses of beauty and charm. Asphodel flowers were said to grow in the underworld of the dead.[\/footnote] Yes, he would\r\n\r\ncatch the 10:30 at Euston.[footnote]The 10:30 train from Euston Station in London.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But she's no more aware of her beauty than a child,\" said Mr. Bankes,\r\n\r\nreplacing the receiver and crossing the room to see what progress the\r\n\r\nworkmen were making with an hotel which they were building at the back of\r\n\r\nhis house. And he thought of Mrs. Ramsay as he looked at that stir among\r\n\r\nthe unfinished walls. For always, he thought, there was something\r\n\r\nincongruous to be worked into the harmony of her face. She clapped a\r\n\r\ndeer-stalker's hat on her head; she ran across the lawn in galoshes to\r\n\r\nsnatch a child from mischief. So that if it was her beauty merely that\r\n\r\none thought of, one must remember the quivering thing, the living thing\r\n\r\n(they were carrying bricks up a little plank as he watched them), and work\r\n\r\nit into the picture; or if one thought of her simply as a woman, one must\r\n\r\nendow her with some freak of idiosyncrasy--she did not like admiration--or\r\n\r\nsuppose some latent desire to doff her royalty of form as if her beauty\r\n\r\nbored her and all that men say of beauty, and she wanted only to be like\r\n\r\nother people, insignificant. He did not know. He did not know. He must\r\n\r\ngo to his work.)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nKnitting her reddish-brown hairy stocking, with her head outlined absurdly\r\n\r\nby the gilt frame, the green shawl which she had tossed over the edge of\r\n\r\nthe frame, and the authenticated masterpiece by Michael Angelo,[footnote]Another spelling of Michelangelo (Buonarotti, 1475-1564), the influential sculptor, artist, and engineer.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay smoothed out what had been harsh in her manner a moment\r\n\r\nbefore, raised his head, and kissed her little boy on the forehead.\r\n\r\n\"Let us find another picture to cut out,\" she said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n6\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut what had happened?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSome one had blundered.[footnote]Tennyson; see note 21.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nStarting from her musing she gave meaning to words which she had held\r\n\r\nmeaningless in her mind for a long stretch of time. \"Some one had\r\n\r\nblundered\"--Fixing her short-sighted eyes upon her husband, who was now\r\n\r\nbearing down upon her, she gazed steadily until his closeness revealed to\r\n\r\nher (the jingle mated itself in her head) that something had happened,\r\n\r\nsome one had blundered. But she could not for the life of her think what.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe shivered; he quivered. All his vanity, all his satisfaction in his own\r\n\r\nsplendour, riding fell as a thunderbolt, fierce as a hawk at the head of\r\n\r\nhis men through the valley of death, had been shattered, destroyed.\r\n\r\nStormed at by shot and shell, boldly we rode and well, flashed through the\r\n\r\nvalley of death, volleyed and thundered[footnote]Tennyson; see note 21.[\/footnote]--straight into Lily Briscoe and\r\n\r\nWilliam Bankes. He quivered; he shivered.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNot for the world would she have spoken to him, realising, from the\r\n\r\nfamiliar signs, his eyes averted, and some curious gathering together\r\n\r\nof his person, as if he wrapped himself about and needed privacy into\r\n\r\nwhich to regain his equilibrium, that he was outraged and anguished. She\r\n\r\nstroked James's head; she transferred to him what she felt for her\r\n\r\nhusband, and, as she watched him chalk yellow the white dress shirt of a\r\n\r\ngentleman in the Army and Navy Stores catalogue, thought what a delight it\r\n\r\nwould be to her should he turn out a great artist; and why should he not?\r\n\r\nHe had a splendid forehead. Then, looking up, as her husband passed her\r\n\r\nonce more, she was relieved to find that the ruin was veiled; domesticity\r\n\r\ntriumphed; custom crooned its soothing rhythm, so that when stopping\r\n\r\ndeliberately, as his turn came round again, at the window he bent\r\n\r\nquizzically and whimsically to tickle James's bare calf with a sprig of\r\n\r\nsomething, she twitted him for having dispatched \"that poor young man,\"\r\n\r\nCharles Tansley. Tansley had had to go in and write his dissertation,\r\n\r\nhe said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"James will have to write his<\/i> <\/i>dissertation one of these days,\" he added\r\n\r\nironically, flicking his sprig.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHating his father, James brushed away the tickling spray with which in a\r\n\r\nmanner peculiar to him, compound of severity and humour, he teased his\r\n\r\nyoungest son's bare leg.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe was trying to get these tiresome stockings finished to send to\r\n\r\nSorley's little boy tomorrow, said Mrs. Ramsay.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere wasn't the slightest possible chance that they could go to the\r\n\r\nLighthouse tomorrow, Mr. Ramsay snapped out irascibly.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHow did he know? she asked. The wind often changed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women's minds\r\n\r\nenraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered\r\n\r\nand shivered[footnote]See note 4.[\/footnote]; and now, she flew in the face of facts, made his children\r\n\r\nhope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. He\r\n\r\nstamped his foot on the stone step. \"Damn you,\" he said. But what had she\r\n\r\nsaid? Simply that it might be fine tomorrow. So it might.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNot with the barometer falling and the wind due west.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTo pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other\r\n\r\npeople's feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so\r\n\r\nbrutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without\r\n\r\nreplying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of\r\n\r\njagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There\r\n\r\nwas nothing to be said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe stood by her in silence. Very humbly, at length, he said that he would\r\n\r\nstep over and ask the Coastguards if she liked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe was quite ready to take his word for it, she said. Only then they\r\n\r\nneed not cut sandwiches--that was all. They came to her, naturally, since\r\n\r\nshe was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting this,\r\n\r\nanother that; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothing\r\n\r\nbut a sponge sopped full of human emotions. Then he said, Damn you. He\r\n\r\nsaid, It must rain. He said, It won't rain; and instantly a Heaven of\r\n\r\nsecurity opened before her. There was nobody she reverenced more. She\r\n\r\nwas not good enough to tie his shoe strings, she felt.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAlready ashamed of that petulance, of that gesticulation of the hands when\r\n\r\ncharging at the head of his troops, Mr. Ramsay rather sheepishly prodded\r\n\r\nhis son's bare legs once more, and then, as if he had her leave for it,\r\n\r\nwith a movement which oddly reminded his wife of the great sea lion at the\r\n\r\nZoo tumbling backwards after swallowing his fish and walloping off so that\r\n\r\nthe water in the tank washes from side to side, he dived into the evening\r\n\r\nair which, already thinner, was taking the substance from leaves and\r\n\r\nhedges but, as if in return, restoring to roses and pinks a lustre which\r\n\r\nthey had not had by day.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Some one had blundered,\"[footnote]Tennyson; see note 21.[\/footnote] he said again, striding off, up and down the\r\n\r\nterrace.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut how extraordinarily his note had changed! It was like the cuckoo;\r\n\r\n\"in June he gets out of tune\"; as if he were trying over, tentatively\r\n\r\nseeking, some phrase for a new mood, and having only this at hand, used\r\n\r\nit, cracked though it was. But it sounded ridiculous--\"Some one had\r\n\r\nblundered\"--said like that, almost as a question, without any conviction,\r\n\r\nmelodiously. Mrs. Ramsay could not help smiling, and soon, sure enough,\r\n\r\nwalking up and down, he hummed it, dropped it, fell silent.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was safe, he was restored to his privacy. He stopped to light his\r\n\r\npipe, looked once at his wife and son in the window, and as one raises\r\n\r\none's eyes from a page in an express train and sees a farm, a tree, a\r\n\r\ncluster of cottages as an illustration, a confirmation of something on the\r\n\r\nprinted page to which one returns, fortified, and satisfied, so without\r\n\r\nhis distinguishing either his son or his wife, the sight of them fortified\r\n\r\nhim and satisfied him and consecrated his effort to arrive at a perfectly\r\n\r\nclear understanding of the problem which now engaged the energies of his\r\n\r\nsplendid mind.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was a splendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano,\r\n\r\ndivided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six\r\n\r\nletters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty\r\n\r\nin running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until\r\n\r\nit had reached, say, the letter Q. He reached Q. Very few people in\r\n\r\nthe whole of England ever reach Q. Here, stopping for one moment\r\n\r\nby the stone urn which held the geraniums, he saw, but now far, far\r\n\r\naway, like children picking up shells, divinely innocent and occupied with\r\n\r\nlittle trifles at their feet and somehow entirely defenceless against a\r\n\r\ndoom which he perceived, his wife and son, together, in the window. They\r\n\r\nneeded his protection; he gave it them. But after Q? What comes next?\r\n\r\nAfter Q there are a number of letters the last of which is scarcely\r\n\r\nvisible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance. Z is only\r\n\r\nreached once by one man in a generation. Still, if he could reach R it\r\n\r\nwould be something. Here at least was Q. He dug his heels in at Q. Q he\r\n\r\nwas sure of. Q he could demonstrate. If Q then is Q--R--. Here he\r\n\r\nknocked his pipe out, with two or three resonant taps on the handle of the\r\n\r\nurn, and proceeded. \"Then R ...\" He braced himself. He clenched\r\n\r\nhimself.[footnote]Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf, both highly intelligent, frequently shared the fear that their minds were second-rate and their books failures.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nQualities that would have saved a ship's company exposed on a broiling\r\n\r\nsea with six biscuits and a flask of water--endurance and justice,\r\n\r\nforesight, devotion, skill, came to his help. R is then--what is R?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flickered over the\r\n\r\nintensity of his gaze and obscured the letter R. In that flash of\r\n\r\ndarkness he heard people saying--he was a failure--that R was beyond him.\r\n\r\nHe would never reach R. On to R, once more. R--\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nQualities that in a desolate expedition across the icy solitudes of the\r\n\r\nPolar region would have made him the leader, the guide, the counsellor,\r\n\r\nwhose temper, neither sanguine nor despondent, surveys with equanimity\r\n\r\nwhat is to be and faces it, came to his help again. R--\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe lizard's eye flickered once more. The veins on his forehead bulged.\r\n\r\nThe geranium in the urn became startlingly visible and, displayed among\r\n\r\nits leaves, he could see, without wishing it, that old, that obvious\r\n\r\ndistinction between the two classes of men; on the one hand the steady\r\n\r\ngoers of superhuman strength who, plodding and persevering, repeat the\r\n\r\nwhole alphabet in order, twenty-six letters in all, from start to finish;\r\n\r\non the other the gifted, the inspired who, miraculously, lump all the\r\n\r\nletters together in one flash--the way of genius. He had not genius; he\r\n\r\nlaid no claim to that: but he had, or might have had, the power to repeat\r\n\r\nevery letter of the alphabet from A to Z accurately in order. Meanwhile,\r\n\r\nhe stuck at Q. On, then, on to R.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFeelings that would not have disgraced a leader who, now that the snow has\r\n\r\nbegun to fall and the mountain top is covered in mist, knows that he must\r\n\r\nlay himself down and die before morning comes, stole upon him, paling the\r\n\r\ncolour of his eyes, giving him, even in the two minutes of his turn on\r\n\r\nthe terrace, the bleached look of withered old age. Yet he would not die\r\n\r\nlying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there, his eyes fixed\r\n\r\non the storm, trying to the end to pierce the darkness, he would die\r\n\r\nstanding. He would never reach R.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe stood stock-still, by the urn, with the geranium flowing over it. How\r\n\r\nmany men in a thousand million, he asked himself, reach Z after all?\r\n\r\nSurely the leader of a forlorn hope[footnote]Originally a storming party.[\/footnote] may ask himself that, and answer,\r\n\r\nwithout treachery to the expedition behind him, \"One perhaps.\" One in a\r\n\r\ngeneration. Is he to be blamed then if he is not that one? provided he\r\n\r\nhas toiled honestly, given to the best of his power, and till he has no\r\n\r\nmore left to give? And his fame lasts how long? It is permissible even\r\n\r\nfor a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him\r\n\r\nhereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two\r\n\r\nthousand years? (asked Mr. Ramsay ironically, staring at the hedge).\r\n\r\nWhat, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the\r\n\r\nages? The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.\r\n\r\nHis own little light would shine, not very brightly, for a year or two,\r\n\r\nand would then be merged in some bigger light, and that in a bigger still.\r\n\r\n(He looked into the hedge, into the intricacy of the twigs.) Who then\r\n\r\ncould blame the leader of that forlorn party which after all has climbed\r\n\r\nhigh enough to see the waste of the years and the perishing of the stars,\r\n\r\nif before death stiffens his limbs beyond the power of movement he does a\r\n\r\nlittle consciously raise his numbed fingers to his brow, and square his\r\n\r\nshoulders, so that when the search party comes they will find him dead at\r\n\r\nhis post, the fine figure of a soldier? Mr. Ramsay squared his shoulders\r\n\r\nand stood very upright by the urn.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWho shall blame him, if, so standing for a moment he dwells upon fame,\r\n\r\nupon search parties, upon cairns raised by grateful followers over his\r\n\r\nbones? Finally, who shall blame the leader of the doomed expedition, if,\r\n\r\nhaving adventured to the uttermost, and used his strength wholly to the\r\n\r\nlast ounce and fallen asleep not much caring if he wakes or not, he now\r\n\r\nperceives by some pricking in his toes that he lives, and does not on the\r\n\r\nwhole object to live, but requires sympathy, and whisky, and some one to\r\n\r\ntell the story of his suffering to at once? Who shall blame him? Who\r\n\r\nwill not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by\r\n\r\nthe window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first,\r\n\r\ngradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly\r\n\r\nbefore him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his\r\n\r\nisolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and\r\n\r\nfinally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head\r\n\r\nbefore her--who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the\r\n\r\nworld?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n7\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut his son hated him. He hated him for coming up to them, for stopping\r\n\r\nand looking down on them; he hated him for interrupting them; he hated him\r\n\r\nfor the exaltation and sublimity of his gestures; for the magnificence of\r\n\r\nhis head; for his exactingness and egotism (for there he stood, commanding\r\n\r\nthem to attend to him) but most of all he hated the twang and twitter of\r\n\r\nhis father's emotion which, vibrating round them, disturbed the perfect\r\n\r\nsimplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother. By looking\r\n\r\nfixedly at the page, he hoped to make him move on; by pointing his finger\r\n\r\nat a word, he hoped to recall his mother's attention, which, he knew\r\n\r\nangrily, wavered instantly his father stopped. But, no. Nothing would\r\n\r\nmake Mr. Ramsay move on. There he stood, demanding sympathy.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay, who had been sitting loosely, folding her son in her arm,\r\n\r\nbraced herself, and, half turning, seemed to raise herself with an effort,\r\n\r\nand at once to pour erect into the air a rain of energy, a column of\r\n\r\nspray, looking at the same time animated and alive as if all her energies\r\n\r\nwere being fused into force, burning and illuminating (quietly though she\r\n\r\nsat, taking up her stocking again), and into this delicious fecundity,\r\n\r\nthis fountain and spray of life, the fatal sterility of the male plunged\r\n\r\nitself, like a beak of brass, barren and bare. He wanted sympathy. He\r\n\r\nwas a failure, he said. Mrs. Ramsay flashed her needles. Mr. Ramsay\r\n\r\nrepeated, never taking his eyes from her face, that he was a failure.\r\n\r\nShe blew the words back at him. \"Charles Tansley...\" she said. But he\r\n\r\nmust have more than that. It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his\r\n\r\ngenius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life,\r\n\r\nwarmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness\r\n\r\nmade futile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life--the\r\n\r\ndrawing-room; behind the drawing-room the kitchen; above the kitchen the\r\n\r\nbedrooms; and beyond them the nurseries; they must be furnished, they must\r\n\r\nbe filled with life.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCharles Tansley thought him the greatest metaphysician of the time,[footnote]Leslie Stephen wrote several works on moral philosophy, and was highly thought of as a critic.[\/footnote] she\r\n\r\nsaid. But he must have more than that. He must have sympathy. He must\r\n\r\nbe assured that he too lived in the heart of life; was needed; not only\r\n\r\nhere, but all over the world. Flashing her needles, confident, upright,\r\n\r\nshe created drawing-room and kitchen, set them all aglow; bade him take\r\n\r\nhis ease there, go in and out, enjoy himself. She laughed, she knitted.\r\n\r\nStanding between her knees, very stiff, James felt all her strength\r\n\r\nflaring up to be drunk and quenched by the beak of brass, the arid\r\n\r\nscimitar of the male, which smote mercilessly, again and again,\r\n\r\ndemanding sympathy.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was a failure, he repeated. Well, look then, feel then. Flashing her\r\n\r\nneedles, glancing round about her, out of the window, into the room, at\r\n\r\nJames himself, she assured him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by her laugh,\r\n\r\nher poise, her competence (as a nurse carrying a light across a dark room\r\n\r\nassures a fractious child), that it was real; the house was full; the\r\n\r\ngarden blowing. If he put implicit faith in her, nothing should hurt him;\r\n\r\nhowever deep he buried himself or climbed high, not for a second should he\r\n\r\nfind himself without her. So boasting of her capacity to surround and\r\n\r\nprotect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know\r\n\r\nherself by; all was so lavished and spent; and James, as he stood stiff\r\n\r\nbetween her knees, felt her rise in a rosy-flowered fruit tree laid with\r\n\r\nleaves and dancing boughs into which the beak of brass, the arid scimitar\r\n\r\nof his father, the egotistical man, plunged and smote, demanding sympathy.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFilled with her words, like a child who drops off satisfied, he said, at\r\n\r\nlast, looking at her with humble gratitude, restored, renewed, that he\r\n\r\nwould take a turn; he would watch the children playing cricket. He went.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nImmediately, Mrs. Ramsey seemed to fold herself together, one petal closed\r\n\r\nin another, and the whole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself, so that\r\n\r\nshe had only strength enough to move her finger, in exquisite abandonment\r\n\r\nto exhaustion, across the page of Grimm's fairy story, while there\r\n\r\nthrobbed through her, like a pulse in a spring which has expanded to its\r\n\r\nfull width and now gently ceases to beat, the rapture of successful\r\n\r\ncreation.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEvery throb of this pulse seemed, as he walked away, to enclose her and\r\n\r\nher husband, and to give to each that solace which two different notes,\r\n\r\none high, one low, struck together, seem to give each other as they\r\n\r\ncombine. Yet as the resonance died, and she turned to the Fairy Tale\r\n\r\nagain, Mrs. Ramsey felt not only exhausted in body (afterwards, not at the\r\n\r\ntime, she always felt this) but also there tinged her physical fatigue\r\n\r\nsome faintly disagreeable sensation with another origin. Not that, as\r\n\r\nshe read aloud the story of the Fisherman's Wife,[footnote]One of the Grimm brothers\u2019 collected German fairy tales, first published in English in 1825. It tells of a poor fisherman who catches and releases a prince in the form of a flounder. In return, the fisherman\u2019s wife asks more and more favours of the fish, until she seeks to become godlike, at which she finds herself returned to her original wretched state.[\/footnote] she knew precisely what\r\n\r\nit came from; nor did she let herself put into words her dissatisfaction\r\n\r\nwhen she realized, at the turn of the page when she stopped and heard\r\n\r\ndully, ominously, a wave fall, how it came from this: she did not like,\r\n\r\neven for a second, to feel finer than her husband; and further, could not\r\n\r\nbear not being entirely sure, when she spoke to him, of the truth of what\r\n\r\nshe said. Universities and people wanting him, lectures and books and\r\n\r\ntheir being of the highest importance--all that she did not doubt for a\r\n\r\nmoment; but it was their relation, and his coming to her like that,\r\n\r\nopenly, so that any one could see, that discomposed her; for then people\r\n\r\nsaid he depended on her, when they must know that of the two he was\r\n\r\ninfinitely the more important, and what she gave the world, in comparison\r\n\r\nwith what he gave, negligible. But then again, it was the other thing\r\n\r\ntoo--not being able to tell him the truth, being afraid, for instance,\r\n\r\nabout the greenhouse roof and the expense it would be, fifty pounds\r\n\r\nperhaps to mend it; and then about his books, to be afraid that he might\r\n\r\nguess, what she a little suspected, that his last book was not quite his\r\n\r\nbest book (she gathered that from William Bankes); and then to hide small\r\n\r\ndaily things, and the children seeing it, and the burden it laid on\r\n\r\nthem--all this diminished the entire joy, the pure joy, of the two notes\r\n\r\nsounding together, and let the sound die on her ear now with a dismal\r\n\r\nflatness.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA shadow was on the page; she looked up. It was Augustus Carmichael\r\n\r\nshuffling past, precisely now, at the very moment when it was painful to\r\n\r\nbe reminded of the inadequacy of human relationships, that the most\r\n\r\nperfect was flawed, and could not bear the examination which, loving her\r\n\r\nhusband, with her instinct for truth, she turned upon it; when it was\r\n\r\npainful to feel herself convicted of unworthiness, and impeded in her\r\n\r\nproper function by these lies, these exaggerations,--it was at this\r\n\r\nmoment when she was fretted thus ignobly in the wake of her exaltation,\r\n\r\nthat Mr. Carmichael shuffled past, in his yellow slippers, and some demon\r\n\r\nin her made it necessary for her to call out, as he passed,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Going indoors Mr. Carmichael?\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n8\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe said nothing. He took opium. The children said he had stained his\r\n\r\nbeard yellow with it. Perhaps. What was obvious to her was that the poor\r\n\r\nman was unhappy, came to them every year as an escape; and yet every year\r\n\r\nshe felt the same thing; he did not trust her. She said, \"I am going to\r\n\r\nthe town. Shall I get you stamps, paper, tobacco?\" and she felt him\r\n\r\nwince. He did not trust her. It was his wife's doing. She remembered\r\n\r\nthat iniquity of his wife's towards him, which had made her turn to steel\r\n\r\nand adamant there, in the horrible little room in St John's Wood, when\r\n\r\nwith her own eyes she had seen that odious woman turn him out of the\r\n\r\nhouse. He was unkempt; he dropped things on his coat; he had the\r\n\r\ntiresomeness of an old man with nothing in the world to do; and she turned\r\n\r\nhim out of the room. She said, in her odious way, \"Now, Mrs. Ramsay and I\r\n\r\nwant to have a little talk together,\" and Mrs. Ramsay could see, as if\r\n\r\nbefore her eyes, the innumerable miseries of his life. Had he money\r\n\r\nenough to buy tobacco? Did he have to ask her for it? half a crown?[footnote]A coin worth thirty pence.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\neighteenpence? Oh, she could not bear to think of the little indignities\r\n\r\nshe made him suffer. And always now (why, she could not guess, except\r\n\r\nthat it came probably from that woman somehow) he shrank from her. He\r\n\r\nnever told her anything. But what more could she have done? There was a\r\n\r\nsunny room given up to him. The children were good to him. Never did she\r\n\r\nshow a sign of not wanting him. She went out of her way indeed to be\r\n\r\nfriendly. Do you want stamps, do you want tobacco? Here's a book you\r\n\r\nmight like and so on. And after all--after all (here insensibly she drew\r\n\r\nherself together, physically, the sense of her own beauty becoming, as it\r\n\r\ndid so seldom, present to her) after all, she had not generally any\r\n\r\ndifficulty in making people like her; for instance, George Manning; Mr.\r\n\r\nWallace; famous as they were,[footnote]See note 36 on Julia Stephen\u2019s connection with the famous.[\/footnote] they would come to her of an evening,\r\n\r\nquietly, and talk alone over her fire. She bore about with her, she could\r\n\r\nnot help knowing it, the torch of her beauty; she carried it erect into\r\n\r\nany room that she entered; and after all, veil it as she might, and shrink\r\n\r\nfrom the monotony of bearing that it imposed on her, her beauty was\r\n\r\napparent. She had been admired. She had been loved. She had entered\r\n\r\nrooms where mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence. Men, and\r\n\r\nwomen too, letting go to the multiplicity of things, had allowed\r\n\r\nthemselves with her the relief of simplicity. It injured her that he\r\n\r\nshould shrink. It hurt her. And yet not cleanly, not rightly. That was\r\n\r\nwhat she minded, coming as it did on top of her discontent with her\r\n\r\nhusband; the sense she had now when Mr. Carmichael shuffled past, just\r\n\r\nnodding to her question, with a book beneath his arm, in his yellow\r\n\r\nslippers, that she was suspected; and that all this desire of hers to\r\n\r\ngive, to help, was vanity. For her own self-satisfaction was it that she\r\n\r\nwished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her,\r\n\r\n\"O Mrs. Ramsay! dear Mrs. Ramsay ... Mrs. Ramsay, of course!\" and need her\r\n\r\nand send for her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she\r\n\r\nwanted, and therefore when Mr. Carmichael shrank away from her, as he did\r\n\r\nat this moment, making off to some corner where he did acrostics\r\n\r\nendlessly, she did not feel merely snubbed back in her instinct, but made\r\n\r\naware of the pettiness of some part of her, and of human relations, how\r\n\r\nflawed they are, how despicable, how self-seeking, at their best. Shabby\r\n\r\nand worn out, and not presumably (her cheeks were hollow, her hair was\r\n\r\nwhite) any longer a sight that filled the eyes with joy, she had better\r\n\r\ndevote her mind to the story of the Fisherman and his Wife and so pacify\r\n\r\nthat bundle of sensitiveness (none of her children was as sensitive as he\r\n\r\nwas), her son James.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"The man's heart grew heavy,\" she read aloud, \"and he would not go. He\r\n\r\nsaid to himself, 'It is not right,' and yet he went. And when he came to\r\n\r\nthe sea the water was quite purple and dark blue, and grey and thick, and\r\n\r\nno longer so green and yellow, but it was still quiet. And he stood there\r\n\r\nand said--\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay could have wished that her husband had not chosen that moment\r\n\r\nto stop. Why had he not gone as he said to watch the children playing\r\n\r\ncricket? But he did not speak; he looked; he nodded; he approved; he went\r\n\r\non. He slipped, seeing before him that hedge which had over and over\r\n\r\nagain rounded some pause, signified some conclusion, seeing his wife and\r\n\r\nchild, seeing again the urns with the trailing of red geraniums which had\r\n\r\nso often decorated processes of thought, and bore, written up among their\r\n\r\nleaves, as if they were scraps of paper on which one scribbles notes in\r\n\r\nthe rush of reading--he slipped, seeing all this, smoothly into\r\n\r\nspeculation suggested by an article in The Times<\/i> about the number of\r\n\r\nAmericans who visit Shakespeare's house every year. If Shakespeare\r\n\r\nhad never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what\r\n\r\nit is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is\r\n\r\nthe lot of the average human being better now than in the time of the\r\n\r\nPharaohs? Is the lot of the average human being, however, he asked\r\n\r\nhimself, the criterion by which we judge the measure of civilization?\r\n\r\nPossibly not. Possibly the greatest good requires the existence of a\r\n\r\nslave class. The liftman in the Tube[footnote]The elevator operator in the London subway.[\/footnote] is an eternal necessity. The\r\n\r\nthought was distasteful to him. He tossed his head. To avoid it, he\r\n\r\nwould find some way of snubbing the predominance of the arts. He would\r\n\r\nargue that the world exists for the average human being; that the arts are\r\n\r\nmerely a decoration imposed on the top of human life; they do not express\r\n\r\nit. Nor is Shakespeare necessary to it. Not knowing precisely why it was\r\n\r\nthat he wanted to disparage Shakespeare and come to the rescue of the man\r\n\r\nwho stands eternally in the door of the lift, he picked a leaf sharply\r\n\r\nfrom the hedge. All this would have to be dished up for the young men at\r\n\r\nCardiff[footnote]Probably Cardiff University or the University of Wales, founded in 1883 and 1893 respectively.[\/footnote] next month, he thought; here, on his terrace, he was merely\r\n\r\nforaging and picnicking (he threw away the leaf that he had picked so\r\n\r\npeevishly) like a man who reaches from his horse to pick a bunch of roses,\r\n\r\nor stuffs his pockets with nuts as he ambles at his ease through the lanes\r\n\r\nand fields of a country known to him from boyhood. It was all familiar;\r\n\r\nthis turning, that stile, that cut across the fields. Hours he would\r\n\r\nspend thus, with his pipe, of an evening, thinking up and down and in and\r\n\r\nout of the old familiar lanes and commons, which were all stuck about with\r\n\r\nthe history of that campaign there, the life of this statesman here, with\r\n\r\npoems and with anecdotes, with figures too, this thinker, that soldier;\r\n\r\nall very brisk and clear; but at length the lane, the field, the common,\r\n\r\nthe fruitful nut-tree and the flowering hedge led him on to that further\r\n\r\nturn of the road where he dismounted always, tied his horse to a tree,\r\n\r\nand proceeded on foot alone. He reached the edge of the lawn and looked\r\n\r\nout on the bay beneath.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was his fate, his peculiarity, whether he wished it or not, to come out\r\n\r\nthus on a spit of land which the sea is slowly eating away, and there to\r\n\r\nstand, like a desolate sea-bird, alone. It was his power, his gift,\r\n\r\nsuddenly to shed all superfluities, to shrink and diminish so that he\r\n\r\nlooked barer and felt sparer, even physically, yet lost none of his\r\n\r\nintensity of mind, and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of\r\n\r\nhuman ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we\r\n\r\nstand on--that was his fate, his gift. But having thrown away, when he\r\n\r\ndismounted, all gestures and fripperies, all trophies of nuts and roses,\r\n\r\nand shrunk so that not only fame but even his own name was forgotten\r\n\r\nby him, kept even in that desolation a vigilance which spared no\r\n\r\nphantom and luxuriated in no vision, and it was in this guise that\r\n\r\nhe inspired in William Bankes (intermittently) and in Charles Tansley\r\n\r\n(obsequiously)and in his wife now, when she looked up and saw him\r\n\r\nstanding at the edge of the lawn, profoundly, reverence, and pity, and\r\n\r\ngratitude too, as a stake driven into the bed of a channel upon which the\r\n\r\ngulls perch and the waves beat inspires in merry boat-loads a feeling of\r\n\r\ngratitude for the duty it is taking upon itself of marking the channel out\r\n\r\nthere in the floods alone.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But the father of eight children has no choice.\" Muttering half aloud,\r\n\r\nso he broke off, turned, sighed, raised his eyes, sought the figure of his\r\n\r\nwife reading stories to his little boy, filled his pipe. He turned from\r\n\r\nthe sight of human ignorance and human fate and the sea eating the ground\r\n\r\nwe stand on, which, had he been able to contemplate it fixedly might have\r\n\r\nled to something; and found consolation in trifles so slight compared with\r\n\r\nthe august theme just now before him that he was disposed to slur that\r\n\r\ncomfort over, to deprecate it, as if to be caught happy in a world of\r\n\r\nmisery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes. It was true;\r\n\r\nhe was for the most part happy; he had his wife; he had his children; he\r\n\r\nhad promised in six weeks' time to talk \"some nonsense\" to the young men\r\n\r\nof Cardiff about Locke, Hume, Berkeley,[footnote]All famous British philosophers: John Locke (1632-1704); David Hume (1711-76); George Berkeley (1685-1753).[\/footnote] and the causes of the French\r\n\r\nRevolution. But this and his pleasure in it, his glory in the phrases he\r\n\r\nmade, in the ardour of youth, in his wife's beauty, in the tributes that\r\n\r\nreached him from Swansea, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton, Kidderminster,\r\n\r\nOxford, Cambridge[footnote]British cities.[\/footnote]--all had to be deprecated and concealed under the phrase\r\n\r\n\"talking nonsense,\" because, in effect, he had not done the thing he might\r\n\r\nhave done. It was a disguise; it was the refuge of a man afraid to own\r\n\r\nhis own feelings, who could not say, This is what I like--this is what I\r\n\r\nam; and rather pitiable and distasteful to William Bankes and Lily Briscoe,\r\n\r\nwho wondered why such concealments should be necessary; why he needed\r\n\r\nalways praise; why so brave a man in thought should be so timid in life;\r\n\r\nhow strangely he was venerable and laughable at one and the same time.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTeaching and preaching is beyond human power, Lily suspected. (She was\r\n\r\nputting away her things.) If you are exalted you must somehow come a\r\n\r\ncropper. Mrs. Ramsay gave him what he asked too easily. Then the change\r\n\r\nmust be so upsetting, Lily said. He comes in from his books and finds us\r\n\r\nall playing games and talking nonsense. Imagine what a change from the\r\n\r\nthings he thinks about, she said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was bearing down upon them. Now he stopped dead and stood looking in\r\n\r\nsilence at the sea. Now he had turned away again.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n9\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYes, Mr. Bankes said, watching him go. It was a thousand pities. (Lily\r\n\r\nhad said something about his frightening her--he changed from one mood to\r\n\r\nanother so suddenly.) Yes, said Mr. Bankes, it was a thousand pities that\r\n\r\nRamsay could not behave a little more like other people. (For he liked\r\n\r\nLily Briscoe; he could discuss Ramsay with her quite openly.) It was for\r\n\r\nthat reason, he said, that the young don't read Carlyle[footnote]Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a very well-known Scottish philosopher and social commentator.[\/footnote]. A crusty old\r\n\r\ngrumbler who lost his temper if the porridge was cold, why should he\r\n\r\npreach to us? was what Mr. Bankes understood that young people said\r\n\r\nnowadays. It was a thousand pities if you thought, as he did, that\r\n\r\nCarlyle was one of the great teachers of mankind. Lily was ashamed to say\r\n\r\nthat she had not read Carlyle since she was at school. But in her opinion\r\n\r\none liked Mr. Ramsay all the better for thinking that if his little finger\r\n\r\nached the whole world must come to an end. It was not that<\/i> she minded.\r\n\r\nFor who could be deceived by him? He asked you quite openly to flatter\r\n\r\nhim, to admire him, his little dodges deceived nobody. What she disliked\r\n\r\nwas his narrowness, his blindness, she said, looking after him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"A bit of a hypocrite?\" Mr. Bankes suggested, looking too at Mr. Ramsay's\r\n\r\nback, for was he not thinking of his friendship, and of Cam refusing to\r\n\r\ngive him a flower, and of all those boys and girls, and his own house,\r\n\r\nfull of comfort, but, since his wife's death, quiet rather? Of course,\r\n\r\nhe had his work... All the same, he rather wished Lily to agree that\r\n\r\nRamsay was, as he said, \"a bit of a hypocrite.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLily Briscoe went on putting away her brushes, looking up, looking down.\r\n\r\nLooking up, there he was--Mr. Ramsay--advancing towards them, swinging,\r\n\r\ncareless, oblivious, remote. A bit of a hypocrite? she repeated. Oh,\r\n\r\nno--the most sincere of men, the truest (here he was), the best; but,\r\n\r\nlooking down, she thought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical,\r\n\r\nhe is unjust; and kept looking down, purposely, for only so could she keep\r\n\r\nsteady, staying with the Ramsays. Directly one looked up and saw them,\r\n\r\nwhat she called \"being in love\" flooded them. They became part of that\r\n\r\nunreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen\r\n\r\nthrough the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the birds sang through\r\n\r\nthem. And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in\r\n\r\nthe window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being\r\n\r\nmade up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became\r\n\r\ncurled and whole like a wave which bore one up and threw one down with\r\n\r\nit, there, with a dash on the beach.[footnote]See Woolf\u2019s later novel, The Waves (1931), which extends this image.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Bankes expected her to answer. And she was about to say something\r\n\r\ncriticizing Mrs. Ramsay, how she was alarming, too, in her way,\r\n\r\nhigh-handed, or words to that effect, when Mr. Bankes made it entirely\r\n\r\nunnecessary for her to speak by his rapture. For such it was considering\r\n\r\nhis age, turned sixty, and his cleanliness and his impersonality, and the\r\n\r\nwhite scientific coat which seemed to clothe him. For him to gaze as Lily\r\n\r\nsaw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsay was a rapture, equivalent, Lily felt, to the\r\n\r\nloves of dozens of young men (and perhaps Mrs. Ramsay had never excited the\r\n\r\nloves of dozens of young men). It was love, she thought, pretending to\r\n\r\nmove her canvas, distilled and filtered; love that never attempted to\r\n\r\nclutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians bear their\r\n\r\nsymbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and\r\n\r\nbecome part of the human gain. So it was indeed. The world by all means\r\n\r\nshould have shared it, could Mr. Bankes have said why that woman pleased\r\n\r\nhim so; why the sight of her reading a fairy tale to her boy had upon him\r\n\r\nprecisely the same effect as the solution of a scientific problem, so that\r\n\r\nhe rested in contemplation of it, and felt, as he felt when he had proved\r\n\r\nsomething absolute about the digestive system of plants, that barbarity\r\n\r\nwas tamed, the reign of chaos subdued.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSuch a rapture--for by what other name could one call it?--made Lily\r\n\r\nBriscoe forget entirely what she had been about to say. It was nothing of\r\n\r\nimportance; something about Mrs. Ramsay. It paled beside this \"rapture,\"\r\n\r\nthis silent stare, for which she felt intense gratitude; for nothing so\r\n\r\nsolaced her, eased her of the perplexity of life, and miraculously raised\r\n\r\nits burdens, as this sublime power, this heavenly gift, and one would no\r\n\r\nmore disturb it, while it lasted, than break up the shaft of sunlight,\r\n\r\nlying level across the floor.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThat people should love like this, that Mr. Bankes should feel this for\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsey (she glanced at him musing) was helpful, was exalting. She\r\n\r\nwiped one brush after another upon a piece of old rag, menially, on\r\n\r\npurpose. She took shelter from the reverence which covered all women; she\r\n\r\nfelt herself praised. Let him gaze; she would steal a look at her\r\n\r\npicture.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe could have wept. It was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely bad! She\r\n\r\ncould have done it differently of course; the colour could have been\r\n\r\nthinned and faded; the shapes etherealised; that was how Paunceforte[footnote]An invented artist; see note 16.[\/footnote] would\r\n\r\nhave seen it. But then she did not see it like that. She saw the colour\r\n\r\nburning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly's wing lying\r\n\r\nupon the arches of a cathedral.[footnote]Compare this with Lily\u2019s later vision of her painting (see note 148), and with Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s view of male and female (note 113).[\/footnote] Of all that only a few random marks\r\n\r\nscrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen; never be\r\n\r\nhung even, and there was Mr. Tansley whispering in her ear, \"Women can't\r\n\r\npaint, women can't write ...\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe now remembered what she had been going to say about Mrs. Ramsay. She\r\n\r\ndid not know how she would have put it; but it would have been something\r\n\r\ncritical. She had been annoyed the other night by some highhandedness.\r\n\r\nLooking along the level of Mr. Bankes's glance at her, she thought that no\r\n\r\nwoman could worship another woman in the way he worshipped; they could\r\n\r\nonly seek shelter under the shade which Mr. Bankes extended over them both.\r\n\r\nLooking along his beam she added to it her different ray, thinking that\r\n\r\nshe was unquestionably the loveliest of people (bowed over her book); the\r\n\r\nbest perhaps; but also, different too from the perfect shape which one saw\r\n\r\nthere. But why different, and how different? she asked herself, scraping\r\n\r\nher palette of all those mounds of blue and green which seemed to her like\r\n\r\nclods with no life in them now, yet she vowed, she would inspire them,\r\n\r\nforce them to move, flow, do her bidding tomorrow. How did she differ?\r\n\r\nWhat was the spirit in her, the essential thing, by which, had you found a\r\n\r\ncrumpled glove in the corner of a sofa, you would have known it, from its\r\n\r\ntwisted finger, hers indisputably? She was like a bird for speed, an\r\n\r\narrow for directness. She was willful; she was commanding (of course,\r\n\r\nLily reminded herself, I am thinking of her relations with women, and I am\r\n\r\nmuch younger, an insignificant person, living off the Brompton Road).[footnote]See note 11.[\/footnote] She\r\n\r\nopened bedroom windows. She shut doors. (So she tried to start the tune\r\n\r\nof Mrs. Ramsay in her head.) Arriving late at night, with a light tap on\r\n\r\none's bedroom door, wrapped in an old fur coat (for the setting of her\r\n\r\nbeauty was always that--hasty, but apt), she would enact again whatever it\r\n\r\nmight be--Charles Tansley losing his umbrella; Mr. Carmichael snuffling and\r\n\r\nsniffing; Mr. Bankes saying, \"The vegetable salts are lost.\" All this she\r\n\r\nwould adroitly shape; even maliciously twist; and, moving over to the\r\n\r\nwindow, in pretence that she must go,--it was dawn, she could see the sun\r\n\r\nrising,--half turn back, more intimately, but still always laughing,\r\n\r\ninsist that she must, Minta must, they all must marry, since in the whole\r\n\r\nworld whatever laurels might be tossed to her (but Mrs. Ramsay cared not a\r\n\r\nfig for her painting), or triumphs won by her (probably Mrs. Ramsay had\r\n\r\nhad her share of those), and here she saddened, darkened, and came back to\r\n\r\nher chair, there could be no disputing this: an unmarried woman (she\r\n\r\nlightly took her hand for a moment), an unmarried woman has missed the\r\n\r\nbest of life. The house seemed full of children sleeping and Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nlistening; shaded lights and regular breathing.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOh, but, Lily would say, there was her father; her home; even, had she\r\n\r\ndared to say it, her painting. But all this seemed so little, so\r\n\r\nvirginal, against the other. Yet, as the night wore on, and white lights\r\n\r\nparted the curtains, and even now and then some bird chirped in the\r\n\r\ngarden, gathering a desperate courage she would urge her own exemption\r\n\r\nfrom the universal law; plead for it; she liked to be alone; she liked to\r\n\r\nbe herself; she was not made for that; and so have to meet a serious stare\r\n\r\nfrom eyes of unparalleled depth, and confront Mrs. Ramsay's simple\r\n\r\ncertainty (and she was childlike now) that her dear Lily, her little\r\n\r\nBrisk, was a fool. Then, she remembered, she had laid her head on Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay's lap and laughed and laughed and laughed, laughed almost\r\n\r\nhysterically at the thought of Mrs. Ramsay presiding with immutable calm\r\n\r\nover destinies which she completely failed to understand. There she sat,\r\n\r\nsimple, serious. She had recovered her sense of her now--this was the\r\n\r\nglove's twisted finger. But into what sanctuary had one penetrated?\r\n\r\nLily Briscoe had looked up at last, and there was Mrs. Ramsay, unwitting\r\n\r\nentirely what had caused her laughter, still presiding, but now with every\r\n\r\ntrace of wilfulness abolished, and in its stead, something clear as the\r\n\r\nspace which the clouds at last uncover--the little space of sky which\r\n\r\nsleeps beside the moon.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWas it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it, once more, the deceptiveness of\r\n\r\nbeauty, so that all one's perceptions, half way to truth, were tangled in\r\n\r\na golden mesh? or did she lock up within her some secret which certainly\r\n\r\nLily Briscoe believed people must have for the world to go on at all?\r\n\r\nEvery one could not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth as she was. But\r\n\r\nif they knew, could they tell one what they knew? Sitting on the floor\r\n\r\nwith her arms round Mrs. Ramsay's knees, close as she could get, smiling\r\n\r\nto think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she\r\n\r\nimagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was,\r\n\r\nphysically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of\r\n\r\nkings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them\r\n\r\nout, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly,\r\n\r\nnever made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which\r\n\r\none pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming,\r\n\r\nlike waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the\r\n\r\nobject one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling\r\n\r\nin the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving,\r\n\r\nas people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge\r\n\r\nbut unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that\r\n\r\ncould be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which\r\n\r\nis knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay's knee.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNothing happened. Nothing! Nothing! as she leant her head against\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay's knee. And yet, she knew knowledge and wisdom were stored up\r\n\r\nin Mrs. Ramsay's heart. How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one\r\n\r\nthing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a\r\n\r\nbee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch\r\n\r\nor taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air\r\n\r\nover the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with\r\n\r\ntheir murmurs and their stirrings; the hives, which were people.\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay rose. Lily rose. Mrs. Ramsay went. For days there hung about\r\n\r\nher, as after a dream some subtle change is felt in the person one has\r\n\r\ndreamt of, more vividly than anything she said, the sound of murmuring\r\n\r\nand, as she sat in the wicker arm-chair in the drawing-room window she\r\n\r\nwore, to Lily's eyes, an august shape; the shape of a dome.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThis ray passed level with Mr. Bankes's ray straight to Mrs. Ramsay sitting\r\n\r\nreading there with James at her knee. But now while she still looked,\r\n\r\nMr. Bankes had done. He had put on his spectacles. He had stepped back.\r\n\r\nHe had raised his hand. He had slightly narrowed his clear blue eyes,\r\n\r\nwhen Lily, rousing herself, saw what he was at, and winced like a dog who\r\n\r\nsees a hand raised to strike it. She would have snatched her picture off\r\n\r\nthe easel, but she said to herself, One must. She braced herself to stand\r\n\r\nthe awful trial of some one looking at her picture. One must, she said,\r\n\r\none must. And if it must be seen, Mr. Bankes was less alarming than\r\n\r\nanother. But that any other eyes should see the residue of her\r\n\r\nthirty-three years, the deposit of each day's living mixed with something\r\n\r\nmore secret than she had ever spoken or shown in the course of all those\r\n\r\ndays was an agony. At the same time it was immensely exciting.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNothing could be cooler and quieter. Taking out a pen-knife, Mr. Bankes\r\n\r\ntapped the canvas with the bone handle. What did she wish to indicate by\r\n\r\nthe triangular purple shape, \"just there\"? he asked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was Mrs. Ramsay reading to James, she said. She knew his objection--\r\n\r\nthat no one could tell it for a human shape. But she had made no attempt\r\n\r\nat likeness, she said. For what reason had she introduced them then? he\r\n\r\nasked. Why indeed?--except that if there, in that corner, it was bright,\r\n\r\nhere, in this, she felt the need of darkness. Simple, obvious,\r\n\r\ncommonplace, as it was, Mr. Bankes was interested. Mother and child\r\n\r\nthen--objects of universal veneration, and in this case the mother was\r\n\r\nfamous for her beauty--might be reduced, he pondered, to a purple shadow\r\n\r\nwithout irreverence.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut the picture was not of them, she said. Or, not in his sense. There\r\n\r\nwere other senses too in which one might reverence them. By a shadow here\r\n\r\nand a light there, for instance. Her tribute took that form if, as she\r\n\r\nvaguely supposed, a picture must be a tribute. A mother and child might\r\n\r\nbe reduced to a shadow without irreverence. A light here required a\r\n\r\nshadow there. He considered. He was interested. He took it\r\n\r\nscientifically in complete good faith. The truth was that all his\r\n\r\nprejudices were on the other side, he explained. The largest picture in\r\n\r\nhis drawing-room, which painters had praised, and valued at a higher price\r\n\r\nthan he had given for it, was of the cherry trees in blossom on the banks\r\n\r\nof the Kennet[footnote]A tributary river of the Thames in England.[\/footnote]. He had spent his honeymoon on the banks of the Kennet, he\r\n\r\nsaid. Lily must come and see that picture, he said. But now--he turned,\r\n\r\nwith his glasses raised to the scientific examination of her canvas. The\r\n\r\nquestion being one of the relations of masses, of lights and shadows,\r\n\r\nwhich, to be honest, he had never considered before, he would like to have\r\n\r\nit explained--what then did she wish to make of it? And he indicated the\r\n\r\nscene before them. She looked. She could not show him what she wished to\r\n\r\nmake of it, could not see it even herself, without a brush in her hand.\r\n\r\nShe took up once more her old painting position with the dim eyes and the\r\n\r\nabsent-minded manner, subduing all her impressions as a woman to something\r\n\r\nmuch more general; becoming once more under the power of that vision which\r\n\r\nshe had seen clearly once and must now grope for among hedges and houses\r\n\r\nand mothers and children--her picture. It was a question, she remembered,\r\n\r\nhow to connect this mass on the right hand with that on the left. She\r\n\r\nmight do it by bringing the line of the branch across so; or break the\r\n\r\nvacancy in the foreground by an object (James perhaps) so. But the danger\r\n\r\nwas that by doing that the unity of the whole might be broken. She\r\n\r\nstopped; she did not want to bore him; she took the canvas lightly off the\r\n\r\neasel.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut it had been seen; it had been taken from her. This man had shared\r\n\r\nwith her something profoundly intimate. And, thanking Mr. Ramsay for it\r\n\r\nand Mrs. Ramsay for it and the hour and the place, crediting the world with\r\n\r\na power which she had not suspected--that one could walk away down that\r\n\r\nlong gallery not alone any more but arm in arm with somebody--the\r\n\r\nstrangest feeling in the world, and the most exhilarating--she nicked\r\n\r\nthe catch of her paint-box to, more firmly than was necessary, and the\r\n\r\nnick seemed to surround in a circle forever the paint-box, the lawn,\r\n\r\nMr. Bankes, and that wild villain, Cam, dashing past.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n10\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFor Cam grazed the easel by an inch; she would not stop for Mr. Bankes\r\n\r\nand Lily Briscoe; though Mr. Bankes, who would have liked a daughter of\r\n\r\nhis own, held out his hand; she would not stop for her father, whom she\r\n\r\ngrazed also by an inch; nor for her mother, who called \"Cam! I want\r\n\r\nyou a moment!\" as she dashed past. She was off like a bird, bullet, or\r\n\r\narrow, impelled by what desire, shot by whom, at what directed, who\r\n\r\ncould say? What, what? Mrs. Ramsay pondered, watching her. It might\r\n\r\nbe a vision--of a shell, of a wheelbarrow, of a fairy kingdom on the\r\n\r\nfar side of the hedge; or it might be the glory of speed; no one knew.\r\n\r\nBut when Mrs. Ramsay called \"Cam!\" a second time, the projectile dropped\r\n\r\nin mid career, and Cam came lagging back, pulling a leaf by the way, to\r\n\r\nher mother.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, seeing her engrossed,\r\n\r\nas she stood there, with some thought of her own, so that she had to\r\n\r\nrepeat the message twice--ask Mildred if Andrew, Miss Doyle, and Mr.\r\n\r\nRayley have come back?--The words seemed to be dropped into a well,\r\n\r\nwhere, if the waters were clear, they were also so extraordinarily\r\n\r\ndistorting that, even as they descended, one saw them twisting about to\r\n\r\nmake Heaven knows what pattern on the floor of the child's mind. What\r\n\r\nmessage would Cam give the cook? Mrs. Ramsay wondered. And indeed it\r\n\r\nwas only by waiting patiently, and hearing that there was an old woman in\r\n\r\nthe kitchen with very red cheeks, drinking soup out of a basin, that\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay at last prompted that parrot-like instinct which had picked up\r\n\r\nMildred's words quite accurately and could now produce them, if one\r\n\r\nwaited, in a colourless singsong. Shifting from foot to foot, Cam\r\n\r\nrepeated the words, \"No, they haven't, and I've told Ellen to clear away\r\n\r\ntea.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMinta Doyle and Paul Rayley had not come back then. That could only\r\n\r\nmean, Mrs. Ramsay thought, one thing. She must accept him, or she must\r\n\r\nrefuse him. This going off after luncheon for a walk, even though\r\n\r\nAndrew was with them--what could it mean? except that she had decided,\r\n\r\nrightly, Mrs. Ramsay thought (and she was very, very fond of Minta), to\r\n\r\naccept that good fellow, who might not be brilliant, but then, thought\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay, realising that James was tugging at her, to make her go on\r\n\r\nreading aloud the Fisherman and his Wife, she did in her own heart\r\n\r\ninfinitely prefer boobies to clever men who wrote dissertations;\r\n\r\nCharles Tansley, for instance. Anyhow it must have happened, one way\r\n\r\nor the other, by now.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut she read, \"Next morning the wife awoke first, and it was just\r\n\r\ndaybreak, and from her bed she saw the beautiful country lying before\r\n\r\nher. Her husband was still stretching himself...\"[footnote]See note 52 on the fairy tale.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut how could Minta say now that she would not have him? Not if she\r\n\r\nagreed to spend whole afternoons trapesing about the country alone--for\r\n\r\nAndrew would be off after his crabs--but possibly Nancy was with them.\r\n\r\nShe tried to recall the sight of them standing at the hall door after\r\n\r\nlunch. There they stood, looking at the sky, wondering about the\r\n\r\nweather, and she had said, thinking partly to cover their shyness,\r\n\r\npartly to encourage them to be off (for her sympathies were with Paul),\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"There isn't a cloud anywhere within miles,\" at which she could feel\r\n\r\nlittle Charles Tansley, who had followed them out, snigger. But she\r\n\r\ndid it on purpose. Whether Nancy was there or not, she could not be\r\n\r\ncertain, looking from one to the other in her mind's eye.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe read on: \"Ah, wife,\" said the man, \"why should we be King? I do\r\n\r\nnot want to be King.\" \"Well,\" said the wife, \"if you won't be King, I\r\n\r\nwill; go to the Flounder, for I will be King.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Come in or go out, Cam,\" she said, knowing that Cam was attracted only\r\n\r\nby the word \"Flounder\" and that in a moment she would fidget and fight\r\n\r\nwith James as usual. Cam shot off. Mrs. Ramsay went on reading,\r\n\r\nrelieved, for she and James shared the same tastes and were comfortable\r\n\r\ntogether.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"And when he came to the sea, it was quite dark grey, and the water heaved\r\n\r\nup from below, and smelt putrid. Then he went and stood by it and said,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n'Flounder, flounder, in the sea,\r\n\r\nCome, I pray thee, here to me;\r\n\r\nFor my wife, good Ilsabil,\r\n\r\nWills not as I'd have her will.'\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n'Well, what does she want then?' said the Flounder.\" And where were\r\n\r\nthey now? Mrs. Ramsay wondered, reading and thinking, quite easily,\r\n\r\nboth at the same time; for the story of the Fisherman and his Wife was\r\n\r\nlike the bass gently accompanying a tune, which now and then ran up\r\n\r\nunexpectedly into the melody.[footnote]See note 52 on the fairy tale.[\/footnote] And when should she be told? If nothing\r\n\r\nhappened, she would have to speak seriously to Minta. For she could\r\n\r\nnot go trapesing about all over the country, even if Nancy were with\r\n\r\nthem (she tried again, unsuccessfully, to visualize their backs going\r\n\r\ndown the path, and to count them). She was responsible to Minta's\r\n\r\nparents--the Owl and the Poker. Her nicknames for them shot into her\r\n\r\nmind as she read. The Owl and the Poker--yes, they would be annoyed if\r\n\r\nthey heard--and they were certain to hear--that Minta, staying with the\r\n\r\nRamsays, had been seen etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. \"He wore a wig in\r\n\r\nthe House of Commons and she ably assisted him at the head of the\r\n\r\nstairs,\" she repeated, fishing them up out of her mind by a phrase\r\n\r\nwhich, coming back from some party, she had made to amuse her husband.\r\n\r\nDear, dear, Mrs. Ramsay said to herself, how did they produce this\r\n\r\nincongruous daughter? this tomboy Minta, with a hole in her stocking?\r\n\r\nHow did she exist in that portentous atmosphere where the maid was\r\n\r\nalways removing in a dust-pan the sand that the parrot had scattered,\r\n\r\nand conversation was almost entirely reduced to the exploits--interesting\r\n\r\nperhaps, but limited after all--of that bird? Naturally, one had asked\r\n\r\nher to lunch, tea, dinner, finally to stay with them up at Finlay[footnote]The site of the holiday house in the Hebrides islands off Scotland.[\/footnote], which\r\n\r\nhad resulted in some friction with the Owl, her mother, and more calling,\r\n\r\nand more conversation, and more sand, and really at the end of it, she had\r\n\r\ntold enough lies about parrots to last her a lifetime (so she had said\r\n\r\nto her husband that night, coming back from the party). However,\r\n\r\nMinta came...Yes, she came, Mrs. Ramsay thought, suspecting some thorn\r\n\r\nin the tangle of this thought; and disengaging it found it to be this: a\r\n\r\nwoman had once accused her of \"robbing her of her daughter's affections\";\r\n\r\nsomething Mrs. Doyle had said made her remember that charge again. Wishing\r\n\r\nto dominate, wishing to interfere, making people do what she wished--that\r\n\r\nwas the charge against her, and she thought it most unjust. How could\r\n\r\nshe help being \"like that\" to look at? No one could accuse her of\r\n\r\ntaking pains to impress. She was often ashamed of her own shabbiness.\r\n\r\nNor was she domineering, nor was she tyrannical. It was more true\r\n\r\nabout hospitals and drains and the dairy. About things like that she\r\n\r\ndid feel passionately, and would, if she had the chance, have liked to\r\n\r\ntake people by the scruff of their necks and make them see. No\r\n\r\nhospital on the whole island. It was a disgrace. Milk delivered at\r\n\r\nyour door in London positively brown with dirt. It should be made\r\n\r\nillegal. A model dairy and a hospital up here--those two things she\r\n\r\nwould have liked to do, herself.[footnote]Julia Stephen sought better health for the poor, frequently visiting them, and wrote a book, Notes from Sick Rooms (1883).[\/footnote] But how? With all these children?\r\n\r\nWhen they were older, then perhaps she would have time; when they were\r\n\r\nall at school.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older! or Cam either.\r\n\r\nThese two she would have liked to keep for ever just as they were,\r\n\r\ndemons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into\r\n\r\nlong-legged monsters. Nothing made up for the loss. When she read\r\n\r\njust now to James, \"and there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums\r\n\r\nand trumpets,\" and his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow\r\n\r\nup and lose all that? He was the most gifted, the most sensitive of\r\n\r\nher children. But all, she thought, were full of promise. Prue, a\r\n\r\nperfect angel with the others, and sometimes now, at night especially,\r\n\r\nshe took one's breath away with her beauty. Andrew--even her husband\r\n\r\nadmitted that his gift for mathematics was extraordinary. And Nancy\r\n\r\nand Roger, they were both wild creatures now, scampering about over the\r\n\r\ncountry all day long. As for Rose, her mouth was too big, but she had\r\n\r\na wonderful gift with her hands. If they had charades, Rose made the\r\n\r\ndresses; made everything; liked best arranging tables, flowers,\r\n\r\nanything.[footnote]Rose is partly based on Woolf\u2019s sister Vanessa Bell, the artist, as is Lily Briscoe.[\/footnote] She did not like it that Jasper should shoot birds; but it\r\n\r\nwas only a stage; they all went through stages. Why, she asked,\r\n\r\npressing her chin on James's head, should they grow up so fast? Why\r\n\r\nshould they go to school? She would have liked always to have had a\r\n\r\nbaby. She was happiest carrying one in her arms. Then people might\r\n\r\nsay she was tyrannical, domineering, masterful, if they chose; she did\r\n\r\nnot mind. And, touching his hair with her lips, she thought, he will\r\n\r\nnever be so happy again, but stopped herself, remembering how it\r\n\r\nangered her husband that she should say that. Still, it was true. They\r\n\r\nwere happier now than they would ever be again. A tenpenny tea set\r\n\r\nmade Cam happy for days. She heard them stamping and crowing on the\r\n\r\nfloor above her head the moment they awoke. They came bustling along\r\n\r\nthe passage. Then the door sprang open and in they came, fresh as\r\n\r\nroses, staring, wide awake, as if this coming into the dining-room\r\n\r\nafter breakfast, which they did every day of their lives, was a\r\n\r\npositive event to them, and so on, with one thing after another, all\r\n\r\nday long, until she went up to say good-night to them, and found them\r\n\r\nnetted in their cots like birds among cherries and raspberries, still\r\n\r\nmaking up stories about some little bit of rubbish--something they had\r\n\r\nheard, something they had picked up in the garden. They all had their\r\n\r\nlittle treasures... And so she went down and said to her husband, Why\r\n\r\nmust they grow up and lose it all? Never will they be so happy again.\r\n\r\nAnd he was angry. Why take such a gloomy view of life? he said. It\r\n\r\nis not sensible. For it was odd; and she believed it to be true; that\r\n\r\nwith all his gloom and desperation he was happier, more hopeful on the\r\n\r\nwhole, than she was. Less exposed to human worries--perhaps that was\r\n\r\nit. He had always his work to fall back on. Not that she herself was\r\n\r\n\"pessimistic,\" as he accused her of being. Only she thought life--and\r\n\r\na little strip of time presented itself to her eyes--her fifty\r\n\r\nyears. There it was before her--life. Life, she thought--but she did\r\n\r\nnot finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear\r\n\r\nsense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared\r\n\r\nneither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction\r\n\r\nwent on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on\r\n\r\nanother, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was\r\n\r\nof her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were,\r\n\r\nshe remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part,\r\n\r\noddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called\r\n\r\nlife terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a\r\n\r\nchance. There were eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. There\r\n\r\nwas always a woman dying of cancer even here. And yet she had said to\r\n\r\nall these children, You shall go through it all. To eight people she\r\n\r\nhad said relentlessly that (and the bill for the greenhouse would be\r\n\r\nfifty pounds). For that reason, knowing what was before them--love and\r\n\r\nambition and being wretched alone in dreary places--she had often the\r\n\r\nfeeling, Why must they grow up and lose it all? And then she said to\r\n\r\nherself, brandishing her sword at life, Nonsense. They will be\r\n\r\nperfectly happy. And here she was, she reflected, feeling life rather\r\n\r\nsinister again, making Minta marry Paul Rayley; because whatever she\r\n\r\nmight feel about her own transaction, she had had experiences which\r\n\r\nneed not happen to every one (she did not name them to herself); she\r\n\r\nwas driven on, too quickly she knew, almost as if it were an escape for\r\n\r\nher too, to say that people must marry; people must have children.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWas she wrong in this, she asked herself, reviewing her conduct for the\r\n\r\npast week or two, and wondering if she had indeed put any pressure upon\r\n\r\nMinta, who was only twenty-four, to make up her mind. She was uneasy.\r\n\r\nHad she not laughed about it? Was she not forgetting again how\r\n\r\nstrongly she influenced people? Marriage needed--oh, all sorts of\r\n\r\nqualities (the bill for the greenhouse would be fifty pounds); one--she\r\n\r\nneed not name it--that was essential; the thing she had with her\r\n\r\nhusband. Had they that?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Then he put on his trousers and ran away like a madman,\" she read.\r\n\r\n\"But outside a great storm was raging and blowing so hard that he could\r\n\r\nscarcely keep his feet; houses and trees toppled over, the mountains\r\n\r\ntrembled, rocks rolled into the sea, the sky was pitch black, and it\r\n\r\nthundered and lightened, and the sea came in with black waves as high\r\n\r\nas church towers and mountains, and all with white foam at the top.\"[footnote]See note 52 on the fairy tale.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe turned the page; there were only a few lines more, so that she\r\n\r\nwould finish the story, though it was past bed-time. It was getting\r\n\r\nlate. The light in the garden told her that; and the whitening of the\r\n\r\nflowers and something grey in the leaves conspired together, to rouse\r\n\r\nin her a feeling of anxiety. What it was about she could not think at\r\n\r\nfirst. Then she remembered; Paul and Minta and Andrew had not come\r\n\r\nback. She summoned before her again the little group on the terrace in\r\n\r\nfront of the hall door, standing looking up into the sky. Andrew had\r\n\r\nhis net and basket. That meant he was going to catch crabs and things.\r\n\r\nThat meant he would climb out on to a rock; he would be cut off. Or\r\n\r\ncoming back single file on one of those little paths above the cliff\r\n\r\none of them might slip. He would roll and then crash. It was growing\r\n\r\nquite dark.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut she did not let her voice change in the least as she finished the\r\n\r\nstory, and added, shutting the book, and speaking the last words as if\r\n\r\nshe had made them up herself, looking into James's eyes: \"And there\r\n\r\nthey are living still at this very time.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"And that's the end,\" she said, and she saw in his eyes, as the\r\n\r\ninterest of the story died away in them, something else take its place;\r\n\r\nsomething wondering, pale, like the reflection of a light, which at\r\n\r\nonce made him gaze and marvel. Turning, she looked across the bay, and\r\n\r\nthere, sure enough, coming regularly across the waves first two quick\r\n\r\nstrokes and then one long steady stroke, was the light of the\r\n\r\nLighthouse. It had been lit.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIn a moment he would ask her, \"Are we going to the Lighthouse?\" And\r\n\r\nshe would have to say, \"No: not tomorrow; your father says not.\"\r\n\r\nHappily, Mildred came in to fetch them, and the bustle distracted them.\r\n\r\nBut he kept looking back over his shoulder as Mildred carried him out,\r\n\r\nand she was certain that he was thinking, we are not going to the\r\n\r\nLighthouse tomorrow; and she thought, he will remember that all his\r\n\r\nlife.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n11\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNo, she thought, putting together some of the pictures he had cut out--\r\n\r\na refrigerator, a mowing machine, a gentleman in evening dress--\r\n\r\nchildren never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one\r\n\r\nsaid, and what one did, and it was a relief when they went to bed. For\r\n\r\nnow she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by\r\n\r\nherself. And that was what now she often felt the need of--to think;\r\n\r\nwell, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and\r\n\r\nthe doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk,\r\n\r\nwith a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of\r\n\r\ndarkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to\r\n\r\nknit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self\r\n\r\nhaving shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. When\r\n\r\nlife sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless.\r\n\r\nAnd to everybody there was always this sense of unlimited resources,\r\n\r\nshe supposed; one after another, she, Lily, Augustus Carmichael, must\r\n\r\nfeel, our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish.\r\n\r\nBeneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep;\r\n\r\nbut now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us\r\n\r\nby. Her horizon seemed to her limitless. There were all the places\r\n\r\nshe had not seen; the Indian plains; she felt herself pushing aside the\r\n\r\nthick leather curtain of a church in Rome. This core of darkness could\r\n\r\ngo anywhere, for no one saw it. They could not stop it, she thought,\r\n\r\nexulting. There was freedom, there was peace, there was, most\r\n\r\nwelcome of all, a summoning together, a resting on a platform\r\n\r\nof stability. Not as oneself did one find rest ever, in her experience\r\n\r\n(she accomplished here something dexterous with her needles) but as a\r\n\r\nwedge of darkness. Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry,\r\n\r\nthe stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph\r\n\r\nover life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this\r\n\r\neternity; and pausing there she looked out to meet that stroke of the\r\n\r\nLighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was\r\n\r\nher stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one\r\n\r\ncould not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things\r\n\r\none saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke. Often\r\n\r\nshe found herself sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her\r\n\r\nwork in her hands until she became the thing she looked at--that light,\r\n\r\nfor example. And it would lift up on it some little phrase or other\r\n\r\nwhich had been lying in her mind like that--\"Children don't forget,\r\n\r\nchildren don't forget\"--which she would repeat and begin adding to it,\r\n\r\nIt will end, it will end, she said. It will come, it will come, when\r\n\r\nsuddenly she added, We are in the hands of the Lord.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut instantly she was annoyed with herself for saying that. Who had\r\n\r\nsaid it? Not she; she had been trapped into saying something she did\r\n\r\nnot mean. She looked up over her knitting and met the third stroke and\r\n\r\nit seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes, searching as\r\n\r\nshe alone could search into her mind and her heart, purifying out of\r\n\r\nexistence that lie, any lie. She praised herself in praising the\r\n\r\nlight, without vanity, for she was stern, she was searching, she was\r\n\r\nbeautiful like that light. It was odd, she thought, how if one was\r\n\r\nalone, one leant to inanimate things; trees, streams, flowers; felt\r\n\r\nthey expressed one; felt they became one; felt they knew one, in a\r\n\r\nsense were one; felt an irrational tenderness thus (she looked at that\r\n\r\nlong steady light) as for oneself. There rose, and she looked and\r\n\r\nlooked with her needles suspended, there curled up off the floor of the\r\n\r\nmind, rose from the lake of one's being, a mist, a bride to meet her\r\n\r\nlover.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat brought her to say that: \"We are in the hands of the Lord?\" she\r\n\r\nwondered. The insincerity slipping in among the truths roused her,\r\n\r\nannoyed her. She returned to her knitting again. How could any Lord\r\n\r\nhave made this world? she asked.[footnote]Julia Stephen became an atheist in adulthood, like her husband, which was fairly unusual for the time. See note 163 on Leslie Stephen.[\/footnote] With her mind she had always seized\r\n\r\nthe fact that there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death,\r\n\r\nthe poor. There was no treachery too base for the world to commit; she\r\n\r\nknew that. No happiness lasted; she knew that. She knitted with firm\r\n\r\ncomposure, slightly pursing her lips and, without being aware of it, so\r\n\r\nstiffened and composed the lines of her face in a habit of sternness\r\n\r\nthat when her husband passed, though he was chuckling at the thought\r\n\r\nthat Hume, the philosopher, grown enormously fat, had stuck in a bog,[footnote]A story about the famous atheist philosopher David Hume (1711-76), who had to recite the Lord\u2019s Prayer for a fish seller before she would pull him from the bog, which amused Leslie Stephen and his children.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nhe could not help noting, as he passed, the sternness at the heart of\r\n\r\nher beauty. It saddened him, and her remoteness pained him, and he\r\n\r\nfelt, as he passed, that he could not protect her, and, when he reached\r\n\r\nthe hedge, he was sad. He could do nothing to help her. He must stand\r\n\r\nby and watch her. Indeed, the infernal truth was, he made things worse\r\n\r\nfor her. He was irritable--he was touchy. He had lost his temper over\r\n\r\nthe Lighthouse. He looked into the hedge, into its intricacy, its\r\n\r\ndarkness.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAlways, Mrs. Ramsay felt, one helped oneself out of solitude reluctantly\r\n\r\nby laying hold of some little odd or end, some sound, some sight. She\r\n\r\nlistened, but it was all very still; cricket was over; the children\r\n\r\nwere in their baths; there was only the sound of the sea. She stopped\r\n\r\nknitting; she held the long reddish-brown stocking dangling in her\r\n\r\nhands a moment. She saw the light again. With some irony in her\r\n\r\ninterrogation, for when one woke at all, one's relations changed, she\r\n\r\nlooked at the steady light, the pitiless, the remorseless, which was so\r\n\r\nmuch her, yet so little her, which had her at its beck and call (she\r\n\r\nwoke in the night and saw it bent across their bed, stroking the\r\n\r\nfloor), but for all that she thought, watching it with fascination,\r\n\r\nhypnotised, as if it were stroking with its silver fingers some sealed\r\n\r\nvessel in her brain whose bursting would flood her with delight, she\r\n\r\nhad known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it\r\n\r\nsilvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and\r\n\r\nthe blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which\r\n\r\ncurved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in\r\n\r\nher eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and\r\n\r\nshe felt, It is enough! It is enough!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe turned and saw her. Ah! She was lovely, lovelier now than ever he\r\n\r\nthought. But he could not speak to her. He could not interrupt her.\r\n\r\nHe wanted urgently to speak to her now that James was gone and she was\r\n\r\nalone at last. But he resolved, no; he would not interrupt her. She\r\n\r\nwas aloof from him now in her beauty, in her sadness. He would let her\r\n\r\nbe, and he passed her without a word, though it hurt him that she\r\n\r\nshould look so distant, and he could not reach her, he could do nothing\r\n\r\nto help her. And again he would have passed her without a word had she\r\n\r\nnot, at that very moment, given him of her own free will what she knew\r\n\r\nhe would never ask, and called to him and taken the green shawl off the\r\n\r\npicture frame, and gone to him. For he wished, she knew, to protect\r\n\r\nher.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n12\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe folded the green shawl about her shoulders. She took his arm. His\r\n\r\nbeauty was so great, she said, beginning to speak of Kennedy the\r\n\r\ngardener, at once he was so awfully handsome, that she couldn't dismiss\r\n\r\nhim. There was a ladder against the greenhouse, and little lumps of\r\n\r\nputty stuck about, for they were beginning to mend the greenhouse.\r\n\r\nYes, but as she strolled along with her husband, she felt that that\r\n\r\nparticular source of worry had been placed. She had it on the tip of\r\n\r\nher tongue to say, as they strolled, \"It'll cost fifty pounds,\" but\r\n\r\ninstead, for her heart failed her about money, she talked about Jasper\r\n\r\nshooting birds, and he said, at once, soothing her instantly, that it\r\n\r\nwas natural in a boy, and he trusted he would find better ways of\r\n\r\namusing himself before long. Her husband was so sensible, so just.\r\n\r\nAnd so she said, \"Yes; all children go through stages,\" and began\r\n\r\nconsidering the dahlias in the big bed, and wondering what about next\r\n\r\nyear's flowers, and had he heard the children's nickname for Charles\r\n\r\nTansley, she asked. The atheist, they called him, the little atheist.\r\n\r\n\"He's not a polished specimen,\" said Mr. Ramsay. \"Far from it,\" said\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe supposed it was all right leaving him to his own devices, Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay said, wondering whether it was any use sending down bulbs; did\r\n\r\nthey plant them? \"Oh, he has his dissertation to write,\" said Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay. She knew all about that<\/i>, said Mrs. Ramsay. He talked of\r\n\r\nnothing else. It was about the influence of somebody upon something.\r\n\r\n\"Well, it's all he has to count on,\" said Mr. Ramsay. \"Pray Heaven he\r\n\r\nwon't fall in love with Prue,\" said Mrs. Ramsay. He'd disinherit her if\r\n\r\nshe married him, said Mr. Ramsay. He did not look at the flowers,\r\n\r\nwhich his wife was considering, but at a spot about a foot or\r\n\r\nso above them. There was no harm in him, he added, and was just\r\n\r\nabout to say that anyhow he was the only young man in England who\r\n\r\nadmired his--when he choked it back. He would not bother her again\r\n\r\nabout his books. These flowers seemed creditable, Mr. Ramsay said,\r\n\r\nlowering his gaze and noticing something red, something brown. Yes, but\r\n\r\nthen these she had put in with her own hands, said Mrs. Ramsay. The\r\n\r\nquestion was, what happened if she sent bulbs down; did Kennedy plant\r\n\r\nthem? It was his incurable laziness; she added, moving on. If she\r\n\r\nstood over him all day long with a spade in her hand, he did sometimes\r\n\r\ndo a stroke of work. So they strolled along, towards the red-hot\r\n\r\npokers.[footnote]Flowers; see note 28.[\/footnote] \"You're teaching your daughters to exaggerate,\" said Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay, reproving her. Her Aunt Camilla was far worse than she was, Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay remarked. \"Nobody ever held up your Aunt Camilla as a model of\r\n\r\nvirtue that I'm aware of,\" said Mr. Ramsay. \"She was the most beautiful\r\n\r\nwoman I ever saw,\" said Mrs. Ramsay. \"Somebody else was that,\" said Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay. Prue was going to be far more beautiful than she was, said Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay. He saw no trace of it, said Mr. Ramsay. \"Well, then, look\r\n\r\ntonight,\" said Mrs. Ramsay. They paused. He wished Andrew could be\r\n\r\ninduced to work harder. He would lose every chance of a scholarship if\r\n\r\nhe didn't. \"Oh, scholarships!\" she said. Mr. Ramsay thought her foolish\r\n\r\nfor saying that, about a serious thing, like a scholarship. He should\r\n\r\nbe very proud of Andrew if he got a scholarship, he said. She would be\r\n\r\njust as proud of him if he didn't, she answered. They disagreed always\r\n\r\nabout this, but it did not matter. She liked him to believe in\r\n\r\nscholarships, and he liked her to be proud of Andrew whatever he did.\r\n\r\nSuddenly she remembered those little paths on the edge of the cliffs.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWasn't it late? she asked. They hadn't come home yet. He flicked his\r\n\r\nwatch carelessly open. But it was only just past seven. He held his\r\n\r\nwatch open for a moment, deciding that he would tell her what he had\r\n\r\nfelt on the terrace. To begin with, it was not reasonable to be so\r\n\r\nnervous. Andrew could look after himself. Then, he wanted to tell her\r\n\r\nthat when he was walking on the terrace just now--here he became\r\n\r\nuncomfortable, as if he were breaking into that solitude, that\r\n\r\naloofness, that remoteness of hers. But she pressed him. What had\r\n\r\nhe wanted to tell her, she asked, thinking it was about going to the\r\n\r\nLighthouse; that he was sorry he had said \"Damn you.\" But no. He did\r\n\r\nnot like to see her look so sad, he said. Only wool gathering, she\r\n\r\nprotested, flushing a little. They both felt uncomfortable, as if they\r\n\r\ndid not know whether to go on or go back. She had been reading fairy\r\n\r\ntales to James, she said. No, they could not share that; they could\r\n\r\nnot say that.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey had reached the gap between the two clumps of red-hot pokers[footnote]Flowers; see note 28.[\/footnote], and\r\n\r\nthere was the Lighthouse again, but she would not let herself look at\r\n\r\nit. Had she known that he was looking at her, she thought, she would\r\n\r\nnot have let herself sit there, thinking. She disliked anything that\r\n\r\nreminded her that she had been seen sitting thinking. So she looked\r\n\r\nover her shoulder, at the town. The lights were rippling and running\r\n\r\nas if they were drops of silver water held firm in a wind. And all the\r\n\r\npoverty, all the suffering had turned to that, Mrs. Ramsay thought. The\r\n\r\nlights of the town and of the harbour and of the boats seemed like a\r\n\r\nphantom net floating there to mark something which had sunk. Well, if\r\n\r\nhe could not share her thoughts, Mr. Ramsay said to himself, he would be\r\n\r\noff, then, on his own. He wanted to go on thinking, telling himself the\r\n\r\nstory how Hume was stuck in a bog[footnote]See note 72.[\/footnote]; he wanted to laugh. But first it\r\n\r\nwas nonsense to be anxious about Andrew. When he was Andrew's age he\r\n\r\nused to walk about the country all day long, with nothing but a biscuit\r\n\r\nin his pocket and nobody bothered about him, or thought that he had\r\n\r\nfallen over a cliff. He said aloud he thought he would be off for a\r\n\r\nday's walk if the weather held. He had had about enough of Bankes and\r\n\r\nof Carmichael. He would like a little solitude. Yes, she said. It\r\n\r\nannoyed him that she did not protest. She knew that he would never do\r\n\r\nit. He was too old now to walk all day long with a biscuit in his\r\n\r\npocket. She worried about the boys, but not about him. Years ago,\r\n\r\nbefore he had married, he thought, looking across the bay, as they\r\n\r\nstood between the clumps of red-hot pokers, he had walked all day. He\r\n\r\nhad made a meal off bread and cheese in a public house. He had worked\r\n\r\nten hours at a stretch; an old woman just popped her head in now and\r\n\r\nagain and saw to the fire. That was the country he liked best, over\r\n\r\nthere; those sandhills dwindling away into darkness. One could walk\r\n\r\nall day without meeting a soul. There was not a house scarcely, not a\r\n\r\nsingle village for miles on end. One could worry things out alone.\r\n\r\nThere were little sandy beaches where no one had been since the\r\n\r\nbeginning of time. The seals sat up and looked at you. It sometimes\r\n\r\nseemed to him that in a little house out there, alone--he broke off,\r\n\r\nsighing. He had no right. The father of eight children--he reminded\r\n\r\nhimself. And he would have been a beast and a cur to wish a single\r\n\r\nthing altered. Andrew would be a better man than he had been. Prue\r\n\r\nwould be a beauty, her mother said. They would stem the flood a bit.\r\n\r\nThat was a good bit of work on the whole--his eight children. They\r\n\r\nshowed he did not damn the poor little universe entirely, for on an\r\n\r\nevening like this, he thought, looking at the land dwindling away, the\r\n\r\nlittle island seemed pathetically small, half swallowed up in the sea.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Poor little place,\" he murmured with a sigh.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe heard him. He said the most melancholy things, but she noticed\r\n\r\nthat directly he had said them he always seemed more cheerful than\r\n\r\nusual. All this phrase-making was a game, she thought, for if she had\r\n\r\nsaid half what he said, she would have blown her brains out by now.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt annoyed her, this phrase-making, and she said to him, in a matter-\r\n\r\nof-fact way, that it was a perfectly lovely evening. And what was he\r\n\r\ngroaning about, she asked, half laughing, half complaining, for she\r\n\r\nguessed what he was thinking--he would have written better books if he\r\n\r\nhad not married.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was not complaining, he said. She knew that he did not complain.\r\n\r\nShe knew that he had nothing whatever to complain of. And he seized\r\n\r\nher hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it with an intensity that\r\n\r\nbrought the tears to her eyes, and quickly he dropped it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey turned away from the view and began to walk up the path where the\r\n\r\nsilver-green spear-like plants grew, arm in arm. His arm was almost\r\n\r\nlike a young man's arm, Mrs. Ramsay thought, thin and hard, and she\r\n\r\nthought with delight how strong he still was, though he was over sixty,\r\n\r\nand how untamed and optimistic, and how strange it was that being\r\n\r\nconvinced, as he was, of all sorts of horrors, seemed not to depress\r\n\r\nhim, but to cheer him. Was it not odd, she reflected? Indeed he\r\n\r\nseemed to her sometimes made differently from other people, born blind,\r\n\r\ndeaf, and dumb, to the ordinary things, but to the extraordinary\r\n\r\nthings, with an eye like an eagle's. His understanding often\r\n\r\nastonished her. But did he notice the flowers? No. Did he notice the\r\n\r\nview? No. Did he even notice his own daughter's beauty, or whether\r\n\r\nthere was pudding on his plate or roast beef? He would sit at table\r\n\r\nwith them like a person in a dream. And his habit of talking aloud, or\r\n\r\nsaying poetry aloud, was growing on him, she was afraid; for sometimes\r\n\r\nit was awkward--\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBest and brightest come away![footnote]A line from Percy Bysshe Shelley\u2019s poem, \u201cTo Jane \u2013 The Invitation\u201d (1811).[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\npoor Miss Giddings, when he shouted that at her, almost jumped out of\r\n\r\nher skin. But then, Mrs. Ramsay, though instantly taking his side\r\n\r\nagainst all the silly Giddingses in the world, then, she thought,\r\n\r\nintimating by a little pressure on his arm that he walked up hill too\r\n\r\nfast for her, and she must stop for a moment to see whether those were\r\n\r\nfresh molehills on the bank, then, she thought, stooping down to look,\r\n\r\na great mind like his must be different in every way from ours. All\r\n\r\nthe great men she had ever known, she thought, deciding that a rabbit\r\n\r\nmust have got in, were like that, and it was good for young men (though\r\n\r\nthe atmosphere of lecture-rooms was stuffy and depressing to her beyond\r\n\r\nendurance almost) simply to hear him, simply to look at him. But\r\n\r\nwithout shooting rabbits, how was one to keep them down? she wondered.\r\n\r\nIt might be a rabbit; it might be a mole. Some creature anyhow was\r\n\r\nruining her Evening Primroses. And looking up, she saw above the thin\r\n\r\ntrees the first pulse of the full-throbbing star, and wanted to make\r\n\r\nher husband look at it; for the sight gave her such keen pleasure. But\r\n\r\nshe stopped herself. He never looked at things. If he did, all he\r\n\r\nwould say would be, Poor little world, with one of his sighs.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAt that moment, he said, \"Very fine,\" to please her, and pretended to\r\n\r\nadmire the flowers. But she knew quite well that he did not admire\r\n\r\nthem, or even realise that they were there. It was only to please\r\n\r\nher. Ah, but was that not Lily Briscoe strolling along with William\r\n\r\nBankes? She focussed her short-sighted eyes upon the backs of a\r\n\r\nretreating couple. Yes, indeed it was. Did that not mean that they\r\n\r\nwould marry? Yes, it must! What an admirable idea! They must marry!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n13\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe had been to Amsterdam, Mr. Bankes was saying as he strolled across\r\n\r\nthe lawn with Lily Briscoe. He had seen the Rembrandts.[footnote]Rembrandt van Rijn (1506-1669), Dutch Renaissance painter.[\/footnote] He had been to\r\n\r\nMadrid. Unfortunately, it was Good Friday and the Prado[footnote]The national Spanish art museum.[\/footnote] was shut. He\r\n\r\nhad been to Rome. Had Miss Briscoe never been to Rome? Oh, she\r\n\r\nshould--It would be a wonderful experience for her--the Sistine\r\n\r\nChapel; Michael Angelo;[footnote]Michelangelo. See note 44.[\/footnote] and Padua, with its Giottos[footnote]Giotto di Bondone (1266\/7 \u2013 1337), the best-known Italian painter and architect of the very early Renaissance.[\/footnote]. His wife had been\r\n\r\nin bad health for many years, so that their sight-seeing had been on a\r\n\r\nmodest scale.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had been to Brussels; she had been to Paris but only for a flying\r\n\r\nvisit to see an aunt who was ill. She had been to Dresden; there were\r\n\r\nmasses of pictures she had not seen; however, Lily Briscoe reflected,\r\n\r\nperhaps it was better not to see pictures: they only made one\r\n\r\nhopelessly discontented with one's own work. Mr. Bankes thought one\r\n\r\ncould carry that point of view too far. We can't all be Titians[footnote]Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1485 \u2013 1576), known in English as Titian, a great Venetian artist.[\/footnote] and we\r\n\r\ncan't all be Darwins[footnote]Charles Darwin (1809-82), who first postulated the theory of evolution. Leslie Stephen was one of the first in England to accept his ideas.[\/footnote], he said; at the same time he doubted whether you\r\n\r\ncould have your Darwin and your Titian if it weren't for humble people\r\n\r\nlike ourselves. Lily would have liked to pay him a compliment; you're\r\n\r\nnot humble, Mr. Bankes, she would have liked to have said. But he did\r\n\r\nnot want compliments (most men do, she thought), and she was a little\r\n\r\nashamed of her impulse and said nothing while he remarked that perhaps\r\n\r\nwhat he was saying did not apply to pictures. Anyhow, said Lily,\r\n\r\ntossing off her little insincerity, she would always go on painting,\r\n\r\nbecause it interested her. Yes, said Mr. Bankes, he was sure she would,\r\n\r\nand, as they reached the end of the lawn he was asking her whether she\r\n\r\nhad difficulty in finding subjects in London when they turned and saw\r\n\r\nthe Ramsays. So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman\r\n\r\nlooking at a girl throwing a ball. That is what Mrs. Ramsay tried to\r\n\r\ntell me the other night, she thought. For she was wearing a green\r\n\r\nshawl, and they were standing close together watching Prue and\r\n\r\nJasper throwing catches. And suddenly the meaning which, for no\r\n\r\nreason at all, as perhaps they are stepping out of the Tube[footnote]The London subway.[\/footnote] or\r\n\r\nringing a doorbell, descends on people, making them symbolical,\r\n\r\nmaking them representative, came upon them, and made them in the dusk\r\n\r\nstanding, looking, the symbols of marriage, husband and wife. Then,\r\n\r\nafter an instant, the symbolical outline which transcended the real\r\n\r\nfigures sank down again, and they became, as they met them, Mr. and Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay watching the children throwing catches. But still for a moment,\r\n\r\nthough Mrs. Ramsay greeted them with her usual smile (oh, she's thinking\r\n\r\nwe're going to get married, Lily thought) and said, \"I have triumphed\r\n\r\ntonight,\" meaning that for once Mr. Bankes had agreed to dine with them\r\n\r\nand not run off to his own lodging where his man cooked vegetables\r\n\r\nproperly; still, for one moment, there was a sense of things having\r\n\r\nbeen blown apart, of space, of irresponsibility as the ball soared\r\n\r\nhigh, and they followed it and lost it and saw the one star and the\r\n\r\ndraped branches. In the failing light they all looked sharp-edged and\r\n\r\nethereal and divided by great distances. Then, darting backwards over\r\n\r\nthe vast space (for it seemed as if solidity had vanished altogether),\r\n\r\nPrue ran full tilt into them and caught the ball brilliantly high up in\r\n\r\nher left hand, and her mother said, \"Haven't they come back yet?\"\r\n\r\nwhereupon the spell was broken. Mr. Ramsay felt free now to laugh out\r\n\r\nloud at the thought that Hume had stuck in a bog and an old woman\r\n\r\nrescued him on condition he said the Lord's Prayer,[footnote]See note 72.[\/footnote] and chuckling to\r\n\r\nhimself he strolled off to his study. Mrs. Ramsay, bringing Prue back\r\n\r\ninto throwing catches again, from which she had escaped, asked,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Did Nancy go with them?\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n14\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n(Certainly, Nancy had gone with them, since Minta Doyle had asked it\r\n\r\nwith her dumb look, holding out her hand, as Nancy made off, after\r\n\r\nlunch, to her attic, to escape the horror of family life. She\r\n\r\nsupposed she must go then. She did not want to go. She did not want to\r\n\r\nbe drawn into it all. For as they walked along the road to the cliff\r\n\r\nMinta kept on taking her hand. Then she would let it go. Then she\r\n\r\nwould take it again. What was it she wanted? Nancy asked herself.\r\n\r\nThere was something, of course, that people wanted; for when Minta took\r\n\r\nher hand and held it, Nancy, reluctantly, saw the whole world spread\r\n\r\nout beneath her, as if it were Constantinople[footnote]The Byzantine and ancient Roman name for Istanbul.[\/footnote] seen through a mist, and\r\n\r\nthen, however heavy-eyed one might be, one must needs ask, \"Is that\r\n\r\nSanta Sofia[footnote]Also known as Hagia Sofia, a landmark church that became a mosque and is now a museum.[\/footnote]?\" \"Is that the Golden Horn[footnote]An inlet forming a harbour in Istanbul.[\/footnote]?\" So Nancy asked, when Minta\r\n\r\ntook her hand. \"What is it that she wants? Is it that?\" And what was\r\n\r\nthat? Here and there emerged from the mist (as Nancy looked down upon\r\n\r\nlife spread beneath her) a pinnacle, a dome; prominent things, without\r\n\r\nnames. But when Minta dropped her hand, as she did when they ran down\r\n\r\nthe hillside, all that, the dome, the pinnacle, whatever it was that\r\n\r\nhad protruded through the mist, sank down into it and disappeared.\r\n\r\nMinta, Andrew observed, was rather a good walker. She wore more\r\n\r\nsensible clothes that most women. She wore very short skirts and black\r\n\r\nknickerbockers. She would jump straight into a stream and flounder\r\n\r\nacross. He liked her rashness, but he saw that it would not do--she\r\n\r\nwould kill herself in some idiotic way one of these days. She seemed\r\n\r\nto be afraid of nothing--except bulls. At the mere sight of a bull in\r\n\r\na field she would throw up her arms and fly screaming, which was the\r\n\r\nvery thing to enrage a bull of course. But she did not mind owning up\r\n\r\nto it in the least; one must admit that. She knew she was an awful\r\n\r\ncoward about bulls, she said. She thought she must have been tossed in\r\n\r\nher perambulator[footnote]Baby carriage.[\/footnote] when she was a baby. She didn't seem to mind what she\r\n\r\nsaid or did. Suddenly now she pitched down on the edge of the cliff\r\n\r\nand began to sing some song about\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDamn your eyes, damn your eyes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey all had to join in and sing the chorus, and shout out together:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDamn your eyes, damn your eyes,[footnote]Music-hall lyrics, the pop music of Victorian times.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nbut it would be fatal to let the tide come in and cover up all the good\r\n\r\nhunting-grounds before they got on to the beach.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Fatal,\" Paul agreed, springing up, and as they went slithering down,\r\n\r\nhe kept quoting the guide-book about \"these islands being justly\r\n\r\ncelebrated for their park-like prospects and the extent and variety of\r\n\r\ntheir marine curiosities.\" But it would not do altogether, this\r\n\r\nshouting and damning your eyes, Andrew felt, picking his way down the\r\n\r\ncliff, this clapping him on the back, and calling him \"old fellow\" and\r\n\r\nall that; it would not altogether do. It was the worst of taking women\r\n\r\non walks. Once on the beach they separated, he going out on to the\r\n\r\nPope's Nose[footnote]Intended to mean a point of land.[\/footnote], taking his shoes off, and rolling his socks in them and\r\n\r\nletting that couple look after themselves; Nancy waded out to her own\r\n\r\nrocks and searched her own pools and let that couple look after\r\n\r\nthemselves. She crouched low down and touched the smooth rubber-like\r\n\r\nsea anemones, who were stuck like lumps of jelly to the side of the\r\n\r\nrock. Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows\r\n\r\ninto sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by\r\n\r\nholding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and\r\n\r\ndesolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent\r\n\r\ncreatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream\r\n\r\ndown. Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed,\r\n\r\ngauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan (she was still enlarging\r\n\r\nthe pool), and slipped into the vast fissures of the mountain side.\r\n\r\nAnd then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest\r\n\r\non that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunks which the\r\n\r\nsmoke of steamers made waver on the horizon, she became with all that\r\n\r\npower sweeping savagely in and inevitably withdrawing, hypnotised, and\r\n\r\nthe two senses of that vastness and this tininess (the pool had\r\n\r\ndiminished again) flowering within it made her feel that she was bound\r\n\r\nhand and foot and unable to move by the intensity of feelings which\r\n\r\nreduced her own body, her own life, and the lives of all the people in\r\n\r\nthe world, for ever, to nothingness. So listening to the waves,\r\n\r\ncrouching over the pool, she brooded.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd Andrew shouted that the sea was coming in, so she leapt splashing\r\n\r\nthrough the shallow waves on to the shore and ran up the beach and was\r\n\r\ncarried by her own impetuosity and her desire for rapid movement right\r\n\r\nbehind a rock and there--oh, heavens! in each other's arms, were Paul\r\n\r\nand Minta kissing probably. She was outraged, indignant. She and\r\n\r\nAndrew put on their shoes and stockings in dead silence without saying\r\n\r\na thing about it. Indeed they were rather sharp with each other. She\r\n\r\nmight have called him when she saw the crayfish or whatever it was,\r\n\r\nAndrew grumbled. However, they both felt, it's not our fault. They\r\n\r\nhad not wanted this horrid nuisance to happen. All the same it\r\n\r\nirritated Andrew that Nancy should be a woman, and Nancy that Andrew\r\n\r\nshould be a man, and they tied their shoes very neatly and drew the\r\n\r\nbows rather tight.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was not until they had climbed right up on to the top of the cliff\r\n\r\nagain that Minta cried out that she had lost her grandmother's brooch--\r\n\r\nher grandmother's brooch, the sole ornament she possessed--a weeping\r\n\r\nwillow, it was (they must remember it) set in pearls. They must have\r\n\r\nseen it, she said, with the tears running down her cheeks, the\r\n\r\nbrooch which her grandmother had fastened her cap with till the\r\n\r\nlast day of her life. Now she had lost it. She would rather have\r\n\r\nlost anything than that! She would go back and look for it. They all\r\n\r\nwent back. They poked and peered and looked. They kept their heads\r\n\r\nvery low, and said things shortly and gruffly. Paul Rayley searched\r\n\r\nlike a madman all about the rock where they had been sitting. All this\r\n\r\npother about a brooch really didn't do at all, Andrew thought, as Paul\r\n\r\ntold him to make a \"thorough search between this point and that.\" The\r\n\r\ntide was coming in fast. The sea would cover the place where they had\r\n\r\nsat in a minute. There was not a ghost of a chance of their finding it\r\n\r\nnow. \"We shall be cut off!\" Minta shrieked, suddenly terrified. As if\r\n\r\nthere were any danger of that! It was the same as the bulls all over\r\n\r\nagain--she had no control over her emotions, Andrew thought. Women\r\n\r\nhadn't. The wretched Paul had to pacify her. The men (Andrew and Paul\r\n\r\nat once became manly, and different from usual) took counsel briefly\r\n\r\nand decided that they would plant Rayley's stick where they had sat and\r\n\r\ncome back at low tide again. There was nothing more that could be done\r\n\r\nnow. If the brooch was there, it would still be there in the morning,\r\n\r\nthey assured her, but Minta still sobbed, all the way up to the top of\r\n\r\nthe cliff. It was her grandmother's brooch; she would rather have lost\r\n\r\nanything but that, and yet Nancy felt, it might be true that she minded\r\n\r\nlosing her brooch, but she wasn't crying only for that. She was crying\r\n\r\nfor something else. We might all sit down and cry, she felt. But she\r\n\r\ndid not know what for.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey drew ahead together, Paul and Minta, and he comforted her, and\r\n\r\nsaid how famous he was for finding things. Once when he was a little\r\n\r\nboy he had found a gold watch. He would get up at daybreak and he was\r\n\r\npositive he would find it. It seemed to him that it would be\r\n\r\nalmost dark, and he would be alone on the beach, and somehow it would\r\n\r\nbe rather dangerous. He began telling her, however, that he would\r\n\r\ncertainly find it, and she said that she would not hear of his getting\r\n\r\nup at dawn: it was lost: she knew that: she had had a presentiment when\r\n\r\nshe put it on that afternoon. And secretly he resolved that he would\r\n\r\nnot tell her, but he would slip out of the house at dawn when they were\r\n\r\nall asleep and if he could not find it he would go to Edinburgh[footnote]A city in Scotland. Woolf admitted that her knowledge of Scottish geography was lacking; critics have noted that the city of Glasgow would be much nearer to the island the characters are supposed to be on.[\/footnote] and buy\r\n\r\nher another, just like it but more beautiful. He would prove what he\r\n\r\ncould do. And as they came out on the hill and saw the lights of the\r\n\r\ntown beneath them, the lights coming out suddenly one by one seemed\r\n\r\nlike things that were going to happen to him--his marriage, his\r\n\r\nchildren, his house; and again he thought, as they came out on to the\r\n\r\nhigh road, which was shaded with high bushes, how they would retreat\r\n\r\ninto solitude together, and walk on and on, he always leading her, and\r\n\r\nshe pressing close to his side (as she did now). As they turned by the\r\n\r\ncross roads he thought what an appalling experience he had been\r\n\r\nthrough, and he must tell some one--Mrs. Ramsay of course, for it took\r\n\r\nhis breath away to think what he had been and done. It had been far\r\n\r\nand away the worst moment of his life when he asked Minta to marry him.\r\n\r\nHe would go straight to Mrs. Ramsay, because he felt somehow that she\r\n\r\nwas the person who had made him do it. She had made him think he could\r\n\r\ndo anything. Nobody else took him seriously. But she made him believe\r\n\r\nthat he could do whatever he wanted. He had felt her eyes on him all\r\n\r\nday today, following him about (though she never said a word) as if she\r\n\r\nwere saying, \"Yes, you can do it. I believe in you. I expect it of\r\n\r\nyou.\" She had made him feel all that, and directly they got back (he\r\n\r\nlooked for the lights of the house above the bay) he would go to her\r\n\r\nand say, \"I've done it, Mrs. Ramsay; thanks to you.\" And so turning into\r\n\r\nthe lane that led to the house he could see lights moving about in the\r\n\r\nupper windows. They must be awfully late then. People were getting\r\n\r\nready for dinner. The house was all lit up, and the lights after the\r\n\r\ndarkness made his eyes feel full, and he said to himself, childishly,\r\n\r\nas he walked up the drive, Lights, lights, lights, and repeated in a\r\n\r\ndazed way, Lights, lights, lights, as they came into the house staring\r\n\r\nabout him with his face quite stiff. But, good heavens, he said to\r\n\r\nhimself, putting his hand to his tie, I must not make a fool of\r\n\r\nmyself.)[footnote]This chapter, like Part Two, \u201cTime Passes,\u201d is in parentheses as an indication that its events go on in the background.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n15\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" said Prue, in her considering way, answering her mother's\r\n\r\nquestion, \"I think Nancy did go with them.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n16\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWell then, Nancy had gone with them, Mrs. Ramsay supposed, wondering, as\r\n\r\nshe put down a brush, took up a comb, and said \"Come in\" to a tap at\r\n\r\nthe door (Jasper and Rose came in), whether the fact that Nancy was\r\n\r\nwith them made it less likely or more likely that anything would\r\n\r\nhappen; it made it less likely, somehow, Mrs. Ramsay felt, very\r\n\r\nirrationally, except that after all holocaust on such a scale was not\r\n\r\nprobable. They could not all be drowned. And again she felt alone in\r\n\r\nthe presence of her old antagonist, life.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJasper and Rose said that Mildred wanted to know whether she should\r\n\r\nwait dinner.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Not for the Queen of England,\" said Mrs. Ramsay emphatically.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Not for the Empress of Mexico,\" she added, laughing at Jasper; for he\r\n\r\nshared his mother's vice: he, too, exaggerated.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd if Rose liked, she said, while Jasper took the message, she might\r\n\r\nchoose which jewels she was to wear. When there are fifteen people\r\n\r\nsitting down to dinner, one cannot keep things waiting for ever. She\r\n\r\nwas now beginning to feel annoyed with them for being so late; it was\r\n\r\ninconsiderate of them, and it annoyed her on top of her anxiety about\r\n\r\nthem, that they should choose this very night to be out late, when, in\r\n\r\nfact, she wished the dinner to be particularly nice, since William\r\n\r\nBankes had at last consented to dine with them; and they were having\r\n\r\nMildred's masterpiece\u2014Boeuf en Daube.[footnote]A French beef stew in which the meat is braised with herbs, wine, olives, and vegetables.[\/footnote] Everything depended upon things\r\n\r\nbeing served up to the precise moment they were ready. The beef, the\r\n\r\nbayleaf, and the wine--all must be done to a turn. To keep it waiting\r\n\r\nwas out of the question. Yet of course tonight, of all nights, out\r\n\r\nthey went, and they came in late, and things had to be sent out,\r\n\r\nthings had to be kept hot; the Boeuf en Daube would be entirely spoilt.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJasper offered her an opal necklace; Rose a gold necklace. Which\r\n\r\nlooked best against her black dress? Which did indeed, said Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nabsent-mindedly, looking at her neck and shoulders (but avoiding her\r\n\r\nface) in the glass. And then, while the children rummaged among her\r\n\r\nthings, she looked out of the window at a sight which always amused\r\n\r\nher--the rooks trying to decide which tree to settle on. Every time,\r\n\r\nthey seemed to change their minds and rose up into the air again,\r\n\r\nbecause, she thought, the old rook, the father rook, old Joseph was her\r\n\r\nname for him, was a bird of a very trying and difficult disposition.\r\n\r\nHe was a disreputable old bird, with half his wing feathers missing.\r\n\r\nHe was like some seedy old gentleman in a top hat she had seen playing\r\n\r\nthe horn in front of a public house.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Look!\" she said, laughing. They were actually fighting. Joseph and\r\n\r\nMary[footnote]Note the reference to Jesus Christ\u2019s parents.[\/footnote] were fighting. Anyhow they all went up again, and the air was\r\n\r\nshoved aside by their black wings and cut into exquisite scimitar shapes.\r\n\r\nThe movements of the wings beating out, out, out--she could never\r\n\r\ndescribe it accurately enough to please herself--was one of the\r\n\r\nloveliest of all to her. Look at that, she said to Rose, hoping\r\n\r\nthat Rose would see it more clearly than she could. For one's children\r\n\r\nso often gave one's own perceptions a little thrust forwards.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case\r\n\r\nopen. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace,\r\n\r\nwhich Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her\r\n\r\namethysts?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Choose, dearests, choose,\" she said, hoping that they would make\r\n\r\nhaste.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut she let them take their time to choose: she let Rose, particularly,\r\n\r\ntake up this and then that, and hold her jewels against the black\r\n\r\ndress, for this little ceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone\r\n\r\nthrough every night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. She had some\r\n\r\nhidden reason of her own for attaching great importance to this\r\n\r\nchoosing what her mother was to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nwondered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace she had chosen,\r\n\r\ndivining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite\r\n\r\nspeechless feeling that one had for one's mother at Rose's age. Like\r\n\r\nall feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It\r\n\r\nwas so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt\r\n\r\nwas quite out of proportion to anything she actually was. And Rose\r\n\r\nwould grow up; and Rose would suffer, she supposed, with these deep\r\n\r\nfeelings, and she said she was ready now, and they would go down, and\r\n\r\nJasper, because he was the gentleman, should give her his arm, and\r\n\r\nRose, as she was the lady, should carry her handkerchief (she gave her\r\n\r\nthe handkerchief), and what else? oh, yes, it might be cold: a shawl.\r\n\r\nChoose me a shawl, she said, for that would please Rose, who was bound\r\n\r\nto suffer so. \"There,\" she said, stopping by the window on the\r\n\r\nlanding, \"there they are again.\" Joseph had settled on another tree-\r\n\r\ntop. \"Don't you think they mind,\" she said to Jasper, \"having their\r\n\r\nwings broken?\" Why did he want to shoot poor old Joseph and Mary? He\r\n\r\nshuffled a little on the stairs, and felt rebuked, but not seriously,\r\n\r\nfor she did not understand the fun of shooting birds; and they did not\r\n\r\nfeel; and being his mother she lived away in another division of the\r\n\r\nworld, but he rather liked her stories about Mary and Joseph. She made\r\n\r\nhim laugh. But how did she know that those were Mary and Joseph? Did\r\n\r\nshe think the same birds came to the same trees every night? he asked.\r\n\r\nBut here, suddenly, like all grown-up people, she ceased to pay him the\r\n\r\nleast attention. She was listening to a clatter in the hall.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"They've come back!\" she exclaimed, and at once she felt much more\r\n\r\nannoyed with them than relieved. Then she wondered, had it happened?\r\n\r\nShe would go down and they would tell her--but no. They could not tell\r\n\r\nher anything, with all these people about. So she must go down and\r\n\r\nbegin dinner and wait. And, like some queen who, finding her people\r\n\r\ngathered in the hall, looks down upon them, and descends among them,\r\n\r\nand acknowledges their tributes silently, and accepts their devotion\r\n\r\nand their prostration before her (Paul did not move a muscle but looked\r\n\r\nstraight before him as she passed) she went down, and crossed the hall\r\n\r\nand bowed her head very slightly, as if she accepted what they could\r\n\r\nnot say: their tribute to her beauty.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut she stopped. There was a smell of burning. Could they have let the\r\n\r\nBoeuf en Daube overboil? she wondered, pray heaven not! when the\r\n\r\ngreat clangour of the gong announced solemnly, authoritatively, that\r\n\r\nall those scattered about, in attics, in bedrooms, on little perches of\r\n\r\ntheir own, reading, writing, putting the last smooth to their hair, or\r\n\r\nfastening dresses, must leave all that, and the little odds and ends on\r\n\r\ntheir washing-tables and dressing tables, and the novels on the bed-\r\n\r\ntables, and the diaries which were so private, and assemble in the\r\n\r\ndining-room for dinner.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n17\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut what have I done with my life? thought Mrs. Ramsay, taking her\r\n\r\nplace at the head of the table, and looking at all the plates making\r\n\r\nwhite circles on it. \"William, sit by me,\" she said. \"Lily,\" she\r\n\r\nsaid, wearily, \"over there.\" They had that--Paul Rayley and Minta\r\n\r\nDoyle--she, only this--an infinitely long table and plates and knives.\r\n\r\nAt the far end was her husband, sitting down, all in a heap, frowning.\r\n\r\nWhat at? She did not know. She did not mind. She could not\r\n\r\nunderstand how she had ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She\r\n\r\nhad a sense of being past everything, through everything, out of\r\n\r\neverything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy--there--\r\n\r\nand one could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of\r\n\r\nit. It's all come to an end, she thought, while they came in one after\r\n\r\nanother, Charles Tansley--\"Sit there, please,\" she said--Augustus\r\n\r\nCarmichael--and sat down. And meanwhile she waited, passively, for\r\n\r\nsome one to answer her, for something to happen. But this is not a\r\n\r\nthing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRaising her eyebrows at the discrepancy--that was what she was\r\n\r\nthinking, this was what she was doing--ladling out soup--she felt, more\r\n\r\nand more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and,\r\n\r\nrobbed of colour, she saw things truly. The room (she looked round it)\r\n\r\nwas very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere. She forebore to look at\r\n\r\nMr. Tansley. Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate.\r\n\r\nAnd the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested\r\n\r\non her. Again she felt, as a fact without hostility, the sterility of\r\n\r\nmen, for if she did not do it nobody would do it, and so, giving\r\n\r\nherself a little shake that one gives a watch that has stopped, the old\r\n\r\nfamiliar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking--one, two,\r\n\r\nthree, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening\r\n\r\nto it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble pulse as one might\r\n\r\nguard a weak flame with a news-paper. And so then, she concluded,\r\n\r\naddressing herself by bending silently in his direction to William\r\n\r\nBankes--poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in\r\n\r\nlodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong\r\n\r\nenough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor\r\n\r\nnot without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants\r\n\r\nto be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have\r\n\r\nwhirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Did you find your letters? I told them to put them in the hall for\r\n\r\nyou,\" she said to William Bankes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man's land where\r\n\r\nto follow people is impossible and yet their going inflicts such a\r\n\r\nchill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow\r\n\r\nthem with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have\r\n\r\nsunk beneath the horizon.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHow old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote.\r\n\r\nThen when she turned to William Bankes, smiling, it was as if the ship\r\n\r\nhad turned and the sun had struck its sails again, and Lily thought\r\n\r\nwith some amusement because she was relieved, Why does she pity him?\r\n\r\nFor that was the impression she gave, when she told him that his\r\n\r\nletters were in the hall. Poor William Bankes, she seemed to be\r\n\r\nsaying, as if her own weariness had been partly pitying people, and the\r\n\r\nlife in her, her resolve to live again, had been stirred by pity. And\r\n\r\nit was not true, Lily thought; it was one of those misjudgments of hers\r\n\r\nthat seemed to be instinctive and to arise from some need of her own\r\n\r\nrather than of other people's. He is not in the least pitiable. He has\r\n\r\nhis work, Lily said to herself. She remembered, all of a sudden as if\r\n\r\nshe had found a treasure, that she had her work. In a flash she saw\r\n\r\nher picture, and thought, Yes, I shall put the tree further in the\r\n\r\nmiddle; then I shall avoid that awkward space. That's what I shall do.\r\n\r\nThat's what has been puzzling me. She took up the salt cellar and put\r\n\r\nit down again on a flower pattern in the table-cloth, so as to remind\r\n\r\nherself to move the tree.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It's odd that one scarcely gets anything worth having by post, yet one\r\n\r\nalways wants one's letters,\" said Mr. Bankes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat damned rot they talk, thought Charles Tansley, laying down his\r\n\r\nspoon precisely in the middle of his plate, which he had swept clean,\r\n\r\nas if, Lily thought (he sat opposite to her with his back to the window\r\n\r\nprecisely in the middle of view), he were determined to make sure of\r\n\r\nhis meals. Everything about him had that meagre fixity, that bare\r\n\r\nunloveliness. But nevertheless, the fact remained, it was impossible\r\n\r\nto dislike any one if one looked at them. She liked his eyes; they\r\n\r\nwere blue, deep set, frightening.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Do you write many letters, Mr. Tansley?\" asked Mrs. Ramsay, pitying him\r\n\r\ntoo, Lily supposed; for that was true of Mrs. Ramsay--she pitied men\r\n\r\nalways as if they lacked something--women never, as if they had\r\n\r\nsomething. He wrote to his mother; otherwise he did not suppose he\r\n\r\nwrote one letter a month, said Mr. Tansley, shortly.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFor he was not going to talk the sort of rot these condescended to by\r\n\r\nthese silly women. He had been reading in his room, and now he came\r\n\r\ndown and it all seemed to him silly, superficial, flimsy. Why did they\r\n\r\ndress? He had come down in his ordinary clothes. He had not got any\r\n\r\ndress clothes. \"One never gets anything worth having by post\"--that\r\n\r\nwas the sort of thing they were always saying. They made men say that\r\n\r\nsort of thing. Yes, it was pretty well true, he thought. They never\r\n\r\ngot anything worth having from one year's end to another. They did\r\n\r\nnothing but talk, talk, talk, eat, eat, eat. It was the women's fault.\r\n\r\nWomen made civilisation impossible with all their \"charm,\" all their\r\n\r\nsilliness.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"No going to the Lighthouse tomorrow, Mrs. Ramsay,\" he said, asserting\r\n\r\nhimself. He liked her; he admired her; he still thought of the man in\r\n\r\nthe drain-pipe looking up at her; but he felt it necessary to assert\r\n\r\nhimself.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was really, Lily Briscoe thought, in spite of his eyes, but then\r\n\r\nlook at his nose, look at his hands, the most uncharming human being\r\n\r\nshe had ever met. Then why did she mind what he said? Women can't\r\n\r\nwrite, women can't paint--what did that matter coming from him, since\r\n\r\nclearly it was not true to him but for some reason helpful to him, and\r\n\r\nthat was why he said it? Why did her whole being bow, like corn under\r\n\r\na wind, and erect itself again from this abasement only with a great\r\n\r\nand rather painful effort? She must make it once more. There's the\r\n\r\nsprig on the table-cloth; there's my painting; I must move the tree to\r\n\r\nthe middle; that matters--nothing else. Could she not hold fast to\r\n\r\nthat, she asked herself, and not lose her temper, and not argue; and if\r\n\r\nshe wanted revenge take it by laughing at him?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Oh, Mr. Tansley,\" she said, \"do take me to the Lighthouse with you. I\r\n\r\nshould so love it.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe was telling lies he could see. She was saying what she did not\r\n\r\nmean to annoy him, for some reason. She was laughing at him. He was in\r\n\r\nhis old flannel trousers. He had no others. He felt very rough and\r\n\r\nisolated and lonely. He knew that she was trying to tease him for some\r\n\r\nreason; she didn't want to go to the Lighthouse with him; she despised\r\n\r\nhim: so did Prue Ramsay; so did they all. But he was not going to be\r\n\r\nmade a fool of by women, so he turned deliberately in his chair and\r\n\r\nlooked out of the window and said, all in a jerk, very rudely, it would\r\n\r\nbe too rough for her tomorrow. She would be sick.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt annoyed him that she should have made him speak like that, with Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay listening. If only he could be alone in his room working, he\r\n\r\nthought, among his books. That was where he felt at his ease. And he\r\n\r\nhad never run a penny into debt; he had never cost his father a penny\r\n\r\nsince he was fifteen; he had helped them at home out of his savings; he\r\n\r\nwas educating his sister. Still, he wished he had known how to answer\r\n\r\nMiss Briscoe properly; he wished it had not come out all in a jerk like\r\n\r\nthat. \"You'd be sick.\" He wished he could think of something to say to\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay, something which would show her that he was not just a dry\r\n\r\nprig. That was what they all thought him. He turned to her. But Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay was talking about people he had never heard of to William\r\n\r\nBankes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Yes, take it away,\" she said briefly, interrupting what she was saying\r\n\r\nto William Bankes to speak to the maid. \"It must have been fifteen--\r\n\r\nno, twenty years ago--that I last saw her,\" she was saying, turning\r\n\r\nback to him again as if she could not lose a moment of their talk, for\r\n\r\nshe was absorbed by what they were saying. So he had actually heard\r\n\r\nfrom her this evening! And was Carrie still living at Marlow[footnote]A town in Buckinghamshire, England.[\/footnote], and was\r\n\r\neverything still the same? Oh, she could remember it as if it were\r\n\r\nyesterday--on the river, feeling it as if it were yesterday--going on\r\n\r\nthe river, feeling very cold. But if the Mannings made a plan they\r\n\r\nstuck to it. Never should she forget Herbert killing a wasp with a\r\n\r\nteaspoon on the bank! And it was still going on, Mrs. Ramsay mused,\r\n\r\ngliding like a ghost among the chairs and tables of that drawing-room\r\n\r\non the banks of the Thames where she had been so very, very cold twenty\r\n\r\nyears ago; but now she went among them like a ghost; and it fascinated\r\n\r\nher, as if, while she had changed, that particular day, now become very\r\n\r\nstill and beautiful, had remained there, all these years. Had Carrie\r\n\r\nwritten to him herself? she asked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Yes. She says they're building a new billiard room,\" he said. No!\r\n\r\nNo! That was out of the question! Building a new billiard room!\r\n\r\nIt seemed to her impossible.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Bankes could not see that there was anything very odd about it.\r\n\r\nThey were very well off now. Should he give her love to Carrie?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Oh,\" said Mrs. Ramsay with a little start, \"No,\" she added, reflecting\r\n\r\nthat she did not know this Carrie who built a new billiard room. But\r\n\r\nhow strange, she repeated, to Mr. Bankes's amusement, that they should\r\n\r\nbe going on there still. For it was extraordinary to think that they\r\n\r\nhad been capable of going on living all these years when she had not\r\n\r\nthought of them more than once all that time. How eventful her own\r\n\r\nlife had been, during those same years. Yet perhaps Carrie Manning\r\n\r\nhad not thought about her, either. The thought was strange and\r\n\r\ndistasteful.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"People soon drift apart,\" said Mr. Bankes, feeling, however, some\r\n\r\nsatisfaction when he thought that after all he knew both the Mannings\r\n\r\nand the Ramsays. He had not drifted apart he thought, laying down his\r\n\r\nspoon and wiping his clean-shaven lips punctiliously. But perhaps he\r\n\r\nwas rather unusual, he thought, in this; he never let himself get into\r\n\r\na groove. He had friends in all circles... Mrs. Ramsay had to break\r\n\r\noff here to tell the maid something about keeping food hot. That was\r\n\r\nwhy he preferred dining alone. All those interruptions annoyed him.\r\n\r\nWell, thought William Bankes, preserving a demeanour of exquisite\r\n\r\ncourtesy and merely spreading the fingers of his left hand on the\r\n\r\ntable-cloth as a mechanic examines a tool beautifully polished and\r\n\r\nready for use in an interval of leisure, such are the sacrifices one's\r\n\r\nfriends ask of one. It would have hurt her if he had refused to come.\r\n\r\nBut it was not worth it for him. Looking at his hand he thought that\r\n\r\nif he had been alone dinner would have been almost over now; he would\r\n\r\nhave been free to work. Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of\r\n\r\ntime. The children were dropping in still. \"I wish one of you would\r\n\r\nrun up to Roger's room,\" Mrs. Ramsay was saying. How trifling it all\r\n\r\nis, how boring it all is, he thought, compared with the other thing--\r\n\r\nwork. Here he sat drumming his fingers on the table-cloth when he\r\n\r\nmight have been--he took a flashing bird's-eye view of his work. What\r\n\r\na waste of time it all was to be sure! Yet, he thought, she is one of\r\n\r\nmy oldest friends. I am by way of being devoted to her. Yet now, at\r\n\r\nthis moment her presence meant absolutely nothing to him: her beauty\r\n\r\nmeant nothing to him; her sitting with her little boy at the window--\r\n\r\nnothing, nothing. He wished only to be alone and to take up that book.\r\n\r\nHe felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit by her\r\n\r\nside and feel nothing for her. The truth was that he did not enjoy\r\n\r\nfamily life. It was in this sort of state that one asked oneself, What\r\n\r\ndoes one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these\r\n\r\npains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we\r\n\r\nattractive as a species? Not so very, he thought, looking at those\r\n\r\nrather untidy boys. His favourite, Cam, was in bed, he supposed.\r\n\r\nFoolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked\r\n\r\nif one was occupied. Is human life this? Is human life that? One\r\n\r\nnever had time to think about it. But here he was asking himself that\r\n\r\nsort of question, because Mrs. Ramsay was giving orders to servants, and\r\n\r\nalso because it had struck him, thinking how surprised Mrs. Ramsay was\r\n\r\nthat Carrie Manning should still exist, that friendships, even the best\r\n\r\nof them, are frail things. One drifts apart. He reproached himself\r\n\r\nagain. He was sitting beside Mrs. Ramsay and he had nothing in the\r\n\r\nworld to say to her.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"I'm so sorry,\" said Mrs. Ramsay, turning to him at last. He felt rigid\r\n\r\nand barren, like a pair of boots that have been soaked and gone dry so\r\n\r\nthat you can hardly force your feet into them. Yet he must force his\r\n\r\nfeet into them. He must make himself talk. Unless he were very\r\n\r\ncareful, she would find out this treachery of his; that he did not care\r\n\r\na straw for her, and that would not be at all pleasant, he thought. So\r\n\r\nhe bent his head courteously in her direction.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"How you must detest dining in this bear garden,\" she said, making use,\r\n\r\nas she did when she was distracted, of her social manner. So, when\r\n\r\nthere is a strife of tongues, at some meeting, the chairman, to obtain\r\n\r\nunity, suggests that every one shall speak in French. Perhaps it is\r\n\r\nbad French; French may not contain the words that express the speaker's\r\n\r\nthoughts; nevertheless speaking French imposes some order, some\r\n\r\nuniformity. Replying to her in the same language, Mr. Bankes said, \"No,\r\n\r\nnot at all,\" and Mr. Tansley, who had no knowledge of this language,\r\n\r\neven spoke thus in words of one syllable, at once suspected its\r\n\r\ninsincerity. They did talk nonsense, he thought, the Ramsays; and he\r\n\r\npounced on this fresh instance with joy, making a note which, one of\r\n\r\nthese days, he would read aloud, to one or two friends. There, in a\r\n\r\nsociety where one could say what one liked he would sarcastically\r\n\r\ndescribe \"staying with the Ramsays\" and what nonsense they talked. It\r\n\r\nwas worth while doing it once, he would say; but not again. The women\r\n\r\nbored one so, he would say. Of course Ramsay had dished himself[footnote]Cheated or frustrated himself.[\/footnote] by\r\n\r\nmarrying a beautiful woman and having eight children. It would shape\r\n\r\nitself something like that, but now, at this moment, sitting stuck\r\n\r\nthere with an empty seat beside him, nothing had shaped itself at all.\r\n\r\nIt was all in scraps and fragments. He felt extremely, even\r\n\r\nphysically, uncomfortable. He wanted somebody to give him a chance of\r\n\r\nasserting himself. He wanted it so urgently that he fidgeted in his\r\n\r\nchair, looked at this person, then at that person, tried to break into\r\n\r\ntheir talk, opened his mouth and shut it again. They were talking\r\n\r\nabout the fishing industry. Why did no one ask him his opinion? What\r\n\r\ndid they know about the fishing industry?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLily Briscoe knew all that. Sitting opposite him, could she not see,\r\n\r\nas in an X-ray photograph, the ribs and thigh bones of the young man's\r\n\r\ndesire to impress himself, lying dark in the mist of his flesh--that\r\n\r\nthin mist which convention had laid over his burning desire to break\r\n\r\ninto the conversation? But, she thought, screwing up her Chinese\r\n\r\neyes, and remembering how he sneered at women, \"can't paint, can't\r\n\r\nwrite,\" why should I help him to relieve himself?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere is a code of behaviour, she knew, whose seventh article (it may\r\n\r\nbe) says that on occasions of this sort it behoves the woman, whatever\r\n\r\nher own occupation might be, to go to the help of the young man\r\n\r\nopposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs,\r\n\r\nof his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is\r\n\r\ntheir duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us,\r\n\r\nsuppose the Tube[footnote]The London subway.[\/footnote] were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should\r\n\r\ncertainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she\r\n\r\nthought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there\r\n\r\nsmiling.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"You're not planning to go to the Lighthouse, are you, Lily,\" said Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay. \"Remember poor Mr. Langley; he had been round the world dozens\r\n\r\nof times, but he told me he never suffered as he did when my husband\r\n\r\ntook him there. Are you a good sailor, Mr. Tansley?\" she asked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Tansley raised a hammer: swung it high in air; but realising, as it\r\n\r\ndescended, that he could not smite that butterfly with such an\r\n\r\ninstrument as this, said only that he had never been sick in his life.\r\n\r\nBut in that one sentence lay compact, like gunpowder, that his\r\n\r\ngrandfather was a fisherman; his father a chemist; that he had worked\r\n\r\nhis way up entirely himself; that he was proud of it; that he was\r\n\r\nCharles Tansley--a fact that nobody there seemed to realise; but one of\r\n\r\nthese days every single person would know it. He scowled ahead of him.\r\n\r\nHe could almost pity these mild cultivated people, who would be blown\r\n\r\nsky high, like bales of wool and barrels of apples, one of these days\r\n\r\nby the gunpowder that was in him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Will you take me, Mr. Tansley?\" said Lily, quickly, kindly, for, of\r\n\r\ncourse, if Mrs. Ramsay said to her, as in effect she did, \"I am\r\n\r\ndrowning, my dear, in seas of fire. Unless you apply some balm to the\r\n\r\nanguish of this hour and say something nice to that young man there,\r\n\r\nlife will run upon the rocks--indeed I hear the grating and the\r\n\r\ngrowling at this minute. My nerves are taut as fiddle strings.\r\n\r\nAnother touch and they will snap\"--when Mrs. Ramsay said all this, as\r\n\r\nthe glance in her eyes said it, of course for the hundred and fiftieth\r\n\r\ntime Lily Briscoe had to renounce the experiment--what happens if one\r\n\r\nis not nice to that young man there--and be nice.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJudging the turn in her mood correctly--that she was friendly to him\r\n\r\nnow--he was relieved of his egotism, and told her how he had been\r\n\r\nthrown out of a boat when he was a baby; how his father used to fish\r\n\r\nhim out with a boat-hook; that was how he had learnt to swim. One of\r\n\r\nhis uncles kept the light on some rock or other off the Scottish coast,\r\n\r\nhe said. He had been there with him in a storm. This was said loudly\r\n\r\nin a pause. They had to listen to him when he said that he had been\r\n\r\nwith his uncle in a lighthouse in a storm. Ah, thought Lily Briscoe,\r\n\r\nas the conversation took this auspicious turn, and she felt Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay's gratitude (for Mrs. Ramsay was free now to talk for a moment\r\n\r\nherself), ah, she thought, but what haven't I paid to get it for you?\r\n\r\nShe had not been sincere.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had done the usual trick--been nice. She would never know him. He\r\n\r\nwould never know her. Human relations were all like that, she thought,\r\n\r\nand the worst (if it had not been for Mr. Bankes) were between men and\r\n\r\nwomen. Inevitably these were extremely insincere she thought. Then\r\n\r\nher eye caught the salt cellar, which she had placed there to remind\r\n\r\nher, and she remembered that next morning she would move the tree\r\n\r\nfurther towards the middle, and her spirits rose so high at the thought\r\n\r\nof painting tomorrow that she laughed out loud at what Mr. Tansley was\r\n\r\nsaying. Let him talk all night if he liked it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But how long do they leave men on a Lighthouse?\" she asked. He told\r\n\r\nher. He was amazingly well informed. And as he was grateful, and as\r\n\r\nhe liked her, and as he was beginning to enjoy himself, so now, Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay thought, she could return to that dream land, that unreal but\r\n\r\nfascinating place, the Mannings' drawing-room at Marlow[footnote]See note 95.[\/footnote] twenty years\r\n\r\nago; where one moved about without haste or anxiety, for there was no\r\n\r\nfuture to worry about. She knew what had happened to them, what to\r\n\r\nher. It was like reading a good book again, for she knew the end of\r\n\r\nthat story, since it had happened twenty years ago, and life, which\r\n\r\nshot down even from this dining-room table in cascades, heaven knows\r\n\r\nwhere, was sealed up there, and lay, like a lake, placidly between its\r\n\r\nbanks. He said they had built a billiard room--was it possible?\r\n\r\nWould William go on talking about the Mannings? She wanted him to.\r\n\r\nBut, no--for some reason he was no longer in the mood. She tried.\r\n\r\nHe did not respond. She could not force him. She was disappointed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"The children are disgraceful,\" she said, sighing. He said something\r\n\r\nabout punctuality being one of the minor virtues which we do not\r\n\r\nacquire until later in life.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"If at all,\" said Mrs. Ramsay merely to fill up space, thinking what an\r\n\r\nold maid William was becoming. Conscious of his treachery, conscious\r\n\r\nof her wish to talk about something more intimate, yet out of mood for\r\n\r\nit at present, he felt come over him the disagreeableness of life,\r\n\r\nsitting there, waiting. Perhaps the others were saying something\r\n\r\ninteresting? What were they saying?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThat the fishing season was bad; that the men were emigrating. They\r\n\r\nwere talking about wages and unemployment. The young man was abusing\r\n\r\nthe government. William Bankes, thinking what a relief it was to catch\r\n\r\non to something of this sort when private life was disagreeable, heard\r\n\r\nhim say something about \"one of the most scandalous acts of the present\r\n\r\ngovernment.\" Lily was listening; Mrs. Ramsay was listening; they were\r\n\r\nall listening. But already bored, Lily felt that something was lacking;\r\n\r\nMr. Bankes felt that something was lacking. Pulling her shawl round her\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay felt that something was lacking. All of them bending\r\n\r\nthemselves to listen thought, \"Pray heaven that the inside of my mind\r\n\r\nmay not be exposed,\" for each thought, \"The others are feeling this.\r\n\r\nThey are outraged and indignant with the government about the\r\n\r\nfishermen. Whereas, I feel nothing at all.\" But perhaps, thought Mr.\r\n\r\nBankes, as he looked at Mr. Tansley, here is the man. One was always\r\n\r\nwaiting for the man. There was always a chance. At any moment the\r\n\r\nleader might arise; the man of genius, in politics as in anything else.\r\n\r\nProbably he will be extremely disagreeable to us old fogies, thought Mr.\r\n\r\nBankes, doing his best to make allowances, for he knew by some curious\r\n\r\nphysical sensation, as of nerves erect in his spine, that he was\r\n\r\njealous, for himself partly, partly more probably for his work, for his\r\n\r\npoint of view, for his science; and therefore he was not entirely open-\r\n\r\nminded or altogether fair, for Mr. Tansley seemed to be saying, You have\r\n\r\nwasted your lives. You are all of you wrong. Poor old fogies, you're\r\n\r\nhopelessly behind the times. He seemed to be rather cocksure, this\r\n\r\nyoung man; and his manners were bad. But Mr. Bankes bade himself\r\n\r\nobserve, he had courage; he had ability; he was extremely well up in\r\n\r\nthe facts. Probably, Mr. Bankes thought, as Tansley abused the\r\n\r\ngovernment, there is a good deal in what he says.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Tell me now...\" he said. So they argued about politics, and Lily\r\n\r\nlooked at the leaf on the table-cloth; and Mrs. Ramsay, leaving the\r\n\r\nargument entirely in the hands of the two men, wondered why she was so\r\n\r\nbored by this talk, and wished, looking at her husband at the other end\r\n\r\nof the table, that he would say something. One word, she said to\r\n\r\nherself. For if he said a thing, it would make all the difference. He\r\n\r\nwent to the heart of things. He cared about fishermen and their wages.\r\n\r\nHe could not sleep for thinking of them. It was altogether different\r\n\r\nwhen he spoke; one did not feel then, pray heaven you don't see how\r\n\r\nlittle I care, because one did care. Then, realising that it was because\r\n\r\nshe admired him so much that she was waiting for him to speak, she\r\n\r\nfelt as if somebody had been praising her husband to her and their\r\n\r\nmarriage, and she glowed all over without realising that it was\r\n\r\nshe herself who had praised him. She looked at him thinking to find\r\n\r\nthis in his face; he would be looking magnificent... But not in the\r\n\r\nleast! He was screwing his face up, he was scowling and frowning, and\r\n\r\nflushing with anger. What on earth was it about? she wondered. What\r\n\r\ncould be the matter? Only that poor old Augustus had asked for\r\n\r\nanother plate of soup--that was all. It was unthinkable, it was\r\n\r\ndetestable (so he signalled to her across the table) that Augustus\r\n\r\nshould be beginning his soup over again. He loathed people eating when\r\n\r\nhe had finished. She saw his anger fly like a pack of hounds into his\r\n\r\neyes, his brow, and she knew that in a moment something violent would\r\n\r\nexplode, and then--thank goodness! she saw him clutch himself and clap\r\n\r\na brake on the wheel, and the whole of his body seemed to emit sparks\r\n\r\nbut not words. He sat there scowling. He had said nothing, he would\r\n\r\nhave her observe. Let her give him the credit for that! But why\r\n\r\nafter all should poor Augustus not ask for another plate of soup? He\r\n\r\nhad merely touched Ellen's arm and said:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Ellen, please, another plate of soup,\" and then Mr. Ramsay scowled like\r\n\r\nthat.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd why not? Mrs. Ramsay demanded. Surely they could let Augustus have\r\n\r\nhis soup if he wanted it. He hated people wallowing in food, Mr. Ramsay\r\n\r\nfrowned at her. He hated everything dragging on for hours like this.\r\n\r\nBut he had controlled himself, Mr. Ramsay would have her observe,\r\n\r\ndisgusting though the sight was. But why show it so plainly, Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay demanded (they looked at each other down the long table sending\r\n\r\nthese questions and answers across, each knowing exactly what the other\r\n\r\nfelt). Everybody could see, Mrs. Ramsay thought. There was Rose gazing\r\n\r\nat her father, there was Roger gazing at his father; both would be off\r\n\r\nin spasms of laughter in another second, she knew, and so she said\r\n\r\npromptly (indeed it was time):\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Light the candles,\" and they jumped up instantly and went and fumbled\r\n\r\nat the sideboard.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhy could he never conceal his feelings? Mrs. Ramsay wondered, and she\r\n\r\nwondered if Augustus Carmichael had noticed. Perhaps he had; perhaps\r\n\r\nhe had not. She could not help respecting the composure with which he\r\n\r\nsat there, drinking his soup. If he wanted soup, he asked for soup.\r\n\r\nWhether people laughed at him or were angry with him he was the same.\r\n\r\nHe did not like her, she knew that; but partly for that very reason she\r\n\r\nrespected him, and looking at him, drinking soup, very large and calm\r\n\r\nin the failing light, and monumental, and contemplative, she wondered\r\n\r\nwhat he did feel then, and why he was always content and dignified; and\r\n\r\nshe thought how devoted he was to Andrew, and would call him into his\r\n\r\nroom, and Andrew said, \"show him things.\" And there he would lie all\r\n\r\nday long on the lawn brooding presumably over his poetry, till he\r\n\r\nreminded one of a cat watching birds, and then he clapped his paws\r\n\r\ntogether when he had found the word, and her husband said, \"Poor old\r\n\r\nAugustus--he's a true poet,\" which was high praise from her husband.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNow eight candles were stood down the table, and after the first stoop\r\n\r\nthe flames stood upright and drew with them into visibility the long\r\n\r\ntable entire, and in the middle a yellow and purple dish of fruit. What\r\n\r\nhad she done with it, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, for Rose's arrangement of\r\n\r\nthe grapes and pears, of the horny pink-lined shell, of the bananas,\r\n\r\nmade her think of a trophy fetched from the bottom of the sea, of\r\n\r\nNeptune's[footnote]Roman god of the sea.[\/footnote] banquet, of the bunch that hangs with vine leaves over the\r\n\r\nshoulder of Bacchus[footnote]Roman god of wine.[\/footnote] (in some picture), among the leopard skins and the\r\n\r\ntorches lolloping red and gold... Thus brought up suddenly into the\r\n\r\nlight it seemed possessed of great size and depth, was like a world in\r\n\r\nwhich one could take one's staff and climb hills, she thought, and go\r\n\r\ndown into valleys, and to her pleasure (for it brought them into\r\n\r\nsympathy momentarily) she saw that Augustus too feasted his eyes on the\r\n\r\nsame plate of fruit, plunged in, broke off a bloom there, a tassel\r\n\r\nhere, and returned, after feasting, to his hive. That was his way of\r\n\r\nlooking, different from hers. But looking together united them.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNow all the candles were lit up, and the faces on both sides of the\r\n\r\ntable were brought nearer by the candle light, and composed, as they\r\n\r\nhad not been in the twilight, into a party round a table, for the night\r\n\r\nwas now shut off by panes of glass, which, far from giving any accurate\r\n\r\nview of the outside world, rippled it so strangely that here, inside\r\n\r\nthe room, seemed to be order and dry land; there, outside, a reflection\r\n\r\nin which things waved and vanished, waterily.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSome change at once went through them all, as if this had really\r\n\r\nhappened, and they were all conscious of making a party together in a\r\n\r\nhollow, on an island; had their common cause against that fluidity out\r\n\r\nthere. Mrs. Ramsay, who had been uneasy, waiting for Paul and Minta to\r\n\r\ncome in, and unable, she felt, to settle to things, now felt her\r\n\r\nuneasiness changed to expectation. For now they must come, and Lily\r\n\r\nBriscoe, trying to analyse the cause of the sudden exhilaration,\r\n\r\ncompared it with that moment on the tennis lawn, when solidity suddenly\r\n\r\nvanished, and such vast spaces lay between them; and now the same\r\n\r\neffect was got by the many candles in the sparely furnished room, and\r\n\r\nthe uncurtained windows, and the bright mask-like look of faces seen by\r\n\r\ncandlelight. Some weight was taken off them; anything might happen,\r\n\r\nshe felt. They must come now, Mrs. Ramsay thought, looking at the door,\r\n\r\nand at that instant, Minta Doyle, Paul Rayley, and a maid carrying a\r\n\r\ngreat dish in her hands came in together. They were awfully late; they\r\n\r\nwere horribly late, Minta said, as they found their way to different\r\n\r\nends of the table.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"I lost my brooch--my grandmother's brooch,\" said Minta with a sound of\r\n\r\nlamentation in her voice, and a suffusion in her large brown eyes,\r\n\r\nlooking down, looking up, as she sat by Mr. Ramsay, which roused his\r\n\r\nchivalry so that he bantered her.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHow could she be such a goose, he asked, as to scramble about the rocks\r\n\r\nin jewels?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe was by way of being terrified of him--he was so fearfully clever,\r\n\r\nand the first night when she had sat by him, and he talked about George\r\n\r\nEliot, she had been really frightened, for she had left the third\r\n\r\nvolume of Middlemarch<\/i>[footnote]George Eliot was the pen name of Marian Evans (1819-1880), the author of Middlemarch, a great Victorian novel.[\/footnote] in the train and she never knew what happened in\r\n\r\nthe end; but afterwards she got on perfectly, and made herself out even\r\n\r\nmore ignorant than she was, because he liked telling her she was a\r\n\r\nfool. And so tonight, directly he laughed at her, she was not\r\n\r\nfrightened. Besides, she knew, directly she came into the room that the\r\n\r\nmiracle had happened; she wore her golden haze. Sometimes she had it;\r\n\r\nsometimes not. She never knew why it came or why it went, or if she\r\n\r\nhad it until she came into the room and then she knew instantly by the\r\n\r\nway some man looked at her. Yes, tonight she had it, tremendously; she\r\n\r\nknew that by the way Mr. Ramsay told her not to be a fool. She sat\r\n\r\nbeside him, smiling.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt must have happened then, thought Mrs. Ramsay; they are engaged. And\r\n\r\nfor a moment she felt what she had never expected to feel again--\r\n\r\njealousy. For he, her husband, felt it too--Minta's glow; he liked\r\n\r\nthese girls, these golden-reddish girls, with something flying,\r\n\r\nsomething a little wild and harum-scarum[footnote]Wild, reckless.[\/footnote] about them, who didn't\r\n\r\n\"scrape their hair off,\"[footnote]I.e., wore their hair loosely in a modern fashion, not pinned up tightly and formally.[\/footnote] weren't, as he said about poor Lily Briscoe,\r\n\r\n\"skimpy\". There was some quality which she herself had not, some\r\n\r\nlustre, some richness, which attracted him, amused him, led him to make\r\n\r\nfavourites of girls like Minta. They might cut his hair from him,\r\n\r\nplait him watch-chains, or interrupt him at his work, hailing him (she\r\n\r\nheard them), \"Come along, Mr. Ramsay; it's our turn to beat them now,\"\r\n\r\nand out he came to play tennis.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut indeed she was not jealous, only, now and then, when she made\r\n\r\nherself look in her glass, a little resentful that she had grown old,\r\n\r\nperhaps, by her own fault. (The bill for the greenhouse and all the\r\n\r\nrest of it.) She was grateful to them for laughing at him. (\"How many\r\n\r\npipes have you smoked today, Mr. Ramsay?\" and so on), till he seemed a\r\n\r\nyoung man; a man very attractive to women, not burdened, not weighed\r\n\r\ndown with the greatness of his labours and the sorrows of the world and\r\n\r\nhis fame or his failure, but again as she had first known him, gaunt\r\n\r\nbut gallant; helping her out of a boat, she remembered; with delightful\r\n\r\nways, like that (she looked at him, and he looked astonishingly young,\r\n\r\nteasing Minta). For herself--\"Put it down there,\" she said, helping\r\n\r\nthe Swiss girl to place gently before her the huge brown pot in which\r\n\r\nwas the Boeuf en Daube--for her own part, she liked her boobies[footnote]A gentle term for fools.[\/footnote]. Paul\r\n\r\nmust sit by her. She had kept a place for him. Really, she sometimes\r\n\r\nthought she liked the boobies best. They did not bother one with their\r\n\r\ndissertations. How much they missed, after all, these very clever men!\r\n\r\nHow dried up they did become, to be sure. There was something, she\r\n\r\nthought as he sat down, very charming about Paul. His manners were\r\n\r\ndelightful to her, and his sharp cut nose and his bright blue eyes. He\r\n\r\nwas so considerate. Would he tell her--now that they were all talking\r\n\r\nagain--what had happened?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"We went back to look for Minta's brooch,\" he said, sitting down by\r\n\r\nher. \"We\"--that was enough. She knew from the effort, the rise in his\r\n\r\nvoice to surmount a difficult word that it was the first time he had\r\n\r\nsaid \"we.\" \"We did this, we did that.\" They'll say that all their\r\n\r\nlives, she thought, and an exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice\r\n\r\nrose from the great brown dish as Marthe, with a little flourish, took\r\n\r\nthe cover off. The cook had spent three days over that dish. And she\r\n\r\nmust take great care, Mrs. Ramsay thought, diving into the soft mass, to\r\n\r\nchoose a specially tender piece for William Bankes. And she peered into\r\n\r\nthe dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and\r\n\r\nyellow meats and its bay leaves and its wine, and thought, This will\r\n\r\ncelebrate the occasion--a curious sense rising in her, at once freakish\r\n\r\nand tender, of celebrating a festival, as if two emotions were called\r\n\r\nup in her, one profound--for what could be more serious than the love\r\n\r\nof man for woman, what more commanding, more impressive, bearing in its\r\n\r\nbosom the seeds of death; at the same time these lovers, these people\r\n\r\nentering into illusion glittering eyed, must be danced round with\r\n\r\nmockery, decorated with garlands.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It is a triumph,\" said Mr. Bankes, laying his knife down for a moment.\r\n\r\nHe had eaten attentively. It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly\r\n\r\ncooked. How did she manage these things in the depths of the country?\r\n\r\nhe asked her. She was a wonderful woman. All his love, all his\r\n\r\nreverence, had returned; and she knew it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It is a French recipe of my grandmother's,\"[footnote]See note 10 on Julia Stephen\u2019s ancestry.[\/footnote] said Mrs. Ramsay, speaking\r\n\r\nwith a ring of great pleasure in her voice. Of course it was French.\r\n\r\nWhat passes for cookery in England is an abomination (they agreed). It\r\n\r\nis putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like\r\n\r\nleather. It is cutting off the delicious skins of vegetables. \"In\r\n\r\nwhich,\" said Mr. Bankes, \"all the virtue of the vegetable is contained.\"\r\n\r\nAnd the waste, said Mrs. Ramsay. A whole French family could live on\r\n\r\nwhat an English cook throws away. Spurred on by her sense that\r\n\r\nWilliam's affection had come back to her, and that everything was all\r\n\r\nright again, and that her suspense was over, and that now she was free\r\n\r\nboth to triumph and to mock, she laughed, she gesticulated, till Lily\r\n\r\nthought, How childlike, how absurd she was, sitting up there with all\r\n\r\nher beauty opened again in her, talking about the skins of vegetables.\r\n\r\nThere was something frightening about her. She was irresistible.\r\n\r\nAlways she got her own way in the end, Lily thought. Now she had\r\n\r\nbrought this off--Paul and Minta, one might suppose, were engaged. Mr.\r\n\r\nBankes was dining here. She put a spell on them all, by wishing, so\r\n\r\nsimply, so directly, and Lily contrasted that abundance with her own\r\n\r\npoverty of spirit, and supposed that it was partly that belief (for her\r\n\r\nface was all lit up--without looking young, she looked radiant) in this\r\n\r\nstrange, this terrifying thing, which made Paul Rayley, sitting at her\r\n\r\nside, all of a tremor, yet abstract, absorbed, silent. Mrs. Ramsay,\r\n\r\nLily felt, as she talked about the skins of vegetables, exalted that,\r\n\r\nworshipped that; held her hands over it to warm them, to protect it,\r\n\r\nand yet, having brought it all about, somehow laughed, led her victims,\r\n\r\nLily felt, to the altar. It came over her too now--the emotion, the\r\n\r\nvibration, of love. How inconspicuous she felt herself by Paul's side!\r\n\r\nHe, glowing, burning; she, aloof, satirical; he, bound for adventure;\r\n\r\nshe, moored to the shore; he, launched, incautious; she solitary,\r\n\r\nleft out--and, ready to implore a share, if it were a disaster, in\r\n\r\nhis disaster, she said shyly:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"When did Minta lose her brooch?\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.\r\n\r\nHe shook his head. \"On the beach,\" he said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"I'm going to find it,\" he said, \"I'm getting up early.\" This being\r\n\r\nkept secret from Minta, he lowered his voice, and turned his eyes to\r\n\r\nwhere she sat, laughing, beside Mr. Ramsay.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLily wanted to protest violently and outrageously her desire to help\r\n\r\nhim, envisaging how in the dawn on the beach she would be the one to\r\n\r\npounce on the brooch half-hidden by some stone, and thus herself be\r\n\r\nincluded among the sailors and adventurers. But what did he reply to\r\n\r\nher offer? She actually said with an emotion that she seldom let\r\n\r\nappear, \"Let me come with you,\" and he laughed. He meant yes or no--\r\n\r\neither perhaps. But it was not his meaning--it was the odd chuckle\r\n\r\nhe gave, as if he had said, Throw yourself over the cliff if you like,\r\n\r\nI don't care. He turned on her cheek the heat of love, its horror, its\r\n\r\ncruelty, its unscrupulosity. It scorched her, and Lily, looking at\r\n\r\nMinta, being charming to Mr. Ramsay at the other end of the table,\r\n\r\nflinched for her exposed to these fangs, and was thankful. For at any\r\n\r\nrate, she said to herself, catching sight of the salt cellar on the\r\n\r\npattern, she need not marry, thank Heaven: she need not undergo that\r\n\r\ndegradation. She was saved from that dilution. She would move the tree\r\n\r\nrather more to the middle.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSuch was the complexity of things. For what happened to her,\r\n\r\nespecially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently\r\n\r\ntwo opposite things at the same time; that's what you feel, was one;\r\n\r\nthat's what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her\r\n\r\nmind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I\r\n\r\ntremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to\r\n\r\nlook for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most\r\n\r\nbarbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile\r\n\r\nlike a gem's (Paul's was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he\r\n\r\nwas swaggering, he was insolent) in the Mile End Road.[footnote]In London\u2019s East End, then a rough area.[\/footnote] Yet, she said to\r\n\r\nherself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths\r\n\r\nheaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would\r\n\r\nsay they wanted nothing but this--love; while the women, judging from\r\n\r\nher own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we\r\n\r\nwant; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this;\r\n\r\nyet it is also beautiful and necessary. Well then, well then? she\r\n\r\nasked, somehow expecting the others to go on with the argument, as if\r\n\r\nin an argument like this one threw one's own little bolt which fell\r\n\r\nshort obviously and left the others to carry it on. So she listened\r\n\r\nagain to what they were saying in case they should throw any light upon\r\n\r\nthe question of love.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Then,\" said Mr. Bankes, \"there is that liquid the English call coffee.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Oh, coffee!\" said Mrs. Ramsay. But it was much rather a question (she\r\n\r\nwas thoroughly roused, Lily could see, and talked very emphatically) of\r\n\r\nreal butter and clean milk. Speaking with warmth and eloquence, she\r\n\r\ndescribed the iniquity of the English dairy system, and in what state\r\n\r\nmilk was delivered at the door, and was about to prove her charges, for\r\n\r\nshe had gone into the matter,[footnote]See notes 11 and 68 on Julia Stephen\u2019s good works.[\/footnote] when all round the table, beginning with\r\n\r\nAndrew in the middle, like a fire leaping from tuft to tuft of furze,\r\n\r\nher children laughed; her husband laughed; she was laughed at, fire-\r\n\r\nencircled, and forced to veil her crest, dismount her batteries, and\r\n\r\nonly retaliate by displaying the raillery and ridicule of the table\r\n\r\nto Mr. Bankes as an example of what one suffered if one attacked the\r\n\r\nprejudices of the British Public.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nPurposely, however, for she had it on her mind that Lily, who had\r\n\r\nhelped her with Mr. Tansley, was out of things, she exempted her from\r\n\r\nthe rest; said \"Lily anyhow agrees with me,\" and so drew her in, a\r\n\r\nlittle fluttered, a little startled. (For she was thinking about\r\n\r\nlove.) They were both out of things, Mrs. Ramsay had been thinking,\r\n\r\nboth Lily and Charles Tansley. Both suffered from the glow of the\r\n\r\nother two. He, it was clear, felt himself utterly in the cold; no\r\n\r\nwoman would look at him with Paul Rayley in the room. Poor fellow!\r\n\r\nStill, he had his dissertation, the influence of somebody upon\r\n\r\nsomething: he could take care of himself. With Lily it was different.\r\n\r\nShe faded, under Minta's glow; became more inconspicuous than ever, in\r\n\r\nher little grey dress with her little puckered face and her little\r\n\r\nChinese eyes. Everything about her was so small. Yet, thought Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay, comparing her with Minta, as she claimed her help (for Lily\r\n\r\nshould bear her out she talked no more about her dairies than her\r\n\r\nhusband did about his boots--he would talk by the hour about his boots)\r\n\r\nof the two, Lily at forty will be the better. There was in Lily a\r\n\r\nthread of something; a flare of something; something of her own which\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay liked very much indeed, but no man would, she feared.\r\n\r\nObviously, not, unless it were a much older man, like William Bankes.\r\n\r\nBut then he cared, well, Mrs. Ramsay sometimes thought that he cared,\r\n\r\nsince his wife's death, perhaps for her. He was not \"in love\" of\r\n\r\ncourse; it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are\r\n\r\nso many. Oh, but nonsense, she thought; William must marry Lily. They\r\n\r\nhave so many things in common. Lily is so fond of flowers. They are\r\n\r\nboth cold and aloof and rather self-sufficing. She must arrange for\r\n\r\nthem to take a long walk together.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFoolishly, she had set them opposite each other. That could be remedied\r\n\r\ntomorrow. If it were fine, they should go for a picnic. Everything\r\n\r\nseemed possible. Everything seemed right. Just now (but this cannot\r\n\r\nlast, she thought, dissociating herself from the moment while they were\r\n\r\nall talking about boots) just now she had reached security; she hovered\r\n\r\nlike a hawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element of joy which\r\n\r\nfilled every nerve of her body fully and sweetly, not noisily, solemnly\r\n\r\nrather, for it arose, she thought, looking at them all eating there,\r\n\r\nfrom husband and children and friends; all of which rising in this\r\n\r\nprofound stillness (she was helping William Bankes to one very small\r\n\r\npiece more, and peered into the depths of the earthenware pot) seemed\r\n\r\nnow for no special reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fume\r\n\r\nrising upwards, holding them safe together. Nothing need be said;\r\n\r\nnothing could be said. There it was, all round them. It partook, she\r\n\r\nfelt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of\r\n\r\neternity; as she had already felt about something different once before\r\n\r\nthat afternoon; there is a coherence in things, a stability; something,\r\n\r\nshe meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the\r\n\r\nwindow with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing,\r\n\r\nthe fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had\r\n\r\nthe feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of\r\n\r\nsuch moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" she assured William Bankes, \"there is plenty for everybody.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Andrew,\" she said, \"hold your plate lower, or I shall spill it.\" (The\r\n\r\nBoeuf en Daube was a perfect triumph.) Here, she felt, putting the\r\n\r\nspoon down, where one could move or rest; could wait now (they were all\r\n\r\nhelped) listening; could then, like a hawk which lapses suddenly from\r\n\r\nits high station, flaunt and sink on laughter easily, resting her whole\r\n\r\nweight upon what at the other end of the table her husband was saying\r\n\r\nabout the square root of one thousand two hundred and fifty-three.\r\n\r\nThat was the number, it seemed, on his watch.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat did it all mean? To this day she had no notion. A square root?\r\n\r\nWhat was that? Her sons knew. She leant on them; on cubes and square\r\n\r\nroots; that was what they were talking about now; on Voltaire[footnote]Pen name of the famously witty French writer Francois-Marie d\u2019Arouet (1694-1778).[\/footnote] and\r\n\r\nMadame de Stael[footnote]The Swiss-French writer Anne Louise Germaine de Sta\u00ebl-Holstein (1766-1817), who opposed Napoleon.[\/footnote]; on the character of Napoleon[footnote]Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), French military leader and emperor, enemy of the British.[\/footnote]; on the French system of\r\n\r\nland tenure; on Lord Rosebery[footnote]Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847-1929) was British Prime Minister from 1894-5. There were rumours that he was bisexual, which caused some scandal.[\/footnote]; on Creevey's Memoirs[footnote]Thomas Creevey (1768-1838), a lawyer and politician whose memoirs depict the politics and society of his time.[\/footnote]: she let it uphold\r\n\r\nher and sustain her, this admirable fabric of the masculine\r\n\r\nintelligence, which ran up and down, crossed this way and that, like\r\n\r\niron girders spanning the swaying fabric, upholding the world,[footnote]Compare Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s image with Lily Briscoe\u2019s vision for her own (see notes 62 and 148).[\/footnote] so that\r\n\r\nshe could trust herself to it utterly, even shut her eyes, or flicker\r\n\r\nthem for a moment, as a child staring up from its pillow winks at the\r\n\r\nmyriad layers of the leaves of a tree. Then she woke up. It was still\r\n\r\nbeing fabricated. William Bankes was praising the Waverly novels.[footnote]Sir Walter Scott\u2019s (1771-1832) popular historical novels about Scotland.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe read one of them every six months, he said. And why should that make\r\n\r\nCharles Tansley angry? He rushed in (all, thought Mrs. Ramsay, because\r\n\r\nPrue will not be nice to him) and denounced the Waverly novels when he\r\n\r\nknew nothing about it, nothing about it whatsoever, Mrs. Ramsay thought,\r\n\r\nobserving him rather than listening to what he said. She could see how\r\n\r\nit was from his manner--he wanted to assert himself, and so it would\r\n\r\nalways be with him till he got his Professorship or married his wife,\r\n\r\nand so need not be always saying, \"I--I--I.\" For that was what his\r\n\r\ncriticism of poor Sir Walter, or perhaps it was Jane Austen,[footnote]Jane Austen (1775-1817), the great English novelist. Note that most of the writers discussed are from the past.[\/footnote] amounted\r\n\r\nto. \"I---I---I.\" He was thinking of himself and the impression he\r\n\r\nwas making, as she could tell by the sound of his voice, and his\r\n\r\nemphasis and his uneasiness. Success would be good for him. At any\r\n\r\nrate they were off again. Now she need not listen. It could not last,\r\n\r\nshe knew, but at the moment her eyes were so clear that they seemed to\r\n\r\ngo round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts\r\n\r\nand their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so\r\n\r\nthat its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing\r\n\r\nthemselves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging,\r\n\r\ntrembling. So she saw them; she heard them; but whatever they said had\r\n\r\nalso this quality, as if what they said was like the movement of a\r\n\r\ntrout when, at the same time, one can see the ripple and the gravel,\r\n\r\nsomething to the right, something to the left; and the whole is held\r\n\r\ntogether; for whereas in active life she would be netting and\r\n\r\nseparating one thing from another; she would be saying she liked the\r\n\r\nWaverly novels[footnote]See note 114 on Scott.[\/footnote] or had not read them; she would be urging herself\r\n\r\nforward; now she said nothing. For the moment, she hung suspended.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Ah, but how long do you think it'll last?\" said somebody. It was as\r\n\r\nif she had antennae trembling out from her, which, intercepting certain\r\n\r\nsentences, forced them upon her attention. This was one of them. She\r\n\r\nscented danger for her husband. A question like that would lead,\r\n\r\nalmost certainly, to something being said which reminded him of his own\r\n\r\nfailure. How long would he be read--he would think at once.[footnote]See note 49 on Leslie Stephen\u2019s worry that he was a failure, and his concern for his own literary legacy.[\/footnote] William\r\n\r\nBankes (who was entirely free from all such vanity) laughed, and said\r\n\r\nhe attached no importance to changes in fashion. Who could tell what\r\n\r\nwas going to last--in literature or indeed in anything else?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Let us enjoy what we do enjoy,\" he said. His integrity seemed to Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay quite admirable. He never seemed for a moment to think, But how\r\n\r\ndoes this affect me? But then if you had the other temperament, which\r\n\r\nmust have praise, which must have encouragement, naturally you began\r\n\r\n(and she knew that Mr. Ramsay was beginning) to be uneasy; to want\r\n\r\nsomebody to say, Oh, but your work will last, Mr. Ramsay, or something\r\n\r\nlike that. He showed his uneasiness quite clearly now by saying, with\r\n\r\nsome irritation, that, anyhow, Scott (or was it Shakespeare ?) would\r\n\r\nlast him his lifetime. He said it irritably. Everybody, she thought,\r\n\r\nfelt a little uncomfortable, without knowing why. Then Minta Doyle,\r\n\r\nwhose instinct was fine, said bluffly, absurdly, that she did not\r\n\r\nbelieve that any one really enjoyed reading Shakespeare. Mr. Ramsay\r\n\r\nsaid grimly (but his mind was turned away again) that very few people\r\n\r\nliked it as much as they said they did. But, he added, there is\r\n\r\nconsiderable merit in some of the plays nevertheless, and Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nsaw that it would be all right for the moment anyhow; he would laugh at\r\n\r\nMinta, and she, Mrs. Ramsay saw, realising his extreme anxiety about\r\n\r\nhimself, would, in her own way, see that he was taken care of, and\r\n\r\npraise him, somehow or other. But she wished it was not necessary:\r\n\r\nperhaps it was her fault that it was necessary. Anyhow, she was free\r\n\r\nnow to listen to what Paul Rayley was trying to say about books one had\r\n\r\nread as a boy. They lasted, he said. He had read some of Tolstoi[footnote]Leo Tolstoy (also spelled Tolstoi) (1828-1910), the great Russian novelist.[\/footnote] at\r\n\r\nschool. There was one he always remembered, but he had forgotten the\r\n\r\nname. Russian names were impossible, said Mrs. Ramsay. \"Vronsky,\" said\r\n\r\nPaul. He remembered that because he always thought it such a good name\r\n\r\nfor a villain. \"Vronsky,\" said Mrs. Ramsay; \"Oh, Anna Karenina<\/i>,\"[footnote]Tolstoy\u2019s novel Anna Karenina (1878) depicts a woman\u2019s adultery; Vronsky is the title character\u2019s lover.[\/footnote] but\r\n\r\nthat did not take them very far; books were not in their line. No,\r\n\r\nCharles Tansley would put them both right in a second about books, but\r\n\r\nit was all so mixed up with, Am I saying the right thing? Am I making\r\n\r\na good impression? that, after all, one knew more about him than\r\n\r\nabout Tolstoi, whereas, what Paul said was about the thing, simply, not\r\n\r\nhimself, nothing else. Like all stupid people, he had a kind of\r\n\r\nmodesty too, a consideration for what you were feeling, which, once in\r\n\r\na way at least, she found attractive. Now he was thinking, not about\r\n\r\nhimself, or about Tolstoi, but whether she was cold, whether she felt a\r\n\r\ndraught, whether she would like a pear.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNo, she said, she did not want a pear. Indeed she had been keeping\r\n\r\nguard over the dish of fruit (without realising it) jealously, hoping\r\n\r\nthat nobody would touch it. Her eyes had been going in and out among\r\n\r\nthe curves and shadows of the fruit, among the rich purples of the\r\n\r\nlowland grapes, then over the horny ridge of the shell, putting a\r\n\r\nyellow against a purple, a curved shape against a round shape, without\r\n\r\nknowing why she did it, or why, every time she did it, she felt more\r\n\r\nand more serene; until, oh, what a pity that they should do it--a hand\r\n\r\nreached out, took a pear, and spoilt the whole thing. In sympathy she\r\n\r\nlooked at Rose. She looked at Rose sitting between Jasper and Prue.\r\n\r\nHow odd that one's child should do that!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHow odd to see them sitting there, in a row, her children, Jasper,\r\n\r\nRose, Prue, Andrew, almost silent, but with some joke of their own\r\n\r\ngoing on, she guessed, from the twitching at their lips. It was\r\n\r\nsomething quite apart from everything else, something they were\r\n\r\nhoarding up to laugh over in their own room. It was not about their\r\n\r\nfather, she hoped. No, she thought not. What was it, she wondered,\r\n\r\nsadly rather, for it seemed to her that they would laugh when she was\r\n\r\nnot there. There was all that hoarded behind those rather set, still,\r\n\r\nmask-like faces, for they did not join in easily; they were like\r\n\r\nwatchers, surveyors, a little raised or set apart from the grown-up\r\n\r\npeople. But when she looked at Prue tonight, she saw that this was\r\n\r\nnot now quite true of her. She was just beginning, just moving,\r\n\r\njust descending. The faintest light was on her face, as if the\r\n\r\nglow of Minta opposite, some excitement, some anticipation of happiness\r\n\r\nwas reflected in her, as if the sun of the love of men and women rose\r\n\r\nover the rim of the table-cloth, and without knowing what it was she\r\n\r\nbent towards it and greeted it. She kept looking at Minta, shyly, yet\r\n\r\ncuriously, so that Mrs. Ramsay looked from one to the other and said,\r\n\r\nspeaking to Prue in her own mind, You will be as happy as she is one of\r\n\r\nthese days. You will be much happier, she added, because you are my\r\n\r\ndaughter, she meant; her own daughter must be happier than other\r\n\r\npeople's daughters. But dinner was over. It was time to go. They\r\n\r\nwere only playing with things on their plates. She would wait until\r\n\r\nthey had done laughing at some story her husband was telling. He was\r\n\r\nhaving a joke with Minta about a bet. Then she would get up.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe liked Charles Tansley, she thought, suddenly; she liked his laugh.\r\n\r\nShe liked him for being so angry with Paul and Minta. She liked his\r\n\r\nawkwardness. There was a lot in that young man after all. And Lily,\r\n\r\nshe thought, putting her napkin beside her plate, she always has some\r\n\r\njoke of her own. One need never bother about Lily. She waited. She\r\n\r\ntucked her napkin under the edge of her plate. Well, were they done\r\n\r\nnow? No. That story had led to another story. Her husband was in\r\n\r\ngreat spirits tonight, and wishing, she supposed, to make it all right\r\n\r\nwith old Augustus after that scene about the soup, had drawn him in--\r\n\r\nthey were telling stories about some one they had both known at\r\n\r\ncollege. She looked at the window in which the candle flames burnt\r\n\r\nbrighter now that the panes were black, and looking at that outside\r\n\r\nthe voices came to her very strangely, as if they were voices at a\r\n\r\nservice in a cathedral, for she did not listen to the words. The\r\n\r\nsudden bursts of laughter and then one voice (Minta's) speaking\r\n\r\nalone, reminded her of men and boys crying out the Latin words\r\n\r\nof a service in some Roman Catholic cathedral. She waited. Her\r\n\r\nhusband spoke. He was repeating something, and she knew it was poetry\r\n\r\nfrom the rhythm and the ring of exultation, and melancholy in his\r\n\r\nvoice:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCome out and climb the garden path, Luriana Lurilee.\r\n\r\nThe China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the yellow bee.[footnote]Lines from Charles Elton\u2019s (1839-1900) poem \u201cLuriana, Lurilee\u201d (first published in 1943 in an anthology compiled by Woolf\u2019s friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West).[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe words (she was looking at the window) sounded as if they were\r\n\r\nfloating like flowers on water out there, cut off from them all, as if\r\n\r\nno one had said them, but they had come into existence of themselves.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be\r\n\r\nAre full of trees and changing leaves.[footnote]Elton; see note 120.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe did not know what they meant, but, like music, the words seemed to\r\n\r\nbe spoken by her own voice, outside her self, saying quite easily and\r\n\r\nnaturally what had been in her mind the whole evening while she said\r\n\r\ndifferent things. She knew, without looking round, that every one at\r\n\r\nthe table was listening to the voice saying:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI wonder if it seems to you, Luriana, Lurilee\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nwith the same sort of relief and pleasure that she had, as if this\r\n\r\nwere, at last, the natural thing to say, this were their own voice\r\n\r\nspeaking.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut the voice had stopped. She looked round. She made herself get up.\r\n\r\nAugustus Carmichael had risen and, holding his table napkin so that it\r\n\r\nlooked like a long white robe he stood chanting:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTo see the Kings go riding by\r\n\r\nOver lawn and daisy lea\r\n\r\nWith their palm leaves and cedar\r\n\r\nLuriana, Lurilee,[footnote]Elton; see note 120.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nand as she passed him, he turned slightly towards her repeating the\r\n\r\nlast words:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLuriana, Lurilee\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nand bowed to her as if he did her homage. Without knowing why, she\r\n\r\nfelt that he liked her better than he ever had done before; and with a\r\n\r\nfeeling of relief and gratitude she returned his bow and passed through\r\n\r\nthe door which he held open for her.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was necessary now to carry everything a step further. With her foot\r\n\r\non the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was\r\n\r\nvanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta's\r\n\r\narm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had\r\n\r\nbecome, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already\r\n\r\nthe past.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n18\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs usual, Lily thought. There was always something that had to be done\r\n\r\nat that precise moment, something that Mrs. Ramsay had decided for\r\n\r\nreasons of her own to do instantly, it might be with every one standing\r\n\r\nabout making jokes, as now, not being able to decide whether they were\r\n\r\ngoing into the smoking-room, into the drawing-room, up to the attics.\r\n\r\nThen one saw Mrs. Ramsay in the midst of this hubbub standing there with\r\n\r\nMinta's arm in hers, bethink her, \"Yes, it is time for that now,\" and\r\n\r\nso make off at once with an air of secrecy to do something alone. And\r\n\r\ndirectly she went a sort of disintegration set in; they wavered about,\r\n\r\nwent different ways, Mr. Bankes took Charles Tansley by the arm and went\r\n\r\noff to finish on the terrace the discussion they had begun at dinner\r\n\r\nabout politics, thus giving a turn to the whole poise of the evening,\r\n\r\nmaking the weight fall in a different direction, as if, Lily thought,\r\n\r\nseeing them go, and hearing a word or two about the policy of the\r\n\r\nLabour Party, they had gone up on to the bridge of the ship and were\r\n\r\ntaking their bearings; the change from poetry to politics struck her\r\n\r\nlike that; so Mr. Bankes and Charles Mrs. Ramsay going upstairs in the\r\n\r\nlamplight alone. Where, Lily wondered, was she going so quickly?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNot that she did in fact run or hurry; she went indeed rather slowly.\r\n\r\nShe felt rather inclined just for a moment to stand still after all\r\n\r\nthat chatter, and pick out one particular thing; the thing that\r\n\r\nmattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions\r\n\r\nand odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her, and bring it to\r\n\r\nthe tribunal where, ranged about in conclave, sat the judges she had\r\n\r\nset up to decide these things. Is it good, is it bad, is it right or\r\n\r\nwrong? Where are we all going to? and so on. So she righted\r\n\r\nherself after the shock of the event, and quite unconsciously and\r\n\r\nincongruously, used the branches of the elm trees outside to help her\r\n\r\nto stabilise her position. Her world was changing: they were still.\r\n\r\nThe event had given her a sense of movement. All must be in order.\r\n\r\nShe must get that right and that right, she thought, insensibly\r\n\r\napproving of the dignity of the trees' stillness, and now again of the\r\n\r\nsuperb upward rise (like the beak of a ship up a wave) of the elm\r\n\r\nbranches as the wind raised them. For it was windy (she stood a moment\r\n\r\nto look out). It was windy, so that the leaves now and then brushed\r\n\r\nopen a star, and the stars themselves seemed to be shaking and darting\r\n\r\nlight and trying to flash out between the edges of the leaves. Yes,\r\n\r\nthat was done then, accomplished; and as with all things done, became\r\n\r\nsolemn. Now one thought of it, cleared of chatter and emotion, it\r\n\r\nseemed always to have been, only was shown now and so being shown,\r\n\r\nstruck everything into stability. They would, she thought, going on\r\n\r\nagain, however long they lived, come back to this night; this moon;\r\n\r\nthis wind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her, where she was\r\n\r\nmost susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their\r\n\r\nhearts, however long they lived she would be woven; and this, and this,\r\n\r\nand this, she thought, going upstairs, laughing, but affectionately, at\r\n\r\nthe sofa on the landing (her mother's); at the rocking-chair (her\r\n\r\nfather's); at the map of the Hebrides. All that would be revived again\r\n\r\nin the lives of Paul and Minta; \"the Rayleys\"--she tried the new name\r\n\r\nover; and she felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community\r\n\r\nof feeling with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of\r\n\r\npartition had become so thin that practically (the feeling was one of\r\n\r\nrelief and happiness) it was all one stream, and chairs, tables, maps,\r\n\r\nwere hers, were theirs, it did not matter whose, and Paul and Minta\r\n\r\nwould carry it on when she was dead.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe turned the handle, firmly, lest it should squeak, and went in,\r\n\r\npursing her lips slightly, as if to remind herself that she must not\r\n\r\nspeak aloud. But directly she came in she saw, with annoyance, that the\r\n\r\nprecaution was not needed. The children were not asleep. It was most\r\n\r\nannoying. Mildred should be more careful. There was James wide awake\r\n\r\nand Cam sitting bolt upright, and Mildred out of bed in her bare feet,\r\n\r\nand it was almost eleven and they were all talking. What was the\r\n\r\nmatter? It was that horrid skull again. She had told Mildred to move\r\n\r\nit, but Mildred, of course, had forgotten, and now there was Cam wide\r\n\r\nawake, and James wide awake quarreling when they ought to have been\r\n\r\nasleep hours ago. What had possessed Edward to send them this horrid\r\n\r\nskull? She had been so foolish as to let them nail it up there. It\r\n\r\nwas nailed fast, Mildred said, and Cam couldn't go to sleep with it in\r\n\r\nthe room, and James screamed if she touched it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThen Cam must go to sleep (it had great horns said Cam)--must go to\r\n\r\nsleep and dream of lovely palaces, said Mrs. Ramsay, sitting down\r\n\r\non the bed by her side. She could see the horns, Cam said, all over\r\n\r\nthe room. It was true. Wherever they put the light (and James could\r\n\r\nnot sleep without a light) there was always a shadow somewhere.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But think, Cam, it's only an old pig,\" said Mrs. Ramsay, \"a nice black\r\n\r\npig like the pigs at the farm.\" But Cam thought it was a horrid thing,\r\n\r\nbranching at her all over the room.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Well then,\" said Mrs. Ramsay, \"we will cover it up,\" and they all\r\n\r\nwatched her go to the chest of drawers, and open the little drawers\r\n\r\nquickly one after another, and not seeing anything that would do, she\r\n\r\nquickly took her own shawl off and wound it round the skull, round and\r\n\r\nround and round, and then she came back to Cam and laid her head almost\r\n\r\nflat on the pillow beside Cam's and said how lovely it looked now; how\r\n\r\nthe fairies would love it; it was like a bird's nest; it was like a\r\n\r\nbeautiful mountain such as she had seen abroad, with valleys and\r\n\r\nflowers and bells ringing and birds singing and little goats and\r\n\r\nantelopes and... She could see the words echoing as she spoke them\r\n\r\nrhythmically in Cam's mind, and Cam was repeating after her how it was\r\n\r\nlike a mountain, a bird's nest, a garden, and there were little\r\n\r\nantelopes, and her eyes were opening and shutting, and Mrs. Ramsay went\r\n\r\non speaking still more monotonously, and more rhythmically and more\r\n\r\nnonsensically, how she must shut her eyes and go to sleep and dream of\r\n\r\nmountains and valleys and stars falling and parrots and antelopes and\r\n\r\ngardens, and everything lovely, she said, raising her head very slowly\r\n\r\nand speaking more and more mechanically, until she sat upright and saw\r\n\r\nthat Cam was asleep.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNow, she whispered, crossing over to his bed, James must go to sleep\r\n\r\ntoo, for see, she said, the boar's skull was still there; they had not\r\n\r\ntouched it; they had done just what he wanted; it was there quite\r\n\r\nunhurt. He made sure that the skull was still there under the shawl.\r\n\r\nBut he wanted to ask her something more. Would they go to the Lighthouse\r\n\r\ntomorrow?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNo, not tomorrow, she said, but soon, she promised him; the next fine\r\n\r\nday. He was very good. He lay down. She covered him up. But he\r\n\r\nwould never forget, she knew, and she felt angry with Charles Tansley,\r\n\r\nwith her husband, and with herself, for she had raised his hopes. Then\r\n\r\nfeeling for her shawl and remembering that she had wrapped it round the\r\n\r\nboar's skull, she got up, and pulled the window down another inch or\r\n\r\ntwo, and heard the wind, and got a breath of the perfectly indifferent\r\n\r\nchill night air and murmured good night to Mildred and left the room\r\n\r\nand let the tongue of the door slowly lengthen in the lock and went\r\n\r\nout.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe hoped he would not bang his books on the floor above their heads,\r\n\r\nshe thought, still thinking how annoying Charles Tansley was. For\r\n\r\nneither of them slept well; they were excitable children, and since he\r\n\r\nsaid things like that about the Lighthouse, it seemed to her likely\r\n\r\nthat he would knock a pile of books over, just as they were going to\r\n\r\nsleep, clumsily sweeping them off the table with his elbow. For she\r\n\r\nsupposed that he had gone upstairs to work. Yet he looked so desolate;\r\n\r\nyet she would feel relieved when he went; yet she would see that he was\r\n\r\nbetter treated tomorrow; yet he was admirable with her husband; yet his\r\n\r\nmanners certainly wanted improving; yet she liked his laugh--thinking\r\n\r\nthis, as she came downstairs, she noticed that she could now see the\r\n\r\nmoon itself through the staircase window--the yellow harvest moon--\r\n\r\nand turned, and they saw her, standing above them on the stairs.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"That's my mother,\" thought Prue. Yes; Minta should look at her; Paul\r\n\r\nRayley should look at her. That is the thing itself, she felt, as if\r\n\r\nthere were only one person like that in the world; her mother. And,\r\n\r\nfrom having been quite grown up, a moment before, talking with the\r\n\r\nothers, she became a child again, and what they had been doing was a\r\n\r\ngame, and would her mother sanction their game, or condemn it, she\r\n\r\nwondered. And thinking what a chance it was for Minta and Paul and\r\n\r\nLily to see her, and feeling what an extraordinary stroke of fortune it\r\n\r\nwas for her, to have her, and how she would never grow up and never\r\n\r\nleave home, she said, like a child, \"We thought of going down to the\r\n\r\nbeach to watch the waves.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nInstantly, for no reason at all, Mrs. Ramsay became like a girl of\r\n\r\ntwenty, full of gaiety. A mood of revelry suddenly took possession of\r\n\r\nher. Of course they must go; of course they must go, she cried,\r\n\r\nlaughing; and running down the last three or four steps quickly, she\r\n\r\nbegan turning from one to the other and laughing and drawing Minta's\r\n\r\nwrap round her and saying she only wished she could come too, and would\r\n\r\nthey be very late, and had any of them got a watch?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Yes, Paul has,\" said Minta. Paul slipped a beautiful gold watch out\r\n\r\nof a little wash-leather case to show her. And as he held it in the\r\n\r\npalm of his hand before her, he felt, \"She knows all about it. I need\r\n\r\nnot say anything.\" He was saying to her as he showed her the watch,\r\n\r\n\"I've done it, Mrs. Ramsay. I owe it all to you.\" And seeing the gold\r\n\r\nwatch lying in his hand, Mrs. Ramsay felt, How extraordinarily lucky\r\n\r\nMinta is! She is marrying a man who has a gold watch in a wash-\r\n\r\nleather bag!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"How I wish I could come with you!\" she cried. But she was withheld by\r\n\r\nsomething so strong that she never even thought of asking herself what\r\n\r\nit was. Of course it was impossible for her to go with them. But she\r\n\r\nwould have liked to go, had it not been for the other thing, and\r\n\r\ntickled by the absurdity of her thought (how lucky to marry a man\r\n\r\nwith a wash-leather bag for his watch) she went with a smile on her\r\n\r\nlips into the other room, where her husband sat reading.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n19\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOf course, she said to herself, coming into the room, she had to come\r\n\r\nhere to get something she wanted. First she wanted to sit down in a\r\n\r\nparticular chair under a particular lamp. But she wanted something\r\n\r\nmore, though she did not know, could not think what it was that she\r\n\r\nwanted. She looked at her husband (taking up her stocking and\r\n\r\nbeginning to knit), and saw that he did not want to be interrupted--\r\n\r\nthat was clear. He was reading something that moved him very much. He\r\n\r\nwas half smiling and then she knew he was controlling his emotion. He\r\n\r\nwas tossing the pages over. He was acting it--perhaps he was\r\n\r\nthinking himself the person in the book. She wondered what book it was.\r\n\r\nOh, it was one of old Sir Walter's[footnote]Sir Walter Scott; see note 114.[\/footnote] she saw, adjusting the shade of her\r\n\r\nlamp so that the light fell on her knitting. For Charles Tansley had\r\n\r\nbeen saying (she looked up as if she expected to hear the crash of\r\n\r\nbooks on the floor above), had been saying that people don't read Scott\r\n\r\nany more. Then her husband thought, \"That's what they'll say of me;\"\r\n\r\nso he went and got one of those books. And if he came to the\r\n\r\nconclusion \"That's true\" what Charles Tansley said, he would accept it\r\n\r\nabout Scott. (She could see that he was weighing, considering, putting\r\n\r\nthis with that as he read.) But not about himself. He was always\r\n\r\nuneasy about himself. That troubled her. He would always be worrying\r\n\r\nabout his own books--will they be read, are they good, why aren't they\r\n\r\nbetter, what do people think of me? Not liking to think of him so,\r\n\r\nand wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he suddenly became\r\n\r\nirritable when they talked about fame and books lasting, wondering if\r\n\r\nthe children were laughing at that, she twitched the stockings out, and\r\n\r\nall the fine gravings[footnote]Engraved lines.[\/footnote] came drawn with steel instruments about her lips\r\n\r\nand forehead, and she grew still like a tree which has been tossing and\r\n\r\nquivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into\r\n\r\nquiet.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt didn't matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book,\r\n\r\nfame--who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way\r\n\r\nwith him, his truthfulness--for instance at dinner she had been\r\n\r\nthinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete\r\n\r\ntrust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a\r\n\r\nweed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she\r\n\r\nhad felt in the hall when the others were talking, There is something I\r\n\r\nwant--something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper\r\n\r\nwithout knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed. And she\r\n\r\nwaited a little, knitting, wondering, and slowly rose those words they\r\n\r\nhad said at dinner, \"the China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the\r\n\r\nhoney bee,\" began washing from side to side of her mind rhythmically,\r\n\r\nand as they washed, words, like little shaded lights, one red, one\r\n\r\nblue, one yellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leaving\r\n\r\ntheir perches up there to fly across and across, or to cry out and to\r\n\r\nbe echoed; so she turned and felt on the table beside her for a book.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd all the lives we ever lived\r\n\r\nAnd all the lives to be,\r\n\r\nAre full of trees and changing leaves,[footnote]Elton; see note 120.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nshe murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened\r\n\r\nthe book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so,\r\n\r\nshe felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up\r\n\r\nunder petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white,\r\n\r\nor this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSteer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners[footnote]From William Browne\u2019s (1588-1643) poem \u201cThe Sirens\u2019 Song,\u201d which describes the fatal call of mermaids seeking to charm sailors to their deaths beneath the waves.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nshe read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and\r\n\r\nthat, from one line to another as from one branch to another, from one\r\n\r\nred and white flower to another, until a little sound roused her--her\r\n\r\nhusband slapping his thighs. Their eyes met for a second; but they did\r\n\r\nnot want to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but\r\n\r\nsomething seemed, nevertheless, to go from him to her. It was the\r\n\r\nlife, it was the power of it, it was the tremendous humour, she knew,\r\n\r\nthat made him slap his thighs. Don't interrupt me, he seemed to be\r\n\r\nsaying, don't say anything; just sit there. And he went on reading.\r\n\r\nHis lips twitched. It filled him. It fortified him. He clean forgot\r\n\r\nall the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him\r\n\r\nunutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and\r\n\r\nhis being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when\r\n\r\nthey passed his books over as if they didn't exist at all. But now, he\r\n\r\nfelt, it didn't matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an\r\n\r\nalphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it--if not he, then\r\n\r\nanother. This man's strength and sanity, his feeling for straight\r\n\r\nforward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in\r\n\r\nMucklebackit's cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of\r\n\r\nsomething that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back\r\n\r\nhis tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them\r\n\r\nfall and shook his head from side to side and forgot himself completely\r\n\r\n(but not one or two reflections about morality and French novels and\r\n\r\nEnglish novels and Scott's hands being tied but his view perhaps being\r\n\r\nas true as the other view), forgot his own bothers and failures\r\n\r\ncompletely in poor Steenie's drowning and Mucklebackit's sorrow[footnote]Mucklebackit and Steenie are characters from Sir Walter Scott\u2019s dramatic Scottish historical novel The Antiquary (1816). See note 114.[\/footnote] (that\r\n\r\nwas Scott at his best) and the astonishing delight and feeling of\r\n\r\nvigour that it gave him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWell, let them improve upon that, he thought as he finished the\r\n\r\nchapter. He felt that he had been arguing with somebody, and had got\r\n\r\nthe better of him. They could not improve upon that, whatever they\r\n\r\nmight say; and his own position became more secure. The lovers were\r\n\r\nfiddlesticks, he thought, collecting it all in his mind again. That's\r\n\r\nfiddlesticks, that's first-rate, he thought, putting one thing beside\r\n\r\nanother. But he must read it again. He could not remember the whole\r\n\r\nshape of the thing. He had to keep his judgement in suspense. So he\r\n\r\nreturned to the other thought--if young men did not care for this,\r\n\r\nnaturally they did not care for him either. One ought not to complain,\r\n\r\nthought Mr. Ramsay, trying to stifle his desire to complain to his wife\r\n\r\nthat young men did not admire him. But he was determined; he would not\r\n\r\nbother her again. Here he looked at her reading. She looked very\r\n\r\npeaceful, reading. He liked to think that every one had taken\r\n\r\nthemselves off and that he and she were alone. The whole of life did\r\n\r\nnot consist in going to bed with a woman, he thought, returning to\r\n\r\nScott and Balzac[footnote]Honor\u00e9 de Balzac (1799-1850), great French novelist.[\/footnote], to the English novel and the French novel.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay raised her head and like a person in a light sleep seemed to\r\n\r\nsay that if he wanted her to wake she would, she really would, but\r\n\r\notherwise, might she go on sleeping, just a little longer, just a\r\n\r\nlittle longer? She was climbing up those branches, this way and that,\r\n\r\nlaying hands on one flower and then another.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,[footnote]From Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnet 98, \u201cFrom you I have been absent in the spring.\u201d Note that again, the Ramsays are turning to the past in their reading. This sonnet, like many of Shakespeare\u2019s, depicts the struggle for immortality, whether through great art or through children, which echoes the conflict between the Ramsays.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nshe read, and so reading she was ascending, she felt, on to the top,\r\n\r\non to the summit. How satisfying! How restful! All the odds and ends\r\n\r\nof the day stuck to this magnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean. And\r\n\r\nthen there it was, suddenly entire; she held it in her hands, beautiful\r\n\r\nand reasonable, clear and complete, here--the sonnet.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut she was becoming conscious of her husband looking at her. He was\r\n\r\nsmiling at her, quizzically, as if he were ridiculing her gently for\r\n\r\nbeing asleep in broad daylight, but at the same time he was thinking,\r\n\r\nGo on reading. You don't look sad now, he thought. And he wondered\r\n\r\nwhat she was reading, and exaggerated her ignorance, her simplicity,\r\n\r\nfor he liked to think that she was not clever, not book-learned at all.\r\n\r\nHe wondered if she understood what she was reading. Probably not, he\r\n\r\nthought. She was astonishingly beautiful. Her beauty seemed to him,\r\n\r\nif that were possible, to increase\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,\r\n\r\nAs with your shadow I with these did play,[footnote]Shakespeare; see note 129.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nshe finished.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Well?\" she said, echoing his smile dreamily, looking up from her book.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs with your shadow I with these did play,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nshe murmured, putting the book on the table.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat had happened, she wondered, as she took up her knitting, since she\r\n\r\nhad seen him alone? She remembered dressing, and seeing the moon;\r\n\r\nAndrew holding his plate too high at dinner; being depressed by\r\n\r\nsomething William had said; the birds in the trees; the sofa on the\r\n\r\nlanding; the children being awake; Charles Tansley waking them with his\r\n\r\nbooks falling--oh, no, that she had invented; and Paul having a wash-\r\n\r\nleather case for his watch. Which should she tell him about?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"They're engaged,\" she said, beginning to knit, \"Paul and Minta.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"So I guessed,\" he said. There was nothing very much to be said about\r\n\r\nit. Her mind was still going up and down, up and down with the poetry;\r\n\r\nhe was still feeling very vigorous, very forthright, after reading\r\n\r\nabout Steenie's funeral.[footnote]Scott; see note 114 and 127.[\/footnote] So they sat silent. Then she became aware\r\n\r\nthat she wanted him to say something.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnything, anything, she thought, going on with her knitting. Anything\r\n\r\nwill do.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"How nice it would be to marry a man with a wash-leather bag for his\r\n\r\nwatch,\" she said, for that was the sort of joke they had together.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe snorted. He felt about this engagement as he always felt about any\r\n\r\nengagement; the girl is much too good for that young man. Slowly it\r\n\r\ncame into her head, why is it then that one wants people to marry?\r\n\r\nWhat was the value, the meaning of things? (Every word they said now\r\n\r\nwould be true.) Do say something, she thought, wishing only to hear his\r\n\r\nvoice. For the shadow, the thing folding them in was beginning, she\r\n\r\nfelt, to close round her again. Say anything, she begged, looking at\r\n\r\nhim, as if for help.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was silent, swinging the compass on his watch-chain to and fro, and\r\n\r\nthinking of Scott's novels and Balzac's novels.[footnote]See notes 114 and 128.[\/footnote] But through the\r\n\r\ncrepuscular walls of their intimacy, for they were drawing together,\r\n\r\ninvoluntarily, coming side by side, quite close, she could feel his\r\n\r\nmind like a raised hand shadowing her mind; and he was beginning, now\r\n\r\nthat her thoughts took a turn he disliked--towards this \"pessimism\" as\r\n\r\nhe called it--to fidget, though he said nothing, raising his hand to\r\n\r\nhis forehead, twisting a lock of hair, letting it fall again.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"You won't finish that stocking tonight,\" he said, pointing to her\r\n\r\nstocking. That was what she wanted--the asperity in his voice\r\n\r\nreproving her. If he says it's wrong to be pessimistic probably it is\r\n\r\nwrong, she thought; the marriage will turn out all right.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"No,\" she said, flattening the stocking out upon her knee, \"I shan't\r\n\r\nfinish it.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd what then? For she felt that he was still looking at her, but that\r\n\r\nhis look had changed. He wanted something--wanted the thing she always\r\n\r\nfound it so difficult to give him; wanted her to tell him that she\r\n\r\nloved him. And that, no, she could not do. He found talking so much\r\n\r\neasier than she did. He could say things--she never could. So\r\n\r\nnaturally it was always he that said the things, and then for some\r\n\r\nreason he would mind this suddenly, and would reproach her. A\r\n\r\nheartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him.\r\n\r\nBut it was not so--it was not so. It was only that she never could say\r\n\r\nwhat she felt. Was there no crumb on his coat? Nothing she could do\r\n\r\nfor him? Getting up, she stood at the window with the reddish-brown\r\n\r\nstocking in her hands, partly to turn away from him, partly because she\r\n\r\nremembered how beautiful it often is--the sea at night. But she knew\r\n\r\nthat he had turned his head as she turned; he was watching her. She\r\n\r\nknew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever. And she\r\n\r\nfelt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that\r\n\r\nyou love me? He was thinking that, for he was roused, what with Minta\r\n\r\nand his book, and its being the end of the day and their having\r\n\r\nquarrelled about going to the Lighthouse. But she could not do it; she\r\n\r\ncould not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of\r\n\r\nsaying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him.\r\n\r\nAnd as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not\r\n\r\nsaid a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could\r\n\r\nnot deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said\r\n\r\n(thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)--\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Yes, you were right. It's going to be wet tomorrow. You won't be able\r\n\r\nto go.\" And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again.\r\n\r\nShe had not said it: yet he knew.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nII\r\n\r\nTIME PASSES\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Well, we must wait for the future to show,\" said Mr. Bankes, coming in\r\n\r\nfrom the terrace.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It's almost too dark to see,\" said Andrew, coming up from the beach.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"One can hardly tell which is the sea and which is the land,\" said\r\n\r\nPrue.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Do we leave that light burning?\" said Lily as they took their coats\r\n\r\noff indoors.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"No,\" said Prue, \"not if every one's in.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Andrew,\" she called back, \"just put out the light in the hall.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOne by one the lamps were all extinguished, except that Mr. Carmichael,\r\n\r\nwho liked to lie awake a little reading Virgil,[footnote]Ancient Roman poet (70-19 B.C.).[\/footnote] kept his candle burning\r\n\r\nrather longer than the rest.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n2\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming\r\n\r\non the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it\r\n\r\nseemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which,\r\n\r\ncreeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came\r\n\r\ninto bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red\r\n\r\nand yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of\r\n\r\ndrawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely\r\n\r\nanything left of body or mind by which one could say, \"This is he\" or\r\n\r\n\"This is she.\" Sometimes a hand was raised as if to clutch something or\r\n\r\nward off something, or somebody groaned, or somebody laughed aloud as\r\n\r\nif sharing a joke with nothingness.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNothing stirred in the drawing-room or in the dining-room or on the\r\n\r\nstaircase. Only through the rusty hinges and swollen sea-moistened\r\n\r\nwoodwork certain airs, detached from the body of the wind (the house\r\n\r\nwas ramshackle after all) crept round corners and ventured indoors.\r\n\r\nAlmost one might imagine them, as they entered the drawing-room\r\n\r\nquestioning and wondering, toying with the flap of hanging wall-paper,\r\n\r\nasking, would it hang much longer, when would it fall? Then smoothly\r\n\r\nbrushing the walls, they passed on musingly as if asking the red and\r\n\r\nyellow roses on the wall-paper whether they would fade, and questioning\r\n\r\n(gently, for there was time at their disposal) the torn letters in\r\n\r\nthe wastepaper basket, the flowers, the books, all of which were now\r\n\r\nopen to them and asking, Were they allies? Were they enemies? How\r\n\r\nlong would they endure?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo some random light directing them with its pale footfall upon stair\r\n\r\nand mat, from some uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse\r\n\r\neven, with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, the little airs\r\n\r\nmounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here surely,\r\n\r\nthey must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear, what lies here\r\n\r\nis steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those\r\n\r\nfumbling airs that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can\r\n\r\nneither touch nor destroy. Upon which, wearily, ghostlily, as if they\r\n\r\nhad feather-light fingers and the light persistency of feathers, they\r\n\r\nwould look, once, on the shut eyes, and the loosely clasping fingers,\r\n\r\nand fold their garments wearily and disappear. And so, nosing,\r\n\r\nrubbing, they went to the window on the staircase, to the servants'\r\n\r\nbedrooms, to the boxes in the attics; descending, blanched the apples\r\n\r\non the dining-room table, fumbled the petals of roses, tried the\r\n\r\npicture on the easel, brushed the mat and blew a little sand along the\r\n\r\nfloor. At length, desisting, all ceased together, gathered together,\r\n\r\nall sighed together; all together gave off an aimless gust of\r\n\r\nlamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide;\r\n\r\nadmitted nothing; and slammed to.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Here Mr. Carmichael, who was reading Virgil,[footnote]See note 133.[\/footnote] blew out his candle. It\r\n\r\nwas past midnight.][footnote]Here and below in this section, Woolf uses parentheses to show action going on in the background.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n3\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the\r\n\r\ndarkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a\r\n\r\nfaint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave.\r\n\r\nNight, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in\r\n\r\nstore and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers.\r\n\r\nThey lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets,\r\n\r\nplates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take\r\n\r\non the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool\r\n\r\ncathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in\r\n\r\nbattle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The\r\n\r\nautumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest\r\n\r\nmoons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the\r\n\r\nstubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil,\r\n\r\ndivine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single,\r\n\r\ndistinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking; which,\r\n\r\ndid we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness,\r\n\r\ntwitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he\r\n\r\ncovers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so\r\n\r\nconfuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever\r\n\r\nreturn or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect\r\n\r\nwhole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our\r\n\r\npenitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and\r\n\r\nbend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered\r\n\r\nwith them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and\r\n\r\nscatter damp paths. Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and\r\n\r\nshould any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer\r\n\r\nto his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and\r\n\r\ngo down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of\r\n\r\nserving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night\r\n\r\nto order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul. The\r\n\r\nhand dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear. Almost it\r\n\r\nwould appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night\r\n\r\nthose questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the\r\n\r\nsleeper from his bed to seek an answer.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Mr. Ramsay, stumbling along a passage one dark morning, stretched his\r\n\r\narms out, but Mrs. Ramsay having died rather suddenly the night before,\r\n\r\nhis arms, though stretched out, remained empty.][footnote]See note 135 on the use of parentheses. Woolf powerfully recalled her father\u2019s similar posture after her mother\u2019s sudden death, writing years later, \u201cHow that early morning picture has stayed with me!\u201d (The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 5 (5 May, 1924). San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. 85).[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n4\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo with the house empty and the doors locked and the mattresses rolled\r\n\r\nround, those stray airs, advance guards of great armies, blustered in,\r\n\r\nbrushed bare boards, nibbled and fanned, met nothing in bedroom or\r\n\r\ndrawing-room that wholly resisted them but only hangings that flapped,\r\n\r\nwood that creaked, the bare legs of tables, saucepans and china already\r\n\r\nfurred, tarnished, cracked. What people had shed and left--a pair of\r\n\r\nshoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes--those\r\n\r\nalone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they\r\n\r\nwere filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and\r\n\r\nbuttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world\r\n\r\nhollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened,\r\n\r\nin came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. Now, day\r\n\r\nafter day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp\r\n\r\nimage on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing\r\n\r\nin the wind, made obeisance on the wall, and for a moment darkened the\r\n\r\npool in which light reflected itself; or birds, flying, made a soft\r\n\r\nspot flutter slowly across the bedroom floor.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo loveliness reigned and stillness, and together made the shape of\r\n\r\nloveliness itself, a form from which life had parted; solitary like a\r\n\r\npool at evening, far distant, seen from a train window, vanishing so\r\n\r\nquickly that the pool, pale in the evening, is scarcely robbed of its\r\n\r\nsolitude, though once seen. Loveliness and stillness clasped hands in\r\n\r\nthe bedroom, and among the shrouded jugs and sheeted chairs even the\r\n\r\nprying of the wind, and the soft nose of the clammy sea airs, rubbing,\r\n\r\nsnuffling, iterating, and reiterating their questions--\"Will you fade?\r\n\r\nWill you perish?\"--scarcely disturbed the peace, the indifference, the\r\n\r\nair of pure integrity, as if the question they asked scarcely needed\r\n\r\nthat they should answer: we remain.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNothing it seemed could break that image, corrupt that innocence, or\r\n\r\ndisturb the swaying mantle of silence which, week after week, in the\r\n\r\nempty room, wove into itself the falling cries of birds, ships hooting,\r\n\r\nthe drone and hum of the fields, a dog's bark, a man's shout, and\r\n\r\nfolded them round the house in silence. Once only a board sprang on\r\n\r\nthe landing; once in the middle of the night with a roar, with a\r\n\r\nrupture, as after centuries of quiescence, a rock rends itself from the\r\n\r\nmountain and hurtles crashing into the valley, one fold of the shawl\r\n\r\nloosened and swung to and fro. Then again peace descended; and the\r\n\r\nshadow wavered; light bent to its own image in adoration on the bedroom\r\n\r\nwall; and Mrs. McNab, tearing the veil of silence with hands that had\r\n\r\nstood in the wash-tub, grinding it with boots that had crunched the\r\n\r\nshingle,[footnote]The rocks of the beach.[\/footnote] came as directed to open all windows, and dust the bedrooms.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n5\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs she lurched (for she rolled like a ship at sea) and leered (for her\r\n\r\neyes fell on nothing directly, but with a sidelong glance that\r\n\r\ndeprecated the scorn and anger of the world--she was witless, she knew\r\n\r\nit), as she clutched the banisters and hauled herself upstairs and\r\n\r\nrolled from room to room, she sang. Rubbing the glass of the long\r\n\r\nlooking-glass and leering sideways at her swinging figure a sound\r\n\r\nissued from her lips--something that had been gay twenty years before\r\n\r\non the stage perhaps, had been hummed and danced to, but now,\r\n\r\ncoming from the toothless, bonneted, care-taking woman, was robbed\r\n\r\nof meaning, was like the voice of witlessness, humour, persistency\r\n\r\nitself, trodden down but springing up again, so that as she\r\n\r\nlurched, dusting, wiping, she seemed to say how it was one long sorrow\r\n\r\nand trouble, how it was getting up and going to bed again, and bringing\r\n\r\nthings out and putting them away again. It was not easy or snug this\r\n\r\nworld she had known for close on seventy years. Bowed down she was\r\n\r\nwith weariness. How long, she asked, creaking and groaning on her\r\n\r\nknees under the bed, dusting the boards, how long shall it endure? but\r\n\r\nhobbled to her feet again, pulled herself up, and again with her\r\n\r\nsidelong leer which slipped and turned aside even from her own face,\r\n\r\nand her own sorrows, stood and gaped in the glass, aimlessly smiling,\r\n\r\nand began again the old amble and hobble, taking up mats, putting down\r\n\r\nchina, looking sideways in the glass, as if, after all, she had her\r\n\r\nconsolations, as if indeed there twined about her dirge some\r\n\r\nincorrigible hope. Visions of joy there must have been at the wash-\r\n\r\ntub, say with her children (yet two had been base-born and one had\r\n\r\ndeserted her), at the public-house, drinking; turning over scraps in\r\n\r\nher drawers. Some cleavage of the dark there must have been, some\r\n\r\nchannel in the depths of obscurity through which light enough issued to\r\n\r\ntwist her face grinning in the glass and make her, turning to her job\r\n\r\nagain, mumble out the old music hall song. The mystic, the visionary,\r\n\r\nwalking the beach on a fine night, stirring a puddle, looking at a\r\n\r\nstone, asking themselves \"What am I,\" \"What is this?\" had suddenly an\r\n\r\nanswer vouchsafed them: (they could not say what it was) so that they\r\n\r\nwere warm in the frost and had comfort in the desert. But Mrs. McNab\r\n\r\ncontinued to drink and gossip as before.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n6\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Spring without a leaf to toss, bare and bright like a virgin fierce\r\n\r\nin her chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid out on fields wide-\r\n\r\neyed and watchful and entirely careless of what was done or thought by\r\n\r\nthe beholders. [Prue Ramsay, leaning on her father's arm, was given in\r\n\r\nmarriage. What, people said, could have been more fitting? And, they\r\n\r\nadded, how beautiful she looked!]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs summer neared, as the evenings lengthened, there came to the\r\n\r\nwakeful, the hopeful, walking the beach, stirring the pool,\r\n\r\nimaginations of the strangest kind--of flesh turned to atoms which\r\n\r\ndrove before the wind, of stars flashing in their hearts, of cliff,\r\n\r\nsea, cloud, and sky brought purposely together to assemble outwardly\r\n\r\nthe scattered parts of the vision within. In those mirrors, the minds\r\n\r\nof men, in those pools of uneasy water, in which clouds for ever turn\r\n\r\nand shadows form, dreams persisted, and it was impossible to resist the\r\n\r\nstrange intimation which every gull, flower, tree, man and woman, and\r\n\r\nthe white earth itself seemed to declare (but if questioned at once to\r\n\r\nwithdraw) that good triumphs, happiness prevails, order rules; or to\r\n\r\nresist the extraordinary stimulus to range hither and thither in search\r\n\r\nof some absolute good, some crystal of intensity, remote from the known\r\n\r\npleasures and familiar virtues, something alien to the processes of\r\n\r\ndomestic life, single, hard, bright, like a diamond in the sand, which\r\n\r\nwould render the possessor secure. Moreover, softened and acquiescent,\r\n\r\nthe spring with her bees humming and gnats dancing threw her cloak\r\n\r\nabout her, veiled her eyes, averted her head, and among passing shadows\r\n\r\nand flights of small rain seemed to have taken upon her a knowledge of\r\n\r\nthe sorrows of mankind.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with\r\n\r\nchildbirth, which was indeed a tragedy, people said, everything, they\r\n\r\nsaid, had promised so well.][footnote]Woolf\u2019s half-sister Stella Duckworth Hills (1869-97) died, soon after her marriage, of a somewhat mysterious illness connected with her early pregnancy, diagnosed as peritonitis.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd now in the heat of summer the wind sent its spies about the house\r\n\r\nagain. Flies wove a web in the sunny rooms; weeds that had grown close\r\n\r\nto the glass in the night tapped methodically at the window pane. When\r\n\r\ndarkness fell, the stroke of the Lighthouse, which had laid itself with\r\n\r\nsuch authority upon the carpet in the darkness, tracing its pattern,\r\n\r\ncame now in the softer light of spring mixed with moonlight gliding\r\n\r\ngently as if it laid its caress and lingered steathily and looked and\r\n\r\ncame lovingly again. But in the very lull of this loving caress, as\r\n\r\nthe long stroke leant upon the bed, the rock was rent asunder; another\r\n\r\nfold of the shawl loosened; there it hung, and swayed. Through the\r\n\r\nshort summer nights and the long summer days, when the empty rooms\r\n\r\nseemed to murmur with the echoes of the fields and the hum of flies,\r\n\r\nthe long streamer waved gently, swayed aimlessly; while the sun so\r\n\r\nstriped and barred the rooms and filled them with yellow haze that Mrs.\r\n\r\nMcNab, when she broke in and lurched about, dusting, sweeping, looked\r\n\r\nlike a tropical fish oaring its way through sun-lanced waters.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut slumber and sleep though it might there came later in the summer\r\n\r\nominous sounds like the measured blows of hammers dulled on felt,\r\n\r\nwhich, with their repeated shocks still further loosened the shawl and\r\n\r\ncracked the tea-cups. Now and again some glass tinkled in the cupboard\r\n\r\nas if a giant voice had shrieked so loud in its agony that tumblers\r\n\r\nstood inside a cupboard vibrated too. Then again silence fell; and\r\n\r\nthen, night after night, and sometimes in plain mid-day when the roses\r\n\r\nwere bright and light turned on the wall its shape clearly there seemed\r\n\r\nto drop into this silence, this indifference, this integrity, the thud\r\n\r\nof something falling.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[A shell exploded. Twenty or thirty young men were blown up in France,\r\n\r\namong them Andrew Ramsay, whose death, mercifully, was instantaneous.][footnote]The First World War is only referred to obliquely in the novel, but its destructive chaos is a clear influence. This reference is also a metaphor for Woolf\u2019s brother Thoby Stephen\u2019s sudden death of typhus in 1904.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAt that season those who had gone down to pace the beach and ask of the\r\n\r\nsea and sky what message they reported or what vision they affirmed had\r\n\r\nto consider among the usual tokens of divine bounty--the sunset on\r\n\r\nthe sea, the pallor of dawn, the moon rising, fishing-boats against the\r\n\r\nmoon, and children making mud pies or pelting each other with handfuls\r\n\r\nof grass, something out of harmony with this jocundity and this\r\n\r\nserenity. There was the silent apparition of an ashen-coloured ship\r\n\r\nfor instance, come, gone; there was a purplish stain upon the bland\r\n\r\nsurface of the sea as if something had boiled and bled, invisibly,\r\n\r\nbeneath. This intrusion into a scene calculated to stir the most\r\n\r\nsublime reflections and lead to the most comfortable conclusions stayed\r\n\r\ntheir pacing. It was difficult blandly to overlook them; to abolish\r\n\r\ntheir significance in the landscape; to continue, as one walked by the\r\n\r\nsea, to marvel how beauty outside mirrored beauty within.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDid Nature supplement what man advanced? Did she complete what he\r\n\r\nbegan? With equal complacence she saw his misery, his meanness, and\r\n\r\nhis torture. That dream, of sharing, completing, of finding in\r\n\r\nsolitude on the beach an answer, was then but a reflection in a mirror,\r\n\r\nand the mirror itself was but the surface glassiness which forms in\r\n\r\nquiescence when the nobler powers sleep beneath? Impatient, despairing\r\n\r\nyet loth to go (for beauty offers her lures, has her consolations), to\r\n\r\npace the beach was impossible; contemplation was unendurable; the\r\n\r\nmirror was broken.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Mr. Carmichael brought out a volume of poems that spring, which had an\r\n\r\nunexpected success. The war, people said, had revived their interest\r\n\r\nin poetry.]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n7\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNight after night, summer and winter, the torment of storms, the arrow-\r\n\r\nlike stillness of fine (had there been any one to listen) from the\r\n\r\nupper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with\r\n\r\nlightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and\r\n\r\nwaves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose\r\n\r\nbrows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of\r\n\r\nanother, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for\r\n\r\nnight and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games,\r\n\r\nuntil it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute\r\n\r\nconfusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIn spring the garden urns, casually filled with wind-blown plants, were\r\n\r\ngay as ever. Violets came and daffodils. But the stillness and the\r\n\r\nbrightness of the day were as strange as the chaos and tumult of night,\r\n\r\nwith the trees standing there, and the flowers standing there, looking\r\n\r\nbefore them, looking up, yet beholding nothing, eyeless, and so\r\n\r\nterrible.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n8\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThinking no harm, for the family would not come, never again, some\r\n\r\nsaid, and the house would be sold at Michaelmas perhaps, Mrs. McNab\r\n\r\nstooped and picked a bunch of flowers to take home with her. She laid\r\n\r\nthem on the table while she dusted. She was fond of flowers. It was a\r\n\r\npity to let them waste. Suppose the house were sold (she stood arms\r\n\r\nakimbo in front of the looking-glass) it would want seeing to--it\r\n\r\nwould. There it had stood all these years without a soul in it. The\r\n\r\nbooks and things were mouldy, for, what with the war and help being\r\n\r\nhard to get, the house had not been cleaned as she could have wished.\r\n\r\nIt was beyond one person's strength to get it straight now. She was\r\n\r\ntoo old. Her legs pained her. All those books needed to be laid out\r\n\r\non the grass in the sun; there was plaster fallen in the hall; the\r\n\r\nrain-pipe had blocked over the study window and let the water in;\r\n\r\nthe carpet was ruined quite. But people should come themselves;\r\n\r\nthey should have sent somebody down to see. For there were clothes\r\n\r\nin the cupboards; they had left clothes in all the bedrooms. What\r\n\r\nwas she to do with them? They had the moth in them--Mrs. Ramsay's\r\n\r\nthings. Poor lady! She would never want them<\/i> again. She was dead,\r\n\r\nthey said; years ago, in London. There was the old grey cloak she wore\r\n\r\ngardening (Mrs. McNab fingered it). She could see her, as she came up\r\n\r\nthe drive with the washing, stooping over her flowers (the garden was a\r\n\r\npitiful sight now, all run to riot, and rabbits scuttling at you out of\r\n\r\nthe beds)--she could see her with one of the children by her in that\r\n\r\ngrey cloak. There were boots and shoes; and a brush and comb left on\r\n\r\nthe dressing-table, for all the world as if she expected to come back\r\n\r\ntomorrow. (She had died very sudden at the end, they said.) And once\r\n\r\nthey had been coming, but had put off coming, what with the war, and\r\n\r\ntravel being so difficult these days; they had never come all these\r\n\r\nyears; just sent her money; but never wrote, never came, and expected\r\n\r\nto find things as they had left them, ah, dear! Why the dressing-table\r\n\r\ndrawers were full of things (she pulled them open), handkerchiefs, bits\r\n\r\nof ribbon. Yes, she could see Mrs. Ramsay as she came up the drive with\r\n\r\nthe washing.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Good-evening, Mrs. McNab,\" she would say.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had a pleasant way with her. The girls all liked her. But, dear,\r\n\r\nmany things had changed since then (she shut the drawer); many families\r\n\r\nhad lost their dearest. So she was dead; and Mr. Andrew killed; and\r\n\r\nMiss Prue dead too, they said, with her first baby; but everyone had\r\n\r\nlost some one these years. Prices had gone up shamefully, and didn't\r\n\r\ncome down again neither. She could well remember her in her grey\r\n\r\ncloak.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Good-evening, Mrs. McNab,\" she said, and told cook to keep a plate of\r\n\r\nmilk soup for her--quite thought she wanted it, carrying that heavy\r\n\r\nbasket all the way up from town. She could see her now, stooping over\r\n\r\nher flowers; and faint and flickering, like a yellow beam or the circle\r\n\r\nat the end of a telescope, a lady in a grey cloak, stooping over her\r\n\r\nflowers, went wandering over the bedroom wall, up the dressing-table,\r\n\r\nacross the wash-stand, as Mrs. McNab hobbled and ambled, dusting,\r\n\r\nstraightening. And cook's name now? Mildred? Marian?--some name like\r\n\r\nthat. Ah, she had forgotten--she did forget things. Fiery, like all\r\n\r\nred-haired women. Many a laugh they had had. She was always welcome\r\n\r\nin the kitchen. She made them laugh, she did. Things were better then\r\n\r\nthan now.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe sighed; there was too much work for one woman. She wagged her head\r\n\r\nthis side and that. This had been the nursery. Why, it was all damp in\r\n\r\nhere; the plaster was falling. Whatever did they want to hang a\r\n\r\nbeast's skull there? gone mouldy too. And rats in all the attics. The\r\n\r\nrain came in. But they never sent; never came. Some of the locks had\r\n\r\ngone, so the doors banged. She didn't like to be up here at dusk alone\r\n\r\nneither. It was too much for one woman, too much, too much. She\r\n\r\ncreaked, she moaned. She banged the door. She turned the key in the\r\n\r\nlock, and left the house alone, shut up, locked.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n9\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell\r\n\r\non a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life had left it.\r\n\r\nThe long night seemed to have set in; the trifling airs, nibbling, the\r\n\r\nclammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had\r\n\r\nrusted and the mat decayed. Toads had nosed their way in. Idly,\r\n\r\naimlessly, the swaying shawl swung to and fro. A thistle thrust itself\r\n\r\nbetween the tiles in the larder. The swallows nested in the drawing-\r\n\r\nroon; the floor was strewn with straw; the plaster fell in shovelfuls;\r\n\r\nrafters were laid bare; rats carried off this and that to gnaw behind\r\n\r\nthe wainscots. Tortoise-shell butterflies burst from the chrysalis and\r\n\r\npattered their life out on the window-pane. Poppies sowed themselves\r\n\r\namong the dahlias; the lawn waved with long grass; giant artichokes\r\n\r\ntowered among roses; a fringed carnation flowered among the cabbages;\r\n\r\nwhile the gentle tapping of a weed at the window had become, on\r\n\r\nwinters' nights, a drumming from sturdy trees and thorned briars which\r\n\r\nmade the whole room green in summer.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat power could now prevent the fertility, the insensibility of\r\n\r\nnature? Mrs. McNab's dream of a lady, of a child, of a plate of milk\r\n\r\nsoup? It had wavered over the walls like a spot of sunlight and\r\n\r\nvanished. She had locked the door; she had gone. It was beyond the\r\n\r\nstrength of one woman, she said. They never sent. They never wrote.\r\n\r\nThere were things up there rotting in the drawers--it was a shame to\r\n\r\nleave them so, she said. The place was gone to rack and ruin. Only\r\n\r\nthe Lighthouse beam entered the rooms for a moment, sent its sudden\r\n\r\nstare over bed and wall in the darkness of winter, looked with\r\n\r\nequanimity at the thistle and the swallow, the rat and the straw.\r\n\r\nNothing now withstood them; nothing said no to them. Let the wind\r\n\r\nblow; let the poppy seed itself and the carnation mate with the\r\n\r\ncabbage. Let the swallow build in the drawing-room, and the thistle\r\n\r\nthrust aside the tiles, and the butterfly sun itself on the faded\r\n\r\nchintz of the arm-chairs. Let the broken glass and the china lie out\r\n\r\non the lawn and be tangled over with grass and wild berries.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFor now had come that moment, that hesitation when dawn trembles and\r\n\r\nnight pauses, when if a feather alight in the scale it will be weighed\r\n\r\ndown. One feather, and the house, sinking, falling, would have turned\r\n\r\nand pitched downwards to the depths of darkness. In the ruined room,\r\n\r\npicnickers would have lit their kettles; lovers sought shelter there,\r\n\r\nlying on the bare boards; and the shepherd stored his dinner on the\r\n\r\nbricks, and the tramp slept with his coat round him to ward off the\r\n\r\ncold. Then the roof would have fallen; briars and hemlocks would have\r\n\r\nblotted out path, step and window; would have grown, unequally but\r\n\r\nlustily over the mound, until some trespasser, losing his way, could\r\n\r\nhave told only by a red-hot poker among the nettles, or a scrap of\r\n\r\nchina in the hemlock, that here once some one had lived; there had been\r\n\r\na house.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIf the feather had fallen, if it had tipped the scale downwards, the\r\n\r\nwhole house would have plunged to the depths to lie upon the sands of\r\n\r\noblivion. But there was a force working; something not highly\r\n\r\nconscious; something that leered, something that lurched; something not\r\n\r\ninspired to go about its work with dignified ritual or solemn chanting.\r\n\r\nMrs. McNab groaned; Mrs. Bast creaked. They were old; they were stiff;\r\n\r\ntheir legs ached. They came with their brooms and pails at last; they\r\n\r\ngot to work. All of a sudden, would Mrs. McNab see that the house was\r\n\r\nready, one of the young ladies wrote: would she get this done; would\r\n\r\nshe get that done; all in a hurry. They might be coming for the\r\n\r\nsummer; had left everything to the last; expected to find things as\r\n\r\nthey had left them. Slowly and painfully, with broom and pail,\r\n\r\nmopping, scouring, Mrs. McNab, Mrs. Bast, stayed the corruption and the\r\n\r\nrot; rescued from the pool of Time that was fast closing over them now\r\n\r\na basin, now a cupboard; fetched up from oblivion all the Waverley\r\n\r\nnovels and a tea-set one morning; in the afternoon restored to sun and\r\n\r\nair a brass fender and a set of steel fire-irons. George, Mrs. Bast's\r\n\r\nson, caught the rats, and cut the grass. They had the builders.\r\n\r\nAttended with the creaking of hinges and the screeching of bolts, the\r\n\r\nslamming and banging of damp-swollen woodwork, some rusty laborious\r\n\r\nbirth seemed to be taking place, as the women, stooping, rising,\r\n\r\ngroaning, singing, slapped and slammed, upstairs now, now down in the\r\n\r\ncellars. Oh, they said, the work!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey drank their tea in the bedroom sometimes, or in the study;\r\n\r\nbreaking off work at mid-day with the smudge on their faces, and their\r\n\r\nold hands clasped and cramped with the broom handles. Flopped on\r\n\r\nchairs, they contemplated now the magnificent conquest over taps and\r\n\r\nbath; now the more arduous, more partial triumph over long rows of\r\n\r\nbooks, black as ravens once, now white-stained, breeding pale mushrooms\r\n\r\nand secreting furtive spiders. Once more, as she felt the tea warm in\r\n\r\nher, the telescope fitted itself to Mrs. McNab's eyes, and in a ring of\r\n\r\nlight she saw the old gentleman, lean as a rake, wagging his head, as\r\n\r\nshe came up with the washing, talking to himself, she supposed, on the\r\n\r\nlawn. He never noticed her. Some said he was dead; some said she was\r\n\r\ndead. Which was it? Mrs. Bast didn't know for certain either. The\r\n\r\nyoung gentleman was dead. That she was sure. She had read his name in\r\n\r\nthe papers.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere was the cook now, Mildred, Marian, some such name as that--a red-\r\n\r\nheaded woman, quick-tempered like all her sort, but kind, too, if you\r\n\r\nknew the way with her. Many a laugh they had had together. She saved a\r\n\r\nplate of soup for Maggie; a bite of ham, sometimes; whatever was over.\r\n\r\nThey lived well in those days. They had everything they wanted\r\n\r\n(glibly, jovially, with the tea hot in her, she unwound her ball of\r\n\r\nmemories, sitting in the wicker arm-chair by the nursery fender).\r\n\r\nThere was always plenty doing, people in the house, twenty staying\r\n\r\nsometimes, and washing up till long past midnight.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMrs. Bast (she had never known them; had lived in Glasgow at that time)\r\n\r\nwondered, putting her cup down, whatever they hung that beast's skull\r\n\r\nthere for? Shot in foreign parts no doubt.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt might well be, said Mrs. McNab, wantoning on with her memories; they\r\n\r\nhad friends in eastern countries; gentlemen staying there, ladies in\r\n\r\nevening dress; she had seen them once through the dining-room door all\r\n\r\nsitting at dinner. Twenty she dared say all in their jewellery, and\r\n\r\nshe asked to stay help wash up, might be till after midnight.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAh, said Mrs. Bast, they'd find it changed. She leant out of the\r\n\r\nwindow. She watched her son George scything the grass. They might\r\n\r\nwell ask, what had been done to it? seeing how old Kennedy was\r\n\r\nsupposed to have charge of it, and then his leg got so bad after he\r\n\r\nfell from the cart; and perhaps then no one for a year, or the better\r\n\r\npart of one; and then Davie Macdonald, and seeds might be sent, but who\r\n\r\nshould say if they were ever planted? They'd find it changed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe watched her son scything. He was a great one for work--one of\r\n\r\nthose quiet ones. Well they must be getting along with the cupboards,\r\n\r\nshe supposed. They hauled themselves up.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAt last, after days of labour within, of cutting and digging without,\r\n\r\ndusters were flicked from the windows, the windows were shut to, keys\r\n\r\nwere turned all over the house; the front door was banged; it was\r\n\r\nfinished.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd now as if the cleaning and the scrubbing and the scything and the\r\n\r\nmowing had drowned it there rose that half-heard melody, that\r\n\r\nintermittent music which the ear half catches but lets fall; a bark, a\r\n\r\nbleat; irregular, intermittent, yet somehow related; the hum of an\r\n\r\ninsect, the tremor of cut grass, disevered yet somehow belonging; the\r\n\r\njar of a dorbeetle, the squeak of a wheel, loud, low, but mysteriously\r\n\r\nrelated; which the ear strains to bring together and is always on the\r\n\r\nverge of harmonising, but they are never quite heard, never fully\r\n\r\nharmonised, and at last, in the evening, one after another the sounds\r\n\r\ndie out, and the harmony falters, and silence falls. With the sunset\r\n\r\nsharpness was lost, and like mist rising, quiet rose, quiet spread,\r\n\r\nthe wind settled; loosely the world shook itself down to sleep, darkly\r\n\r\nhere without a light to it, save what came green suffused through\r\n\r\nleaves, or pale on the white flowers in the bed by the window.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Lily Briscoe had her bag carried up to the house late one evening in\r\n\r\nSeptember. Mr. Carmichael came by the same train.]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n10\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThen indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed from the sea to\r\n\r\nthe shore. Never to break its sleep any more, to lull it rather more\r\n\r\ndeeply to rest, and whatever the dreamers dreamt holily, dreamt wisely,\r\n\r\nto confirm--what else was it murmuring--as Lily Briscoe laid her head\r\n\r\non the pillow in the clean still room and heard the sea. Through the\r\n\r\nopen window the voice of the beauty of the world came murmuring, too\r\n\r\nsoftly to hear exactly what it said--but what mattered if the meaning\r\n\r\nwere plain? entreating the sleepers (the house was full again; Mrs.\r\n\r\nBeckwith was staying there, also Mr. Carmichael), if they would not\r\n\r\nactually come down to the beach itself at least to lift the blind and\r\n\r\nlook out. They would see then night flowing down in purple; his head\r\n\r\ncrowned; his sceptre jewelled; and how in his eyes a child might look.\r\n\r\nAnd if they still faltered (Lily was tired out with travelling and\r\n\r\nslept almost at once; but Mr. Carmichael read a book by candlelight), if\r\n\r\nthey still said no, that it was vapour, this splendour of his, and the\r\n\r\ndew had more power than he, and they preferred sleeping; gently then\r\n\r\nwithout complaint, or argument, the voice would sing its song. Gently\r\n\r\nthe waves would break (Lily heard them in her sleep); tenderly the\r\n\r\nlight fell (it seemed to come through her eyelids). And it all looked,\r\n\r\nMr. Carmichael thought, shutting his book, falling asleep, much as it\r\n\r\nused to look.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIndeed the voice might resume, as the curtains of dark wrapped\r\n\r\nthemselves over the house, over Mrs. Beckwith, Mr. Carmichael, and Lily\r\n\r\nBriscoe so that they lay with several folds of blackness on their eyes,\r\n\r\nwhy not accept this, be content with this, acquiesce and resign? The\r\n\r\nsigh of all the seas breaking in measure round the isles soothed them;\r\n\r\nthe night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep, until, the birds\r\n\r\nbeginning and the dawn weaving their thin voices in to its whiteness, a\r\n\r\ncart grinding, a dog somewhere barking, the sun lifted the curtains,\r\n\r\nbroke the veil on their eyes, and Lily Briscoe stirring in her sleep.\r\n\r\nShe clutched at her blankets as a faller clutches at the turf on the\r\n\r\nedge of a cliff. Her eyes opened wide. Here she was again, she\r\n\r\nthought, sitting bold upright in bed. Awake.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIII\r\n\r\nTHE LIGHTHOUSE\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat does it mean then, what can it all mean? Lily Briscoe asked\r\n\r\nherself, wondering whether, since she had been left alone, it behoved\r\n\r\nher to go to the kitchen to fetch another cup of coffee or wait here.\r\n\r\nWhat does it mean?--a catchword that was, caught up from some book,\r\n\r\nfitting her thought loosely, for she could not, this first morning with\r\n\r\nthe Ramsays, contract her feelings, could only make a phrase resound to\r\n\r\ncover the blankness of her mind until these vapours had shrunk. For\r\n\r\nreally, what did she feel, come back after all these years and Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay dead? Nothing, nothing--nothing that she could express at all.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had come late last night when it was all mysterious, dark. Now she\r\n\r\nwas awake, at her old place at the breakfast table, but alone. It was\r\n\r\nvery early too, not yet eight. There was this expedition--they were\r\n\r\ngoing to the Lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James. They should have\r\n\r\ngone already--they had to catch the tide or something. And Cam was\r\n\r\nnot ready and James was not ready and Nancy had forgotten to order the\r\n\r\nsandwiches and Mr. Ramsay had lost his temper and banged out of the\r\n\r\nroom.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"What's the use of going now?\" he had stormed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNancy had vanished. There he was, marching up and down the terrace in\r\n\r\na rage. One seemed to hear doors slamming and voices calling all over\r\n\r\nthe house. Now Nancy burst in, and asked, looking round the room, in a\r\n\r\nqueer half dazed, half desperate way, \"What does one send to the\r\n\r\nLighthouse?\" as if she were forcing herself to do what she despaired of\r\n\r\never being able to do.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat does one send to the Lighthouse indeed! At any other time Lily\r\n\r\ncould have suggested reasonably tea, tobacco, newspapers. But this\r\n\r\nmorning everything seemed so extraordinarily queer that a question like\r\n\r\nNancy's--What does one send to the Lighthouse?--opened doors in one's\r\n\r\nmind that went banging and swinging to and fro and made one keep\r\n\r\nasking, in a stupefied gape, What does one send? What does one do?\r\n\r\nWhy is one sitting here, after all?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSitting alone (for Nancy went out again) among the clean cups at the\r\n\r\nlong table, she felt cut off from other people, and able only to go on\r\n\r\nwatching, asking, wondering. The house, the place, the morning, all\r\n\r\nseemed strangers to her. She had no attachment here, she felt, no\r\n\r\nrelations with it, anything might happen, and whatever did happen, a\r\n\r\nstep outside, a voice calling (\"It's not in the cupboard; it's on the\r\n\r\nlanding,\" some one cried), was a question, as if the link that usually\r\n\r\nbound things together had been cut, and they floated up here, down\r\n\r\nthere, off, anyhow. How aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it\r\n\r\nwas, she thought, looking at her empty coffee cup. Mrs. Ramsay dead;\r\n\r\nAndrew killed; Prue dead too--repeat it as she might, it roused no\r\n\r\nfeeling in her. And we all get together in a house like this on a\r\n\r\nmorning like this, she said, looking out of the window. It was a\r\n\r\nbeautiful still day.[footnote]Note the echoes of the opening of Part One, here and throughout Part Three.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n2\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSuddenly Mr. Ramsay raised his head as he passed and looked straight at\r\n\r\nher, with his distraught wild gaze which was yet so penetrating, as if\r\n\r\nhe saw you, for one second, for the first time, for ever; and she\r\n\r\npretended to drink out of her empty coffee cup so as to escape him--to\r\n\r\nescape his demand on her, to put aside a moment longer that imperious\r\n\r\nneed. And he shook his head at her, and strode on (\"Alone\" she heard\r\n\r\nhim say, \"Perished\" she heard him say)[footnote]Mr. Ramsay is quoting from William Cowper\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Castaway\u201d (1803), which describes a drowning sailor. The final lines are: \u201cWe perish\u2019d, each alone: \/ But I, beneath a rougher sea, \/ And whelm\u2019d in deeper gulphs than he.\u201d[\/footnote] and like everything else this\r\n\r\nstrange morning the words became symbols, wrote themselves all over the\r\n\r\ngrey-green walls. If only she could put them together, she felt, write\r\n\r\nthem out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of\r\n\r\nthings. Old Mr. Carmichael came padding softly in, fetched his coffee,\r\n\r\ntook his cup and made off to sit in the sun. The extraordinary\r\n\r\nunreality was frightening; but it was also exciting. Going to the\r\n\r\nLighthouse. But what does one send to the Lighthouse? Perished. Alone.\r\n\r\nThe grey-green light on the wall opposite. The empty places. Such were\r\n\r\nsome of the parts, but how bring them together? she asked. As if any\r\n\r\ninterruption would break the frail shape she was building on the table\r\n\r\nshe turned her back to the window lest Mr. Ramsay should see her. She\r\n\r\nmust escape somewhere, be alone somewhere. Suddenly she remembered.\r\n\r\nWhen she had sat there last ten years ago there had been a little sprig\r\n\r\nor leaf pattern on the table-cloth, which she had looked at in a moment\r\n\r\nof revelation. There had been a problem about a foreground of a\r\n\r\npicture. Move the tree to the middle, she had said. She had never\r\n\r\nfinished that picture. She would paint that picture now. It had been\r\n\r\nknocking about in her mind all these years. Where were her paints, she\r\n\r\nwondered? Her paints, yes. She had left them in the hall last night.\r\n\r\nShe would start at once. She got up quickly, before Mr. Ramsay turned.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe fetched herself a chair. She pitched her easel with her precise\r\n\r\nold-maidish movements on the edge of the lawn, not too close to Mr.\r\n\r\nCarmichael, but close enough for his protection. Yes, it must have\r\n\r\nbeen precisely here that she had stood ten years ago. There was the\r\n\r\nwall; the hedge; the tree. The question was of some relation between\r\n\r\nthose masses. She had borne it in her mind all these years. It seemed\r\n\r\nas if the solution had come to her: she knew now what she wanted to do.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut with Mr. Ramsay bearing down on her, she could do nothing. Every\r\n\r\ntime he approached--he was walking up and down the terrace--ruin\r\n\r\napproached, chaos approached. She could not paint. She stooped, she\r\n\r\nturned; she took up this rag; she squeezed that tube. But all she did\r\n\r\nwas to ward him off a moment. He made it impossible for her to do\r\n\r\nanything. For if she gave him the least chance, if he saw her\r\n\r\ndisengaged a moment, looking his way a moment, he would be on her,\r\n\r\nsaying, as he had said last night, \"You find us much changed.\" Last\r\n\r\nnight he had got up and stopped before her, and said that. Dumb and\r\n\r\nstaring though they had all sat, the six children whom they used to\r\n\r\ncall after the Kings and Queens of England--the Red, the Fair, the\r\n\r\nWicked, the Ruthless--she felt how they raged under it. Kind old Mrs.\r\n\r\nBeckwith said something sensible. But it was a house full of unrelated\r\n\r\npassions--she had felt that all the evening. And on top of this chaos\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay got up, pressed her hand, and said: \"You will find us much\r\n\r\nchanged\" and none of them had moved or had spoken; but had sat there as\r\n\r\nif they were forced to let him say it. Only James (certainly the\r\n\r\nSullen) scowled at the lamp; and Cam screwed her handkerchief round her\r\n\r\nfinger. Then he reminded them that they were going to the Lighthouse\r\n\r\ntomorrow. They must be ready, in the hall, on the stroke of half-past\r\n\r\nseven. Then, with his hand on the door, he stopped; he turned upon\r\n\r\nthem. Did they not want to go? he demanded. Had they dared say\r\n\r\nNo (he had some reason for wanting it) he would have flung himself\r\n\r\ntragically backwards into the bitter waters of depair. Such a\r\n\r\ngift he had for gesture. He looked like a king in exile. Doggedly\r\n\r\nJames said yes. Cam stumbled more wretchedly. Yes, oh, yes, they'd\r\n\r\nboth be ready, they said. And it struck her, this was tragedy--not\r\n\r\npalls, dust, and the shroud; but children coerced, their spirits\r\n\r\nsubdued. James was sixteen, Cam, seventeen, perhaps. She had looked\r\n\r\nround for some one who was not there, for Mrs. Ramsay, presumably. But\r\n\r\nthere was only kind Mrs. Beckwith turning over her sketches under the\r\n\r\nlamp. Then, being tired, her mind still rising and falling with the\r\n\r\nsea, the taste and smell that places have after long absence possessing\r\n\r\nher, the candles wavering in her eyes, she had lost herself and gone\r\n\r\nunder. It was a wonderful night, starlit; the waves sounded as they\r\n\r\nwent upstairs; the moon surprised them, enormous, pale, as they passed\r\n\r\nthe staircase window. She had slept at once.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe set her clean canvas firmly upon the easel, as a barrier, frail,\r\n\r\nbut she hoped sufficiently substantial to ward off Mr. Ramsay and his\r\n\r\nexactingness. She did her best to look, when his back was turned, at\r\n\r\nher picture; that line there, that mass there. But it was out of the\r\n\r\nquestion. Let him be fifty feet away, let him not even speak to you,\r\n\r\nlet him not even see you, he permeated, he prevailed, he imposed\r\n\r\nhimself. He changed everything. She could not see the colour; she\r\n\r\ncould not see the lines; even with his back turned to her, she could\r\n\r\nonly think, But he'll be down on me in a moment, demanding--something\r\n\r\nshe felt she could not give him. She rejected one brush; she chose\r\n\r\nanother. When would those children come? When would they all be off?\r\n\r\nshe fidgeted. That man, she thought, her anger rising in her, never\r\n\r\ngave; that man took. She, on the other hand, would be forced to give.\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay had given. Giving, giving, giving, she had died--and had\r\n\r\nleft all this. Really, she was angry with Mrs. Ramsay. With the brush\r\n\r\nslightly trembling in her fingers she looked at the hedge, the step,\r\n\r\nthe wall. It was all Mrs. Ramsay's doing. She was dead. Here was Lily,\r\n\r\nat forty-four, wasting her time, unable to do a thing, standing there,\r\n\r\nplaying at painting, playing at the one thing one did not play at, and\r\n\r\nit was all Mrs. Ramsay's fault. She was dead. The step where she used\r\n\r\nto sit was empty. She was dead.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut why repeat this over and over again? Why be always trying to bring\r\n\r\nup some feeling she had not got? There was a kind of blasphemy in it.\r\n\r\nIt was all dry: all withered: all spent. They ought not to have asked\r\n\r\nher; she ought not to have come. One can't waste one's time at forty-\r\n\r\nfour, she thought. She hated playing at painting. A brush, the one\r\n\r\ndependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos--that one should not\r\n\r\nplay with, knowingly even: she detested it. But he made her. You\r\n\r\nshan't touch your canvas, he seemed to say, bearing down on her, till\r\n\r\nyou've given me what I want of you. Here he was, close upon her again,\r\n\r\ngreedy, distraught. Well, thought Lily in despair, letting her right\r\n\r\nhand fall at her side, it would be simpler then to have it over.\r\n\r\nSurely, she could imitate from recollection the glow, the rhapsody, the\r\n\r\nself-surrender, she had seen on so many women's faces (on Mrs. Ramsay's,\r\n\r\nfor instance) when on some occasion like this they blazed up--she could\r\n\r\nremember the look on Mrs. Ramsay's face--into a rapture of sympathy, of\r\n\r\ndelight in the reward they had, which, though the reason of it escaped\r\n\r\nher, evidently conferred on them the most supreme bliss of which human\r\n\r\nnature was capable. Here he was, stopped by her side. She would give\r\n\r\nhim what she could.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n3\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe seemed to have shrivelled slightly, he thought. She looked a little\r\n\r\nskimpy, wispy; but not unattractive. He liked her. There had been some\r\n\r\ntalk of her marrying William Bankes once, but nothing had come of it.\r\n\r\nHis wife had been fond of her. He had been a little out of temper too\r\n\r\nat breakfast. And then, and then--this was one of those moments when\r\n\r\nan enormous need urged him, without being conscious what it was, to\r\n\r\napproach any woman, to force them, he did not care how, his need was so\r\n\r\ngreat, to give him what he wanted: sympathy.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWas anybody looking after her? he said. Had she everything she\r\n\r\nwanted?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Oh, thanks, everything,\" said Lily Briscoe nervously. No; she could\r\n\r\nnot do it. She ought to have floated off instantly upon some wave of\r\n\r\nsympathetic expansion: the pressure on her was tremendous. But she\r\n\r\nremained stuck. There was an awful pause. They both looked at the\r\n\r\nsea. Why, thought Mr. Ramsay, should she look at the sea when I am\r\n\r\nhere? She hoped it would be calm enough for them to land at the\r\n\r\nLighthouse, she said. The Lighthouse! The Lighthouse! What's that\r\n\r\ngot to do with it? he thought impatiently. Instantly, with the force\r\n\r\nof some primeval gust (for really he could not restrain himself any\r\n\r\nlonger), there issued from him such a groan that any other woman in the\r\n\r\nwhole world would have done something, said something--all except\r\n\r\nmyself, thought Lily, girding at herself bitterly, who am not a woman,\r\n\r\nbut a peevish, ill-tempered, dried-up old maid, presumably.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Mr. Ramsay sighed to the full. He waited. Was she not going to say\r\n\r\nanything? Did she not see what he wanted from her? Then he said he\r\n\r\nhad a particular reason for wanting to go to the Lighthouse. His\r\n\r\nwife used to send the men things. There was a poor boy with a\r\n\r\ntuberculous hip, the lightkeeper's son. He sighed profoundly.\r\n\r\nHe sighed significantly. All Lily wished was that this enormous flood\r\n\r\nof grief, this insatiable hunger for sympathy, this demand that she\r\n\r\nshould surrender herself up to him entirely, and even so he had sorrows\r\n\r\nenough to keep her supplied for ever, should leave her, should be\r\n\r\ndiverted (she kept looking at the house, hoping for an interruption)\r\n\r\nbefore it swept her down in its flow.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Such expeditions,\" said Mr. Ramsay, scraping the ground with his toe,\r\n\r\n\"are very painful.\" Still Lily said nothing. (She is a stock, she is a\r\n\r\nstone, he said to himself.) \"They are very exhausting,\" he said,\r\n\r\nlooking, with a sickly look that nauseated her (he was acting, she\r\n\r\nfelt, this great man was dramatising himself), at his beautiful hands.\r\n\r\nIt was horrible, it was indecent. Would they never come, she asked,\r\n\r\nfor she could not sustain this enormous weight of sorrow, support these\r\n\r\nheavy draperies of grief (he had assumed a pose of extreme\r\n\r\ndecreptitude; he even tottered a little as he stood there) a moment\r\n\r\nlonger.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nStill she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare of\r\n\r\nobjects to talk about; could only feel, amazedly, as Mr. Ramsay stood\r\n\r\nthere, how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over the sunny grass and\r\n\r\ndiscolour it, and cast over the rubicund, drowsy, entirely contented\r\n\r\nfigure of Mr. Carmichael, reading a French novel on a deck-chair, a veil\r\n\r\nof crape, as if such an existence, flaunting its prosperity in a world\r\n\r\nof woe, were enough to provoke the most dismal thoughts of all. Look\r\n\r\nat him, he seemed to be saying, look at me; and indeed, all the time he\r\n\r\nwas feeling, Think of me, think of me. Ah, could that bulk only be\r\n\r\nwafted alongside of them, Lily wished; had she only pitched her easel a\r\n\r\nyard or two closer to him; a man, any man, would staunch this effusion,\r\n\r\nwould stop these lamentations. A woman, she had provoked this horror;\r\n\r\na woman, she should have known how to deal with it. It was immensely\r\n\r\nto her discredit, sexually, to stand there dumb. One said--what did\r\n\r\none say?--Oh, Mr. Ramsay! Dear Mr. Ramsay! That was what that kind old\r\n\r\nlady who sketched, Mrs. Beckwith, would have said instantly, and\r\n\r\nrightly. But, no. They stood there, isolated from the rest of the\r\n\r\nworld. His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and\r\n\r\nspread itself in pools at ther feet, and all she did, miserable sinner\r\n\r\nthat she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer round her ankles,\r\n\r\nlest she should get wet. In complete silence she stood there, grasping\r\n\r\nher paint brush.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHeaven could never be sufficiently praised! She heard sounds in the\r\n\r\nhouse. James and Cam must be coming. But Mr. Ramsay, as if he knew\r\n\r\nthat his time ran short, exerted upon her solitary figure the immense\r\n\r\npressure of his concentrated woe; his age; his frailty: his desolation;\r\n\r\nwhen suddenly, tossing his head impatiently, in his annoyance--for\r\n\r\nafter all, what woman could resist him?--he noticed that his boot-laces\r\n\r\nwere untied. Remarkable boots they were too, Lily thought, looking\r\n\r\ndown at them: sculptured; colossal; like everything that Mr. Ramsay\r\n\r\nwore, from his frayed tie to his half-buttoned waistcoat, his own\r\n\r\nindisputably. She could see them walking to his room of their own\r\n\r\naccord, expressive in his absence of pathos, surliness, ill-temper,\r\n\r\ncharm.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"What beautiful boots!\" she exclaimed. She was ashamed of herself. To\r\n\r\npraise his boots when he asked her to solace his soul; when he had\r\n\r\nshown her his bleeding hands, his lacerated heart, and asked her to\r\n\r\npity them, then to say, cheerfully, \"Ah, but what beautiful boots you\r\n\r\nwear!\" deserved, she knew, and she looked up expecting to get it in one\r\n\r\nof his sudden roars of ill-temper complete annihilation.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nInstead, Mr. Ramsay smiled. His pall, his draperies, his infirmities\r\n\r\nfell from him. Ah, yes, he said, holding his foot up for her to look\r\n\r\nat, they were first-rate boots. There was only one man in England who\r\n\r\ncould make boots like that. Boots are among the chief curses of\r\n\r\nmankind, he said. \"Bootmakers make it their business,\" he exclaimed,\r\n\r\n\"to cripple and torture the human foot.\" They are also the most\r\n\r\nobstinate and perverse of mankind. It had taken him the best part of\r\n\r\nhis youth to get boots made as they should be made. He would have her\r\n\r\nobserve (he lifted his right foot and then his left) that she had never\r\n\r\nseen boots made quite that shape before. They were made of the finest\r\n\r\nleather in the world, also. Most leather was mere brown paper and\r\n\r\ncardboard. He looked complacently at his foot, still held in the air.\r\n\r\nThey had reached, she felt, a sunny island where peace dwelt, sanity\r\n\r\nreigned and the sun for ever shone, the blessed island of good boots.\r\n\r\nHer heart warmed to him. \"Now let me see if you can tie a knot,\" he\r\n\r\nsaid. He poohpoohed her feeble system. He showed her his own\r\n\r\ninvention. Once you tied it, it never came undone. Three times he\r\n\r\nknotted her shoe; three times he unknotted it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhy, at this completely inappropriate moment, when he was stooping over\r\n\r\nher shoe, should she be so tormented with sympathy for him that, as she\r\n\r\nstooped too, the blood rushed to her face, and, thinking of her\r\n\r\ncallousness (she had called him a play-actor) she felt her eyes swell\r\n\r\nand tingle with tears? Thus occupied he seemed to her a figure of\r\n\r\ninfinite pathos. He tied knots. He bought boots. There was no helping\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay on the journey he was going. But now just as she wished to\r\n\r\nsay something, could have said something, perhaps, here they were--Cam\r\n\r\nand James. They appeared on the terrace. They came, lagging, side by\r\n\r\nside, a serious, melancholy couple.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut why was it like that<\/i> that they came? She could not help feeling\r\n\r\nannoyed with them; they might have come more cheerfully; they might\r\n\r\nhave given him what, now that they were off, she would not have the\r\n\r\nchance of giving him. For she felt a sudden emptiness; a frustration.\r\n\r\nHer feeling had come too late; there it was ready; but he no longer\r\n\r\nneeded it. He had become a very distinguished, elderly man, who had no\r\n\r\nneed of her whatsoever. She felt snubbed. He slung a knapsack round\r\n\r\nhis shoulders. He shared out the parcels--there were a number of them,\r\n\r\nill tied in brown paper. He sent Cam for a cloak. He had all the\r\n\r\nappearance of a leader making ready for an expedition. Then, wheeling\r\n\r\nabout, he led the way with his firm military tread, in those wonderful\r\n\r\nboots, carrying brown paper parcels, down the path, his children\r\n\r\nfollowing him. They looked, she thought, as if fate had devoted them\r\n\r\nto some stern enterprise, and they went to it, still young enough to be\r\n\r\ndrawn acquiescent in their father's wake, obediently, but with a pallor\r\n\r\nin their eyes which made her feel that they suffered something beyond\r\n\r\ntheir years in silence. So they passed the edge of the lawn, and it\r\n\r\nseemed to Lily that she watched a procession go, drawn on by some\r\n\r\nstress of common feeling which made it, faltering and flagging as it\r\n\r\nwas, a little company bound together and strangely impressive to her.\r\n\r\nPolitely, but very distantly, Mr. Ramsay raised his hand and saluted her\r\n\r\nas they passed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut what a face, she thought, immediately finding the sympathy which\r\n\r\nshe had not been asked to give troubling her for expression. What had\r\n\r\nmade it like that? Thinking, night after night, she supposed--about\r\n\r\nthe reality of kitchen tables, she added, remembering the symbol which\r\n\r\nin her vagueness as to what Mr. Ramsay did think about Andrew had given\r\n\r\nher. (He had been killed by the splinter of a shell instantly, she\r\n\r\nbethought her.) The kitchen table was something visionary, austere;\r\n\r\nsomething bare, hard, not ornamental. There was no colour to it; it\r\n\r\nwas all edges and angles; it was uncompromisingly plain. But Mr. Ramsay\r\n\r\nkept always his eyes fixed upon it, never allowed himself to be\r\n\r\ndistracted or deluded, until his face became worn too and ascetic and\r\n\r\npartook of this unornamented beauty which so deeply impressed her.\r\n\r\nThen, she recalled (standing where he had left her, holding her brush),\r\n\r\nworries had fretted it--not so nobly. He must have had his doubts\r\n\r\nabout that table, she supposed; whether the table was a real table;\r\n\r\nwhether it was worth the time he gave to it; whether he was able after\r\n\r\nall to find it. He had had doubts, she felt, or he would have asked\r\n\r\nless of people. That was what they talked about late at night\r\n\r\nsometimes, she suspected; and then next day Mrs. Ramsay looked tired,\r\n\r\nand Lily flew into a rage with him over some absurd little thing. But\r\n\r\nnow he had nobody to talk to about that table, or his boots, or his\r\n\r\nknots; and he was like a lion seeking whom he could devour, and his\r\n\r\nface had that touch of desperation, of exaggeration in it which alarmed\r\n\r\nher, and made her pull her skirts about her. And then, she recalled,\r\n\r\nthere was that sudden revivification, that sudden flare (when she\r\n\r\npraised his boots), that sudden recovery of vitality and interest in\r\n\r\nordinary human things, which too passed and changed (for he was always\r\n\r\nchanging, and hid nothing) into that other final phase which was new to\r\n\r\nher and had, she owned, made herself ashamed of her own irritability,\r\n\r\nwhen it seemed as if he had shed worries and ambitions, and the hope of\r\n\r\nsympathy and the desire for praise, had entered some other region, was\r\n\r\ndrawn on, as if by curiosity, in dumb colloquy, whether with himself or\r\n\r\nanother, at the head of that little procession out of one's range. An\r\n\r\nextraordinary face! The gate banged.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n4\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo they're gone, she thought, sighing with relief and disappointment.\r\n\r\nHer sympathy seemed to be cast back on her, like a bramble sprung\r\n\r\nacross her face. She felt curiously divided, as if one part of her\r\n\r\nwere drawn out there--it was a still day, hazy; the Lighthouse looked\r\n\r\nthis morning at an immense distance; the other had fixed itself\r\n\r\ndoggedly, solidly, here on the lawn. She saw her canvas as if it had\r\n\r\nfloated up and placed itself white and uncompromising directly before\r\n\r\nher. It seemed to rebuke her with its cold stare for all this hurry\r\n\r\nand agitation; this folly and waste of emotion; it drastically recalled\r\n\r\nher and spread through her mind first a peace, as her disorderly\r\n\r\nsensations (he had gone and she had been so sorry for him and she had\r\n\r\nsaid nothing) trooped off the field; and then, emptiness. She looked\r\n\r\nblankly at the canvas, with its uncompromising white stare; from the\r\n\r\ncanvas to the garden. There was something (she stood screwing up her\r\n\r\nlittle Chinese eyes in her small puckered face), something she\r\n\r\nremembered in the relations of those lines cutting across, slicing\r\n\r\ndown, and in the mass of the hedge with its green cave of blues and\r\n\r\nbrowns, which had stayed in her mind; which had tied a knot in her mind\r\n\r\nso that at odds and ends of time, involuntarily, as she walked along\r\n\r\nthe Brompton Road,[footnote]Lily\u2019s home in London; see note 27.[\/footnote] as she brushed her hair, she found herself painting\r\n\r\nthat picture, passing her eye over it, and untying the knot in\r\n\r\nimagination. But there was all the difference in the world between\r\n\r\nthis planning airily away from the canvas and actually taking her brush\r\n\r\nand making the first mark.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had taken the wrong brush in her agitation at Mr. Ramsay's presence,\r\n\r\nand her easel, rammed into the earth so nervously, was at the wrong\r\n\r\nangle. And now that she had got that right, and in so doing had subdued\r\n\r\nthe impertinences and irrelevances that plucked her attention and made\r\n\r\nher remember how she was such and such a person, had such and such\r\n\r\nrelations to people, she took her hand and raised her brush. For a\r\n\r\nmoment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstasy in the\r\n\r\nair. Where to begin?--that was the question at what point to make\r\n\r\nthe first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to\r\n\r\ninnumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in\r\n\r\nidea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves\r\n\r\nshape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer\r\n\r\namong them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the\r\n\r\nrisk must be run; the mark made.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWith a curious physical sensation, as if she were urged forward and at\r\n\r\nthe same time must hold herself back, she made her first quick decisive\r\n\r\nstroke. The brush descended. It flickered brown over the white canvas;\r\n\r\nit left a running mark. A second time she did it--a third time. And\r\n\r\nso pausing and so flickering, she attained a dancing rhythmical\r\n\r\nmovement, as if the pauses were one part of the rhythm and the strokes\r\n\r\nanother, and all were related; and so, lightly and swiftly pausing,\r\n\r\nstriking, she scored her canvas with brown running nervous lines which\r\n\r\nhad no sooner settled there than they enclosed ( she felt it looming\r\n\r\nout at her) a space. Down in the hollow of one wave she saw the next\r\n\r\nwave towering higher and higher above her. For what could be more\r\n\r\nformidable than that space? Here she was again, she thought, stepping\r\n\r\nback to look at it, drawn out of gossip, out of living, out of\r\n\r\ncommunity with people into the presence of this formidable ancient\r\n\r\nenemy of hers--this other thing, this truth, this reality, which\r\n\r\nsuddenly laid hands on her, emerged stark at the back of appearances\r\n\r\nand commanded her attention. She was half unwilling, half reluctant.\r\n\r\nWhy always be drawn out and haled away? Why not left in peace, to\r\n\r\ntalk to Mr. Carmichael on the lawn? It was an exacting form of\r\n\r\nintercourse anyhow. Other worshipful objects were content with\r\n\r\nworship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate; but this\r\n\r\nform, were it only the shape of a white lamp-shade looming on a\r\n\r\nwicker table, roused one to perpetual combat, challenged one to a fight\r\n\r\nin which one was bound to be worsted. Always (it was in her nature, or\r\n\r\nin her sex, she did not know which) before she exchanged the fluidity\r\n\r\nof life for the concentration of painting she had a few moments of\r\n\r\nnakedness when she seemed like an unborn soul, a soul reft of body,\r\n\r\nhesitating on some windy pinnacle and exposed without protection to all\r\n\r\nthe blasts of doubt. Why then did she do it? She looked at the\r\n\r\ncanvas, lightly scored with running lines. It would be hung in the\r\n\r\nservants' bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa.\r\n\r\nWhat was the good of doing it then, and she heard some voice saying she\r\n\r\ncouldn't paint, saying she couldn't create, as if she were caught up in\r\n\r\none of those habitual currents in which after a certain time experience\r\n\r\nforms in the mind, so that one repeats words without being aware any\r\n\r\nlonger who originally spoke them.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCan't paint, can't write, she murmured monotonously, anxiously\r\n\r\nconsidering what her plan of attack should be. For the mass loomed\r\n\r\nbefore her; it protruded; she felt it pressing on her eyeballs. Then,\r\n\r\nas if some juice necessary for the lubrication of her faculties were\r\n\r\nspontaneously squirted, she began precariously dipping among the blues\r\n\r\nand umbers, moving her brush hither and thither, but it was now heavier\r\n\r\nand went slower, as if it had fallen in with some rhythm which was\r\n\r\ndictated to her (she kept looking at the hedge, at the canvas) by what\r\n\r\nshe rhythm was strong enough to bear her along with it on its current.\r\n\r\nCertainly she was losing consciousness of outer things. And as she\r\n\r\nlost consciousness of outer things, and her name and her personality\r\n\r\nand her appearance, and whether Mr. Carmichael was there or not, her\r\n\r\nmind kept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings,\r\n\r\nand memories and ideas, like a fountain spurting over that glaring,\r\n\r\nhideously difficult white space, while she modelled it with greens and\r\n\r\nblues.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCharles Tansley used to say that, she remembered, women can't paint,\r\n\r\ncan't write. Coming up behind her, he had stood close beside her, a\r\n\r\nthing she hated, as she painted her on this very spot. \"Shag tobacco,\"[footnote]A cheap type of tobacco; see note 13..[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nhe said, \"fivepence an ounce,\" parading his poverty, his principles.\r\n\r\n(But the war had drawn the sting of her femininity. Poor devils, one\r\n\r\nthought, poor devils, of both sexes.)[footnote]Another brief reference to the changes brought about by the First World War, and to Woolf\u2019s vision of the problems brought about by traditional gender roles.[\/footnote] He was always carrying a book\r\n\r\nabout under his arm--a purple book. He \"worked.\" He sat, she\r\n\r\nremembered, working in a blaze of sun. At dinner he would sit right in\r\n\r\nthe middle of the view. But after all, she reflected, there was the\r\n\r\nscene on the beach. One must remember that. It was a windy morning.\r\n\r\nThey had all gone down to the beach. Mrs. Ramsay sat down and wrote\r\n\r\nletters by a rock. She wrote and wrote. \"Oh,\" she said, looking up at\r\n\r\nsomething floating in the sea, \"is it a lobster pot? Is it an upturned\r\n\r\nboat?\" She was so short-sighted that she could not see, and then\r\n\r\nCharles Tansley became as nice as he could possibly be. He began\r\n\r\nplaying ducks and drakes. They chose little flat black stones and sent\r\n\r\nthem skipping over the waves. Every now and then Mrs. Ramsay looked up\r\n\r\nover her spectacles and laughed at them. What they said she could not\r\n\r\nremember, but only she and Charles throwing stones and getting on very\r\n\r\nwell all of a sudden and Mrs. Ramsay watching them. She was highly\r\n\r\nconscious of that. Mrs. Ramsay, she thought, stepping back and screwing\r\n\r\nup her eyes. (It must have altered the design a good deal when she was\r\n\r\nsitting on the step with James. There must have been a shadow.) When\r\n\r\nshe thought of herself and Charles throwing ducks and drakes and of the\r\n\r\nwhole scene on the beach, it seemed to depend somehow upon Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nsitting under the rock, with a pad on her knee, writing letters. (She\r\n\r\nwrote innumerable letters, and sometimes the wind took them and she and\r\n\r\nCharles just saved a page from the sea.) But what a power was in the\r\n\r\nhuman soul! she thought. That woman sitting there writing under the\r\n\r\nrock resolved everything into simplicity; made these angers,\r\n\r\nirritations fall off like old rags; she brought together this and that\r\n\r\nand then this, and so made out of that miserable silliness and spite\r\n\r\n(she and Charles squabbling, sparring, had been silly and spiteful)\r\n\r\nsomething--this scene on the beach for example, this moment of\r\n\r\nfriendship and liking--which survived, after all these years complete,\r\n\r\nso that she dipped into it to re-fashion her memory of him, and there\r\n\r\nit stayed in the mind affecting one almost like a work of art.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Like a work of art,\" she repeated, looking from her canvas to the\r\n\r\ndrawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And,\r\n\r\nresting, looking from one to the other vaguely, the old question which\r\n\r\ntraversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general\r\n\r\nquestion which was apt to particularise itself at such moments as\r\n\r\nthese, when she released faculties that had been on the strain, stood\r\n\r\nover her, paused over her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of\r\n\r\nlife? That was all--a simple question; one that tended to close in on\r\n\r\none with years. The great revelation had never come. The great\r\n\r\nrevelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily\r\n\r\nmiracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark;\r\n\r\nhere was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley\r\n\r\nand the breaking wave; Mrs. Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nsaying, \"Life stand still here\"; Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment\r\n\r\nsomething permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to\r\n\r\nmake of the moment something permanent)--this was of the nature\r\n\r\nof a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal\r\n\r\npassing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves\r\n\r\nshaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nsaid. \"Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!\" she repeated. She owed it all to her.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAll was silence. Nobody seemed yet to be stirring in the house. She\r\n\r\nlooked at it there sleeping in the early sunlight with its windows\r\n\r\ngreen and blue with the reflected leaves. The faint thought she was\r\n\r\nthinking of Mrs. Ramsay seemed in consonance with this quiet house; this\r\n\r\nsmoke; this fine early morning air. Faint and unreal, it was amazingly\r\n\r\npure and exciting. She hoped nobody would open the window or come out\r\n\r\nof the house, but that she might be left alone to go on thinking, to go\r\n\r\non painting. She turned to her canvas. But impelled by some curiosity,\r\n\r\ndriven by the discomfort of the sympathy which she held undischarged,\r\n\r\nshe walked a pace or so to the end of the lawn to see whether, down\r\n\r\nthere on the beach, she could see that little company setting sail.\r\n\r\nDown there among the little boats which floated, some with their sails\r\n\r\nfurled, some slowly, for it was very calm moving away, there was one\r\n\r\nrather apart from the others. The sail was even now being hoisted.\r\n\r\nShe decided that there in that very distant and entirely silent little\r\n\r\nboat Mr. Ramsay was sitting with Cam and James. Now they had got the\r\n\r\nsail up; now after a little flagging and silence, she watched the boat\r\n\r\ntake its way with deliberation past the other boats out to sea.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n5\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe sails flapped over their heads. The water chuckled and slapped the\r\n\r\nsides of the boat, which drowsed motionless in the sun. Now and then\r\n\r\nthe sails rippled with a little breeze in them, but the ripple ran over\r\n\r\nthem and ceased. The boat made no motion at all. Mr. Ramsay sat in the\r\n\r\nmiddle of the boat. He would be impatient in a moment, James thought,\r\n\r\nand Cam thought, looking at her father, who sat in the middle of the\r\n\r\nboat between them (James steered; Cam sat alone in the bow) with his\r\n\r\nlegs tightly curled. He hated hanging about. Sure enough, after\r\n\r\nfidgeting a second or two, he said something sharp to Macalister's boy,\r\n\r\nwho got out his oars and began to row. But their father, they knew,\r\n\r\nwould never be content until they were flying along. He would keep\r\n\r\nlooking for a breeze, fidgeting, saying things under his breath, which\r\n\r\nMacalister and and Macalister's boy would overhear, and they would both\r\n\r\nbe made horribly uncomfortable. He had made them come. He had forced\r\n\r\nthem to come. In their anger they hoped that the breeze would never\r\n\r\nrise, that he might be thwarted in every possible way, since he had\r\n\r\nforced them to come against their wills.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAll the way down to the beach they had lagged behind together, though\r\n\r\nhe bade them \"Walk up, walk up,\" without speaking. Their heads were\r\n\r\nbent down, their heads were pressed down by some remorseless gale.\r\n\r\nSpeak to him they could not. They must come; they must follow. They\r\n\r\nmust walk behind him carrying brown paper parcels. But they vowed, in\r\n\r\nsilence, as they walked, to stand by each other and carry out the great\r\n\r\ncompact--to resist tyranny to the death. So there they would sit, one\r\n\r\nat one end of the boat, one at the other, in silence. They would say\r\n\r\nnothing, only look at him now and then where he sat with his legs\r\n\r\ntwisted, frowning and fidgeting, and pishing and pshawing and muttering\r\n\r\nthings to himself, and waiting impatiently for a breeze. And they\r\n\r\nhoped it would be calm. They hoped he would be thwarted. They hoped\r\n\r\nthe whole expedition would fail, and they would have to put back, with\r\n\r\ntheir parcels, to the beach.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut now, when Macalister's boy had rowed a little way out, the sails\r\n\r\nslowly swung round, the boat quickened itself, flattened itself, and\r\n\r\nshot off. Instantly, as if some great strain had been relieved, Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay uncurled his legs, took out his tobacco pouch, handed it with a\r\n\r\nlittle grunt to Macalister, and felt, they knew, for all they suffered,\r\n\r\nperfectly content. Now they would sail on for hours like this, and Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay would ask old Macalister a question--about the great storm\r\n\r\nlast winter probably--and old Macalister would answer it, and they\r\n\r\nwould puff their pipes together, and Macalister would take a tarry rope\r\n\r\nin his fingers, tying or untying some knot, and the boy would fish, and\r\n\r\nnever say a word to any one. James would be forced to keep his eye all\r\n\r\nthe time on the sail. For if he forgot, then the sail puckered and\r\n\r\nshivered, and the boat slackened, and Mr. Ramsay would say sharply,\r\n\r\n\"Look out! Look out!\" and old Macalister would turn slowly on his\r\n\r\nseat. So they heard Mr. Ramsay asking some question about the great\r\n\r\nstorm at Christmas. \"She comes driving round the point,\" old\r\n\r\nMacalister said, describing the great storm last Christmas, when ten\r\n\r\nships had been driven into the bay for shelter, and he had seen \"one\r\n\r\nthere, one there, one there\" (he pointed slowly round the bay. Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay followed him, turning his head). He had seen four men clinging\r\n\r\nto the mast. Then she was gone. \"And at last we shoved her off,\" he\r\n\r\nwent on (but in their anger and their silence they only caught a word\r\n\r\nhere and there, sitting at opposite ends of the boat, united by their\r\n\r\ncompact to fight tyranny to the death). At last they had shoved\r\n\r\nher off, they had launched the lifeboat, and they had got her out\r\n\r\npast the point--Macalister told the story; and though they only\r\n\r\ncaught a word here and there, they were conscious all the time of their\r\n\r\nfather--how he leant forward, how he brought his voice into tune with\r\n\r\nMacalister's voice; how, puffing at his pipe, and looking there and\r\n\r\nthere where Macalister pointed, he relished the thought of the storm\r\n\r\nand the dark night and the fishermen striving there. He liked that men\r\n\r\nshould labour and sweat on the windy beach at night; pitting muscle and\r\n\r\nbrain against the waves and the wind; he liked men to work like that,\r\n\r\nand women to keep house, and sit beside sleeping children indoors,\r\n\r\nwhile men were drowned, out there in a storm. So James could tell, so\r\n\r\nCam could tell (they looked at him, they looked at each other), from\r\n\r\nhis toss and his vigilance and the ring in his voice, and the little\r\n\r\ntinge of Scottish accent which came into his voice, making him seem\r\n\r\nlike a peasant himself, as he questioned Macalister about the eleven\r\n\r\nships that had been driven into the bay in a storm. Three had sunk.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe looked proudly where Macalister pointed; and Cam thought, feeling\r\n\r\nproud of him without knowing quite why, had he been there he would have\r\n\r\nlaunched the lifeboat, he would have reached the wreck, Cam thought.\r\n\r\nHe was so brave, he was so adventurous, Cam thought. But she\r\n\r\nremembered. There was the compact; to resist tyranny to the death.\r\n\r\nTheir grievance weighed them down. They had been forced; they had been\r\n\r\nbidden. He had borne them down once more with his gloom and his\r\n\r\nauthority, making them do his bidding, on this fine morning, come,\r\n\r\nbecause he wished it, carrying these parcels, to the Lighthouse; take\r\n\r\npart in these rites he went through for his own pleasure in memory of\r\n\r\ndead people, which they hated, so that they lagged after him, all\r\n\r\nthe pleasure of the day was spoilt.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYes, the breeze was freshening. The boat was leaning, the water was\r\n\r\nsliced sharply and fell away in green cascades, in bubbles, in\r\n\r\ncataracts. Cam looked down into the foam, into the sea with all its\r\n\r\ntreasure in it, and its speed hypnotised her, and the tie between her\r\n\r\nand James sagged a little. It slackened a little. She began to think,\r\n\r\nHow fast it goes. Where are we going? and the movement hypnotised her,\r\n\r\nwhile James, with his eye fixed on the sail and on the horizon, steered\r\n\r\ngrimly. But he began to think as he steered that he might escape; he\r\n\r\nmight be quit of it all. They might land somewhere; and be free then.\r\n\r\nBoth of them, looking at each other for a moment, had a sense of escape\r\n\r\nand exaltation, what with the speed and the change. But the breeze\r\n\r\nbred in Mr. Ramsay too the same excitement, and, as old Macalister\r\n\r\nturned to fling his line overboard, he cried out aloud,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"We perished,\" and then again, \"each alone.\"[footnote]Cowper; see note 113.[\/footnote] And then with his usual\r\n\r\nspasm of repentance or shyness, pulled himself up, and waved his hand\r\n\r\ntowards the shore.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"See the little house,\" he said pointing, wishing Cam to look. She\r\n\r\nraised herself reluctantly and looked. But which was it? She could no\r\n\r\nlonger make out, there on the hillside, which was their house. All\r\n\r\nlooked distant and peaceful and strange. The shore seemed refined, far\r\n\r\naway, unreal. Already the little distance they had sailed had put them\r\n\r\nfar from it and given it the changed look, the composed look, of\r\n\r\nsomething receding in which one has no longer any part. Which was\r\n\r\ntheir house? She could not see it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But I beneath a rougher sea,\"[footnote]Cowper; see note 113.[\/footnote] Mr. Ramsay murmured. He had found the\r\n\r\nhouse and so seeing it, he had also seen himself there; he had seen\r\n\r\nhimself walking on the terrace, alone. He was walking up and down\r\n\r\nbetween the urns; and he seemed to himself very old and bowed. Sitting\r\n\r\nin the boat, he bowed, he crouched himself, acting instantly his part--\r\n\r\nthe part of a desolate man, widowed, bereft; and so called up before\r\n\r\nhim in hosts people sympathising with him; staged for himself as he sat\r\n\r\nin the boat, a little drama; which required of him decrepitude and\r\n\r\nexhaustion and sorrow (he raised his hands and looked at the thinness\r\n\r\nof them, to confirm his dream) and then there was given him in\r\n\r\nabundance women's sympathy, and he imagined how they would soothe him\r\n\r\nand sympathise with him, and so getting in his dream some reflection of\r\n\r\nthe exquisite pleasure women's sympathy was to him, he sighed and said\r\n\r\ngently and mournfully:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut I beneath a rougher sea\r\n\r\nWas whelmed in deeper gulfs than he,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nso that the mournful words were heard quite clearly by them all. Cam\r\n\r\nhalf started on her seat. It shocked her--it outraged her. The\r\n\r\nmovement roused her father; and he shuddered, and broke off,\r\n\r\nexclaiming: \"Look! Look!\" so urgently that James also turned his head\r\n\r\nto look over his shoulder at the island. They all looked. They looked\r\n\r\nat the island.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut Cam could see nothing. She was thinking how all those paths and\r\n\r\nthe lawn, thick and knotted with the lives they had lived there, were\r\n\r\ngone: were rubbed out; were past; were unreal, and now this was real;\r\n\r\nthe boat and the sail with its patch; Macalister with his earrings; the\r\n\r\nnoise of the waves--all this was real. Thinking this, she was\r\n\r\nmurmuring to herself, \"We perished, each alone,\"[footnote]This and the offset lines above are from Cowper; see note 113.[\/footnote] for her father's words\r\n\r\nbroke and broke again in her mind, when her father, seeing her gazing\r\n\r\nso vaguely, began to tease her. Didn't she know the points of the\r\n\r\ncompass? he asked. Didn't she know the North from the South? Did she\r\n\r\nreally think they lived right out there? And he pointed again, and\r\n\r\nshowed her where their house was, there, by those trees. He wished she\r\n\r\nwould try to be more accurate, he said: \"Tell me--which is East, which\r\n\r\nis West?\" he said, half laughing at her, half scolding her, for he\r\n\r\ncould not understand the state of mind of any one, not absolutely\r\n\r\nimbecile, who did not know the points of the compass. Yet she did not\r\n\r\nknow. And seeing her gazing, with her vague, now rather frightened,\r\n\r\neyes fixed where no house was Mr. Ramsay forgot his dream; how he walked\r\n\r\nup and down between the urns on the terrace; how the arms were\r\n\r\nstretched out to him. He thought, women are always like that; the\r\n\r\nvagueness of their minds is hopeless; it was a thing he had never been\r\n\r\nable to understand; but so it was. It had been so with her--his wife.\r\n\r\nThey could not keep anything clearly fixed in their minds. But he had\r\n\r\nbeen wrong to be angry with her; moreover, did he not rather like this\r\n\r\nvagueness in women? It was part of their extraordinary charm. I will\r\n\r\nmake her smile at me, he thought. She looks frightened. She was so\r\n\r\nsilent. He clutched his fingers, and determined that his voice and his\r\n\r\nface and all the quick expressive gestures which had been at his\r\n\r\ncommand making people pity him and praise him all these years should\r\n\r\nsubdue themselves. He would make her smile at him. He would find some\r\n\r\nsimple easy thing to say to her. But what? For, wrapped up in his\r\n\r\nwork as he was, he forgot the sort of thing one said. There was a\r\n\r\npuppy. They had a puppy. Who was looking after the puppy today? he\r\n\r\nasked. Yes, thought James pitilessly, seeing his sister's head against\r\n\r\nthe sail, now she will give way. I shall be left to fight the tyrant\r\n\r\nalone. The compact would be left to him to carry out. Cam would never\r\n\r\nresist tyranny to the death, he thought grimly, watching her face, sad,\r\n\r\nsulky, yielding. And as sometimes happens when a cloud falls on a\r\n\r\ngreen hillside and gravity descends and there among all the surrounding\r\n\r\nhills is gloom and sorrow, and it seems as if the hills themselves\r\n\r\nmust ponder the fate of the clouded, the darkened, either in pity,\r\n\r\nor maliciously rejoicing in her dismay: so Cam now felt herself\r\n\r\novercast, as she sat there among calm, resolute people and wondered\r\n\r\nhow to answer her father about the puppy; how to resist his\r\n\r\nentreaty--forgive me, care for me; while James the lawgiver, with the\r\n\r\ntablets of eternal wisdom laid open on his knee (his hand on the tiller\r\n\r\nhad become symbolical to her), said, Resist him. Fight him. He said\r\n\r\nso rightly; justly. For they must fight tyranny to the death, she\r\n\r\nthought. Of all human qualities she reverenced justice most. Her\r\n\r\nbrother was most god-like, her father most suppliant. And to which did\r\n\r\nshe yield, she thought, sitting between them, gazing at the shore whose\r\n\r\npoints were all unknown to her, and thinking how the lawn and the\r\n\r\nterrace and the house were smoothed away now and peace dwelt there.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Jasper,\" she said sullenly. He'd look after the puppy.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd what was she going to call him? her father persisted. He had had\r\n\r\na dog when he was a little boy, called Frisk. She'll give way, James\r\n\r\nthought, as he watched a look come upon her face, a look he remembered.\r\n\r\nThey look down he thought, at their knitting or something. Then\r\n\r\nsuddenly they look up. There was a flash of blue, he remembered, and\r\n\r\nthen somebody sitting with him laughed, surrendered, and he was very\r\n\r\nangry. It must have been his mother, he thought, sitting on a low\r\n\r\nchair, with his father standing over her. He began to search among the\r\n\r\ninfinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon\r\n\r\nleaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents,\r\n\r\nsounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms\r\n\r\ntapping; and the wash and hush of the sea, how a man had marched up and\r\n\r\ndown and stopped dead, upright, over them. Meanwhile, he noticed, Cam\r\n\r\ndabbled her fingers in the water, and stared at the shore and said\r\n\r\nnothing. No, she won't give way, he thought; she's different, he\r\n\r\nthought. Well, if Cam would not answer him, he would not bother her Mr.\r\n\r\nRamsay decided, feeling in his pocket for a book. But she would answer\r\n\r\nhim; she wished, passionately, to move some obstacle that lay upon her\r\n\r\ntongue and to say, Oh, yes, Frisk. I'll call him Frisk. She wanted\r\n\r\neven to say, Was that the dog that found its way over the moor alone?\r\n\r\nBut try as she might, she could think of nothing to say like that,\r\n\r\nfierce and loyal to the compact, yet passing on to her father,\r\n\r\nunsuspected by James, a private token of the love she felt for him.\r\n\r\nFor she thought, dabbling her hand (and now Macalister's boy had caught\r\n\r\na mackerel, and it lay kicking on the floor, with blood on its gills)\r\n\r\nfor she thought, looking at James who kept his eyes dispassionately on\r\n\r\nthe sail, or glanced now and then for a second at the horizon, you're\r\n\r\nnot exposed to it, to this pressure and division of feeling, this\r\n\r\nextraordinary temptation. Her father was feeling in his pockets; in\r\n\r\nanother second, he would have found his book. For no one attracted her\r\n\r\nmore; his hands were beautiful, and his feet, and his voice, and his\r\n\r\nwords, and his haste, and his temper, and his oddity, and his passion,\r\n\r\nand his saying straight out before every one, we perish, each alone,\r\n\r\nand his remoteness. (He had opened his book.) But what remained\r\n\r\nintolerable, she thought, sitting upright, and watching Macalister's\r\n\r\nboy tug the hook out of the gills of another fish, was that crass\r\n\r\nblindness and tyranny of his which had poisoned her childhood and\r\n\r\nraised bitter storms, so that even now she woke in the night trembling\r\n\r\nwith rage and remembered some command of his; some insolence: \"Do\r\n\r\nthis,\" \"Do that,\" his dominance: his \"Submit to me.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo she said nothing, but looked doggedly and sadly at the shore,\r\n\r\nwrapped in its mantle of peace; as if the people there had fallen\r\n\r\nasleep, she thought; were free like smoke, were free to come and go\r\n\r\nlike ghosts. They have no suffering there, she thought.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n6\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYes, that is their boat, Lily Briscoe decided, standing on the edge of\r\n\r\nthe lawn. It was the boat with greyish-brown sails, which she saw now\r\n\r\nflatten itself upon the water and shoot off across the bay. There he\r\n\r\nsits, she thought, and the children are quite silent still. And she\r\n\r\ncould not reach him either. The sympathy she had not given him weighed\r\n\r\nher down. It made it difficult for her to paint.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had always found him difficult. She never had been able to praise\r\n\r\nhim to his face, she remembered. And that reduced their relationship to\r\n\r\nsomething neutral, without that element of sex in it which made his\r\n\r\nmanner to Minta so gallant, almost gay. He would pick a flower for\r\n\r\nher, lend her his books. But could he believe that Minta read them?\r\n\r\nShe dragged them about the garden, sticking in leaves to mark the\r\n\r\nplace.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"D'you remember, Mr. Carmichael?\" she was inclined to ask, looking at\r\n\r\nthe old man. But he had pulled his hat half over his forehead; he was\r\n\r\nasleep, or he was dreaming, or he was lying there catching words, she\r\n\r\nsupposed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"D'you remember?\" she felt inclined to ask him as she passed him,\r\n\r\nthinking again of Mrs. Ramsay on the beach; the cask bobbing up and\r\n\r\ndown; and the pages flying. Why, after all these years had that\r\n\r\nsurvived, ringed round, lit up, visible to the last detail, with all\r\n\r\nbefore it blank and all after it blank, for miles and miles?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Is it a boat? Is it a cork?\" she would say, Lily repeated, turning\r\n\r\nback, reluctantly again, to her canvas. Heaven be praised for it, the\r\n\r\nproblem of space remained, she thought, taking up her brush again. It\r\n\r\nglared at her. The whole mass of the picture was poised upon that\r\n\r\nweight. Beautiful and bright it should be on the surface, feathery and\r\n\r\nevanescent, one colour melting into another like the colours on a\r\n\r\nbutterfly's wing; but beneath the fabric must be clamped together with\r\n\r\nbolts of iron. It was to be a thing you could ruffle with your breath;\r\n\r\nand a thing you could not dislodge with a team of horses.[footnote]Compare Lily\u2019s vision of her work with her earlier view (see note 62) and with Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s vision of male and female (note 113).[\/footnote] And she began\r\n\r\nto lay on a red, a grey, and she began to model her way into the hollow\r\n\r\nthere. At the same time, she seemed to be sitting beside Mrs. Ramsay on\r\n\r\nthe beach.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Is it a boat? Is it a cask?\" Mrs. Ramsay said. And she began hunting\r\n\r\nround for her spectacles. And she sat, having found them, silent,\r\n\r\nlooking out to sea. And Lily, painting steadily, felt as if a door had\r\n\r\nopened, and one went in and stood gazing silently about in a high\r\n\r\ncathedral-like place, very dark, very solemn. Shouts came from a world\r\n\r\nfar away. Steamers vanished in stalks of smoke on the horizon.\r\n\r\nCharles threw stones and sent them skipping.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay sat silent. She was glad, Lily thought, to rest in silence,\r\n\r\nuncommunicative; to rest in the extreme obscurity of human\r\n\r\nrelationships. Who knows what we are, what we feel? Who knows even at\r\n\r\nthe moment of intimacy, This is knowledge? Aren't things spoilt then,\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay may have asked (it seemed to have happened so often, this\r\n\r\nsilence by her side) by saying them? Aren't we more expressive thus?\r\n\r\nThe moment at least seemed extraordinarily fertile. She rammed a\r\n\r\nlittle hole in the sand and covered it up, by way of burying in it the\r\n\r\nperfection of the moment. It was like a drop of silver in which one\r\n\r\ndipped and illumined the darkness of the past.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLily stepped back to get her canvas--so--into perspective. It was an\r\n\r\nodd road to be walking, this of painting. Out and out one went,\r\n\r\nfurther, until at last one seemed to be on a narrow plank, perfectly\r\n\r\nalone, over the sea. And as she dipped into the blue paint, she\r\n\r\ndipped too into the past there. Now Mrs. Ramsay got up, she\r\n\r\nremembered. It was time to go back to the house--time for\r\n\r\nluncheon. And they all walked up from the beach together, she walking\r\n\r\nbehind with William Bankes, and there was Minta in front of them with a\r\n\r\nhole in her stocking. How that little round hole of pink heel seemed\r\n\r\nto flaunt itself before them! How William Bankes deplored it, without,\r\n\r\nso far as she could remember, saying anything about it! It meant to\r\n\r\nhim the annihilation of womanhood, and dirt and disorder, and servants\r\n\r\nleaving and beds not made at mid-day--all the things he most abhorred.\r\n\r\nHe had a way of shuddering and spreading his fingers out as if to cover\r\n\r\nan unsightly object which he did now--holding his hand in front of\r\n\r\nhim. And Minta walked on ahead, and presumably Paul met her and she\r\n\r\nwent off with Paul in the garden.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Rayleys, thought Lily Briscoe, squeezing her tube of green paint.\r\n\r\nShe collected her impressions of the Rayleys. Their lives appeared to\r\n\r\nher in a series of scenes; one, on the staircase at dawn. Paul had\r\n\r\ncome in and gone to bed early; Minta was late. There was Minta,\r\n\r\nwreathed, tinted, garish on the stairs about three o'clock in the\r\n\r\nmorning. Paul came out in his pyjamas carrying a poker in case of\r\n\r\nburglars. Minta was eating a sandwich, standing half-way up by a\r\n\r\nwindow, in the cadaverous early morning light, and the carpet had a\r\n\r\nhole in it. But what did they say? Lily asked herself, as if by\r\n\r\nlooking she could hear them. Minta went on eating her sandwich,\r\n\r\nannoyingly, while he spoke something violent, abusing her, in a mutter\r\n\r\nso as not to wake the children, the two little boys. He was withered,\r\n\r\ndrawn; she flamboyant, careless. For things had worked loose after the\r\n\r\nfirst year or so; the marriage had turned out rather badly.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd this, Lily thought, taking the green paint on her brush, this\r\n\r\nmaking up scenes about them, is what we call \"knowing\" people,\r\n\r\n\"thinking\" of them, \"being fond\" of them! Not a word of it was true;\r\n\r\nshe had made it up; but it was what she knew them by all the same. She\r\n\r\nwent on tunnelling her way into her picture, into the past.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnother time, Paul said he \"played chess in coffee-houses.\" She had\r\n\r\nbuilt up a whole structure of imagination on that saying too. She\r\n\r\nremembered how, as he said it, she thought how he rang up the servant,\r\n\r\nand she said, \"Mrs. Rayley's out, sir,\" and he decided that he would not\r\n\r\ncome home either. She saw him sitting in the corner of some lugubrious\r\n\r\nplace where the smoke attached itself to the red plush seats, and the\r\n\r\nwaitresses got to know you, and he played chess with a little man who\r\n\r\nwas in the tea trade and lived at Surbiton,[footnote]Then a relatively new suburb of London.[\/footnote] but that was all Paul knew\r\n\r\nabout him. And then Minta was out when he came home and then there was\r\n\r\nthat scene on the stairs, when he got the poker in case of burglars (no\r\n\r\ndoubt to frighten her too) and spoke so bitterly, saying she had ruined\r\n\r\nhis life. At any rate when she went down to see them at a cottage near\r\n\r\nRickmansworth,[footnote]A small commuter town northwest of London.[\/footnote] things were horribly strained. Paul took her down the\r\n\r\ngarden to look at the Belgian hares which he bred, and Minta followed\r\n\r\nthem, singing, and put her bare arm on his shoulder, lest he should\r\n\r\ntell her anything.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMinta was bored by hares, Lily thought. But Minta never gave herself\r\n\r\naway. She never said things like that about playing chess in coffee-\r\n\r\nhouses. She was far too conscious, far too wary. But to go on with\r\n\r\ntheir story--they had got through the dangerous stage by now. She had\r\n\r\nbeen staying with them last summer some time and the car broke down and\r\n\r\nMinta had to hand him his tools. He sat on the road mending the car,\r\n\r\nand it was the way she gave him the tools--business-like,\r\n\r\nstraightforward, friendly--that proved it was all right now. They were\r\n\r\n\"in love\" no longer; no, he had taken up with another woman, a serious\r\n\r\nwoman, with her hair in a plait and a case in her hand (Minta had\r\n\r\ndescribed her gratefully, almost admiringly), who went to meetings and\r\n\r\nshared Paul's views (they had got more and more pronounced) about the\r\n\r\ntaxation of land values and a capital levy. Far from breaking up the\r\n\r\nmarriage, that alliance had righted it. They were excellent friends,\r\n\r\nobviously, as he sat on the road and she handed him his tools.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo that was the story of the Rayleys, Lily thought. She imagined\r\n\r\nherself telling it to Mrs. Ramsay, who would be full of curiosity to\r\n\r\nknow what had become of the Rayleys. She would feel a little\r\n\r\ntriumphant, telling Mrs. Ramsay that the marriage had not been a\r\n\r\nsuccess.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut the dead, thought Lily, encountering some obstacle in her design\r\n\r\nwhich made her pause and ponder, stepping back a foot or so, oh, the\r\n\r\ndead! she murmured, one pitied them, one brushed them aside, one had\r\n\r\neven a little contempt for them. They are at our mercy. Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nhas faded and gone, she thought. We can over-ride her wishes, improve\r\n\r\naway her limited, old-fashioned ideas. She recedes further and further\r\n\r\nfrom us. Mockingly she seemed to see her there at the end of the\r\n\r\ncorridor of years saying, of all incongruous things, \"Marry, marry!\"\r\n\r\n(sitting very upright early in the morning with the birds beginning to\r\n\r\ncheep in the garden outside). And one would have to say to her, It has\r\n\r\nall gone against your wishes. They're happy like that; I'm happy like\r\n\r\nthis. Life has changed completely. At that all her being, even her\r\n\r\nbeauty, became for a moment, dusty and out of date. For a moment Lily,\r\n\r\nstanding there, with the sun hot on her back, summing up the Rayleys,\r\n\r\ntriumphed over Mrs. Ramsay, who would never know how Paul went to\r\n\r\ncoffee-houses and had a mistress; how he sat on the ground and Minta\r\n\r\nhanded him his tools; how she stood here painting, had never married,\r\n\r\nnot even William Bankes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay had planned it. Perhaps, had she lived, she would have\r\n\r\ncompelled it. Already that summer he was \"the kindest of men.\" He was\r\n\r\n\"the first scientist of his age, my husband says.\" He was also \"poor\r\n\r\nWilliam--it makes me so unhappy, when I go to see him, to find nothing\r\n\r\nnice in his house--no one to arrange the flowers.\" So they were sent\r\n\r\nfor walks together, and she was told, with that faint touch of irony\r\n\r\nthat made Mrs. Ramsay slip through one's fingers, that she had a\r\n\r\nscientific mind; she liked flowers; she was so exact. What was this\r\n\r\nmania of hers for marriage? Lily wondered, stepping to and fro from\r\n\r\nher easel.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n(Suddenly, as suddenly as a star slides in the sky, a reddish light\r\n\r\nseemed to burn in her mind, covering Paul Rayley, issuing from him. It\r\n\r\nrose like a fire sent up in token of some celebration by savages on a\r\n\r\ndistant beach. She heard the roar and the crackle. The whole sea for\r\n\r\nmiles round ran red and gold. Some winey smell mixed with it and\r\n\r\nintoxicated her, for she felt again her own headlong desire to throw\r\n\r\nherself off the cliff and be drowned looking for a pearl brooch on a\r\n\r\nbeach. And the roar and the crackle repelled her with fear and\r\n\r\ndisgust, as if while she saw its splendour and power she saw too how it\r\n\r\nfed on the treasure of the house, greedily, disgustingly, and she\r\n\r\nloathed it. But for a sight, for a glory it surpassed everything in\r\n\r\nher experience, and burnt year after year like a signal fire on a\r\n\r\ndesert island at the edge of the sea, and one had only to say \"in love\"\r\n\r\nand instantly, as happened now, up rose Paul's fire again. And it sank\r\n\r\nand she said to herself, laughing, \"The Rayleys\"; how Paul went to\r\n\r\ncoffee-houses and played chess.)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had only escaped by the skin of her teeth though, she thought. She\r\n\r\nhad been looking at the table-cloth, and it had flashed upon her that\r\n\r\nshe would move the tree to the middle, and need never marry anybody,\r\n\r\nand she had felt an enormous exultation. She had felt, now she could\r\n\r\nstand up to Mrs. Ramsay--a tribute to the astonishing power that Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay had over one. Do this, she said, and one did it. Even her\r\n\r\nshadow at the window with James was full of authority. She remembered\r\n\r\nhow William Bankes had been shocked by her neglect of the significance\r\n\r\nof mother and son. Did she not admire their beauty? he said. But\r\n\r\nWilliam, she remembered, had listened to her with his wise child's eyes\r\n\r\nwhen she explained how it was not irreverence: how a light there needed\r\n\r\na shadow there and so on. She did not intend to disparage a subject\r\n\r\nwhich, they agreed, Raphael[footnote]Raphael (1483-1520), the Italian Renaissance painter, produced several images of the Mary with the infant Jesus.[\/footnote] had treated divinely. She was not cynical.\r\n\r\nQuite the contrary. Thanks to his scientific mind he understood--a\r\n\r\nproof of disinterested intelligence which had pleased her and comforted\r\n\r\nher enormously. One could talk of painting then seriously to a man.\r\n\r\nIndeed, his friendship had been one of the pleasures of her life. She\r\n\r\nloved William Bankes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey went to Hampton Court[footnote]A palace on the outskirts of London, built by Cardinal Wolsey in 1514 and appropriated by Henry VIII. A popular tourist site.[\/footnote] and he always left her, like the perfect\r\n\r\ngentleman he was, plenty of time to wash her hands,[footnote]A euphemism for using the bathroom.[\/footnote] while he strolled\r\n\r\nby the river. That was typical of their relationship. Many things were\r\n\r\nleft unsaid. Then they strolled through the courtyards, and admired,\r\n\r\nsummer after summer, the proportions and the flowers, and he would tell\r\n\r\nher things, about perspective, about architecture, as they walked, and\r\n\r\nhe would stop to look at a tree, or the view over the lake, and admire\r\n\r\na child--(it was his great grief--he had no daughter) in the vague aloof\r\n\r\nway that was natural to a man who spent spent so much time in\r\n\r\nlaboratories that the world when he came out seemed to dazzle him,\r\n\r\nso that he walked slowly, lifted his hand to screen his eyes and\r\n\r\npaused, with his head thrown back, merely to breathe the air. Then\r\n\r\nhe would tell her how his housekeeper was on her holiday; he must\r\n\r\nbuy a new carpet for the staircase. Perhaps she would go with him to\r\n\r\nbuy a new carpet for the staircase. And once something led him to talk\r\n\r\nabout the Ramsays and he had said how when he first saw her she had\r\n\r\nbeen wearing a grey hat; she was not more than nineteen or twenty. She\r\n\r\nwas astonishingly beautiful. There he stood looking down the avenue at\r\n\r\nHampton Court as if he could see her there among the fountains.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe looked now at the drawing-room step. She saw, through William's\r\n\r\neyes, the shape of a woman, peaceful and silent, with downcast eyes.\r\n\r\nShe sat musing, pondering (she was in grey that day, Lily thought).\r\n\r\nHer eyes were bent. She would never lift them. Yes, thought Lily,\r\n\r\nlooking intently, I must have seen her look like that, but not in grey;\r\n\r\nnor so still, nor so young, nor so peaceful. The figure came readily\r\n\r\nenough. She was astonishingly beautiful, as William said. But beauty\r\n\r\nwas not everything. Beauty had this penalty--it came too readily, came\r\n\r\ntoo completely. It stilled life--froze it. One forgot the little\r\n\r\nagitations; the flush, the pallor, some queer distortion, some light or\r\n\r\nshadow, which made the face unrecognisable for a moment and yet added a\r\n\r\nquality one saw for ever after. It was simpler to smooth that all out\r\n\r\nunder the cover of beauty. But what was the look she had, Lily\r\n\r\nwondered, when she clapped her deer-stalker's hat on her head, or ran\r\n\r\nacross the grass, or scolded Kennedy, the gardener? Who could tell\r\n\r\nher? Who could help her?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAgainst her will she had come to the surface, and found herself half\r\n\r\nout of the picture, looking, little dazedly, as if at unreal things, at\r\n\r\nMr. Carmichael. He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his\r\n\r\npaunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged\r\n\r\nwith existence. His book had fallen on to the grass.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe wanted to go straight up to him and say, \"Mr. Carmichael!\" Then he\r\n\r\nwould look up benevolently as always, from his smoky vague green eyes.\r\n\r\nBut one only woke people if one knew what one wanted to say to them.\r\n\r\nAnd she wanted to say not one thing, but everything. Little words that\r\n\r\nbroke up the thought and dismembered it said nothing. \"About life,\r\n\r\nabout death; about Mrs. Ramsay\"--no, she thought, one could say\r\n\r\nnothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark.\r\n\r\nWords fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then\r\n\r\none gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like\r\n\r\nmost middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the\r\n\r\neyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express\r\n\r\nin words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there?\r\n\r\n(She was looking at the drawing-room steps; they looked extraordinarily\r\n\r\nempty.) It was one's body feeling, not one's mind. The physical\r\n\r\nsensations that went with the bare look of the steps had become\r\n\r\nsuddenly extremely unpleasant. To want and not to have, sent all up\r\n\r\nher body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not\r\n\r\nto have--to want and want--how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again\r\n\r\nand again! Oh, Mrs. Ramsay! she called out silently, to that essence\r\n\r\nwhich sat by the boat, that abstract one made of her, that woman in\r\n\r\ngrey, as if to abuse her for having gone, and then having gone, come\r\n\r\nback again. It had seemed so safe, thinking of her. Ghost, air,\r\n\r\nnothingness, a thing you could play with easily and safely at any time\r\n\r\nof day or night, she had been that, and then suddenly she put her hand\r\n\r\nout and wrung the heart thus. Suddenly, the empty drawing-room steps,\r\n\r\nthe frill of the chair inside, the puppy tumbling on the terrace, the\r\n\r\nwhole wave and whisper of the garden became like curves and arabesques\r\n\r\nflourishing round a centre of complete emptiness.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"What does it mean? How do you explain it all?\" she wanted to say,\r\n\r\nturning to Mr. Carmichael again. For the whole world seemed to have\r\n\r\ndissolved in this early morning hour into a pool of thought, a deep\r\n\r\nbasin of reality, and one could almost fancy that had Mr. Carmichael\r\n\r\nspoken, for instance, a little tear would have rent the surface pool.\r\n\r\nAnd then? Something would emerge. A hand would be shoved up, a blade\r\n\r\nwould be flashed. It was nonsense of course.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA curious notion came to her that he did after all hear the things she\r\n\r\ncould not say. He was an inscrutable old man, with the yellow stain on\r\n\r\nhis beard, and his poetry, and his puzzles, sailing serenely through a\r\n\r\nworld which satisfied all his wants, so that she thought he had only to\r\n\r\nput down his hand where he lay on the lawn to fish up anything he\r\n\r\nwanted. She looked at her picture. That would have been his answer,\r\n\r\npresumably--how \"you\" and \"I\" and \"she\" pass and vanish; nothing stays;\r\n\r\nall changes; but not words, not paint. Yet it would be hung in the\r\n\r\nattics, she thought; it would be rolled up and flung under a sofa; yet\r\n\r\neven so, even of a picture like that, it was true. One might say, even\r\n\r\nof this scrawl, not of that actual picture, perhaps, but of what it\r\n\r\nattempted, that it \"remained for ever,\" she was going to say, or, for\r\n\r\nthe words spoken sounded even to herself, too boastful, to hint,\r\n\r\nwordlessly; when, looking at the picture, she was surprised to find\r\n\r\nthat she could not see it. Her eyes were full of a hot liquid (she did\r\n\r\nnot think of tears at first) which, without disturbing the firmness of\r\n\r\nher lips, made the air thick, rolled down her cheeks. She had perfect\r\n\r\ncontrol of herself--Oh, yes!--in every other way. Was she crying then\r\n\r\nfor Mrs. Ramsay, without being aware of any unhappiness? She addressed\r\n\r\nold Mr. Carmichael again. What was it then? What did it mean? Could\r\n\r\nthings thrust their hands up and grip one; could the blade cut; the\r\n\r\nfist grasp? Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of\r\n\r\nthe world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from\r\n\r\nthe pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly\r\n\r\npeople, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown? For one\r\n\r\nmoment she felt that if they both got up, here, now on the lawn, and\r\n\r\ndemanded an explanation, why was it so short, why was it so\r\n\r\ninexplicable, said it with violence, as two fully equipped human beings\r\n\r\nfrom whom nothing should be hid might speak, then, beauty would roll\r\n\r\nitself up; the space would fill; those empty flourishes would form into\r\n\r\nshape; if they shouted loud enough Mrs. Ramsay would return. \"Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay!\" she said aloud, \"Mrs. Ramsay!\" The tears ran down her face.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n7\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[Macalister's boy took one of the fish and cut a square out of its side\r\n\r\nto bait his hook with. The mutilated body (it was alive still) was\r\n\r\nthrown back into the sea.]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n8\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Ramsay!\" Lily cried, \"Mrs. Ramsay!\" But nothing happened. The pain\r\n\r\nincreased. That anguish could reduce one to such a pitch of\r\n\r\nimbecility, she thought! Anyhow the old man had not heard her. He\r\n\r\nremained benignant, calm--if one chose to think it, sublime. Heaven be\r\n\r\npraised, no one had heard her cry that ignominious cry, stop pain,\r\n\r\nstop! She had not obviously taken leave of her senses. No one had\r\n\r\nseen her step off her strip of board into the waters of annihilation.\r\n\r\nShe remained a skimpy old maid, holding a paint-brush.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd now slowly the pain of the want, and the bitter anger (to be called\r\n\r\nback, just as she thought she would never feel sorrow for Mrs. Ramsay\r\n\r\nagain. Had she missed her among the coffee cups at breakfast? not in\r\n\r\nthe least) lessened; and of their anguish left, as antidote, a relief\r\n\r\nthat was balm in itself, and also, but more mysteriously, a sense of\r\n\r\nsome one there, of Mrs. Ramsay, relieved for a moment of the weight that\r\n\r\nthe world had put on her, staying lightly by her side and then (for\r\n\r\nthis was Mrs. Ramsay in all her beauty) raising to her forehead a wreath\r\n\r\nof white flowers with which she went. Lily squeezed her tubes again.\r\n\r\nShe attacked that problem of the hedge. It was strange how clearly she\r\n\r\nsaw her, stepping with her usual quickness across fields among whose\r\n\r\nfolds, purplish and soft, among whose flowers, hyacinth or lilies, she\r\n\r\nvanished. It was some trick of the painter's eye. For days after she\r\n\r\nhad heard of her death she had seen her thus, putting her wreath to her\r\n\r\nforehead and going unquestioningly with her companion, a shade across\r\n\r\nthe fields. The sight, the phrase, had its power to console. Wherever\r\n\r\nshe happened to be, painting, here, in the country or in London, the\r\n\r\nvision would come to her, and her eyes, half closing, sought something\r\n\r\nto base her vision on. She looked down the railway carriage, the\r\n\r\nomnibus; took a line from shoulder or cheek; looked at the windows\r\n\r\nopposite; at Piccadilly, lamp-strung in the evening. All had been part\r\n\r\nof the fields of death. But always something--it might be a face, a\r\n\r\nvoice, a paper boy crying Standard, News<\/i>[footnote]A boy selling London\u2019s Evening Standard newspaper.[\/footnote]<\/i>--thrust through, snubbed her,\r\n\r\nwaked her, required and got in the end an effort of attention, so that\r\n\r\nthe vision must be perpetually remade. Now again, moved as she was by\r\n\r\nsome instinctive need of distance and blue, she looked at the bay\r\n\r\nbeneath her, making hillocks of the blue bars of the waves, and\r\n\r\nstony fields of the purpler spaces, again she was roused as usual by\r\n\r\nsomething incongruous. There was a brown spot in the middle of the\r\n\r\nbay. It was a boat. Yes, she realised that after a second. But whose\r\n\r\nboat? Mr. Ramsay's boat, she replied. Mr. Ramsay; the man who had\r\n\r\nmarched past her, with his hand raised, aloof, at the head of a\r\n\r\nprocession, in his beautiful boots, asking her for sympathy, which\r\n\r\nshe had refused. The boat was now half way across the bay.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that\r\n\r\nthe sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up\r\n\r\nin the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea. A steamer far\r\n\r\nout at sea had drawn in the air a great scroll of smoke which stayed\r\n\r\nthere curving and circling decoratively, as if the air were a fine\r\n\r\ngauze which held things and kept them softly in its mesh, only gently\r\n\r\nswaying them this way and that. And as happens sometimes when the\r\n\r\nweather is very fine, the cliffs looked as if they were conscious of\r\n\r\nthe ships, and the ships looked as if they were conscious of the\r\n\r\ncliffs, as if they signalled to each other some message of their own.\r\n\r\nFor sometimes quite close to the shore, the Lighthouse looked this\r\n\r\nmorning in the haze an enormous distance away.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Where are they now?\" Lily thought, looking out to sea. Where was he,\r\n\r\nthat very old man who had gone past her silently, holding a brown paper\r\n\r\nparcel under his arm? The boat was in the middle of the bay.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n9\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey don't feel a thing there, Cam thought, looking at the shore,\r\n\r\nwhich, rising and falling, became steadily more distant and more\r\n\r\npeaceful. Her hand cut a trail in the sea, as her mind made the green\r\n\r\nswirls and streaks into patterns and, numbed and shrouded, wandered in\r\n\r\nimagination in that underworld of waters where the pearls stuck in\r\n\r\nclusters to white sprays, where in the green light a change came over\r\n\r\none's entire mind and one's body shone half transparent enveloped in a\r\n\r\ngreen cloak.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThen the eddy slackened round her hand. The rush of the water ceased;\r\n\r\nthe world became full of little creaking and squeaking sounds. One\r\n\r\nheard the waves breaking and flapping against the side of the boat as\r\n\r\nif they were anchored in harbour. Everything became very close to one.\r\n\r\nFor the sail, upon which James had his eyes fixed until it had become\r\n\r\nto him like a person whom he knew, sagged entirely; there they came to\r\n\r\na stop, flapping about waiting for a breeze, in the hot sun, miles from\r\n\r\nshore, miles from the Lighthouse. Everything in the whole world seemed\r\n\r\nto stand still. The Lighthouse became immovable, and the line of the\r\n\r\ndistant shore became fixed. The sun grew hotter and everybody seemed\r\n\r\nto come very close together and to feel each other's presence, which\r\n\r\nthey had almost forgotten. Macalister's fishing line went plumb down\r\n\r\ninto the sea. But Mr. Ramsay went on reading with his legs curled under\r\n\r\nhim.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was reading a little shiny book with covers mottled like a plover's\r\n\r\negg. Now and again, as they hung about in that horrid calm, he turned\r\n\r\na page. And James felt that each page was turned with a peculiar\r\n\r\ngesture aimed at him; now assertively, now commandingly; now with the\r\n\r\nintention of making people pity him; and all the time, as his father\r\n\r\nread and turned one after another of those little pages, James kept\r\n\r\ndreading the moment when he would look up and speak sharply to him\r\n\r\nabout something or other. Why were they lagging about here? he would\r\n\r\ndemand, or something quite unreasonable like that. And if he does,\r\n\r\nJames thought, then I shall take a knife and strike him to the heart.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe had always kept this old symbol of taking a knife and striking\r\n\r\nhis father to the heart. Only now, as he grew older, and sat\r\n\r\nstaring at his father in an impotent rage, it was not him, that old\r\n\r\nman reading, whom he wanted to kill, but it was the thing that\r\n\r\ndescended on him--without his knowing it perhaps: that fierce sudden\r\n\r\nblack-winged harpy, with its talons and its beak all cold and hard,\r\n\r\nthat struck and struck at you (he could feel the beak on his bare legs,\r\n\r\nwhere it had struck when he was a child) and then made off, and there\r\n\r\nhe was again, an old man, very sad, reading his book. That he would\r\n\r\nkill, that he would strike to the heart. Whatever he did--(and he\r\n\r\nmight do anything, he felt, looking at the Lighthouse and the distant\r\n\r\nshore) whether he was in a business, in a bank, a barrister, a man at\r\n\r\nthe head of some enterprise, that he would fight, that he would track\r\n\r\ndown and stamp out--tyranny, despotism, he called it--making people\r\n\r\ndo what they did not want to do, cutting off their right to speak. How\r\n\r\ncould any of them say, But I won't, when he said, Come to the\r\n\r\nLighthouse. Do this. Fetch me that. The black wings spread, and the\r\n\r\nhard beak tore. And then next moment, there he sat reading his book;\r\n\r\nand he might look up--one never knew--quite reasonably. He might talk\r\n\r\nto the Macalisters. He might be pressing a sovereign into some frozen\r\n\r\nold woman's hand in the street, James thought, and he might be shouting\r\n\r\nout at some fisherman's sports; he might be waving his arms in the air\r\n\r\nwith excitement. Or he might sit at the head of the table dead silent\r\n\r\nfrom one end of dinner to the other. Yes, thought James, while the\r\n\r\nboat slapped and dawdled there in the hot sun; there was a waste of\r\n\r\nsnow and rock very lonely and austere; and there he had come to feel,\r\n\r\nquite often lately, when his father said something or did something\r\n\r\nwhich surprised the others, there were two pairs of footprints only;\r\n\r\nhis own and his father's. They alone knew each other. What then was\r\n\r\nthis terror, this hatred?[footnote]See note 2 on Woolf\u2019s brother Adrian Stephen and his relationship with his father. Adrian became a Freudian psychoanalyst, and many critics have noted the Oedipal conflict between James and Mr. Ramsay here.[\/footnote] Turning back among the many leaves\r\n\r\nwhich the past had folded in him, peering into the heart of that\r\n\r\nforest where light and shade so chequer each other that all shape\r\n\r\nis distorted, and one blunders, now with the sun in one's eyes,\r\n\r\nnow with a dark shadow, he sought an image to cool and detach and round\r\n\r\noff his feeling in a concrete shape. Suppose then that as a child\r\n\r\nsitting helpless in a perambulator, or on some one's knee, he had seen\r\n\r\na waggon crush ignorantly and innocently, some one's foot? Suppose he\r\n\r\nhad seen the foot first, in the grass, smooth, and whole; then the\r\n\r\nwheel; and the same foot, purple, crushed. But the wheel was innocent.\r\n\r\nSo now, when his father came striding down the passage knocking them up\r\n\r\nearly in the morning to go to the Lighthouse down it came over his\r\n\r\nfoot, over Cam's foot, over anybody's foot. One sat and watched it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut whose foot was he thinking of, and in what garden did all this\r\n\r\nhappen? For one had settings for these scenes; trees that grew there;\r\n\r\nflowers; a certain light; a few figures. Everything tended to set\r\n\r\nitself in a garden where there was none of this gloom. None of this\r\n\r\nthrowing of hands about; people spoke in an ordinary tone of voice.\r\n\r\nThey went in and out all day long. There was an old woman gossiping in\r\n\r\nthe kitchen; and the blinds were sucked in and out by the breeze; all\r\n\r\nwas blowing, all was growing; and over all those plates and bowls and\r\n\r\ntall brandishing red and yellow flowers a very thin yellow veil would\r\n\r\nbe drawn, like a vine leaf, at night. Things became stiller and darker\r\n\r\nat night. But the leaf-like veil was so fine, that lights lifted it,\r\n\r\nvoices crinkled it; he could see through it a figure stooping, hear,\r\n\r\ncoming close, going away, some dress rustling, some chain tinkling.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was in this world that the wheel went over the person's foot.\r\n\r\nSomething, he remembered, stayed flourished up in the air, something\r\n\r\narid and sharp descended even there, like a blade, a scimitar, smiting\r\n\r\nthrough the leaves and flowers even of that happy world and making it\r\n\r\nshrivel and fall.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"It will rain,\" he remembered his father saying. \"You won't be able to\r\n\r\ngo to the Lighthouse.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow\r\n\r\neye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now--\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJames looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks;\r\n\r\nthe tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with\r\n\r\nblack and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing\r\n\r\nspread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNo, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one\r\n\r\nthing. The other Lighthouse was true too. It was sometimes hardly to\r\n\r\nbe seen across the bay. In the evening one looked up and saw the eye\r\n\r\nopening and shutting and the light seemed to reach them in that airy\r\n\r\nsunny garden where they sat.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut he pulled himself up. Whenever he said \"they\" or \"a person,\" and\r\n\r\nthen began hearing the rustle of some one coming, the tinkle of some\r\n\r\none going, he became extremely sensitive to the presence of whoever\r\n\r\nmight be in the room. It was his father now. The strain was acute.\r\n\r\nFor in one moment if there was no breeze, his father would slap the\r\n\r\ncovers of his book together, and say: \"What's happening now? What are\r\n\r\nwe dawdling about here for, eh?\" as, once before he had brought his\r\n\r\nblade down among them on the terrace and she had gone stiff all over,\r\n\r\nand if there had been an axe handy, a knife, or anything with a sharp\r\n\r\npoint he would have seized it and struck his father through the heart.\r\n\r\nShe had gone stiff all over, and then, her arm slackening, so that he\r\n\r\nfelt she listened to him no longer, she had risen somehow and gone away\r\n\r\nand left him there, impotent, ridiculous, sitting on the floor grasping\r\n\r\na pair of scissors.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNot a breath of wind blew. The water chuckled and gurgled in the\r\n\r\nbottom of the boat where three or four mackerel beat their tails up and\r\n\r\ndown in a pool of water not deep enough to cover them. At any moment\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay (he scarcely dared look at him) might rouse himself, shut his\r\n\r\nbook, and say something sharp; but for the moment he was reading, so\r\n\r\nthat James stealthily, as if he were stealing downstairs on bare feet,\r\n\r\nafraid of waking a watchdog by a creaking board, went on thinking what\r\n\r\nwas she like, where did she go that day? He began following her from\r\n\r\nroom to room and at last they came to a room where in a blue light, as\r\n\r\nif the reflection came from many china dishes, she talked to somebody;\r\n\r\nhe listened to her talking. She talked to a servant, saying simply\r\n\r\nwhatever came into her head. She alone spoke the truth; to her alone\r\n\r\ncould he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction\r\n\r\nfor him, perhaps; she was a person to whom one could say what came into\r\n\r\none's head. But all the time he thought of her, he was conscious of\r\n\r\nhis father following his thought, surveying it, making it shiver and\r\n\r\nfalter. At last he ceased to think.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere he sat with his hand on the tiller in the sun, staring at the\r\n\r\nLighthouse, powerless to move, powerless to flick off these grains of\r\n\r\nmisery which settled on his mind one after another. A rope seemed to\r\n\r\nbind him there, and his father had knotted it and he could only escape\r\n\r\nby taking a knife and plunging it... But at that moment the sail\r\n\r\nswung slowly round, filled slowly out, the boat seemed to shake\r\n\r\nherself, and then to move off half conscious in her sleep, and then she\r\n\r\nwoke and shot through the waves. The relief was extraordinary. They\r\n\r\nall seemed to fall away from each other again and to be at their\r\n\r\nease, and the fishing-lines slanted taut across the side of the\r\n\r\nboat. But his father did not rouse himself. He only raised his right\r\n\r\nhand mysteriously high in the air, and let it fall upon his knee again\r\n\r\nas if he were conducting some secret symphony.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n10\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[The sea without a stain on it, thought Lily Briscoe, still standing\r\n\r\nand looking out over the bay. The sea stretched like silk across the\r\n\r\nbay. Distance had an extraordinary power; they had been swallowed up\r\n\r\nin it, she felt, they were gone for ever, they had become part of the\r\n\r\nnature of things. It was so calm; it was so quiet. The steamer itself\r\n\r\nhad vanished, but the great scroll of smoke still hung in the air and\r\n\r\ndrooped like a flag mournfully in valediction.]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n11\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was like that then, the island, thought Cam, once more drawing her\r\n\r\nfingers through the waves. She had never seen it from out at sea\r\n\r\nbefore. It lay like that on the sea, did it, with a dent in the middle\r\n\r\nand two sharp crags, and the sea swept in there, and spread away for\r\n\r\nmiles and miles on either side of the island. It was very small;\r\n\r\nshaped something like a leaf stood on end. So we took a little boat,\r\n\r\nshe thought, beginning to tell herself a story of adventure about\r\n\r\nescaping from a sinking ship. But with the sea streaming through her\r\n\r\nfingers, a spray of seaweed vanishing behind them, she did not want to\r\n\r\ntell herself seriously a story; it was the sense of adventure and\r\n\r\nescape that she wanted, for she was thinking, as the boat sailed on,\r\n\r\nhow her father's anger about the points of the compass, James's\r\n\r\nobstinacy about the compact, and her own anguish, all had slipped, all\r\n\r\nhad passed, all had streamed away. What then came next? Where were\r\n\r\nthey going? From her hand, ice cold, held deep in the sea, there\r\n\r\nspurted up a fountain of joy at the change, at the escape, at the\r\n\r\nadventure (that she should be alive, that she should be there). And\r\n\r\nthe drops falling from this sudden and unthinking fountain of joy fell\r\n\r\nhere and there on the dark, the slumbrous shapes in her mind; shapes of\r\n\r\na world not realised but turning in their darkness, catching here and\r\n\r\nthere, a spark of light; Greece, Rome, Constantinople.[footnote]Istanbul; see note 85.[\/footnote] Small as it\r\n\r\nwas, and shaped something like a leaf stood on its end with the gold-\r\n\r\nsprinkled waters flowing in and about it, it had, she supposed, a place\r\n\r\nin the universe--even that little island? The old gentlemen in the\r\n\r\nstudy she thought could have told her. Sometimes she strayed in from\r\n\r\nthe garden purposely to catch them at it. There they were (it might be\r\n\r\nMr. Carmichael or Mr. Bankes who was sitting with her father) sitting\r\n\r\nopposite each other in their low arm-chairs. They were crackling in\r\n\r\nfront of them the pages of The Times<\/i>, when she came in from the garden,\r\n\r\nall in a muddle, about something some one had said about Christ, or\r\n\r\nhearing that a mammoth had been dug up in a London street, or wondering\r\n\r\nwhat Napoleon[footnote]Napoleon Bonaparte; see note 110.[\/footnote] was like. Then they took all this with their clean hands\r\n\r\n(they wore grey-coloured clothes; they smelt of heather) and they\r\n\r\nbrushed the scraps together, turning the paper, crossing their knees,\r\n\r\nand said something now and then very brief. Just to please herself she\r\n\r\nwould take a book from the shelf and stand there, watching her father\r\n\r\nwrite, so equally, so neatly from one side of the page to another, with\r\n\r\na little cough now and then, or something said briefly to the other old\r\n\r\ngentleman opposite. And she thought, standing there with her book open,\r\n\r\none could let whatever one thought expand here like a leaf in water;\r\n\r\nand if it did well here, among the old gentlemen smoking and The Times<\/i>\r\n\r\ncrackling then it was right. And watching her father as he wrote in\r\n\r\nhis study, she thought (now sitting in the boat) he was not vain, nor a\r\n\r\ntyrant and did not wish to make you pity him. Indeed, if he saw she\r\n\r\nwas there, reading a book, he would ask her, as gently as any one\r\n\r\ncould, Was there nothing he could give her?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLest this should be wrong, she looked at him reading the little book\r\n\r\nwith the shiny cover mottled like a plover's egg. No; it was right.\r\n\r\nLook at him now, she wanted to say aloud to James. (But James had his\r\n\r\neye on the sail.) He is a sarcastic brute, James would say. He brings\r\n\r\nthe talk round to himself and his books, James would say. He is\r\n\r\nintolerably egotistical. Worst of all, he is a tyrant. But look! she\r\n\r\nsaid, looking at him. Look at him now. She looked at him reading the\r\n\r\nlittle book with his legs curled; the little book whose yellowish pages\r\n\r\nshe knew, without knowing what was written on them. It was small; it\r\n\r\nwas closely printed; on the fly-leaf, she knew, he had written that he\r\n\r\nhad spent fifteen francs on dinner; the wine had been so much; he had\r\n\r\ngiven so much to the waiter; all was added up neatly at the bottom of\r\n\r\nthe page. But what might be written in the book which had rounded its\r\n\r\nedges off in his pocket, she did not know. What he thought they none\r\n\r\nof them knew. But he was absorbed in it, so that when he looked up, as\r\n\r\nhe did now for an instant, it was not to see anything; it was to pin\r\n\r\ndown some thought more exactly. That done, his mind flew back again\r\n\r\nand he plunged into his reading. He read, she thought, as if he were\r\n\r\nguiding something, or wheedling a large flock of sheep, or pushing his\r\n\r\nway up and up a single narrow path; and sometimes he went fast and\r\n\r\nstraight, and broke his way through the bramble, and sometimes it\r\n\r\nseemed a branch struck at him, a bramble blinded him, but he was not\r\n\r\ngoing to let himself be beaten by that; on he went, tossing over page\r\n\r\nafter page. And she went on telling herself a story about escaping\r\n\r\nfrom a sinking ship, for she was safe, while he sat there; safe, as she\r\n\r\nfelt herself when she crept in from the garden, and took a book\r\n\r\ndown, and the old gentleman, lowering the paper suddenly, said\r\n\r\nsomething very brief over the top of it about the character of Napoleon.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe gazed back over the sea, at the island. But the leaf was losing\r\n\r\nits sharpness. It was very small; it was very distant. The sea was\r\n\r\nmore important now than the shore. Waves were all round them, tossing\r\n\r\nand sinking, with a log wallowing down one wave; a gull riding on\r\n\r\nanother. About here, she thought, dabbling her fingers in the water, a\r\n\r\nship had sunk, and she murmured, dreamily half asleep, how we perished,\r\n\r\neach alone.[footnote]Cowper, as Mr. Ramsay has previously quoted; see note 113.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n12\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSo much depends then, thought Lily Briscoe, looking at the sea which\r\n\r\nhad scarcely a stain on it, which was so soft that the sails and the\r\n\r\nclouds seemed set in its blue, so much depends, she thought, upon\r\n\r\ndistance: whether people are near us or far from us; for her feeling\r\n\r\nfor Mr. Ramsay changed as he sailed further and further across the bay.\r\n\r\nIt seemed to be elongated, stretched out; he seemed to become more and\r\n\r\nmore remote. He and his children seemed to be swallowed up in that\r\n\r\nblue, that distance; but here, on the lawn, close at hand, Mr.\r\n\r\nCarmichael suddenly grunted. She laughed. He clawed his book up from\r\n\r\nthe grass. He settled into his chair again puffing and blowing like\r\n\r\nsome sea monster. That was different altogether, because he was so\r\n\r\nnear. And now again all was quiet. They must be out of bed by this\r\n\r\ntime, she supposed, looking at the house, but nothing appeared there.\r\n\r\nBut then, she remembered, they had always made off directly a meal was\r\n\r\nover, on business of their own. It was all in keeping with this\r\n\r\nsilence, this emptiness, and the unreality of the early morning hour.\r\n\r\nIt was a way things had sometimes, she thought, lingering for a moment\r\n\r\nand looking at the long glittering windows and the plume of blue smoke:\r\n\r\nthey became illness, before habits had spun themselves across the\r\n\r\nsurface, one felt that same unreality, which was so startling; felt\r\n\r\nsomething emerge. Life was most vivid then. One could be at one's\r\n\r\nease. Mercifully one need not say, very briskly, crossing the lawn to\r\n\r\ngreet old Mrs. Beckwith, who would be coming out to find a corner to sit\r\n\r\nin, \"Oh, good-morning, Mrs. Beckwith! What a lovely day! Are you going\r\n\r\nto be so bold as to sit in the sun? Jasper's hidden the chairs. Do\r\n\r\nlet me find you one!\" and all the rest of the usual chatter. One need\r\n\r\nnot speak at all. One glided, one shook one's sails (there was a good\r\n\r\ndeal of movement in the bay, boats were starting off) between things,\r\n\r\nbeyond things. Empty it was not, but full to the brim. She seemed to\r\n\r\nbe standing up to the lips in some substance, to move and float and\r\n\r\nsink in it, yes, for these waters were unfathomably deep. Into them\r\n\r\nhad spilled so many lives. The Ramsays'; the children's; and all sorts\r\n\r\nof waifs and strays of things besides. A washer-woman with her basket;\r\n\r\na rook, a red-hot poker[footnote]A flower; see note 28.[\/footnote]; the purples and grey-greens of flowers: some\r\n\r\ncommon feeling which held the whole together.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt was some such feeling of completeness perhaps which, ten years ago,\r\n\r\nstanding almost where she stood now, had made her say that she must be\r\n\r\nin love with the place. Love had a thousand shapes. There might be\r\n\r\nlovers whose gift it was to choose out the elements of things and place\r\n\r\nthem together and so, giving them a wholeness not theirs in life, make\r\n\r\nof some scene, or meeting of people (all now gone and separate), one of\r\n\r\nthose globed compacted things over which thought lingers, and love\r\n\r\nplays.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHer eyes rested on the brown speck of Mr. Ramsay's sailing boat. They\r\n\r\nwould be at the Lighthouse by lunch time she supposed. But the wind\r\n\r\nhad freshened, and, as the sky changed slightly and the sea changed\r\n\r\nslightly and the boats altered their positions, the view, which a\r\n\r\nmoment before had seemed miraculously fixed, was now unsatisfactory.\r\n\r\nThe wind had blown the trail of smoke about; there was something\r\n\r\ndispleasing about the placing of the ships.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe disproportion there seemed to upset some harmony in her own mind.\r\n\r\nShe felt an obscure distress. It was confirmed when she turned to her\r\n\r\npicture. She had been wasting her morning. For whatever reason she\r\n\r\ncould not achieve that razor edge of balance between two opposite\r\n\r\nforces; Mr. Ramsay and the picture; which was necessary. There was\r\n\r\nsomething perhaps wrong with the design? Was it, she wondered, that\r\n\r\nthe line of the wall wanted breaking, was it that the mass of the trees\r\n\r\nwas too heavy? She smiled ironically; for had she not thought, when\r\n\r\nshe began, that she had solved her problem?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat was the problem then? She must try to get hold of something tht\r\n\r\nevaded her. It evaded her when she thought of Mrs. Ramsay; it evaded\r\n\r\nher now when she thought of her picture. Phrases came. Visions came.\r\n\r\nBeautiful pictures. Beautiful phrases. But what she wished to get hold\r\n\r\nof was that very jar on the nerves, the thing itself before it has been\r\n\r\nmade anything. Get that and start afresh; get that and start afresh;\r\n\r\nshe said desperately, pitching herself firmly again before her easel.\r\n\r\nIt was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the\r\n\r\nhuman apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at\r\n\r\nthe critical moment; heroically, one must force it on. She stared,\r\n\r\nfrowning. There was the hedge, sure enough. But one got nothing by\r\n\r\nsoliciting urgently. One got only a glare in the eye from looking at\r\n\r\nthe line of the wall, or from thinking--she wore a grey hat. She was\r\n\r\nastonishingly beautiful. Let it come, she thought, if it will come.\r\n\r\nFor there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if\r\n\r\none can neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHere on the grass, on the ground, she thought, sitting down, and\r\n\r\nexamining with her brush a little colony of plantains.[footnote]A weedy herb with healing properties.[\/footnote] For the lawn\r\n\r\nwas very rough. Here sitting on the world, she thought, for she could\r\n\r\nnot shake herself free from the sense that everything this morning was\r\n\r\nhappening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a\r\n\r\ntraveller, even though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the\r\n\r\ntrain window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town,\r\n\r\nor that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again. The\r\n\r\nlawn was the world; they were up here together, on this exalted\r\n\r\nstation, she thought, looking at old Mr. Carmichael, who seemed (though\r\n\r\nthey had not said a word all this time) to share her thoughts. And she\r\n\r\nwould never see him again perhaps. He was growing old. Also, she\r\n\r\nremembered, smiling at the slipper that dangled from his foot, he was\r\n\r\ngrowing famous. People said that his poetry was \"so beautiful.\" They\r\n\r\nwent and published things he had written forty years ago. There was a\r\n\r\nfamous man now called Carmichael, she smiled, thinking how many shapes\r\n\r\none person might wear, how he was that in the newspapers, but here the\r\n\r\nsame as he had always been. He looked the same--greyer, rather.\r\n\r\nYes, he looked the same, but somebody had said, she recalled, that when\r\n\r\nhe had heard of Andrew Ramsay's death (he was killed in a second by a\r\n\r\nshell; he should have been a great mathematician) Mr. Carmichael had\r\n\r\n\"lost all interest in life.\" What did it mean--that? she wondered. Had\r\n\r\nhe marched through Trafalgar Square grasping a big stick? Had he\r\n\r\nturned pages over and over, without reading them, sitting in his room\r\n\r\nin St. John's Wood alone? She did not know what he had done, when he\r\n\r\nheard that Andrew was killed, but she felt it in him all the same.\r\n\r\nThey only mumbled at each other on staircases; they looked up at the\r\n\r\nsky and said it will be fine or it won't be fine. But this was one way\r\n\r\nof knowing people, she thought: to know the outline, not the detail, to\r\n\r\nsit in one's garden and look at the slopes of a hill running purple\r\n\r\ndown into the distant heather. She knew him in that way. She knew\r\n\r\nthat he had changed somehow. She had never read a line of his poetry.\r\n\r\nShe thought that she knew how it went though, slowly and sonorously.\r\n\r\nIt was seasoned and mellow. It was about the desert and the camel. It\r\n\r\nwas about the palm tree and the sunset. It was extremely impersonal;\r\n\r\nit said something about death; it said very little about love. There\r\n\r\nwas an impersonality about him. He wanted very little of other people.\r\n\r\nHad he not always lurched rather awkwardly past the drawing-room window\r\n\r\nwith some newspaper under his arm, trying to avoid Mrs. Ramsay whom for\r\n\r\nsome reason he did not much like? On that account, of course, she\r\n\r\nwould always try to make him stop. He would bow to her. He would halt\r\n\r\nunwillingly and bow profoundly. Annoyed that he did not want anything\r\n\r\nof her, Mrs. Ramsay would ask him (Lily could hear her) wouldn't he like\r\n\r\na coat, a rug, a newspaper? No, he wanted nothing. (Here he bowed.)\r\n\r\nThere was some quality in her which he did not much like. It was\r\n\r\nperhaps her masterfulness, her positiveness, something matter-of-fact\r\n\r\nin her. She was so direct.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n(A noise drew her attention to the drawing-room window--the squeak of a\r\n\r\nhinge. The light breeze was toying with the window.)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere must have been people who disliked her very much, Lily thought\r\n\r\n(Yes; she realised that the drawing-room step was empty, but it had no\r\n\r\neffect on her whatever. She did not want Mrs. Ramsay now.)--People who\r\n\r\nthought her too sure, too drastic.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAlso, her beauty offended people probably. How monotonous, they would\r\n\r\nsay, and the same always! They preferred another type--the dark, the\r\n\r\nvivacious. Then she was weak with her husband. She let him make those\r\n\r\nscenes. Then she was reserved. Nobody knew exactly what had happened\r\n\r\nto her. And (to go back to Mr. Carmichael and his dislike) one could not\r\n\r\nimagine Mrs. Ramsay standing painting, lying reading, a whole morning on\r\n\r\nthe lawn. It was unthinkable. Without saying a word, the only token of\r\n\r\nher errand a basket on her arm, she went off to the town, to the poor,\r\n\r\nto sit in some stuffy little bedroom. Often and often Lily had seen\r\n\r\nher go silently in the midst of some game, some discussion, with her\r\n\r\nbasket on her arm, very upright. She had noted her return. She had\r\n\r\nthought, half laughing (she was so methodical with the tea cups), half\r\n\r\nmoved (her beauty took one's breath away), eyes that are closing in\r\n\r\npain have looked on you. You have been with them there.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd then Mrs. Ramsay would be annoyed because somebody was late, or the\r\n\r\nbutter not fresh, or the teapot chipped. And all the time she was\r\n\r\nsaying that the butter was not fresh one would be thinking of Greek\r\n\r\ntemples, and how beauty had been with them there in that stuffy little\r\n\r\nroom. She never talked of it--she went, punctually, directly. It was\r\n\r\nher instinct to go, an instinct like the swallows for the south, the\r\n\r\nartichokes for the sun, turning her infallibly to the human race,\r\n\r\nmaking her nest in its heart. And this, like all instincts, was a\r\n\r\nlittle distressing to people who did not share it; to Mr. Carmichael\r\n\r\nperhaps, to herself certainly. Some notion was in both of them about\r\n\r\nthe ineffectiveness of action, the supremacy of thought. Her going was\r\n\r\na reproach to them, gave a different twist to the world, so that they\r\n\r\nwere led to protest, seeing their own prepossessions disappear, and\r\n\r\nclutch at them vanishing. Charles Tansley did that too: it was part of\r\n\r\nthe reason why one disliked him. He upset the proportions of one's\r\n\r\nworld. And what had happened to him, she wondered, idly stirring the\r\n\r\nplantains[footnote]Weeds; see note 160.[\/footnote] with her brush. He had got his fellowship. He had married;\r\n\r\nhe lived at Golder's Green.[footnote]Golders Green is a then relatively new, and predominantly Jewish, suburb of London.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had gone one day into a Hall and heard him speaking during the war.\r\n\r\nHe was denouncing something: he was condemning somebody. He was\r\n\r\npreaching brotherly love. And all she felt was how could he love his\r\n\r\nkind who did not know one picture from another, who had stood behind\r\n\r\nher smoking shag[footnote]Cheap tobacco; see note 13.[\/footnote] (\"fivepence an ounce, Miss Briscoe\") and making it his\r\n\r\nbusiness to tell her women can't write, women can't paint, not so much\r\n\r\nthat he believed it, as that for some odd reason he wished it? There\r\n\r\nhe was lean and red and raucous, preaching love from a platform (there\r\n\r\nwere ants crawling about among the plantains which she disturbed with\r\n\r\nher brush--red, energetic, shiny ants, rather like Charles Tansley).\r\n\r\nShe had looked at him ironically from her seat in the half-empty hall,\r\n\r\npumping love into that chilly space, and suddenly, there was the old\r\n\r\ncask or whatever it was bobbing up and down among the waves and Mrs.\r\n\r\nRamsay looking for her spectacle case among the pebbles. \"Oh, dear!\r\n\r\nWhat a nuisance! Lost again. Don't bother, Mr. Tansley. I lose\r\n\r\nthousands every summer,\" at which he pressed his chin back against his\r\n\r\ncollar, as if afraid to sanction such exaggeration, but could stand it\r\n\r\nin her whom he liked, and smiled very charmingly. He must have\r\n\r\nconfided in her on one of those long expeditions when people got\r\n\r\nseparated and walked back alone. He was educating his little sister,\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay had told her. It was immensely to his credit. Her own idea\r\n\r\nof him was grotesque, Lily knew well, stirring the plantains[footnote]Weeds; see note 160.[\/footnote] with her\r\n\r\nbrush. Half one's notions of other people were, after all, grotesque.\r\n\r\nThey served private purposes of one's own. He did for her instead of a\r\n\r\nwhipping-boy. She found herself flagellating his lean flanks when she\r\n\r\nwas out of temper. If she wanted to be serious about him she had to\r\n\r\nhelp herself to Mrs. Ramsay's sayings, to look at him through her eyes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe raised a little mountain for the ants to climb over. She reduced\r\n\r\nthem to a frenzy of indecision by this interference in their cosmogony.\r\n\r\nSome ran this way, others that.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOne wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she reflected. Fifty pairs\r\n\r\nof eyes were not enough to get round that one woman with, she thought.\r\n\r\nAmong them, must be one that was stone blind to her beauty. One wanted\r\n\r\nmost some secret sense, fine as air, with which to steal through\r\n\r\nkeyholes and surround her where she sat knitting, talking, sitting\r\n\r\nsilent in the window alone; which took to itself and treasured up like\r\n\r\nthe air which held the smoke of the steamer, her thoughts, her\r\n\r\nimaginations, her desires. What did the hedge mean to her, what did\r\n\r\nthe garden mean to her, what did it mean to her when a wave broke?\r\n\r\n(Lily looked up, as she had seen Mrs. Ramsay look up; she too heard a\r\n\r\nwave falling on the beach.) And then what stirred and trembled in her\r\n\r\nmind when the children cried, \"How's that? How's that?\" cricketing?\r\n\r\nShe would stop knitting for a second. She would look intent. Then she\r\n\r\nwould lapse again, and suddenly Mr. Ramsay stopped dead in his pacing in\r\n\r\nfront of her and some curious shock passed through her and seemed to\r\n\r\nrock her in profound agitation on its breast when stopping there he\r\n\r\nstood over her and looked down at her. Lily could see him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe stretched out his hand and raised her from her chair. It seemed\r\n\r\nsomehow as if he had done it before; as if he had once bent in the same\r\n\r\nway and raised her from a boat which, lying a few inches off some\r\n\r\nisland, had required that the ladies should thus be helped on shore by\r\n\r\nthe gentlemen. An old-fashioned scene that was, which required,\r\n\r\nvery nearly, crinolines and peg-top trousers. Letting herself be\r\n\r\nhelped by him, Mrs. Ramsay had thought (Lily supposed) the time\r\n\r\nhas come now. Yes, she would say it now. Yes, she would marry him.\r\n\r\nAnd she stepped slowly, quietly on shore. Probably she said one\r\n\r\nword only, letting her hand rest still in his. I will marry you,\r\n\r\nshe might have said, with her hand in his; but no more. Time\r\n\r\nafter time the same thrill had passed between them--obviously it\r\n\r\nhad, Lily thought, smoothing a way for her ants. She was not\r\n\r\ninventing; she was only trying to smooth out something she had been\r\n\r\ngiven years ago folded up; something she had seen. For in the rough\r\n\r\nand tumble of daily life, with all those children about, all those\r\n\r\nvisitors, one had constantly a sense of repetition--of one thing\r\n\r\nfalling where another had fallen, and so setting up an echo which\r\n\r\nchimed in the air and made it full of vibrations.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut it would be a mistake, she thought, thinking how they walked off\r\n\r\ntogether, arm in arm, past the greenhouse, to simplify their\r\n\r\nrelationship. It was no monotony of bliss--she with her impulses and\r\n\r\nquicknesses; he with his shudders and glooms. Oh, no. The bedroom door\r\n\r\nwould slam violently early in the morning. He would start from the\r\n\r\ntable in a temper. He would whizz his plate through the window. Then\r\n\r\nall through the house there would be a sense of doors slamming and\r\n\r\nblinds fluttering, as if a gusty wind were blowing and people scudded\r\n\r\nabout trying in a hasty way to fasten hatches and make things ship-\r\n\r\nshape. She had met Paul Rayley like that one day on the stairs.\r\n\r\nThey had laughed and laughed, like a couple of children, all because\r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay, finding an earwig in his milk at breakfast had sent the\r\n\r\nwhole thing flying through the air on to the terrace outside. 'An earwig,\r\n\r\nPrue murmured, awestruck, 'in his milk.' Other people might find\r\n\r\ncentipedes. But he had built round him such a fence of sanctity, and\r\n\r\noccupied the space with such a demeanour of majesty that an earwig\r\n\r\nin his milk was a monster.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut it tired Mrs. Ramsay, it cowed her a little--the plates whizzing\r\n\r\nand the doors slamming. And there would fall between them sometimes\r\n\r\nlong rigid silences, when, in a state of mind which annoyed Lily\r\n\r\nin her, half plaintive, half resentful, she seemed unable to surmount\r\n\r\nthe tempest calmly, or to laugh as they laughed, but in her weariness\r\n\r\nperhaps concealed something. She brooded and sat silent. After a\r\n\r\ntime he would hang stealthily about the places where she was--roaming\r\n\r\nunder the window where she sat writing letters or talking, for she\r\n\r\nwould take care to be busy when he passed, and evade him, and pretend\r\n\r\nnot to see him. Then he would turn smooth as silk, affable, urbane,\r\n\r\nand try to win her so. Still she would hold off, and now she would\r\n\r\nassert for a brief season some of those prides and airs the due\r\n\r\nof her beauty which she was generally utterly without; would turn\r\n\r\nher head; would look so, over her shoulder, always with some\r\n\r\nMinta, Paul, or William Bankes at her side. At length, standing\r\n\r\noutside the group the very figure of a famished wolfhound (Lily got up\r\n\r\noff the grass and stood looking at the steps, at the window, where she\r\n\r\nhad seen him), he would say her name, once only, for all the world like\r\n\r\na wolf barking in the snow, but still she held back; and he would say\r\n\r\nit once more, and this time something in the tone would rouse her, and\r\n\r\nshe would go to him, leaving them all of a sudden, and they would walk\r\n\r\noff together among the pear trees, the cabbages, and the raspberry\r\n\r\nbeds. They would have it out together. But with what attitudes and\r\n\r\nwith what words? Such a dignity was theirs in this relationship that,\r\n\r\nturning away, she and Paul and Minta would hide their curiosity and\r\n\r\ntheir discomfort, and begin picking flowers, throwing balls,\r\n\r\nchattering, until it was time for dinner, and there they were, he at\r\n\r\none end of the table, she at the other, as usual.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Why don't some of you take up botany?.. With all those legs and arms\r\n\r\nwhy doesn't one of you...?\" So they would talk as usual, laughing,\r\n\r\namong the children. All would be as usual, save only for some quiver,\r\n\r\nas of a blade in the air, which came and went between them as if\r\n\r\nthe usual sight of the children sitting round their soup plates\r\n\r\nhad freshened itself in their eyes after that hour among the pears and\r\n\r\nthe cabbages. Especially, Lily thought, Mrs. Ramsay would glance at\r\n\r\nPrue. She sat in the middle between brothers and sisters, always\r\n\r\noccupied, it seemed, seeing that nothing went wrong so that she\r\n\r\nscarcely spoke herself. How Prue must have blamed herself for that\r\n\r\nearwig in the milk How white she had gone when Mr. Ramsay threw his\r\n\r\nplate through the window! How she drooped under those long silences\r\n\r\nbetween them! Anyhow, her mother now would seem to be making it up to\r\n\r\nher; assuring her that everything was well; promising her that one of\r\n\r\nthese days that same happiness would be hers. She had enjoyed it for\r\n\r\nless than a year, however.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe had let the flowers fall from her basket, Lily thought, screwing up\r\n\r\nher eyes and standing back as if to look at her picture, which she was\r\n\r\nnot touching, however, with all her faculties in a trance, frozen over\r\n\r\nsuperficially but moving underneath with extreme speed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe let her flowers fall from her basket, scattered and tumbled them on\r\n\r\nto the grass and, reluctantly and hesitatingly, but without question or\r\n\r\ncomplaint--had she not the faculty of obedience to perfection?--went\r\n\r\ntoo. Down fields, across valleys, white, flower-strewn--that was\r\n\r\nhow she would have painted it. The hills were austere. It was rocky;\r\n\r\nit was steep. The waves sounded hoarse on the stones beneath. They\r\n\r\nwent, the three of them together, Mrs. Ramsay walking rather fast in\r\n\r\nfront, as if she expected to meet some one round the corner.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSuddenly the window at which she was looking was whitened by some light\r\n\r\nstuff behind it. At last then somebody had come into the drawing-room;\r\n\r\nsomebody was sitting in the chair. For Heaven's sake, she prayed, let\r\n\r\nthem sit still there and not come floundering out to talk to her.\r\n\r\nMercifully, whoever it was stayed still inside; had settled by some\r\n\r\nstroke of luck so as to throw an odd-shaped triangular shadow over the\r\n\r\nstep. It altered the composition of the picture a little. It was\r\n\r\ninteresting. It might be useful. Her mood was coming back to her. One\r\n\r\nmust keep on looking without for a second relaxing the intensity of\r\n\r\nemotion, the determination not to be put off, not to be bamboozled.\r\n\r\nOne must hold the scene--so--in a vise and let nothing come in and\r\n\r\nspoil it. One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to\r\n\r\nbe on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that's a chair,\r\n\r\nthat's a table, and yet at the same time, It's a miracle, it's an\r\n\r\necstasy. The problem might be solved after all. Ah, but what had\r\n\r\nhappened? Some wave of white went over the window pane. The air must\r\n\r\nhave stirred some flounce in the room. Her heart leapt at her and\r\n\r\nseized her and tortured her.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!\" she cried, feeling the old horror come\r\n\r\nback--to want and want and not to have. Could she inflict that still?\r\n\r\nAnd then, quietly, as if she refrained, that too became part of\r\n\r\nordinary experience, was on a level with the chair, with the table.\r\n\r\nMrs. Ramsay--it was part of her perfect goodness--sat there quite\r\n\r\nsimply, in the chair, flicked her needles to and fro, knitted her\r\n\r\nreddish-brown stocking, cast her shadow on the step. There she sat.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd as if she had something she must share, yet could hardly leave her\r\n\r\neasel, so full her mind was of what she was thinking, of what she was\r\n\r\nseeing, Lily went past Mr. Carmichael holding her brush to the edge of\r\n\r\nthe lawn. Where was that boat now? And Mr. Ramsay? She wanted him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n13\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay had almost done reading. One hand hovered over the page as\r\n\r\nif to be in readiness to turn it the very instant he had finished it.\r\n\r\nHe sat there bareheaded with the wind blowing his hair about,\r\n\r\nextraordinarily exposed to everything. He looked very old. He looked,\r\n\r\nJames thought, getting his head now against the Lighthouse, now against\r\n\r\nthe waste of waters running away into the open, like some old stone\r\n\r\nlying on the sand; he looked as if he had become physically what was\r\n\r\nalways at the back of both of their minds--that loneliness which was\r\n\r\nfor both of them the truth about things.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe was reading very quickly, as if he were eager to get to the end.\r\n\r\nIndeed they were very close to the Lighthouse now. There it loomed up,\r\n\r\nstark and straight, glaring white and black, and one could see the\r\n\r\nwaves breaking in white splinters like smashed glass upon the rocks.\r\n\r\nOne could see lines and creases in the rocks. One could see the\r\n\r\nwindows clearly; a dab of white on one of them, and a little tuft of\r\n\r\ngreen on the rock. A man had come out and looked at them through a\r\n\r\nglass and gone in again. So it was like that, James thought, the\r\n\r\nLighthouse one had seen across the bay all these years; it was a stark\r\n\r\ntower on a bare rock. It satisfied him. It confirmed some obscure\r\n\r\nfeeling of his about his own character. The old ladies, he thought,\r\n\r\nthinking of the garden at home, went dragging their chairs about on the\r\n\r\nlawn. Old Mrs. Beckwith, for example, was always saying how nice it was\r\n\r\nand how sweet it was and how they ought to be so proud and they ought\r\n\r\nto be so happy, but as a matter of fact, James thought, looking at the\r\n\r\nLighthouse stood there on its rock, it's like that. He looked at his\r\n\r\nfather reading fiercely with his legs curled tight. They shared that\r\n\r\nknowledge. \"We are driving before a gale--we must sink,\" he began\r\n\r\nsaying to himself, half aloud, exactly as his father said it.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNobody seemed to have spoken for an age. Cam was tired of looking at\r\n\r\nthe sea. Little bits of black cork had floated past; the fish were\r\n\r\ndead in the bottom of the boat. Still her father read, and James\r\n\r\nlooked at him and she looked at him, and they vowed that they would\r\n\r\nfight tyranny to the death, and he went on reading quite unconscious of\r\n\r\nwhat they thought. It was thus that he escaped, she thought. Yes,\r\n\r\nwith his great forehead and his great nose, holding his little mottled\r\n\r\nbook firmly in front of him, he escaped. You might try to lay hands on\r\n\r\nhim, but then like a bird, he spread his wings, he floated off to\r\n\r\nsettle out of your reach somewhere far away on some desolate stump.\r\n\r\nShe gazed at the immense expanse of the sea. The island had grown so\r\n\r\nsmall that it scarcely looked like a leaf any longer. It looked like\r\n\r\nthe top of a rock which some wave bigger than the rest would cover.\r\n\r\nYet in its frailty were all those paths, those terraces, those bedrooms--\r\n\r\nall those innumerable things. But as, just before sleep, things\r\n\r\nsimplify themselves so that only one of all the myriad details has\r\n\r\npower to assert itself, so, she felt, looking drowsily at the island,\r\n\r\nall those paths and terraces and bedrooms were fading and disappearing,\r\n\r\nand nothing was left but a pale blue censer swinging rhythmically this\r\n\r\nway and that across her mind. It was a hanging garden; it was a\r\n\r\nvalley, full of birds, and flowers, and antelopes... She was falling\r\n\r\nasleep.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Come now,\" said Mr. Ramsay, suddenly shutting his book.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCome where? To what extraordinary adventure? She woke with a start.\r\n\r\nTo land somewhere, to climb somewhere? Where was he leading them? For\r\n\r\nafter his immense silence the words startled them. But it was absurd.\r\n\r\nHe was hungry, he said. It was time for lunch. Besides, look, he\r\n\r\nsaid. \"There's the Lighthouse. We're almost there.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"He's doing very well,\" said Macalister, praising James. \"He's keeping\r\n\r\nher very steady.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut his father never praised him, James thought grimly.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay opened the parcel and shared out the sandwiches among them.\r\n\r\nNow he was happy, eating bread and cheese with these fishermen. He\r\n\r\nwould have liked to live in a cottage and lounge about in the harbour\r\n\r\nspitting with the other old men, James thought, watching him slice his\r\n\r\ncheese into thin yellow sheets with his penknife.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThis is right, this is it, Cam kept feeling, as she peeled her hard-\r\n\r\nboiled egg. Now she felt as she did in the study when the old men were\r\n\r\nreading The Times<\/i>. Now I can go on thinking whatever I like, and I\r\n\r\nshan't fall over a precipice or be drowned, for there he is, keeping\r\n\r\nhis eye on me, she thought.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAt the same time they were sailing so fast along by the rocks that it\r\n\r\nwas very exciting--it seemed as if they were doing two things at once;\r\n\r\nthey were eating their lunch here in the sun and they were also making\r\n\r\nfor safety in a great storm after a shipwreck. Would the water last?\r\n\r\nWould the provisions last? she asked herself, telling herself a story\r\n\r\nbut knowing at the same time what was the truth.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey would soon be out of it, Mr. Ramsay was saying to old Macalister;\r\n\r\nbut their children would see some strange things. Macalister said he\r\n\r\nwas seventy-five last March; Mr. Ramsay was seventy-one. Macalister said\r\n\r\nhe had never seen a doctor; he had never lost a tooth. And that's the\r\n\r\nway I'd like my children to live--Cam was sure that her father was\r\n\r\nthinking that, for he stopped her throwing a sandwich into the sea and\r\n\r\ntold her, as if he were thinking of the fishermen and how they lived,\r\n\r\nthat if she did not want it she should put it back in the parcel. She\r\n\r\nshould not waste it. He said it so wisely, as if he knew so well all\r\n\r\nthe things that happened in the world that she put it back at once, and\r\n\r\nthen he gave her, from his own parcel, a gingerbread nut, as if he were\r\n\r\na great Spanish gentleman, she thought, handing a flower to a lady at a\r\n\r\nwindow (so courteous his manner was). He was shabby, and simple,\r\n\r\neating bread and cheese; and yet he was leading them on a great\r\n\r\nexpedition where, for all she knew, they would be drowned.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"That was where she sunk,\" said Macalister's boy suddenly.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThree men were drowned where we are now, the old man said. He had seen\r\n\r\nthem clinging to the mast himself. And Mr. Ramsay taking a look at the\r\n\r\nspot was about, James and Cam were afraid, to burst out:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut I beneath a rougher sea,[footnote]Cowper, as before; see note 113.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nand if he did, they could not bear it; they would shriek aloud; they\r\n\r\ncould not endure another explosion of the passion that boiled in him;\r\n\r\nbut to their surprise all he said was \"Ah\" as if he thought to himself.\r\n\r\nBut why make a fuss about that? Naturally men are drowned in a storm,\r\n\r\nbut it is a perfectly straightforward affair, and the depths of the sea\r\n\r\n(he sprinkled the crumbs from his sandwich paper over them) are only\r\n\r\nwater after all. Then having lighted his pipe he took out his watch.\r\n\r\nHe looked at it attentively; he made, perhaps, some mathematical\r\n\r\ncalculation. At last he said, triumphantly:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Well done!\" James had steered them like a born sailor.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere! Cam thought, addressing herself silently to James. You've got\r\n\r\nit at last. For she knew that this was what James had been wanting,\r\n\r\nand she knew that now he had got it he was so pleased that he would not\r\n\r\nlook at her or at his father or at any one. There he sat with his hand\r\n\r\non the tiller sitting bolt upright, looking rather sulky and frowning\r\n\r\nslightly. He was so pleased that he was not going to let anybody share\r\n\r\na grain of his pleasure. His father had praised him. They must think\r\n\r\nthat he was perfectly indifferent. But you've got it now, Cam thought.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey had tacked, and they were sailing swiftly, buoyantly on long\r\n\r\nrocking waves which handed them on from one to another with an\r\n\r\nextraordinary lilt and exhilaration beside the reef. On the left a\r\n\r\nrow of rocks showed brown through the water which thinned and\r\n\r\nbecame greener and on one, a higher rock, a wave incessantly broke\r\n\r\nand spurted a little column of drops which fell down in a shower. One\r\n\r\ncould hear the slap of the water and the patter of falling drops and a\r\n\r\nkind of hushing and hissing sound from the waves rolling and gambolling\r\n\r\nand slapping the rocks as if they were wild creatures who were\r\n\r\nperfectly free and tossed and tumbled and sported like this for ever.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNow they could see two men on the Lighthouse, watching them and making\r\n\r\nready to meet them.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMr. Ramsay buttoned his coat, and turned up his trousers. He took the\r\n\r\nlarge, badly packed, brown paper parcel which Nancy had got ready and\r\n\r\nsat with it on his knee. Thus in complete readiness to land he sat\r\n\r\nlooking back at the island. With his long-sighted eyes perhaps he\r\n\r\ncould see the dwindled leaf-like shape standing on end on a plate of\r\n\r\ngold quite clearly. What could he see? Cam wondered. It was all a\r\n\r\nblur to her. What was he thinking now? she wondered. What was it he\r\n\r\nsought, so fixedly, so intently, so silently? They watched him, both\r\n\r\nof them, sitting bareheaded with his parcel on his knee staring and\r\n\r\nstaring at the frail blue shape which seemed like the vapour of\r\n\r\nsomething that had burnt itself away. What do you want? they both\r\n\r\nwanted to ask. They both wanted to say, Ask us anything and we will\r\n\r\ngive it you. But he did not ask them anything. He sat and looked at\r\n\r\nthe island and he might be thinking, We perished, each alone, or he\r\n\r\nmight be thinking, I have reached it. I have found it; but he said\r\n\r\nnothing.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThen he put on his hat.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Bring those parcels,\" he said, nodding his head at the things Nancy\r\n\r\nhad done up for them to take to the Lighthouse. \"The parcels for the\r\n\r\nLighthouse men,\" he said. He rose and stood in the bow of the boat,\r\n\r\nvery straight and tall, for all the world, James thought, as if he were\r\n\r\nsaying, \"There is no God,\"[footnote]Leslie Stephen was openly an atheist, quite unusually for his time.[\/footnote] and Cam thought, as if he were leaping into\r\n\r\nspace, and they both rose to follow him as he sprang, lightly like a\r\n\r\nyoung man, holding his parcel, on to the rock.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n14\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"He must have reached it,\" said Lily Briscoe aloud, feeling suddenly\r\n\r\ncompletely tired out. For the Lighthouse had become almost invisible,\r\n\r\nhad melted away into a blue haze, and the effort of looking at it and\r\n\r\nthe effort of thinking of him landing there, which both seemed to be\r\n\r\none and the same effort, had stretched her body and mind to the utmost.\r\n\r\nAh, but she was relieved. Whatever she had wanted to give him, when he\r\n\r\nleft her that morning, she had given him at last.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"He has landed,\" she said aloud. \"It is finished.\" Then, surging up,\r\n\r\npuffing slightly, old Mr. Carmichael stood beside her, looking like an\r\n\r\nold pagan god, shaggy, with weeds in his hair and the trident (it was\r\n\r\nonly a French novel) in his hand. He stood by her on the edge of the\r\n\r\nlawn, swaying a little in his bulk and said, shading his eyes with his\r\n\r\nhand: \"They will have landed,\" and she felt that she had been right.\r\n\r\nThey had not needed to speak. They had been thinking the same things\r\n\r\nand he had answered her without her asking him anything. He stood\r\n\r\nthere as if he were spreading his hands over all the weakness and\r\n\r\nsuffering of mankind; she thought he was surveying, tolerantly and\r\n\r\ncompassionately, their final destiny. Now he has crowned the occasion,\r\n\r\nshe thought, when his hand slowly fell, as if she had seen him let fall\r\n\r\nfrom his great height a wreath of violets and asphodels[footnote]A reference to the flowers supposed to grow in the underworld of Greek mythology. Elsewhere in the book, they are associated with Mrs. Ramsay; see note 42.[\/footnote] which,\r\n\r\nfluttering slowly, lay at length upon the earth.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nQuickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to\r\n\r\nher canvas. There it was--her picture. Yes, with all its greens and\r\n\r\nblues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It\r\n\r\nwould be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But\r\n\r\nwhat did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again.\r\n\r\nShe looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it\r\n\r\nwas blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a\r\n\r\nsecond, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was\r\n\r\nfinished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue,\r\n\r\nI have had my vision.\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

To the Lighthouse is also available as a PDF Document<\/a>.<\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
THE WINDOW<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
1 <\/p>\n

“Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,” said Mrs. Ramsay. “But you’ll<\/p>\n

have to be up with the lark,” she added.<\/p>\n

To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were<\/p>\n

settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which<\/p>\n

he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night’s<\/p>\n

darkness and a day’s sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at the<\/p>\n

age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate<\/p>\n

from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows,<\/p>\n

cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest<\/p>\n

childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise<\/p>\n

and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James<\/p>\n

Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated<\/p>\n

catalogue of the Army and Navy stores,[1]<\/sup><\/a> endowed the picture of a<\/p>\n

refrigerator, as his mother spoke, with heavenly bliss. It was fringed<\/p>\n

with joy. The wheelbarrow, the lawnmower, the sound of poplar trees,<\/p>\n

leaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses<\/p>\n

rustling–all these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that he<\/p>\n

had already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the<\/p>\n

image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his<\/p>\n

fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the<\/p>\n

sight of human frailty, so that his mother, watching him guide his<\/p>\n

scissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined him all red and ermine on<\/p>\n

the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of<\/p>\n

public affairs.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But,” said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, “it<\/p>\n

won’t be fine.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed<\/p>\n

a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would<\/p>\n

have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited<\/p>\n

in his children’s breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as<\/p>\n

a knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with<\/p>\n

the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife,<\/p>\n

who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was<\/p>\n

(James thought), but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracy of<\/p>\n

judgement. What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable<\/p>\n

of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word<\/p>\n

to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all of<\/p>\n

his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from<\/p>\n

childhood that life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to<\/p>\n

that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail<\/p>\n

barks founder in darkness (here Mr. Ramsay would straighten his back and<\/p>\n

narrow his little blue eyes upon the horizon), one that needs, above all,<\/p>\n

courage, truth, and the power to endure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But it may be fine–I expect it will be fine,” said Mrs. Ramsay, making<\/p>\n

some little twist of the reddish brown stocking she was knitting,<\/p>\n

impatiently. If she finished it tonight, if they did go to the Lighthouse<\/p>\n

after all, it was to be given to the Lighthouse keeper for his little boy,<\/p>\n

who was threatened with a tuberculous hip; together with a pile of old<\/p>\n

magazines, and some tobacco, indeed, whatever she could find lying about,<\/p>\n

not really wanted, but only littering the room, to give those poor<\/p>\n

fellows, who must be bored to death sitting all day with nothing to do but<\/p>\n

polish the lamp and trim the wick and rake about on their scrap of garden,<\/p>\n

something to amuse them. For how would you like to be shut up for a whole<\/p>\n

month at a time, and possibly more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size<\/p>\n

of a tennis lawn? she would ask; and to have no letters or newspapers, and<\/p>\n

to see nobody; if you were married, not to see your wife, not to know how<\/p>\n

your children were,–if they were ill, if they had fallen down and broken<\/p>\n

their legs or arms; to see the same dreary waves breaking week after week,<\/p>\n

and then a dreadful storm coming, and the windows covered with spray, and<\/p>\n

birds dashed against the lamp, and the whole place rocking, and not be<\/p>\n

able to put your nose out of doors for fear of being swept into the sea?<\/p>\n

How would you like that? she asked, addressing herself particularly to her<\/p>\n

daughters. So she added, rather differently, one must take them whatever<\/p>\n

comforts one can.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s due west,” said the atheist Tansley, holding his bony fingers spread<\/p>\n

so that the wind blew through them, for he was sharing Mr. Ramsay’s<\/p>\n

evening walk up and down, up and down the terrace. That is to say, the<\/p>\n

wind blew from the worst possible direction for landing at the Lighthouse.<\/p>\n

Yes, he did say disagreeable things, Mrs. Ramsay admitted; it was odious<\/p>\n

of him to rub this in, and make James still more disappointed; but at the<\/p>\n

same time, she would not let them laugh at him. “The atheist,” they<\/p>\n

called him; “the little atheist.” Rose mocked him; Prue mocked him;<\/p>\n

Andrew, Jasper, Roger mocked him; even old Badger without a tooth in his<\/p>\n

head had bit him, for being (as Nancy put it) the hundred and tenth young<\/p>\n

man to chase them all the way up to the Hebrides when it was ever so much<\/p>\n

nicer to be alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Ramsay, with great severity. Apart from the habit<\/p>\n

of exaggeration which they had from her, and from the implication (which<\/p>\n

was true) that she asked too many people to stay, and had to lodge some in<\/p>\n

the town, she could not bear incivility to her guests, to young men in<\/p>\n

particular, who were poor as churchmice, “exceptionally able,” her husband<\/p>\n

said, his great admirers, and come there for a holiday. Indeed, she had<\/p>\n

the whole of the other sex under her protection; for reasons she could not<\/p>\n

explain, for their chivalry and valour, for the fact that they negotiated<\/p>\n

treaties, ruled India,[3]<\/sup><\/a> controlled finance; finally for an attitude towards<\/p>\n

herself which no woman could fail to feel or to find agreeable, something<\/p>\n

trustful, childlike, reverential; which an old woman could take from a<\/p>\n

young man without loss of dignity, and woe betide the girl–pray Heaven it<\/p>\n

was none of her daughters!–who did not feel the worth of it, and all<\/p>\n

that it implied, to the marrow of her bones!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She turned with severity upon Nancy. He had not chased them, she said.<\/p>\n

He had been asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They must find a way out of it all. There might be some simpler way, some<\/p>\n

less laborious way, she sighed. When she looked in the glass and saw her<\/p>\n

hair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have<\/p>\n

managed things better–her husband; money; his books. But for her own<\/p>\n

part she would never for a single second regret her decision, evade<\/p>\n

difficulties, or slur over duties. She was now formidable to behold, and<\/p>\n

it was only in silence, looking up from their plates, after she had spoken<\/p>\n

so severely about Charles Tansley, that her daughters, Prue, Nancy,<\/p>\n

Rose–could sport with infidel ideas which they had brewed for themselves<\/p>\n

of a life different from hers; in Paris, perhaps; a wilder life; not<\/p>\n

always taking care of some man or other; for there was in all their minds<\/p>\n

a mute questioning of deference and chivalry, of the Bank of England and<\/p>\n

the Indian Empire, of ringed fingers and lace, though to them all there<\/p>\n

was something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the<\/p>\n

manliness in their girlish hearts, and made them, as they sat at table<\/p>\n

beneath their mother’s eyes, honour her strange severity, her extreme<\/p>\n

courtesy, like a queen’s raising from the mud to wash a beggar’s dirty<\/p>\n

foot, when she admonished them so very severely about that wretched<\/p>\n

atheist who had chased them–or, speaking accurately, been invited to<\/p>\n

stay with them–in the Isle of Skye.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“There’ll be no landing at the Lighthouse tomorrow,” said Charles Tansley,<\/p>\n

clapping his hands together as he stood at the window with her husband.<\/p>\n

Surely, he had said enough. She wished they would both leave her and<\/p>\n

James alone and go on talking. She looked at him. He was such a<\/p>\n

miserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows. He couldn’t<\/p>\n

play cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew<\/p>\n

said. They knew what he liked best–to be for ever walking up and down,<\/p>\n

up and down, with Mr. Ramsay, and saying who had won this, who had won<\/p>\n

that, who was a “first rate man” at Latin verses, who was “brilliant but I<\/p>\n

think fundamentally unsound,” who was undoubtedly the “ablest fellow in<\/p>\n

Balliol,”[5]<\/sup><\/a> who had buried his light temporarily at Bristol or Bedford,[6]<\/sup><\/a> but<\/p>\n

was bound to be heard of later when his Prolegomena[7]<\/sup><\/a>, of which Mr. Tansley<\/p>\n

had the first pages in proof with him if Mr. Ramsay would like to see<\/p>\n

them, to some branch of mathematics or philosophy saw the light of day.<\/p>\n

That was what they talked about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She could not help laughing herself sometimes. She said, the other day,<\/p>\n

something about “waves mountains high.” Yes, said Charles Tansley, it<\/p>\n

was a little rough. “Aren’t you drenched to the skin?” she had said.<\/p>\n

“Damp, not wet through,” said Mr. Tansley, pinching his sleeve, feeling<\/p>\n

his socks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it was not that they minded, the children said. It was not his face;<\/p>\n

it was not his manners. It was him–his point of view. When they talked<\/p>\n

about something interesting, people, music, history, anything, even said<\/p>\n

it was a fine evening so why not sit out of doors, then what they<\/p>\n

complained of about Charles Tansley was that until he had turned the whole<\/p>\n

thing round and made it somehow reflect himself and disparage them–he was<\/p>\n

not satisfied. And he would go to picture galleries they said, and he<\/p>\n

would ask one, did one like his tie? God knows, said Rose, one did not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Disappearing as stealthily as stags from the dinner-table directly the<\/p>\n

meal was over, the eight sons and daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay sought<\/p>\n

their bedrooms, their fastness in a house where there was no other privacy<\/p>\n

to debate anything, everything; Tansley’s tie; the passing of the Reform<\/p>\n

Bill;[8]<\/sup><\/a> sea birds and butterflies; people; while the sun poured into those<\/p>\n

attics, which a plank alone separated from each other so that every<\/p>\n

footstep could be plainly heard and the Swiss girl sobbing for her father<\/p>\n

who was dying of cancer in a valley of the Grisons,[9]<\/sup><\/a> and lit up bats,<\/p>\n

flannels, straw hats, ink-pots, paint-pots, beetles, and the skulls of<\/p>\n

small birds, while it drew from the long frilled strips of seaweed pinned<\/p>\n

to the wall a smell of salt and weeds, which was in the towels too,<\/p>\n

gritty with sand from bathing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Strife, divisions, difference of opinion, prejudices twisted into the very<\/p>\n

fibre of being, oh, that they should begin so early, Mrs. Ramsay deplored.<\/p>\n

They were so critical, her children. They talked such nonsense. She went<\/p>\n

from the dining-room, holding James by the hand, since he would not go<\/p>\n

with the others. It seemed to her such nonsense–inventing differences,<\/p>\n

when people, heaven knows, were different enough without that. The real<\/p>\n

differences, she thought, standing by the drawing-room window, are enough,<\/p>\n

quite enough. She had in mind at the moment, rich and poor, high and low;<\/p>\n

the great in birth receiving from her, half grudging, some respect, for<\/p>\n

had she not in her veins the blood of that very noble, if slightly<\/p>\n

mythical, Italian house, whose daughters, scattered about English<\/p>\n

drawing-rooms in the nineteenth century, had lisped so charmingly, had<\/p>\n

stormed so wildly, and all her wit and her bearing and her temper came<\/p>\n

from them, and not from the sluggish English, or the cold Scotch[10]<\/sup><\/a>; but more<\/p>\n

profoundly, she ruminated the other problem, of rich and poor, and the<\/p>\n

things she saw with her own eyes, weekly, daily, here or in London, when<\/p>\n

she visited this widow, or that struggling wife in person with a bag on<\/p>\n

her arm, and a note-book and pencil with which she wrote down in columns<\/p>\n

carefully ruled for the purpose wages and spendings, employment and<\/p>\n

unemployment, in the hope that thus she would cease to be a private woman<\/p>\n

whose charity was half a sop to her own indignation, half a relief to her<\/p>\n

own curiosity, and become what with her untrained mind she greatly<\/p>\n

admired, an investigator, elucidating the social problem.[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Insoluble questions they were, it seemed to her, standing there, holding<\/p>\n

James by the hand. He had followed her into the drawing-room, that young<\/p>\n

man they laughed at; he was standing by the table, fidgeting with<\/p>\n

something, awkwardly, feeling himself out of things, as she knew without<\/p>\n

looking round. They had all gone–the children; Minta Doyle and Paul<\/p>\n

Rayley; Augustus Carmichael; her husband–they had all gone. So she<\/p>\n

turned with a sigh and said, “Would it bore you to come with me,<\/p>\n

Mr. Tansley?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had a dull errand in the town; she had a letter or two to write; she<\/p>\n

would be ten minutes perhaps; she would put on her hat. And, with her<\/p>\n

basket and her parasol, there she was again, ten minutes later, giving out<\/p>\n

a sense of being ready, of being equipped for a jaunt, which, however, she<\/p>\n

must interrupt for a moment, as they passed the tennis lawn, to ask<\/p>\n

Mr. Carmichael, who was basking with his yellow cat’s eyes ajar, so that<\/p>\n

like a cat’s they seemed to reflect the branches moving or the clouds<\/p>\n

passing, but to give no inkling of any inner thoughts or emotion<\/p>\n

whatsoever, if he wanted anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For they were making the great expedition, she said, laughing. They were<\/p>\n

going to the town. “Stamps, writing-paper, tobacco?” she suggested,<\/p>\n

stopping by his side. But no, he wanted nothing. His hands clasped<\/p>\n

themselves over his capacious paunch, his eyes blinked, as if he would<\/p>\n

have liked to reply kindly to these blandishments (she was seductive but a<\/p>\n

little nervous) but could not, sunk as he was in a grey-green somnolence<\/p>\n

which embraced them all, without need of words, in a vast and benevolent<\/p>\n

lethargy of well-wishing; all the house; all the world; all the people in<\/p>\n

it, for he had slipped into his glass at lunch a few drops of something,<\/p>\n

which accounted, the children thought, for the vivid streak of<\/p>\n

canary-yellow in moustache and beard that were otherwise milk white. No,<\/p>\n

nothing, he murmured.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He should have been a great philosopher, said Mrs. Ramsay, as they went<\/p>\n

down the road to the fishing village, but he had made an unfortunate<\/p>\n

marriage. Holding her black parasol very erect, and moving with an<\/p>\n

indescribable air of expectation, as if she were going to meet some one<\/p>\n

round the corner, she told the story; an affair at Oxford with some girl;<\/p>\n

an early marriage; poverty; going to India; translating a little poetry<\/p>\n

“very beautifully, I believe,” being willing to teach the boys Persian or<\/p>\n

Hindustanee,[12]<\/sup><\/a> but what really was the use of that?–and then lying, as they<\/p>\n

saw him, on the lawn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It flattered him; snubbed as he had been, it soothed him that Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

should tell him this. Charles Tansley revived. Insinuating, too, as she<\/p>\n

did the greatness of man’s intellect, even in its decay, the subjection of<\/p>\n

all wives–not that she blamed the girl, and the marriage had been happy<\/p>\n

enough, she believed–to their husband’s labours, she made him feel better<\/p>\n

pleased with himself than he had done yet, and he would have liked, had<\/p>\n

they taken a cab, for example, to have paid the fare. As for her little<\/p>\n

bag, might he not carry that? No, no, she said, she always carried that<\/i><\/p>\n

herself. She did too. Yes, he felt that in her. He felt many things,<\/p>\n

something in particular that excited him and disturbed him for reasons<\/p>\n

which he could not give. He would like her to see him, gowned and hooded,<\/p>\n

walking in a procession. A fellowship, a professorship, he felt capable<\/p>\n

of anything and saw himself–but what was she looking at? At a man<\/p>\n

pasting a bill. The vast flapping sheet flattened itself out, and each<\/p>\n

shove of the brush revealed fresh legs, hoops, horses, glistening reds and<\/p>\n

blues, beautifully smooth, until half the wall was covered with the<\/p>\n

advertisement of a circus; a hundred horsemen, twenty performing seals,<\/p>\n

lions, tigers … Craning forwards, for she was short-sighted, she read it<\/p>\n

out … “will visit this town,” she read. It was terribly dangerous work<\/p>\n

for a one-armed man, she exclaimed, to stand on top of a ladder like<\/p>\n

that–his left arm had been cut off in a reaping machine two years ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let us all go!” she cried, moving on, as if all those riders and horses<\/p>\n

had filled her with childlike exultation and made her forget her pity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let’s go,” he said, repeating her words, clicking them out, however, with<\/p>\n

a self-consciousness that made her wince. “Let us all go to the circus.”<\/p>\n

No. He could not say it right. He could not feel it right. But why not?<\/p>\n

she wondered. What was wrong with him then? She liked him warmly, at the<\/p>\n

moment. Had they not been taken, she asked, to circuses when they were<\/p>\n

children? Never, he answered, as if she asked the very thing he wanted;<\/p>\n

had been longing all these days to say, how they did not go to circuses.<\/p>\n

It was a large family, nine brothers and sisters, and his father was a<\/p>\n

working man. “My father is a chemist, Mrs. Ramsay. He keeps a shop.” He<\/p>\n

himself had paid his own way since he was thirteen. Often he went without<\/p>\n

a greatcoat in winter. He could never “return hospitality” (those were<\/p>\n

his parched stiff words) at college. He had to make things last twice the<\/p>\n

time other people did; he smoked the cheapest tobacco; shag[13]<\/sup><\/a>; the same the<\/p>\n

old men did in the quays. He worked hard–seven hours a day; his subject<\/p>\n

was now the influence of something upon somebody–they were walking on and<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay did not quite catch the meaning, only the words, here and<\/p>\n

there … dissertation … fellowship … readership … lectureship.[14]<\/sup><\/a> She<\/p>\n

could not follow the ugly academic jargon, that rattled itself off so<\/p>\n

glibly, but said to herself that she saw now why going to the circus had<\/p>\n

knocked him off his perch, poor little man, and why he came out,<\/p>\n

instantly, with all that about his father and mother and brothers and<\/p>\n

sisters, and she would see to it that they didn’t laugh at him any more;<\/p>\n

she would tell Prue about it. What he would have liked, she supposed,<\/p>\n

would have been to say how he had gone not to the circus but to Ibsen[15]<\/sup><\/a> with<\/p>\n

the Ramsays. He was an awful prig–oh yes, an insufferable bore. For,<\/p>\n

though they had reached the town now and were in the main street, with<\/p>\n

carts grinding past on the cobbles, still he went on talking, about<\/p>\n

settlements, and teaching, and working men, and helping our own class,<\/p>\n

and lectures, till she gathered that he had got back entire<\/p>\n

self-confidence, had recovered from the circus, and was about (and now<\/p>\n

again she liked him warmly) to tell her–but here, the houses falling<\/p>\n

away on both sides, they came out on the quay, and the whole bay<\/p>\n

spread before them and Mrs. Ramsay could not help exclaiming, “Oh,<\/p>\n

how beautiful!” For the great plateful of blue water was before her;<\/p>\n

the hoary Lighthouse, distant, austere, in the midst; and on the right,<\/p>\n

as far as the eye could see, fading and falling, in soft low pleats,<\/p>\n

the green sand dunes with the wild flowing grasses on them, which always<\/p>\n

seemed to be running away into some moon country, uninhabited of men.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That was the view, she said, stopping, growing greyer-eyed, that her<\/p>\n

husband loved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She paused a moment. But now, she said, artists had come here. There<\/p>\n

indeed, only a few paces off, stood one of them, in Panama hat and yellow<\/p>\n

boots, seriously, softly, absorbedly, for all that he was watched by ten<\/p>\n

little boys, with an air of profound contentment on his round red face<\/p>\n

gazing, and then, when he had gazed, dipping; imbuing the tip of his<\/p>\n

brush in some soft mound of green or pink. Since Mr. Paunceforte[16]<\/sup><\/a> had been<\/p>\n

there, three years before, all the pictures were like that, she said,<\/p>\n

green and grey, with lemon-coloured sailing-boats, and pink women on the<\/p>\n

beach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But her grandmother’s friends, she said, glancing discreetly as they<\/p>\n

passed, took the greatest pains; first they mixed their own colours, and<\/p>\n

then they ground them, and then they put damp cloths to keep them moist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So Mr. Tansley supposed she meant him to see that that man’s picture was<\/p>\n

skimpy, was that what one said? The colours weren’t solid? Was that what<\/p>\n

one said? Under the influence of that extraordinary emotion which had been<\/p>\n

growing all the walk, had begun in the garden when he had wanted to take<\/p>\n

her bag, had increased in the town when he had wanted to tell her<\/p>\n

everything about himself, he was coming to see himself, and everything he<\/p>\n

had ever known gone crooked a little. It was awfully strange.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There he stood in the parlour of the poky little house where she had taken<\/p>\n

him, waiting for her, while she went upstairs a moment to see a woman. He<\/p>\n

heard her quick step above; heard her voice cheerful, then low; looked at<\/p>\n

the mats, tea-caddies, glass shades; waited quite impatiently; looked<\/p>\n

forward eagerly to the walk home; determined to carry her bag; then heard<\/p>\n

her come out; shut a door; say they must keep the windows open and the<\/p>\n

doors shut, ask at the house for anything they wanted (she must be talking<\/p>\n

to a child) when, suddenly, in she came, stood for a moment silent (as if<\/p>\n

she had been pretending up there, and for a moment let herself be now),<\/p>\n

stood quite motionless for a moment against a picture of Queen Victoria<\/p>\n

wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter[17]<\/sup><\/a>; when all at once he realised that<\/p>\n

it was this: it was this:–she was the most beautiful person he had ever<\/p>\n

seen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With stars in her eyes and veils in her hair, with cyclamen[18]<\/sup><\/a> and wild<\/p>\n

violets–what nonsense was he thinking? She was fifty at least; she had<\/p>\n

eight children. Stepping through fields of flowers and taking to her<\/p>\n

breast buds that had broken and lambs that had fallen; with the stars in<\/p>\n

her eyes and the wind in her hair[19]<\/sup><\/a>–He had hold of her bag.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Good-bye, Elsie,” she said, and they walked up the street, she holding<\/p>\n

her parasol erect and walking as if she expected to meet some one round<\/p>\n

the corner, while for the first time in his life Charles Tansley felt an<\/p>\n

extraordinary pride; a man digging in a drain stopped digging and looked<\/p>\n

at her, let his arm fall down and looked at her; for the first time in his<\/p>\n

life Charles Tansley felt an extraordinary pride; felt the wind and the<\/p>\n

cyclamen and the violets for he was walking with a beautiful woman. He<\/p>\n

had hold of her bag.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No going to the Lighthouse, James,” he said, as trying in deference to<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay to soften his voice into some semblance of geniality at least.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Odious little man, thought Mrs. Ramsay, why go on saying that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Perhaps you will wake up and find the sun shining and the birds singing,”<\/p>\n

she said compassionately, smoothing the little boy’s hair, for her<\/p>\n

husband, with his caustic saying that it would not be fine, had dashed his<\/p>\n

spirits she could see. This going to the Lighthouse was a passion of his,<\/p>\n

she saw, and then, as if her husband had not said enough, with his caustic<\/p>\n

saying that it would not be fine tomorrow, this odious little man went and<\/p>\n

rubbed it in all over again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Perhaps it will be fine tomorrow,” she said, smoothing his hair.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All she could do now was to admire the refrigerator, and turn the pages of<\/p>\n

the Stores list in the hope that she might come upon something like a<\/p>\n

rake, or a mowing-machine, which, with its prongs and its handles, would<\/p>\n

need the greatest skill and care in cutting out. All these young men<\/p>\n

parodied her husband, she reflected; he said it would rain; they said it<\/p>\n

would be a positive tornado.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But here, as she turned the page, suddenly her search for the picture of a<\/p>\n

rake or a mowing-machine was interrupted. The gruff murmur, irregularly<\/p>\n

broken by the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes which had<\/p>\n

kept on assuring her, though she could not hear what was said (as she sat<\/p>\n

in the window which opened on the terrace), that the men were happily<\/p>\n

talking; this sound, which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its<\/p>\n

place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her, such as<\/p>\n

the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden bark now and then,<\/p>\n

“How’s that? How’s that?”[20]<\/sup><\/a> of the children playing cricket, had ceased;<\/p>\n

so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most<\/p>\n

part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed<\/p>\n

consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children<\/p>\n

the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, “I am guarding<\/p>\n

you–I am your support,” but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly,<\/p>\n

especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in<\/p>\n

hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums<\/p>\n

remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction<\/p>\n

of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had<\/p>\n

slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as<\/p>\n

a rainbow–this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the<\/p>\n

other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up<\/p>\n

with an impulse of terror.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They had ceased to talk; that was the explanation. Falling in one second<\/p>\n

from the tension which had gripped her to the other extreme which, as if<\/p>\n

to recoup her for her unnecessary expense of emotion, was cool, amused,<\/p>\n

and even faintly malicious, she concluded that poor Charles Tansley had<\/p>\n

been shed. That was of little account to her. If her husband required<\/p>\n

sacrifices (and indeed he did) she cheerfully offered up to him Charles<\/p>\n

Tansley, who had snubbed her little boy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One moment more, with her head raised, she listened, as if she waited for<\/p>\n

some habitual sound, some regular mechanical sound; and then, hearing<\/p>\n

something rhythmical, half said, half chanted, beginning in the garden, as<\/p>\n

her husband beat up and down the terrace, something between a croak and a<\/p>\n

song, she was soothed once more, assured again that all was well, and<\/p>\n

looking down at the book on her knee found the picture of a pocket knife<\/p>\n

with six blades which could only be cut out if James was very careful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suddenly a loud cry, as of a sleep-walker, half roused, something about<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stormed at with shot and shell[21]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

sung out with the utmost intensity in her ear, made her turn<\/p>\n

apprehensively to see if anyone had heard him. Only Lily Briscoe, she was<\/p>\n

glad to find; and that did not matter. But the sight of the girl standing<\/p>\n

on the edge of the lawn painting reminded her; she was supposed to be<\/p>\n

keeping her head as much in the same position as possible for Lily’s<\/p>\n

picture. Lily’s picture! Mrs. Ramsay smiled. With her little Chinese<\/p>\n

eyes[22]<\/sup><\/a> and her puckered-up face, she would never marry; one could not take<\/p>\n

her painting very seriously; she was an independent little creature, and<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay liked her for it; so, remembering her promise, she bent her<\/p>\n

head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Indeed, he almost knocked her easel over, coming down upon her with his<\/p>\n

hands waving shouting out, “Boldly we rode and well,”[23]<\/sup><\/a> but, mercifully, he<\/p>\n

turned sharp, and rode off, to die gloriously she supposed upon the<\/p>\n

heights of Balaclava. Never was anybody at once so ridiculous and so<\/p>\n

alarming. But so long as he kept like that, waving, shouting, she was<\/p>\n

safe; he would not stand still and look at her picture. And that was what<\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe could not have endured. Even while she looked at the mass,<\/p>\n

at the line, at the colour, at Mrs. Ramsay sitting in the window with<\/p>\n

James, she kept a feeler on her surroundings lest some one should creep<\/p>\n

up, and suddenly she should find her picture looked at. But now, with all<\/p>\n

her senses quickened as they were, looking, straining, till the colour of<\/p>\n

the wall and the jacmanna[24]<\/sup><\/a> beyond burnt into her eyes, she was aware of<\/p>\n

someone coming out of the house, coming towards her; but somehow divined,<\/p>\n

from the footfall, William Bankes, so that though her brush quivered, she<\/p>\n

did not, as she would have done had it been Mr. Tansley, Paul Rayley,<\/p>\n

Minta Doyle, or practically anybody else, turn her canvas upon the grass,<\/p>\n

but let it stand. William Bankes stood beside her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They had rooms in the village, and so, walking in, walking out, parting<\/p>\n

late on door-mats, had said little things about the soup, about the<\/p>\n

children, about one thing and another which made them allies; so that when<\/p>\n

he stood beside her now in his judicial way (he was old enough to be her<\/p>\n

father too, a botanist, a widower, smelling of soap, very scrupulous and<\/p>\n

clean) she just stood there. He just stood there. Her shoes were<\/p>\n

excellent, he observed. They allowed the toes their natural expansion.<\/p>\n

Lodging in the same house with her, he had noticed too, how orderly she<\/p>\n

was, up before breakfast and off to paint, he believed, alone: poor,<\/p>\n

presumably, and without the complexion or the allurement of Miss Doyle<\/p>\n

certainly, but with a good sense which made her in his eyes superior to<\/p>\n

that young lady. Now, for instance, when Ramsay bore down on them,<\/p>\n

shouting, gesticulating, Miss Briscoe, he felt certain, understood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some one had blundered.[25]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay glared at them. He glared at them without seeming to see them.<\/p>\n

That did make them both vaguely uncomfortable. Together they had seen a<\/p>\n

thing they had not been meant to see. They had encroached upon a privacy.<\/p>\n

So, Lily thought, it was probably an excuse of his for moving, for getting<\/p>\n

out of earshot, that made Mr. Bankes almost immediately say something<\/p>\n

about its being chilly and suggested taking a stroll. She would come,<\/p>\n

yes. But it was with difficulty that she took her eyes off her picture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The jacmanna was bright violet; the wall staring white. She would not<\/p>\n

have considered it honest to tamper with the bright violet and the staring<\/p>\n

white, since she saw them like that, fashionable though it was, since<\/p>\n

Mr. Paunceforte’s visit, to see everything pale, elegant, semitransparent.[26]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Then beneath the colour there was the shape. She could see it all so<\/p>\n

clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush<\/p>\n

in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment’s flight<\/p>\n

between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often<\/p>\n

brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to<\/p>\n

work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often<\/p>\n

felt herself–struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to<\/p>\n

say: “But this is what I see; this is what I see,” and so to clasp some<\/p>\n

miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did<\/p>\n

their best to pluck from her. And it was then too, in that chill and<\/p>\n

windy way, as she began to paint, that there forced themselves upon her<\/p>\n

other things, her own inadequacy, her insignificance, keeping house for<\/p>\n

her father off the Brompton Road,[27]<\/sup><\/a> and had much ado to control her impulse<\/p>\n

to fling herself (thank Heaven she had always resisted so far) at<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay’s knee and say to her–but what could one say to her? “I’m in<\/p>\n

love with you?” No, that was not true. “I’m in love with this all,”<\/p>\n

waving her hand at the hedge, at the house, at the children. It was<\/p>\n

absurd, it was impossible. So now she laid her brushes neatly in the box,<\/p>\n

side by side, and said to William Bankes:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It suddenly gets cold. The sun seems to give less heat,” she said,<\/p>\n

looking about her, for it was bright enough, the grass still a soft deep<\/p>\n

green, the house starred in its greenery with purple passion flowers, and<\/p>\n

rooks dropping cool cries from the high blue. But something moved,<\/p>\n

flashed, turned a silver wing in the air. It was September after all,<\/p>\n

the middle of September, and past six in the evening. So off they<\/p>\n

strolled down the garden in the usual direction, past the tennis lawn,<\/p>\n

past the pampas grass, to that break in the thick hedge, guarded by red<\/p>\n

hot pokers[28]<\/sup><\/a> like brasiers of clear burning coal, between which the blue<\/p>\n

waters of the bay looked bluer than ever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They came there regularly every evening drawn by some need. It was as if<\/p>\n

the water floated off and set sailing thoughts which had grown stagnant on<\/p>\n

dry land, and gave to their bodies even some sort of physical relief.<\/p>\n

First, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart<\/p>\n

expanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked<\/p>\n

and chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves. Then, up<\/p>\n

behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so<\/p>\n

that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain<\/p>\n

of white water; and then, while one waited for that, one watched, on the<\/p>\n

pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again<\/p>\n

smoothly, a film of mother of pearl.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They both smiled, standing there. They both felt a common hilarity,<\/p>\n

excited by the moving waves; and then by the swift cutting race of a<\/p>\n

sailing boat, which, having sliced a curve in the bay, stopped; shivered;<\/p>\n

let its sails drop down; and then, with a natural instinct to complete the<\/p>\n

picture, after this swift movement, both of them looked at the dunes<\/p>\n

far away, and instead of merriment felt come over them some<\/p>\n

sadness–because the thing was completed partly, and partly because<\/p>\n

distant views seem to outlast by a million years (Lily thought) the gazer<\/p>\n

and to be communing already with a sky which beholds an earth entirely<\/p>\n

at rest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Looking at the far sand hills, William Bankes thought of Ramsay: thought<\/p>\n

of a road in Westmorland, thought of Ramsay striding along a road by<\/p>\n

himself hung round with that solitude which seemed to be his natural air.<\/p>\n

But this was suddenly interrupted, William Bankes remembered (and this<\/p>\n

must refer to some actual incident), by a hen, straddling her wings out in<\/p>\n

protection of a covey of little chicks, upon which Ramsay, stopping,<\/p>\n

pointed his stick and said “Pretty–pretty,” an odd illumination in to<\/p>\n

his heart, Bankes had thought it, which showed his simplicity, his<\/p>\n

sympathy with humble things; but it seemed to him as if their friendship<\/p>\n

had ceased, there, on that stretch of road. After that, Ramsay had<\/p>\n

married. After that, what with one thing and another, the pulp had gone<\/p>\n

out of their friendship. Whose fault it was he could not say, only, after<\/p>\n

a time, repetition had taken the place of newness. It was to repeat that<\/p>\n

they met. But in this dumb colloquy with the sand dunes he maintained<\/p>\n

that his affection for Ramsay had in no way diminished; but there, like<\/p>\n

the body of a young man laid up in peat for a century, with the red fresh<\/p>\n

on his lips, was his friendship, in its acuteness and reality, laid up<\/p>\n

across the bay among the sandhills.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was anxious for the sake of this friendship and perhaps too in order to<\/p>\n

clear himself in his own mind from the imputation of having dried and<\/p>\n

shrunk–for Ramsay lived in a welter of children, whereas Bankes was<\/p>\n

childless and a widower–he was anxious that Lily Briscoe should not<\/p>\n

disparage Ramsay (a great man in his own way) yet should understand how<\/p>\n

things stood between them. Begun long years ago, their friendship had<\/p>\n

petered out on a Westmorland[29]<\/sup><\/a> road, where the hen spread her wings before<\/p>\n

her chicks; after which Ramsay had married, and their paths lying<\/p>\n

different ways, there had been, certainly for no one’s fault, some<\/p>\n

tendency, when they met, to repeat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes. That was it. He finished. He turned from the view. And, turning<\/p>\n

to walk back the other way, up the drive, Mr. Bankes was alive to things<\/p>\n

which would not have struck him had not those sandhills revealed to him<\/p>\n

the body of his friendship lying with the red on its lips laid up in<\/p>\n

peat–for instance, Cam, the little girl, Ramsay’s youngest daughter. She<\/p>\n

was picking Sweet Alice[30]<\/sup><\/a> on the bank. She was wild and fierce. She would<\/p>\n

not “give a flower to the gentleman” as the nursemaid told her.<\/p>\n

No! no! no! she would not! She clenched her fist. She stamped. And<\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes felt aged and saddened and somehow put into the wrong by her<\/p>\n

about his friendship. He must have dried and shrunk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Ramsays were not rich, and it was a wonder how they managed to<\/p>\n

contrive it all. Eight children! To feed eight children on philosophy!<\/p>\n

Here was another of them, Jasper this time, strolling past, to have a shot<\/p>\n

at a bird, he said, nonchalantly, swinging Lily’s hand like a pump-handle<\/p>\n

as he passed, which caused Mr. Bankes to say, bitterly, how she<\/i> <\/i>was a<\/p>\n

favourite. There was education now to be considered (true, Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

had something of her own perhaps) let alone the daily wear and tear of<\/p>\n

shoes and stockings which those “great fellows,” all well grown, angular,<\/p>\n

ruthless youngsters, must require. As for being sure which was which, or<\/p>\n

in what order they came, that was beyond him. He called them privately<\/p>\n

after the Kings and Queens of England; Cam the Wicked, James the Ruthless,<\/p>\n

Andrew the Just, Prue the Fair–for Prue would have beauty, he thought,<\/p>\n

how could she help it?–and Andrew brains.[31]<\/sup><\/a> While he walked up the drive<\/p>\n

and Lily Briscoe said yes and no and capped his comments (for she was in<\/p>\n

love with them all, in love with this world) he weighed Ramsay’s case,<\/p>\n

commiserated him, envied him, as if he had seen him divest himself of all<\/p>\n

those glories of isolation and austerity which crowned him in youth to<\/p>\n

cumber himself definitely with fluttering wings and clucking<\/p>\n

domesticities. They gave him something–William Bankes acknowledged that;<\/p>\n

it would have been pleasant if Cam had stuck a flower in his coat or<\/p>\n

clambered over his shoulder, as over her father’s, to look at a picture<\/p>\n

of Vesuvius[32]<\/sup><\/a> in eruption; but they had also, his old friends could not but<\/p>\n

feel, destroyed something. What would a stranger think now? What did<\/p>\n

this Lily Briscoe think? Could one help noticing that habits grew on him?<\/p>\n

eccentricities, weaknesses perhaps? It was astonishing that a man of his<\/p>\n

intellect could stoop so low as he did–but that was too harsh a<\/p>\n

phrase–could depend so much as he did upon people’s praise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh, but,” said Lily, “think of his work!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whenever she “thought of his work” she always saw clearly before her a<\/p>\n

large kitchen table. It was Andrew’s doing. She asked him what his<\/p>\n

father’s books were about. “Subject and object and the nature of<\/p>\n

reality,” Andrew had said. And when she said Heavens, she had no notion<\/p>\n

what that meant. “Think of a kitchen table then,” he told her, “when<\/p>\n

you’re not there.”[33]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So now she always saw, when she thought of Mr. Ramsay’s work, a scrubbed<\/p>\n

kitchen table. It lodged now in the fork of a pear tree, for they had<\/p>\n

reached the orchard. And with a painful effort of concentration, she<\/p>\n

focused her mind, not upon the silver-bossed bark of the tree, or upon its<\/p>\n

fish-shaped leaves, but upon a phantom kitchen table, one of those<\/p>\n

scrubbed board tables, grained and knotted, whose virtue seems to have<\/p>\n

been laid bare by years of muscular integrity, which stuck there, its four<\/p>\n

legs in air. Naturally, if one’s days were passed in this seeing of<\/p>\n

angular essences, this reducing of lovely evenings, with all their<\/p>\n

flamingo clouds and blue and silver to a white deal four-legged table<\/p>\n

(and it was a mark of the finest minds to do so), naturally one could not<\/p>\n

be judged like an ordinary person.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes liked her for bidding him “think of his work.” He had thought<\/p>\n

of it, often and often. Times without number, he had said, “Ramsay is one<\/p>\n

of those men who do their best work before they are forty.” He had made a<\/p>\n

definite contribution to philosophy in one little book when he was only<\/p>\n

five and twenty; what came after was more or less amplification,<\/p>\n

repetition. But the number of men who make a definite contribution to<\/p>\n

anything whatsoever is very small, he said, pausing by the pear tree, well<\/p>\n

brushed, scrupulously exact, exquisitely judicial. Suddenly, as if the<\/p>\n

movement of his hand had released it, the load of her accumulated<\/p>\n

impressions of him tilted up, and down poured in a ponderous avalanche all<\/p>\n

she felt about him. That was one sensation. Then up rose in a fume the<\/p>\n

essence of his being. That was another. She felt herself transfixed<\/p>\n

by the intensity of her perception; it was his severity; his goodness. I<\/p>\n

respect you (she addressed silently him in person) in every atom; you are<\/p>\n

not vain; you are entirely impersonal; you are finer than Mr. Ramsay; you<\/p>\n

are the finest human being that I know; you have neither wife nor child<\/p>\n

(without any sexual feeling, she longed to cherish that loneliness), you<\/p>\n

live for science (involuntarily, sections of potatoes rose before her<\/p>\n

eyes); praise would be an insult to you; generous, pure-hearted, heroic<\/p>\n

man! But simultaneously, she remembered how he had brought a valet all<\/p>\n

the way up here; objected to dogs on chairs; would prose for hours (until<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay slammed out of the room) about salt in vegetables and the<\/p>\n

iniquity of English cooks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of<\/p>\n

them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking<\/p>\n

one felt or disliking? And to those words, what meaning attached, after<\/p>\n

all? Standing now, apparently transfixed, by the pear tree, impressions<\/p>\n

poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like<\/p>\n

following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one’s<\/p>\n

pencil, and the voice was her own voice saying without prompting<\/p>\n

undeniable, everlasting, contradictory things, so that even the<\/p>\n

fissures and humps on the bark of the pear tree were irrevocably<\/p>\n

fixed there for eternity. You have greatness, she continued, but<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay has none of it. He is petty, selfish, vain, egotistical; he is<\/p>\n

spoilt; he is a tyrant; he wears Mrs. Ramsay to death; but he has what you<\/p>\n

(she addressed Mr. Bankes) have not; a fiery unworldliness; he knows<\/p>\n

nothing about trifles; he loves dogs and his children. He has eight.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes has none. Did he not come down in two coats the other night<\/p>\n

and let Mrs. Ramsay trim his hair into a pudding basin? All of this<\/p>\n

danced up and down, like a company of gnats, each separate but all<\/p>\n

marvellously controlled in an invisible elastic net–danced up and down in<\/p>\n

Lily’s mind, in and about the branches of the pear tree, where still hung<\/p>\n

in effigy the scrubbed kitchen table, symbol of her profound respect for<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay’s mind, until her thought which had spun quicker and quicker<\/p>\n

exploded of its own intensity; she felt released; a shot went off close at<\/p>\n

hand, and there came, flying from its fragments, frightened, effusive,<\/p>\n

tumultuous, a flock of starlings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Jasper!” said Mr. Bankes. They turned the way the starlings flew, over<\/p>\n

the terrace. Following the scatter of swift-flying birds in the sky they<\/p>\n

stepped through the gap in the high hedge straight into Mr. Ramsay, who<\/p>\n

boomed tragically at them, “Some one had blundered!”[34]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His eyes, glazed with emotion, defiant with tragic intensity, met theirs<\/p>\n

for a second, and trembled on the verge of recognition; but then, raising<\/p>\n

his hand, half-way to his face as if to avert, to brush off, in an agony<\/p>\n

of peevish shame, their normal gaze, as if he begged them to withhold for<\/p>\n

a moment what he knew to be inevitable, as if he impressed upon them his<\/p>\n

own child-like resentment of interruption, yet even in the moment of<\/p>\n

discovery was not to be routed utterly, but was determined to hold fast to<\/p>\n

something of this delicious emotion, this impure rhapsody of which he was<\/p>\n

ashamed, but in which he revelled–he turned abruptly, slammed his private<\/p>\n

door on them; and, Lily Briscoe and Mr. Bankes, looking uneasily up into<\/p>\n

the sky, observed that the flock of starlings which Jasper had routed with<\/p>\n

his gun had settled on the tops of the elm trees.[35]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And even if it isn’t fine tomorrow,” said Mrs. Ramsay, raising her eyes<\/p>\n

to glance at William Bankes and Lily Briscoe as they passed, “it will be<\/p>\n

another day. And now,” she said, thinking that Lily’s charm was her<\/p>\n

Chinese eyes, aslant in her white, puckered little face, but it would take<\/p>\n

a clever man to see it, “and now stand up, and let me measure your leg,”<\/p>\n

for they might go to the Lighthouse after all, and she must see if the<\/p>\n

stocking did not need to be an inch or two longer in the leg.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Smiling, for it was an admirable idea, that had flashed upon her this very<\/p>\n

second–William and Lily should marry–she took the heather-mixture<\/p>\n

stocking, with its criss-cross of steel needles at the mouth of it, and<\/p>\n

measured it against James’s leg.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“My dear, stand still,” she said, for in his jealousy, not liking to serve<\/p>\n

as measuring block for the Lighthouse keeper’s little boy, James fidgeted<\/p>\n

purposely; and if he did that, how could she see, was it too long, was it<\/p>\n

too short? she asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She looked up–what demon possessed him, her youngest, her cherished?–and<\/p>\n

saw the room, saw the chairs, thought them fearfully shabby. Their<\/p>\n

entrails, as Andrew said the other day, were all over the floor; but then<\/p>\n

what was the point, she asked, of buying good chairs to let them spoil up<\/p>\n

here all through the winter when the house, with only one old woman to see<\/p>\n

to it, positively dripped with wet? Never mind, the rent was precisely<\/p>\n

twopence half-penny; the children loved it; it did her husband good to be<\/p>\n

three thousand, or if she must be accurate, three hundred miles from his<\/p>\n

libraries and his lectures and his disciples; and there was room for<\/p>\n

visitors. Mats, camp beds, crazy ghosts of chairs and tables whose London<\/p>\n

life of service was done–they did well enough here; and a photograph or<\/p>\n

two, and books. Books, she thought, grew of themselves. She never had<\/p>\n

time to read them. Alas! even the books that had been given her and<\/p>\n

inscribed by the hand of the poet himself: “For her whose wishes must be<\/p>\n

obeyed”[36]<\/sup><\/a> … “The happier Helen of our days”[37]<\/sup><\/a> … disgraceful to say, she<\/p>\n

had never read them. And Croom on the Mind[38]<\/sup><\/a> and Bates on the Savage<\/p>\n

Customs of Polynesia[39]<\/sup><\/a> (“My dear, stand still,” she said)–neither of those<\/p>\n

could one send to the Lighthouse. At a certain moment, she supposed, the<\/p>\n

house would become so shabby that something must be done. If they could<\/p>\n

be taught to wipe their feet and not bring the beach in with them–that<\/p>\n

would be something. Crabs, she had to allow, if Andrew really wished to<\/p>\n

dissect them, or if Jasper believed that one could make soup from seaweed,<\/p>\n

one could not prevent it; or Rose’s objects–shells, reeds, stones; for<\/p>\n

they were gifted, her children, but all in quite different ways. And the<\/p>\n

result of it was, she sighed, taking in the whole room from floor to<\/p>\n

ceiling, as she held the stocking against James’s leg, that things got<\/p>\n

shabbier and got shabbier summer after summer. The mat was fading; the<\/p>\n

wall-paper was flapping. You couldn’t tell any more that those were roses<\/p>\n

on it. Still, if every door in a house is left perpetually open, and no<\/p>\n

lockmaker in the whole of Scotland can mend a bolt, things must spoil.<\/p>\n

What was the use of flinging a green Cashmere shawl over the edge of<\/p>\n

a picture frame? In two weeks it would be the colour of pea soup.<\/p>\n

But it was the doors that annoyed her; every door was left open.<\/p>\n

She listened. The drawing-room door was open; the hall door was open;<\/p>\n

it sounded as if the bedroom doors were open; and certainly the window<\/p>\n

on the landing was open, for that she had opened herself. That windows<\/p>\n

should be open, and doors shut–simple as it was, could none of them<\/p>\n

remember it? She would go into the maids’ bedrooms at night and find<\/p>\n

them sealed like ovens, except for Marie’s, the Swiss girl, who<\/p>\n

would rather go without a bath than without fresh air, but then<\/p>\n

at home, she had said, “the mountains are so beautiful.” She had said<\/p>\n

that last night looking out of the window with tears in her eyes.<\/p>\n

“The mountains are so beautiful.” Her father was dying there,<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay knew. He was leaving them fatherless. Scolding and<\/p>\n

demonstrating (how to make a bed, how to open a window, with hands that<\/p>\n

shut and spread like a Frenchwoman’s) all had folded itself quietly about<\/p>\n

her, when the girl spoke, as, after a flight through the sunshine the<\/p>\n

wings of a bird fold themselves quietly and the blue of its plumage<\/p>\n

changes from bright steel to soft purple. She had stood there silent for<\/p>\n

there was nothing to be said. He had cancer of the throat. At the<\/p>\n

recollection–how she had stood there, how the girl had said, “At home the<\/p>\n

mountains are so beautiful,” and there was no hope, no hope whatever, she<\/p>\n

had a spasm of irritation, and speaking sharply, said to James:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Stand still. Don’t be tiresome,” so that he knew instantly that her<\/p>\n

severity was real, and straightened his leg and she measured it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The stocking was too short by half an inch at least, making allowance for<\/p>\n

the fact that Sorley’s little boy would be less well grown than James.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s too short,” she said, “ever so much too short.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, half-way down, in the<\/p>\n

darkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps<\/p>\n

a tear formed; a tear fell; the waters swayed this way and that, received<\/p>\n

it, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But was it nothing but looks, people said? What was there behind it–her<\/p>\n

beauty and splendour? Had he blown his brains out, they asked, had he<\/p>\n

died the week before they were married–some other, earlier lover, of whom<\/p>\n

rumours reached one?[40]<\/sup><\/a> Or was there nothing? nothing but an incomparable<\/p>\n

beauty which she lived behind, and could do nothing to disturb? For<\/p>\n

easily though she might have said at some moment of intimacy when stories<\/p>\n

of great passion, of love foiled, of ambition thwarted came her way how<\/p>\n

she too had known or felt or been through it herself, she never spoke.<\/p>\n

She was silent always. She knew then–she knew without having learnt.<\/p>\n

Her simplicity fathomed what clever people falsified. Her singleness of<\/p>\n

mind made her drop plumb like a stone, alight exact as a bird, gave her,<\/p>\n

naturally, this swoop and fall of the spirit upon truth which delighted,<\/p>\n

eased, sustained–falsely perhaps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(“Nature has but little clay,” said Mr. Bankes once, much moved by her<\/p>\n

voice on the telephone, though she was only telling him a fact about a<\/p>\n

train, “like that of which she moulded you.”[41]<\/sup><\/a> He saw her at the end of the<\/p>\n

line, Greek, blue-eyed, straight-nosed. How incongruous it seemed to be<\/p>\n

telephoning to a woman like that. The Graces assembling seemed to have<\/p>\n

joined hands in meadows of asphodel to compose that face.[42]<\/sup><\/a> Yes, he would<\/p>\n

catch the 10:30 at Euston.[43]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But she’s no more aware of her beauty than a child,” said Mr. Bankes,<\/p>\n

replacing the receiver and crossing the room to see what progress the<\/p>\n

workmen were making with an hotel which they were building at the back of<\/p>\n

his house. And he thought of Mrs. Ramsay as he looked at that stir among<\/p>\n

the unfinished walls. For always, he thought, there was something<\/p>\n

incongruous to be worked into the harmony of her face. She clapped a<\/p>\n

deer-stalker’s hat on her head; she ran across the lawn in galoshes to<\/p>\n

snatch a child from mischief. So that if it was her beauty merely that<\/p>\n

one thought of, one must remember the quivering thing, the living thing<\/p>\n

(they were carrying bricks up a little plank as he watched them), and work<\/p>\n

it into the picture; or if one thought of her simply as a woman, one must<\/p>\n

endow her with some freak of idiosyncrasy–she did not like admiration–or<\/p>\n

suppose some latent desire to doff her royalty of form as if her beauty<\/p>\n

bored her and all that men say of beauty, and she wanted only to be like<\/p>\n

other people, insignificant. He did not know. He did not know. He must<\/p>\n

go to his work.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Knitting her reddish-brown hairy stocking, with her head outlined absurdly<\/p>\n

by the gilt frame, the green shawl which she had tossed over the edge of<\/p>\n

the frame, and the authenticated masterpiece by Michael Angelo,[44]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay smoothed out what had been harsh in her manner a moment<\/p>\n

before, raised his head, and kissed her little boy on the forehead.<\/p>\n

“Let us find another picture to cut out,” she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But what had happened?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some one had blundered.[45]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Starting from her musing she gave meaning to words which she had held<\/p>\n

meaningless in her mind for a long stretch of time. “Some one had<\/p>\n

blundered”–Fixing her short-sighted eyes upon her husband, who was now<\/p>\n

bearing down upon her, she gazed steadily until his closeness revealed to<\/p>\n

her (the jingle mated itself in her head) that something had happened,<\/p>\n

some one had blundered. But she could not for the life of her think what.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He shivered; he quivered. All his vanity, all his satisfaction in his own<\/p>\n

splendour, riding fell as a thunderbolt, fierce as a hawk at the head of<\/p>\n

his men through the valley of death, had been shattered, destroyed.<\/p>\n

Stormed at by shot and shell, boldly we rode and well, flashed through the<\/p>\n

valley of death, volleyed and thundered[46]<\/sup><\/a>–straight into Lily Briscoe and<\/p>\n

William Bankes. He quivered; he shivered.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not for the world would she have spoken to him, realising, from the<\/p>\n

familiar signs, his eyes averted, and some curious gathering together<\/p>\n

of his person, as if he wrapped himself about and needed privacy into<\/p>\n

which to regain his equilibrium, that he was outraged and anguished. She<\/p>\n

stroked James’s head; she transferred to him what she felt for her<\/p>\n

husband, and, as she watched him chalk yellow the white dress shirt of a<\/p>\n

gentleman in the Army and Navy Stores catalogue, thought what a delight it<\/p>\n

would be to her should he turn out a great artist; and why should he not?<\/p>\n

He had a splendid forehead. Then, looking up, as her husband passed her<\/p>\n

once more, she was relieved to find that the ruin was veiled; domesticity<\/p>\n

triumphed; custom crooned its soothing rhythm, so that when stopping<\/p>\n

deliberately, as his turn came round again, at the window he bent<\/p>\n

quizzically and whimsically to tickle James’s bare calf with a sprig of<\/p>\n

something, she twitted him for having dispatched “that poor young man,”<\/p>\n

Charles Tansley. Tansley had had to go in and write his dissertation,<\/p>\n

he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“James will have to write his<\/i> <\/i>dissertation one of these days,” he added<\/p>\n

ironically, flicking his sprig.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hating his father, James brushed away the tickling spray with which in a<\/p>\n

manner peculiar to him, compound of severity and humour, he teased his<\/p>\n

youngest son’s bare leg.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She was trying to get these tiresome stockings finished to send to<\/p>\n

Sorley’s little boy tomorrow, said Mrs. Ramsay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There wasn’t the slightest possible chance that they could go to the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse tomorrow, Mr. Ramsay snapped out irascibly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did he know? she asked. The wind often changed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women’s minds<\/p>\n

enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered<\/p>\n

and shivered[47]<\/sup><\/a>; and now, she flew in the face of facts, made his children<\/p>\n

hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. He<\/p>\n

stamped his foot on the stone step. “Damn you,” he said. But what had she<\/p>\n

said? Simply that it might be fine tomorrow. So it might.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not with the barometer falling and the wind due west.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other<\/p>\n

people’s feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so<\/p>\n

brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without<\/p>\n

replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of<\/p>\n

jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There<\/p>\n

was nothing to be said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He stood by her in silence. Very humbly, at length, he said that he would<\/p>\n

step over and ask the Coastguards if she liked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She was quite ready to take his word for it, she said. Only then they<\/p>\n

need not cut sandwiches–that was all. They came to her, naturally, since<\/p>\n

she was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting this,<\/p>\n

another that; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothing<\/p>\n

but a sponge sopped full of human emotions. Then he said, Damn you. He<\/p>\n

said, It must rain. He said, It won’t rain; and instantly a Heaven of<\/p>\n

security opened before her. There was nobody she reverenced more. She<\/p>\n

was not good enough to tie his shoe strings, she felt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Already ashamed of that petulance, of that gesticulation of the hands when<\/p>\n

charging at the head of his troops, Mr. Ramsay rather sheepishly prodded<\/p>\n

his son’s bare legs once more, and then, as if he had her leave for it,<\/p>\n

with a movement which oddly reminded his wife of the great sea lion at the<\/p>\n

Zoo tumbling backwards after swallowing his fish and walloping off so that<\/p>\n

the water in the tank washes from side to side, he dived into the evening<\/p>\n

air which, already thinner, was taking the substance from leaves and<\/p>\n

hedges but, as if in return, restoring to roses and pinks a lustre which<\/p>\n

they had not had by day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Some one had blundered,”[48]<\/sup><\/a> he said again, striding off, up and down the<\/p>\n

terrace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But how extraordinarily his note had changed! It was like the cuckoo;<\/p>\n

“in June he gets out of tune”; as if he were trying over, tentatively<\/p>\n

seeking, some phrase for a new mood, and having only this at hand, used<\/p>\n

it, cracked though it was. But it sounded ridiculous–“Some one had<\/p>\n

blundered”–said like that, almost as a question, without any conviction,<\/p>\n

melodiously. Mrs. Ramsay could not help smiling, and soon, sure enough,<\/p>\n

walking up and down, he hummed it, dropped it, fell silent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was safe, he was restored to his privacy. He stopped to light his<\/p>\n

pipe, looked once at his wife and son in the window, and as one raises<\/p>\n

one’s eyes from a page in an express train and sees a farm, a tree, a<\/p>\n

cluster of cottages as an illustration, a confirmation of something on the<\/p>\n

printed page to which one returns, fortified, and satisfied, so without<\/p>\n

his distinguishing either his son or his wife, the sight of them fortified<\/p>\n

him and satisfied him and consecrated his effort to arrive at a perfectly<\/p>\n

clear understanding of the problem which now engaged the energies of his<\/p>\n

splendid mind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was a splendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano,<\/p>\n

divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six<\/p>\n

letters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty<\/p>\n

in running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until<\/p>\n

it had reached, say, the letter Q. He reached Q. Very few people in<\/p>\n

the whole of England ever reach Q. Here, stopping for one moment<\/p>\n

by the stone urn which held the geraniums, he saw, but now far, far<\/p>\n

away, like children picking up shells, divinely innocent and occupied with<\/p>\n

little trifles at their feet and somehow entirely defenceless against a<\/p>\n

doom which he perceived, his wife and son, together, in the window. They<\/p>\n

needed his protection; he gave it them. But after Q? What comes next?<\/p>\n

After Q there are a number of letters the last of which is scarcely<\/p>\n

visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance. Z is only<\/p>\n

reached once by one man in a generation. Still, if he could reach R it<\/p>\n

would be something. Here at least was Q. He dug his heels in at Q. Q he<\/p>\n

was sure of. Q he could demonstrate. If Q then is Q–R–. Here he<\/p>\n

knocked his pipe out, with two or three resonant taps on the handle of the<\/p>\n

urn, and proceeded. “Then R …” He braced himself. He clenched<\/p>\n

himself.[49]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Qualities that would have saved a ship’s company exposed on a broiling<\/p>\n

sea with six biscuits and a flask of water–endurance and justice,<\/p>\n

foresight, devotion, skill, came to his help. R is then–what is R?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flickered over the<\/p>\n

intensity of his gaze and obscured the letter R. In that flash of<\/p>\n

darkness he heard people saying–he was a failure–that R was beyond him.<\/p>\n

He would never reach R. On to R, once more. R–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Qualities that in a desolate expedition across the icy solitudes of the<\/p>\n

Polar region would have made him the leader, the guide, the counsellor,<\/p>\n

whose temper, neither sanguine nor despondent, surveys with equanimity<\/p>\n

what is to be and faces it, came to his help again. R–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The lizard’s eye flickered once more. The veins on his forehead bulged.<\/p>\n

The geranium in the urn became startlingly visible and, displayed among<\/p>\n

its leaves, he could see, without wishing it, that old, that obvious<\/p>\n

distinction between the two classes of men; on the one hand the steady<\/p>\n

goers of superhuman strength who, plodding and persevering, repeat the<\/p>\n

whole alphabet in order, twenty-six letters in all, from start to finish;<\/p>\n

on the other the gifted, the inspired who, miraculously, lump all the<\/p>\n

letters together in one flash–the way of genius. He had not genius; he<\/p>\n

laid no claim to that: but he had, or might have had, the power to repeat<\/p>\n

every letter of the alphabet from A to Z accurately in order. Meanwhile,<\/p>\n

he stuck at Q. On, then, on to R.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Feelings that would not have disgraced a leader who, now that the snow has<\/p>\n

begun to fall and the mountain top is covered in mist, knows that he must<\/p>\n

lay himself down and die before morning comes, stole upon him, paling the<\/p>\n

colour of his eyes, giving him, even in the two minutes of his turn on<\/p>\n

the terrace, the bleached look of withered old age. Yet he would not die<\/p>\n

lying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there, his eyes fixed<\/p>\n

on the storm, trying to the end to pierce the darkness, he would die<\/p>\n

standing. He would never reach R.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He stood stock-still, by the urn, with the geranium flowing over it. How<\/p>\n

many men in a thousand million, he asked himself, reach Z after all?<\/p>\n

Surely the leader of a forlorn hope[50]<\/sup><\/a> may ask himself that, and answer,<\/p>\n

without treachery to the expedition behind him, “One perhaps.” One in a<\/p>\n

generation. Is he to be blamed then if he is not that one? provided he<\/p>\n

has toiled honestly, given to the best of his power, and till he has no<\/p>\n

more left to give? And his fame lasts how long? It is permissible even<\/p>\n

for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him<\/p>\n

hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two<\/p>\n

thousand years? (asked Mr. Ramsay ironically, staring at the hedge).<\/p>\n

What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the<\/p>\n

ages? The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

His own little light would shine, not very brightly, for a year or two,<\/p>\n

and would then be merged in some bigger light, and that in a bigger still.<\/p>\n

(He looked into the hedge, into the intricacy of the twigs.) Who then<\/p>\n

could blame the leader of that forlorn party which after all has climbed<\/p>\n

high enough to see the waste of the years and the perishing of the stars,<\/p>\n

if before death stiffens his limbs beyond the power of movement he does a<\/p>\n

little consciously raise his numbed fingers to his brow, and square his<\/p>\n

shoulders, so that when the search party comes they will find him dead at<\/p>\n

his post, the fine figure of a soldier? Mr. Ramsay squared his shoulders<\/p>\n

and stood very upright by the urn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who shall blame him, if, so standing for a moment he dwells upon fame,<\/p>\n

upon search parties, upon cairns raised by grateful followers over his<\/p>\n

bones? Finally, who shall blame the leader of the doomed expedition, if,<\/p>\n

having adventured to the uttermost, and used his strength wholly to the<\/p>\n

last ounce and fallen asleep not much caring if he wakes or not, he now<\/p>\n

perceives by some pricking in his toes that he lives, and does not on the<\/p>\n

whole object to live, but requires sympathy, and whisky, and some one to<\/p>\n

tell the story of his suffering to at once? Who shall blame him? Who<\/p>\n

will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by<\/p>\n

the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first,<\/p>\n

gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly<\/p>\n

before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his<\/p>\n

isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and<\/p>\n

finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head<\/p>\n

before her–who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the<\/p>\n

world?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But his son hated him. He hated him for coming up to them, for stopping<\/p>\n

and looking down on them; he hated him for interrupting them; he hated him<\/p>\n

for the exaltation and sublimity of his gestures; for the magnificence of<\/p>\n

his head; for his exactingness and egotism (for there he stood, commanding<\/p>\n

them to attend to him) but most of all he hated the twang and twitter of<\/p>\n

his father’s emotion which, vibrating round them, disturbed the perfect<\/p>\n

simplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother. By looking<\/p>\n

fixedly at the page, he hoped to make him move on; by pointing his finger<\/p>\n

at a word, he hoped to recall his mother’s attention, which, he knew<\/p>\n

angrily, wavered instantly his father stopped. But, no. Nothing would<\/p>\n

make Mr. Ramsay move on. There he stood, demanding sympathy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay, who had been sitting loosely, folding her son in her arm,<\/p>\n

braced herself, and, half turning, seemed to raise herself with an effort,<\/p>\n

and at once to pour erect into the air a rain of energy, a column of<\/p>\n

spray, looking at the same time animated and alive as if all her energies<\/p>\n

were being fused into force, burning and illuminating (quietly though she<\/p>\n

sat, taking up her stocking again), and into this delicious fecundity,<\/p>\n

this fountain and spray of life, the fatal sterility of the male plunged<\/p>\n

itself, like a beak of brass, barren and bare. He wanted sympathy. He<\/p>\n

was a failure, he said. Mrs. Ramsay flashed her needles. Mr. Ramsay<\/p>\n

repeated, never taking his eyes from her face, that he was a failure.<\/p>\n

She blew the words back at him. “Charles Tansley…” she said. But he<\/p>\n

must have more than that. It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his<\/p>\n

genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life,<\/p>\n

warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness<\/p>\n

made futile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life–the<\/p>\n

drawing-room; behind the drawing-room the kitchen; above the kitchen the<\/p>\n

bedrooms; and beyond them the nurseries; they must be furnished, they must<\/p>\n

be filled with life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charles Tansley thought him the greatest metaphysician of the time,[51]<\/sup><\/a> she<\/p>\n

said. But he must have more than that. He must have sympathy. He must<\/p>\n

be assured that he too lived in the heart of life; was needed; not only<\/p>\n

here, but all over the world. Flashing her needles, confident, upright,<\/p>\n

she created drawing-room and kitchen, set them all aglow; bade him take<\/p>\n

his ease there, go in and out, enjoy himself. She laughed, she knitted.<\/p>\n

Standing between her knees, very stiff, James felt all her strength<\/p>\n

flaring up to be drunk and quenched by the beak of brass, the arid<\/p>\n

scimitar of the male, which smote mercilessly, again and again,<\/p>\n

demanding sympathy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was a failure, he repeated. Well, look then, feel then. Flashing her<\/p>\n

needles, glancing round about her, out of the window, into the room, at<\/p>\n

James himself, she assured him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by her laugh,<\/p>\n

her poise, her competence (as a nurse carrying a light across a dark room<\/p>\n

assures a fractious child), that it was real; the house was full; the<\/p>\n

garden blowing. If he put implicit faith in her, nothing should hurt him;<\/p>\n

however deep he buried himself or climbed high, not for a second should he<\/p>\n

find himself without her. So boasting of her capacity to surround and<\/p>\n

protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know<\/p>\n

herself by; all was so lavished and spent; and James, as he stood stiff<\/p>\n

between her knees, felt her rise in a rosy-flowered fruit tree laid with<\/p>\n

leaves and dancing boughs into which the beak of brass, the arid scimitar<\/p>\n

of his father, the egotistical man, plunged and smote, demanding sympathy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Filled with her words, like a child who drops off satisfied, he said, at<\/p>\n

last, looking at her with humble gratitude, restored, renewed, that he<\/p>\n

would take a turn; he would watch the children playing cricket. He went.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Immediately, Mrs. Ramsey seemed to fold herself together, one petal closed<\/p>\n

in another, and the whole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself, so that<\/p>\n

she had only strength enough to move her finger, in exquisite abandonment<\/p>\n

to exhaustion, across the page of Grimm’s fairy story, while there<\/p>\n

throbbed through her, like a pulse in a spring which has expanded to its<\/p>\n

full width and now gently ceases to beat, the rapture of successful<\/p>\n

creation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every throb of this pulse seemed, as he walked away, to enclose her and<\/p>\n

her husband, and to give to each that solace which two different notes,<\/p>\n

one high, one low, struck together, seem to give each other as they<\/p>\n

combine. Yet as the resonance died, and she turned to the Fairy Tale<\/p>\n

again, Mrs. Ramsey felt not only exhausted in body (afterwards, not at the<\/p>\n

time, she always felt this) but also there tinged her physical fatigue<\/p>\n

some faintly disagreeable sensation with another origin. Not that, as<\/p>\n

she read aloud the story of the Fisherman’s Wife,[52]<\/sup><\/a> she knew precisely what<\/p>\n

it came from; nor did she let herself put into words her dissatisfaction<\/p>\n

when she realized, at the turn of the page when she stopped and heard<\/p>\n

dully, ominously, a wave fall, how it came from this: she did not like,<\/p>\n

even for a second, to feel finer than her husband; and further, could not<\/p>\n

bear not being entirely sure, when she spoke to him, of the truth of what<\/p>\n

she said. Universities and people wanting him, lectures and books and<\/p>\n

their being of the highest importance–all that she did not doubt for a<\/p>\n

moment; but it was their relation, and his coming to her like that,<\/p>\n

openly, so that any one could see, that discomposed her; for then people<\/p>\n

said he depended on her, when they must know that of the two he was<\/p>\n

infinitely the more important, and what she gave the world, in comparison<\/p>\n

with what he gave, negligible. But then again, it was the other thing<\/p>\n

too–not being able to tell him the truth, being afraid, for instance,<\/p>\n

about the greenhouse roof and the expense it would be, fifty pounds<\/p>\n

perhaps to mend it; and then about his books, to be afraid that he might<\/p>\n

guess, what she a little suspected, that his last book was not quite his<\/p>\n

best book (she gathered that from William Bankes); and then to hide small<\/p>\n

daily things, and the children seeing it, and the burden it laid on<\/p>\n

them–all this diminished the entire joy, the pure joy, of the two notes<\/p>\n

sounding together, and let the sound die on her ear now with a dismal<\/p>\n

flatness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A shadow was on the page; she looked up. It was Augustus Carmichael<\/p>\n

shuffling past, precisely now, at the very moment when it was painful to<\/p>\n

be reminded of the inadequacy of human relationships, that the most<\/p>\n

perfect was flawed, and could not bear the examination which, loving her<\/p>\n

husband, with her instinct for truth, she turned upon it; when it was<\/p>\n

painful to feel herself convicted of unworthiness, and impeded in her<\/p>\n

proper function by these lies, these exaggerations,–it was at this<\/p>\n

moment when she was fretted thus ignobly in the wake of her exaltation,<\/p>\n

that Mr. Carmichael shuffled past, in his yellow slippers, and some demon<\/p>\n

in her made it necessary for her to call out, as he passed,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Going indoors Mr. Carmichael?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said nothing. He took opium. The children said he had stained his<\/p>\n

beard yellow with it. Perhaps. What was obvious to her was that the poor<\/p>\n

man was unhappy, came to them every year as an escape; and yet every year<\/p>\n

she felt the same thing; he did not trust her. She said, “I am going to<\/p>\n

the town. Shall I get you stamps, paper, tobacco?” and she felt him<\/p>\n

wince. He did not trust her. It was his wife’s doing. She remembered<\/p>\n

that iniquity of his wife’s towards him, which had made her turn to steel<\/p>\n

and adamant there, in the horrible little room in St John’s Wood, when<\/p>\n

with her own eyes she had seen that odious woman turn him out of the<\/p>\n

house. He was unkempt; he dropped things on his coat; he had the<\/p>\n

tiresomeness of an old man with nothing in the world to do; and she turned<\/p>\n

him out of the room. She said, in her odious way, “Now, Mrs. Ramsay and I<\/p>\n

want to have a little talk together,” and Mrs. Ramsay could see, as if<\/p>\n

before her eyes, the innumerable miseries of his life. Had he money<\/p>\n

enough to buy tobacco? Did he have to ask her for it? half a crown?[53]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

eighteenpence? Oh, she could not bear to think of the little indignities<\/p>\n

she made him suffer. And always now (why, she could not guess, except<\/p>\n

that it came probably from that woman somehow) he shrank from her. He<\/p>\n

never told her anything. But what more could she have done? There was a<\/p>\n

sunny room given up to him. The children were good to him. Never did she<\/p>\n

show a sign of not wanting him. She went out of her way indeed to be<\/p>\n

friendly. Do you want stamps, do you want tobacco? Here’s a book you<\/p>\n

might like and so on. And after all–after all (here insensibly she drew<\/p>\n

herself together, physically, the sense of her own beauty becoming, as it<\/p>\n

did so seldom, present to her) after all, she had not generally any<\/p>\n

difficulty in making people like her; for instance, George Manning; Mr.<\/p>\n

Wallace; famous as they were,[54]<\/sup><\/a> they would come to her of an evening,<\/p>\n

quietly, and talk alone over her fire. She bore about with her, she could<\/p>\n

not help knowing it, the torch of her beauty; she carried it erect into<\/p>\n

any room that she entered; and after all, veil it as she might, and shrink<\/p>\n

from the monotony of bearing that it imposed on her, her beauty was<\/p>\n

apparent. She had been admired. She had been loved. She had entered<\/p>\n

rooms where mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence. Men, and<\/p>\n

women too, letting go to the multiplicity of things, had allowed<\/p>\n

themselves with her the relief of simplicity. It injured her that he<\/p>\n

should shrink. It hurt her. And yet not cleanly, not rightly. That was<\/p>\n

what she minded, coming as it did on top of her discontent with her<\/p>\n

husband; the sense she had now when Mr. Carmichael shuffled past, just<\/p>\n

nodding to her question, with a book beneath his arm, in his yellow<\/p>\n

slippers, that she was suspected; and that all this desire of hers to<\/p>\n

give, to help, was vanity. For her own self-satisfaction was it that she<\/p>\n

wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her,<\/p>\n

“O Mrs. Ramsay! dear Mrs. Ramsay … Mrs. Ramsay, of course!” and need her<\/p>\n

and send for her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she<\/p>\n

wanted, and therefore when Mr. Carmichael shrank away from her, as he did<\/p>\n

at this moment, making off to some corner where he did acrostics<\/p>\n

endlessly, she did not feel merely snubbed back in her instinct, but made<\/p>\n

aware of the pettiness of some part of her, and of human relations, how<\/p>\n

flawed they are, how despicable, how self-seeking, at their best. Shabby<\/p>\n

and worn out, and not presumably (her cheeks were hollow, her hair was<\/p>\n

white) any longer a sight that filled the eyes with joy, she had better<\/p>\n

devote her mind to the story of the Fisherman and his Wife and so pacify<\/p>\n

that bundle of sensitiveness (none of her children was as sensitive as he<\/p>\n

was), her son James.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The man’s heart grew heavy,” she read aloud, “and he would not go. He<\/p>\n

said to himself, ‘It is not right,’ and yet he went. And when he came to<\/p>\n

the sea the water was quite purple and dark blue, and grey and thick, and<\/p>\n

no longer so green and yellow, but it was still quiet. And he stood there<\/p>\n

and said–”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay could have wished that her husband had not chosen that moment<\/p>\n

to stop. Why had he not gone as he said to watch the children playing<\/p>\n

cricket? But he did not speak; he looked; he nodded; he approved; he went<\/p>\n

on. He slipped, seeing before him that hedge which had over and over<\/p>\n

again rounded some pause, signified some conclusion, seeing his wife and<\/p>\n

child, seeing again the urns with the trailing of red geraniums which had<\/p>\n

so often decorated processes of thought, and bore, written up among their<\/p>\n

leaves, as if they were scraps of paper on which one scribbles notes in<\/p>\n

the rush of reading–he slipped, seeing all this, smoothly into<\/p>\n

speculation suggested by an article in The Times<\/i> about the number of<\/p>\n

Americans who visit Shakespeare’s house every year. If Shakespeare<\/p>\n

had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what<\/p>\n

it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is<\/p>\n

the lot of the average human being better now than in the time of the<\/p>\n

Pharaohs? Is the lot of the average human being, however, he asked<\/p>\n

himself, the criterion by which we judge the measure of civilization?<\/p>\n

Possibly not. Possibly the greatest good requires the existence of a<\/p>\n

slave class. The liftman in the Tube[55]<\/sup><\/a> is an eternal necessity. The<\/p>\n

thought was distasteful to him. He tossed his head. To avoid it, he<\/p>\n

would find some way of snubbing the predominance of the arts. He would<\/p>\n

argue that the world exists for the average human being; that the arts are<\/p>\n

merely a decoration imposed on the top of human life; they do not express<\/p>\n

it. Nor is Shakespeare necessary to it. Not knowing precisely why it was<\/p>\n

that he wanted to disparage Shakespeare and come to the rescue of the man<\/p>\n

who stands eternally in the door of the lift, he picked a leaf sharply<\/p>\n

from the hedge. All this would have to be dished up for the young men at<\/p>\n

Cardiff[56]<\/sup><\/a> next month, he thought; here, on his terrace, he was merely<\/p>\n

foraging and picnicking (he threw away the leaf that he had picked so<\/p>\n

peevishly) like a man who reaches from his horse to pick a bunch of roses,<\/p>\n

or stuffs his pockets with nuts as he ambles at his ease through the lanes<\/p>\n

and fields of a country known to him from boyhood. It was all familiar;<\/p>\n

this turning, that stile, that cut across the fields. Hours he would<\/p>\n

spend thus, with his pipe, of an evening, thinking up and down and in and<\/p>\n

out of the old familiar lanes and commons, which were all stuck about with<\/p>\n

the history of that campaign there, the life of this statesman here, with<\/p>\n

poems and with anecdotes, with figures too, this thinker, that soldier;<\/p>\n

all very brisk and clear; but at length the lane, the field, the common,<\/p>\n

the fruitful nut-tree and the flowering hedge led him on to that further<\/p>\n

turn of the road where he dismounted always, tied his horse to a tree,<\/p>\n

and proceeded on foot alone. He reached the edge of the lawn and looked<\/p>\n

out on the bay beneath.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was his fate, his peculiarity, whether he wished it or not, to come out<\/p>\n

thus on a spit of land which the sea is slowly eating away, and there to<\/p>\n

stand, like a desolate sea-bird, alone. It was his power, his gift,<\/p>\n

suddenly to shed all superfluities, to shrink and diminish so that he<\/p>\n

looked barer and felt sparer, even physically, yet lost none of his<\/p>\n

intensity of mind, and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of<\/p>\n

human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we<\/p>\n

stand on–that was his fate, his gift. But having thrown away, when he<\/p>\n

dismounted, all gestures and fripperies, all trophies of nuts and roses,<\/p>\n

and shrunk so that not only fame but even his own name was forgotten<\/p>\n

by him, kept even in that desolation a vigilance which spared no<\/p>\n

phantom and luxuriated in no vision, and it was in this guise that<\/p>\n

he inspired in William Bankes (intermittently) and in Charles Tansley<\/p>\n

(obsequiously)and in his wife now, when she looked up and saw him<\/p>\n

standing at the edge of the lawn, profoundly, reverence, and pity, and<\/p>\n

gratitude too, as a stake driven into the bed of a channel upon which the<\/p>\n

gulls perch and the waves beat inspires in merry boat-loads a feeling of<\/p>\n

gratitude for the duty it is taking upon itself of marking the channel out<\/p>\n

there in the floods alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But the father of eight children has no choice.” Muttering half aloud,<\/p>\n

so he broke off, turned, sighed, raised his eyes, sought the figure of his<\/p>\n

wife reading stories to his little boy, filled his pipe. He turned from<\/p>\n

the sight of human ignorance and human fate and the sea eating the ground<\/p>\n

we stand on, which, had he been able to contemplate it fixedly might have<\/p>\n

led to something; and found consolation in trifles so slight compared with<\/p>\n

the august theme just now before him that he was disposed to slur that<\/p>\n

comfort over, to deprecate it, as if to be caught happy in a world of<\/p>\n

misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes. It was true;<\/p>\n

he was for the most part happy; he had his wife; he had his children; he<\/p>\n

had promised in six weeks’ time to talk “some nonsense” to the young men<\/p>\n

of Cardiff about Locke, Hume, Berkeley,[57]<\/sup><\/a> and the causes of the French<\/p>\n

Revolution. But this and his pleasure in it, his glory in the phrases he<\/p>\n

made, in the ardour of youth, in his wife’s beauty, in the tributes that<\/p>\n

reached him from Swansea, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton, Kidderminster,<\/p>\n

Oxford, Cambridge[58]<\/sup><\/a>–all had to be deprecated and concealed under the phrase<\/p>\n

“talking nonsense,” because, in effect, he had not done the thing he might<\/p>\n

have done. It was a disguise; it was the refuge of a man afraid to own<\/p>\n

his own feelings, who could not say, This is what I like–this is what I<\/p>\n

am; and rather pitiable and distasteful to William Bankes and Lily Briscoe,<\/p>\n

who wondered why such concealments should be necessary; why he needed<\/p>\n

always praise; why so brave a man in thought should be so timid in life;<\/p>\n

how strangely he was venerable and laughable at one and the same time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Teaching and preaching is beyond human power, Lily suspected. (She was<\/p>\n

putting away her things.) If you are exalted you must somehow come a<\/p>\n

cropper. Mrs. Ramsay gave him what he asked too easily. Then the change<\/p>\n

must be so upsetting, Lily said. He comes in from his books and finds us<\/p>\n

all playing games and talking nonsense. Imagine what a change from the<\/p>\n

things he thinks about, she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was bearing down upon them. Now he stopped dead and stood looking in<\/p>\n

silence at the sea. Now he had turned away again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, Mr. Bankes said, watching him go. It was a thousand pities. (Lily<\/p>\n

had said something about his frightening her–he changed from one mood to<\/p>\n

another so suddenly.) Yes, said Mr. Bankes, it was a thousand pities that<\/p>\n

Ramsay could not behave a little more like other people. (For he liked<\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe; he could discuss Ramsay with her quite openly.) It was for<\/p>\n

that reason, he said, that the young don’t read Carlyle[59]<\/sup><\/a>. A crusty old<\/p>\n

grumbler who lost his temper if the porridge was cold, why should he<\/p>\n

preach to us? was what Mr. Bankes understood that young people said<\/p>\n

nowadays. It was a thousand pities if you thought, as he did, that<\/p>\n

Carlyle was one of the great teachers of mankind. Lily was ashamed to say<\/p>\n

that she had not read Carlyle since she was at school. But in her opinion<\/p>\n

one liked Mr. Ramsay all the better for thinking that if his little finger<\/p>\n

ached the whole world must come to an end. It was not that<\/i> she minded.<\/p>\n

For who could be deceived by him? He asked you quite openly to flatter<\/p>\n

him, to admire him, his little dodges deceived nobody. What she disliked<\/p>\n

was his narrowness, his blindness, she said, looking after him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“A bit of a hypocrite?” Mr. Bankes suggested, looking too at Mr. Ramsay’s<\/p>\n

back, for was he not thinking of his friendship, and of Cam refusing to<\/p>\n

give him a flower, and of all those boys and girls, and his own house,<\/p>\n

full of comfort, but, since his wife’s death, quiet rather? Of course,<\/p>\n

he had his work… All the same, he rather wished Lily to agree that<\/p>\n

Ramsay was, as he said, “a bit of a hypocrite.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe went on putting away her brushes, looking up, looking down.<\/p>\n

Looking up, there he was–Mr. Ramsay–advancing towards them, swinging,<\/p>\n

careless, oblivious, remote. A bit of a hypocrite? she repeated. Oh,<\/p>\n

no–the most sincere of men, the truest (here he was), the best; but,<\/p>\n

looking down, she thought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical,<\/p>\n

he is unjust; and kept looking down, purposely, for only so could she keep<\/p>\n

steady, staying with the Ramsays. Directly one looked up and saw them,<\/p>\n

what she called “being in love” flooded them. They became part of that<\/p>\n

unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen<\/p>\n

through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the birds sang through<\/p>\n

them. And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in<\/p>\n

the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being<\/p>\n

made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became<\/p>\n

curled and whole like a wave which bore one up and threw one down with<\/p>\n

it, there, with a dash on the beach.[60]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes expected her to answer. And she was about to say something<\/p>\n

criticizing Mrs. Ramsay, how she was alarming, too, in her way,<\/p>\n

high-handed, or words to that effect, when Mr. Bankes made it entirely<\/p>\n

unnecessary for her to speak by his rapture. For such it was considering<\/p>\n

his age, turned sixty, and his cleanliness and his impersonality, and the<\/p>\n

white scientific coat which seemed to clothe him. For him to gaze as Lily<\/p>\n

saw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsay was a rapture, equivalent, Lily felt, to the<\/p>\n

loves of dozens of young men (and perhaps Mrs. Ramsay had never excited the<\/p>\n

loves of dozens of young men). It was love, she thought, pretending to<\/p>\n

move her canvas, distilled and filtered; love that never attempted to<\/p>\n

clutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians bear their<\/p>\n

symbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and<\/p>\n

become part of the human gain. So it was indeed. The world by all means<\/p>\n

should have shared it, could Mr. Bankes have said why that woman pleased<\/p>\n

him so; why the sight of her reading a fairy tale to her boy had upon him<\/p>\n

precisely the same effect as the solution of a scientific problem, so that<\/p>\n

he rested in contemplation of it, and felt, as he felt when he had proved<\/p>\n

something absolute about the digestive system of plants, that barbarity<\/p>\n

was tamed, the reign of chaos subdued.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Such a rapture–for by what other name could one call it?–made Lily<\/p>\n

Briscoe forget entirely what she had been about to say. It was nothing of<\/p>\n

importance; something about Mrs. Ramsay. It paled beside this “rapture,”<\/p>\n

this silent stare, for which she felt intense gratitude; for nothing so<\/p>\n

solaced her, eased her of the perplexity of life, and miraculously raised<\/p>\n

its burdens, as this sublime power, this heavenly gift, and one would no<\/p>\n

more disturb it, while it lasted, than break up the shaft of sunlight,<\/p>\n

lying level across the floor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That people should love like this, that Mr. Bankes should feel this for<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsey (she glanced at him musing) was helpful, was exalting. She<\/p>\n

wiped one brush after another upon a piece of old rag, menially, on<\/p>\n

purpose. She took shelter from the reverence which covered all women; she<\/p>\n

felt herself praised. Let him gaze; she would steal a look at her<\/p>\n

picture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She could have wept. It was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely bad! She<\/p>\n

could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been<\/p>\n

thinned and faded; the shapes etherealised; that was how Paunceforte[61]<\/sup><\/a> would<\/p>\n

have seen it. But then she did not see it like that. She saw the colour<\/p>\n

burning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly’s wing lying<\/p>\n

upon the arches of a cathedral.[62]<\/sup><\/a> Of all that only a few random marks<\/p>\n

scrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen; never be<\/p>\n

hung even, and there was Mr. Tansley whispering in her ear, “Women can’t<\/p>\n

paint, women can’t write …”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She now remembered what she had been going to say about Mrs. Ramsay. She<\/p>\n

did not know how she would have put it; but it would have been something<\/p>\n

critical. She had been annoyed the other night by some highhandedness.<\/p>\n

Looking along the level of Mr. Bankes’s glance at her, she thought that no<\/p>\n

woman could worship another woman in the way he worshipped; they could<\/p>\n

only seek shelter under the shade which Mr. Bankes extended over them both.<\/p>\n

Looking along his beam she added to it her different ray, thinking that<\/p>\n

she was unquestionably the loveliest of people (bowed over her book); the<\/p>\n

best perhaps; but also, different too from the perfect shape which one saw<\/p>\n

there. But why different, and how different? she asked herself, scraping<\/p>\n

her palette of all those mounds of blue and green which seemed to her like<\/p>\n

clods with no life in them now, yet she vowed, she would inspire them,<\/p>\n

force them to move, flow, do her bidding tomorrow. How did she differ?<\/p>\n

What was the spirit in her, the essential thing, by which, had you found a<\/p>\n

crumpled glove in the corner of a sofa, you would have known it, from its<\/p>\n

twisted finger, hers indisputably? She was like a bird for speed, an<\/p>\n

arrow for directness. She was willful; she was commanding (of course,<\/p>\n

Lily reminded herself, I am thinking of her relations with women, and I am<\/p>\n

much younger, an insignificant person, living off the Brompton Road).[63]<\/sup><\/a> She<\/p>\n

opened bedroom windows. She shut doors. (So she tried to start the tune<\/p>\n

of Mrs. Ramsay in her head.) Arriving late at night, with a light tap on<\/p>\n

one’s bedroom door, wrapped in an old fur coat (for the setting of her<\/p>\n

beauty was always that–hasty, but apt), she would enact again whatever it<\/p>\n

might be–Charles Tansley losing his umbrella; Mr. Carmichael snuffling and<\/p>\n

sniffing; Mr. Bankes saying, “The vegetable salts are lost.” All this she<\/p>\n

would adroitly shape; even maliciously twist; and, moving over to the<\/p>\n

window, in pretence that she must go,–it was dawn, she could see the sun<\/p>\n

rising,–half turn back, more intimately, but still always laughing,<\/p>\n

insist that she must, Minta must, they all must marry, since in the whole<\/p>\n

world whatever laurels might be tossed to her (but Mrs. Ramsay cared not a<\/p>\n

fig for her painting), or triumphs won by her (probably Mrs. Ramsay had<\/p>\n

had her share of those), and here she saddened, darkened, and came back to<\/p>\n

her chair, there could be no disputing this: an unmarried woman (she<\/p>\n

lightly took her hand for a moment), an unmarried woman has missed the<\/p>\n

best of life. The house seemed full of children sleeping and Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

listening; shaded lights and regular breathing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh, but, Lily would say, there was her father; her home; even, had she<\/p>\n

dared to say it, her painting. But all this seemed so little, so<\/p>\n

virginal, against the other. Yet, as the night wore on, and white lights<\/p>\n

parted the curtains, and even now and then some bird chirped in the<\/p>\n

garden, gathering a desperate courage she would urge her own exemption<\/p>\n

from the universal law; plead for it; she liked to be alone; she liked to<\/p>\n

be herself; she was not made for that; and so have to meet a serious stare<\/p>\n

from eyes of unparalleled depth, and confront Mrs. Ramsay’s simple<\/p>\n

certainty (and she was childlike now) that her dear Lily, her little<\/p>\n

Brisk, was a fool. Then, she remembered, she had laid her head on Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay’s lap and laughed and laughed and laughed, laughed almost<\/p>\n

hysterically at the thought of Mrs. Ramsay presiding with immutable calm<\/p>\n

over destinies which she completely failed to understand. There she sat,<\/p>\n

simple, serious. She had recovered her sense of her now–this was the<\/p>\n

glove’s twisted finger. But into what sanctuary had one penetrated?<\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe had looked up at last, and there was Mrs. Ramsay, unwitting<\/p>\n

entirely what had caused her laughter, still presiding, but now with every<\/p>\n

trace of wilfulness abolished, and in its stead, something clear as the<\/p>\n

space which the clouds at last uncover–the little space of sky which<\/p>\n

sleeps beside the moon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it, once more, the deceptiveness of<\/p>\n

beauty, so that all one’s perceptions, half way to truth, were tangled in<\/p>\n

a golden mesh? or did she lock up within her some secret which certainly<\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe believed people must have for the world to go on at all?<\/p>\n

Every one could not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth as she was. But<\/p>\n

if they knew, could they tell one what they knew? Sitting on the floor<\/p>\n

with her arms round Mrs. Ramsay’s knees, close as she could get, smiling<\/p>\n

to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she<\/p>\n

imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was,<\/p>\n

physically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of<\/p>\n

kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them<\/p>\n

out, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly,<\/p>\n

never made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which<\/p>\n

one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming,<\/p>\n

like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the<\/p>\n

object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling<\/p>\n

in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving,<\/p>\n

as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge<\/p>\n

but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that<\/p>\n

could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which<\/p>\n

is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay’s knee.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing happened. Nothing! Nothing! as she leant her head against<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay’s knee. And yet, she knew knowledge and wisdom were stored up<\/p>\n

in Mrs. Ramsay’s heart. How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one<\/p>\n

thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a<\/p>\n

bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch<\/p>\n

or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air<\/p>\n

over the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with<\/p>\n

their murmurs and their stirrings; the hives, which were people.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay rose. Lily rose. Mrs. Ramsay went. For days there hung about<\/p>\n

her, as after a dream some subtle change is felt in the person one has<\/p>\n

dreamt of, more vividly than anything she said, the sound of murmuring<\/p>\n

and, as she sat in the wicker arm-chair in the drawing-room window she<\/p>\n

wore, to Lily’s eyes, an august shape; the shape of a dome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This ray passed level with Mr. Bankes’s ray straight to Mrs. Ramsay sitting<\/p>\n

reading there with James at her knee. But now while she still looked,<\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes had done. He had put on his spectacles. He had stepped back.<\/p>\n

He had raised his hand. He had slightly narrowed his clear blue eyes,<\/p>\n

when Lily, rousing herself, saw what he was at, and winced like a dog who<\/p>\n

sees a hand raised to strike it. She would have snatched her picture off<\/p>\n

the easel, but she said to herself, One must. She braced herself to stand<\/p>\n

the awful trial of some one looking at her picture. One must, she said,<\/p>\n

one must. And if it must be seen, Mr. Bankes was less alarming than<\/p>\n

another. But that any other eyes should see the residue of her<\/p>\n

thirty-three years, the deposit of each day’s living mixed with something<\/p>\n

more secret than she had ever spoken or shown in the course of all those<\/p>\n

days was an agony. At the same time it was immensely exciting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing could be cooler and quieter. Taking out a pen-knife, Mr. Bankes<\/p>\n

tapped the canvas with the bone handle. What did she wish to indicate by<\/p>\n

the triangular purple shape, “just there”? he asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was Mrs. Ramsay reading to James, she said. She knew his objection–<\/p>\n

that no one could tell it for a human shape. But she had made no attempt<\/p>\n

at likeness, she said. For what reason had she introduced them then? he<\/p>\n

asked. Why indeed?–except that if there, in that corner, it was bright,<\/p>\n

here, in this, she felt the need of darkness. Simple, obvious,<\/p>\n

commonplace, as it was, Mr. Bankes was interested. Mother and child<\/p>\n

then–objects of universal veneration, and in this case the mother was<\/p>\n

famous for her beauty–might be reduced, he pondered, to a purple shadow<\/p>\n

without irreverence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the picture was not of them, she said. Or, not in his sense. There<\/p>\n

were other senses too in which one might reverence them. By a shadow here<\/p>\n

and a light there, for instance. Her tribute took that form if, as she<\/p>\n

vaguely supposed, a picture must be a tribute. A mother and child might<\/p>\n

be reduced to a shadow without irreverence. A light here required a<\/p>\n

shadow there. He considered. He was interested. He took it<\/p>\n

scientifically in complete good faith. The truth was that all his<\/p>\n

prejudices were on the other side, he explained. The largest picture in<\/p>\n

his drawing-room, which painters had praised, and valued at a higher price<\/p>\n

than he had given for it, was of the cherry trees in blossom on the banks<\/p>\n

of the Kennet[64]<\/sup><\/a>. He had spent his honeymoon on the banks of the Kennet, he<\/p>\n

said. Lily must come and see that picture, he said. But now–he turned,<\/p>\n

with his glasses raised to the scientific examination of her canvas. The<\/p>\n

question being one of the relations of masses, of lights and shadows,<\/p>\n

which, to be honest, he had never considered before, he would like to have<\/p>\n

it explained–what then did she wish to make of it? And he indicated the<\/p>\n

scene before them. She looked. She could not show him what she wished to<\/p>\n

make of it, could not see it even herself, without a brush in her hand.<\/p>\n

She took up once more her old painting position with the dim eyes and the<\/p>\n

absent-minded manner, subduing all her impressions as a woman to something<\/p>\n

much more general; becoming once more under the power of that vision which<\/p>\n

she had seen clearly once and must now grope for among hedges and houses<\/p>\n

and mothers and children–her picture. It was a question, she remembered,<\/p>\n

how to connect this mass on the right hand with that on the left. She<\/p>\n

might do it by bringing the line of the branch across so; or break the<\/p>\n

vacancy in the foreground by an object (James perhaps) so. But the danger<\/p>\n

was that by doing that the unity of the whole might be broken. She<\/p>\n

stopped; she did not want to bore him; she took the canvas lightly off the<\/p>\n

easel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it had been seen; it had been taken from her. This man had shared<\/p>\n

with her something profoundly intimate. And, thanking Mr. Ramsay for it<\/p>\n

and Mrs. Ramsay for it and the hour and the place, crediting the world with<\/p>\n

a power which she had not suspected–that one could walk away down that<\/p>\n

long gallery not alone any more but arm in arm with somebody–the<\/p>\n

strangest feeling in the world, and the most exhilarating–she nicked<\/p>\n

the catch of her paint-box to, more firmly than was necessary, and the<\/p>\n

nick seemed to surround in a circle forever the paint-box, the lawn,<\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes, and that wild villain, Cam, dashing past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Cam grazed the easel by an inch; she would not stop for Mr. Bankes<\/p>\n

and Lily Briscoe; though Mr. Bankes, who would have liked a daughter of<\/p>\n

his own, held out his hand; she would not stop for her father, whom she<\/p>\n

grazed also by an inch; nor for her mother, who called “Cam! I want<\/p>\n

you a moment!” as she dashed past. She was off like a bird, bullet, or<\/p>\n

arrow, impelled by what desire, shot by whom, at what directed, who<\/p>\n

could say? What, what? Mrs. Ramsay pondered, watching her. It might<\/p>\n

be a vision–of a shell, of a wheelbarrow, of a fairy kingdom on the<\/p>\n

far side of the hedge; or it might be the glory of speed; no one knew.<\/p>\n

But when Mrs. Ramsay called “Cam!” a second time, the projectile dropped<\/p>\n

in mid career, and Cam came lagging back, pulling a leaf by the way, to<\/p>\n

her mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, seeing her engrossed,<\/p>\n

as she stood there, with some thought of her own, so that she had to<\/p>\n

repeat the message twice–ask Mildred if Andrew, Miss Doyle, and Mr.<\/p>\n

Rayley have come back?–The words seemed to be dropped into a well,<\/p>\n

where, if the waters were clear, they were also so extraordinarily<\/p>\n

distorting that, even as they descended, one saw them twisting about to<\/p>\n

make Heaven knows what pattern on the floor of the child’s mind. What<\/p>\n

message would Cam give the cook? Mrs. Ramsay wondered. And indeed it<\/p>\n

was only by waiting patiently, and hearing that there was an old woman in<\/p>\n

the kitchen with very red cheeks, drinking soup out of a basin, that<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay at last prompted that parrot-like instinct which had picked up<\/p>\n

Mildred’s words quite accurately and could now produce them, if one<\/p>\n

waited, in a colourless singsong. Shifting from foot to foot, Cam<\/p>\n

repeated the words, “No, they haven’t, and I’ve told Ellen to clear away<\/p>\n

tea.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley had not come back then. That could only<\/p>\n

mean, Mrs. Ramsay thought, one thing. She must accept him, or she must<\/p>\n

refuse him. This going off after luncheon for a walk, even though<\/p>\n

Andrew was with them–what could it mean? except that she had decided,<\/p>\n

rightly, Mrs. Ramsay thought (and she was very, very fond of Minta), to<\/p>\n

accept that good fellow, who might not be brilliant, but then, thought<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay, realising that James was tugging at her, to make her go on<\/p>\n

reading aloud the Fisherman and his Wife, she did in her own heart<\/p>\n

infinitely prefer boobies to clever men who wrote dissertations;<\/p>\n

Charles Tansley, for instance. Anyhow it must have happened, one way<\/p>\n

or the other, by now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But she read, “Next morning the wife awoke first, and it was just<\/p>\n

daybreak, and from her bed she saw the beautiful country lying before<\/p>\n

her. Her husband was still stretching himself…”[65]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But how could Minta say now that she would not have him? Not if she<\/p>\n

agreed to spend whole afternoons trapesing about the country alone–for<\/p>\n

Andrew would be off after his crabs–but possibly Nancy was with them.<\/p>\n

She tried to recall the sight of them standing at the hall door after<\/p>\n

lunch. There they stood, looking at the sky, wondering about the<\/p>\n

weather, and she had said, thinking partly to cover their shyness,<\/p>\n

partly to encourage them to be off (for her sympathies were with Paul),<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“There isn’t a cloud anywhere within miles,” at which she could feel<\/p>\n

little Charles Tansley, who had followed them out, snigger. But she<\/p>\n

did it on purpose. Whether Nancy was there or not, she could not be<\/p>\n

certain, looking from one to the other in her mind’s eye.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She read on: “Ah, wife,” said the man, “why should we be King? I do<\/p>\n

not want to be King.” “Well,” said the wife, “if you won’t be King, I<\/p>\n

will; go to the Flounder, for I will be King.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Come in or go out, Cam,” she said, knowing that Cam was attracted only<\/p>\n

by the word “Flounder” and that in a moment she would fidget and fight<\/p>\n

with James as usual. Cam shot off. Mrs. Ramsay went on reading,<\/p>\n

relieved, for she and James shared the same tastes and were comfortable<\/p>\n

together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And when he came to the sea, it was quite dark grey, and the water heaved<\/p>\n

up from below, and smelt putrid. Then he went and stood by it and said,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Flounder, flounder, in the sea,<\/p>\n

Come, I pray thee, here to me;<\/p>\n

For my wife, good Ilsabil,<\/p>\n

Wills not as I’d have her will.’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Well, what does she want then?’ said the Flounder.” And where were<\/p>\n

they now? Mrs. Ramsay wondered, reading and thinking, quite easily,<\/p>\n

both at the same time; for the story of the Fisherman and his Wife was<\/p>\n

like the bass gently accompanying a tune, which now and then ran up<\/p>\n

unexpectedly into the melody.[66]<\/sup><\/a> And when should she be told? If nothing<\/p>\n

happened, she would have to speak seriously to Minta. For she could<\/p>\n

not go trapesing about all over the country, even if Nancy were with<\/p>\n

them (she tried again, unsuccessfully, to visualize their backs going<\/p>\n

down the path, and to count them). She was responsible to Minta’s<\/p>\n

parents–the Owl and the Poker. Her nicknames for them shot into her<\/p>\n

mind as she read. The Owl and the Poker–yes, they would be annoyed if<\/p>\n

they heard–and they were certain to hear–that Minta, staying with the<\/p>\n

Ramsays, had been seen etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. “He wore a wig in<\/p>\n

the House of Commons and she ably assisted him at the head of the<\/p>\n

stairs,” she repeated, fishing them up out of her mind by a phrase<\/p>\n

which, coming back from some party, she had made to amuse her husband.<\/p>\n

Dear, dear, Mrs. Ramsay said to herself, how did they produce this<\/p>\n

incongruous daughter? this tomboy Minta, with a hole in her stocking?<\/p>\n

How did she exist in that portentous atmosphere where the maid was<\/p>\n

always removing in a dust-pan the sand that the parrot had scattered,<\/p>\n

and conversation was almost entirely reduced to the exploits–interesting<\/p>\n

perhaps, but limited after all–of that bird? Naturally, one had asked<\/p>\n

her to lunch, tea, dinner, finally to stay with them up at Finlay[67]<\/sup><\/a>, which<\/p>\n

had resulted in some friction with the Owl, her mother, and more calling,<\/p>\n

and more conversation, and more sand, and really at the end of it, she had<\/p>\n

told enough lies about parrots to last her a lifetime (so she had said<\/p>\n

to her husband that night, coming back from the party). However,<\/p>\n

Minta came…Yes, she came, Mrs. Ramsay thought, suspecting some thorn<\/p>\n

in the tangle of this thought; and disengaging it found it to be this: a<\/p>\n

woman had once accused her of “robbing her of her daughter’s affections”;<\/p>\n

something Mrs. Doyle had said made her remember that charge again. Wishing<\/p>\n

to dominate, wishing to interfere, making people do what she wished–that<\/p>\n

was the charge against her, and she thought it most unjust. How could<\/p>\n

she help being “like that” to look at? No one could accuse her of<\/p>\n

taking pains to impress. She was often ashamed of her own shabbiness.<\/p>\n

Nor was she domineering, nor was she tyrannical. It was more true<\/p>\n

about hospitals and drains and the dairy. About things like that she<\/p>\n

did feel passionately, and would, if she had the chance, have liked to<\/p>\n

take people by the scruff of their necks and make them see. No<\/p>\n

hospital on the whole island. It was a disgrace. Milk delivered at<\/p>\n

your door in London positively brown with dirt. It should be made<\/p>\n

illegal. A model dairy and a hospital up here–those two things she<\/p>\n

would have liked to do, herself.[68]<\/sup><\/a> But how? With all these children?<\/p>\n

When they were older, then perhaps she would have time; when they were<\/p>\n

all at school.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older! or Cam either.<\/p>\n

These two she would have liked to keep for ever just as they were,<\/p>\n

demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into<\/p>\n

long-legged monsters. Nothing made up for the loss. When she read<\/p>\n

just now to James, “and there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums<\/p>\n

and trumpets,” and his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow<\/p>\n

up and lose all that? He was the most gifted, the most sensitive of<\/p>\n

her children. But all, she thought, were full of promise. Prue, a<\/p>\n

perfect angel with the others, and sometimes now, at night especially,<\/p>\n

she took one’s breath away with her beauty. Andrew–even her husband<\/p>\n

admitted that his gift for mathematics was extraordinary. And Nancy<\/p>\n

and Roger, they were both wild creatures now, scampering about over the<\/p>\n

country all day long. As for Rose, her mouth was too big, but she had<\/p>\n

a wonderful gift with her hands. If they had charades, Rose made the<\/p>\n

dresses; made everything; liked best arranging tables, flowers,<\/p>\n

anything.[69]<\/sup><\/a> She did not like it that Jasper should shoot birds; but it<\/p>\n

was only a stage; they all went through stages. Why, she asked,<\/p>\n

pressing her chin on James’s head, should they grow up so fast? Why<\/p>\n

should they go to school? She would have liked always to have had a<\/p>\n

baby. She was happiest carrying one in her arms. Then people might<\/p>\n

say she was tyrannical, domineering, masterful, if they chose; she did<\/p>\n

not mind. And, touching his hair with her lips, she thought, he will<\/p>\n

never be so happy again, but stopped herself, remembering how it<\/p>\n

angered her husband that she should say that. Still, it was true. They<\/p>\n

were happier now than they would ever be again. A tenpenny tea set<\/p>\n

made Cam happy for days. She heard them stamping and crowing on the<\/p>\n

floor above her head the moment they awoke. They came bustling along<\/p>\n

the passage. Then the door sprang open and in they came, fresh as<\/p>\n

roses, staring, wide awake, as if this coming into the dining-room<\/p>\n

after breakfast, which they did every day of their lives, was a<\/p>\n

positive event to them, and so on, with one thing after another, all<\/p>\n

day long, until she went up to say good-night to them, and found them<\/p>\n

netted in their cots like birds among cherries and raspberries, still<\/p>\n

making up stories about some little bit of rubbish–something they had<\/p>\n

heard, something they had picked up in the garden. They all had their<\/p>\n

little treasures… And so she went down and said to her husband, Why<\/p>\n

must they grow up and lose it all? Never will they be so happy again.<\/p>\n

And he was angry. Why take such a gloomy view of life? he said. It<\/p>\n

is not sensible. For it was odd; and she believed it to be true; that<\/p>\n

with all his gloom and desperation he was happier, more hopeful on the<\/p>\n

whole, than she was. Less exposed to human worries–perhaps that was<\/p>\n

it. He had always his work to fall back on. Not that she herself was<\/p>\n

“pessimistic,” as he accused her of being. Only she thought life–and<\/p>\n

a little strip of time presented itself to her eyes–her fifty<\/p>\n

years. There it was before her–life. Life, she thought–but she did<\/p>\n

not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear<\/p>\n

sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared<\/p>\n

neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction<\/p>\n

went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on<\/p>\n

another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was<\/p>\n

of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were,<\/p>\n

she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part,<\/p>\n

oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called<\/p>\n

life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a<\/p>\n

chance. There were eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. There<\/p>\n

was always a woman dying of cancer even here. And yet she had said to<\/p>\n

all these children, You shall go through it all. To eight people she<\/p>\n

had said relentlessly that (and the bill for the greenhouse would be<\/p>\n

fifty pounds). For that reason, knowing what was before them–love and<\/p>\n

ambition and being wretched alone in dreary places–she had often the<\/p>\n

feeling, Why must they grow up and lose it all? And then she said to<\/p>\n

herself, brandishing her sword at life, Nonsense. They will be<\/p>\n

perfectly happy. And here she was, she reflected, feeling life rather<\/p>\n

sinister again, making Minta marry Paul Rayley; because whatever she<\/p>\n

might feel about her own transaction, she had had experiences which<\/p>\n

need not happen to every one (she did not name them to herself); she<\/p>\n

was driven on, too quickly she knew, almost as if it were an escape for<\/p>\n

her too, to say that people must marry; people must have children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Was she wrong in this, she asked herself, reviewing her conduct for the<\/p>\n

past week or two, and wondering if she had indeed put any pressure upon<\/p>\n

Minta, who was only twenty-four, to make up her mind. She was uneasy.<\/p>\n

Had she not laughed about it? Was she not forgetting again how<\/p>\n

strongly she influenced people? Marriage needed–oh, all sorts of<\/p>\n

qualities (the bill for the greenhouse would be fifty pounds); one–she<\/p>\n

need not name it–that was essential; the thing she had with her<\/p>\n

husband. Had they that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then he put on his trousers and ran away like a madman,” she read.<\/p>\n

“But outside a great storm was raging and blowing so hard that he could<\/p>\n

scarcely keep his feet; houses and trees toppled over, the mountains<\/p>\n

trembled, rocks rolled into the sea, the sky was pitch black, and it<\/p>\n

thundered and lightened, and the sea came in with black waves as high<\/p>\n

as church towers and mountains, and all with white foam at the top.”[70]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She turned the page; there were only a few lines more, so that she<\/p>\n

would finish the story, though it was past bed-time. It was getting<\/p>\n

late. The light in the garden told her that; and the whitening of the<\/p>\n

flowers and something grey in the leaves conspired together, to rouse<\/p>\n

in her a feeling of anxiety. What it was about she could not think at<\/p>\n

first. Then she remembered; Paul and Minta and Andrew had not come<\/p>\n

back. She summoned before her again the little group on the terrace in<\/p>\n

front of the hall door, standing looking up into the sky. Andrew had<\/p>\n

his net and basket. That meant he was going to catch crabs and things.<\/p>\n

That meant he would climb out on to a rock; he would be cut off. Or<\/p>\n

coming back single file on one of those little paths above the cliff<\/p>\n

one of them might slip. He would roll and then crash. It was growing<\/p>\n

quite dark.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But she did not let her voice change in the least as she finished the<\/p>\n

story, and added, shutting the book, and speaking the last words as if<\/p>\n

she had made them up herself, looking into James’s eyes: “And there<\/p>\n

they are living still at this very time.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And that’s the end,” she said, and she saw in his eyes, as the<\/p>\n

interest of the story died away in them, something else take its place;<\/p>\n

something wondering, pale, like the reflection of a light, which at<\/p>\n

once made him gaze and marvel. Turning, she looked across the bay, and<\/p>\n

there, sure enough, coming regularly across the waves first two quick<\/p>\n

strokes and then one long steady stroke, was the light of the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse. It had been lit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a moment he would ask her, “Are we going to the Lighthouse?” And<\/p>\n

she would have to say, “No: not tomorrow; your father says not.”<\/p>\n

Happily, Mildred came in to fetch them, and the bustle distracted them.<\/p>\n

But he kept looking back over his shoulder as Mildred carried him out,<\/p>\n

and she was certain that he was thinking, we are not going to the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse tomorrow; and she thought, he will remember that all his<\/p>\n

life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, she thought, putting together some of the pictures he had cut out–<\/p>\n

a refrigerator, a mowing machine, a gentleman in evening dress–<\/p>\n

children never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one<\/p>\n

said, and what one did, and it was a relief when they went to bed. For<\/p>\n

now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by<\/p>\n

herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of–to think;<\/p>\n

well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and<\/p>\n

the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk,<\/p>\n

with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of<\/p>\n

darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to<\/p>\n

knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self<\/p>\n

having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. When<\/p>\n

life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless.<\/p>\n

And to everybody there was always this sense of unlimited resources,<\/p>\n

she supposed; one after another, she, Lily, Augustus Carmichael, must<\/p>\n

feel, our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish.<\/p>\n

Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep;<\/p>\n

but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us<\/p>\n

by. Her horizon seemed to her limitless. There were all the places<\/p>\n

she had not seen; the Indian plains; she felt herself pushing aside the<\/p>\n

thick leather curtain of a church in Rome. This core of darkness could<\/p>\n

go anywhere, for no one saw it. They could not stop it, she thought,<\/p>\n

exulting. There was freedom, there was peace, there was, most<\/p>\n

welcome of all, a summoning together, a resting on a platform<\/p>\n

of stability. Not as oneself did one find rest ever, in her experience<\/p>\n

(she accomplished here something dexterous with her needles) but as a<\/p>\n

wedge of darkness. Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry,<\/p>\n

the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph<\/p>\n

over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this<\/p>\n

eternity; and pausing there she looked out to meet that stroke of the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was<\/p>\n

her stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one<\/p>\n

could not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things<\/p>\n

one saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke. Often<\/p>\n

she found herself sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her<\/p>\n

work in her hands until she became the thing she looked at–that light,<\/p>\n

for example. And it would lift up on it some little phrase or other<\/p>\n

which had been lying in her mind like that–“Children don’t forget,<\/p>\n

children don’t forget”–which she would repeat and begin adding to it,<\/p>\n

It will end, it will end, she said. It will come, it will come, when<\/p>\n

suddenly she added, We are in the hands of the Lord.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But instantly she was annoyed with herself for saying that. Who had<\/p>\n

said it? Not she; she had been trapped into saying something she did<\/p>\n

not mean. She looked up over her knitting and met the third stroke and<\/p>\n

it seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes, searching as<\/p>\n

she alone could search into her mind and her heart, purifying out of<\/p>\n

existence that lie, any lie. She praised herself in praising the<\/p>\n

light, without vanity, for she was stern, she was searching, she was<\/p>\n

beautiful like that light. It was odd, she thought, how if one was<\/p>\n

alone, one leant to inanimate things; trees, streams, flowers; felt<\/p>\n

they expressed one; felt they became one; felt they knew one, in a<\/p>\n

sense were one; felt an irrational tenderness thus (she looked at that<\/p>\n

long steady light) as for oneself. There rose, and she looked and<\/p>\n

looked with her needles suspended, there curled up off the floor of the<\/p>\n

mind, rose from the lake of one’s being, a mist, a bride to meet her<\/p>\n

lover.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What brought her to say that: “We are in the hands of the Lord?” she<\/p>\n

wondered. The insincerity slipping in among the truths roused her,<\/p>\n

annoyed her. She returned to her knitting again. How could any Lord<\/p>\n

have made this world? she asked.[71]<\/sup><\/a> With her mind she had always seized<\/p>\n

the fact that there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death,<\/p>\n

the poor. There was no treachery too base for the world to commit; she<\/p>\n

knew that. No happiness lasted; she knew that. She knitted with firm<\/p>\n

composure, slightly pursing her lips and, without being aware of it, so<\/p>\n

stiffened and composed the lines of her face in a habit of sternness<\/p>\n

that when her husband passed, though he was chuckling at the thought<\/p>\n

that Hume, the philosopher, grown enormously fat, had stuck in a bog,[72]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

he could not help noting, as he passed, the sternness at the heart of<\/p>\n

her beauty. It saddened him, and her remoteness pained him, and he<\/p>\n

felt, as he passed, that he could not protect her, and, when he reached<\/p>\n

the hedge, he was sad. He could do nothing to help her. He must stand<\/p>\n

by and watch her. Indeed, the infernal truth was, he made things worse<\/p>\n

for her. He was irritable–he was touchy. He had lost his temper over<\/p>\n

the Lighthouse. He looked into the hedge, into its intricacy, its<\/p>\n

darkness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Always, Mrs. Ramsay felt, one helped oneself out of solitude reluctantly<\/p>\n

by laying hold of some little odd or end, some sound, some sight. She<\/p>\n

listened, but it was all very still; cricket was over; the children<\/p>\n

were in their baths; there was only the sound of the sea. She stopped<\/p>\n

knitting; she held the long reddish-brown stocking dangling in her<\/p>\n

hands a moment. She saw the light again. With some irony in her<\/p>\n

interrogation, for when one woke at all, one’s relations changed, she<\/p>\n

looked at the steady light, the pitiless, the remorseless, which was so<\/p>\n

much her, yet so little her, which had her at its beck and call (she<\/p>\n

woke in the night and saw it bent across their bed, stroking the<\/p>\n

floor), but for all that she thought, watching it with fascination,<\/p>\n

hypnotised, as if it were stroking with its silver fingers some sealed<\/p>\n

vessel in her brain whose bursting would flood her with delight, she<\/p>\n

had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it<\/p>\n

silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and<\/p>\n

the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which<\/p>\n

curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in<\/p>\n

her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and<\/p>\n

she felt, It is enough! It is enough!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He turned and saw her. Ah! She was lovely, lovelier now than ever he<\/p>\n

thought. But he could not speak to her. He could not interrupt her.<\/p>\n

He wanted urgently to speak to her now that James was gone and she was<\/p>\n

alone at last. But he resolved, no; he would not interrupt her. She<\/p>\n

was aloof from him now in her beauty, in her sadness. He would let her<\/p>\n

be, and he passed her without a word, though it hurt him that she<\/p>\n

should look so distant, and he could not reach her, he could do nothing<\/p>\n

to help her. And again he would have passed her without a word had she<\/p>\n

not, at that very moment, given him of her own free will what she knew<\/p>\n

he would never ask, and called to him and taken the green shawl off the<\/p>\n

picture frame, and gone to him. For he wished, she knew, to protect<\/p>\n

her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

12<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She folded the green shawl about her shoulders. She took his arm. His<\/p>\n

beauty was so great, she said, beginning to speak of Kennedy the<\/p>\n

gardener, at once he was so awfully handsome, that she couldn’t dismiss<\/p>\n

him. There was a ladder against the greenhouse, and little lumps of<\/p>\n

putty stuck about, for they were beginning to mend the greenhouse.<\/p>\n

Yes, but as she strolled along with her husband, she felt that that<\/p>\n

particular source of worry had been placed. She had it on the tip of<\/p>\n

her tongue to say, as they strolled, “It’ll cost fifty pounds,” but<\/p>\n

instead, for her heart failed her about money, she talked about Jasper<\/p>\n

shooting birds, and he said, at once, soothing her instantly, that it<\/p>\n

was natural in a boy, and he trusted he would find better ways of<\/p>\n

amusing himself before long. Her husband was so sensible, so just.<\/p>\n

And so she said, “Yes; all children go through stages,” and began<\/p>\n

considering the dahlias in the big bed, and wondering what about next<\/p>\n

year’s flowers, and had he heard the children’s nickname for Charles<\/p>\n

Tansley, she asked. The atheist, they called him, the little atheist.<\/p>\n

“He’s not a polished specimen,” said Mr. Ramsay. “Far from it,” said<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She supposed it was all right leaving him to his own devices, Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay said, wondering whether it was any use sending down bulbs; did<\/p>\n

they plant them? “Oh, he has his dissertation to write,” said Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay. She knew all about that<\/i>, said Mrs. Ramsay. He talked of<\/p>\n

nothing else. It was about the influence of somebody upon something.<\/p>\n

“Well, it’s all he has to count on,” said Mr. Ramsay. “Pray Heaven he<\/p>\n

won’t fall in love with Prue,” said Mrs. Ramsay. He’d disinherit her if<\/p>\n

she married him, said Mr. Ramsay. He did not look at the flowers,<\/p>\n

which his wife was considering, but at a spot about a foot or<\/p>\n

so above them. There was no harm in him, he added, and was just<\/p>\n

about to say that anyhow he was the only young man in England who<\/p>\n

admired his–when he choked it back. He would not bother her again<\/p>\n

about his books. These flowers seemed creditable, Mr. Ramsay said,<\/p>\n

lowering his gaze and noticing something red, something brown. Yes, but<\/p>\n

then these she had put in with her own hands, said Mrs. Ramsay. The<\/p>\n

question was, what happened if she sent bulbs down; did Kennedy plant<\/p>\n

them? It was his incurable laziness; she added, moving on. If she<\/p>\n

stood over him all day long with a spade in her hand, he did sometimes<\/p>\n

do a stroke of work. So they strolled along, towards the red-hot<\/p>\n

pokers.[73]<\/sup><\/a> “You’re teaching your daughters to exaggerate,” said Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay, reproving her. Her Aunt Camilla was far worse than she was, Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay remarked. “Nobody ever held up your Aunt Camilla as a model of<\/p>\n

virtue that I’m aware of,” said Mr. Ramsay. “She was the most beautiful<\/p>\n

woman I ever saw,” said Mrs. Ramsay. “Somebody else was that,” said Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay. Prue was going to be far more beautiful than she was, said Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay. He saw no trace of it, said Mr. Ramsay. “Well, then, look<\/p>\n

tonight,” said Mrs. Ramsay. They paused. He wished Andrew could be<\/p>\n

induced to work harder. He would lose every chance of a scholarship if<\/p>\n

he didn’t. “Oh, scholarships!” she said. Mr. Ramsay thought her foolish<\/p>\n

for saying that, about a serious thing, like a scholarship. He should<\/p>\n

be very proud of Andrew if he got a scholarship, he said. She would be<\/p>\n

just as proud of him if he didn’t, she answered. They disagreed always<\/p>\n

about this, but it did not matter. She liked him to believe in<\/p>\n

scholarships, and he liked her to be proud of Andrew whatever he did.<\/p>\n

Suddenly she remembered those little paths on the edge of the cliffs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wasn’t it late? she asked. They hadn’t come home yet. He flicked his<\/p>\n

watch carelessly open. But it was only just past seven. He held his<\/p>\n

watch open for a moment, deciding that he would tell her what he had<\/p>\n

felt on the terrace. To begin with, it was not reasonable to be so<\/p>\n

nervous. Andrew could look after himself. Then, he wanted to tell her<\/p>\n

that when he was walking on the terrace just now–here he became<\/p>\n

uncomfortable, as if he were breaking into that solitude, that<\/p>\n

aloofness, that remoteness of hers. But she pressed him. What had<\/p>\n

he wanted to tell her, she asked, thinking it was about going to the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse; that he was sorry he had said “Damn you.” But no. He did<\/p>\n

not like to see her look so sad, he said. Only wool gathering, she<\/p>\n

protested, flushing a little. They both felt uncomfortable, as if they<\/p>\n

did not know whether to go on or go back. She had been reading fairy<\/p>\n

tales to James, she said. No, they could not share that; they could<\/p>\n

not say that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They had reached the gap between the two clumps of red-hot pokers[74]<\/sup><\/a>, and<\/p>\n

there was the Lighthouse again, but she would not let herself look at<\/p>\n

it. Had she known that he was looking at her, she thought, she would<\/p>\n

not have let herself sit there, thinking. She disliked anything that<\/p>\n

reminded her that she had been seen sitting thinking. So she looked<\/p>\n

over her shoulder, at the town. The lights were rippling and running<\/p>\n

as if they were drops of silver water held firm in a wind. And all the<\/p>\n

poverty, all the suffering had turned to that, Mrs. Ramsay thought. The<\/p>\n

lights of the town and of the harbour and of the boats seemed like a<\/p>\n

phantom net floating there to mark something which had sunk. Well, if<\/p>\n

he could not share her thoughts, Mr. Ramsay said to himself, he would be<\/p>\n

off, then, on his own. He wanted to go on thinking, telling himself the<\/p>\n

story how Hume was stuck in a bog[75]<\/sup><\/a>; he wanted to laugh. But first it<\/p>\n

was nonsense to be anxious about Andrew. When he was Andrew’s age he<\/p>\n

used to walk about the country all day long, with nothing but a biscuit<\/p>\n

in his pocket and nobody bothered about him, or thought that he had<\/p>\n

fallen over a cliff. He said aloud he thought he would be off for a<\/p>\n

day’s walk if the weather held. He had had about enough of Bankes and<\/p>\n

of Carmichael. He would like a little solitude. Yes, she said. It<\/p>\n

annoyed him that she did not protest. She knew that he would never do<\/p>\n

it. He was too old now to walk all day long with a biscuit in his<\/p>\n

pocket. She worried about the boys, but not about him. Years ago,<\/p>\n

before he had married, he thought, looking across the bay, as they<\/p>\n

stood between the clumps of red-hot pokers, he had walked all day. He<\/p>\n

had made a meal off bread and cheese in a public house. He had worked<\/p>\n

ten hours at a stretch; an old woman just popped her head in now and<\/p>\n

again and saw to the fire. That was the country he liked best, over<\/p>\n

there; those sandhills dwindling away into darkness. One could walk<\/p>\n

all day without meeting a soul. There was not a house scarcely, not a<\/p>\n

single village for miles on end. One could worry things out alone.<\/p>\n

There were little sandy beaches where no one had been since the<\/p>\n

beginning of time. The seals sat up and looked at you. It sometimes<\/p>\n

seemed to him that in a little house out there, alone–he broke off,<\/p>\n

sighing. He had no right. The father of eight children–he reminded<\/p>\n

himself. And he would have been a beast and a cur to wish a single<\/p>\n

thing altered. Andrew would be a better man than he had been. Prue<\/p>\n

would be a beauty, her mother said. They would stem the flood a bit.<\/p>\n

That was a good bit of work on the whole–his eight children. They<\/p>\n

showed he did not damn the poor little universe entirely, for on an<\/p>\n

evening like this, he thought, looking at the land dwindling away, the<\/p>\n

little island seemed pathetically small, half swallowed up in the sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Poor little place,” he murmured with a sigh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She heard him. He said the most melancholy things, but she noticed<\/p>\n

that directly he had said them he always seemed more cheerful than<\/p>\n

usual. All this phrase-making was a game, she thought, for if she had<\/p>\n

said half what he said, she would have blown her brains out by now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It annoyed her, this phrase-making, and she said to him, in a matter-<\/p>\n

of-fact way, that it was a perfectly lovely evening. And what was he<\/p>\n

groaning about, she asked, half laughing, half complaining, for she<\/p>\n

guessed what he was thinking–he would have written better books if he<\/p>\n

had not married.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was not complaining, he said. She knew that he did not complain.<\/p>\n

She knew that he had nothing whatever to complain of. And he seized<\/p>\n

her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it with an intensity that<\/p>\n

brought the tears to her eyes, and quickly he dropped it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They turned away from the view and began to walk up the path where the<\/p>\n

silver-green spear-like plants grew, arm in arm. His arm was almost<\/p>\n

like a young man’s arm, Mrs. Ramsay thought, thin and hard, and she<\/p>\n

thought with delight how strong he still was, though he was over sixty,<\/p>\n

and how untamed and optimistic, and how strange it was that being<\/p>\n

convinced, as he was, of all sorts of horrors, seemed not to depress<\/p>\n

him, but to cheer him. Was it not odd, she reflected? Indeed he<\/p>\n

seemed to her sometimes made differently from other people, born blind,<\/p>\n

deaf, and dumb, to the ordinary things, but to the extraordinary<\/p>\n

things, with an eye like an eagle’s. His understanding often<\/p>\n

astonished her. But did he notice the flowers? No. Did he notice the<\/p>\n

view? No. Did he even notice his own daughter’s beauty, or whether<\/p>\n

there was pudding on his plate or roast beef? He would sit at table<\/p>\n

with them like a person in a dream. And his habit of talking aloud, or<\/p>\n

saying poetry aloud, was growing on him, she was afraid; for sometimes<\/p>\n

it was awkward–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Best and brightest come away![76]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

poor Miss Giddings, when he shouted that at her, almost jumped out of<\/p>\n

her skin. But then, Mrs. Ramsay, though instantly taking his side<\/p>\n

against all the silly Giddingses in the world, then, she thought,<\/p>\n

intimating by a little pressure on his arm that he walked up hill too<\/p>\n

fast for her, and she must stop for a moment to see whether those were<\/p>\n

fresh molehills on the bank, then, she thought, stooping down to look,<\/p>\n

a great mind like his must be different in every way from ours. All<\/p>\n

the great men she had ever known, she thought, deciding that a rabbit<\/p>\n

must have got in, were like that, and it was good for young men (though<\/p>\n

the atmosphere of lecture-rooms was stuffy and depressing to her beyond<\/p>\n

endurance almost) simply to hear him, simply to look at him. But<\/p>\n

without shooting rabbits, how was one to keep them down? she wondered.<\/p>\n

It might be a rabbit; it might be a mole. Some creature anyhow was<\/p>\n

ruining her Evening Primroses. And looking up, she saw above the thin<\/p>\n

trees the first pulse of the full-throbbing star, and wanted to make<\/p>\n

her husband look at it; for the sight gave her such keen pleasure. But<\/p>\n

she stopped herself. He never looked at things. If he did, all he<\/p>\n

would say would be, Poor little world, with one of his sighs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At that moment, he said, “Very fine,” to please her, and pretended to<\/p>\n

admire the flowers. But she knew quite well that he did not admire<\/p>\n

them, or even realise that they were there. It was only to please<\/p>\n

her. Ah, but was that not Lily Briscoe strolling along with William<\/p>\n

Bankes? She focussed her short-sighted eyes upon the backs of a<\/p>\n

retreating couple. Yes, indeed it was. Did that not mean that they<\/p>\n

would marry? Yes, it must! What an admirable idea! They must marry!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

13<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He had been to Amsterdam, Mr. Bankes was saying as he strolled across<\/p>\n

the lawn with Lily Briscoe. He had seen the Rembrandts.[77]<\/sup><\/a> He had been to<\/p>\n

Madrid. Unfortunately, it was Good Friday and the Prado[78]<\/sup><\/a> was shut. He<\/p>\n

had been to Rome. Had Miss Briscoe never been to Rome? Oh, she<\/p>\n

should–It would be a wonderful experience for her–the Sistine<\/p>\n

Chapel; Michael Angelo;[79]<\/sup><\/a> and Padua, with its Giottos[80]<\/sup><\/a>. His wife had been<\/p>\n

in bad health for many years, so that their sight-seeing had been on a<\/p>\n

modest scale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had been to Brussels; she had been to Paris but only for a flying<\/p>\n

visit to see an aunt who was ill. She had been to Dresden; there were<\/p>\n

masses of pictures she had not seen; however, Lily Briscoe reflected,<\/p>\n

perhaps it was better not to see pictures: they only made one<\/p>\n

hopelessly discontented with one’s own work. Mr. Bankes thought one<\/p>\n

could carry that point of view too far. We can’t all be Titians[81]<\/sup><\/a> and we<\/p>\n

can’t all be Darwins[82]<\/sup><\/a>, he said; at the same time he doubted whether you<\/p>\n

could have your Darwin and your Titian if it weren’t for humble people<\/p>\n

like ourselves. Lily would have liked to pay him a compliment; you’re<\/p>\n

not humble, Mr. Bankes, she would have liked to have said. But he did<\/p>\n

not want compliments (most men do, she thought), and she was a little<\/p>\n

ashamed of her impulse and said nothing while he remarked that perhaps<\/p>\n

what he was saying did not apply to pictures. Anyhow, said Lily,<\/p>\n

tossing off her little insincerity, she would always go on painting,<\/p>\n

because it interested her. Yes, said Mr. Bankes, he was sure she would,<\/p>\n

and, as they reached the end of the lawn he was asking her whether she<\/p>\n

had difficulty in finding subjects in London when they turned and saw<\/p>\n

the Ramsays. So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman<\/p>\n

looking at a girl throwing a ball. That is what Mrs. Ramsay tried to<\/p>\n

tell me the other night, she thought. For she was wearing a green<\/p>\n

shawl, and they were standing close together watching Prue and<\/p>\n

Jasper throwing catches. And suddenly the meaning which, for no<\/p>\n

reason at all, as perhaps they are stepping out of the Tube[83]<\/sup><\/a> or<\/p>\n

ringing a doorbell, descends on people, making them symbolical,<\/p>\n

making them representative, came upon them, and made them in the dusk<\/p>\n

standing, looking, the symbols of marriage, husband and wife. Then,<\/p>\n

after an instant, the symbolical outline which transcended the real<\/p>\n

figures sank down again, and they became, as they met them, Mr. and Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay watching the children throwing catches. But still for a moment,<\/p>\n

though Mrs. Ramsay greeted them with her usual smile (oh, she’s thinking<\/p>\n

we’re going to get married, Lily thought) and said, “I have triumphed<\/p>\n

tonight,” meaning that for once Mr. Bankes had agreed to dine with them<\/p>\n

and not run off to his own lodging where his man cooked vegetables<\/p>\n

properly; still, for one moment, there was a sense of things having<\/p>\n

been blown apart, of space, of irresponsibility as the ball soared<\/p>\n

high, and they followed it and lost it and saw the one star and the<\/p>\n

draped branches. In the failing light they all looked sharp-edged and<\/p>\n

ethereal and divided by great distances. Then, darting backwards over<\/p>\n

the vast space (for it seemed as if solidity had vanished altogether),<\/p>\n

Prue ran full tilt into them and caught the ball brilliantly high up in<\/p>\n

her left hand, and her mother said, “Haven’t they come back yet?”<\/p>\n

whereupon the spell was broken. Mr. Ramsay felt free now to laugh out<\/p>\n

loud at the thought that Hume had stuck in a bog and an old woman<\/p>\n

rescued him on condition he said the Lord’s Prayer,[84]<\/sup><\/a> and chuckling to<\/p>\n

himself he strolled off to his study. Mrs. Ramsay, bringing Prue back<\/p>\n

into throwing catches again, from which she had escaped, asked,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Did Nancy go with them?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

14<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Certainly, Nancy had gone with them, since Minta Doyle had asked it<\/p>\n

with her dumb look, holding out her hand, as Nancy made off, after<\/p>\n

lunch, to her attic, to escape the horror of family life. She<\/p>\n

supposed she must go then. She did not want to go. She did not want to<\/p>\n

be drawn into it all. For as they walked along the road to the cliff<\/p>\n

Minta kept on taking her hand. Then she would let it go. Then she<\/p>\n

would take it again. What was it she wanted? Nancy asked herself.<\/p>\n

There was something, of course, that people wanted; for when Minta took<\/p>\n

her hand and held it, Nancy, reluctantly, saw the whole world spread<\/p>\n

out beneath her, as if it were Constantinople[85]<\/sup><\/a> seen through a mist, and<\/p>\n

then, however heavy-eyed one might be, one must needs ask, “Is that<\/p>\n

Santa Sofia[86]<\/sup><\/a>?” “Is that the Golden Horn[87]<\/sup><\/a>?” So Nancy asked, when Minta<\/p>\n

took her hand. “What is it that she wants? Is it that?” And what was<\/p>\n

that? Here and there emerged from the mist (as Nancy looked down upon<\/p>\n

life spread beneath her) a pinnacle, a dome; prominent things, without<\/p>\n

names. But when Minta dropped her hand, as she did when they ran down<\/p>\n

the hillside, all that, the dome, the pinnacle, whatever it was that<\/p>\n

had protruded through the mist, sank down into it and disappeared.<\/p>\n

Minta, Andrew observed, was rather a good walker. She wore more<\/p>\n

sensible clothes that most women. She wore very short skirts and black<\/p>\n

knickerbockers. She would jump straight into a stream and flounder<\/p>\n

across. He liked her rashness, but he saw that it would not do–she<\/p>\n

would kill herself in some idiotic way one of these days. She seemed<\/p>\n

to be afraid of nothing–except bulls. At the mere sight of a bull in<\/p>\n

a field she would throw up her arms and fly screaming, which was the<\/p>\n

very thing to enrage a bull of course. But she did not mind owning up<\/p>\n

to it in the least; one must admit that. She knew she was an awful<\/p>\n

coward about bulls, she said. She thought she must have been tossed in<\/p>\n

her perambulator[88]<\/sup><\/a> when she was a baby. She didn’t seem to mind what she<\/p>\n

said or did. Suddenly now she pitched down on the edge of the cliff<\/p>\n

and began to sing some song about<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Damn your eyes, damn your eyes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They all had to join in and sing the chorus, and shout out together:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Damn your eyes, damn your eyes,[89]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

but it would be fatal to let the tide come in and cover up all the good<\/p>\n

hunting-grounds before they got on to the beach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Fatal,” Paul agreed, springing up, and as they went slithering down,<\/p>\n

he kept quoting the guide-book about “these islands being justly<\/p>\n

celebrated for their park-like prospects and the extent and variety of<\/p>\n

their marine curiosities.” But it would not do altogether, this<\/p>\n

shouting and damning your eyes, Andrew felt, picking his way down the<\/p>\n

cliff, this clapping him on the back, and calling him “old fellow” and<\/p>\n

all that; it would not altogether do. It was the worst of taking women<\/p>\n

on walks. Once on the beach they separated, he going out on to the<\/p>\n

Pope’s Nose[90]<\/sup><\/a>, taking his shoes off, and rolling his socks in them and<\/p>\n

letting that couple look after themselves; Nancy waded out to her own<\/p>\n

rocks and searched her own pools and let that couple look after<\/p>\n

themselves. She crouched low down and touched the smooth rubber-like<\/p>\n

sea anemones, who were stuck like lumps of jelly to the side of the<\/p>\n

rock. Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows<\/p>\n

into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by<\/p>\n

holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and<\/p>\n

desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent<\/p>\n

creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream<\/p>\n

down. Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed,<\/p>\n

gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan (she was still enlarging<\/p>\n

the pool), and slipped into the vast fissures of the mountain side.<\/p>\n

And then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest<\/p>\n

on that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunks which the<\/p>\n

smoke of steamers made waver on the horizon, she became with all that<\/p>\n

power sweeping savagely in and inevitably withdrawing, hypnotised, and<\/p>\n

the two senses of that vastness and this tininess (the pool had<\/p>\n

diminished again) flowering within it made her feel that she was bound<\/p>\n

hand and foot and unable to move by the intensity of feelings which<\/p>\n

reduced her own body, her own life, and the lives of all the people in<\/p>\n

the world, for ever, to nothingness. So listening to the waves,<\/p>\n

crouching over the pool, she brooded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And Andrew shouted that the sea was coming in, so she leapt splashing<\/p>\n

through the shallow waves on to the shore and ran up the beach and was<\/p>\n

carried by her own impetuosity and her desire for rapid movement right<\/p>\n

behind a rock and there–oh, heavens! in each other’s arms, were Paul<\/p>\n

and Minta kissing probably. She was outraged, indignant. She and<\/p>\n

Andrew put on their shoes and stockings in dead silence without saying<\/p>\n

a thing about it. Indeed they were rather sharp with each other. She<\/p>\n

might have called him when she saw the crayfish or whatever it was,<\/p>\n

Andrew grumbled. However, they both felt, it’s not our fault. They<\/p>\n

had not wanted this horrid nuisance to happen. All the same it<\/p>\n

irritated Andrew that Nancy should be a woman, and Nancy that Andrew<\/p>\n

should be a man, and they tied their shoes very neatly and drew the<\/p>\n

bows rather tight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was not until they had climbed right up on to the top of the cliff<\/p>\n

again that Minta cried out that she had lost her grandmother’s brooch–<\/p>\n

her grandmother’s brooch, the sole ornament she possessed–a weeping<\/p>\n

willow, it was (they must remember it) set in pearls. They must have<\/p>\n

seen it, she said, with the tears running down her cheeks, the<\/p>\n

brooch which her grandmother had fastened her cap with till the<\/p>\n

last day of her life. Now she had lost it. She would rather have<\/p>\n

lost anything than that! She would go back and look for it. They all<\/p>\n

went back. They poked and peered and looked. They kept their heads<\/p>\n

very low, and said things shortly and gruffly. Paul Rayley searched<\/p>\n

like a madman all about the rock where they had been sitting. All this<\/p>\n

pother about a brooch really didn’t do at all, Andrew thought, as Paul<\/p>\n

told him to make a “thorough search between this point and that.” The<\/p>\n

tide was coming in fast. The sea would cover the place where they had<\/p>\n

sat in a minute. There was not a ghost of a chance of their finding it<\/p>\n

now. “We shall be cut off!” Minta shrieked, suddenly terrified. As if<\/p>\n

there were any danger of that! It was the same as the bulls all over<\/p>\n

again–she had no control over her emotions, Andrew thought. Women<\/p>\n

hadn’t. The wretched Paul had to pacify her. The men (Andrew and Paul<\/p>\n

at once became manly, and different from usual) took counsel briefly<\/p>\n

and decided that they would plant Rayley’s stick where they had sat and<\/p>\n

come back at low tide again. There was nothing more that could be done<\/p>\n

now. If the brooch was there, it would still be there in the morning,<\/p>\n

they assured her, but Minta still sobbed, all the way up to the top of<\/p>\n

the cliff. It was her grandmother’s brooch; she would rather have lost<\/p>\n

anything but that, and yet Nancy felt, it might be true that she minded<\/p>\n

losing her brooch, but she wasn’t crying only for that. She was crying<\/p>\n

for something else. We might all sit down and cry, she felt. But she<\/p>\n

did not know what for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They drew ahead together, Paul and Minta, and he comforted her, and<\/p>\n

said how famous he was for finding things. Once when he was a little<\/p>\n

boy he had found a gold watch. He would get up at daybreak and he was<\/p>\n

positive he would find it. It seemed to him that it would be<\/p>\n

almost dark, and he would be alone on the beach, and somehow it would<\/p>\n

be rather dangerous. He began telling her, however, that he would<\/p>\n

certainly find it, and she said that she would not hear of his getting<\/p>\n

up at dawn: it was lost: she knew that: she had had a presentiment when<\/p>\n

she put it on that afternoon. And secretly he resolved that he would<\/p>\n

not tell her, but he would slip out of the house at dawn when they were<\/p>\n

all asleep and if he could not find it he would go to Edinburgh[91]<\/sup><\/a> and buy<\/p>\n

her another, just like it but more beautiful. He would prove what he<\/p>\n

could do. And as they came out on the hill and saw the lights of the<\/p>\n

town beneath them, the lights coming out suddenly one by one seemed<\/p>\n

like things that were going to happen to him–his marriage, his<\/p>\n

children, his house; and again he thought, as they came out on to the<\/p>\n

high road, which was shaded with high bushes, how they would retreat<\/p>\n

into solitude together, and walk on and on, he always leading her, and<\/p>\n

she pressing close to his side (as she did now). As they turned by the<\/p>\n

cross roads he thought what an appalling experience he had been<\/p>\n

through, and he must tell some one–Mrs. Ramsay of course, for it took<\/p>\n

his breath away to think what he had been and done. It had been far<\/p>\n

and away the worst moment of his life when he asked Minta to marry him.<\/p>\n

He would go straight to Mrs. Ramsay, because he felt somehow that she<\/p>\n

was the person who had made him do it. She had made him think he could<\/p>\n

do anything. Nobody else took him seriously. But she made him believe<\/p>\n

that he could do whatever he wanted. He had felt her eyes on him all<\/p>\n

day today, following him about (though she never said a word) as if she<\/p>\n

were saying, “Yes, you can do it. I believe in you. I expect it of<\/p>\n

you.” She had made him feel all that, and directly they got back (he<\/p>\n

looked for the lights of the house above the bay) he would go to her<\/p>\n

and say, “I’ve done it, Mrs. Ramsay; thanks to you.” And so turning into<\/p>\n

the lane that led to the house he could see lights moving about in the<\/p>\n

upper windows. They must be awfully late then. People were getting<\/p>\n

ready for dinner. The house was all lit up, and the lights after the<\/p>\n

darkness made his eyes feel full, and he said to himself, childishly,<\/p>\n

as he walked up the drive, Lights, lights, lights, and repeated in a<\/p>\n

dazed way, Lights, lights, lights, as they came into the house staring<\/p>\n

about him with his face quite stiff. But, good heavens, he said to<\/p>\n

himself, putting his hand to his tie, I must not make a fool of<\/p>\n

myself.)[92]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

15<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes,” said Prue, in her considering way, answering her mother’s<\/p>\n

question, “I think Nancy did go with them.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

16<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well then, Nancy had gone with them, Mrs. Ramsay supposed, wondering, as<\/p>\n

she put down a brush, took up a comb, and said “Come in” to a tap at<\/p>\n

the door (Jasper and Rose came in), whether the fact that Nancy was<\/p>\n

with them made it less likely or more likely that anything would<\/p>\n

happen; it made it less likely, somehow, Mrs. Ramsay felt, very<\/p>\n

irrationally, except that after all holocaust on such a scale was not<\/p>\n

probable. They could not all be drowned. And again she felt alone in<\/p>\n

the presence of her old antagonist, life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jasper and Rose said that Mildred wanted to know whether she should<\/p>\n

wait dinner.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Not for the Queen of England,” said Mrs. Ramsay emphatically.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Not for the Empress of Mexico,” she added, laughing at Jasper; for he<\/p>\n

shared his mother’s vice: he, too, exaggerated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And if Rose liked, she said, while Jasper took the message, she might<\/p>\n

choose which jewels she was to wear. When there are fifteen people<\/p>\n

sitting down to dinner, one cannot keep things waiting for ever. She<\/p>\n

was now beginning to feel annoyed with them for being so late; it was<\/p>\n

inconsiderate of them, and it annoyed her on top of her anxiety about<\/p>\n

them, that they should choose this very night to be out late, when, in<\/p>\n

fact, she wished the dinner to be particularly nice, since William<\/p>\n

Bankes had at last consented to dine with them; and they were having<\/p>\n

Mildred’s masterpiece\u2014Boeuf en Daube.[93]<\/sup><\/a> Everything depended upon things<\/p>\n

being served up to the precise moment they were ready. The beef, the<\/p>\n

bayleaf, and the wine–all must be done to a turn. To keep it waiting<\/p>\n

was out of the question. Yet of course tonight, of all nights, out<\/p>\n

they went, and they came in late, and things had to be sent out,<\/p>\n

things had to be kept hot; the Boeuf en Daube would be entirely spoilt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jasper offered her an opal necklace; Rose a gold necklace. Which<\/p>\n

looked best against her black dress? Which did indeed, said Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

absent-mindedly, looking at her neck and shoulders (but avoiding her<\/p>\n

face) in the glass. And then, while the children rummaged among her<\/p>\n

things, she looked out of the window at a sight which always amused<\/p>\n

her–the rooks trying to decide which tree to settle on. Every time,<\/p>\n

they seemed to change their minds and rose up into the air again,<\/p>\n

because, she thought, the old rook, the father rook, old Joseph was her<\/p>\n

name for him, was a bird of a very trying and difficult disposition.<\/p>\n

He was a disreputable old bird, with half his wing feathers missing.<\/p>\n

He was like some seedy old gentleman in a top hat she had seen playing<\/p>\n

the horn in front of a public house.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Look!” she said, laughing. They were actually fighting. Joseph and<\/p>\n

Mary[94]<\/sup><\/a> were fighting. Anyhow they all went up again, and the air was<\/p>\n

shoved aside by their black wings and cut into exquisite scimitar shapes.<\/p>\n

The movements of the wings beating out, out, out–she could never<\/p>\n

describe it accurately enough to please herself–was one of the<\/p>\n

loveliest of all to her. Look at that, she said to Rose, hoping<\/p>\n

that Rose would see it more clearly than she could. For one’s children<\/p>\n

so often gave one’s own perceptions a little thrust forwards.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case<\/p>\n

open. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace,<\/p>\n

which Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her<\/p>\n

amethysts?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Choose, dearests, choose,” she said, hoping that they would make<\/p>\n

haste.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But she let them take their time to choose: she let Rose, particularly,<\/p>\n

take up this and then that, and hold her jewels against the black<\/p>\n

dress, for this little ceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone<\/p>\n

through every night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. She had some<\/p>\n

hidden reason of her own for attaching great importance to this<\/p>\n

choosing what her mother was to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

wondered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace she had chosen,<\/p>\n

divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite<\/p>\n

speechless feeling that one had for one’s mother at Rose’s age. Like<\/p>\n

all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It<\/p>\n

was so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt<\/p>\n

was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was. And Rose<\/p>\n

would grow up; and Rose would suffer, she supposed, with these deep<\/p>\n

feelings, and she said she was ready now, and they would go down, and<\/p>\n

Jasper, because he was the gentleman, should give her his arm, and<\/p>\n

Rose, as she was the lady, should carry her handkerchief (she gave her<\/p>\n

the handkerchief), and what else? oh, yes, it might be cold: a shawl.<\/p>\n

Choose me a shawl, she said, for that would please Rose, who was bound<\/p>\n

to suffer so. “There,” she said, stopping by the window on the<\/p>\n

landing, “there they are again.” Joseph had settled on another tree-<\/p>\n

top. “Don’t you think they mind,” she said to Jasper, “having their<\/p>\n

wings broken?” Why did he want to shoot poor old Joseph and Mary? He<\/p>\n

shuffled a little on the stairs, and felt rebuked, but not seriously,<\/p>\n

for she did not understand the fun of shooting birds; and they did not<\/p>\n

feel; and being his mother she lived away in another division of the<\/p>\n

world, but he rather liked her stories about Mary and Joseph. She made<\/p>\n

him laugh. But how did she know that those were Mary and Joseph? Did<\/p>\n

she think the same birds came to the same trees every night? he asked.<\/p>\n

But here, suddenly, like all grown-up people, she ceased to pay him the<\/p>\n

least attention. She was listening to a clatter in the hall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“They’ve come back!” she exclaimed, and at once she felt much more<\/p>\n

annoyed with them than relieved. Then she wondered, had it happened?<\/p>\n

She would go down and they would tell her–but no. They could not tell<\/p>\n

her anything, with all these people about. So she must go down and<\/p>\n

begin dinner and wait. And, like some queen who, finding her people<\/p>\n

gathered in the hall, looks down upon them, and descends among them,<\/p>\n

and acknowledges their tributes silently, and accepts their devotion<\/p>\n

and their prostration before her (Paul did not move a muscle but looked<\/p>\n

straight before him as she passed) she went down, and crossed the hall<\/p>\n

and bowed her head very slightly, as if she accepted what they could<\/p>\n

not say: their tribute to her beauty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But she stopped. There was a smell of burning. Could they have let the<\/p>\n

Boeuf en Daube overboil? she wondered, pray heaven not! when the<\/p>\n

great clangour of the gong announced solemnly, authoritatively, that<\/p>\n

all those scattered about, in attics, in bedrooms, on little perches of<\/p>\n

their own, reading, writing, putting the last smooth to their hair, or<\/p>\n

fastening dresses, must leave all that, and the little odds and ends on<\/p>\n

their washing-tables and dressing tables, and the novels on the bed-<\/p>\n

tables, and the diaries which were so private, and assemble in the<\/p>\n

dining-room for dinner.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

17<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But what have I done with my life? thought Mrs. Ramsay, taking her<\/p>\n

place at the head of the table, and looking at all the plates making<\/p>\n

white circles on it. “William, sit by me,” she said. “Lily,” she<\/p>\n

said, wearily, “over there.” They had that–Paul Rayley and Minta<\/p>\n

Doyle–she, only this–an infinitely long table and plates and knives.<\/p>\n

At the far end was her husband, sitting down, all in a heap, frowning.<\/p>\n

What at? She did not know. She did not mind. She could not<\/p>\n

understand how she had ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She<\/p>\n

had a sense of being past everything, through everything, out of<\/p>\n

everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy–there–<\/p>\n

and one could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of<\/p>\n

it. It’s all come to an end, she thought, while they came in one after<\/p>\n

another, Charles Tansley–“Sit there, please,” she said–Augustus<\/p>\n

Carmichael–and sat down. And meanwhile she waited, passively, for<\/p>\n

some one to answer her, for something to happen. But this is not a<\/p>\n

thing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy–that was what she was<\/p>\n

thinking, this was what she was doing–ladling out soup–she felt, more<\/p>\n

and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and,<\/p>\n

robbed of colour, she saw things truly. The room (she looked round it)<\/p>\n

was very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere. She forebore to look at<\/p>\n

Mr. Tansley. Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate.<\/p>\n

And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested<\/p>\n

on her. Again she felt, as a fact without hostility, the sterility of<\/p>\n

men, for if she did not do it nobody would do it, and so, giving<\/p>\n

herself a little shake that one gives a watch that has stopped, the old<\/p>\n

familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking–one, two,<\/p>\n

three, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening<\/p>\n

to it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble pulse as one might<\/p>\n

guard a weak flame with a news-paper. And so then, she concluded,<\/p>\n

addressing herself by bending silently in his direction to William<\/p>\n

Bankes–poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in<\/p>\n

lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong<\/p>\n

enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor<\/p>\n

not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants<\/p>\n

to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have<\/p>\n

whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Did you find your letters? I told them to put them in the hall for<\/p>\n

you,” she said to William Bankes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man’s land where<\/p>\n

to follow people is impossible and yet their going inflicts such a<\/p>\n

chill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow<\/p>\n

them with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have<\/p>\n

sunk beneath the horizon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote.<\/p>\n

Then when she turned to William Bankes, smiling, it was as if the ship<\/p>\n

had turned and the sun had struck its sails again, and Lily thought<\/p>\n

with some amusement because she was relieved, Why does she pity him?<\/p>\n

For that was the impression she gave, when she told him that his<\/p>\n

letters were in the hall. Poor William Bankes, she seemed to be<\/p>\n

saying, as if her own weariness had been partly pitying people, and the<\/p>\n

life in her, her resolve to live again, had been stirred by pity. And<\/p>\n

it was not true, Lily thought; it was one of those misjudgments of hers<\/p>\n

that seemed to be instinctive and to arise from some need of her own<\/p>\n

rather than of other people’s. He is not in the least pitiable. He has<\/p>\n

his work, Lily said to herself. She remembered, all of a sudden as if<\/p>\n

she had found a treasure, that she had her work. In a flash she saw<\/p>\n

her picture, and thought, Yes, I shall put the tree further in the<\/p>\n

middle; then I shall avoid that awkward space. That’s what I shall do.<\/p>\n

That’s what has been puzzling me. She took up the salt cellar and put<\/p>\n

it down again on a flower pattern in the table-cloth, so as to remind<\/p>\n

herself to move the tree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s odd that one scarcely gets anything worth having by post, yet one<\/p>\n

always wants one’s letters,” said Mr. Bankes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What damned rot they talk, thought Charles Tansley, laying down his<\/p>\n

spoon precisely in the middle of his plate, which he had swept clean,<\/p>\n

as if, Lily thought (he sat opposite to her with his back to the window<\/p>\n

precisely in the middle of view), he were determined to make sure of<\/p>\n

his meals. Everything about him had that meagre fixity, that bare<\/p>\n

unloveliness. But nevertheless, the fact remained, it was impossible<\/p>\n

to dislike any one if one looked at them. She liked his eyes; they<\/p>\n

were blue, deep set, frightening.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do you write many letters, Mr. Tansley?” asked Mrs. Ramsay, pitying him<\/p>\n

too, Lily supposed; for that was true of Mrs. Ramsay–she pitied men<\/p>\n

always as if they lacked something–women never, as if they had<\/p>\n

something. He wrote to his mother; otherwise he did not suppose he<\/p>\n

wrote one letter a month, said Mr. Tansley, shortly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For he was not going to talk the sort of rot these condescended to by<\/p>\n

these silly women. He had been reading in his room, and now he came<\/p>\n

down and it all seemed to him silly, superficial, flimsy. Why did they<\/p>\n

dress? He had come down in his ordinary clothes. He had not got any<\/p>\n

dress clothes. “One never gets anything worth having by post”–that<\/p>\n

was the sort of thing they were always saying. They made men say that<\/p>\n

sort of thing. Yes, it was pretty well true, he thought. They never<\/p>\n

got anything worth having from one year’s end to another. They did<\/p>\n

nothing but talk, talk, talk, eat, eat, eat. It was the women’s fault.<\/p>\n

Women made civilisation impossible with all their “charm,” all their<\/p>\n

silliness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No going to the Lighthouse tomorrow, Mrs. Ramsay,” he said, asserting<\/p>\n

himself. He liked her; he admired her; he still thought of the man in<\/p>\n

the drain-pipe looking up at her; but he felt it necessary to assert<\/p>\n

himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was really, Lily Briscoe thought, in spite of his eyes, but then<\/p>\n

look at his nose, look at his hands, the most uncharming human being<\/p>\n

she had ever met. Then why did she mind what he said? Women can’t<\/p>\n

write, women can’t paint–what did that matter coming from him, since<\/p>\n

clearly it was not true to him but for some reason helpful to him, and<\/p>\n

that was why he said it? Why did her whole being bow, like corn under<\/p>\n

a wind, and erect itself again from this abasement only with a great<\/p>\n

and rather painful effort? She must make it once more. There’s the<\/p>\n

sprig on the table-cloth; there’s my painting; I must move the tree to<\/p>\n

the middle; that matters–nothing else. Could she not hold fast to<\/p>\n

that, she asked herself, and not lose her temper, and not argue; and if<\/p>\n

she wanted revenge take it by laughing at him?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh, Mr. Tansley,” she said, “do take me to the Lighthouse with you. I<\/p>\n

should so love it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She was telling lies he could see. She was saying what she did not<\/p>\n

mean to annoy him, for some reason. She was laughing at him. He was in<\/p>\n

his old flannel trousers. He had no others. He felt very rough and<\/p>\n

isolated and lonely. He knew that she was trying to tease him for some<\/p>\n

reason; she didn’t want to go to the Lighthouse with him; she despised<\/p>\n

him: so did Prue Ramsay; so did they all. But he was not going to be<\/p>\n

made a fool of by women, so he turned deliberately in his chair and<\/p>\n

looked out of the window and said, all in a jerk, very rudely, it would<\/p>\n

be too rough for her tomorrow. She would be sick.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It annoyed him that she should have made him speak like that, with Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay listening. If only he could be alone in his room working, he<\/p>\n

thought, among his books. That was where he felt at his ease. And he<\/p>\n

had never run a penny into debt; he had never cost his father a penny<\/p>\n

since he was fifteen; he had helped them at home out of his savings; he<\/p>\n

was educating his sister. Still, he wished he had known how to answer<\/p>\n

Miss Briscoe properly; he wished it had not come out all in a jerk like<\/p>\n

that. “You’d be sick.” He wished he could think of something to say to<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay, something which would show her that he was not just a dry<\/p>\n

prig. That was what they all thought him. He turned to her. But Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay was talking about people he had never heard of to William<\/p>\n

Bankes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, take it away,” she said briefly, interrupting what she was saying<\/p>\n

to William Bankes to speak to the maid. “It must have been fifteen–<\/p>\n

no, twenty years ago–that I last saw her,” she was saying, turning<\/p>\n

back to him again as if she could not lose a moment of their talk, for<\/p>\n

she was absorbed by what they were saying. So he had actually heard<\/p>\n

from her this evening! And was Carrie still living at Marlow[95]<\/sup><\/a>, and was<\/p>\n

everything still the same? Oh, she could remember it as if it were<\/p>\n

yesterday–on the river, feeling it as if it were yesterday–going on<\/p>\n

the river, feeling very cold. But if the Mannings made a plan they<\/p>\n

stuck to it. Never should she forget Herbert killing a wasp with a<\/p>\n

teaspoon on the bank! And it was still going on, Mrs. Ramsay mused,<\/p>\n

gliding like a ghost among the chairs and tables of that drawing-room<\/p>\n

on the banks of the Thames where she had been so very, very cold twenty<\/p>\n

years ago; but now she went among them like a ghost; and it fascinated<\/p>\n

her, as if, while she had changed, that particular day, now become very<\/p>\n

still and beautiful, had remained there, all these years. Had Carrie<\/p>\n

written to him herself? she asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes. She says they’re building a new billiard room,” he said. No!<\/p>\n

No! That was out of the question! Building a new billiard room!<\/p>\n

It seemed to her impossible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes could not see that there was anything very odd about it.<\/p>\n

They were very well off now. Should he give her love to Carrie?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ramsay with a little start, “No,” she added, reflecting<\/p>\n

that she did not know this Carrie who built a new billiard room. But<\/p>\n

how strange, she repeated, to Mr. Bankes’s amusement, that they should<\/p>\n

be going on there still. For it was extraordinary to think that they<\/p>\n

had been capable of going on living all these years when she had not<\/p>\n

thought of them more than once all that time. How eventful her own<\/p>\n

life had been, during those same years. Yet perhaps Carrie Manning<\/p>\n

had not thought about her, either. The thought was strange and<\/p>\n

distasteful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“People soon drift apart,” said Mr. Bankes, feeling, however, some<\/p>\n

satisfaction when he thought that after all he knew both the Mannings<\/p>\n

and the Ramsays. He had not drifted apart he thought, laying down his<\/p>\n

spoon and wiping his clean-shaven lips punctiliously. But perhaps he<\/p>\n

was rather unusual, he thought, in this; he never let himself get into<\/p>\n

a groove. He had friends in all circles… Mrs. Ramsay had to break<\/p>\n

off here to tell the maid something about keeping food hot. That was<\/p>\n

why he preferred dining alone. All those interruptions annoyed him.<\/p>\n

Well, thought William Bankes, preserving a demeanour of exquisite<\/p>\n

courtesy and merely spreading the fingers of his left hand on the<\/p>\n

table-cloth as a mechanic examines a tool beautifully polished and<\/p>\n

ready for use in an interval of leisure, such are the sacrifices one’s<\/p>\n

friends ask of one. It would have hurt her if he had refused to come.<\/p>\n

But it was not worth it for him. Looking at his hand he thought that<\/p>\n

if he had been alone dinner would have been almost over now; he would<\/p>\n

have been free to work. Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of<\/p>\n

time. The children were dropping in still. “I wish one of you would<\/p>\n

run up to Roger’s room,” Mrs. Ramsay was saying. How trifling it all<\/p>\n

is, how boring it all is, he thought, compared with the other thing–<\/p>\n

work. Here he sat drumming his fingers on the table-cloth when he<\/p>\n

might have been–he took a flashing bird’s-eye view of his work. What<\/p>\n

a waste of time it all was to be sure! Yet, he thought, she is one of<\/p>\n

my oldest friends. I am by way of being devoted to her. Yet now, at<\/p>\n

this moment her presence meant absolutely nothing to him: her beauty<\/p>\n

meant nothing to him; her sitting with her little boy at the window–<\/p>\n

nothing, nothing. He wished only to be alone and to take up that book.<\/p>\n

He felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit by her<\/p>\n

side and feel nothing for her. The truth was that he did not enjoy<\/p>\n

family life. It was in this sort of state that one asked oneself, What<\/p>\n

does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these<\/p>\n

pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we<\/p>\n

attractive as a species? Not so very, he thought, looking at those<\/p>\n

rather untidy boys. His favourite, Cam, was in bed, he supposed.<\/p>\n

Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked<\/p>\n

if one was occupied. Is human life this? Is human life that? One<\/p>\n

never had time to think about it. But here he was asking himself that<\/p>\n

sort of question, because Mrs. Ramsay was giving orders to servants, and<\/p>\n

also because it had struck him, thinking how surprised Mrs. Ramsay was<\/p>\n

that Carrie Manning should still exist, that friendships, even the best<\/p>\n

of them, are frail things. One drifts apart. He reproached himself<\/p>\n

again. He was sitting beside Mrs. Ramsay and he had nothing in the<\/p>\n

world to say to her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Ramsay, turning to him at last. He felt rigid<\/p>\n

and barren, like a pair of boots that have been soaked and gone dry so<\/p>\n

that you can hardly force your feet into them. Yet he must force his<\/p>\n

feet into them. He must make himself talk. Unless he were very<\/p>\n

careful, she would find out this treachery of his; that he did not care<\/p>\n

a straw for her, and that would not be at all pleasant, he thought. So<\/p>\n

he bent his head courteously in her direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How you must detest dining in this bear garden,” she said, making use,<\/p>\n

as she did when she was distracted, of her social manner. So, when<\/p>\n

there is a strife of tongues, at some meeting, the chairman, to obtain<\/p>\n

unity, suggests that every one shall speak in French. Perhaps it is<\/p>\n

bad French; French may not contain the words that express the speaker’s<\/p>\n

thoughts; nevertheless speaking French imposes some order, some<\/p>\n

uniformity. Replying to her in the same language, Mr. Bankes said, “No,<\/p>\n

not at all,” and Mr. Tansley, who had no knowledge of this language,<\/p>\n

even spoke thus in words of one syllable, at once suspected its<\/p>\n

insincerity. They did talk nonsense, he thought, the Ramsays; and he<\/p>\n

pounced on this fresh instance with joy, making a note which, one of<\/p>\n

these days, he would read aloud, to one or two friends. There, in a<\/p>\n

society where one could say what one liked he would sarcastically<\/p>\n

describe “staying with the Ramsays” and what nonsense they talked. It<\/p>\n

was worth while doing it once, he would say; but not again. The women<\/p>\n

bored one so, he would say. Of course Ramsay had dished himself[96]<\/sup><\/a> by<\/p>\n

marrying a beautiful woman and having eight children. It would shape<\/p>\n

itself something like that, but now, at this moment, sitting stuck<\/p>\n

there with an empty seat beside him, nothing had shaped itself at all.<\/p>\n

It was all in scraps and fragments. He felt extremely, even<\/p>\n

physically, uncomfortable. He wanted somebody to give him a chance of<\/p>\n

asserting himself. He wanted it so urgently that he fidgeted in his<\/p>\n

chair, looked at this person, then at that person, tried to break into<\/p>\n

their talk, opened his mouth and shut it again. They were talking<\/p>\n

about the fishing industry. Why did no one ask him his opinion? What<\/p>\n

did they know about the fishing industry?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lily Briscoe knew all that. Sitting opposite him, could she not see,<\/p>\n

as in an X-ray photograph, the ribs and thigh bones of the young man’s<\/p>\n

desire to impress himself, lying dark in the mist of his flesh–that<\/p>\n

thin mist which convention had laid over his burning desire to break<\/p>\n

into the conversation? But, she thought, screwing up her Chinese<\/p>\n

eyes, and remembering how he sneered at women, “can’t paint, can’t<\/p>\n

write,” why should I help him to relieve himself?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a code of behaviour, she knew, whose seventh article (it may<\/p>\n

be) says that on occasions of this sort it behoves the woman, whatever<\/p>\n

her own occupation might be, to go to the help of the young man<\/p>\n

opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs,<\/p>\n

of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is<\/p>\n

their duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us,<\/p>\n

suppose the Tube[97]<\/sup><\/a> were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should<\/p>\n

certainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she<\/p>\n

thought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there<\/p>\n

smiling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You’re not planning to go to the Lighthouse, are you, Lily,” said Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay. “Remember poor Mr. Langley; he had been round the world dozens<\/p>\n

of times, but he told me he never suffered as he did when my husband<\/p>\n

took him there. Are you a good sailor, Mr. Tansley?” she asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Tansley raised a hammer: swung it high in air; but realising, as it<\/p>\n

descended, that he could not smite that butterfly with such an<\/p>\n

instrument as this, said only that he had never been sick in his life.<\/p>\n

But in that one sentence lay compact, like gunpowder, that his<\/p>\n

grandfather was a fisherman; his father a chemist; that he had worked<\/p>\n

his way up entirely himself; that he was proud of it; that he was<\/p>\n

Charles Tansley–a fact that nobody there seemed to realise; but one of<\/p>\n

these days every single person would know it. He scowled ahead of him.<\/p>\n

He could almost pity these mild cultivated people, who would be blown<\/p>\n

sky high, like bales of wool and barrels of apples, one of these days<\/p>\n

by the gunpowder that was in him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Will you take me, Mr. Tansley?” said Lily, quickly, kindly, for, of<\/p>\n

course, if Mrs. Ramsay said to her, as in effect she did, “I am<\/p>\n

drowning, my dear, in seas of fire. Unless you apply some balm to the<\/p>\n

anguish of this hour and say something nice to that young man there,<\/p>\n

life will run upon the rocks–indeed I hear the grating and the<\/p>\n

growling at this minute. My nerves are taut as fiddle strings.<\/p>\n

Another touch and they will snap”–when Mrs. Ramsay said all this, as<\/p>\n

the glance in her eyes said it, of course for the hundred and fiftieth<\/p>\n

time Lily Briscoe had to renounce the experiment–what happens if one<\/p>\n

is not nice to that young man there–and be nice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Judging the turn in her mood correctly–that she was friendly to him<\/p>\n

now–he was relieved of his egotism, and told her how he had been<\/p>\n

thrown out of a boat when he was a baby; how his father used to fish<\/p>\n

him out with a boat-hook; that was how he had learnt to swim. One of<\/p>\n

his uncles kept the light on some rock or other off the Scottish coast,<\/p>\n

he said. He had been there with him in a storm. This was said loudly<\/p>\n

in a pause. They had to listen to him when he said that he had been<\/p>\n

with his uncle in a lighthouse in a storm. Ah, thought Lily Briscoe,<\/p>\n

as the conversation took this auspicious turn, and she felt Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay’s gratitude (for Mrs. Ramsay was free now to talk for a moment<\/p>\n

herself), ah, she thought, but what haven’t I paid to get it for you?<\/p>\n

She had not been sincere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had done the usual trick–been nice. She would never know him. He<\/p>\n

would never know her. Human relations were all like that, she thought,<\/p>\n

and the worst (if it had not been for Mr. Bankes) were between men and<\/p>\n

women. Inevitably these were extremely insincere she thought. Then<\/p>\n

her eye caught the salt cellar, which she had placed there to remind<\/p>\n

her, and she remembered that next morning she would move the tree<\/p>\n

further towards the middle, and her spirits rose so high at the thought<\/p>\n

of painting tomorrow that she laughed out loud at what Mr. Tansley was<\/p>\n

saying. Let him talk all night if he liked it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But how long do they leave men on a Lighthouse?” she asked. He told<\/p>\n

her. He was amazingly well informed. And as he was grateful, and as<\/p>\n

he liked her, and as he was beginning to enjoy himself, so now, Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay thought, she could return to that dream land, that unreal but<\/p>\n

fascinating place, the Mannings’ drawing-room at Marlow[98]<\/sup><\/a> twenty years<\/p>\n

ago; where one moved about without haste or anxiety, for there was no<\/p>\n

future to worry about. She knew what had happened to them, what to<\/p>\n

her. It was like reading a good book again, for she knew the end of<\/p>\n

that story, since it had happened twenty years ago, and life, which<\/p>\n

shot down even from this dining-room table in cascades, heaven knows<\/p>\n

where, was sealed up there, and lay, like a lake, placidly between its<\/p>\n

banks. He said they had built a billiard room–was it possible?<\/p>\n

Would William go on talking about the Mannings? She wanted him to.<\/p>\n

But, no–for some reason he was no longer in the mood. She tried.<\/p>\n

He did not respond. She could not force him. She was disappointed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The children are disgraceful,” she said, sighing. He said something<\/p>\n

about punctuality being one of the minor virtues which we do not<\/p>\n

acquire until later in life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If at all,” said Mrs. Ramsay merely to fill up space, thinking what an<\/p>\n

old maid William was becoming. Conscious of his treachery, conscious<\/p>\n

of her wish to talk about something more intimate, yet out of mood for<\/p>\n

it at present, he felt come over him the disagreeableness of life,<\/p>\n

sitting there, waiting. Perhaps the others were saying something<\/p>\n

interesting? What were they saying?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That the fishing season was bad; that the men were emigrating. They<\/p>\n

were talking about wages and unemployment. The young man was abusing<\/p>\n

the government. William Bankes, thinking what a relief it was to catch<\/p>\n

on to something of this sort when private life was disagreeable, heard<\/p>\n

him say something about “one of the most scandalous acts of the present<\/p>\n

government.” Lily was listening; Mrs. Ramsay was listening; they were<\/p>\n

all listening. But already bored, Lily felt that something was lacking;<\/p>\n

Mr. Bankes felt that something was lacking. Pulling her shawl round her<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay felt that something was lacking. All of them bending<\/p>\n

themselves to listen thought, “Pray heaven that the inside of my mind<\/p>\n

may not be exposed,” for each thought, “The others are feeling this.<\/p>\n

They are outraged and indignant with the government about the<\/p>\n

fishermen. Whereas, I feel nothing at all.” But perhaps, thought Mr.<\/p>\n

Bankes, as he looked at Mr. Tansley, here is the man. One was always<\/p>\n

waiting for the man. There was always a chance. At any moment the<\/p>\n

leader might arise; the man of genius, in politics as in anything else.<\/p>\n

Probably he will be extremely disagreeable to us old fogies, thought Mr.<\/p>\n

Bankes, doing his best to make allowances, for he knew by some curious<\/p>\n

physical sensation, as of nerves erect in his spine, that he was<\/p>\n

jealous, for himself partly, partly more probably for his work, for his<\/p>\n

point of view, for his science; and therefore he was not entirely open-<\/p>\n

minded or altogether fair, for Mr. Tansley seemed to be saying, You have<\/p>\n

wasted your lives. You are all of you wrong. Poor old fogies, you’re<\/p>\n

hopelessly behind the times. He seemed to be rather cocksure, this<\/p>\n

young man; and his manners were bad. But Mr. Bankes bade himself<\/p>\n

observe, he had courage; he had ability; he was extremely well up in<\/p>\n

the facts. Probably, Mr. Bankes thought, as Tansley abused the<\/p>\n

government, there is a good deal in what he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Tell me now…” he said. So they argued about politics, and Lily<\/p>\n

looked at the leaf on the table-cloth; and Mrs. Ramsay, leaving the<\/p>\n

argument entirely in the hands of the two men, wondered why she was so<\/p>\n

bored by this talk, and wished, looking at her husband at the other end<\/p>\n

of the table, that he would say something. One word, she said to<\/p>\n

herself. For if he said a thing, it would make all the difference. He<\/p>\n

went to the heart of things. He cared about fishermen and their wages.<\/p>\n

He could not sleep for thinking of them. It was altogether different<\/p>\n

when he spoke; one did not feel then, pray heaven you don’t see how<\/p>\n

little I care, because one did care. Then, realising that it was because<\/p>\n

she admired him so much that she was waiting for him to speak, she<\/p>\n

felt as if somebody had been praising her husband to her and their<\/p>\n

marriage, and she glowed all over without realising that it was<\/p>\n

she herself who had praised him. She looked at him thinking to find<\/p>\n

this in his face; he would be looking magnificent… But not in the<\/p>\n

least! He was screwing his face up, he was scowling and frowning, and<\/p>\n

flushing with anger. What on earth was it about? she wondered. What<\/p>\n

could be the matter? Only that poor old Augustus had asked for<\/p>\n

another plate of soup–that was all. It was unthinkable, it was<\/p>\n

detestable (so he signalled to her across the table) that Augustus<\/p>\n

should be beginning his soup over again. He loathed people eating when<\/p>\n

he had finished. She saw his anger fly like a pack of hounds into his<\/p>\n

eyes, his brow, and she knew that in a moment something violent would<\/p>\n

explode, and then–thank goodness! she saw him clutch himself and clap<\/p>\n

a brake on the wheel, and the whole of his body seemed to emit sparks<\/p>\n

but not words. He sat there scowling. He had said nothing, he would<\/p>\n

have her observe. Let her give him the credit for that! But why<\/p>\n

after all should poor Augustus not ask for another plate of soup? He<\/p>\n

had merely touched Ellen’s arm and said:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Ellen, please, another plate of soup,” and then Mr. Ramsay scowled like<\/p>\n

that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And why not? Mrs. Ramsay demanded. Surely they could let Augustus have<\/p>\n

his soup if he wanted it. He hated people wallowing in food, Mr. Ramsay<\/p>\n

frowned at her. He hated everything dragging on for hours like this.<\/p>\n

But he had controlled himself, Mr. Ramsay would have her observe,<\/p>\n

disgusting though the sight was. But why show it so plainly, Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay demanded (they looked at each other down the long table sending<\/p>\n

these questions and answers across, each knowing exactly what the other<\/p>\n

felt). Everybody could see, Mrs. Ramsay thought. There was Rose gazing<\/p>\n

at her father, there was Roger gazing at his father; both would be off<\/p>\n

in spasms of laughter in another second, she knew, and so she said<\/p>\n

promptly (indeed it was time):<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Light the candles,” and they jumped up instantly and went and fumbled<\/p>\n

at the sideboard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why could he never conceal his feelings? Mrs. Ramsay wondered, and she<\/p>\n

wondered if Augustus Carmichael had noticed. Perhaps he had; perhaps<\/p>\n

he had not. She could not help respecting the composure with which he<\/p>\n

sat there, drinking his soup. If he wanted soup, he asked for soup.<\/p>\n

Whether people laughed at him or were angry with him he was the same.<\/p>\n

He did not like her, she knew that; but partly for that very reason she<\/p>\n

respected him, and looking at him, drinking soup, very large and calm<\/p>\n

in the failing light, and monumental, and contemplative, she wondered<\/p>\n

what he did feel then, and why he was always content and dignified; and<\/p>\n

she thought how devoted he was to Andrew, and would call him into his<\/p>\n

room, and Andrew said, “show him things.” And there he would lie all<\/p>\n

day long on the lawn brooding presumably over his poetry, till he<\/p>\n

reminded one of a cat watching birds, and then he clapped his paws<\/p>\n

together when he had found the word, and her husband said, “Poor old<\/p>\n

Augustus–he’s a true poet,” which was high praise from her husband.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now eight candles were stood down the table, and after the first stoop<\/p>\n

the flames stood upright and drew with them into visibility the long<\/p>\n

table entire, and in the middle a yellow and purple dish of fruit. What<\/p>\n

had she done with it, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, for Rose’s arrangement of<\/p>\n

the grapes and pears, of the horny pink-lined shell, of the bananas,<\/p>\n

made her think of a trophy fetched from the bottom of the sea, of<\/p>\n

Neptune’s[99]<\/sup><\/a> banquet, of the bunch that hangs with vine leaves over the<\/p>\n

shoulder of Bacchus[100]<\/sup><\/a> (in some picture), among the leopard skins and the<\/p>\n

torches lolloping red and gold… Thus brought up suddenly into the<\/p>\n

light it seemed possessed of great size and depth, was like a world in<\/p>\n

which one could take one’s staff and climb hills, she thought, and go<\/p>\n

down into valleys, and to her pleasure (for it brought them into<\/p>\n

sympathy momentarily) she saw that Augustus too feasted his eyes on the<\/p>\n

same plate of fruit, plunged in, broke off a bloom there, a tassel<\/p>\n

here, and returned, after feasting, to his hive. That was his way of<\/p>\n

looking, different from hers. But looking together united them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now all the candles were lit up, and the faces on both sides of the<\/p>\n

table were brought nearer by the candle light, and composed, as they<\/p>\n

had not been in the twilight, into a party round a table, for the night<\/p>\n

was now shut off by panes of glass, which, far from giving any accurate<\/p>\n

view of the outside world, rippled it so strangely that here, inside<\/p>\n

the room, seemed to be order and dry land; there, outside, a reflection<\/p>\n

in which things waved and vanished, waterily.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some change at once went through them all, as if this had really<\/p>\n

happened, and they were all conscious of making a party together in a<\/p>\n

hollow, on an island; had their common cause against that fluidity out<\/p>\n

there. Mrs. Ramsay, who had been uneasy, waiting for Paul and Minta to<\/p>\n

come in, and unable, she felt, to settle to things, now felt her<\/p>\n

uneasiness changed to expectation. For now they must come, and Lily<\/p>\n

Briscoe, trying to analyse the cause of the sudden exhilaration,<\/p>\n

compared it with that moment on the tennis lawn, when solidity suddenly<\/p>\n

vanished, and such vast spaces lay between them; and now the same<\/p>\n

effect was got by the many candles in the sparely furnished room, and<\/p>\n

the uncurtained windows, and the bright mask-like look of faces seen by<\/p>\n

candlelight. Some weight was taken off them; anything might happen,<\/p>\n

she felt. They must come now, Mrs. Ramsay thought, looking at the door,<\/p>\n

and at that instant, Minta Doyle, Paul Rayley, and a maid carrying a<\/p>\n

great dish in her hands came in together. They were awfully late; they<\/p>\n

were horribly late, Minta said, as they found their way to different<\/p>\n

ends of the table.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I lost my brooch–my grandmother’s brooch,” said Minta with a sound of<\/p>\n

lamentation in her voice, and a suffusion in her large brown eyes,<\/p>\n

looking down, looking up, as she sat by Mr. Ramsay, which roused his<\/p>\n

chivalry so that he bantered her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How could she be such a goose, he asked, as to scramble about the rocks<\/p>\n

in jewels?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She was by way of being terrified of him–he was so fearfully clever,<\/p>\n

and the first night when she had sat by him, and he talked about George<\/p>\n

Eliot, she had been really frightened, for she had left the third<\/p>\n

volume of Middlemarch<\/i>[101]<\/sup><\/a> in the train and she never knew what happened in<\/p>\n

the end; but afterwards she got on perfectly, and made herself out even<\/p>\n

more ignorant than she was, because he liked telling her she was a<\/p>\n

fool. And so tonight, directly he laughed at her, she was not<\/p>\n

frightened. Besides, she knew, directly she came into the room that the<\/p>\n

miracle had happened; she wore her golden haze. Sometimes she had it;<\/p>\n

sometimes not. She never knew why it came or why it went, or if she<\/p>\n

had it until she came into the room and then she knew instantly by the<\/p>\n

way some man looked at her. Yes, tonight she had it, tremendously; she<\/p>\n

knew that by the way Mr. Ramsay told her not to be a fool. She sat<\/p>\n

beside him, smiling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It must have happened then, thought Mrs. Ramsay; they are engaged. And<\/p>\n

for a moment she felt what she had never expected to feel again–<\/p>\n

jealousy. For he, her husband, felt it too–Minta’s glow; he liked<\/p>\n

these girls, these golden-reddish girls, with something flying,<\/p>\n

something a little wild and harum-scarum[102]<\/sup><\/a> about them, who didn’t<\/p>\n

“scrape their hair off,”[103]<\/sup><\/a> weren’t, as he said about poor Lily Briscoe,<\/p>\n

“skimpy”. There was some quality which she herself had not, some<\/p>\n

lustre, some richness, which attracted him, amused him, led him to make<\/p>\n

favourites of girls like Minta. They might cut his hair from him,<\/p>\n

plait him watch-chains, or interrupt him at his work, hailing him (she<\/p>\n

heard them), “Come along, Mr. Ramsay; it’s our turn to beat them now,”<\/p>\n

and out he came to play tennis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But indeed she was not jealous, only, now and then, when she made<\/p>\n

herself look in her glass, a little resentful that she had grown old,<\/p>\n

perhaps, by her own fault. (The bill for the greenhouse and all the<\/p>\n

rest of it.) She was grateful to them for laughing at him. (“How many<\/p>\n

pipes have you smoked today, Mr. Ramsay?” and so on), till he seemed a<\/p>\n

young man; a man very attractive to women, not burdened, not weighed<\/p>\n

down with the greatness of his labours and the sorrows of the world and<\/p>\n

his fame or his failure, but again as she had first known him, gaunt<\/p>\n

but gallant; helping her out of a boat, she remembered; with delightful<\/p>\n

ways, like that (she looked at him, and he looked astonishingly young,<\/p>\n

teasing Minta). For herself–“Put it down there,” she said, helping<\/p>\n

the Swiss girl to place gently before her the huge brown pot in which<\/p>\n

was the Boeuf en Daube–for her own part, she liked her boobies[104]<\/sup><\/a>. Paul<\/p>\n

must sit by her. She had kept a place for him. Really, she sometimes<\/p>\n

thought she liked the boobies best. They did not bother one with their<\/p>\n

dissertations. How much they missed, after all, these very clever men!<\/p>\n

How dried up they did become, to be sure. There was something, she<\/p>\n

thought as he sat down, very charming about Paul. His manners were<\/p>\n

delightful to her, and his sharp cut nose and his bright blue eyes. He<\/p>\n

was so considerate. Would he tell her–now that they were all talking<\/p>\n

again–what had happened?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We went back to look for Minta’s brooch,” he said, sitting down by<\/p>\n

her. “We”–that was enough. She knew from the effort, the rise in his<\/p>\n

voice to surmount a difficult word that it was the first time he had<\/p>\n

said “we.” “We did this, we did that.” They’ll say that all their<\/p>\n

lives, she thought, and an exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice<\/p>\n

rose from the great brown dish as Marthe, with a little flourish, took<\/p>\n

the cover off. The cook had spent three days over that dish. And she<\/p>\n

must take great care, Mrs. Ramsay thought, diving into the soft mass, to<\/p>\n

choose a specially tender piece for William Bankes. And she peered into<\/p>\n

the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and<\/p>\n

yellow meats and its bay leaves and its wine, and thought, This will<\/p>\n

celebrate the occasion–a curious sense rising in her, at once freakish<\/p>\n

and tender, of celebrating a festival, as if two emotions were called<\/p>\n

up in her, one profound–for what could be more serious than the love<\/p>\n

of man for woman, what more commanding, more impressive, bearing in its<\/p>\n

bosom the seeds of death; at the same time these lovers, these people<\/p>\n

entering into illusion glittering eyed, must be danced round with<\/p>\n

mockery, decorated with garlands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It is a triumph,” said Mr. Bankes, laying his knife down for a moment.<\/p>\n

He had eaten attentively. It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly<\/p>\n

cooked. How did she manage these things in the depths of the country?<\/p>\n

he asked her. She was a wonderful woman. All his love, all his<\/p>\n

reverence, had returned; and she knew it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It is a French recipe of my grandmother’s,”[105]<\/sup><\/a> said Mrs. Ramsay, speaking<\/p>\n

with a ring of great pleasure in her voice. Of course it was French.<\/p>\n

What passes for cookery in England is an abomination (they agreed). It<\/p>\n

is putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like<\/p>\n

leather. It is cutting off the delicious skins of vegetables. “In<\/p>\n

which,” said Mr. Bankes, “all the virtue of the vegetable is contained.”<\/p>\n

And the waste, said Mrs. Ramsay. A whole French family could live on<\/p>\n

what an English cook throws away. Spurred on by her sense that<\/p>\n

William’s affection had come back to her, and that everything was all<\/p>\n

right again, and that her suspense was over, and that now she was free<\/p>\n

both to triumph and to mock, she laughed, she gesticulated, till Lily<\/p>\n

thought, How childlike, how absurd she was, sitting up there with all<\/p>\n

her beauty opened again in her, talking about the skins of vegetables.<\/p>\n

There was something frightening about her. She was irresistible.<\/p>\n

Always she got her own way in the end, Lily thought. Now she had<\/p>\n

brought this off–Paul and Minta, one might suppose, were engaged. Mr.<\/p>\n

Bankes was dining here. She put a spell on them all, by wishing, so<\/p>\n

simply, so directly, and Lily contrasted that abundance with her own<\/p>\n

poverty of spirit, and supposed that it was partly that belief (for her<\/p>\n

face was all lit up–without looking young, she looked radiant) in this<\/p>\n

strange, this terrifying thing, which made Paul Rayley, sitting at her<\/p>\n

side, all of a tremor, yet abstract, absorbed, silent. Mrs. Ramsay,<\/p>\n

Lily felt, as she talked about the skins of vegetables, exalted that,<\/p>\n

worshipped that; held her hands over it to warm them, to protect it,<\/p>\n

and yet, having brought it all about, somehow laughed, led her victims,<\/p>\n

Lily felt, to the altar. It came over her too now–the emotion, the<\/p>\n

vibration, of love. How inconspicuous she felt herself by Paul’s side!<\/p>\n

He, glowing, burning; she, aloof, satirical; he, bound for adventure;<\/p>\n

she, moored to the shore; he, launched, incautious; she solitary,<\/p>\n

left out–and, ready to implore a share, if it were a disaster, in<\/p>\n

his disaster, she said shyly:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“When did Minta lose her brooch?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.<\/p>\n

He shook his head. “On the beach,” he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m going to find it,” he said, “I’m getting up early.” This being<\/p>\n

kept secret from Minta, he lowered his voice, and turned his eyes to<\/p>\n

where she sat, laughing, beside Mr. Ramsay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lily wanted to protest violently and outrageously her desire to help<\/p>\n

him, envisaging how in the dawn on the beach she would be the one to<\/p>\n

pounce on the brooch half-hidden by some stone, and thus herself be<\/p>\n

included among the sailors and adventurers. But what did he reply to<\/p>\n

her offer? She actually said with an emotion that she seldom let<\/p>\n

appear, “Let me come with you,” and he laughed. He meant yes or no–<\/p>\n

either perhaps. But it was not his meaning–it was the odd chuckle<\/p>\n

he gave, as if he had said, Throw yourself over the cliff if you like,<\/p>\n

I don’t care. He turned on her cheek the heat of love, its horror, its<\/p>\n

cruelty, its unscrupulosity. It scorched her, and Lily, looking at<\/p>\n

Minta, being charming to Mr. Ramsay at the other end of the table,<\/p>\n

flinched for her exposed to these fangs, and was thankful. For at any<\/p>\n

rate, she said to herself, catching sight of the salt cellar on the<\/p>\n

pattern, she need not marry, thank Heaven: she need not undergo that<\/p>\n

degradation. She was saved from that dilution. She would move the tree<\/p>\n

rather more to the middle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her,<\/p>\n

especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently<\/p>\n

two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one;<\/p>\n

that’s what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her<\/p>\n

mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I<\/p>\n

tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to<\/p>\n

look for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most<\/p>\n

barbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile<\/p>\n

like a gem’s (Paul’s was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he<\/p>\n

was swaggering, he was insolent) in the Mile End Road.[106]<\/sup><\/a> Yet, she said to<\/p>\n

herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths<\/p>\n

heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would<\/p>\n

say they wanted nothing but this–love; while the women, judging from<\/p>\n

her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we<\/p>\n

want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this;<\/p>\n

yet it is also beautiful and necessary. Well then, well then? she<\/p>\n

asked, somehow expecting the others to go on with the argument, as if<\/p>\n

in an argument like this one threw one’s own little bolt which fell<\/p>\n

short obviously and left the others to carry it on. So she listened<\/p>\n

again to what they were saying in case they should throw any light upon<\/p>\n

the question of love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then,” said Mr. Bankes, “there is that liquid the English call coffee.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh, coffee!” said Mrs. Ramsay. But it was much rather a question (she<\/p>\n

was thoroughly roused, Lily could see, and talked very emphatically) of<\/p>\n

real butter and clean milk. Speaking with warmth and eloquence, she<\/p>\n

described the iniquity of the English dairy system, and in what state<\/p>\n

milk was delivered at the door, and was about to prove her charges, for<\/p>\n

she had gone into the matter,[107]<\/sup><\/a> when all round the table, beginning with<\/p>\n

Andrew in the middle, like a fire leaping from tuft to tuft of furze,<\/p>\n

her children laughed; her husband laughed; she was laughed at, fire-<\/p>\n

encircled, and forced to veil her crest, dismount her batteries, and<\/p>\n

only retaliate by displaying the raillery and ridicule of the table<\/p>\n

to Mr. Bankes as an example of what one suffered if one attacked the<\/p>\n

prejudices of the British Public.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Purposely, however, for she had it on her mind that Lily, who had<\/p>\n

helped her with Mr. Tansley, was out of things, she exempted her from<\/p>\n

the rest; said “Lily anyhow agrees with me,” and so drew her in, a<\/p>\n

little fluttered, a little startled. (For she was thinking about<\/p>\n

love.) They were both out of things, Mrs. Ramsay had been thinking,<\/p>\n

both Lily and Charles Tansley. Both suffered from the glow of the<\/p>\n

other two. He, it was clear, felt himself utterly in the cold; no<\/p>\n

woman would look at him with Paul Rayley in the room. Poor fellow!<\/p>\n

Still, he had his dissertation, the influence of somebody upon<\/p>\n

something: he could take care of himself. With Lily it was different.<\/p>\n

She faded, under Minta’s glow; became more inconspicuous than ever, in<\/p>\n

her little grey dress with her little puckered face and her little<\/p>\n

Chinese eyes. Everything about her was so small. Yet, thought Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay, comparing her with Minta, as she claimed her help (for Lily<\/p>\n

should bear her out she talked no more about her dairies than her<\/p>\n

husband did about his boots–he would talk by the hour about his boots)<\/p>\n

of the two, Lily at forty will be the better. There was in Lily a<\/p>\n

thread of something; a flare of something; something of her own which<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay liked very much indeed, but no man would, she feared.<\/p>\n

Obviously, not, unless it were a much older man, like William Bankes.<\/p>\n

But then he cared, well, Mrs. Ramsay sometimes thought that he cared,<\/p>\n

since his wife’s death, perhaps for her. He was not “in love” of<\/p>\n

course; it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are<\/p>\n

so many. Oh, but nonsense, she thought; William must marry Lily. They<\/p>\n

have so many things in common. Lily is so fond of flowers. They are<\/p>\n

both cold and aloof and rather self-sufficing. She must arrange for<\/p>\n

them to take a long walk together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Foolishly, she had set them opposite each other. That could be remedied<\/p>\n

tomorrow. If it were fine, they should go for a picnic. Everything<\/p>\n

seemed possible. Everything seemed right. Just now (but this cannot<\/p>\n

last, she thought, dissociating herself from the moment while they were<\/p>\n

all talking about boots) just now she had reached security; she hovered<\/p>\n

like a hawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element of joy which<\/p>\n

filled every nerve of her body fully and sweetly, not noisily, solemnly<\/p>\n

rather, for it arose, she thought, looking at them all eating there,<\/p>\n

from husband and children and friends; all of which rising in this<\/p>\n

profound stillness (she was helping William Bankes to one very small<\/p>\n

piece more, and peered into the depths of the earthenware pot) seemed<\/p>\n

now for no special reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fume<\/p>\n

rising upwards, holding them safe together. Nothing need be said;<\/p>\n

nothing could be said. There it was, all round them. It partook, she<\/p>\n

felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of<\/p>\n

eternity; as she had already felt about something different once before<\/p>\n

that afternoon; there is a coherence in things, a stability; something,<\/p>\n

she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the<\/p>\n

window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing,<\/p>\n

the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had<\/p>\n

the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of<\/p>\n

such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes,” she assured William Bankes, “there is plenty for everybody.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Andrew,” she said, “hold your plate lower, or I shall spill it.” (The<\/p>\n

Boeuf en Daube was a perfect triumph.) Here, she felt, putting the<\/p>\n

spoon down, where one could move or rest; could wait now (they were all<\/p>\n

helped) listening; could then, like a hawk which lapses suddenly from<\/p>\n

its high station, flaunt and sink on laughter easily, resting her whole<\/p>\n

weight upon what at the other end of the table her husband was saying<\/p>\n

about the square root of one thousand two hundred and fifty-three.<\/p>\n

That was the number, it seemed, on his watch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did it all mean? To this day she had no notion. A square root?<\/p>\n

What was that? Her sons knew. She leant on them; on cubes and square<\/p>\n

roots; that was what they were talking about now; on Voltaire[108]<\/sup><\/a> and<\/p>\n

Madame de Stael[109]<\/sup><\/a>; on the character of Napoleon[110]<\/sup><\/a>; on the French system of<\/p>\n

land tenure; on Lord Rosebery[111]<\/sup><\/a>; on Creevey’s Memoirs[112]<\/sup><\/a>: she let it uphold<\/p>\n

her and sustain her, this admirable fabric of the masculine<\/p>\n

intelligence, which ran up and down, crossed this way and that, like<\/p>\n

iron girders spanning the swaying fabric, upholding the world,[113]<\/sup><\/a> so that<\/p>\n

she could trust herself to it utterly, even shut her eyes, or flicker<\/p>\n

them for a moment, as a child staring up from its pillow winks at the<\/p>\n

myriad layers of the leaves of a tree. Then she woke up. It was still<\/p>\n

being fabricated. William Bankes was praising the Waverly novels.[114]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He read one of them every six months, he said. And why should that make<\/p>\n

Charles Tansley angry? He rushed in (all, thought Mrs. Ramsay, because<\/p>\n

Prue will not be nice to him) and denounced the Waverly novels when he<\/p>\n

knew nothing about it, nothing about it whatsoever, Mrs. Ramsay thought,<\/p>\n

observing him rather than listening to what he said. She could see how<\/p>\n

it was from his manner–he wanted to assert himself, and so it would<\/p>\n

always be with him till he got his Professorship or married his wife,<\/p>\n

and so need not be always saying, “I–I–I.” For that was what his<\/p>\n

criticism of poor Sir Walter, or perhaps it was Jane Austen,[115]<\/sup><\/a> amounted<\/p>\n

to. “I—I—I.” He was thinking of himself and the impression he<\/p>\n

was making, as she could tell by the sound of his voice, and his<\/p>\n

emphasis and his uneasiness. Success would be good for him. At any<\/p>\n

rate they were off again. Now she need not listen. It could not last,<\/p>\n

she knew, but at the moment her eyes were so clear that they seemed to<\/p>\n

go round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts<\/p>\n

and their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so<\/p>\n

that its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing<\/p>\n

themselves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging,<\/p>\n

trembling. So she saw them; she heard them; but whatever they said had<\/p>\n

also this quality, as if what they said was like the movement of a<\/p>\n

trout when, at the same time, one can see the ripple and the gravel,<\/p>\n

something to the right, something to the left; and the whole is held<\/p>\n

together; for whereas in active life she would be netting and<\/p>\n

separating one thing from another; she would be saying she liked the<\/p>\n

Waverly novels[116]<\/sup><\/a> or had not read them; she would be urging herself<\/p>\n

forward; now she said nothing. For the moment, she hung suspended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Ah, but how long do you think it’ll last?” said somebody. It was as<\/p>\n

if she had antennae trembling out from her, which, intercepting certain<\/p>\n

sentences, forced them upon her attention. This was one of them. She<\/p>\n

scented danger for her husband. A question like that would lead,<\/p>\n

almost certainly, to something being said which reminded him of his own<\/p>\n

failure. How long would he be read–he would think at once.[117]<\/sup><\/a> William<\/p>\n

Bankes (who was entirely free from all such vanity) laughed, and said<\/p>\n

he attached no importance to changes in fashion. Who could tell what<\/p>\n

was going to last–in literature or indeed in anything else?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let us enjoy what we do enjoy,” he said. His integrity seemed to Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay quite admirable. He never seemed for a moment to think, But how<\/p>\n

does this affect me? But then if you had the other temperament, which<\/p>\n

must have praise, which must have encouragement, naturally you began<\/p>\n

(and she knew that Mr. Ramsay was beginning) to be uneasy; to want<\/p>\n

somebody to say, Oh, but your work will last, Mr. Ramsay, or something<\/p>\n

like that. He showed his uneasiness quite clearly now by saying, with<\/p>\n

some irritation, that, anyhow, Scott (or was it Shakespeare ?) would<\/p>\n

last him his lifetime. He said it irritably. Everybody, she thought,<\/p>\n

felt a little uncomfortable, without knowing why. Then Minta Doyle,<\/p>\n

whose instinct was fine, said bluffly, absurdly, that she did not<\/p>\n

believe that any one really enjoyed reading Shakespeare. Mr. Ramsay<\/p>\n

said grimly (but his mind was turned away again) that very few people<\/p>\n

liked it as much as they said they did. But, he added, there is<\/p>\n

considerable merit in some of the plays nevertheless, and Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

saw that it would be all right for the moment anyhow; he would laugh at<\/p>\n

Minta, and she, Mrs. Ramsay saw, realising his extreme anxiety about<\/p>\n

himself, would, in her own way, see that he was taken care of, and<\/p>\n

praise him, somehow or other. But she wished it was not necessary:<\/p>\n

perhaps it was her fault that it was necessary. Anyhow, she was free<\/p>\n

now to listen to what Paul Rayley was trying to say about books one had<\/p>\n

read as a boy. They lasted, he said. He had read some of Tolstoi[118]<\/sup><\/a> at<\/p>\n

school. There was one he always remembered, but he had forgotten the<\/p>\n

name. Russian names were impossible, said Mrs. Ramsay. “Vronsky,” said<\/p>\n

Paul. He remembered that because he always thought it such a good name<\/p>\n

for a villain. “Vronsky,” said Mrs. Ramsay; “Oh, Anna Karenina<\/i>,”[119]<\/sup><\/a> but<\/p>\n

that did not take them very far; books were not in their line. No,<\/p>\n

Charles Tansley would put them both right in a second about books, but<\/p>\n

it was all so mixed up with, Am I saying the right thing? Am I making<\/p>\n

a good impression? that, after all, one knew more about him than<\/p>\n

about Tolstoi, whereas, what Paul said was about the thing, simply, not<\/p>\n

himself, nothing else. Like all stupid people, he had a kind of<\/p>\n

modesty too, a consideration for what you were feeling, which, once in<\/p>\n

a way at least, she found attractive. Now he was thinking, not about<\/p>\n

himself, or about Tolstoi, but whether she was cold, whether she felt a<\/p>\n

draught, whether she would like a pear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, she said, she did not want a pear. Indeed she had been keeping<\/p>\n

guard over the dish of fruit (without realising it) jealously, hoping<\/p>\n

that nobody would touch it. Her eyes had been going in and out among<\/p>\n

the curves and shadows of the fruit, among the rich purples of the<\/p>\n

lowland grapes, then over the horny ridge of the shell, putting a<\/p>\n

yellow against a purple, a curved shape against a round shape, without<\/p>\n

knowing why she did it, or why, every time she did it, she felt more<\/p>\n

and more serene; until, oh, what a pity that they should do it–a hand<\/p>\n

reached out, took a pear, and spoilt the whole thing. In sympathy she<\/p>\n

looked at Rose. She looked at Rose sitting between Jasper and Prue.<\/p>\n

How odd that one’s child should do that!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How odd to see them sitting there, in a row, her children, Jasper,<\/p>\n

Rose, Prue, Andrew, almost silent, but with some joke of their own<\/p>\n

going on, she guessed, from the twitching at their lips. It was<\/p>\n

something quite apart from everything else, something they were<\/p>\n

hoarding up to laugh over in their own room. It was not about their<\/p>\n

father, she hoped. No, she thought not. What was it, she wondered,<\/p>\n

sadly rather, for it seemed to her that they would laugh when she was<\/p>\n

not there. There was all that hoarded behind those rather set, still,<\/p>\n

mask-like faces, for they did not join in easily; they were like<\/p>\n

watchers, surveyors, a little raised or set apart from the grown-up<\/p>\n

people. But when she looked at Prue tonight, she saw that this was<\/p>\n

not now quite true of her. She was just beginning, just moving,<\/p>\n

just descending. The faintest light was on her face, as if the<\/p>\n

glow of Minta opposite, some excitement, some anticipation of happiness<\/p>\n

was reflected in her, as if the sun of the love of men and women rose<\/p>\n

over the rim of the table-cloth, and without knowing what it was she<\/p>\n

bent towards it and greeted it. She kept looking at Minta, shyly, yet<\/p>\n

curiously, so that Mrs. Ramsay looked from one to the other and said,<\/p>\n

speaking to Prue in her own mind, You will be as happy as she is one of<\/p>\n

these days. You will be much happier, she added, because you are my<\/p>\n

daughter, she meant; her own daughter must be happier than other<\/p>\n

people’s daughters. But dinner was over. It was time to go. They<\/p>\n

were only playing with things on their plates. She would wait until<\/p>\n

they had done laughing at some story her husband was telling. He was<\/p>\n

having a joke with Minta about a bet. Then she would get up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She liked Charles Tansley, she thought, suddenly; she liked his laugh.<\/p>\n

She liked him for being so angry with Paul and Minta. She liked his<\/p>\n

awkwardness. There was a lot in that young man after all. And Lily,<\/p>\n

she thought, putting her napkin beside her plate, she always has some<\/p>\n

joke of her own. One need never bother about Lily. She waited. She<\/p>\n

tucked her napkin under the edge of her plate. Well, were they done<\/p>\n

now? No. That story had led to another story. Her husband was in<\/p>\n

great spirits tonight, and wishing, she supposed, to make it all right<\/p>\n

with old Augustus after that scene about the soup, had drawn him in–<\/p>\n

they were telling stories about some one they had both known at<\/p>\n

college. She looked at the window in which the candle flames burnt<\/p>\n

brighter now that the panes were black, and looking at that outside<\/p>\n

the voices came to her very strangely, as if they were voices at a<\/p>\n

service in a cathedral, for she did not listen to the words. The<\/p>\n

sudden bursts of laughter and then one voice (Minta’s) speaking<\/p>\n

alone, reminded her of men and boys crying out the Latin words<\/p>\n

of a service in some Roman Catholic cathedral. She waited. Her<\/p>\n

husband spoke. He was repeating something, and she knew it was poetry<\/p>\n

from the rhythm and the ring of exultation, and melancholy in his<\/p>\n

voice:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Come out and climb the garden path, Luriana Lurilee.<\/p>\n

The China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the yellow bee.[120]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The words (she was looking at the window) sounded as if they were<\/p>\n

floating like flowers on water out there, cut off from them all, as if<\/p>\n

no one had said them, but they had come into existence of themselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be<\/p>\n

Are full of trees and changing leaves.[121]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She did not know what they meant, but, like music, the words seemed to<\/p>\n

be spoken by her own voice, outside her self, saying quite easily and<\/p>\n

naturally what had been in her mind the whole evening while she said<\/p>\n

different things. She knew, without looking round, that every one at<\/p>\n

the table was listening to the voice saying:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wonder if it seems to you, Luriana, Lurilee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

with the same sort of relief and pleasure that she had, as if this<\/p>\n

were, at last, the natural thing to say, this were their own voice<\/p>\n

speaking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the voice had stopped. She looked round. She made herself get up.<\/p>\n

Augustus Carmichael had risen and, holding his table napkin so that it<\/p>\n

looked like a long white robe he stood chanting:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To see the Kings go riding by<\/p>\n

Over lawn and daisy lea<\/p>\n

With their palm leaves and cedar<\/p>\n

Luriana, Lurilee,[122]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and as she passed him, he turned slightly towards her repeating the<\/p>\n

last words:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Luriana, Lurilee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and bowed to her as if he did her homage. Without knowing why, she<\/p>\n

felt that he liked her better than he ever had done before; and with a<\/p>\n

feeling of relief and gratitude she returned his bow and passed through<\/p>\n

the door which he held open for her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was necessary now to carry everything a step further. With her foot<\/p>\n

on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was<\/p>\n

vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta’s<\/p>\n

arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had<\/p>\n

become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already<\/p>\n

the past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

18<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As usual, Lily thought. There was always something that had to be done<\/p>\n

at that precise moment, something that Mrs. Ramsay had decided for<\/p>\n

reasons of her own to do instantly, it might be with every one standing<\/p>\n

about making jokes, as now, not being able to decide whether they were<\/p>\n

going into the smoking-room, into the drawing-room, up to the attics.<\/p>\n

Then one saw Mrs. Ramsay in the midst of this hubbub standing there with<\/p>\n

Minta’s arm in hers, bethink her, “Yes, it is time for that now,” and<\/p>\n

so make off at once with an air of secrecy to do something alone. And<\/p>\n

directly she went a sort of disintegration set in; they wavered about,<\/p>\n

went different ways, Mr. Bankes took Charles Tansley by the arm and went<\/p>\n

off to finish on the terrace the discussion they had begun at dinner<\/p>\n

about politics, thus giving a turn to the whole poise of the evening,<\/p>\n

making the weight fall in a different direction, as if, Lily thought,<\/p>\n

seeing them go, and hearing a word or two about the policy of the<\/p>\n

Labour Party, they had gone up on to the bridge of the ship and were<\/p>\n

taking their bearings; the change from poetry to politics struck her<\/p>\n

like that; so Mr. Bankes and Charles Mrs. Ramsay going upstairs in the<\/p>\n

lamplight alone. Where, Lily wondered, was she going so quickly?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not that she did in fact run or hurry; she went indeed rather slowly.<\/p>\n

She felt rather inclined just for a moment to stand still after all<\/p>\n

that chatter, and pick out one particular thing; the thing that<\/p>\n

mattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions<\/p>\n

and odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her, and bring it to<\/p>\n

the tribunal where, ranged about in conclave, sat the judges she had<\/p>\n

set up to decide these things. Is it good, is it bad, is it right or<\/p>\n

wrong? Where are we all going to? and so on. So she righted<\/p>\n

herself after the shock of the event, and quite unconsciously and<\/p>\n

incongruously, used the branches of the elm trees outside to help her<\/p>\n

to stabilise her position. Her world was changing: they were still.<\/p>\n

The event had given her a sense of movement. All must be in order.<\/p>\n

She must get that right and that right, she thought, insensibly<\/p>\n

approving of the dignity of the trees’ stillness, and now again of the<\/p>\n

superb upward rise (like the beak of a ship up a wave) of the elm<\/p>\n

branches as the wind raised them. For it was windy (she stood a moment<\/p>\n

to look out). It was windy, so that the leaves now and then brushed<\/p>\n

open a star, and the stars themselves seemed to be shaking and darting<\/p>\n

light and trying to flash out between the edges of the leaves. Yes,<\/p>\n

that was done then, accomplished; and as with all things done, became<\/p>\n

solemn. Now one thought of it, cleared of chatter and emotion, it<\/p>\n

seemed always to have been, only was shown now and so being shown,<\/p>\n

struck everything into stability. They would, she thought, going on<\/p>\n

again, however long they lived, come back to this night; this moon;<\/p>\n

this wind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her, where she was<\/p>\n

most susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their<\/p>\n

hearts, however long they lived she would be woven; and this, and this,<\/p>\n

and this, she thought, going upstairs, laughing, but affectionately, at<\/p>\n

the sofa on the landing (her mother’s); at the rocking-chair (her<\/p>\n

father’s); at the map of the Hebrides. All that would be revived again<\/p>\n

in the lives of Paul and Minta; “the Rayleys”–she tried the new name<\/p>\n

over; and she felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community<\/p>\n

of feeling with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of<\/p>\n

partition had become so thin that practically (the feeling was one of<\/p>\n

relief and happiness) it was all one stream, and chairs, tables, maps,<\/p>\n

were hers, were theirs, it did not matter whose, and Paul and Minta<\/p>\n

would carry it on when she was dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She turned the handle, firmly, lest it should squeak, and went in,<\/p>\n

pursing her lips slightly, as if to remind herself that she must not<\/p>\n

speak aloud. But directly she came in she saw, with annoyance, that the<\/p>\n

precaution was not needed. The children were not asleep. It was most<\/p>\n

annoying. Mildred should be more careful. There was James wide awake<\/p>\n

and Cam sitting bolt upright, and Mildred out of bed in her bare feet,<\/p>\n

and it was almost eleven and they were all talking. What was the<\/p>\n

matter? It was that horrid skull again. She had told Mildred to move<\/p>\n

it, but Mildred, of course, had forgotten, and now there was Cam wide<\/p>\n

awake, and James wide awake quarreling when they ought to have been<\/p>\n

asleep hours ago. What had possessed Edward to send them this horrid<\/p>\n

skull? She had been so foolish as to let them nail it up there. It<\/p>\n

was nailed fast, Mildred said, and Cam couldn’t go to sleep with it in<\/p>\n

the room, and James screamed if she touched it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then Cam must go to sleep (it had great horns said Cam)–must go to<\/p>\n

sleep and dream of lovely palaces, said Mrs. Ramsay, sitting down<\/p>\n

on the bed by her side. She could see the horns, Cam said, all over<\/p>\n

the room. It was true. Wherever they put the light (and James could<\/p>\n

not sleep without a light) there was always a shadow somewhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But think, Cam, it’s only an old pig,” said Mrs. Ramsay, “a nice black<\/p>\n

pig like the pigs at the farm.” But Cam thought it was a horrid thing,<\/p>\n

branching at her all over the room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well then,” said Mrs. Ramsay, “we will cover it up,” and they all<\/p>\n

watched her go to the chest of drawers, and open the little drawers<\/p>\n

quickly one after another, and not seeing anything that would do, she<\/p>\n

quickly took her own shawl off and wound it round the skull, round and<\/p>\n

round and round, and then she came back to Cam and laid her head almost<\/p>\n

flat on the pillow beside Cam’s and said how lovely it looked now; how<\/p>\n

the fairies would love it; it was like a bird’s nest; it was like a<\/p>\n

beautiful mountain such as she had seen abroad, with valleys and<\/p>\n

flowers and bells ringing and birds singing and little goats and<\/p>\n

antelopes and… She could see the words echoing as she spoke them<\/p>\n

rhythmically in Cam’s mind, and Cam was repeating after her how it was<\/p>\n

like a mountain, a bird’s nest, a garden, and there were little<\/p>\n

antelopes, and her eyes were opening and shutting, and Mrs. Ramsay went<\/p>\n

on speaking still more monotonously, and more rhythmically and more<\/p>\n

nonsensically, how she must shut her eyes and go to sleep and dream of<\/p>\n

mountains and valleys and stars falling and parrots and antelopes and<\/p>\n

gardens, and everything lovely, she said, raising her head very slowly<\/p>\n

and speaking more and more mechanically, until she sat upright and saw<\/p>\n

that Cam was asleep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, she whispered, crossing over to his bed, James must go to sleep<\/p>\n

too, for see, she said, the boar’s skull was still there; they had not<\/p>\n

touched it; they had done just what he wanted; it was there quite<\/p>\n

unhurt. He made sure that the skull was still there under the shawl.<\/p>\n

But he wanted to ask her something more. Would they go to the Lighthouse<\/p>\n

tomorrow?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, not tomorrow, she said, but soon, she promised him; the next fine<\/p>\n

day. He was very good. He lay down. She covered him up. But he<\/p>\n

would never forget, she knew, and she felt angry with Charles Tansley,<\/p>\n

with her husband, and with herself, for she had raised his hopes. Then<\/p>\n

feeling for her shawl and remembering that she had wrapped it round the<\/p>\n

boar’s skull, she got up, and pulled the window down another inch or<\/p>\n

two, and heard the wind, and got a breath of the perfectly indifferent<\/p>\n

chill night air and murmured good night to Mildred and left the room<\/p>\n

and let the tongue of the door slowly lengthen in the lock and went<\/p>\n

out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She hoped he would not bang his books on the floor above their heads,<\/p>\n

she thought, still thinking how annoying Charles Tansley was. For<\/p>\n

neither of them slept well; they were excitable children, and since he<\/p>\n

said things like that about the Lighthouse, it seemed to her likely<\/p>\n

that he would knock a pile of books over, just as they were going to<\/p>\n

sleep, clumsily sweeping them off the table with his elbow. For she<\/p>\n

supposed that he had gone upstairs to work. Yet he looked so desolate;<\/p>\n

yet she would feel relieved when he went; yet she would see that he was<\/p>\n

better treated tomorrow; yet he was admirable with her husband; yet his<\/p>\n

manners certainly wanted improving; yet she liked his laugh–thinking<\/p>\n

this, as she came downstairs, she noticed that she could now see the<\/p>\n

moon itself through the staircase window–the yellow harvest moon–<\/p>\n

and turned, and they saw her, standing above them on the stairs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s my mother,” thought Prue. Yes; Minta should look at her; Paul<\/p>\n

Rayley should look at her. That is the thing itself, she felt, as if<\/p>\n

there were only one person like that in the world; her mother. And,<\/p>\n

from having been quite grown up, a moment before, talking with the<\/p>\n

others, she became a child again, and what they had been doing was a<\/p>\n

game, and would her mother sanction their game, or condemn it, she<\/p>\n

wondered. And thinking what a chance it was for Minta and Paul and<\/p>\n

Lily to see her, and feeling what an extraordinary stroke of fortune it<\/p>\n

was for her, to have her, and how she would never grow up and never<\/p>\n

leave home, she said, like a child, “We thought of going down to the<\/p>\n

beach to watch the waves.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instantly, for no reason at all, Mrs. Ramsay became like a girl of<\/p>\n

twenty, full of gaiety. A mood of revelry suddenly took possession of<\/p>\n

her. Of course they must go; of course they must go, she cried,<\/p>\n

laughing; and running down the last three or four steps quickly, she<\/p>\n

began turning from one to the other and laughing and drawing Minta’s<\/p>\n

wrap round her and saying she only wished she could come too, and would<\/p>\n

they be very late, and had any of them got a watch?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, Paul has,” said Minta. Paul slipped a beautiful gold watch out<\/p>\n

of a little wash-leather case to show her. And as he held it in the<\/p>\n

palm of his hand before her, he felt, “She knows all about it. I need<\/p>\n

not say anything.” He was saying to her as he showed her the watch,<\/p>\n

“I’ve done it, Mrs. Ramsay. I owe it all to you.” And seeing the gold<\/p>\n

watch lying in his hand, Mrs. Ramsay felt, How extraordinarily lucky<\/p>\n

Minta is! She is marrying a man who has a gold watch in a wash-<\/p>\n

leather bag!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How I wish I could come with you!” she cried. But she was withheld by<\/p>\n

something so strong that she never even thought of asking herself what<\/p>\n

it was. Of course it was impossible for her to go with them. But she<\/p>\n

would have liked to go, had it not been for the other thing, and<\/p>\n

tickled by the absurdity of her thought (how lucky to marry a man<\/p>\n

with a wash-leather bag for his watch) she went with a smile on her<\/p>\n

lips into the other room, where her husband sat reading.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

19<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course, she said to herself, coming into the room, she had to come<\/p>\n

here to get something she wanted. First she wanted to sit down in a<\/p>\n

particular chair under a particular lamp. But she wanted something<\/p>\n

more, though she did not know, could not think what it was that she<\/p>\n

wanted. She looked at her husband (taking up her stocking and<\/p>\n

beginning to knit), and saw that he did not want to be interrupted–<\/p>\n

that was clear. He was reading something that moved him very much. He<\/p>\n

was half smiling and then she knew he was controlling his emotion. He<\/p>\n

was tossing the pages over. He was acting it–perhaps he was<\/p>\n

thinking himself the person in the book. She wondered what book it was.<\/p>\n

Oh, it was one of old Sir Walter’s[123]<\/sup><\/a> she saw, adjusting the shade of her<\/p>\n

lamp so that the light fell on her knitting. For Charles Tansley had<\/p>\n

been saying (she looked up as if she expected to hear the crash of<\/p>\n

books on the floor above), had been saying that people don’t read Scott<\/p>\n

any more. Then her husband thought, “That’s what they’ll say of me;”<\/p>\n

so he went and got one of those books. And if he came to the<\/p>\n

conclusion “That’s true” what Charles Tansley said, he would accept it<\/p>\n

about Scott. (She could see that he was weighing, considering, putting<\/p>\n

this with that as he read.) But not about himself. He was always<\/p>\n

uneasy about himself. That troubled her. He would always be worrying<\/p>\n

about his own books–will they be read, are they good, why aren’t they<\/p>\n

better, what do people think of me? Not liking to think of him so,<\/p>\n

and wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he suddenly became<\/p>\n

irritable when they talked about fame and books lasting, wondering if<\/p>\n

the children were laughing at that, she twitched the stockings out, and<\/p>\n

all the fine gravings[124]<\/sup><\/a> came drawn with steel instruments about her lips<\/p>\n

and forehead, and she grew still like a tree which has been tossing and<\/p>\n

quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into<\/p>\n

quiet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It didn’t matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book,<\/p>\n

fame–who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way<\/p>\n

with him, his truthfulness–for instance at dinner she had been<\/p>\n

thinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete<\/p>\n

trust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a<\/p>\n

weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she<\/p>\n

had felt in the hall when the others were talking, There is something I<\/p>\n

want–something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper<\/p>\n

without knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed. And she<\/p>\n

waited a little, knitting, wondering, and slowly rose those words they<\/p>\n

had said at dinner, “the China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the<\/p>\n

honey bee,” began washing from side to side of her mind rhythmically,<\/p>\n

and as they washed, words, like little shaded lights, one red, one<\/p>\n

blue, one yellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leaving<\/p>\n

their perches up there to fly across and across, or to cry out and to<\/p>\n

be echoed; so she turned and felt on the table beside her for a book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And all the lives we ever lived<\/p>\n

And all the lives to be,<\/p>\n

Are full of trees and changing leaves,[125]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened<\/p>\n

the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so,<\/p>\n

she felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up<\/p>\n

under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white,<\/p>\n

or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners[126]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

she read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and<\/p>\n

that, from one line to another as from one branch to another, from one<\/p>\n

red and white flower to another, until a little sound roused her–her<\/p>\n

husband slapping his thighs. Their eyes met for a second; but they did<\/p>\n

not want to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but<\/p>\n

something seemed, nevertheless, to go from him to her. It was the<\/p>\n

life, it was the power of it, it was the tremendous humour, she knew,<\/p>\n

that made him slap his thighs. Don’t interrupt me, he seemed to be<\/p>\n

saying, don’t say anything; just sit there. And he went on reading.<\/p>\n

His lips twitched. It filled him. It fortified him. He clean forgot<\/p>\n

all the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him<\/p>\n

unutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and<\/p>\n

his being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when<\/p>\n

they passed his books over as if they didn’t exist at all. But now, he<\/p>\n

felt, it didn’t matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an<\/p>\n

alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it–if not he, then<\/p>\n

another. This man’s strength and sanity, his feeling for straight<\/p>\n

forward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in<\/p>\n

Mucklebackit’s cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of<\/p>\n

something that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back<\/p>\n

his tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them<\/p>\n

fall and shook his head from side to side and forgot himself completely<\/p>\n

(but not one or two reflections about morality and French novels and<\/p>\n

English novels and Scott’s hands being tied but his view perhaps being<\/p>\n

as true as the other view), forgot his own bothers and failures<\/p>\n

completely in poor Steenie’s drowning and Mucklebackit’s sorrow[127]<\/sup><\/a> (that<\/p>\n

was Scott at his best) and the astonishing delight and feeling of<\/p>\n

vigour that it gave him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well, let them improve upon that, he thought as he finished the<\/p>\n

chapter. He felt that he had been arguing with somebody, and had got<\/p>\n

the better of him. They could not improve upon that, whatever they<\/p>\n

might say; and his own position became more secure. The lovers were<\/p>\n

fiddlesticks, he thought, collecting it all in his mind again. That’s<\/p>\n

fiddlesticks, that’s first-rate, he thought, putting one thing beside<\/p>\n

another. But he must read it again. He could not remember the whole<\/p>\n

shape of the thing. He had to keep his judgement in suspense. So he<\/p>\n

returned to the other thought–if young men did not care for this,<\/p>\n

naturally they did not care for him either. One ought not to complain,<\/p>\n

thought Mr. Ramsay, trying to stifle his desire to complain to his wife<\/p>\n

that young men did not admire him. But he was determined; he would not<\/p>\n

bother her again. Here he looked at her reading. She looked very<\/p>\n

peaceful, reading. He liked to think that every one had taken<\/p>\n

themselves off and that he and she were alone. The whole of life did<\/p>\n

not consist in going to bed with a woman, he thought, returning to<\/p>\n

Scott and Balzac[128]<\/sup><\/a>, to the English novel and the French novel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay raised her head and like a person in a light sleep seemed to<\/p>\n

say that if he wanted her to wake she would, she really would, but<\/p>\n

otherwise, might she go on sleeping, just a little longer, just a<\/p>\n

little longer? She was climbing up those branches, this way and that,<\/p>\n

laying hands on one flower and then another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,[129]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

she read, and so reading she was ascending, she felt, on to the top,<\/p>\n

on to the summit. How satisfying! How restful! All the odds and ends<\/p>\n

of the day stuck to this magnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean. And<\/p>\n

then there it was, suddenly entire; she held it in her hands, beautiful<\/p>\n

and reasonable, clear and complete, here–the sonnet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But she was becoming conscious of her husband looking at her. He was<\/p>\n

smiling at her, quizzically, as if he were ridiculing her gently for<\/p>\n

being asleep in broad daylight, but at the same time he was thinking,<\/p>\n

Go on reading. You don’t look sad now, he thought. And he wondered<\/p>\n

what she was reading, and exaggerated her ignorance, her simplicity,<\/p>\n

for he liked to think that she was not clever, not book-learned at all.<\/p>\n

He wondered if she understood what she was reading. Probably not, he<\/p>\n

thought. She was astonishingly beautiful. Her beauty seemed to him,<\/p>\n

if that were possible, to increase<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,<\/p>\n

As with your shadow I with these did play,[130]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

she finished.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well?” she said, echoing his smile dreamily, looking up from her book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As with your shadow I with these did play,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

she murmured, putting the book on the table.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What had happened, she wondered, as she took up her knitting, since she<\/p>\n

had seen him alone? She remembered dressing, and seeing the moon;<\/p>\n

Andrew holding his plate too high at dinner; being depressed by<\/p>\n

something William had said; the birds in the trees; the sofa on the<\/p>\n

landing; the children being awake; Charles Tansley waking them with his<\/p>\n

books falling–oh, no, that she had invented; and Paul having a wash-<\/p>\n

leather case for his watch. Which should she tell him about?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“They’re engaged,” she said, beginning to knit, “Paul and Minta.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So I guessed,” he said. There was nothing very much to be said about<\/p>\n

it. Her mind was still going up and down, up and down with the poetry;<\/p>\n

he was still feeling very vigorous, very forthright, after reading<\/p>\n

about Steenie’s funeral.[131]<\/sup><\/a> So they sat silent. Then she became aware<\/p>\n

that she wanted him to say something.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anything, anything, she thought, going on with her knitting. Anything<\/p>\n

will do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How nice it would be to marry a man with a wash-leather bag for his<\/p>\n

watch,” she said, for that was the sort of joke they had together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He snorted. He felt about this engagement as he always felt about any<\/p>\n

engagement; the girl is much too good for that young man. Slowly it<\/p>\n

came into her head, why is it then that one wants people to marry?<\/p>\n

What was the value, the meaning of things? (Every word they said now<\/p>\n

would be true.) Do say something, she thought, wishing only to hear his<\/p>\n

voice. For the shadow, the thing folding them in was beginning, she<\/p>\n

felt, to close round her again. Say anything, she begged, looking at<\/p>\n

him, as if for help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was silent, swinging the compass on his watch-chain to and fro, and<\/p>\n

thinking of Scott’s novels and Balzac’s novels.[132]<\/sup><\/a> But through the<\/p>\n

crepuscular walls of their intimacy, for they were drawing together,<\/p>\n

involuntarily, coming side by side, quite close, she could feel his<\/p>\n

mind like a raised hand shadowing her mind; and he was beginning, now<\/p>\n

that her thoughts took a turn he disliked–towards this “pessimism” as<\/p>\n

he called it–to fidget, though he said nothing, raising his hand to<\/p>\n

his forehead, twisting a lock of hair, letting it fall again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You won’t finish that stocking tonight,” he said, pointing to her<\/p>\n

stocking. That was what she wanted–the asperity in his voice<\/p>\n

reproving her. If he says it’s wrong to be pessimistic probably it is<\/p>\n

wrong, she thought; the marriage will turn out all right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” she said, flattening the stocking out upon her knee, “I shan’t<\/p>\n

finish it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And what then? For she felt that he was still looking at her, but that<\/p>\n

his look had changed. He wanted something–wanted the thing she always<\/p>\n

found it so difficult to give him; wanted her to tell him that she<\/p>\n

loved him. And that, no, she could not do. He found talking so much<\/p>\n

easier than she did. He could say things–she never could. So<\/p>\n

naturally it was always he that said the things, and then for some<\/p>\n

reason he would mind this suddenly, and would reproach her. A<\/p>\n

heartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him.<\/p>\n

But it was not so–it was not so. It was only that she never could say<\/p>\n

what she felt. Was there no crumb on his coat? Nothing she could do<\/p>\n

for him? Getting up, she stood at the window with the reddish-brown<\/p>\n

stocking in her hands, partly to turn away from him, partly because she<\/p>\n

remembered how beautiful it often is–the sea at night. But she knew<\/p>\n

that he had turned his head as she turned; he was watching her. She<\/p>\n

knew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever. And she<\/p>\n

felt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that<\/p>\n

you love me? He was thinking that, for he was roused, what with Minta<\/p>\n

and his book, and its being the end of the day and their having<\/p>\n

quarrelled about going to the Lighthouse. But she could not do it; she<\/p>\n

could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of<\/p>\n

saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him.<\/p>\n

And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not<\/p>\n

said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could<\/p>\n

not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said<\/p>\n

(thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, you were right. It’s going to be wet tomorrow. You won’t be able<\/p>\n

to go.” And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again.<\/p>\n

She had not said it: yet he knew.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

TIME PASSES<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, we must wait for the future to show,” said Mr. Bankes, coming in<\/p>\n

from the terrace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s almost too dark to see,” said Andrew, coming up from the beach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“One can hardly tell which is the sea and which is the land,” said<\/p>\n

Prue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do we leave that light burning?” said Lily as they took their coats<\/p>\n

off indoors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” said Prue, “not if every one’s in.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Andrew,” she called back, “just put out the light in the hall.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One by one the lamps were all extinguished, except that Mr. Carmichael,<\/p>\n

who liked to lie awake a little reading Virgil,[133]<\/sup><\/a> kept his candle burning<\/p>\n

rather longer than the rest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming<\/p>\n

on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it<\/p>\n

seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which,<\/p>\n

creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came<\/p>\n

into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red<\/p>\n

and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of<\/p>\n

drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely<\/p>\n

anything left of body or mind by which one could say, “This is he” or<\/p>\n

“This is she.” Sometimes a hand was raised as if to clutch something or<\/p>\n

ward off something, or somebody groaned, or somebody laughed aloud as<\/p>\n

if sharing a joke with nothingness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing stirred in the drawing-room or in the dining-room or on the<\/p>\n

staircase. Only through the rusty hinges and swollen sea-moistened<\/p>\n

woodwork certain airs, detached from the body of the wind (the house<\/p>\n

was ramshackle after all) crept round corners and ventured indoors.<\/p>\n

Almost one might imagine them, as they entered the drawing-room<\/p>\n

questioning and wondering, toying with the flap of hanging wall-paper,<\/p>\n

asking, would it hang much longer, when would it fall? Then smoothly<\/p>\n

brushing the walls, they passed on musingly as if asking the red and<\/p>\n

yellow roses on the wall-paper whether they would fade, and questioning<\/p>\n

(gently, for there was time at their disposal) the torn letters in<\/p>\n

the wastepaper basket, the flowers, the books, all of which were now<\/p>\n

open to them and asking, Were they allies? Were they enemies? How<\/p>\n

long would they endure?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So some random light directing them with its pale footfall upon stair<\/p>\n

and mat, from some uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse<\/p>\n

even, with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, the little airs<\/p>\n

mounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here surely,<\/p>\n

they must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear, what lies here<\/p>\n

is steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those<\/p>\n

fumbling airs that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can<\/p>\n

neither touch nor destroy. Upon which, wearily, ghostlily, as if they<\/p>\n

had feather-light fingers and the light persistency of feathers, they<\/p>\n

would look, once, on the shut eyes, and the loosely clasping fingers,<\/p>\n

and fold their garments wearily and disappear. And so, nosing,<\/p>\n

rubbing, they went to the window on the staircase, to the servants’<\/p>\n

bedrooms, to the boxes in the attics; descending, blanched the apples<\/p>\n

on the dining-room table, fumbled the petals of roses, tried the<\/p>\n

picture on the easel, brushed the mat and blew a little sand along the<\/p>\n

floor. At length, desisting, all ceased together, gathered together,<\/p>\n

all sighed together; all together gave off an aimless gust of<\/p>\n

lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide;<\/p>\n

admitted nothing; and slammed to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Here Mr. Carmichael, who was reading Virgil,[134]<\/sup><\/a> blew out his candle. It<\/p>\n

was past midnight.][135]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the<\/p>\n

darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a<\/p>\n

faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave.<\/p>\n

Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in<\/p>\n

store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers.<\/p>\n

They lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets,<\/p>\n

plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take<\/p>\n

on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool<\/p>\n

cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in<\/p>\n

battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The<\/p>\n

autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest<\/p>\n

moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the<\/p>\n

stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil,<\/p>\n

divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single,<\/p>\n

distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking; which,<\/p>\n

did we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness,<\/p>\n

twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he<\/p>\n

covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so<\/p>\n

confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever<\/p>\n

return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect<\/p>\n

whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our<\/p>\n

penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and<\/p>\n

bend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered<\/p>\n

with them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and<\/p>\n

scatter damp paths. Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and<\/p>\n

should any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer<\/p>\n

to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and<\/p>\n

go down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of<\/p>\n

serving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night<\/p>\n

to order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul. The<\/p>\n

hand dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear. Almost it<\/p>\n

would appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night<\/p>\n

those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the<\/p>\n

sleeper from his bed to seek an answer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Mr. Ramsay, stumbling along a passage one dark morning, stretched his<\/p>\n

arms out, but Mrs. Ramsay having died rather suddenly the night before,<\/p>\n

his arms, though stretched out, remained empty.][136]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So with the house empty and the doors locked and the mattresses rolled<\/p>\n

round, those stray airs, advance guards of great armies, blustered in,<\/p>\n

brushed bare boards, nibbled and fanned, met nothing in bedroom or<\/p>\n

drawing-room that wholly resisted them but only hangings that flapped,<\/p>\n

wood that creaked, the bare legs of tables, saucepans and china already<\/p>\n

furred, tarnished, cracked. What people had shed and left–a pair of<\/p>\n

shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes–those<\/p>\n

alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they<\/p>\n

were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and<\/p>\n

buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world<\/p>\n

hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened,<\/p>\n

in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. Now, day<\/p>\n

after day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp<\/p>\n

image on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing<\/p>\n

in the wind, made obeisance on the wall, and for a moment darkened the<\/p>\n

pool in which light reflected itself; or birds, flying, made a soft<\/p>\n

spot flutter slowly across the bedroom floor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So loveliness reigned and stillness, and together made the shape of<\/p>\n

loveliness itself, a form from which life had parted; solitary like a<\/p>\n

pool at evening, far distant, seen from a train window, vanishing so<\/p>\n

quickly that the pool, pale in the evening, is scarcely robbed of its<\/p>\n

solitude, though once seen. Loveliness and stillness clasped hands in<\/p>\n

the bedroom, and among the shrouded jugs and sheeted chairs even the<\/p>\n

prying of the wind, and the soft nose of the clammy sea airs, rubbing,<\/p>\n

snuffling, iterating, and reiterating their questions–“Will you fade?<\/p>\n

Will you perish?”–scarcely disturbed the peace, the indifference, the<\/p>\n

air of pure integrity, as if the question they asked scarcely needed<\/p>\n

that they should answer: we remain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing it seemed could break that image, corrupt that innocence, or<\/p>\n

disturb the swaying mantle of silence which, week after week, in the<\/p>\n

empty room, wove into itself the falling cries of birds, ships hooting,<\/p>\n

the drone and hum of the fields, a dog’s bark, a man’s shout, and<\/p>\n

folded them round the house in silence. Once only a board sprang on<\/p>\n

the landing; once in the middle of the night with a roar, with a<\/p>\n

rupture, as after centuries of quiescence, a rock rends itself from the<\/p>\n

mountain and hurtles crashing into the valley, one fold of the shawl<\/p>\n

loosened and swung to and fro. Then again peace descended; and the<\/p>\n

shadow wavered; light bent to its own image in adoration on the bedroom<\/p>\n

wall; and Mrs. McNab, tearing the veil of silence with hands that had<\/p>\n

stood in the wash-tub, grinding it with boots that had crunched the<\/p>\n

shingle,[137]<\/sup><\/a> came as directed to open all windows, and dust the bedrooms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As she lurched (for she rolled like a ship at sea) and leered (for her<\/p>\n

eyes fell on nothing directly, but with a sidelong glance that<\/p>\n

deprecated the scorn and anger of the world–she was witless, she knew<\/p>\n

it), as she clutched the banisters and hauled herself upstairs and<\/p>\n

rolled from room to room, she sang. Rubbing the glass of the long<\/p>\n

looking-glass and leering sideways at her swinging figure a sound<\/p>\n

issued from her lips–something that had been gay twenty years before<\/p>\n

on the stage perhaps, had been hummed and danced to, but now,<\/p>\n

coming from the toothless, bonneted, care-taking woman, was robbed<\/p>\n

of meaning, was like the voice of witlessness, humour, persistency<\/p>\n

itself, trodden down but springing up again, so that as she<\/p>\n

lurched, dusting, wiping, she seemed to say how it was one long sorrow<\/p>\n

and trouble, how it was getting up and going to bed again, and bringing<\/p>\n

things out and putting them away again. It was not easy or snug this<\/p>\n

world she had known for close on seventy years. Bowed down she was<\/p>\n

with weariness. How long, she asked, creaking and groaning on her<\/p>\n

knees under the bed, dusting the boards, how long shall it endure? but<\/p>\n

hobbled to her feet again, pulled herself up, and again with her<\/p>\n

sidelong leer which slipped and turned aside even from her own face,<\/p>\n

and her own sorrows, stood and gaped in the glass, aimlessly smiling,<\/p>\n

and began again the old amble and hobble, taking up mats, putting down<\/p>\n

china, looking sideways in the glass, as if, after all, she had her<\/p>\n

consolations, as if indeed there twined about her dirge some<\/p>\n

incorrigible hope. Visions of joy there must have been at the wash-<\/p>\n

tub, say with her children (yet two had been base-born and one had<\/p>\n

deserted her), at the public-house, drinking; turning over scraps in<\/p>\n

her drawers. Some cleavage of the dark there must have been, some<\/p>\n

channel in the depths of obscurity through which light enough issued to<\/p>\n

twist her face grinning in the glass and make her, turning to her job<\/p>\n

again, mumble out the old music hall song. The mystic, the visionary,<\/p>\n

walking the beach on a fine night, stirring a puddle, looking at a<\/p>\n

stone, asking themselves “What am I,” “What is this?” had suddenly an<\/p>\n

answer vouchsafed them: (they could not say what it was) so that they<\/p>\n

were warm in the frost and had comfort in the desert. But Mrs. McNab<\/p>\n

continued to drink and gossip as before.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Spring without a leaf to toss, bare and bright like a virgin fierce<\/p>\n

in her chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid out on fields wide-<\/p>\n

eyed and watchful and entirely careless of what was done or thought by<\/p>\n

the beholders. [Prue Ramsay, leaning on her father’s arm, was given in<\/p>\n

marriage. What, people said, could have been more fitting? And, they<\/p>\n

added, how beautiful she looked!]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As summer neared, as the evenings lengthened, there came to the<\/p>\n

wakeful, the hopeful, walking the beach, stirring the pool,<\/p>\n

imaginations of the strangest kind–of flesh turned to atoms which<\/p>\n

drove before the wind, of stars flashing in their hearts, of cliff,<\/p>\n

sea, cloud, and sky brought purposely together to assemble outwardly<\/p>\n

the scattered parts of the vision within. In those mirrors, the minds<\/p>\n

of men, in those pools of uneasy water, in which clouds for ever turn<\/p>\n

and shadows form, dreams persisted, and it was impossible to resist the<\/p>\n

strange intimation which every gull, flower, tree, man and woman, and<\/p>\n

the white earth itself seemed to declare (but if questioned at once to<\/p>\n

withdraw) that good triumphs, happiness prevails, order rules; or to<\/p>\n

resist the extraordinary stimulus to range hither and thither in search<\/p>\n

of some absolute good, some crystal of intensity, remote from the known<\/p>\n

pleasures and familiar virtues, something alien to the processes of<\/p>\n

domestic life, single, hard, bright, like a diamond in the sand, which<\/p>\n

would render the possessor secure. Moreover, softened and acquiescent,<\/p>\n

the spring with her bees humming and gnats dancing threw her cloak<\/p>\n

about her, veiled her eyes, averted her head, and among passing shadows<\/p>\n

and flights of small rain seemed to have taken upon her a knowledge of<\/p>\n

the sorrows of mankind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with<\/p>\n

childbirth, which was indeed a tragedy, people said, everything, they<\/p>\n

said, had promised so well.][138]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And now in the heat of summer the wind sent its spies about the house<\/p>\n

again. Flies wove a web in the sunny rooms; weeds that had grown close<\/p>\n

to the glass in the night tapped methodically at the window pane. When<\/p>\n

darkness fell, the stroke of the Lighthouse, which had laid itself with<\/p>\n

such authority upon the carpet in the darkness, tracing its pattern,<\/p>\n

came now in the softer light of spring mixed with moonlight gliding<\/p>\n

gently as if it laid its caress and lingered steathily and looked and<\/p>\n

came lovingly again. But in the very lull of this loving caress, as<\/p>\n

the long stroke leant upon the bed, the rock was rent asunder; another<\/p>\n

fold of the shawl loosened; there it hung, and swayed. Through the<\/p>\n

short summer nights and the long summer days, when the empty rooms<\/p>\n

seemed to murmur with the echoes of the fields and the hum of flies,<\/p>\n

the long streamer waved gently, swayed aimlessly; while the sun so<\/p>\n

striped and barred the rooms and filled them with yellow haze that Mrs.<\/p>\n

McNab, when she broke in and lurched about, dusting, sweeping, looked<\/p>\n

like a tropical fish oaring its way through sun-lanced waters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But slumber and sleep though it might there came later in the summer<\/p>\n

ominous sounds like the measured blows of hammers dulled on felt,<\/p>\n

which, with their repeated shocks still further loosened the shawl and<\/p>\n

cracked the tea-cups. Now and again some glass tinkled in the cupboard<\/p>\n

as if a giant voice had shrieked so loud in its agony that tumblers<\/p>\n

stood inside a cupboard vibrated too. Then again silence fell; and<\/p>\n

then, night after night, and sometimes in plain mid-day when the roses<\/p>\n

were bright and light turned on the wall its shape clearly there seemed<\/p>\n

to drop into this silence, this indifference, this integrity, the thud<\/p>\n

of something falling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[A shell exploded. Twenty or thirty young men were blown up in France,<\/p>\n

among them Andrew Ramsay, whose death, mercifully, was instantaneous.][139]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At that season those who had gone down to pace the beach and ask of the<\/p>\n

sea and sky what message they reported or what vision they affirmed had<\/p>\n

to consider among the usual tokens of divine bounty–the sunset on<\/p>\n

the sea, the pallor of dawn, the moon rising, fishing-boats against the<\/p>\n

moon, and children making mud pies or pelting each other with handfuls<\/p>\n

of grass, something out of harmony with this jocundity and this<\/p>\n

serenity. There was the silent apparition of an ashen-coloured ship<\/p>\n

for instance, come, gone; there was a purplish stain upon the bland<\/p>\n

surface of the sea as if something had boiled and bled, invisibly,<\/p>\n

beneath. This intrusion into a scene calculated to stir the most<\/p>\n

sublime reflections and lead to the most comfortable conclusions stayed<\/p>\n

their pacing. It was difficult blandly to overlook them; to abolish<\/p>\n

their significance in the landscape; to continue, as one walked by the<\/p>\n

sea, to marvel how beauty outside mirrored beauty within.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did Nature supplement what man advanced? Did she complete what he<\/p>\n

began? With equal complacence she saw his misery, his meanness, and<\/p>\n

his torture. That dream, of sharing, completing, of finding in<\/p>\n

solitude on the beach an answer, was then but a reflection in a mirror,<\/p>\n

and the mirror itself was but the surface glassiness which forms in<\/p>\n

quiescence when the nobler powers sleep beneath? Impatient, despairing<\/p>\n

yet loth to go (for beauty offers her lures, has her consolations), to<\/p>\n

pace the beach was impossible; contemplation was unendurable; the<\/p>\n

mirror was broken.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Mr. Carmichael brought out a volume of poems that spring, which had an<\/p>\n

unexpected success. The war, people said, had revived their interest<\/p>\n

in poetry.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Night after night, summer and winter, the torment of storms, the arrow-<\/p>\n

like stillness of fine (had there been any one to listen) from the<\/p>\n

upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with<\/p>\n

lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and<\/p>\n

waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose<\/p>\n

brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of<\/p>\n

another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for<\/p>\n

night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games,<\/p>\n

until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute<\/p>\n

confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In spring the garden urns, casually filled with wind-blown plants, were<\/p>\n

gay as ever. Violets came and daffodils. But the stillness and the<\/p>\n

brightness of the day were as strange as the chaos and tumult of night,<\/p>\n

with the trees standing there, and the flowers standing there, looking<\/p>\n

before them, looking up, yet beholding nothing, eyeless, and so<\/p>\n

terrible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thinking no harm, for the family would not come, never again, some<\/p>\n

said, and the house would be sold at Michaelmas perhaps, Mrs. McNab<\/p>\n

stooped and picked a bunch of flowers to take home with her. She laid<\/p>\n

them on the table while she dusted. She was fond of flowers. It was a<\/p>\n

pity to let them waste. Suppose the house were sold (she stood arms<\/p>\n

akimbo in front of the looking-glass) it would want seeing to–it<\/p>\n

would. There it had stood all these years without a soul in it. The<\/p>\n

books and things were mouldy, for, what with the war and help being<\/p>\n

hard to get, the house had not been cleaned as she could have wished.<\/p>\n

It was beyond one person’s strength to get it straight now. She was<\/p>\n

too old. Her legs pained her. All those books needed to be laid out<\/p>\n

on the grass in the sun; there was plaster fallen in the hall; the<\/p>\n

rain-pipe had blocked over the study window and let the water in;<\/p>\n

the carpet was ruined quite. But people should come themselves;<\/p>\n

they should have sent somebody down to see. For there were clothes<\/p>\n

in the cupboards; they had left clothes in all the bedrooms. What<\/p>\n

was she to do with them? They had the moth in them–Mrs. Ramsay’s<\/p>\n

things. Poor lady! She would never want them<\/i> again. She was dead,<\/p>\n

they said; years ago, in London. There was the old grey cloak she wore<\/p>\n

gardening (Mrs. McNab fingered it). She could see her, as she came up<\/p>\n

the drive with the washing, stooping over her flowers (the garden was a<\/p>\n

pitiful sight now, all run to riot, and rabbits scuttling at you out of<\/p>\n

the beds)–she could see her with one of the children by her in that<\/p>\n

grey cloak. There were boots and shoes; and a brush and comb left on<\/p>\n

the dressing-table, for all the world as if she expected to come back<\/p>\n

tomorrow. (She had died very sudden at the end, they said.) And once<\/p>\n

they had been coming, but had put off coming, what with the war, and<\/p>\n

travel being so difficult these days; they had never come all these<\/p>\n

years; just sent her money; but never wrote, never came, and expected<\/p>\n

to find things as they had left them, ah, dear! Why the dressing-table<\/p>\n

drawers were full of things (she pulled them open), handkerchiefs, bits<\/p>\n

of ribbon. Yes, she could see Mrs. Ramsay as she came up the drive with<\/p>\n

the washing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Good-evening, Mrs. McNab,” she would say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had a pleasant way with her. The girls all liked her. But, dear,<\/p>\n

many things had changed since then (she shut the drawer); many families<\/p>\n

had lost their dearest. So she was dead; and Mr. Andrew killed; and<\/p>\n

Miss Prue dead too, they said, with her first baby; but everyone had<\/p>\n

lost some one these years. Prices had gone up shamefully, and didn’t<\/p>\n

come down again neither. She could well remember her in her grey<\/p>\n

cloak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Good-evening, Mrs. McNab,” she said, and told cook to keep a plate of<\/p>\n

milk soup for her–quite thought she wanted it, carrying that heavy<\/p>\n

basket all the way up from town. She could see her now, stooping over<\/p>\n

her flowers; and faint and flickering, like a yellow beam or the circle<\/p>\n

at the end of a telescope, a lady in a grey cloak, stooping over her<\/p>\n

flowers, went wandering over the bedroom wall, up the dressing-table,<\/p>\n

across the wash-stand, as Mrs. McNab hobbled and ambled, dusting,<\/p>\n

straightening. And cook’s name now? Mildred? Marian?–some name like<\/p>\n

that. Ah, she had forgotten–she did forget things. Fiery, like all<\/p>\n

red-haired women. Many a laugh they had had. She was always welcome<\/p>\n

in the kitchen. She made them laugh, she did. Things were better then<\/p>\n

than now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She sighed; there was too much work for one woman. She wagged her head<\/p>\n

this side and that. This had been the nursery. Why, it was all damp in<\/p>\n

here; the plaster was falling. Whatever did they want to hang a<\/p>\n

beast’s skull there? gone mouldy too. And rats in all the attics. The<\/p>\n

rain came in. But they never sent; never came. Some of the locks had<\/p>\n

gone, so the doors banged. She didn’t like to be up here at dusk alone<\/p>\n

neither. It was too much for one woman, too much, too much. She<\/p>\n

creaked, she moaned. She banged the door. She turned the key in the<\/p>\n

lock, and left the house alone, shut up, locked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell<\/p>\n

on a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life had left it.<\/p>\n

The long night seemed to have set in; the trifling airs, nibbling, the<\/p>\n

clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had<\/p>\n

rusted and the mat decayed. Toads had nosed their way in. Idly,<\/p>\n

aimlessly, the swaying shawl swung to and fro. A thistle thrust itself<\/p>\n

between the tiles in the larder. The swallows nested in the drawing-<\/p>\n

roon; the floor was strewn with straw; the plaster fell in shovelfuls;<\/p>\n

rafters were laid bare; rats carried off this and that to gnaw behind<\/p>\n

the wainscots. Tortoise-shell butterflies burst from the chrysalis and<\/p>\n

pattered their life out on the window-pane. Poppies sowed themselves<\/p>\n

among the dahlias; the lawn waved with long grass; giant artichokes<\/p>\n

towered among roses; a fringed carnation flowered among the cabbages;<\/p>\n

while the gentle tapping of a weed at the window had become, on<\/p>\n

winters’ nights, a drumming from sturdy trees and thorned briars which<\/p>\n

made the whole room green in summer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What power could now prevent the fertility, the insensibility of<\/p>\n

nature? Mrs. McNab’s dream of a lady, of a child, of a plate of milk<\/p>\n

soup? It had wavered over the walls like a spot of sunlight and<\/p>\n

vanished. She had locked the door; she had gone. It was beyond the<\/p>\n

strength of one woman, she said. They never sent. They never wrote.<\/p>\n

There were things up there rotting in the drawers–it was a shame to<\/p>\n

leave them so, she said. The place was gone to rack and ruin. Only<\/p>\n

the Lighthouse beam entered the rooms for a moment, sent its sudden<\/p>\n

stare over bed and wall in the darkness of winter, looked with<\/p>\n

equanimity at the thistle and the swallow, the rat and the straw.<\/p>\n

Nothing now withstood them; nothing said no to them. Let the wind<\/p>\n

blow; let the poppy seed itself and the carnation mate with the<\/p>\n

cabbage. Let the swallow build in the drawing-room, and the thistle<\/p>\n

thrust aside the tiles, and the butterfly sun itself on the faded<\/p>\n

chintz of the arm-chairs. Let the broken glass and the china lie out<\/p>\n

on the lawn and be tangled over with grass and wild berries.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For now had come that moment, that hesitation when dawn trembles and<\/p>\n

night pauses, when if a feather alight in the scale it will be weighed<\/p>\n

down. One feather, and the house, sinking, falling, would have turned<\/p>\n

and pitched downwards to the depths of darkness. In the ruined room,<\/p>\n

picnickers would have lit their kettles; lovers sought shelter there,<\/p>\n

lying on the bare boards; and the shepherd stored his dinner on the<\/p>\n

bricks, and the tramp slept with his coat round him to ward off the<\/p>\n

cold. Then the roof would have fallen; briars and hemlocks would have<\/p>\n

blotted out path, step and window; would have grown, unequally but<\/p>\n

lustily over the mound, until some trespasser, losing his way, could<\/p>\n

have told only by a red-hot poker among the nettles, or a scrap of<\/p>\n

china in the hemlock, that here once some one had lived; there had been<\/p>\n

a house.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the feather had fallen, if it had tipped the scale downwards, the<\/p>\n

whole house would have plunged to the depths to lie upon the sands of<\/p>\n

oblivion. But there was a force working; something not highly<\/p>\n

conscious; something that leered, something that lurched; something not<\/p>\n

inspired to go about its work with dignified ritual or solemn chanting.<\/p>\n

Mrs. McNab groaned; Mrs. Bast creaked. They were old; they were stiff;<\/p>\n

their legs ached. They came with their brooms and pails at last; they<\/p>\n

got to work. All of a sudden, would Mrs. McNab see that the house was<\/p>\n

ready, one of the young ladies wrote: would she get this done; would<\/p>\n

she get that done; all in a hurry. They might be coming for the<\/p>\n

summer; had left everything to the last; expected to find things as<\/p>\n

they had left them. Slowly and painfully, with broom and pail,<\/p>\n

mopping, scouring, Mrs. McNab, Mrs. Bast, stayed the corruption and the<\/p>\n

rot; rescued from the pool of Time that was fast closing over them now<\/p>\n

a basin, now a cupboard; fetched up from oblivion all the Waverley<\/p>\n

novels and a tea-set one morning; in the afternoon restored to sun and<\/p>\n

air a brass fender and a set of steel fire-irons. George, Mrs. Bast’s<\/p>\n

son, caught the rats, and cut the grass. They had the builders.<\/p>\n

Attended with the creaking of hinges and the screeching of bolts, the<\/p>\n

slamming and banging of damp-swollen woodwork, some rusty laborious<\/p>\n

birth seemed to be taking place, as the women, stooping, rising,<\/p>\n

groaning, singing, slapped and slammed, upstairs now, now down in the<\/p>\n

cellars. Oh, they said, the work!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They drank their tea in the bedroom sometimes, or in the study;<\/p>\n

breaking off work at mid-day with the smudge on their faces, and their<\/p>\n

old hands clasped and cramped with the broom handles. Flopped on<\/p>\n

chairs, they contemplated now the magnificent conquest over taps and<\/p>\n

bath; now the more arduous, more partial triumph over long rows of<\/p>\n

books, black as ravens once, now white-stained, breeding pale mushrooms<\/p>\n

and secreting furtive spiders. Once more, as she felt the tea warm in<\/p>\n

her, the telescope fitted itself to Mrs. McNab’s eyes, and in a ring of<\/p>\n

light she saw the old gentleman, lean as a rake, wagging his head, as<\/p>\n

she came up with the washing, talking to himself, she supposed, on the<\/p>\n

lawn. He never noticed her. Some said he was dead; some said she was<\/p>\n

dead. Which was it? Mrs. Bast didn’t know for certain either. The<\/p>\n

young gentleman was dead. That she was sure. She had read his name in<\/p>\n

the papers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was the cook now, Mildred, Marian, some such name as that–a red-<\/p>\n

headed woman, quick-tempered like all her sort, but kind, too, if you<\/p>\n

knew the way with her. Many a laugh they had had together. She saved a<\/p>\n

plate of soup for Maggie; a bite of ham, sometimes; whatever was over.<\/p>\n

They lived well in those days. They had everything they wanted<\/p>\n

(glibly, jovially, with the tea hot in her, she unwound her ball of<\/p>\n

memories, sitting in the wicker arm-chair by the nursery fender).<\/p>\n

There was always plenty doing, people in the house, twenty staying<\/p>\n

sometimes, and washing up till long past midnight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs. Bast (she had never known them; had lived in Glasgow at that time)<\/p>\n

wondered, putting her cup down, whatever they hung that beast’s skull<\/p>\n

there for? Shot in foreign parts no doubt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It might well be, said Mrs. McNab, wantoning on with her memories; they<\/p>\n

had friends in eastern countries; gentlemen staying there, ladies in<\/p>\n

evening dress; she had seen them once through the dining-room door all<\/p>\n

sitting at dinner. Twenty she dared say all in their jewellery, and<\/p>\n

she asked to stay help wash up, might be till after midnight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ah, said Mrs. Bast, they’d find it changed. She leant out of the<\/p>\n

window. She watched her son George scything the grass. They might<\/p>\n

well ask, what had been done to it? seeing how old Kennedy was<\/p>\n

supposed to have charge of it, and then his leg got so bad after he<\/p>\n

fell from the cart; and perhaps then no one for a year, or the better<\/p>\n

part of one; and then Davie Macdonald, and seeds might be sent, but who<\/p>\n

should say if they were ever planted? They’d find it changed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She watched her son scything. He was a great one for work–one of<\/p>\n

those quiet ones. Well they must be getting along with the cupboards,<\/p>\n

she supposed. They hauled themselves up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At last, after days of labour within, of cutting and digging without,<\/p>\n

dusters were flicked from the windows, the windows were shut to, keys<\/p>\n

were turned all over the house; the front door was banged; it was<\/p>\n

finished.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And now as if the cleaning and the scrubbing and the scything and the<\/p>\n

mowing had drowned it there rose that half-heard melody, that<\/p>\n

intermittent music which the ear half catches but lets fall; a bark, a<\/p>\n

bleat; irregular, intermittent, yet somehow related; the hum of an<\/p>\n

insect, the tremor of cut grass, disevered yet somehow belonging; the<\/p>\n

jar of a dorbeetle, the squeak of a wheel, loud, low, but mysteriously<\/p>\n

related; which the ear strains to bring together and is always on the<\/p>\n

verge of harmonising, but they are never quite heard, never fully<\/p>\n

harmonised, and at last, in the evening, one after another the sounds<\/p>\n

die out, and the harmony falters, and silence falls. With the sunset<\/p>\n

sharpness was lost, and like mist rising, quiet rose, quiet spread,<\/p>\n

the wind settled; loosely the world shook itself down to sleep, darkly<\/p>\n

here without a light to it, save what came green suffused through<\/p>\n

leaves, or pale on the white flowers in the bed by the window.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Lily Briscoe had her bag carried up to the house late one evening in<\/p>\n

September. Mr. Carmichael came by the same train.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed from the sea to<\/p>\n

the shore. Never to break its sleep any more, to lull it rather more<\/p>\n

deeply to rest, and whatever the dreamers dreamt holily, dreamt wisely,<\/p>\n

to confirm–what else was it murmuring–as Lily Briscoe laid her head<\/p>\n

on the pillow in the clean still room and heard the sea. Through the<\/p>\n

open window the voice of the beauty of the world came murmuring, too<\/p>\n

softly to hear exactly what it said–but what mattered if the meaning<\/p>\n

were plain? entreating the sleepers (the house was full again; Mrs.<\/p>\n

Beckwith was staying there, also Mr. Carmichael), if they would not<\/p>\n

actually come down to the beach itself at least to lift the blind and<\/p>\n

look out. They would see then night flowing down in purple; his head<\/p>\n

crowned; his sceptre jewelled; and how in his eyes a child might look.<\/p>\n

And if they still faltered (Lily was tired out with travelling and<\/p>\n

slept almost at once; but Mr. Carmichael read a book by candlelight), if<\/p>\n

they still said no, that it was vapour, this splendour of his, and the<\/p>\n

dew had more power than he, and they preferred sleeping; gently then<\/p>\n

without complaint, or argument, the voice would sing its song. Gently<\/p>\n

the waves would break (Lily heard them in her sleep); tenderly the<\/p>\n

light fell (it seemed to come through her eyelids). And it all looked,<\/p>\n

Mr. Carmichael thought, shutting his book, falling asleep, much as it<\/p>\n

used to look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Indeed the voice might resume, as the curtains of dark wrapped<\/p>\n

themselves over the house, over Mrs. Beckwith, Mr. Carmichael, and Lily<\/p>\n

Briscoe so that they lay with several folds of blackness on their eyes,<\/p>\n

why not accept this, be content with this, acquiesce and resign? The<\/p>\n

sigh of all the seas breaking in measure round the isles soothed them;<\/p>\n

the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep, until, the birds<\/p>\n

beginning and the dawn weaving their thin voices in to its whiteness, a<\/p>\n

cart grinding, a dog somewhere barking, the sun lifted the curtains,<\/p>\n

broke the veil on their eyes, and Lily Briscoe stirring in her sleep.<\/p>\n

She clutched at her blankets as a faller clutches at the turf on the<\/p>\n

edge of a cliff. Her eyes opened wide. Here she was again, she<\/p>\n

thought, sitting bold upright in bed. Awake.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

III<\/p>\n

THE LIGHTHOUSE<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does it mean then, what can it all mean? Lily Briscoe asked<\/p>\n

herself, wondering whether, since she had been left alone, it behoved<\/p>\n

her to go to the kitchen to fetch another cup of coffee or wait here.<\/p>\n

What does it mean?–a catchword that was, caught up from some book,<\/p>\n

fitting her thought loosely, for she could not, this first morning with<\/p>\n

the Ramsays, contract her feelings, could only make a phrase resound to<\/p>\n

cover the blankness of her mind until these vapours had shrunk. For<\/p>\n

really, what did she feel, come back after all these years and Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay dead? Nothing, nothing–nothing that she could express at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had come late last night when it was all mysterious, dark. Now she<\/p>\n

was awake, at her old place at the breakfast table, but alone. It was<\/p>\n

very early too, not yet eight. There was this expedition–they were<\/p>\n

going to the Lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James. They should have<\/p>\n

gone already–they had to catch the tide or something. And Cam was<\/p>\n

not ready and James was not ready and Nancy had forgotten to order the<\/p>\n

sandwiches and Mr. Ramsay had lost his temper and banged out of the<\/p>\n

room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What’s the use of going now?” he had stormed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nancy had vanished. There he was, marching up and down the terrace in<\/p>\n

a rage. One seemed to hear doors slamming and voices calling all over<\/p>\n

the house. Now Nancy burst in, and asked, looking round the room, in a<\/p>\n

queer half dazed, half desperate way, “What does one send to the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse?” as if she were forcing herself to do what she despaired of<\/p>\n

ever being able to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does one send to the Lighthouse indeed! At any other time Lily<\/p>\n

could have suggested reasonably tea, tobacco, newspapers. But this<\/p>\n

morning everything seemed so extraordinarily queer that a question like<\/p>\n

Nancy’s–What does one send to the Lighthouse?–opened doors in one’s<\/p>\n

mind that went banging and swinging to and fro and made one keep<\/p>\n

asking, in a stupefied gape, What does one send? What does one do?<\/p>\n

Why is one sitting here, after all?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sitting alone (for Nancy went out again) among the clean cups at the<\/p>\n

long table, she felt cut off from other people, and able only to go on<\/p>\n

watching, asking, wondering. The house, the place, the morning, all<\/p>\n

seemed strangers to her. She had no attachment here, she felt, no<\/p>\n

relations with it, anything might happen, and whatever did happen, a<\/p>\n

step outside, a voice calling (“It’s not in the cupboard; it’s on the<\/p>\n

landing,” some one cried), was a question, as if the link that usually<\/p>\n

bound things together had been cut, and they floated up here, down<\/p>\n

there, off, anyhow. How aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it<\/p>\n

was, she thought, looking at her empty coffee cup. Mrs. Ramsay dead;<\/p>\n

Andrew killed; Prue dead too–repeat it as she might, it roused no<\/p>\n

feeling in her. And we all get together in a house like this on a<\/p>\n

morning like this, she said, looking out of the window. It was a<\/p>\n

beautiful still day.[140]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suddenly Mr. Ramsay raised his head as he passed and looked straight at<\/p>\n

her, with his distraught wild gaze which was yet so penetrating, as if<\/p>\n

he saw you, for one second, for the first time, for ever; and she<\/p>\n

pretended to drink out of her empty coffee cup so as to escape him–to<\/p>\n

escape his demand on her, to put aside a moment longer that imperious<\/p>\n

need. And he shook his head at her, and strode on (“Alone” she heard<\/p>\n

him say, “Perished” she heard him say)[141]<\/sup><\/a> and like everything else this<\/p>\n

strange morning the words became symbols, wrote themselves all over the<\/p>\n

grey-green walls. If only she could put them together, she felt, write<\/p>\n

them out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of<\/p>\n

things. Old Mr. Carmichael came padding softly in, fetched his coffee,<\/p>\n

took his cup and made off to sit in the sun. The extraordinary<\/p>\n

unreality was frightening; but it was also exciting. Going to the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse. But what does one send to the Lighthouse? Perished. Alone.<\/p>\n

The grey-green light on the wall opposite. The empty places. Such were<\/p>\n

some of the parts, but how bring them together? she asked. As if any<\/p>\n

interruption would break the frail shape she was building on the table<\/p>\n

she turned her back to the window lest Mr. Ramsay should see her. She<\/p>\n

must escape somewhere, be alone somewhere. Suddenly she remembered.<\/p>\n

When she had sat there last ten years ago there had been a little sprig<\/p>\n

or leaf pattern on the table-cloth, which she had looked at in a moment<\/p>\n

of revelation. There had been a problem about a foreground of a<\/p>\n

picture. Move the tree to the middle, she had said. She had never<\/p>\n

finished that picture. She would paint that picture now. It had been<\/p>\n

knocking about in her mind all these years. Where were her paints, she<\/p>\n

wondered? Her paints, yes. She had left them in the hall last night.<\/p>\n

She would start at once. She got up quickly, before Mr. Ramsay turned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She fetched herself a chair. She pitched her easel with her precise<\/p>\n

old-maidish movements on the edge of the lawn, not too close to Mr.<\/p>\n

Carmichael, but close enough for his protection. Yes, it must have<\/p>\n

been precisely here that she had stood ten years ago. There was the<\/p>\n

wall; the hedge; the tree. The question was of some relation between<\/p>\n

those masses. She had borne it in her mind all these years. It seemed<\/p>\n

as if the solution had come to her: she knew now what she wanted to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But with Mr. Ramsay bearing down on her, she could do nothing. Every<\/p>\n

time he approached–he was walking up and down the terrace–ruin<\/p>\n

approached, chaos approached. She could not paint. She stooped, she<\/p>\n

turned; she took up this rag; she squeezed that tube. But all she did<\/p>\n

was to ward him off a moment. He made it impossible for her to do<\/p>\n

anything. For if she gave him the least chance, if he saw her<\/p>\n

disengaged a moment, looking his way a moment, he would be on her,<\/p>\n

saying, as he had said last night, “You find us much changed.” Last<\/p>\n

night he had got up and stopped before her, and said that. Dumb and<\/p>\n

staring though they had all sat, the six children whom they used to<\/p>\n

call after the Kings and Queens of England–the Red, the Fair, the<\/p>\n

Wicked, the Ruthless–she felt how they raged under it. Kind old Mrs.<\/p>\n

Beckwith said something sensible. But it was a house full of unrelated<\/p>\n

passions–she had felt that all the evening. And on top of this chaos<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay got up, pressed her hand, and said: “You will find us much<\/p>\n

changed” and none of them had moved or had spoken; but had sat there as<\/p>\n

if they were forced to let him say it. Only James (certainly the<\/p>\n

Sullen) scowled at the lamp; and Cam screwed her handkerchief round her<\/p>\n

finger. Then he reminded them that they were going to the Lighthouse<\/p>\n

tomorrow. They must be ready, in the hall, on the stroke of half-past<\/p>\n

seven. Then, with his hand on the door, he stopped; he turned upon<\/p>\n

them. Did they not want to go? he demanded. Had they dared say<\/p>\n

No (he had some reason for wanting it) he would have flung himself<\/p>\n

tragically backwards into the bitter waters of depair. Such a<\/p>\n

gift he had for gesture. He looked like a king in exile. Doggedly<\/p>\n

James said yes. Cam stumbled more wretchedly. Yes, oh, yes, they’d<\/p>\n

both be ready, they said. And it struck her, this was tragedy–not<\/p>\n

palls, dust, and the shroud; but children coerced, their spirits<\/p>\n

subdued. James was sixteen, Cam, seventeen, perhaps. She had looked<\/p>\n

round for some one who was not there, for Mrs. Ramsay, presumably. But<\/p>\n

there was only kind Mrs. Beckwith turning over her sketches under the<\/p>\n

lamp. Then, being tired, her mind still rising and falling with the<\/p>\n

sea, the taste and smell that places have after long absence possessing<\/p>\n

her, the candles wavering in her eyes, she had lost herself and gone<\/p>\n

under. It was a wonderful night, starlit; the waves sounded as they<\/p>\n

went upstairs; the moon surprised them, enormous, pale, as they passed<\/p>\n

the staircase window. She had slept at once.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She set her clean canvas firmly upon the easel, as a barrier, frail,<\/p>\n

but she hoped sufficiently substantial to ward off Mr. Ramsay and his<\/p>\n

exactingness. She did her best to look, when his back was turned, at<\/p>\n

her picture; that line there, that mass there. But it was out of the<\/p>\n

question. Let him be fifty feet away, let him not even speak to you,<\/p>\n

let him not even see you, he permeated, he prevailed, he imposed<\/p>\n

himself. He changed everything. She could not see the colour; she<\/p>\n

could not see the lines; even with his back turned to her, she could<\/p>\n

only think, But he’ll be down on me in a moment, demanding–something<\/p>\n

she felt she could not give him. She rejected one brush; she chose<\/p>\n

another. When would those children come? When would they all be off?<\/p>\n

she fidgeted. That man, she thought, her anger rising in her, never<\/p>\n

gave; that man took. She, on the other hand, would be forced to give.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay had given. Giving, giving, giving, she had died–and had<\/p>\n

left all this. Really, she was angry with Mrs. Ramsay. With the brush<\/p>\n

slightly trembling in her fingers she looked at the hedge, the step,<\/p>\n

the wall. It was all Mrs. Ramsay’s doing. She was dead. Here was Lily,<\/p>\n

at forty-four, wasting her time, unable to do a thing, standing there,<\/p>\n

playing at painting, playing at the one thing one did not play at, and<\/p>\n

it was all Mrs. Ramsay’s fault. She was dead. The step where she used<\/p>\n

to sit was empty. She was dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But why repeat this over and over again? Why be always trying to bring<\/p>\n

up some feeling she had not got? There was a kind of blasphemy in it.<\/p>\n

It was all dry: all withered: all spent. They ought not to have asked<\/p>\n

her; she ought not to have come. One can’t waste one’s time at forty-<\/p>\n

four, she thought. She hated playing at painting. A brush, the one<\/p>\n

dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos–that one should not<\/p>\n

play with, knowingly even: she detested it. But he made her. You<\/p>\n

shan’t touch your canvas, he seemed to say, bearing down on her, till<\/p>\n

you’ve given me what I want of you. Here he was, close upon her again,<\/p>\n

greedy, distraught. Well, thought Lily in despair, letting her right<\/p>\n

hand fall at her side, it would be simpler then to have it over.<\/p>\n

Surely, she could imitate from recollection the glow, the rhapsody, the<\/p>\n

self-surrender, she had seen on so many women’s faces (on Mrs. Ramsay’s,<\/p>\n

for instance) when on some occasion like this they blazed up–she could<\/p>\n

remember the look on Mrs. Ramsay’s face–into a rapture of sympathy, of<\/p>\n

delight in the reward they had, which, though the reason of it escaped<\/p>\n

her, evidently conferred on them the most supreme bliss of which human<\/p>\n

nature was capable. Here he was, stopped by her side. She would give<\/p>\n

him what she could.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She seemed to have shrivelled slightly, he thought. She looked a little<\/p>\n

skimpy, wispy; but not unattractive. He liked her. There had been some<\/p>\n

talk of her marrying William Bankes once, but nothing had come of it.<\/p>\n

His wife had been fond of her. He had been a little out of temper too<\/p>\n

at breakfast. And then, and then–this was one of those moments when<\/p>\n

an enormous need urged him, without being conscious what it was, to<\/p>\n

approach any woman, to force them, he did not care how, his need was so<\/p>\n

great, to give him what he wanted: sympathy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Was anybody looking after her? he said. Had she everything she<\/p>\n

wanted?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh, thanks, everything,” said Lily Briscoe nervously. No; she could<\/p>\n

not do it. She ought to have floated off instantly upon some wave of<\/p>\n

sympathetic expansion: the pressure on her was tremendous. But she<\/p>\n

remained stuck. There was an awful pause. They both looked at the<\/p>\n

sea. Why, thought Mr. Ramsay, should she look at the sea when I am<\/p>\n

here? She hoped it would be calm enough for them to land at the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse, she said. The Lighthouse! The Lighthouse! What’s that<\/p>\n

got to do with it? he thought impatiently. Instantly, with the force<\/p>\n

of some primeval gust (for really he could not restrain himself any<\/p>\n

longer), there issued from him such a groan that any other woman in the<\/p>\n

whole world would have done something, said something–all except<\/p>\n

myself, thought Lily, girding at herself bitterly, who am not a woman,<\/p>\n

but a peevish, ill-tempered, dried-up old maid, presumably.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Mr. Ramsay sighed to the full. He waited. Was she not going to say<\/p>\n

anything? Did she not see what he wanted from her? Then he said he<\/p>\n

had a particular reason for wanting to go to the Lighthouse. His<\/p>\n

wife used to send the men things. There was a poor boy with a<\/p>\n

tuberculous hip, the lightkeeper’s son. He sighed profoundly.<\/p>\n

He sighed significantly. All Lily wished was that this enormous flood<\/p>\n

of grief, this insatiable hunger for sympathy, this demand that she<\/p>\n

should surrender herself up to him entirely, and even so he had sorrows<\/p>\n

enough to keep her supplied for ever, should leave her, should be<\/p>\n

diverted (she kept looking at the house, hoping for an interruption)<\/p>\n

before it swept her down in its flow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Such expeditions,” said Mr. Ramsay, scraping the ground with his toe,<\/p>\n

“are very painful.” Still Lily said nothing. (She is a stock, she is a<\/p>\n

stone, he said to himself.) “They are very exhausting,” he said,<\/p>\n

looking, with a sickly look that nauseated her (he was acting, she<\/p>\n

felt, this great man was dramatising himself), at his beautiful hands.<\/p>\n

It was horrible, it was indecent. Would they never come, she asked,<\/p>\n

for she could not sustain this enormous weight of sorrow, support these<\/p>\n

heavy draperies of grief (he had assumed a pose of extreme<\/p>\n

decreptitude; he even tottered a little as he stood there) a moment<\/p>\n

longer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare of<\/p>\n

objects to talk about; could only feel, amazedly, as Mr. Ramsay stood<\/p>\n

there, how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over the sunny grass and<\/p>\n

discolour it, and cast over the rubicund, drowsy, entirely contented<\/p>\n

figure of Mr. Carmichael, reading a French novel on a deck-chair, a veil<\/p>\n

of crape, as if such an existence, flaunting its prosperity in a world<\/p>\n

of woe, were enough to provoke the most dismal thoughts of all. Look<\/p>\n

at him, he seemed to be saying, look at me; and indeed, all the time he<\/p>\n

was feeling, Think of me, think of me. Ah, could that bulk only be<\/p>\n

wafted alongside of them, Lily wished; had she only pitched her easel a<\/p>\n

yard or two closer to him; a man, any man, would staunch this effusion,<\/p>\n

would stop these lamentations. A woman, she had provoked this horror;<\/p>\n

a woman, she should have known how to deal with it. It was immensely<\/p>\n

to her discredit, sexually, to stand there dumb. One said–what did<\/p>\n

one say?–Oh, Mr. Ramsay! Dear Mr. Ramsay! That was what that kind old<\/p>\n

lady who sketched, Mrs. Beckwith, would have said instantly, and<\/p>\n

rightly. But, no. They stood there, isolated from the rest of the<\/p>\n

world. His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and<\/p>\n

spread itself in pools at ther feet, and all she did, miserable sinner<\/p>\n

that she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer round her ankles,<\/p>\n

lest she should get wet. In complete silence she stood there, grasping<\/p>\n

her paint brush.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Heaven could never be sufficiently praised! She heard sounds in the<\/p>\n

house. James and Cam must be coming. But Mr. Ramsay, as if he knew<\/p>\n

that his time ran short, exerted upon her solitary figure the immense<\/p>\n

pressure of his concentrated woe; his age; his frailty: his desolation;<\/p>\n

when suddenly, tossing his head impatiently, in his annoyance–for<\/p>\n

after all, what woman could resist him?–he noticed that his boot-laces<\/p>\n

were untied. Remarkable boots they were too, Lily thought, looking<\/p>\n

down at them: sculptured; colossal; like everything that Mr. Ramsay<\/p>\n

wore, from his frayed tie to his half-buttoned waistcoat, his own<\/p>\n

indisputably. She could see them walking to his room of their own<\/p>\n

accord, expressive in his absence of pathos, surliness, ill-temper,<\/p>\n

charm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What beautiful boots!” she exclaimed. She was ashamed of herself. To<\/p>\n

praise his boots when he asked her to solace his soul; when he had<\/p>\n

shown her his bleeding hands, his lacerated heart, and asked her to<\/p>\n

pity them, then to say, cheerfully, “Ah, but what beautiful boots you<\/p>\n

wear!” deserved, she knew, and she looked up expecting to get it in one<\/p>\n

of his sudden roars of ill-temper complete annihilation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead, Mr. Ramsay smiled. His pall, his draperies, his infirmities<\/p>\n

fell from him. Ah, yes, he said, holding his foot up for her to look<\/p>\n

at, they were first-rate boots. There was only one man in England who<\/p>\n

could make boots like that. Boots are among the chief curses of<\/p>\n

mankind, he said. “Bootmakers make it their business,” he exclaimed,<\/p>\n

“to cripple and torture the human foot.” They are also the most<\/p>\n

obstinate and perverse of mankind. It had taken him the best part of<\/p>\n

his youth to get boots made as they should be made. He would have her<\/p>\n

observe (he lifted his right foot and then his left) that she had never<\/p>\n

seen boots made quite that shape before. They were made of the finest<\/p>\n

leather in the world, also. Most leather was mere brown paper and<\/p>\n

cardboard. He looked complacently at his foot, still held in the air.<\/p>\n

They had reached, she felt, a sunny island where peace dwelt, sanity<\/p>\n

reigned and the sun for ever shone, the blessed island of good boots.<\/p>\n

Her heart warmed to him. “Now let me see if you can tie a knot,” he<\/p>\n

said. He poohpoohed her feeble system. He showed her his own<\/p>\n

invention. Once you tied it, it never came undone. Three times he<\/p>\n

knotted her shoe; three times he unknotted it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why, at this completely inappropriate moment, when he was stooping over<\/p>\n

her shoe, should she be so tormented with sympathy for him that, as she<\/p>\n

stooped too, the blood rushed to her face, and, thinking of her<\/p>\n

callousness (she had called him a play-actor) she felt her eyes swell<\/p>\n

and tingle with tears? Thus occupied he seemed to her a figure of<\/p>\n

infinite pathos. He tied knots. He bought boots. There was no helping<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay on the journey he was going. But now just as she wished to<\/p>\n

say something, could have said something, perhaps, here they were–Cam<\/p>\n

and James. They appeared on the terrace. They came, lagging, side by<\/p>\n

side, a serious, melancholy couple.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But why was it like that<\/i> that they came? She could not help feeling<\/p>\n

annoyed with them; they might have come more cheerfully; they might<\/p>\n

have given him what, now that they were off, she would not have the<\/p>\n

chance of giving him. For she felt a sudden emptiness; a frustration.<\/p>\n

Her feeling had come too late; there it was ready; but he no longer<\/p>\n

needed it. He had become a very distinguished, elderly man, who had no<\/p>\n

need of her whatsoever. She felt snubbed. He slung a knapsack round<\/p>\n

his shoulders. He shared out the parcels–there were a number of them,<\/p>\n

ill tied in brown paper. He sent Cam for a cloak. He had all the<\/p>\n

appearance of a leader making ready for an expedition. Then, wheeling<\/p>\n

about, he led the way with his firm military tread, in those wonderful<\/p>\n

boots, carrying brown paper parcels, down the path, his children<\/p>\n

following him. They looked, she thought, as if fate had devoted them<\/p>\n

to some stern enterprise, and they went to it, still young enough to be<\/p>\n

drawn acquiescent in their father’s wake, obediently, but with a pallor<\/p>\n

in their eyes which made her feel that they suffered something beyond<\/p>\n

their years in silence. So they passed the edge of the lawn, and it<\/p>\n

seemed to Lily that she watched a procession go, drawn on by some<\/p>\n

stress of common feeling which made it, faltering and flagging as it<\/p>\n

was, a little company bound together and strangely impressive to her.<\/p>\n

Politely, but very distantly, Mr. Ramsay raised his hand and saluted her<\/p>\n

as they passed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But what a face, she thought, immediately finding the sympathy which<\/p>\n

she had not been asked to give troubling her for expression. What had<\/p>\n

made it like that? Thinking, night after night, she supposed–about<\/p>\n

the reality of kitchen tables, she added, remembering the symbol which<\/p>\n

in her vagueness as to what Mr. Ramsay did think about Andrew had given<\/p>\n

her. (He had been killed by the splinter of a shell instantly, she<\/p>\n

bethought her.) The kitchen table was something visionary, austere;<\/p>\n

something bare, hard, not ornamental. There was no colour to it; it<\/p>\n

was all edges and angles; it was uncompromisingly plain. But Mr. Ramsay<\/p>\n

kept always his eyes fixed upon it, never allowed himself to be<\/p>\n

distracted or deluded, until his face became worn too and ascetic and<\/p>\n

partook of this unornamented beauty which so deeply impressed her.<\/p>\n

Then, she recalled (standing where he had left her, holding her brush),<\/p>\n

worries had fretted it–not so nobly. He must have had his doubts<\/p>\n

about that table, she supposed; whether the table was a real table;<\/p>\n

whether it was worth the time he gave to it; whether he was able after<\/p>\n

all to find it. He had had doubts, she felt, or he would have asked<\/p>\n

less of people. That was what they talked about late at night<\/p>\n

sometimes, she suspected; and then next day Mrs. Ramsay looked tired,<\/p>\n

and Lily flew into a rage with him over some absurd little thing. But<\/p>\n

now he had nobody to talk to about that table, or his boots, or his<\/p>\n

knots; and he was like a lion seeking whom he could devour, and his<\/p>\n

face had that touch of desperation, of exaggeration in it which alarmed<\/p>\n

her, and made her pull her skirts about her. And then, she recalled,<\/p>\n

there was that sudden revivification, that sudden flare (when she<\/p>\n

praised his boots), that sudden recovery of vitality and interest in<\/p>\n

ordinary human things, which too passed and changed (for he was always<\/p>\n

changing, and hid nothing) into that other final phase which was new to<\/p>\n

her and had, she owned, made herself ashamed of her own irritability,<\/p>\n

when it seemed as if he had shed worries and ambitions, and the hope of<\/p>\n

sympathy and the desire for praise, had entered some other region, was<\/p>\n

drawn on, as if by curiosity, in dumb colloquy, whether with himself or<\/p>\n

another, at the head of that little procession out of one’s range. An<\/p>\n

extraordinary face! The gate banged.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So they’re gone, she thought, sighing with relief and disappointment.<\/p>\n

Her sympathy seemed to be cast back on her, like a bramble sprung<\/p>\n

across her face. She felt curiously divided, as if one part of her<\/p>\n

were drawn out there–it was a still day, hazy; the Lighthouse looked<\/p>\n

this morning at an immense distance; the other had fixed itself<\/p>\n

doggedly, solidly, here on the lawn. She saw her canvas as if it had<\/p>\n

floated up and placed itself white and uncompromising directly before<\/p>\n

her. It seemed to rebuke her with its cold stare for all this hurry<\/p>\n

and agitation; this folly and waste of emotion; it drastically recalled<\/p>\n

her and spread through her mind first a peace, as her disorderly<\/p>\n

sensations (he had gone and she had been so sorry for him and she had<\/p>\n

said nothing) trooped off the field; and then, emptiness. She looked<\/p>\n

blankly at the canvas, with its uncompromising white stare; from the<\/p>\n

canvas to the garden. There was something (she stood screwing up her<\/p>\n

little Chinese eyes in her small puckered face), something she<\/p>\n

remembered in the relations of those lines cutting across, slicing<\/p>\n

down, and in the mass of the hedge with its green cave of blues and<\/p>\n

browns, which had stayed in her mind; which had tied a knot in her mind<\/p>\n

so that at odds and ends of time, involuntarily, as she walked along<\/p>\n

the Brompton Road,[142]<\/sup><\/a> as she brushed her hair, she found herself painting<\/p>\n

that picture, passing her eye over it, and untying the knot in<\/p>\n

imagination. But there was all the difference in the world between<\/p>\n

this planning airily away from the canvas and actually taking her brush<\/p>\n

and making the first mark.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had taken the wrong brush in her agitation at Mr. Ramsay’s presence,<\/p>\n

and her easel, rammed into the earth so nervously, was at the wrong<\/p>\n

angle. And now that she had got that right, and in so doing had subdued<\/p>\n

the impertinences and irrelevances that plucked her attention and made<\/p>\n

her remember how she was such and such a person, had such and such<\/p>\n

relations to people, she took her hand and raised her brush. For a<\/p>\n

moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstasy in the<\/p>\n

air. Where to begin?–that was the question at what point to make<\/p>\n

the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to<\/p>\n

innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in<\/p>\n

idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves<\/p>\n

shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer<\/p>\n

among them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the<\/p>\n

risk must be run; the mark made.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a curious physical sensation, as if she were urged forward and at<\/p>\n

the same time must hold herself back, she made her first quick decisive<\/p>\n

stroke. The brush descended. It flickered brown over the white canvas;<\/p>\n

it left a running mark. A second time she did it–a third time. And<\/p>\n

so pausing and so flickering, she attained a dancing rhythmical<\/p>\n

movement, as if the pauses were one part of the rhythm and the strokes<\/p>\n

another, and all were related; and so, lightly and swiftly pausing,<\/p>\n

striking, she scored her canvas with brown running nervous lines which<\/p>\n

had no sooner settled there than they enclosed ( she felt it looming<\/p>\n

out at her) a space. Down in the hollow of one wave she saw the next<\/p>\n

wave towering higher and higher above her. For what could be more<\/p>\n

formidable than that space? Here she was again, she thought, stepping<\/p>\n

back to look at it, drawn out of gossip, out of living, out of<\/p>\n

community with people into the presence of this formidable ancient<\/p>\n

enemy of hers–this other thing, this truth, this reality, which<\/p>\n

suddenly laid hands on her, emerged stark at the back of appearances<\/p>\n

and commanded her attention. She was half unwilling, half reluctant.<\/p>\n

Why always be drawn out and haled away? Why not left in peace, to<\/p>\n

talk to Mr. Carmichael on the lawn? It was an exacting form of<\/p>\n

intercourse anyhow. Other worshipful objects were content with<\/p>\n

worship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate; but this<\/p>\n

form, were it only the shape of a white lamp-shade looming on a<\/p>\n

wicker table, roused one to perpetual combat, challenged one to a fight<\/p>\n

in which one was bound to be worsted. Always (it was in her nature, or<\/p>\n

in her sex, she did not know which) before she exchanged the fluidity<\/p>\n

of life for the concentration of painting she had a few moments of<\/p>\n

nakedness when she seemed like an unborn soul, a soul reft of body,<\/p>\n

hesitating on some windy pinnacle and exposed without protection to all<\/p>\n

the blasts of doubt. Why then did she do it? She looked at the<\/p>\n

canvas, lightly scored with running lines. It would be hung in the<\/p>\n

servants’ bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa.<\/p>\n

What was the good of doing it then, and she heard some voice saying she<\/p>\n

couldn’t paint, saying she couldn’t create, as if she were caught up in<\/p>\n

one of those habitual currents in which after a certain time experience<\/p>\n

forms in the mind, so that one repeats words without being aware any<\/p>\n

longer who originally spoke them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Can’t paint, can’t write, she murmured monotonously, anxiously<\/p>\n

considering what her plan of attack should be. For the mass loomed<\/p>\n

before her; it protruded; she felt it pressing on her eyeballs. Then,<\/p>\n

as if some juice necessary for the lubrication of her faculties were<\/p>\n

spontaneously squirted, she began precariously dipping among the blues<\/p>\n

and umbers, moving her brush hither and thither, but it was now heavier<\/p>\n

and went slower, as if it had fallen in with some rhythm which was<\/p>\n

dictated to her (she kept looking at the hedge, at the canvas) by what<\/p>\n

she rhythm was strong enough to bear her along with it on its current.<\/p>\n

Certainly she was losing consciousness of outer things. And as she<\/p>\n

lost consciousness of outer things, and her name and her personality<\/p>\n

and her appearance, and whether Mr. Carmichael was there or not, her<\/p>\n

mind kept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings,<\/p>\n

and memories and ideas, like a fountain spurting over that glaring,<\/p>\n

hideously difficult white space, while she modelled it with greens and<\/p>\n

blues.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charles Tansley used to say that, she remembered, women can’t paint,<\/p>\n

can’t write. Coming up behind her, he had stood close beside her, a<\/p>\n

thing she hated, as she painted her on this very spot. “Shag tobacco,”[143]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

he said, “fivepence an ounce,” parading his poverty, his principles.<\/p>\n

(But the war had drawn the sting of her femininity. Poor devils, one<\/p>\n

thought, poor devils, of both sexes.)[144]<\/sup><\/a> He was always carrying a book<\/p>\n

about under his arm–a purple book. He “worked.” He sat, she<\/p>\n

remembered, working in a blaze of sun. At dinner he would sit right in<\/p>\n

the middle of the view. But after all, she reflected, there was the<\/p>\n

scene on the beach. One must remember that. It was a windy morning.<\/p>\n

They had all gone down to the beach. Mrs. Ramsay sat down and wrote<\/p>\n

letters by a rock. She wrote and wrote. “Oh,” she said, looking up at<\/p>\n

something floating in the sea, “is it a lobster pot? Is it an upturned<\/p>\n

boat?” She was so short-sighted that she could not see, and then<\/p>\n

Charles Tansley became as nice as he could possibly be. He began<\/p>\n

playing ducks and drakes. They chose little flat black stones and sent<\/p>\n

them skipping over the waves. Every now and then Mrs. Ramsay looked up<\/p>\n

over her spectacles and laughed at them. What they said she could not<\/p>\n

remember, but only she and Charles throwing stones and getting on very<\/p>\n

well all of a sudden and Mrs. Ramsay watching them. She was highly<\/p>\n

conscious of that. Mrs. Ramsay, she thought, stepping back and screwing<\/p>\n

up her eyes. (It must have altered the design a good deal when she was<\/p>\n

sitting on the step with James. There must have been a shadow.) When<\/p>\n

she thought of herself and Charles throwing ducks and drakes and of the<\/p>\n

whole scene on the beach, it seemed to depend somehow upon Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

sitting under the rock, with a pad on her knee, writing letters. (She<\/p>\n

wrote innumerable letters, and sometimes the wind took them and she and<\/p>\n

Charles just saved a page from the sea.) But what a power was in the<\/p>\n

human soul! she thought. That woman sitting there writing under the<\/p>\n

rock resolved everything into simplicity; made these angers,<\/p>\n

irritations fall off like old rags; she brought together this and that<\/p>\n

and then this, and so made out of that miserable silliness and spite<\/p>\n

(she and Charles squabbling, sparring, had been silly and spiteful)<\/p>\n

something–this scene on the beach for example, this moment of<\/p>\n

friendship and liking–which survived, after all these years complete,<\/p>\n

so that she dipped into it to re-fashion her memory of him, and there<\/p>\n

it stayed in the mind affecting one almost like a work of art.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Like a work of art,” she repeated, looking from her canvas to the<\/p>\n

drawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And,<\/p>\n

resting, looking from one to the other vaguely, the old question which<\/p>\n

traversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general<\/p>\n

question which was apt to particularise itself at such moments as<\/p>\n

these, when she released faculties that had been on the strain, stood<\/p>\n

over her, paused over her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of<\/p>\n

life? That was all–a simple question; one that tended to close in on<\/p>\n

one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great<\/p>\n

revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily<\/p>\n

miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark;<\/p>\n

here was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley<\/p>\n

and the breaking wave; Mrs. Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

saying, “Life stand still here”; Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment<\/p>\n

something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to<\/p>\n

make of the moment something permanent)–this was of the nature<\/p>\n

of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal<\/p>\n

passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves<\/p>\n

shaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

said. “Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!” she repeated. She owed it all to her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All was silence. Nobody seemed yet to be stirring in the house. She<\/p>\n

looked at it there sleeping in the early sunlight with its windows<\/p>\n

green and blue with the reflected leaves. The faint thought she was<\/p>\n

thinking of Mrs. Ramsay seemed in consonance with this quiet house; this<\/p>\n

smoke; this fine early morning air. Faint and unreal, it was amazingly<\/p>\n

pure and exciting. She hoped nobody would open the window or come out<\/p>\n

of the house, but that she might be left alone to go on thinking, to go<\/p>\n

on painting. She turned to her canvas. But impelled by some curiosity,<\/p>\n

driven by the discomfort of the sympathy which she held undischarged,<\/p>\n

she walked a pace or so to the end of the lawn to see whether, down<\/p>\n

there on the beach, she could see that little company setting sail.<\/p>\n

Down there among the little boats which floated, some with their sails<\/p>\n

furled, some slowly, for it was very calm moving away, there was one<\/p>\n

rather apart from the others. The sail was even now being hoisted.<\/p>\n

She decided that there in that very distant and entirely silent little<\/p>\n

boat Mr. Ramsay was sitting with Cam and James. Now they had got the<\/p>\n

sail up; now after a little flagging and silence, she watched the boat<\/p>\n

take its way with deliberation past the other boats out to sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sails flapped over their heads. The water chuckled and slapped the<\/p>\n

sides of the boat, which drowsed motionless in the sun. Now and then<\/p>\n

the sails rippled with a little breeze in them, but the ripple ran over<\/p>\n

them and ceased. The boat made no motion at all. Mr. Ramsay sat in the<\/p>\n

middle of the boat. He would be impatient in a moment, James thought,<\/p>\n

and Cam thought, looking at her father, who sat in the middle of the<\/p>\n

boat between them (James steered; Cam sat alone in the bow) with his<\/p>\n

legs tightly curled. He hated hanging about. Sure enough, after<\/p>\n

fidgeting a second or two, he said something sharp to Macalister’s boy,<\/p>\n

who got out his oars and began to row. But their father, they knew,<\/p>\n

would never be content until they were flying along. He would keep<\/p>\n

looking for a breeze, fidgeting, saying things under his breath, which<\/p>\n

Macalister and and Macalister’s boy would overhear, and they would both<\/p>\n

be made horribly uncomfortable. He had made them come. He had forced<\/p>\n

them to come. In their anger they hoped that the breeze would never<\/p>\n

rise, that he might be thwarted in every possible way, since he had<\/p>\n

forced them to come against their wills.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the way down to the beach they had lagged behind together, though<\/p>\n

he bade them “Walk up, walk up,” without speaking. Their heads were<\/p>\n

bent down, their heads were pressed down by some remorseless gale.<\/p>\n

Speak to him they could not. They must come; they must follow. They<\/p>\n

must walk behind him carrying brown paper parcels. But they vowed, in<\/p>\n

silence, as they walked, to stand by each other and carry out the great<\/p>\n

compact–to resist tyranny to the death. So there they would sit, one<\/p>\n

at one end of the boat, one at the other, in silence. They would say<\/p>\n

nothing, only look at him now and then where he sat with his legs<\/p>\n

twisted, frowning and fidgeting, and pishing and pshawing and muttering<\/p>\n

things to himself, and waiting impatiently for a breeze. And they<\/p>\n

hoped it would be calm. They hoped he would be thwarted. They hoped<\/p>\n

the whole expedition would fail, and they would have to put back, with<\/p>\n

their parcels, to the beach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But now, when Macalister’s boy had rowed a little way out, the sails<\/p>\n

slowly swung round, the boat quickened itself, flattened itself, and<\/p>\n

shot off. Instantly, as if some great strain had been relieved, Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay uncurled his legs, took out his tobacco pouch, handed it with a<\/p>\n

little grunt to Macalister, and felt, they knew, for all they suffered,<\/p>\n

perfectly content. Now they would sail on for hours like this, and Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay would ask old Macalister a question–about the great storm<\/p>\n

last winter probably–and old Macalister would answer it, and they<\/p>\n

would puff their pipes together, and Macalister would take a tarry rope<\/p>\n

in his fingers, tying or untying some knot, and the boy would fish, and<\/p>\n

never say a word to any one. James would be forced to keep his eye all<\/p>\n

the time on the sail. For if he forgot, then the sail puckered and<\/p>\n

shivered, and the boat slackened, and Mr. Ramsay would say sharply,<\/p>\n

“Look out! Look out!” and old Macalister would turn slowly on his<\/p>\n

seat. So they heard Mr. Ramsay asking some question about the great<\/p>\n

storm at Christmas. “She comes driving round the point,” old<\/p>\n

Macalister said, describing the great storm last Christmas, when ten<\/p>\n

ships had been driven into the bay for shelter, and he had seen “one<\/p>\n

there, one there, one there” (he pointed slowly round the bay. Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay followed him, turning his head). He had seen four men clinging<\/p>\n

to the mast. Then she was gone. “And at last we shoved her off,” he<\/p>\n

went on (but in their anger and their silence they only caught a word<\/p>\n

here and there, sitting at opposite ends of the boat, united by their<\/p>\n

compact to fight tyranny to the death). At last they had shoved<\/p>\n

her off, they had launched the lifeboat, and they had got her out<\/p>\n

past the point–Macalister told the story; and though they only<\/p>\n

caught a word here and there, they were conscious all the time of their<\/p>\n

father–how he leant forward, how he brought his voice into tune with<\/p>\n

Macalister’s voice; how, puffing at his pipe, and looking there and<\/p>\n

there where Macalister pointed, he relished the thought of the storm<\/p>\n

and the dark night and the fishermen striving there. He liked that men<\/p>\n

should labour and sweat on the windy beach at night; pitting muscle and<\/p>\n

brain against the waves and the wind; he liked men to work like that,<\/p>\n

and women to keep house, and sit beside sleeping children indoors,<\/p>\n

while men were drowned, out there in a storm. So James could tell, so<\/p>\n

Cam could tell (they looked at him, they looked at each other), from<\/p>\n

his toss and his vigilance and the ring in his voice, and the little<\/p>\n

tinge of Scottish accent which came into his voice, making him seem<\/p>\n

like a peasant himself, as he questioned Macalister about the eleven<\/p>\n

ships that had been driven into the bay in a storm. Three had sunk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He looked proudly where Macalister pointed; and Cam thought, feeling<\/p>\n

proud of him without knowing quite why, had he been there he would have<\/p>\n

launched the lifeboat, he would have reached the wreck, Cam thought.<\/p>\n

He was so brave, he was so adventurous, Cam thought. But she<\/p>\n

remembered. There was the compact; to resist tyranny to the death.<\/p>\n

Their grievance weighed them down. They had been forced; they had been<\/p>\n

bidden. He had borne them down once more with his gloom and his<\/p>\n

authority, making them do his bidding, on this fine morning, come,<\/p>\n

because he wished it, carrying these parcels, to the Lighthouse; take<\/p>\n

part in these rites he went through for his own pleasure in memory of<\/p>\n

dead people, which they hated, so that they lagged after him, all<\/p>\n

the pleasure of the day was spoilt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, the breeze was freshening. The boat was leaning, the water was<\/p>\n

sliced sharply and fell away in green cascades, in bubbles, in<\/p>\n

cataracts. Cam looked down into the foam, into the sea with all its<\/p>\n

treasure in it, and its speed hypnotised her, and the tie between her<\/p>\n

and James sagged a little. It slackened a little. She began to think,<\/p>\n

How fast it goes. Where are we going? and the movement hypnotised her,<\/p>\n

while James, with his eye fixed on the sail and on the horizon, steered<\/p>\n

grimly. But he began to think as he steered that he might escape; he<\/p>\n

might be quit of it all. They might land somewhere; and be free then.<\/p>\n

Both of them, looking at each other for a moment, had a sense of escape<\/p>\n

and exaltation, what with the speed and the change. But the breeze<\/p>\n

bred in Mr. Ramsay too the same excitement, and, as old Macalister<\/p>\n

turned to fling his line overboard, he cried out aloud,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We perished,” and then again, “each alone.”[145]<\/sup><\/a> And then with his usual<\/p>\n

spasm of repentance or shyness, pulled himself up, and waved his hand<\/p>\n

towards the shore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“See the little house,” he said pointing, wishing Cam to look. She<\/p>\n

raised herself reluctantly and looked. But which was it? She could no<\/p>\n

longer make out, there on the hillside, which was their house. All<\/p>\n

looked distant and peaceful and strange. The shore seemed refined, far<\/p>\n

away, unreal. Already the little distance they had sailed had put them<\/p>\n

far from it and given it the changed look, the composed look, of<\/p>\n

something receding in which one has no longer any part. Which was<\/p>\n

their house? She could not see it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But I beneath a rougher sea,”[146]<\/sup><\/a> Mr. Ramsay murmured. He had found the<\/p>\n

house and so seeing it, he had also seen himself there; he had seen<\/p>\n

himself walking on the terrace, alone. He was walking up and down<\/p>\n

between the urns; and he seemed to himself very old and bowed. Sitting<\/p>\n

in the boat, he bowed, he crouched himself, acting instantly his part–<\/p>\n

the part of a desolate man, widowed, bereft; and so called up before<\/p>\n

him in hosts people sympathising with him; staged for himself as he sat<\/p>\n

in the boat, a little drama; which required of him decrepitude and<\/p>\n

exhaustion and sorrow (he raised his hands and looked at the thinness<\/p>\n

of them, to confirm his dream) and then there was given him in<\/p>\n

abundance women’s sympathy, and he imagined how they would soothe him<\/p>\n

and sympathise with him, and so getting in his dream some reflection of<\/p>\n

the exquisite pleasure women’s sympathy was to him, he sighed and said<\/p>\n

gently and mournfully:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I beneath a rougher sea<\/p>\n

Was whelmed in deeper gulfs than he,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

so that the mournful words were heard quite clearly by them all. Cam<\/p>\n

half started on her seat. It shocked her–it outraged her. The<\/p>\n

movement roused her father; and he shuddered, and broke off,<\/p>\n

exclaiming: “Look! Look!” so urgently that James also turned his head<\/p>\n

to look over his shoulder at the island. They all looked. They looked<\/p>\n

at the island.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Cam could see nothing. She was thinking how all those paths and<\/p>\n

the lawn, thick and knotted with the lives they had lived there, were<\/p>\n

gone: were rubbed out; were past; were unreal, and now this was real;<\/p>\n

the boat and the sail with its patch; Macalister with his earrings; the<\/p>\n

noise of the waves–all this was real. Thinking this, she was<\/p>\n

murmuring to herself, “We perished, each alone,”[147]<\/sup><\/a> for her father’s words<\/p>\n

broke and broke again in her mind, when her father, seeing her gazing<\/p>\n

so vaguely, began to tease her. Didn’t she know the points of the<\/p>\n

compass? he asked. Didn’t she know the North from the South? Did she<\/p>\n

really think they lived right out there? And he pointed again, and<\/p>\n

showed her where their house was, there, by those trees. He wished she<\/p>\n

would try to be more accurate, he said: “Tell me–which is East, which<\/p>\n

is West?” he said, half laughing at her, half scolding her, for he<\/p>\n

could not understand the state of mind of any one, not absolutely<\/p>\n

imbecile, who did not know the points of the compass. Yet she did not<\/p>\n

know. And seeing her gazing, with her vague, now rather frightened,<\/p>\n

eyes fixed where no house was Mr. Ramsay forgot his dream; how he walked<\/p>\n

up and down between the urns on the terrace; how the arms were<\/p>\n

stretched out to him. He thought, women are always like that; the<\/p>\n

vagueness of their minds is hopeless; it was a thing he had never been<\/p>\n

able to understand; but so it was. It had been so with her–his wife.<\/p>\n

They could not keep anything clearly fixed in their minds. But he had<\/p>\n

been wrong to be angry with her; moreover, did he not rather like this<\/p>\n

vagueness in women? It was part of their extraordinary charm. I will<\/p>\n

make her smile at me, he thought. She looks frightened. She was so<\/p>\n

silent. He clutched his fingers, and determined that his voice and his<\/p>\n

face and all the quick expressive gestures which had been at his<\/p>\n

command making people pity him and praise him all these years should<\/p>\n

subdue themselves. He would make her smile at him. He would find some<\/p>\n

simple easy thing to say to her. But what? For, wrapped up in his<\/p>\n

work as he was, he forgot the sort of thing one said. There was a<\/p>\n

puppy. They had a puppy. Who was looking after the puppy today? he<\/p>\n

asked. Yes, thought James pitilessly, seeing his sister’s head against<\/p>\n

the sail, now she will give way. I shall be left to fight the tyrant<\/p>\n

alone. The compact would be left to him to carry out. Cam would never<\/p>\n

resist tyranny to the death, he thought grimly, watching her face, sad,<\/p>\n

sulky, yielding. And as sometimes happens when a cloud falls on a<\/p>\n

green hillside and gravity descends and there among all the surrounding<\/p>\n

hills is gloom and sorrow, and it seems as if the hills themselves<\/p>\n

must ponder the fate of the clouded, the darkened, either in pity,<\/p>\n

or maliciously rejoicing in her dismay: so Cam now felt herself<\/p>\n

overcast, as she sat there among calm, resolute people and wondered<\/p>\n

how to answer her father about the puppy; how to resist his<\/p>\n

entreaty–forgive me, care for me; while James the lawgiver, with the<\/p>\n

tablets of eternal wisdom laid open on his knee (his hand on the tiller<\/p>\n

had become symbolical to her), said, Resist him. Fight him. He said<\/p>\n

so rightly; justly. For they must fight tyranny to the death, she<\/p>\n

thought. Of all human qualities she reverenced justice most. Her<\/p>\n

brother was most god-like, her father most suppliant. And to which did<\/p>\n

she yield, she thought, sitting between them, gazing at the shore whose<\/p>\n

points were all unknown to her, and thinking how the lawn and the<\/p>\n

terrace and the house were smoothed away now and peace dwelt there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Jasper,” she said sullenly. He’d look after the puppy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And what was she going to call him? her father persisted. He had had<\/p>\n

a dog when he was a little boy, called Frisk. She’ll give way, James<\/p>\n

thought, as he watched a look come upon her face, a look he remembered.<\/p>\n

They look down he thought, at their knitting or something. Then<\/p>\n

suddenly they look up. There was a flash of blue, he remembered, and<\/p>\n

then somebody sitting with him laughed, surrendered, and he was very<\/p>\n

angry. It must have been his mother, he thought, sitting on a low<\/p>\n

chair, with his father standing over her. He began to search among the<\/p>\n

infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon<\/p>\n

leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents,<\/p>\n

sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms<\/p>\n

tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea, how a man had marched up and<\/p>\n

down and stopped dead, upright, over them. Meanwhile, he noticed, Cam<\/p>\n

dabbled her fingers in the water, and stared at the shore and said<\/p>\n

nothing. No, she won’t give way, he thought; she’s different, he<\/p>\n

thought. Well, if Cam would not answer him, he would not bother her Mr.<\/p>\n

Ramsay decided, feeling in his pocket for a book. But she would answer<\/p>\n

him; she wished, passionately, to move some obstacle that lay upon her<\/p>\n

tongue and to say, Oh, yes, Frisk. I’ll call him Frisk. She wanted<\/p>\n

even to say, Was that the dog that found its way over the moor alone?<\/p>\n

But try as she might, she could think of nothing to say like that,<\/p>\n

fierce and loyal to the compact, yet passing on to her father,<\/p>\n

unsuspected by James, a private token of the love she felt for him.<\/p>\n

For she thought, dabbling her hand (and now Macalister’s boy had caught<\/p>\n

a mackerel, and it lay kicking on the floor, with blood on its gills)<\/p>\n

for she thought, looking at James who kept his eyes dispassionately on<\/p>\n

the sail, or glanced now and then for a second at the horizon, you’re<\/p>\n

not exposed to it, to this pressure and division of feeling, this<\/p>\n

extraordinary temptation. Her father was feeling in his pockets; in<\/p>\n

another second, he would have found his book. For no one attracted her<\/p>\n

more; his hands were beautiful, and his feet, and his voice, and his<\/p>\n

words, and his haste, and his temper, and his oddity, and his passion,<\/p>\n

and his saying straight out before every one, we perish, each alone,<\/p>\n

and his remoteness. (He had opened his book.) But what remained<\/p>\n

intolerable, she thought, sitting upright, and watching Macalister’s<\/p>\n

boy tug the hook out of the gills of another fish, was that crass<\/p>\n

blindness and tyranny of his which had poisoned her childhood and<\/p>\n

raised bitter storms, so that even now she woke in the night trembling<\/p>\n

with rage and remembered some command of his; some insolence: “Do<\/p>\n

this,” “Do that,” his dominance: his “Submit to me.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So she said nothing, but looked doggedly and sadly at the shore,<\/p>\n

wrapped in its mantle of peace; as if the people there had fallen<\/p>\n

asleep, she thought; were free like smoke, were free to come and go<\/p>\n

like ghosts. They have no suffering there, she thought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, that is their boat, Lily Briscoe decided, standing on the edge of<\/p>\n

the lawn. It was the boat with greyish-brown sails, which she saw now<\/p>\n

flatten itself upon the water and shoot off across the bay. There he<\/p>\n

sits, she thought, and the children are quite silent still. And she<\/p>\n

could not reach him either. The sympathy she had not given him weighed<\/p>\n

her down. It made it difficult for her to paint.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had always found him difficult. She never had been able to praise<\/p>\n

him to his face, she remembered. And that reduced their relationship to<\/p>\n

something neutral, without that element of sex in it which made his<\/p>\n

manner to Minta so gallant, almost gay. He would pick a flower for<\/p>\n

her, lend her his books. But could he believe that Minta read them?<\/p>\n

She dragged them about the garden, sticking in leaves to mark the<\/p>\n

place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“D’you remember, Mr. Carmichael?” she was inclined to ask, looking at<\/p>\n

the old man. But he had pulled his hat half over his forehead; he was<\/p>\n

asleep, or he was dreaming, or he was lying there catching words, she<\/p>\n

supposed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“D’you remember?” she felt inclined to ask him as she passed him,<\/p>\n

thinking again of Mrs. Ramsay on the beach; the cask bobbing up and<\/p>\n

down; and the pages flying. Why, after all these years had that<\/p>\n

survived, ringed round, lit up, visible to the last detail, with all<\/p>\n

before it blank and all after it blank, for miles and miles?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Is it a boat? Is it a cork?” she would say, Lily repeated, turning<\/p>\n

back, reluctantly again, to her canvas. Heaven be praised for it, the<\/p>\n

problem of space remained, she thought, taking up her brush again. It<\/p>\n

glared at her. The whole mass of the picture was poised upon that<\/p>\n

weight. Beautiful and bright it should be on the surface, feathery and<\/p>\n

evanescent, one colour melting into another like the colours on a<\/p>\n

butterfly’s wing; but beneath the fabric must be clamped together with<\/p>\n

bolts of iron. It was to be a thing you could ruffle with your breath;<\/p>\n

and a thing you could not dislodge with a team of horses.[148]<\/sup><\/a> And she began<\/p>\n

to lay on a red, a grey, and she began to model her way into the hollow<\/p>\n

there. At the same time, she seemed to be sitting beside Mrs. Ramsay on<\/p>\n

the beach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Is it a boat? Is it a cask?” Mrs. Ramsay said. And she began hunting<\/p>\n

round for her spectacles. And she sat, having found them, silent,<\/p>\n

looking out to sea. And Lily, painting steadily, felt as if a door had<\/p>\n

opened, and one went in and stood gazing silently about in a high<\/p>\n

cathedral-like place, very dark, very solemn. Shouts came from a world<\/p>\n

far away. Steamers vanished in stalks of smoke on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Charles threw stones and sent them skipping.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay sat silent. She was glad, Lily thought, to rest in silence,<\/p>\n

uncommunicative; to rest in the extreme obscurity of human<\/p>\n

relationships. Who knows what we are, what we feel? Who knows even at<\/p>\n

the moment of intimacy, This is knowledge? Aren’t things spoilt then,<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay may have asked (it seemed to have happened so often, this<\/p>\n

silence by her side) by saying them? Aren’t we more expressive thus?<\/p>\n

The moment at least seemed extraordinarily fertile. She rammed a<\/p>\n

little hole in the sand and covered it up, by way of burying in it the<\/p>\n

perfection of the moment. It was like a drop of silver in which one<\/p>\n

dipped and illumined the darkness of the past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lily stepped back to get her canvas–so–into perspective. It was an<\/p>\n

odd road to be walking, this of painting. Out and out one went,<\/p>\n

further, until at last one seemed to be on a narrow plank, perfectly<\/p>\n

alone, over the sea. And as she dipped into the blue paint, she<\/p>\n

dipped too into the past there. Now Mrs. Ramsay got up, she<\/p>\n

remembered. It was time to go back to the house–time for<\/p>\n

luncheon. And they all walked up from the beach together, she walking<\/p>\n

behind with William Bankes, and there was Minta in front of them with a<\/p>\n

hole in her stocking. How that little round hole of pink heel seemed<\/p>\n

to flaunt itself before them! How William Bankes deplored it, without,<\/p>\n

so far as she could remember, saying anything about it! It meant to<\/p>\n

him the annihilation of womanhood, and dirt and disorder, and servants<\/p>\n

leaving and beds not made at mid-day–all the things he most abhorred.<\/p>\n

He had a way of shuddering and spreading his fingers out as if to cover<\/p>\n

an unsightly object which he did now–holding his hand in front of<\/p>\n

him. And Minta walked on ahead, and presumably Paul met her and she<\/p>\n

went off with Paul in the garden.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Rayleys, thought Lily Briscoe, squeezing her tube of green paint.<\/p>\n

She collected her impressions of the Rayleys. Their lives appeared to<\/p>\n

her in a series of scenes; one, on the staircase at dawn. Paul had<\/p>\n

come in and gone to bed early; Minta was late. There was Minta,<\/p>\n

wreathed, tinted, garish on the stairs about three o’clock in the<\/p>\n

morning. Paul came out in his pyjamas carrying a poker in case of<\/p>\n

burglars. Minta was eating a sandwich, standing half-way up by a<\/p>\n

window, in the cadaverous early morning light, and the carpet had a<\/p>\n

hole in it. But what did they say? Lily asked herself, as if by<\/p>\n

looking she could hear them. Minta went on eating her sandwich,<\/p>\n

annoyingly, while he spoke something violent, abusing her, in a mutter<\/p>\n

so as not to wake the children, the two little boys. He was withered,<\/p>\n

drawn; she flamboyant, careless. For things had worked loose after the<\/p>\n

first year or so; the marriage had turned out rather badly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And this, Lily thought, taking the green paint on her brush, this<\/p>\n

making up scenes about them, is what we call “knowing” people,<\/p>\n

“thinking” of them, “being fond” of them! Not a word of it was true;<\/p>\n

she had made it up; but it was what she knew them by all the same. She<\/p>\n

went on tunnelling her way into her picture, into the past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another time, Paul said he “played chess in coffee-houses.” She had<\/p>\n

built up a whole structure of imagination on that saying too. She<\/p>\n

remembered how, as he said it, she thought how he rang up the servant,<\/p>\n

and she said, “Mrs. Rayley’s out, sir,” and he decided that he would not<\/p>\n

come home either. She saw him sitting in the corner of some lugubrious<\/p>\n

place where the smoke attached itself to the red plush seats, and the<\/p>\n

waitresses got to know you, and he played chess with a little man who<\/p>\n

was in the tea trade and lived at Surbiton,[149]<\/sup><\/a> but that was all Paul knew<\/p>\n

about him. And then Minta was out when he came home and then there was<\/p>\n

that scene on the stairs, when he got the poker in case of burglars (no<\/p>\n

doubt to frighten her too) and spoke so bitterly, saying she had ruined<\/p>\n

his life. At any rate when she went down to see them at a cottage near<\/p>\n

Rickmansworth,[150]<\/sup><\/a> things were horribly strained. Paul took her down the<\/p>\n

garden to look at the Belgian hares which he bred, and Minta followed<\/p>\n

them, singing, and put her bare arm on his shoulder, lest he should<\/p>\n

tell her anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Minta was bored by hares, Lily thought. But Minta never gave herself<\/p>\n

away. She never said things like that about playing chess in coffee-<\/p>\n

houses. She was far too conscious, far too wary. But to go on with<\/p>\n

their story–they had got through the dangerous stage by now. She had<\/p>\n

been staying with them last summer some time and the car broke down and<\/p>\n

Minta had to hand him his tools. He sat on the road mending the car,<\/p>\n

and it was the way she gave him the tools–business-like,<\/p>\n

straightforward, friendly–that proved it was all right now. They were<\/p>\n

“in love” no longer; no, he had taken up with another woman, a serious<\/p>\n

woman, with her hair in a plait and a case in her hand (Minta had<\/p>\n

described her gratefully, almost admiringly), who went to meetings and<\/p>\n

shared Paul’s views (they had got more and more pronounced) about the<\/p>\n

taxation of land values and a capital levy. Far from breaking up the<\/p>\n

marriage, that alliance had righted it. They were excellent friends,<\/p>\n

obviously, as he sat on the road and she handed him his tools.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So that was the story of the Rayleys, Lily thought. She imagined<\/p>\n

herself telling it to Mrs. Ramsay, who would be full of curiosity to<\/p>\n

know what had become of the Rayleys. She would feel a little<\/p>\n

triumphant, telling Mrs. Ramsay that the marriage had not been a<\/p>\n

success.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the dead, thought Lily, encountering some obstacle in her design<\/p>\n

which made her pause and ponder, stepping back a foot or so, oh, the<\/p>\n

dead! she murmured, one pitied them, one brushed them aside, one had<\/p>\n

even a little contempt for them. They are at our mercy. Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

has faded and gone, she thought. We can over-ride her wishes, improve<\/p>\n

away her limited, old-fashioned ideas. She recedes further and further<\/p>\n

from us. Mockingly she seemed to see her there at the end of the<\/p>\n

corridor of years saying, of all incongruous things, “Marry, marry!”<\/p>\n

(sitting very upright early in the morning with the birds beginning to<\/p>\n

cheep in the garden outside). And one would have to say to her, It has<\/p>\n

all gone against your wishes. They’re happy like that; I’m happy like<\/p>\n

this. Life has changed completely. At that all her being, even her<\/p>\n

beauty, became for a moment, dusty and out of date. For a moment Lily,<\/p>\n

standing there, with the sun hot on her back, summing up the Rayleys,<\/p>\n

triumphed over Mrs. Ramsay, who would never know how Paul went to<\/p>\n

coffee-houses and had a mistress; how he sat on the ground and Minta<\/p>\n

handed him his tools; how she stood here painting, had never married,<\/p>\n

not even William Bankes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay had planned it. Perhaps, had she lived, she would have<\/p>\n

compelled it. Already that summer he was “the kindest of men.” He was<\/p>\n

“the first scientist of his age, my husband says.” He was also “poor<\/p>\n

William–it makes me so unhappy, when I go to see him, to find nothing<\/p>\n

nice in his house–no one to arrange the flowers.” So they were sent<\/p>\n

for walks together, and she was told, with that faint touch of irony<\/p>\n

that made Mrs. Ramsay slip through one’s fingers, that she had a<\/p>\n

scientific mind; she liked flowers; she was so exact. What was this<\/p>\n

mania of hers for marriage? Lily wondered, stepping to and fro from<\/p>\n

her easel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Suddenly, as suddenly as a star slides in the sky, a reddish light<\/p>\n

seemed to burn in her mind, covering Paul Rayley, issuing from him. It<\/p>\n

rose like a fire sent up in token of some celebration by savages on a<\/p>\n

distant beach. She heard the roar and the crackle. The whole sea for<\/p>\n

miles round ran red and gold. Some winey smell mixed with it and<\/p>\n

intoxicated her, for she felt again her own headlong desire to throw<\/p>\n

herself off the cliff and be drowned looking for a pearl brooch on a<\/p>\n

beach. And the roar and the crackle repelled her with fear and<\/p>\n

disgust, as if while she saw its splendour and power she saw too how it<\/p>\n

fed on the treasure of the house, greedily, disgustingly, and she<\/p>\n

loathed it. But for a sight, for a glory it surpassed everything in<\/p>\n

her experience, and burnt year after year like a signal fire on a<\/p>\n

desert island at the edge of the sea, and one had only to say “in love”<\/p>\n

and instantly, as happened now, up rose Paul’s fire again. And it sank<\/p>\n

and she said to herself, laughing, “The Rayleys”; how Paul went to<\/p>\n

coffee-houses and played chess.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had only escaped by the skin of her teeth though, she thought. She<\/p>\n

had been looking at the table-cloth, and it had flashed upon her that<\/p>\n

she would move the tree to the middle, and need never marry anybody,<\/p>\n

and she had felt an enormous exultation. She had felt, now she could<\/p>\n

stand up to Mrs. Ramsay–a tribute to the astonishing power that Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay had over one. Do this, she said, and one did it. Even her<\/p>\n

shadow at the window with James was full of authority. She remembered<\/p>\n

how William Bankes had been shocked by her neglect of the significance<\/p>\n

of mother and son. Did she not admire their beauty? he said. But<\/p>\n

William, she remembered, had listened to her with his wise child’s eyes<\/p>\n

when she explained how it was not irreverence: how a light there needed<\/p>\n

a shadow there and so on. She did not intend to disparage a subject<\/p>\n

which, they agreed, Raphael[151]<\/sup><\/a> had treated divinely. She was not cynical.<\/p>\n

Quite the contrary. Thanks to his scientific mind he understood–a<\/p>\n

proof of disinterested intelligence which had pleased her and comforted<\/p>\n

her enormously. One could talk of painting then seriously to a man.<\/p>\n

Indeed, his friendship had been one of the pleasures of her life. She<\/p>\n

loved William Bankes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They went to Hampton Court[152]<\/sup><\/a> and he always left her, like the perfect<\/p>\n

gentleman he was, plenty of time to wash her hands,[153]<\/sup><\/a> while he strolled<\/p>\n

by the river. That was typical of their relationship. Many things were<\/p>\n

left unsaid. Then they strolled through the courtyards, and admired,<\/p>\n

summer after summer, the proportions and the flowers, and he would tell<\/p>\n

her things, about perspective, about architecture, as they walked, and<\/p>\n

he would stop to look at a tree, or the view over the lake, and admire<\/p>\n

a child–(it was his great grief–he had no daughter) in the vague aloof<\/p>\n

way that was natural to a man who spent spent so much time in<\/p>\n

laboratories that the world when he came out seemed to dazzle him,<\/p>\n

so that he walked slowly, lifted his hand to screen his eyes and<\/p>\n

paused, with his head thrown back, merely to breathe the air. Then<\/p>\n

he would tell her how his housekeeper was on her holiday; he must<\/p>\n

buy a new carpet for the staircase. Perhaps she would go with him to<\/p>\n

buy a new carpet for the staircase. And once something led him to talk<\/p>\n

about the Ramsays and he had said how when he first saw her she had<\/p>\n

been wearing a grey hat; she was not more than nineteen or twenty. She<\/p>\n

was astonishingly beautiful. There he stood looking down the avenue at<\/p>\n

Hampton Court as if he could see her there among the fountains.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She looked now at the drawing-room step. She saw, through William’s<\/p>\n

eyes, the shape of a woman, peaceful and silent, with downcast eyes.<\/p>\n

She sat musing, pondering (she was in grey that day, Lily thought).<\/p>\n

Her eyes were bent. She would never lift them. Yes, thought Lily,<\/p>\n

looking intently, I must have seen her look like that, but not in grey;<\/p>\n

nor so still, nor so young, nor so peaceful. The figure came readily<\/p>\n

enough. She was astonishingly beautiful, as William said. But beauty<\/p>\n

was not everything. Beauty had this penalty–it came too readily, came<\/p>\n

too completely. It stilled life–froze it. One forgot the little<\/p>\n

agitations; the flush, the pallor, some queer distortion, some light or<\/p>\n

shadow, which made the face unrecognisable for a moment and yet added a<\/p>\n

quality one saw for ever after. It was simpler to smooth that all out<\/p>\n

under the cover of beauty. But what was the look she had, Lily<\/p>\n

wondered, when she clapped her deer-stalker’s hat on her head, or ran<\/p>\n

across the grass, or scolded Kennedy, the gardener? Who could tell<\/p>\n

her? Who could help her?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Against her will she had come to the surface, and found herself half<\/p>\n

out of the picture, looking, little dazedly, as if at unreal things, at<\/p>\n

Mr. Carmichael. He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his<\/p>\n

paunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged<\/p>\n

with existence. His book had fallen on to the grass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She wanted to go straight up to him and say, “Mr. Carmichael!” Then he<\/p>\n

would look up benevolently as always, from his smoky vague green eyes.<\/p>\n

But one only woke people if one knew what one wanted to say to them.<\/p>\n

And she wanted to say not one thing, but everything. Little words that<\/p>\n

broke up the thought and dismembered it said nothing. “About life,<\/p>\n

about death; about Mrs. Ramsay”–no, she thought, one could say<\/p>\n

nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark.<\/p>\n

Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then<\/p>\n

one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like<\/p>\n

most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the<\/p>\n

eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express<\/p>\n

in words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there?<\/p>\n

(She was looking at the drawing-room steps; they looked extraordinarily<\/p>\n

empty.) It was one’s body feeling, not one’s mind. The physical<\/p>\n

sensations that went with the bare look of the steps had become<\/p>\n

suddenly extremely unpleasant. To want and not to have, sent all up<\/p>\n

her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not<\/p>\n

to have–to want and want–how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again<\/p>\n

and again! Oh, Mrs. Ramsay! she called out silently, to that essence<\/p>\n

which sat by the boat, that abstract one made of her, that woman in<\/p>\n

grey, as if to abuse her for having gone, and then having gone, come<\/p>\n

back again. It had seemed so safe, thinking of her. Ghost, air,<\/p>\n

nothingness, a thing you could play with easily and safely at any time<\/p>\n

of day or night, she had been that, and then suddenly she put her hand<\/p>\n

out and wrung the heart thus. Suddenly, the empty drawing-room steps,<\/p>\n

the frill of the chair inside, the puppy tumbling on the terrace, the<\/p>\n

whole wave and whisper of the garden became like curves and arabesques<\/p>\n

flourishing round a centre of complete emptiness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What does it mean? How do you explain it all?” she wanted to say,<\/p>\n

turning to Mr. Carmichael again. For the whole world seemed to have<\/p>\n

dissolved in this early morning hour into a pool of thought, a deep<\/p>\n

basin of reality, and one could almost fancy that had Mr. Carmichael<\/p>\n

spoken, for instance, a little tear would have rent the surface pool.<\/p>\n

And then? Something would emerge. A hand would be shoved up, a blade<\/p>\n

would be flashed. It was nonsense of course.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A curious notion came to her that he did after all hear the things she<\/p>\n

could not say. He was an inscrutable old man, with the yellow stain on<\/p>\n

his beard, and his poetry, and his puzzles, sailing serenely through a<\/p>\n

world which satisfied all his wants, so that she thought he had only to<\/p>\n

put down his hand where he lay on the lawn to fish up anything he<\/p>\n

wanted. She looked at her picture. That would have been his answer,<\/p>\n

presumably–how “you” and “I” and “she” pass and vanish; nothing stays;<\/p>\n

all changes; but not words, not paint. Yet it would be hung in the<\/p>\n

attics, she thought; it would be rolled up and flung under a sofa; yet<\/p>\n

even so, even of a picture like that, it was true. One might say, even<\/p>\n

of this scrawl, not of that actual picture, perhaps, but of what it<\/p>\n

attempted, that it “remained for ever,” she was going to say, or, for<\/p>\n

the words spoken sounded even to herself, too boastful, to hint,<\/p>\n

wordlessly; when, looking at the picture, she was surprised to find<\/p>\n

that she could not see it. Her eyes were full of a hot liquid (she did<\/p>\n

not think of tears at first) which, without disturbing the firmness of<\/p>\n

her lips, made the air thick, rolled down her cheeks. She had perfect<\/p>\n

control of herself–Oh, yes!–in every other way. Was she crying then<\/p>\n

for Mrs. Ramsay, without being aware of any unhappiness? She addressed<\/p>\n

old Mr. Carmichael again. What was it then? What did it mean? Could<\/p>\n

things thrust their hands up and grip one; could the blade cut; the<\/p>\n

fist grasp? Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of<\/p>\n

the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from<\/p>\n

the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly<\/p>\n

people, that this was life?–startling, unexpected, unknown? For one<\/p>\n

moment she felt that if they both got up, here, now on the lawn, and<\/p>\n

demanded an explanation, why was it so short, why was it so<\/p>\n

inexplicable, said it with violence, as two fully equipped human beings<\/p>\n

from whom nothing should be hid might speak, then, beauty would roll<\/p>\n

itself up; the space would fill; those empty flourishes would form into<\/p>\n

shape; if they shouted loud enough Mrs. Ramsay would return. “Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay!” she said aloud, “Mrs. Ramsay!” The tears ran down her face.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Macalister’s boy took one of the fish and cut a square out of its side<\/p>\n

to bait his hook with. The mutilated body (it was alive still) was<\/p>\n

thrown back into the sea.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mrs. Ramsay!” Lily cried, “Mrs. Ramsay!” But nothing happened. The pain<\/p>\n

increased. That anguish could reduce one to such a pitch of<\/p>\n

imbecility, she thought! Anyhow the old man had not heard her. He<\/p>\n

remained benignant, calm–if one chose to think it, sublime. Heaven be<\/p>\n

praised, no one had heard her cry that ignominious cry, stop pain,<\/p>\n

stop! She had not obviously taken leave of her senses. No one had<\/p>\n

seen her step off her strip of board into the waters of annihilation.<\/p>\n

She remained a skimpy old maid, holding a paint-brush.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And now slowly the pain of the want, and the bitter anger (to be called<\/p>\n

back, just as she thought she would never feel sorrow for Mrs. Ramsay<\/p>\n

again. Had she missed her among the coffee cups at breakfast? not in<\/p>\n

the least) lessened; and of their anguish left, as antidote, a relief<\/p>\n

that was balm in itself, and also, but more mysteriously, a sense of<\/p>\n

some one there, of Mrs. Ramsay, relieved for a moment of the weight that<\/p>\n

the world had put on her, staying lightly by her side and then (for<\/p>\n

this was Mrs. Ramsay in all her beauty) raising to her forehead a wreath<\/p>\n

of white flowers with which she went. Lily squeezed her tubes again.<\/p>\n

She attacked that problem of the hedge. It was strange how clearly she<\/p>\n

saw her, stepping with her usual quickness across fields among whose<\/p>\n

folds, purplish and soft, among whose flowers, hyacinth or lilies, she<\/p>\n

vanished. It was some trick of the painter’s eye. For days after she<\/p>\n

had heard of her death she had seen her thus, putting her wreath to her<\/p>\n

forehead and going unquestioningly with her companion, a shade across<\/p>\n

the fields. The sight, the phrase, had its power to console. Wherever<\/p>\n

she happened to be, painting, here, in the country or in London, the<\/p>\n

vision would come to her, and her eyes, half closing, sought something<\/p>\n

to base her vision on. She looked down the railway carriage, the<\/p>\n

omnibus; took a line from shoulder or cheek; looked at the windows<\/p>\n

opposite; at Piccadilly, lamp-strung in the evening. All had been part<\/p>\n

of the fields of death. But always something–it might be a face, a<\/p>\n

voice, a paper boy crying Standard, News<\/i>[154]<\/sup><\/a><\/i>–thrust through, snubbed her,<\/p>\n

waked her, required and got in the end an effort of attention, so that<\/p>\n

the vision must be perpetually remade. Now again, moved as she was by<\/p>\n

some instinctive need of distance and blue, she looked at the bay<\/p>\n

beneath her, making hillocks of the blue bars of the waves, and<\/p>\n

stony fields of the purpler spaces, again she was roused as usual by<\/p>\n

something incongruous. There was a brown spot in the middle of the<\/p>\n

bay. It was a boat. Yes, she realised that after a second. But whose<\/p>\n

boat? Mr. Ramsay’s boat, she replied. Mr. Ramsay; the man who had<\/p>\n

marched past her, with his hand raised, aloof, at the head of a<\/p>\n

procession, in his beautiful boots, asking her for sympathy, which<\/p>\n

she had refused. The boat was now half way across the bay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that<\/p>\n

the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up<\/p>\n

in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea. A steamer far<\/p>\n

out at sea had drawn in the air a great scroll of smoke which stayed<\/p>\n

there curving and circling decoratively, as if the air were a fine<\/p>\n

gauze which held things and kept them softly in its mesh, only gently<\/p>\n

swaying them this way and that. And as happens sometimes when the<\/p>\n

weather is very fine, the cliffs looked as if they were conscious of<\/p>\n

the ships, and the ships looked as if they were conscious of the<\/p>\n

cliffs, as if they signalled to each other some message of their own.<\/p>\n

For sometimes quite close to the shore, the Lighthouse looked this<\/p>\n

morning in the haze an enormous distance away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Where are they now?” Lily thought, looking out to sea. Where was he,<\/p>\n

that very old man who had gone past her silently, holding a brown paper<\/p>\n

parcel under his arm? The boat was in the middle of the bay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They don’t feel a thing there, Cam thought, looking at the shore,<\/p>\n

which, rising and falling, became steadily more distant and more<\/p>\n

peaceful. Her hand cut a trail in the sea, as her mind made the green<\/p>\n

swirls and streaks into patterns and, numbed and shrouded, wandered in<\/p>\n

imagination in that underworld of waters where the pearls stuck in<\/p>\n

clusters to white sprays, where in the green light a change came over<\/p>\n

one’s entire mind and one’s body shone half transparent enveloped in a<\/p>\n

green cloak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then the eddy slackened round her hand. The rush of the water ceased;<\/p>\n

the world became full of little creaking and squeaking sounds. One<\/p>\n

heard the waves breaking and flapping against the side of the boat as<\/p>\n

if they were anchored in harbour. Everything became very close to one.<\/p>\n

For the sail, upon which James had his eyes fixed until it had become<\/p>\n

to him like a person whom he knew, sagged entirely; there they came to<\/p>\n

a stop, flapping about waiting for a breeze, in the hot sun, miles from<\/p>\n

shore, miles from the Lighthouse. Everything in the whole world seemed<\/p>\n

to stand still. The Lighthouse became immovable, and the line of the<\/p>\n

distant shore became fixed. The sun grew hotter and everybody seemed<\/p>\n

to come very close together and to feel each other’s presence, which<\/p>\n

they had almost forgotten. Macalister’s fishing line went plumb down<\/p>\n

into the sea. But Mr. Ramsay went on reading with his legs curled under<\/p>\n

him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was reading a little shiny book with covers mottled like a plover’s<\/p>\n

egg. Now and again, as they hung about in that horrid calm, he turned<\/p>\n

a page. And James felt that each page was turned with a peculiar<\/p>\n

gesture aimed at him; now assertively, now commandingly; now with the<\/p>\n

intention of making people pity him; and all the time, as his father<\/p>\n

read and turned one after another of those little pages, James kept<\/p>\n

dreading the moment when he would look up and speak sharply to him<\/p>\n

about something or other. Why were they lagging about here? he would<\/p>\n

demand, or something quite unreasonable like that. And if he does,<\/p>\n

James thought, then I shall take a knife and strike him to the heart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He had always kept this old symbol of taking a knife and striking<\/p>\n

his father to the heart. Only now, as he grew older, and sat<\/p>\n

staring at his father in an impotent rage, it was not him, that old<\/p>\n

man reading, whom he wanted to kill, but it was the thing that<\/p>\n

descended on him–without his knowing it perhaps: that fierce sudden<\/p>\n

black-winged harpy, with its talons and its beak all cold and hard,<\/p>\n

that struck and struck at you (he could feel the beak on his bare legs,<\/p>\n

where it had struck when he was a child) and then made off, and there<\/p>\n

he was again, an old man, very sad, reading his book. That he would<\/p>\n

kill, that he would strike to the heart. Whatever he did–(and he<\/p>\n

might do anything, he felt, looking at the Lighthouse and the distant<\/p>\n

shore) whether he was in a business, in a bank, a barrister, a man at<\/p>\n

the head of some enterprise, that he would fight, that he would track<\/p>\n

down and stamp out–tyranny, despotism, he called it–making people<\/p>\n

do what they did not want to do, cutting off their right to speak. How<\/p>\n

could any of them say, But I won’t, when he said, Come to the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse. Do this. Fetch me that. The black wings spread, and the<\/p>\n

hard beak tore. And then next moment, there he sat reading his book;<\/p>\n

and he might look up–one never knew–quite reasonably. He might talk<\/p>\n

to the Macalisters. He might be pressing a sovereign into some frozen<\/p>\n

old woman’s hand in the street, James thought, and he might be shouting<\/p>\n

out at some fisherman’s sports; he might be waving his arms in the air<\/p>\n

with excitement. Or he might sit at the head of the table dead silent<\/p>\n

from one end of dinner to the other. Yes, thought James, while the<\/p>\n

boat slapped and dawdled there in the hot sun; there was a waste of<\/p>\n

snow and rock very lonely and austere; and there he had come to feel,<\/p>\n

quite often lately, when his father said something or did something<\/p>\n

which surprised the others, there were two pairs of footprints only;<\/p>\n

his own and his father’s. They alone knew each other. What then was<\/p>\n

this terror, this hatred?[155]<\/sup><\/a> Turning back among the many leaves<\/p>\n

which the past had folded in him, peering into the heart of that<\/p>\n

forest where light and shade so chequer each other that all shape<\/p>\n

is distorted, and one blunders, now with the sun in one’s eyes,<\/p>\n

now with a dark shadow, he sought an image to cool and detach and round<\/p>\n

off his feeling in a concrete shape. Suppose then that as a child<\/p>\n

sitting helpless in a perambulator, or on some one’s knee, he had seen<\/p>\n

a waggon crush ignorantly and innocently, some one’s foot? Suppose he<\/p>\n

had seen the foot first, in the grass, smooth, and whole; then the<\/p>\n

wheel; and the same foot, purple, crushed. But the wheel was innocent.<\/p>\n

So now, when his father came striding down the passage knocking them up<\/p>\n

early in the morning to go to the Lighthouse down it came over his<\/p>\n

foot, over Cam’s foot, over anybody’s foot. One sat and watched it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But whose foot was he thinking of, and in what garden did all this<\/p>\n

happen? For one had settings for these scenes; trees that grew there;<\/p>\n

flowers; a certain light; a few figures. Everything tended to set<\/p>\n

itself in a garden where there was none of this gloom. None of this<\/p>\n

throwing of hands about; people spoke in an ordinary tone of voice.<\/p>\n

They went in and out all day long. There was an old woman gossiping in<\/p>\n

the kitchen; and the blinds were sucked in and out by the breeze; all<\/p>\n

was blowing, all was growing; and over all those plates and bowls and<\/p>\n

tall brandishing red and yellow flowers a very thin yellow veil would<\/p>\n

be drawn, like a vine leaf, at night. Things became stiller and darker<\/p>\n

at night. But the leaf-like veil was so fine, that lights lifted it,<\/p>\n

voices crinkled it; he could see through it a figure stooping, hear,<\/p>\n

coming close, going away, some dress rustling, some chain tinkling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was in this world that the wheel went over the person’s foot.<\/p>\n

Something, he remembered, stayed flourished up in the air, something<\/p>\n

arid and sharp descended even there, like a blade, a scimitar, smiting<\/p>\n

through the leaves and flowers even of that happy world and making it<\/p>\n

shrivel and fall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It will rain,” he remembered his father saying. “You won’t be able to<\/p>\n

go to the Lighthouse.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow<\/p>\n

eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks;<\/p>\n

the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with<\/p>\n

black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing<\/p>\n

spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one<\/p>\n

thing. The other Lighthouse was true too. It was sometimes hardly to<\/p>\n

be seen across the bay. In the evening one looked up and saw the eye<\/p>\n

opening and shutting and the light seemed to reach them in that airy<\/p>\n

sunny garden where they sat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But he pulled himself up. Whenever he said “they” or “a person,” and<\/p>\n

then began hearing the rustle of some one coming, the tinkle of some<\/p>\n

one going, he became extremely sensitive to the presence of whoever<\/p>\n

might be in the room. It was his father now. The strain was acute.<\/p>\n

For in one moment if there was no breeze, his father would slap the<\/p>\n

covers of his book together, and say: “What’s happening now? What are<\/p>\n

we dawdling about here for, eh?” as, once before he had brought his<\/p>\n

blade down among them on the terrace and she had gone stiff all over,<\/p>\n

and if there had been an axe handy, a knife, or anything with a sharp<\/p>\n

point he would have seized it and struck his father through the heart.<\/p>\n

She had gone stiff all over, and then, her arm slackening, so that he<\/p>\n

felt she listened to him no longer, she had risen somehow and gone away<\/p>\n

and left him there, impotent, ridiculous, sitting on the floor grasping<\/p>\n

a pair of scissors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not a breath of wind blew. The water chuckled and gurgled in the<\/p>\n

bottom of the boat where three or four mackerel beat their tails up and<\/p>\n

down in a pool of water not deep enough to cover them. At any moment<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay (he scarcely dared look at him) might rouse himself, shut his<\/p>\n

book, and say something sharp; but for the moment he was reading, so<\/p>\n

that James stealthily, as if he were stealing downstairs on bare feet,<\/p>\n

afraid of waking a watchdog by a creaking board, went on thinking what<\/p>\n

was she like, where did she go that day? He began following her from<\/p>\n

room to room and at last they came to a room where in a blue light, as<\/p>\n

if the reflection came from many china dishes, she talked to somebody;<\/p>\n

he listened to her talking. She talked to a servant, saying simply<\/p>\n

whatever came into her head. She alone spoke the truth; to her alone<\/p>\n

could he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction<\/p>\n

for him, perhaps; she was a person to whom one could say what came into<\/p>\n

one’s head. But all the time he thought of her, he was conscious of<\/p>\n

his father following his thought, surveying it, making it shiver and<\/p>\n

falter. At last he ceased to think.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There he sat with his hand on the tiller in the sun, staring at the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse, powerless to move, powerless to flick off these grains of<\/p>\n

misery which settled on his mind one after another. A rope seemed to<\/p>\n

bind him there, and his father had knotted it and he could only escape<\/p>\n

by taking a knife and plunging it… But at that moment the sail<\/p>\n

swung slowly round, filled slowly out, the boat seemed to shake<\/p>\n

herself, and then to move off half conscious in her sleep, and then she<\/p>\n

woke and shot through the waves. The relief was extraordinary. They<\/p>\n

all seemed to fall away from each other again and to be at their<\/p>\n

ease, and the fishing-lines slanted taut across the side of the<\/p>\n

boat. But his father did not rouse himself. He only raised his right<\/p>\n

hand mysteriously high in the air, and let it fall upon his knee again<\/p>\n

as if he were conducting some secret symphony.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[The sea without a stain on it, thought Lily Briscoe, still standing<\/p>\n

and looking out over the bay. The sea stretched like silk across the<\/p>\n

bay. Distance had an extraordinary power; they had been swallowed up<\/p>\n

in it, she felt, they were gone for ever, they had become part of the<\/p>\n

nature of things. It was so calm; it was so quiet. The steamer itself<\/p>\n

had vanished, but the great scroll of smoke still hung in the air and<\/p>\n

drooped like a flag mournfully in valediction.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was like that then, the island, thought Cam, once more drawing her<\/p>\n

fingers through the waves. She had never seen it from out at sea<\/p>\n

before. It lay like that on the sea, did it, with a dent in the middle<\/p>\n

and two sharp crags, and the sea swept in there, and spread away for<\/p>\n

miles and miles on either side of the island. It was very small;<\/p>\n

shaped something like a leaf stood on end. So we took a little boat,<\/p>\n

she thought, beginning to tell herself a story of adventure about<\/p>\n

escaping from a sinking ship. But with the sea streaming through her<\/p>\n

fingers, a spray of seaweed vanishing behind them, she did not want to<\/p>\n

tell herself seriously a story; it was the sense of adventure and<\/p>\n

escape that she wanted, for she was thinking, as the boat sailed on,<\/p>\n

how her father’s anger about the points of the compass, James’s<\/p>\n

obstinacy about the compact, and her own anguish, all had slipped, all<\/p>\n

had passed, all had streamed away. What then came next? Where were<\/p>\n

they going? From her hand, ice cold, held deep in the sea, there<\/p>\n

spurted up a fountain of joy at the change, at the escape, at the<\/p>\n

adventure (that she should be alive, that she should be there). And<\/p>\n

the drops falling from this sudden and unthinking fountain of joy fell<\/p>\n

here and there on the dark, the slumbrous shapes in her mind; shapes of<\/p>\n

a world not realised but turning in their darkness, catching here and<\/p>\n

there, a spark of light; Greece, Rome, Constantinople.[156]<\/sup><\/a> Small as it<\/p>\n

was, and shaped something like a leaf stood on its end with the gold-<\/p>\n

sprinkled waters flowing in and about it, it had, she supposed, a place<\/p>\n

in the universe–even that little island? The old gentlemen in the<\/p>\n

study she thought could have told her. Sometimes she strayed in from<\/p>\n

the garden purposely to catch them at it. There they were (it might be<\/p>\n

Mr. Carmichael or Mr. Bankes who was sitting with her father) sitting<\/p>\n

opposite each other in their low arm-chairs. They were crackling in<\/p>\n

front of them the pages of The Times<\/i>, when she came in from the garden,<\/p>\n

all in a muddle, about something some one had said about Christ, or<\/p>\n

hearing that a mammoth had been dug up in a London street, or wondering<\/p>\n

what Napoleon[157]<\/sup><\/a> was like. Then they took all this with their clean hands<\/p>\n

(they wore grey-coloured clothes; they smelt of heather) and they<\/p>\n

brushed the scraps together, turning the paper, crossing their knees,<\/p>\n

and said something now and then very brief. Just to please herself she<\/p>\n

would take a book from the shelf and stand there, watching her father<\/p>\n

write, so equally, so neatly from one side of the page to another, with<\/p>\n

a little cough now and then, or something said briefly to the other old<\/p>\n

gentleman opposite. And she thought, standing there with her book open,<\/p>\n

one could let whatever one thought expand here like a leaf in water;<\/p>\n

and if it did well here, among the old gentlemen smoking and The Times<\/i><\/p>\n

crackling then it was right. And watching her father as he wrote in<\/p>\n

his study, she thought (now sitting in the boat) he was not vain, nor a<\/p>\n

tyrant and did not wish to make you pity him. Indeed, if he saw she<\/p>\n

was there, reading a book, he would ask her, as gently as any one<\/p>\n

could, Was there nothing he could give her?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lest this should be wrong, she looked at him reading the little book<\/p>\n

with the shiny cover mottled like a plover’s egg. No; it was right.<\/p>\n

Look at him now, she wanted to say aloud to James. (But James had his<\/p>\n

eye on the sail.) He is a sarcastic brute, James would say. He brings<\/p>\n

the talk round to himself and his books, James would say. He is<\/p>\n

intolerably egotistical. Worst of all, he is a tyrant. But look! she<\/p>\n

said, looking at him. Look at him now. She looked at him reading the<\/p>\n

little book with his legs curled; the little book whose yellowish pages<\/p>\n

she knew, without knowing what was written on them. It was small; it<\/p>\n

was closely printed; on the fly-leaf, she knew, he had written that he<\/p>\n

had spent fifteen francs on dinner; the wine had been so much; he had<\/p>\n

given so much to the waiter; all was added up neatly at the bottom of<\/p>\n

the page. But what might be written in the book which had rounded its<\/p>\n

edges off in his pocket, she did not know. What he thought they none<\/p>\n

of them knew. But he was absorbed in it, so that when he looked up, as<\/p>\n

he did now for an instant, it was not to see anything; it was to pin<\/p>\n

down some thought more exactly. That done, his mind flew back again<\/p>\n

and he plunged into his reading. He read, she thought, as if he were<\/p>\n

guiding something, or wheedling a large flock of sheep, or pushing his<\/p>\n

way up and up a single narrow path; and sometimes he went fast and<\/p>\n

straight, and broke his way through the bramble, and sometimes it<\/p>\n

seemed a branch struck at him, a bramble blinded him, but he was not<\/p>\n

going to let himself be beaten by that; on he went, tossing over page<\/p>\n

after page. And she went on telling herself a story about escaping<\/p>\n

from a sinking ship, for she was safe, while he sat there; safe, as she<\/p>\n

felt herself when she crept in from the garden, and took a book<\/p>\n

down, and the old gentleman, lowering the paper suddenly, said<\/p>\n

something very brief over the top of it about the character of Napoleon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She gazed back over the sea, at the island. But the leaf was losing<\/p>\n

its sharpness. It was very small; it was very distant. The sea was<\/p>\n

more important now than the shore. Waves were all round them, tossing<\/p>\n

and sinking, with a log wallowing down one wave; a gull riding on<\/p>\n

another. About here, she thought, dabbling her fingers in the water, a<\/p>\n

ship had sunk, and she murmured, dreamily half asleep, how we perished,<\/p>\n

each alone.[158]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

12<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So much depends then, thought Lily Briscoe, looking at the sea which<\/p>\n

had scarcely a stain on it, which was so soft that the sails and the<\/p>\n

clouds seemed set in its blue, so much depends, she thought, upon<\/p>\n

distance: whether people are near us or far from us; for her feeling<\/p>\n

for Mr. Ramsay changed as he sailed further and further across the bay.<\/p>\n

It seemed to be elongated, stretched out; he seemed to become more and<\/p>\n

more remote. He and his children seemed to be swallowed up in that<\/p>\n

blue, that distance; but here, on the lawn, close at hand, Mr.<\/p>\n

Carmichael suddenly grunted. She laughed. He clawed his book up from<\/p>\n

the grass. He settled into his chair again puffing and blowing like<\/p>\n

some sea monster. That was different altogether, because he was so<\/p>\n

near. And now again all was quiet. They must be out of bed by this<\/p>\n

time, she supposed, looking at the house, but nothing appeared there.<\/p>\n

But then, she remembered, they had always made off directly a meal was<\/p>\n

over, on business of their own. It was all in keeping with this<\/p>\n

silence, this emptiness, and the unreality of the early morning hour.<\/p>\n

It was a way things had sometimes, she thought, lingering for a moment<\/p>\n

and looking at the long glittering windows and the plume of blue smoke:<\/p>\n

they became illness, before habits had spun themselves across the<\/p>\n

surface, one felt that same unreality, which was so startling; felt<\/p>\n

something emerge. Life was most vivid then. One could be at one’s<\/p>\n

ease. Mercifully one need not say, very briskly, crossing the lawn to<\/p>\n

greet old Mrs. Beckwith, who would be coming out to find a corner to sit<\/p>\n

in, “Oh, good-morning, Mrs. Beckwith! What a lovely day! Are you going<\/p>\n

to be so bold as to sit in the sun? Jasper’s hidden the chairs. Do<\/p>\n

let me find you one!” and all the rest of the usual chatter. One need<\/p>\n

not speak at all. One glided, one shook one’s sails (there was a good<\/p>\n

deal of movement in the bay, boats were starting off) between things,<\/p>\n

beyond things. Empty it was not, but full to the brim. She seemed to<\/p>\n

be standing up to the lips in some substance, to move and float and<\/p>\n

sink in it, yes, for these waters were unfathomably deep. Into them<\/p>\n

had spilled so many lives. The Ramsays’; the children’s; and all sorts<\/p>\n

of waifs and strays of things besides. A washer-woman with her basket;<\/p>\n

a rook, a red-hot poker[159]<\/sup><\/a>; the purples and grey-greens of flowers: some<\/p>\n

common feeling which held the whole together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was some such feeling of completeness perhaps which, ten years ago,<\/p>\n

standing almost where she stood now, had made her say that she must be<\/p>\n

in love with the place. Love had a thousand shapes. There might be<\/p>\n

lovers whose gift it was to choose out the elements of things and place<\/p>\n

them together and so, giving them a wholeness not theirs in life, make<\/p>\n

of some scene, or meeting of people (all now gone and separate), one of<\/p>\n

those globed compacted things over which thought lingers, and love<\/p>\n

plays.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her eyes rested on the brown speck of Mr. Ramsay’s sailing boat. They<\/p>\n

would be at the Lighthouse by lunch time she supposed. But the wind<\/p>\n

had freshened, and, as the sky changed slightly and the sea changed<\/p>\n

slightly and the boats altered their positions, the view, which a<\/p>\n

moment before had seemed miraculously fixed, was now unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n

The wind had blown the trail of smoke about; there was something<\/p>\n

displeasing about the placing of the ships.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The disproportion there seemed to upset some harmony in her own mind.<\/p>\n

She felt an obscure distress. It was confirmed when she turned to her<\/p>\n

picture. She had been wasting her morning. For whatever reason she<\/p>\n

could not achieve that razor edge of balance between two opposite<\/p>\n

forces; Mr. Ramsay and the picture; which was necessary. There was<\/p>\n

something perhaps wrong with the design? Was it, she wondered, that<\/p>\n

the line of the wall wanted breaking, was it that the mass of the trees<\/p>\n

was too heavy? She smiled ironically; for had she not thought, when<\/p>\n

she began, that she had solved her problem?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was the problem then? She must try to get hold of something tht<\/p>\n

evaded her. It evaded her when she thought of Mrs. Ramsay; it evaded<\/p>\n

her now when she thought of her picture. Phrases came. Visions came.<\/p>\n

Beautiful pictures. Beautiful phrases. But what she wished to get hold<\/p>\n

of was that very jar on the nerves, the thing itself before it has been<\/p>\n

made anything. Get that and start afresh; get that and start afresh;<\/p>\n

she said desperately, pitching herself firmly again before her easel.<\/p>\n

It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the<\/p>\n

human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at<\/p>\n

the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on. She stared,<\/p>\n

frowning. There was the hedge, sure enough. But one got nothing by<\/p>\n

soliciting urgently. One got only a glare in the eye from looking at<\/p>\n

the line of the wall, or from thinking–she wore a grey hat. She was<\/p>\n

astonishingly beautiful. Let it come, she thought, if it will come.<\/p>\n

For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if<\/p>\n

one can neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here on the grass, on the ground, she thought, sitting down, and<\/p>\n

examining with her brush a little colony of plantains.[160]<\/sup><\/a> For the lawn<\/p>\n

was very rough. Here sitting on the world, she thought, for she could<\/p>\n

not shake herself free from the sense that everything this morning was<\/p>\n

happening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a<\/p>\n

traveller, even though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the<\/p>\n

train window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town,<\/p>\n

or that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again. The<\/p>\n

lawn was the world; they were up here together, on this exalted<\/p>\n

station, she thought, looking at old Mr. Carmichael, who seemed (though<\/p>\n

they had not said a word all this time) to share her thoughts. And she<\/p>\n

would never see him again perhaps. He was growing old. Also, she<\/p>\n

remembered, smiling at the slipper that dangled from his foot, he was<\/p>\n

growing famous. People said that his poetry was “so beautiful.” They<\/p>\n

went and published things he had written forty years ago. There was a<\/p>\n

famous man now called Carmichael, she smiled, thinking how many shapes<\/p>\n

one person might wear, how he was that in the newspapers, but here the<\/p>\n

same as he had always been. He looked the same–greyer, rather.<\/p>\n

Yes, he looked the same, but somebody had said, she recalled, that when<\/p>\n

he had heard of Andrew Ramsay’s death (he was killed in a second by a<\/p>\n

shell; he should have been a great mathematician) Mr. Carmichael had<\/p>\n

“lost all interest in life.” What did it mean–that? she wondered. Had<\/p>\n

he marched through Trafalgar Square grasping a big stick? Had he<\/p>\n

turned pages over and over, without reading them, sitting in his room<\/p>\n

in St. John’s Wood alone? She did not know what he had done, when he<\/p>\n

heard that Andrew was killed, but she felt it in him all the same.<\/p>\n

They only mumbled at each other on staircases; they looked up at the<\/p>\n

sky and said it will be fine or it won’t be fine. But this was one way<\/p>\n

of knowing people, she thought: to know the outline, not the detail, to<\/p>\n

sit in one’s garden and look at the slopes of a hill running purple<\/p>\n

down into the distant heather. She knew him in that way. She knew<\/p>\n

that he had changed somehow. She had never read a line of his poetry.<\/p>\n

She thought that she knew how it went though, slowly and sonorously.<\/p>\n

It was seasoned and mellow. It was about the desert and the camel. It<\/p>\n

was about the palm tree and the sunset. It was extremely impersonal;<\/p>\n

it said something about death; it said very little about love. There<\/p>\n

was an impersonality about him. He wanted very little of other people.<\/p>\n

Had he not always lurched rather awkwardly past the drawing-room window<\/p>\n

with some newspaper under his arm, trying to avoid Mrs. Ramsay whom for<\/p>\n

some reason he did not much like? On that account, of course, she<\/p>\n

would always try to make him stop. He would bow to her. He would halt<\/p>\n

unwillingly and bow profoundly. Annoyed that he did not want anything<\/p>\n

of her, Mrs. Ramsay would ask him (Lily could hear her) wouldn’t he like<\/p>\n

a coat, a rug, a newspaper? No, he wanted nothing. (Here he bowed.)<\/p>\n

There was some quality in her which he did not much like. It was<\/p>\n

perhaps her masterfulness, her positiveness, something matter-of-fact<\/p>\n

in her. She was so direct.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(A noise drew her attention to the drawing-room window–the squeak of a<\/p>\n

hinge. The light breeze was toying with the window.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There must have been people who disliked her very much, Lily thought<\/p>\n

(Yes; she realised that the drawing-room step was empty, but it had no<\/p>\n

effect on her whatever. She did not want Mrs. Ramsay now.)–People who<\/p>\n

thought her too sure, too drastic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also, her beauty offended people probably. How monotonous, they would<\/p>\n

say, and the same always! They preferred another type–the dark, the<\/p>\n

vivacious. Then she was weak with her husband. She let him make those<\/p>\n

scenes. Then she was reserved. Nobody knew exactly what had happened<\/p>\n

to her. And (to go back to Mr. Carmichael and his dislike) one could not<\/p>\n

imagine Mrs. Ramsay standing painting, lying reading, a whole morning on<\/p>\n

the lawn. It was unthinkable. Without saying a word, the only token of<\/p>\n

her errand a basket on her arm, she went off to the town, to the poor,<\/p>\n

to sit in some stuffy little bedroom. Often and often Lily had seen<\/p>\n

her go silently in the midst of some game, some discussion, with her<\/p>\n

basket on her arm, very upright. She had noted her return. She had<\/p>\n

thought, half laughing (she was so methodical with the tea cups), half<\/p>\n

moved (her beauty took one’s breath away), eyes that are closing in<\/p>\n

pain have looked on you. You have been with them there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And then Mrs. Ramsay would be annoyed because somebody was late, or the<\/p>\n

butter not fresh, or the teapot chipped. And all the time she was<\/p>\n

saying that the butter was not fresh one would be thinking of Greek<\/p>\n

temples, and how beauty had been with them there in that stuffy little<\/p>\n

room. She never talked of it–she went, punctually, directly. It was<\/p>\n

her instinct to go, an instinct like the swallows for the south, the<\/p>\n

artichokes for the sun, turning her infallibly to the human race,<\/p>\n

making her nest in its heart. And this, like all instincts, was a<\/p>\n

little distressing to people who did not share it; to Mr. Carmichael<\/p>\n

perhaps, to herself certainly. Some notion was in both of them about<\/p>\n

the ineffectiveness of action, the supremacy of thought. Her going was<\/p>\n

a reproach to them, gave a different twist to the world, so that they<\/p>\n

were led to protest, seeing their own prepossessions disappear, and<\/p>\n

clutch at them vanishing. Charles Tansley did that too: it was part of<\/p>\n

the reason why one disliked him. He upset the proportions of one’s<\/p>\n

world. And what had happened to him, she wondered, idly stirring the<\/p>\n

plantains[161]<\/sup><\/a> with her brush. He had got his fellowship. He had married;<\/p>\n

he lived at Golder’s Green.[162]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had gone one day into a Hall and heard him speaking during the war.<\/p>\n

He was denouncing something: he was condemning somebody. He was<\/p>\n

preaching brotherly love. And all she felt was how could he love his<\/p>\n

kind who did not know one picture from another, who had stood behind<\/p>\n

her smoking shag[163]<\/sup><\/a> (“fivepence an ounce, Miss Briscoe”) and making it his<\/p>\n

business to tell her women can’t write, women can’t paint, not so much<\/p>\n

that he believed it, as that for some odd reason he wished it? There<\/p>\n

he was lean and red and raucous, preaching love from a platform (there<\/p>\n

were ants crawling about among the plantains which she disturbed with<\/p>\n

her brush–red, energetic, shiny ants, rather like Charles Tansley).<\/p>\n

She had looked at him ironically from her seat in the half-empty hall,<\/p>\n

pumping love into that chilly space, and suddenly, there was the old<\/p>\n

cask or whatever it was bobbing up and down among the waves and Mrs.<\/p>\n

Ramsay looking for her spectacle case among the pebbles. “Oh, dear!<\/p>\n

What a nuisance! Lost again. Don’t bother, Mr. Tansley. I lose<\/p>\n

thousands every summer,” at which he pressed his chin back against his<\/p>\n

collar, as if afraid to sanction such exaggeration, but could stand it<\/p>\n

in her whom he liked, and smiled very charmingly. He must have<\/p>\n

confided in her on one of those long expeditions when people got<\/p>\n

separated and walked back alone. He was educating his little sister,<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay had told her. It was immensely to his credit. Her own idea<\/p>\n

of him was grotesque, Lily knew well, stirring the plantains[164]<\/sup><\/a> with her<\/p>\n

brush. Half one’s notions of other people were, after all, grotesque.<\/p>\n

They served private purposes of one’s own. He did for her instead of a<\/p>\n

whipping-boy. She found herself flagellating his lean flanks when she<\/p>\n

was out of temper. If she wanted to be serious about him she had to<\/p>\n

help herself to Mrs. Ramsay’s sayings, to look at him through her eyes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She raised a little mountain for the ants to climb over. She reduced<\/p>\n

them to a frenzy of indecision by this interference in their cosmogony.<\/p>\n

Some ran this way, others that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she reflected. Fifty pairs<\/p>\n

of eyes were not enough to get round that one woman with, she thought.<\/p>\n

Among them, must be one that was stone blind to her beauty. One wanted<\/p>\n

most some secret sense, fine as air, with which to steal through<\/p>\n

keyholes and surround her where she sat knitting, talking, sitting<\/p>\n

silent in the window alone; which took to itself and treasured up like<\/p>\n

the air which held the smoke of the steamer, her thoughts, her<\/p>\n

imaginations, her desires. What did the hedge mean to her, what did<\/p>\n

the garden mean to her, what did it mean to her when a wave broke?<\/p>\n

(Lily looked up, as she had seen Mrs. Ramsay look up; she too heard a<\/p>\n

wave falling on the beach.) And then what stirred and trembled in her<\/p>\n

mind when the children cried, “How’s that? How’s that?” cricketing?<\/p>\n

She would stop knitting for a second. She would look intent. Then she<\/p>\n

would lapse again, and suddenly Mr. Ramsay stopped dead in his pacing in<\/p>\n

front of her and some curious shock passed through her and seemed to<\/p>\n

rock her in profound agitation on its breast when stopping there he<\/p>\n

stood over her and looked down at her. Lily could see him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He stretched out his hand and raised her from her chair. It seemed<\/p>\n

somehow as if he had done it before; as if he had once bent in the same<\/p>\n

way and raised her from a boat which, lying a few inches off some<\/p>\n

island, had required that the ladies should thus be helped on shore by<\/p>\n

the gentlemen. An old-fashioned scene that was, which required,<\/p>\n

very nearly, crinolines and peg-top trousers. Letting herself be<\/p>\n

helped by him, Mrs. Ramsay had thought (Lily supposed) the time<\/p>\n

has come now. Yes, she would say it now. Yes, she would marry him.<\/p>\n

And she stepped slowly, quietly on shore. Probably she said one<\/p>\n

word only, letting her hand rest still in his. I will marry you,<\/p>\n

she might have said, with her hand in his; but no more. Time<\/p>\n

after time the same thrill had passed between them–obviously it<\/p>\n

had, Lily thought, smoothing a way for her ants. She was not<\/p>\n

inventing; she was only trying to smooth out something she had been<\/p>\n

given years ago folded up; something she had seen. For in the rough<\/p>\n

and tumble of daily life, with all those children about, all those<\/p>\n

visitors, one had constantly a sense of repetition–of one thing<\/p>\n

falling where another had fallen, and so setting up an echo which<\/p>\n

chimed in the air and made it full of vibrations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it would be a mistake, she thought, thinking how they walked off<\/p>\n

together, arm in arm, past the greenhouse, to simplify their<\/p>\n

relationship. It was no monotony of bliss–she with her impulses and<\/p>\n

quicknesses; he with his shudders and glooms. Oh, no. The bedroom door<\/p>\n

would slam violently early in the morning. He would start from the<\/p>\n

table in a temper. He would whizz his plate through the window. Then<\/p>\n

all through the house there would be a sense of doors slamming and<\/p>\n

blinds fluttering, as if a gusty wind were blowing and people scudded<\/p>\n

about trying in a hasty way to fasten hatches and make things ship-<\/p>\n

shape. She had met Paul Rayley like that one day on the stairs.<\/p>\n

They had laughed and laughed, like a couple of children, all because<\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay, finding an earwig in his milk at breakfast had sent the<\/p>\n

whole thing flying through the air on to the terrace outside. ‘An earwig,<\/p>\n

Prue murmured, awestruck, ‘in his milk.’ Other people might find<\/p>\n

centipedes. But he had built round him such a fence of sanctity, and<\/p>\n

occupied the space with such a demeanour of majesty that an earwig<\/p>\n

in his milk was a monster.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it tired Mrs. Ramsay, it cowed her a little–the plates whizzing<\/p>\n

and the doors slamming. And there would fall between them sometimes<\/p>\n

long rigid silences, when, in a state of mind which annoyed Lily<\/p>\n

in her, half plaintive, half resentful, she seemed unable to surmount<\/p>\n

the tempest calmly, or to laugh as they laughed, but in her weariness<\/p>\n

perhaps concealed something. She brooded and sat silent. After a<\/p>\n

time he would hang stealthily about the places where she was–roaming<\/p>\n

under the window where she sat writing letters or talking, for she<\/p>\n

would take care to be busy when he passed, and evade him, and pretend<\/p>\n

not to see him. Then he would turn smooth as silk, affable, urbane,<\/p>\n

and try to win her so. Still she would hold off, and now she would<\/p>\n

assert for a brief season some of those prides and airs the due<\/p>\n

of her beauty which she was generally utterly without; would turn<\/p>\n

her head; would look so, over her shoulder, always with some<\/p>\n

Minta, Paul, or William Bankes at her side. At length, standing<\/p>\n

outside the group the very figure of a famished wolfhound (Lily got up<\/p>\n

off the grass and stood looking at the steps, at the window, where she<\/p>\n

had seen him), he would say her name, once only, for all the world like<\/p>\n

a wolf barking in the snow, but still she held back; and he would say<\/p>\n

it once more, and this time something in the tone would rouse her, and<\/p>\n

she would go to him, leaving them all of a sudden, and they would walk<\/p>\n

off together among the pear trees, the cabbages, and the raspberry<\/p>\n

beds. They would have it out together. But with what attitudes and<\/p>\n

with what words? Such a dignity was theirs in this relationship that,<\/p>\n

turning away, she and Paul and Minta would hide their curiosity and<\/p>\n

their discomfort, and begin picking flowers, throwing balls,<\/p>\n

chattering, until it was time for dinner, and there they were, he at<\/p>\n

one end of the table, she at the other, as usual.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why don’t some of you take up botany?.. With all those legs and arms<\/p>\n

why doesn’t one of you…?” So they would talk as usual, laughing,<\/p>\n

among the children. All would be as usual, save only for some quiver,<\/p>\n

as of a blade in the air, which came and went between them as if<\/p>\n

the usual sight of the children sitting round their soup plates<\/p>\n

had freshened itself in their eyes after that hour among the pears and<\/p>\n

the cabbages. Especially, Lily thought, Mrs. Ramsay would glance at<\/p>\n

Prue. She sat in the middle between brothers and sisters, always<\/p>\n

occupied, it seemed, seeing that nothing went wrong so that she<\/p>\n

scarcely spoke herself. How Prue must have blamed herself for that<\/p>\n

earwig in the milk How white she had gone when Mr. Ramsay threw his<\/p>\n

plate through the window! How she drooped under those long silences<\/p>\n

between them! Anyhow, her mother now would seem to be making it up to<\/p>\n

her; assuring her that everything was well; promising her that one of<\/p>\n

these days that same happiness would be hers. She had enjoyed it for<\/p>\n

less than a year, however.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had let the flowers fall from her basket, Lily thought, screwing up<\/p>\n

her eyes and standing back as if to look at her picture, which she was<\/p>\n

not touching, however, with all her faculties in a trance, frozen over<\/p>\n

superficially but moving underneath with extreme speed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She let her flowers fall from her basket, scattered and tumbled them on<\/p>\n

to the grass and, reluctantly and hesitatingly, but without question or<\/p>\n

complaint–had she not the faculty of obedience to perfection?–went<\/p>\n

too. Down fields, across valleys, white, flower-strewn–that was<\/p>\n

how she would have painted it. The hills were austere. It was rocky;<\/p>\n

it was steep. The waves sounded hoarse on the stones beneath. They<\/p>\n

went, the three of them together, Mrs. Ramsay walking rather fast in<\/p>\n

front, as if she expected to meet some one round the corner.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suddenly the window at which she was looking was whitened by some light<\/p>\n

stuff behind it. At last then somebody had come into the drawing-room;<\/p>\n

somebody was sitting in the chair. For Heaven’s sake, she prayed, let<\/p>\n

them sit still there and not come floundering out to talk to her.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, whoever it was stayed still inside; had settled by some<\/p>\n

stroke of luck so as to throw an odd-shaped triangular shadow over the<\/p>\n

step. It altered the composition of the picture a little. It was<\/p>\n

interesting. It might be useful. Her mood was coming back to her. One<\/p>\n

must keep on looking without for a second relaxing the intensity of<\/p>\n

emotion, the determination not to be put off, not to be bamboozled.<\/p>\n

One must hold the scene–so–in a vise and let nothing come in and<\/p>\n

spoil it. One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to<\/p>\n

be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that’s a chair,<\/p>\n

that’s a table, and yet at the same time, It’s a miracle, it’s an<\/p>\n

ecstasy. The problem might be solved after all. Ah, but what had<\/p>\n

happened? Some wave of white went over the window pane. The air must<\/p>\n

have stirred some flounce in the room. Her heart leapt at her and<\/p>\n

seized her and tortured her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!” she cried, feeling the old horror come<\/p>\n

back–to want and want and not to have. Could she inflict that still?<\/p>\n

And then, quietly, as if she refrained, that too became part of<\/p>\n

ordinary experience, was on a level with the chair, with the table.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ramsay–it was part of her perfect goodness–sat there quite<\/p>\n

simply, in the chair, flicked her needles to and fro, knitted her<\/p>\n

reddish-brown stocking, cast her shadow on the step. There she sat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And as if she had something she must share, yet could hardly leave her<\/p>\n

easel, so full her mind was of what she was thinking, of what she was<\/p>\n

seeing, Lily went past Mr. Carmichael holding her brush to the edge of<\/p>\n

the lawn. Where was that boat now? And Mr. Ramsay? She wanted him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

13<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay had almost done reading. One hand hovered over the page as<\/p>\n

if to be in readiness to turn it the very instant he had finished it.<\/p>\n

He sat there bareheaded with the wind blowing his hair about,<\/p>\n

extraordinarily exposed to everything. He looked very old. He looked,<\/p>\n

James thought, getting his head now against the Lighthouse, now against<\/p>\n

the waste of waters running away into the open, like some old stone<\/p>\n

lying on the sand; he looked as if he had become physically what was<\/p>\n

always at the back of both of their minds–that loneliness which was<\/p>\n

for both of them the truth about things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was reading very quickly, as if he were eager to get to the end.<\/p>\n

Indeed they were very close to the Lighthouse now. There it loomed up,<\/p>\n

stark and straight, glaring white and black, and one could see the<\/p>\n

waves breaking in white splinters like smashed glass upon the rocks.<\/p>\n

One could see lines and creases in the rocks. One could see the<\/p>\n

windows clearly; a dab of white on one of them, and a little tuft of<\/p>\n

green on the rock. A man had come out and looked at them through a<\/p>\n

glass and gone in again. So it was like that, James thought, the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse one had seen across the bay all these years; it was a stark<\/p>\n

tower on a bare rock. It satisfied him. It confirmed some obscure<\/p>\n

feeling of his about his own character. The old ladies, he thought,<\/p>\n

thinking of the garden at home, went dragging their chairs about on the<\/p>\n

lawn. Old Mrs. Beckwith, for example, was always saying how nice it was<\/p>\n

and how sweet it was and how they ought to be so proud and they ought<\/p>\n

to be so happy, but as a matter of fact, James thought, looking at the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse stood there on its rock, it’s like that. He looked at his<\/p>\n

father reading fiercely with his legs curled tight. They shared that<\/p>\n

knowledge. “We are driving before a gale–we must sink,” he began<\/p>\n

saying to himself, half aloud, exactly as his father said it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nobody seemed to have spoken for an age. Cam was tired of looking at<\/p>\n

the sea. Little bits of black cork had floated past; the fish were<\/p>\n

dead in the bottom of the boat. Still her father read, and James<\/p>\n

looked at him and she looked at him, and they vowed that they would<\/p>\n

fight tyranny to the death, and he went on reading quite unconscious of<\/p>\n

what they thought. It was thus that he escaped, she thought. Yes,<\/p>\n

with his great forehead and his great nose, holding his little mottled<\/p>\n

book firmly in front of him, he escaped. You might try to lay hands on<\/p>\n

him, but then like a bird, he spread his wings, he floated off to<\/p>\n

settle out of your reach somewhere far away on some desolate stump.<\/p>\n

She gazed at the immense expanse of the sea. The island had grown so<\/p>\n

small that it scarcely looked like a leaf any longer. It looked like<\/p>\n

the top of a rock which some wave bigger than the rest would cover.<\/p>\n

Yet in its frailty were all those paths, those terraces, those bedrooms–<\/p>\n

all those innumerable things. But as, just before sleep, things<\/p>\n

simplify themselves so that only one of all the myriad details has<\/p>\n

power to assert itself, so, she felt, looking drowsily at the island,<\/p>\n

all those paths and terraces and bedrooms were fading and disappearing,<\/p>\n

and nothing was left but a pale blue censer swinging rhythmically this<\/p>\n

way and that across her mind. It was a hanging garden; it was a<\/p>\n

valley, full of birds, and flowers, and antelopes… She was falling<\/p>\n

asleep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Come now,” said Mr. Ramsay, suddenly shutting his book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Come where? To what extraordinary adventure? She woke with a start.<\/p>\n

To land somewhere, to climb somewhere? Where was he leading them? For<\/p>\n

after his immense silence the words startled them. But it was absurd.<\/p>\n

He was hungry, he said. It was time for lunch. Besides, look, he<\/p>\n

said. “There’s the Lighthouse. We’re almost there.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He’s doing very well,” said Macalister, praising James. “He’s keeping<\/p>\n

her very steady.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But his father never praised him, James thought grimly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay opened the parcel and shared out the sandwiches among them.<\/p>\n

Now he was happy, eating bread and cheese with these fishermen. He<\/p>\n

would have liked to live in a cottage and lounge about in the harbour<\/p>\n

spitting with the other old men, James thought, watching him slice his<\/p>\n

cheese into thin yellow sheets with his penknife.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is right, this is it, Cam kept feeling, as she peeled her hard-<\/p>\n

boiled egg. Now she felt as she did in the study when the old men were<\/p>\n

reading The Times<\/i>. Now I can go on thinking whatever I like, and I<\/p>\n

shan’t fall over a precipice or be drowned, for there he is, keeping<\/p>\n

his eye on me, she thought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the same time they were sailing so fast along by the rocks that it<\/p>\n

was very exciting–it seemed as if they were doing two things at once;<\/p>\n

they were eating their lunch here in the sun and they were also making<\/p>\n

for safety in a great storm after a shipwreck. Would the water last?<\/p>\n

Would the provisions last? she asked herself, telling herself a story<\/p>\n

but knowing at the same time what was the truth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They would soon be out of it, Mr. Ramsay was saying to old Macalister;<\/p>\n

but their children would see some strange things. Macalister said he<\/p>\n

was seventy-five last March; Mr. Ramsay was seventy-one. Macalister said<\/p>\n

he had never seen a doctor; he had never lost a tooth. And that’s the<\/p>\n

way I’d like my children to live–Cam was sure that her father was<\/p>\n

thinking that, for he stopped her throwing a sandwich into the sea and<\/p>\n

told her, as if he were thinking of the fishermen and how they lived,<\/p>\n

that if she did not want it she should put it back in the parcel. She<\/p>\n

should not waste it. He said it so wisely, as if he knew so well all<\/p>\n

the things that happened in the world that she put it back at once, and<\/p>\n

then he gave her, from his own parcel, a gingerbread nut, as if he were<\/p>\n

a great Spanish gentleman, she thought, handing a flower to a lady at a<\/p>\n

window (so courteous his manner was). He was shabby, and simple,<\/p>\n

eating bread and cheese; and yet he was leading them on a great<\/p>\n

expedition where, for all she knew, they would be drowned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That was where she sunk,” said Macalister’s boy suddenly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Three men were drowned where we are now, the old man said. He had seen<\/p>\n

them clinging to the mast himself. And Mr. Ramsay taking a look at the<\/p>\n

spot was about, James and Cam were afraid, to burst out:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I beneath a rougher sea,[165]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and if he did, they could not bear it; they would shriek aloud; they<\/p>\n

could not endure another explosion of the passion that boiled in him;<\/p>\n

but to their surprise all he said was “Ah” as if he thought to himself.<\/p>\n

But why make a fuss about that? Naturally men are drowned in a storm,<\/p>\n

but it is a perfectly straightforward affair, and the depths of the sea<\/p>\n

(he sprinkled the crumbs from his sandwich paper over them) are only<\/p>\n

water after all. Then having lighted his pipe he took out his watch.<\/p>\n

He looked at it attentively; he made, perhaps, some mathematical<\/p>\n

calculation. At last he said, triumphantly:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well done!” James had steered them like a born sailor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There! Cam thought, addressing herself silently to James. You’ve got<\/p>\n

it at last. For she knew that this was what James had been wanting,<\/p>\n

and she knew that now he had got it he was so pleased that he would not<\/p>\n

look at her or at his father or at any one. There he sat with his hand<\/p>\n

on the tiller sitting bolt upright, looking rather sulky and frowning<\/p>\n

slightly. He was so pleased that he was not going to let anybody share<\/p>\n

a grain of his pleasure. His father had praised him. They must think<\/p>\n

that he was perfectly indifferent. But you’ve got it now, Cam thought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They had tacked, and they were sailing swiftly, buoyantly on long<\/p>\n

rocking waves which handed them on from one to another with an<\/p>\n

extraordinary lilt and exhilaration beside the reef. On the left a<\/p>\n

row of rocks showed brown through the water which thinned and<\/p>\n

became greener and on one, a higher rock, a wave incessantly broke<\/p>\n

and spurted a little column of drops which fell down in a shower. One<\/p>\n

could hear the slap of the water and the patter of falling drops and a<\/p>\n

kind of hushing and hissing sound from the waves rolling and gambolling<\/p>\n

and slapping the rocks as if they were wild creatures who were<\/p>\n

perfectly free and tossed and tumbled and sported like this for ever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now they could see two men on the Lighthouse, watching them and making<\/p>\n

ready to meet them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Ramsay buttoned his coat, and turned up his trousers. He took the<\/p>\n

large, badly packed, brown paper parcel which Nancy had got ready and<\/p>\n

sat with it on his knee. Thus in complete readiness to land he sat<\/p>\n

looking back at the island. With his long-sighted eyes perhaps he<\/p>\n

could see the dwindled leaf-like shape standing on end on a plate of<\/p>\n

gold quite clearly. What could he see? Cam wondered. It was all a<\/p>\n

blur to her. What was he thinking now? she wondered. What was it he<\/p>\n

sought, so fixedly, so intently, so silently? They watched him, both<\/p>\n

of them, sitting bareheaded with his parcel on his knee staring and<\/p>\n

staring at the frail blue shape which seemed like the vapour of<\/p>\n

something that had burnt itself away. What do you want? they both<\/p>\n

wanted to ask. They both wanted to say, Ask us anything and we will<\/p>\n

give it you. But he did not ask them anything. He sat and looked at<\/p>\n

the island and he might be thinking, We perished, each alone, or he<\/p>\n

might be thinking, I have reached it. I have found it; but he said<\/p>\n

nothing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then he put on his hat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Bring those parcels,” he said, nodding his head at the things Nancy<\/p>\n

had done up for them to take to the Lighthouse. “The parcels for the<\/p>\n

Lighthouse men,” he said. He rose and stood in the bow of the boat,<\/p>\n

very straight and tall, for all the world, James thought, as if he were<\/p>\n

saying, “There is no God,”[166]<\/sup><\/a> and Cam thought, as if he were leaping into<\/p>\n

space, and they both rose to follow him as he sprang, lightly like a<\/p>\n

young man, holding his parcel, on to the rock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

14<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He must have reached it,” said Lily Briscoe aloud, feeling suddenly<\/p>\n

completely tired out. For the Lighthouse had become almost invisible,<\/p>\n

had melted away into a blue haze, and the effort of looking at it and<\/p>\n

the effort of thinking of him landing there, which both seemed to be<\/p>\n

one and the same effort, had stretched her body and mind to the utmost.<\/p>\n

Ah, but she was relieved. Whatever she had wanted to give him, when he<\/p>\n

left her that morning, she had given him at last.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He has landed,” she said aloud. “It is finished.” Then, surging up,<\/p>\n

puffing slightly, old Mr. Carmichael stood beside her, looking like an<\/p>\n

old pagan god, shaggy, with weeds in his hair and the trident (it was<\/p>\n

only a French novel) in his hand. He stood by her on the edge of the<\/p>\n

lawn, swaying a little in his bulk and said, shading his eyes with his<\/p>\n

hand: “They will have landed,” and she felt that she had been right.<\/p>\n

They had not needed to speak. They had been thinking the same things<\/p>\n

and he had answered her without her asking him anything. He stood<\/p>\n

there as if he were spreading his hands over all the weakness and<\/p>\n

suffering of mankind; she thought he was surveying, tolerantly and<\/p>\n

compassionately, their final destiny. Now he has crowned the occasion,<\/p>\n

she thought, when his hand slowly fell, as if she had seen him let fall<\/p>\n

from his great height a wreath of violets and asphodels[167]<\/sup><\/a> which,<\/p>\n

fluttering slowly, lay at length upon the earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to<\/p>\n

her canvas. There it was–her picture. Yes, with all its greens and<\/p>\n

blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It<\/p>\n

would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But<\/p>\n

what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again.<\/p>\n

She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it<\/p>\n

was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a<\/p>\n

second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was<\/p>\n

finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue,<\/p>\n

I have had my vision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

  1. Large department store chain whose flagship shop was on Victoria Street in London, where the Ramsays live when they are not at the holiday house here. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. James is partly based on Woolf\u2019s younger brother Adrian Stephen (1883-1948), her mother\u2019s favourite. He seems to have had a difficult time in childhood, feeling inferior to his bright and popular brother Thoby, and clashed with his father. As children, Woolf and her sister wrote in the Hyde Park Gate News, the family newsletter, that nine-year-old Adrian was \u201cmuch disappointed at not being allowed to go\u201d on a trip to Godrevy Lighthouse off the coast of their summer home in Cornwall (British Library MS, 12 September, 1892). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. A reference to British rule over India at the time. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. One of the Hebrides islands off Scotland, where the novel is set. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. A college of Oxford University. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  6. Universities the Ramsays consider inferior. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  7. A critical introduction to a book. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  8. The most recent Reform Bill was passed in 1884, and gave the vote to most adult males in Britain. Other voting reforms had been passed in 1832 and 1867. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  9. A canton (district) in Switzerland. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  10. Julia Stephen\u2019s mother Maria was one of the seven Pattle sisters, who had noble French ancestry and were notable for their beauty or talent. The famous Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron was one also. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  11. Julia Stephen spent much energy visiting the poor and caring for the sick, like many middle-class Victorian women. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  12. An old spelling for Hindustani, one of the major languages of India. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  13. Shag tobacco is loose and has to be rolled by hand in papers, hence its cheapness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  14. Fellowship, readership, and lectureship are academic ranks in Britain. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  15. Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), the Norwegian playwright whose works, such as \u201cA Doll\u2019s House,\u201d were revolutionary, realistic representations of modern life. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  16. Mr. Paunceforte is an invented artist who represents actual painters of the late-Victorian period, such as Whistler and Sickert. These artists worked at St. Ives, where Woolf\u2019s childhood holiday home was, often painting beach and sea scenes in pale colours. Mrs. Ramsay speaks in the next paragraph of \u201cher grandmother\u2019s friends,\u201d showing her preference for the art of the past, which she generally represents. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  17. The Order of the Garter, the highest royal honour in Britain, whose members wear a blue ribbon. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  18. A flowering plant, an ancient symbol of love. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  19. Many critics have commented on Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s symbolic connection to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. Tansley seems to see her this way here. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  20. An appeal to the umpire in cricket. Woolf and her siblings loved playing the game as children. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  21. A quotation from Tennyson\u2019s famous Victorian poem, \u201cThe Charge of the Light Brigade\u201d (1854) which depicted a disastrous attack during the Crimean War in which almost a third of the British were killed or wounded. Mr. Ramsay tends to feel himself a similar brave and doomed hero. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  22. Some critics have pointed out the casual racism of Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s comment as a reference to a British sense of superiority over others during the period of the Empire. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  23. Another quotation from Tennyson\u2019s \u201cCharge of the Light Brigade\u201d; see note 21. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  24. A colourful climbing plant. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  25. Tennyson; see note 21. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  26. See note 16 on Paunceforte and art. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  27. A somewhat unfashionable area in London. Charles Dickens Jr. noted in 1879 that the Brompton Road was favoured by artists, and was the site of a tuberculosis hospital. See http:\/\/www.victorianlondon.org\/districts\/brompton.htm. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  28. Bright, tall, red and orange flowers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  29. A county in north-west England, now part of Cumbria, popular for walking and hiking. Leslie Stephen, Woolf\u2019s father, was a renowned walker. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  30. A flowering plant, and perhaps a reference to the conflict between childhood and adulthood, which is also strong in Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), well known to Woolf. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  31. These characters are partly based on some of Woolf\u2019s family: Cam on the young Woolf herself; James on Adrian Stephen (see note 1); Andrew on the clever and sociable Thoby Stephen (see note 114); and Prue on Stella Duckworth, her beautiful half-sister (see note 113). Lily Briscoe is similar to both Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell, an artist. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  32. The volcano that destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  33. Perhaps a reflection of Leslie Stephen\u2019s philosophy, or of G. E. Moore\u2019s ideas. He was a realist philosopher whose work strongly influenced Woolf\u2019s brother Thoby Stephen when he was at Cambridge University. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  34. Tennyson; see note 21. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  35. Jasper may represent Woolf\u2019s half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth, whom she saw as crass. Her writing makes reference to both of them having abused her sexually; what exactly happened is not clear, but her distaste for them was lifelong. Louise DeSalvo\u2019s Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work (New York: Ballantine, 1990) and Hermione Lee\u2019s biography Virginia Woolf (London: Chatto and Windus, 1999) both discuss the abuse possibilities in detail. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  36. A joking reference to \u201cShe-who-must-be-obeyed,\u201d the terrifying queen of H. Rider Haggard\u2019s Victorian adventure novel She (serialized 1886-7). Julia Stephen inspired love and reverence in many writers and artists, and had grown up knowing many famous ones. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  37. A reference to Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman of the ancient world. See note 19 on Mrs. Ramsay as a mythical figure. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  38. George Croom Robertson (1842-92), a Scottish philosopher and logician. Note Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s disinterest. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  39. As in the previous note, Mrs. Ramsay has little interest in works of serious realism. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  40. Woolf wrote in \u201cA Sketch of the Past\u201d that her mother eternally mourned the sudden death of her first husband, Herbert Duckworth (see page 89 in Moments of Being. 2nd ed. Ed. Jeanne Schulkind. San Diego: Harvest Brace Jovanovich, 1985). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  41. A variation of a line from the nineteenth-century writer Thomas Love Peacock\u2019s Headlong Hall (1815). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  42. The Three Graces in Greek mythology are goddesses of beauty and charm. Asphodel flowers were said to grow in the underworld of the dead. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  43. The 10:30 train from Euston Station in London. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  44. Another spelling of Michelangelo (Buonarotti, 1475-1564), the influential sculptor, artist, and engineer. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  45. Tennyson; see note 21. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  46. Tennyson; see note 21. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  47. See note 4. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  48. Tennyson; see note 21. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  49. Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf, both highly intelligent, frequently shared the fear that their minds were second-rate and their books failures. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  50. Originally a storming party. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  51. Leslie Stephen wrote several works on moral philosophy, and was highly thought of as a critic. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  52. One of the Grimm brothers\u2019 collected German fairy tales, first published in English in 1825. It tells of a poor fisherman who catches and releases a prince in the form of a flounder. In return, the fisherman\u2019s wife asks more and more favours of the fish, until she seeks to become godlike, at which she finds herself returned to her original wretched state. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  53. A coin worth thirty pence. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  54. See note 36 on Julia Stephen\u2019s connection with the famous. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  55. The elevator operator in the London subway. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  56. Probably Cardiff University or the University of Wales, founded in 1883 and 1893 respectively. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  57. All famous British philosophers: John Locke (1632-1704); David Hume (1711-76); George Berkeley (1685-1753). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  58. British cities. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  59. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a very well-known Scottish philosopher and social commentator. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  60. See Woolf\u2019s later novel, The Waves (1931), which extends this image. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  61. An invented artist; see note 16. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  62. Compare this with Lily\u2019s later vision of her painting (see note 148), and with Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s view of male and female (note 113). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  63. See note 11. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  64. A tributary river of the Thames in England. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  65. See note 52 on the fairy tale. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  66. See note 52 on the fairy tale. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  67. The site of the holiday house in the Hebrides islands off Scotland. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  68. Julia Stephen sought better health for the poor, frequently visiting them, and wrote a book, Notes from Sick Rooms (1883). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  69. Rose is partly based on Woolf\u2019s sister Vanessa Bell, the artist, as is Lily Briscoe. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  70. See note 52 on the fairy tale. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  71. Julia Stephen became an atheist in adulthood, like her husband, which was fairly unusual for the time. See note 163 on Leslie Stephen. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  72. A story about the famous atheist philosopher David Hume (1711-76), who had to recite the Lord\u2019s Prayer for a fish seller before she would pull him from the bog, which amused Leslie Stephen and his children. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  73. Flowers; see note 28. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  74. Flowers; see note 28. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  75. See note 72. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  76. A line from Percy Bysshe Shelley\u2019s poem, \u201cTo Jane \u2013 The Invitation\u201d (1811). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  77. Rembrandt van Rijn (1506-1669), Dutch Renaissance painter. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  78. The national Spanish art museum. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  79. Michelangelo. See note 44. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  80. Giotto di Bondone (1266\/7 \u2013 1337), the best-known Italian painter and architect of the very early Renaissance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  81. Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1485 \u2013 1576), known in English as Titian, a great Venetian artist. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  82. Charles Darwin (1809-82), who first postulated the theory of evolution. Leslie Stephen was one of the first in England to accept his ideas. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  83. The London subway. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  84. See note 72. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  85. The Byzantine and ancient Roman name for Istanbul. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  86. Also known as Hagia Sofia, a landmark church that became a mosque and is now a museum. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  87. An inlet forming a harbour in Istanbul. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  88. Baby carriage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  89. Music-hall lyrics, the pop music of Victorian times. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  90. Intended to mean a point of land. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  91. A city in Scotland. Woolf admitted that her knowledge of Scottish geography was lacking; critics have noted that the city of Glasgow would be much nearer to the island the characters are supposed to be on. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  92. This chapter, like Part Two, \u201cTime Passes,\u201d is in parentheses as an indication that its events go on in the background. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  93. A French beef stew in which the meat is braised with herbs, wine, olives, and vegetables. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  94. Note the reference to Jesus Christ\u2019s parents. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  95. A town in Buckinghamshire, England. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  96. Cheated or frustrated himself. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  97. The London subway. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  98. See note 95. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  99. Roman god of the sea. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  100. Roman god of wine. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  101. George Eliot was the pen name of Marian Evans (1819-1880), the author of Middlemarch, a great Victorian novel. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  102. Wild, reckless. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  103. I.e., wore their hair loosely in a modern fashion, not pinned up tightly and formally. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  104. A gentle term for fools. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  105. See note 10 on Julia Stephen\u2019s ancestry. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  106. In London\u2019s East End, then a rough area. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  107. See notes 11 and 68 on Julia Stephen\u2019s good works. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  108. Pen name of the famously witty French writer Francois-Marie d\u2019Arouet (1694-1778). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  109. The Swiss-French writer Anne Louise Germaine de Sta\u00ebl-Holstein (1766-1817), who opposed Napoleon. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  110. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), French military leader and emperor, enemy of the British. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  111. Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847-1929) was British Prime Minister from 1894-5. There were rumours that he was bisexual, which caused some scandal. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  112. Thomas Creevey (1768-1838), a lawyer and politician whose memoirs depict the politics and society of his time. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  113. Compare Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s image with Lily Briscoe\u2019s vision for her own (see notes 62 and 148). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  114. Sir Walter Scott\u2019s (1771-1832) popular historical novels about Scotland. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  115. Jane Austen (1775-1817), the great English novelist. Note that most of the writers discussed are from the past. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  116. See note 114 on Scott. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  117. See note 49 on Leslie Stephen\u2019s worry that he was a failure, and his concern for his own literary legacy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  118. Leo Tolstoy (also spelled Tolstoi) (1828-1910), the great Russian novelist. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  119. Tolstoy\u2019s novel Anna Karenina (1878) depicts a woman\u2019s adultery; Vronsky is the title character\u2019s lover. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  120. Lines from Charles Elton\u2019s (1839-1900) poem \u201cLuriana, Lurilee\u201d (first published in 1943 in an anthology compiled by Woolf\u2019s friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  121. Elton; see note 120. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  122. Elton; see note 120. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  123. Sir Walter Scott; see note 114. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  124. Engraved lines. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  125. Elton; see note 120. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  126. From William Browne\u2019s (1588-1643) poem \u201cThe Sirens\u2019 Song,\u201d which describes the fatal call of mermaids seeking to charm sailors to their deaths beneath the waves. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  127. Mucklebackit and Steenie are characters from Sir Walter Scott\u2019s dramatic Scottish historical novel The Antiquary (1816). See note 114. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  128. Honor\u00e9 de Balzac (1799-1850), great French novelist. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  129. From Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnet 98, \u201cFrom you I have been absent in the spring.\u201d Note that again, the Ramsays are turning to the past in their reading. This sonnet, like many of Shakespeare\u2019s, depicts the struggle for immortality, whether through great art or through children, which echoes the conflict between the Ramsays. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  130. Shakespeare; see note 129. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  131. Scott; see note 114 and 127. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  132. See notes 114 and 128. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  133. Ancient Roman poet (70-19 B.C.). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  134. See note 133. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  135. Here and below in this section, Woolf uses parentheses to show action going on in the background. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  136. See note 135 on the use of parentheses. Woolf powerfully recalled her father\u2019s similar posture after her mother\u2019s sudden death, writing years later, \u201cHow that early morning picture has stayed with me!\u201d (The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 5 (5 May, 1924). San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. 85). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  137. The rocks of the beach. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  138. Woolf\u2019s half-sister Stella Duckworth Hills (1869-97) died, soon after her marriage, of a somewhat mysterious illness connected with her early pregnancy, diagnosed as peritonitis. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  139. The First World War is only referred to obliquely in the novel, but its destructive chaos is a clear influence. This reference is also a metaphor for Woolf\u2019s brother Thoby Stephen\u2019s sudden death of typhus in 1904. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  140. Note the echoes of the opening of Part One, here and throughout Part Three. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  141. Mr. Ramsay is quoting from William Cowper\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Castaway\u201d (1803), which describes a drowning sailor. The final lines are: \u201cWe perish\u2019d, each alone: \/ But I, beneath a rougher sea, \/ And whelm\u2019d in deeper gulphs than he.\u201d ↵<\/a><\/li>
  142. Lily\u2019s home in London; see note 27. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  143. A cheap type of tobacco; see note 13.. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  144. Another brief reference to the changes brought about by the First World War, and to Woolf\u2019s vision of the problems brought about by traditional gender roles. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  145. Cowper; see note 113. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  146. Cowper; see note 113. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  147. This and the offset lines above are from Cowper; see note 113. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  148. Compare Lily\u2019s vision of her work with her earlier view (see note 62) and with Mrs. Ramsay\u2019s vision of male and female (note 113). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  149. Then a relatively new suburb of London. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  150. A small commuter town northwest of London. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  151. Raphael (1483-1520), the Italian Renaissance painter, produced several images of the Mary with the infant Jesus. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  152. A palace on the outskirts of London, built by Cardinal Wolsey in 1514 and appropriated by Henry VIII. A popular tourist site. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  153. A euphemism for using the bathroom. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  154. A boy selling London\u2019s Evening Standard newspaper. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  155. See note 2 on Woolf\u2019s brother Adrian Stephen and his relationship with his father. Adrian became a Freudian psychoanalyst, and many critics have noted the Oedipal conflict between James and Mr. Ramsay here. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  156. Istanbul; see note 85. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  157. Napoleon Bonaparte; see note 110. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  158. Cowper, as Mr. Ramsay has previously quoted; see note 113. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  159. A flower; see note 28. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  160. A weedy herb with healing properties. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  161. Weeds; see note 160. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  162. Golders Green is a then relatively new, and predominantly Jewish, suburb of London. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  163. Cheap tobacco; see note 13. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  164. Weeds; see note 160. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  165. Cowper, as before; see note 113. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  166. Leslie Stephen was openly an atheist, quite unusually for his time. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  167. A reference to the flowers supposed to grow in the underworld of Greek mythology. Elsewhere in the book, they are associated with Mrs. Ramsay; see note 42. ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["virginia-woolf"],"pb_section_license":"public-domain"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[66],"license":[78],"class_list":["post-2321","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-virginia-woolf","license-public-domain"],"part":467,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2328,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2321\/revisions\/2328"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/467"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2321\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}