there they are living still at this very time[11].”
“And that’s the end,” she said.
She saw in his eyes that the interest of the story died away in them. Something else took its place. She turned and looked across the bay. She saw the light of the Lighthouse.
In a moment he will ask her,
“Are we going to the Lighthouse?”
And she will say,
“No: not tomorrow; your father says not.”
Happily, Mildred came in. The bustle distracted them. As Mildred carried him out, she was certain that he was thinking, we are not going to the Lighthouse tomorrow. He will remember that all his life.
11
No, she thought, putting together the pictures – a refrigerator, a mowing machine[12], a gentleman in evening dress – children never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one said, and what one did. It was a relief when they went to bed. For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. To be silent; to be alone. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself. When life sank down, the range of experience seemed limitless.
And to everybody there was always this sense of unlimited resources, she supposed. She, Lily, Augustus Carmichael, must feel: our apparitions are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is unfathomably deep. Her horizon seemed to her limitless. They could not stop her, she thought. There was freedom, there was peace, there was a platform of stability.
No one finds rest ever, in her experience, but as a wedge of darkness. One lost the fret, the hurry, the stir. There rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity.
She looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke. That light lifted up some little phrase like that – “Children don’t forget, children don’t forget”. She could repeat it. It will end, it will end, she said. It will come, it will come, when suddenly she added, “We are in the hands of the Lord”.
But instantly she was annoyed with herself. Who had said it? Not she. She looked up over her knitting and met the third stroke. It seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes[13]. They searched into her mind and her heart, they purified out of existence that lie, any lie. She was stern, she was searching, she was beautiful like that light. It was odd, she thought. She looked and looked; a mist rose from the lake. A bride to meet her lover.
Why did she say that: “We are in the hands of the Lord?” she wondered. The insincerity annoyed her. She returned to her knitting again. How could any Lord make this world? she asked. With her mind she had always seized the fact that there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death, the poor. She knew that. No happiness lasted; she knew that. She knitted with firm composure.
Her husband passed. He noted the sternness at the heart of her beauty. It saddened him, and her remoteness pained him. He felt, as he passed, that he could not protect her. When he reached the hedge, he was sad. He could do nothing to help her. He must stand by and watch her. Indeed, the infernal truth was, he made things worse for her. He was irritable – he was touchy. He had lost his temper over the Lighthouse. He looked into the hedge, into its intricacy, its darkness.
Mrs. Ramsay listened, but it was all very still. Cricket was over; the children were in their baths; there was only the sound of the sea. She stopped knitting. She held the long reddish-brown stocking in her hands. She saw the light again. With some irony, she was watching it with fascination, hypnotized. Anyway, she had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness. It silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded. The blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach. The ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!
He turned and saw her. Ah! She was lovely, lovelier now than ever he thought. But he could not speak to her. He could not interrupt her.
He wanted urgently to speak to her now. James was gone and she was alone at last. But he resolved, no. He won’t interrupt her. She was aloof from him now in her beauty, in her sadness. He passed her without a word, though it hurt him. She looked distant, and he could not reach her, he could do nothing to help her. And again he passed her without a word.
She called to him and took the green shawl off the picture frame, and went to him. For he wished, she knew, to protect her.
12
She folded the green shawl about her shoulders. She took his arm. She began to speak of Kennedy the gardener. His beauty was so great, she said, he was so awfully handsome, that she couldn’t dismiss him. There was a ladder against the greenhouse. Little lumps of putty stuck about. They were beginning to mend the greenhouse.
She strolled along with her husband. She had it on the tip of her tongue to say[14], as they strolled, “It’ll cost fifty pounds”. But instead she talked about Jasper who was shooting birds. He said, at once, that it was natural in a boy. He soothed her instantly. Her husband was so sensible, so just. And so she said, “Yes; all children go through stages[15],” and began considering the dahlias in the big bed. She was wondering about next year’s flowers. Had he heard the children’s nickname for Charles Tansley, she asked. The atheist, they called him, the little atheist.
“He’s not a polished specimen,” said Mr. Ramsay.
“Far from it,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
Mrs. Ramsay was wondering whether it was any use sending down bulbs; did they plant them?
“Oh, he has his dissertation to write,” said Mr. Ramsay.
She knew all about that, said Mrs. Ramsay. He talked of nothing else. It was about the influence of somebody upon something.
“Well, it’s all he has to count on,” said Mr. Ramsay.
“Pray Heaven he won’t fall in love with Prue,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
“He’ll disinherit her if she marries him,” said Mr. Ramsay.
He did not look at the flowers, which his wife was considering.
“There is no harm in him,” he added.
He was just about to say that anyhow he was the only young man in England who admired his – when he stopped. He did not want to bother her again about his books.
“These flowers seem creditable,” Mr. Ramsay said.
He lowered his gaze and noticed something red, something brown.
“Yes, I put in these flowers with my own hands,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
The question was, what happened if she sent bulbs down; did Kennedy plant them? It was his incurable laziness; she added.
So they strolled along, towards the red-hot pokers.
“You’re teaching your daughters to exaggerate,” said Mr. Ramsay.
Her Aunt Camilla was far worse than she was, Mrs. Ramsay remarked.
“Nobody ever saw your Aunt Camilla as a model of virtue,” said Mr. Ramsay.
“She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
“Somebody else was that,” said Mr. Ramsay.
Prue was going to be far more beautiful than she was, said Mrs. Ramsay.
He saw no trace of it, said Mr. Ramsay.
“Well, then, look tonight,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
They paused. Andrew must work harder. He will lose every