To The Lighthouse

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To The Lighthouse Page 13

by Virginia Woolf

about making jokes, as now, not being able to decide whether they were

  going into the smoking-room, into the drawing-room, up to the attics.

  Then one saw Mrs Ramsay in the midst of this hubbub standing there with

  Minta's arm in hers, bethink her, "Yes, it is time for that now," and

  so make off at once with an air of secrecy to do something alone. And

  directly she went a sort of disintegration set in; they wavered about,

  went different ways, Mr Bankes took Charles Tansley by the arm and went

  off to finish on the terrace the discussion they had begun at dinner

  about politics, thus giving a turn to the whole poise of the evening,

  making the weight fall in a different direction, as if, Lily thought,

  seeing them go, and hearing a word or two about the policy of the

  Labour Party, they had gone up on to the bridge of the ship and were

  taking their bearings; the change from poetry to politics struck her

  like that; so Mr Bankes and Charles Mrs Ramsay going upstairs in the

  lamplight alone. Where, Lily wondered, was she going so quickly?

  Not that she did in fact run or hurry; she went indeed rather slowly.

  She felt rather inclined just for a moment to stand still after all

  that chatter, and pick out one particular thing; the thing that

  mattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions

  and odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her, and bring it to

  the tribunal where, ranged about in conclave, sat the judges she had

  set up to decide these things. Is it good, is it bad, is it right or

  wrong? Where are we all going to? and so on. So she righted

  herself after the shock of the event, and quite unconsciously and

  incongruously, used the branches of the elm trees outside to help her

  to stabilise her position. Her world was changing: they were still.

  The event had given her a sense of movement. All must be in order.

  She must get that right and that right, she thought, insensibly

  approving of the dignity of the trees' stillness, and now again of the

  superb upward rise (like the beak of a ship up a wave) of the elm

  branches as the wind raised them. For it was windy (she stood a moment

  to look out). It was windy, so that the leaves now and then brushed

  open a star, and the stars themselves seemed to be shaking and darting

  light and trying to flash out between the edges of the leaves. Yes,

  that was done then, accomplished; and as with all things done, became

  solemn. Now one thought of it, cleared of chatter and emotion, it

  seemed always to have been, only was shown now and so being shown,

  struck everything into stability. They would, she thought, going on

  again, however long they lived, come back to this night; this moon;

  this wind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her, where she was

  most susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their

  hearts, however long they lived she would be woven; and this, and this,

  and this, she thought, going upstairs, laughing, but affectionately, at

  the sofa on the landing (her mother's); at the rocking-chair (her

  father's); at the map of the Hebrides. All that would be revived again

  in the lives of Paul and Minta; "the Rayleys"--she tried the new name

  over; and she felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community

  of feeling with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of

  partition had become so thin that practically (the feeling was one of

  relief and happiness) it was all one stream, and chairs, tables, maps,

  were hers, were theirs, it did not matter whose, and Paul and Minta

  would carry it on when she was dead.

  She turned the handle, firmly, lest it should squeak, and went in,

  pursing her lips slightly, as if to remind herself that she must not

  speak aloud. But directly she came in she saw, with annoyance, that the

  precaution was not needed. The children were not asleep. It was most

  annoying. Mildred should be more careful. There was James wide awake

  and Cam sitting bolt upright, and Mildred out of bed in her bare feet,

  and it was almost eleven and they were all talking. What was the

  matter? It was that horrid skull again. She had told Mildred to move

  it, but Mildred, of course, had forgotten, and now there was Cam wide

  awake, and James wide awake quarreling when they ought to have been

  asleep hours ago. What had possessed Edward to send them this horrid

  skull? She had been so foolish as to let them nail it up there. It

  was nailed fast, Mildred said, and Cam couldn't go to sleep with it in

  the room, and James screamed if she touched it.

  Then Cam must go to sleep (it had great horns said Cam)--must go to

  sleep and dream of lovely bed by her side. She could see the horns,

  Cam said, all over the room. It was true. Wherever they put the light

  (and James could not sleep without a light) there was always a shadow

  somewhere.

  "But think, Cam, it's only an old pig," said Mrs Ramsay, "a nice black

  pig like the pigs at the farm." But Cam thought it was a horrid thing,

  branching at her all over the room.

  "Well then," said Mrs Ramsay, "we will cover it up," and they all

  watched her go to the chest of drawers, and open the little drawers

  quickly one after another, and not seeing anything that would do, she

  quickly took her own shawl off and wound it round the skull, round and

  round and round, and then she came back to Cam and laid her head almost

  flat on the pillow beside Cam's and said how lovely it looked now; how

  the fairies would love it; it was like a bird's nest; it was like a

  beautiful mountain such as she had seen abroad, with valleys and

  flowers and bells ringing and birds singing and little goats and

  antelopes and... She could see the words echoing as she spoke them

  rhythmically in Cam's mind, and Cam was repeating after her how it was

  like a mountain, a bird's nest, a garden, and there were little

  antelopes, and her eyes were opening and shutting, and Mrs Ramsay went

  on speaking still more monotonously, and more rhythmically and more

  nonsensically, how she must shut her eyes and go to sleep and dream of

  mountains and valleys and stars falling and parrots and antelopes and

  gardens, and everything lovely, she said, raising her head very slowly

  and speaking more and more mechanically, until she sat upright and saw

  that Cam was asleep.

  Now, she whispered, crossing over to his bed, James must go to sleep

  too, for see, she said, the boar's skull was still there; they had not

  touched it; quite unhurt. He made sure that the skull was still there

  under the shawl. But he wanted to ask her something more. Would they

  go to the Lighthouse tomorrow?

  No, not tomorrow, she said, but soon, she promised him; the next fine

  day. He was very good. He lay down. She covered him up. But he

  would never forget, she knew, and she felt angry with Charles Tansley,

  with her husband, and with herself, for she had raised his hopes. Then

  feeling for her shawl and remembering that she had wrapped it round the

  boar's skull, she got up, and pulled the window down another inch or

  two, and heard the wind, and got a breath of the perfectly indifferent


  chill night air and murmured good night to Mildred and left the room

  and let the tongue of the door slowly lengthen in the lock and went

  out.

  She hoped he would not bang his books on the floor above their heads,

  she thought, still thinking how annoying Charles Tansley was. For

  neither of them slept well; they were excitable children, and since he

  said things like that about the Lighthouse, it seemed to her likely

  that he would knock a pile of books over, just as they were going to

  sleep, clumsily sweeping them off the table with his elbow. For she

  supposed that he had gone upstairs to work. Yet he looked so desolate;

  yet she would feel relieved when he went; yet she would see that he was

  better treated tomorrow; yet he was admirable with her husband; yet his

  manners certainly wanted improving; yet she liked his laugh--thinking

  this, as she came downstairs, she noticed that she could now see the

  moon itself through the staircase window--the yellow harvest moon--

  and turned, and they saw her, standing above them on the stairs.

  "That's my mother," thought Prue. Yes; Minta should look at her; Paul

  Rayley should look at her. That is the thing itself, she felt, as if

  there were only one person like that in the world; her mother. And,

  from having been quite grown up, a moment before, talking with the

  others, she became a child again, and what they had been doing was a

  game, and would her mother sanction their game, or condemn it, she

  wondered. And thinking what a chance it was for Minta and Paul and

  Lily to see her, and feeling what an extraordinary stroke of fortune it

  was for her, to have her, and how she would never grow up and never

  leave home, she said, like a child, "We thought of going down to the

  beach to watch the waves."

  Instantly, for no reason at all, Mrs Ramsay became like a girl of

  twenty, full of gaiety. A mood of revelry suddenly took possession of

  her. Of course they must go; of course they must go, she cried,

  laughing; and running down the last three or four steps quickly, she

  began turning from one to the other and laughing and drawing Minta's

  wrap round her and saying she only wished she could come too, and would

  they be very late, and had any of them got a watch?

  "Yes, Paul has," said Minta. Paul slipped a beautiful gold watch out

  of a little wash-leather case to show her. And as he held it in the

  palm of his hand before her, he felt, "She knows all about it. I need

  not say anything." He was saying to her as he showed her the watch,

  "I've done it, Mrs Ramsay. I owe it all to you." And seeing the gold

  watch lying in his hand, Mrs Ramsay felt, How extraordinarily lucky

  Minta is! She is marrying a man who has a gold watch in a wash-

  leather bag!

  "How I wish I could come with you!" she cried. But she was withheld by

  something so strong that she never even thought of asking herself what

  it was. Of course it was impossible for her to go with them. But she

  would have liked to go, had it not of her thought (how lucky to marry a

  man with a wash-leather bag for his watch) she went with a smile on

  her lips into the other room, where her husband sat reading.

  19

  Of course, she said to herself, coming into the room, she had to come

  here to get something she wanted. First she wanted to sit down in a

  particular chair under a particular lamp. But she wanted something

  more, though she did not know, could not think what it was that she

  wanted. She looked at her husband (taking up her stocking and

  beginning to knit), and saw that he did not want to be interrupted--

  that was clear. He was reading something that moved him very much. He

  was half smiling and then she knew he was controlling his emotion. He

  was tossing the pages over. He was acting it--perhaps he was

  thinking himself the person in the book. She wondered what book it was.

  Oh, it was one of old Sir Walter's she saw, adjusting the shade of her

  lamp so that the light fell on her knitting. For Charles Tansley had

  been saying (she looked up as if she expected to hear the crash of

  books on the floor above), had been saying that people don't read Scott

  any more. Then her husband thought, "That's what they'll say of me;"

  so he went and got one of those books. And if he came to the

  conclusion "That's true" what Charles Tansley said, he would accept it

  about Scott. (She could see that he was weighing, considering, putting

  this with that as he read.) But not about himself. He was always

  uneasy about himself. That troubled her. He would always be worrying

  about his own books--will they be read, are they good, why aren't they

  better, what do people think of me? Not liking to think of him so,

  and wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he suddenly became

  irritable when they talked about fame and books lasting, wondering if

  the children were laughing at that, she twitched the stockings out, and

  all the fine gravings came drawn with steel instruments about her lips

  and forehead, and she grew still like a tree which has been tossing and

  quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into

  quiet.

  It didn't matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book,

  fame--who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way

  with him, his truthfulness--for instance at dinner she had been

  thinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete

  trust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a

  weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she

  had felt in the hall when the others were talking, There is something I

  want--something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper

  without knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed. And she

  waited a little, knitting, wondering, and slowly rose those words they

  had said at dinner, "the China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the

  honey bee," began washing from side to side of her mind rhythmically,

  and as they washed, words, like little shaded lights, one red, one

  blue, one yellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leaving

  their perches up there to fly across and across, or to cry out and to

  be echoed; so she turned and felt on the table beside her for a book.

  And all the lives we ever lived

  And all the lives to be,

  Are full of trees and changing leaves,

  she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened

  the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so,

  she felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up

  under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white,

  or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all.

  Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners

  she read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and

  that, from one line to another as from one branch to another, from one

  red and white flower to another, until a little sound roused her--her

  husband slapping his thighs. Their eyes met for a second; but they did

  not wan
t to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but

  something seemed, nevertheless, to go from him to her. It was the

  life, it was the power of it, it was the tremendous humour, she knew,

  that made him slap his thighs. Don't interrupt me, he seemed to be

  saying, don't say anything; just sit there. And he went on reading.

  His lips twitched. It filled him. It fortified him. He clean forgot

  all the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him

  unutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and

  his being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when

  they passed his books over as if they didn't exist at all. But now, he

  felt, it didn't matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an

  alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it--if not he, then

  another. This man's strength and sanity, his feeling for straight

  forward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in

  Mucklebackit's cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of

  something that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back

  his tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them

  fall and shook his head from side to side and forgot himself completely

  (but not one or two reflections about morality and French novels and

  English novels and Scott's hands being tied but his view perhaps being

  as true as the other view), forgot his own bothers and failures

  completely in poor Steenie's drowning and Mucklebackit's sorrow (that

  was Scott at his best) and the astonishing delight and feeling of

  vigour that it gave him.

  Well, let them improve upon that, he thought as he finished the

  chapter. He felt that he had been arguing with somebody, and had got

  the better of him. They could not improve upon that, whatever they

  might say; and his own position became more secure. The lovers were

  fiddlesticks, he thought, collecting it all in his mind again. That's

  fiddlesticks, that's first-rate, he thought, putting one thing beside

  another. But he must read it again. He could not remember the whole

  shape of the thing. He had to keep his judgement in suspense. So he

  returned to the other thought--if young men did not care for this,

  naturally they did not care for him either. One ought not to complain,

  thought Mr Ramsay, trying to stifle his desire to complain to his wife

  that young men did not admire him. But he was determined; he would not

  bother her again. Here he looked at her reading. She looked very

  peaceful, reading. He liked to think that every one had taken

  themselves off and that he and she were alone. The whole of life did

  not consist in going to bed with a woman, he thought, returning to

  Scott and Balzac, to the English novel and the French novel.

  Mrs Ramsay raised her head and like a person in a light sleep seemed to

  say that if he wanted her to wake she would, she really would, but

  otherwise, might she go on sleeping, just a little longer, just a

  little longer? She was climbing up those branches, this way and that,

  laying hands on one flower and then another.

  "Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,"

  she read, and so reading she was ascending, she felt, on to the top,

  on to the summit. How satisfying! How restful! All the odds and ends

  of the day stuck to this magnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean. And

  then there it was, suddenly entire; she held it in her hands, beautiful

  and reasonable, clear and complete, here--the sonnet.

  But she was becoming conscious of her husband looking at her. He was

  smiling at her, quizzically, as if he were ridiculing her gently for

  being asleep in broad daylight, but at the same time he was thinking,

  Go on reading. You don't look sad now, he thought. And he wondered

  what she was reading, and exaggerated her ignorance, her simplicity,

  for he liked to think that she was not clever, not book-learned at all.

  He wondered if she understood what she was reading. Probably not, he

 

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