To The Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

thought. She was astonishingly beautiful. Her beauty seemed to him,

  if that were possible, to increase

  Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,

  As with your shadow I with these did play,

  she finished.

  "Well?" she said, echoing his smile dreamily, looking up from her book.

  As with your shadow I with these did play,

  she murmured, putting the book on the table.

  What had happened, she wondered, as she took up her knitting, since she

  had seen him alone? She remembered dressing, and seeing the moon;

  Andrew holding his plate too high at dinner; being depressed by

  something William had said; the birds in the trees; the sofa on the

  landing; the children being awake; Charles Tansley waking them with his

  books falling--oh, no, that she had invented; and Paul having a wash-

  leather case for his watch. Which should she tell him about?

  "They're engaged," she said, beginning to knit, "Paul and Minta."

  "So I guessed," he said. There was nothing very much to be said about

  it. Her mind was still going up and down, up and down with the poetry;

  he was still feeling very vigorous, very forthright, after reading

  about Steenie's funeral. So they sat silent. Then she became aware

  that she wanted him to say something.

  Anything, anything, she thought, going on with her knitting. Anything

  will do.

  "How nice it would be to marry a man with a wash-leather bag for his

  watch," she said, for that was the sort of joke they had together.

  He snorted. He felt about this engagement as he always felt about any

  engagement; the girl is much too good for that young man. Slowly it

  came into her head, why is it then that one wants people to marry?

  What was the value, the meaning of things? (Every word they said now

  would be true.) Do say something, she thought, wishing only to hear his

  voice. For the shadow, the thing folding them in was beginning, she

  felt, to close round her again. Say anything, she begged, looking at

  him, as if for help.

  He was silent, swinging the compass on his watch-chain to and fro, and

  thinking of Scott's novels and Balzac's novels. But through the

  crepuscular walls of their intimacy, for they were drawing together,

  involuntarily, coming side by side, quite close, she could feel his

  mind like a raised hand shadowing her mind; and he was beginning, now

  that her thoughts took a turn he disliked--towards this "pessimism" as

  he called it--to fidget, though he said nothing, raising his hand to

  his forehead, twisting a lock of hair, letting it fall again.

  "You won't finish that stocking tonight," he said, pointing to her

  stocking. That was what she wanted--the asperity in his voice

  reproving her. If he says it's wrong to be pessimistic probably it is

  wrong, she thought; the marriage will turn out all right.

  "No," she said, flattening the stocking out upon her knee, "I shan't

  finish it."

  And what then? For she felt that he was still looking at her, but that

  his look had changed. He wanted something--wanted the thing she always

  found it so difficult to give him; wanted her to tell him that she

  loved him. And that, no, she could not do. He found talking so much

  easier than she did. He could say things--she never could. So

  naturally it was always he that said the things, and then for some

  reason he would mind this suddenly, and would reproach her. A

  heartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him.

  But it was not so--it was not so. It was only that she never could say

  what she felt. Was there no crumb on his coat? Nothing she could do

  for him? Getting up, she stood at the window with the reddish-brown

  stocking in her hands, partly to turn away from him, partly because she

  remembered how beautiful it often is--the sea at night. But she knew

  that he had turned his head as she turned; he was watching her. She

  knew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever. And she

  felt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that

  you love me? He was thinking that, for he was roused, what with Minta

  and his book, and its being the end of the day and their having

  quarrelled about going to the Lighthouse. But she could not do it; she

  could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of

  saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him.

  And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not

  said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could

  not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said

  (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)--

  "Yes, you were right. It's going to be wet tomorrow. You won't be able

  to go." And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again.

  She had not said it: yet he knew.

  TIME PASSES

  1

  "Well, we must wait for the future to show," said Mr Bankes, coming in

  from the terrace.

  "It's almost too dark to see," said Andrew, coming up from the beach.

  "One can hardly tell which is the sea and which is the land," said

  Prue.

  "Do we leave that light burning?" said Lily as they took their coats

  off indoors.

  "No," said Prue, "not if every one's in."

  "Andrew," she called back, "just put out the light in the hall."

  One by one the lamps were all extinguished, except that Mr Carmichael,

  who liked to lie awake a little reading Virgil, kept his candle burning

  rather longer than the rest.

  2

  So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming

  on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it

  seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which,

  creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came

  into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red

  and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of

  drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely

  anything left of body or mind by which one could say, "This is he" or

  "This is she." Sometimes a hand was raised as if to clutch something or

  ward off something, or somebody groaned, or somebody laughed aloud as

  if sharing a joke with nothingness.

  Nothing stirred in the drawing-room or in the dining-room or on the

  staircase. Only through the rusty hinges and swollen sea-moistened

  woodwork certain airs, detached from the body of the wind (the house

  was ramshackle after all) crept round corners and ventured indoors.

  Almost one might imagine them, as they entered the drawing-room

  questioning and wondering, toying with the flap of hanging wall-paper,

  asking, would it hang much longer, when would it fall? Then smoothly

  brushing the walls, they passed on musingly as if asking the red and

  yellow roses on the wall-paper whether they time at their disposal) the

  torn letters in the wastepaper basket, the flowers, the books, all of

  which were now open to them and asking, Were they allies? Were they

  enemies? How long would they endure?

  So some random light directing them w
ith its pale footfall upon stair

  and mat, from some uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse

  even, with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, the little airs

  mounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here surely,

  they must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear, what lies here

  is steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those

  fumbling airs that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can

  neither touch nor destroy. Upon which, wearily, ghostlily, as if they

  had feather-light fingers and the light persistency of feathers, they

  would look, once, on the shut eyes, and the loosely clasping fingers,

  and fold their garments wearily and disappear. And so, nosing,

  rubbing, they went to the window on the staircase, to the servants'

  bedrooms, to the boxes in the attics; descending, blanched the apples

  on the dining-room table, fumbled the petals of roses, tried the

  picture on the easel, brushed the mat and blew a little sand along the

  floor. At length, desisting, all ceased together, gathered together,

  all sighed together; all together gave off an aimless gust of

  lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide;

  admitted nothing; and slammed to.

  [Here Mr Carmichael, who was reading Virgil, blew out his candle. It

  was past midnight.]

  3

  But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the

  darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a

  faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave.

  Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in

  store and deals them equally, they darken. Some of them hold aloft

  clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they

  are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool

  cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in

  battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The

  autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest

  moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the

  stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.

  It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil,

  divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single,

  distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking; which,

  did we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness,

  twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he

  covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so

  confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever

  return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect

  whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our

  penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only.

  The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and

  bend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered

  with them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and

  scatter damp paths. Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and

  should any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer

  to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and

  go down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of

  serving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night

  to order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul. The

  hand dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear. Almost it

  would appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night

  those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the

  sleeper from his bed to seek an answer.

  [Mr Ramsay, stumbling along a passage one dark morning, stretched his

  arms out, but Mrs Ramsay having died rather suddenly the night before,

  his arms, though stretched out, remained empty.]]

  4

  So with the house empty and the doors locked and the mattresses rolled

  round, those stray airs, advance guards of great armies, blustered in,

  brushed bare boards, nibbled and fanned, met nothing in bedroom or

  drawing-room that wholly resisted them but only hangings that flapped,

  wood that creaked, the bare legs of tables, saucepans and china already

  furred, tarnished, cracked. What people had shed and left--a pair of

  shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes--those

  alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they

  were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and

  buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world

  hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened,

  in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. Now, day

  after day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp

  image on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing

  in the wind, made obeisance on the wall, and for a moment darkened the

  pool in which light reflected itself; or birds, flying, made a soft

  spot flutter slowly across the bedroom floor.

  So loveliness reigned and stillness, and together made the shape of

  loveliness itself, a form from which life had parted; solitary like a

  pool at evening, far distant, seen from a train window, vanishing so

  quickly that the pool, pale in the evening, is scarcely robbed of its

  solitude, though once seen. Loveliness and stillness clasped hands in

  the bedroom, and among the shrouded jugs and sheeted chairs even the

  prying of the wind, and the soft nose of the clammy sea airs, rubbing,

  snuffling, iterating, and reiterating their questions--"Will you fade?

  Will you perish?"--scarcely disturbed the peace, the indifference, the

  air of pure integrity, as if the question they asked scarcely needed

  that they should answer: we remain.

  Nothing it seemed could break that image, corrupt that innocence, or

  disturb the swaying mantle of silence which, week after week, in the

  empty room, wove into itself the falling cries of birds, ships hooting,

  the drone and hum of the fields, a dog's bark, a man's shout, and

  folded them round the house in silence. Once only a board sprang on

  the landing; once in the middle of the night with a roar, with a

  rupture, as after centuries of quiescence, a rock rends itself from the

  mountain and hurtles crashing into the valley, one fold of the shawl

  loosened and swung to and fro. Then again peace descended; and the

  shadow wavered; light bent to its own image in adoration on the bedroom

  wall; and Mrs McNab, tearing the veil of silence with hands that had

  stood in the wash-tub, grinding it with boots that had crunched the

  shingle, came as directed to open all windows, and dust the bedrooms.

  5

  As she lurched (for she rolled like a ship at sea) and leered (for her

  eyes fell on nothing directly, but with a sidelong glance that

  deprecated the scorn and anger of the world--she was witless, she knew

  it), as she clutched the banisters and hauled herself upstairs and

  rolled from room to room, she sang. R
ubbing the glass of the long

  looking-glass and leering sideways at her swinging figure a sound

  issued from her lips--something that had been gay twenty years before

  on the stage perhaps, had been toothless, bonneted, care-taking woman,

  was robbed of meaning, was like the voice of witlessness, humour,

  persistency itself, trodden down but springing up again, so that as she

  lurched, dusting, wiping, she seemed to say how it was one long sorrow

  and trouble, how it was getting up and going to bed again, and bringing

  things out and putting them away again. It was not easy or snug this

  world she had known for close on seventy years. Bowed down she was

  with weariness. How long, she asked, creaking and groaning on her

  knees under the bed, dusting the boards, how long shall it endure? but

  hobbled to her feet again, pulled herself up, and again with her

  sidelong leer which slipped and turned aside even from her own face,

  and her own sorrows, stood and gaped in the glass, aimlessly smiling,

  and began again the old amble and hobble, taking up mats, putting down

  china, looking sideways in the glass, as if, after all, she had her

  consolations, as if indeed there twined about her dirge some

  incorrigible hope. Visions of joy there must have been at the wash-

  tub, say with her children (yet two had been base-born and one had

  deserted her), at the public-house, drinking; turning over scraps in

  her drawers. Some cleavage of the dark there must have been, some

  channel in the depths of obscurity through which light enough issued to

  twist her face grinning in the glass and make her, turning to her job

  again, mumble out the old music hall song. The mystic, the visionary,

  walking the beach on a fine night, stirring a puddle, looking at a

  stone, asking themselves "What am I," "What is this?" had suddenly an

  answer vouchsafed them: (they could not say what it was) so that they

  were warm in the frost and had comfort in the desert. But Mrs McNab

  continued to drink and gossip as before.

  6

  The Spring without a leaf to toss, bare and bright like a virgin fierce

  in her chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid out on fields wide-

  eyed and watchful and entirely careless of what was done or thought by

  the beholders. [Prue Ramsay, leaning on her father's arm, was given in

  marriage. What, people said, could have been more fitting? And, they

  added, how beautiful she looked!]

  As summer neared, as the evenings lengthened, there came to the

  wakeful, the hopeful, walking the beach, stirring the pool,

  imaginations of the strangest kind--of flesh turned to atoms which

  drove before the wind, of stars flashing in their hearts, of cliff,

  sea, cloud, and sky brought purposely together to assemble outwardly

  the scattered parts of the vision within. In those mirrors, the minds

  of men, in those pools of uneasy water, in which clouds for ever turn

  and shadows form, dreams persisted, and it was impossible to resist the

  strange intimation which every gull, flower, tree, man and woman, and

  the white earth itself seemed to declare (but if questioned at once to

  withdraw) that good triumphs, happiness prevails, order rules; or to

  resist the extraordinary stimulus to range hither and thither in search

  of some absolute good, some crystal of intensity, remote from the known

  pleasures and familiar virtues, something alien to the processes of

  domestic life, single, hard, bright, like a diamond in the sand, which

  would render the possessor secure. Moreover, softened and acquiescent,

  the spring with her bees humming and gnats dancing threw her cloak

  about her, veiled her eyes, averted her head, and among passing shadows

  and flights of small rain seemed to have taken upon her a knowledge of

  the sorrows of mankind.

  [Prue Ramsay died that summer in some illness connected with