To The Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

her. He was amazingly well informed. And as he was grateful, and as

  he liked her, and as he was beginning to enjoy himself, so now, Mrs

  Ramsay thought, she could return to that dream land, that unreal but

  fascinating place, the Mannings' drawing-room at Marlow twenty years

  ago; where one moved about without haste or anxiety, for there was no

  future to worry about. She knew what had happened to them, what to

  her. It was like reading a good book again, for she knew the end of

  that story, since it had happened twenty years ago, and life, which

  shot down even from this dining-room table in cascades, heaven knows

  where, was sealed up there, and lay, like a lake, placidly between its

  banks. He said they had built a billiard room--was it possible?

  Would William go on talking about the Mannings? She wanted him to.

  But, no--for some reason he was no longer in the mood. She tried.

  He did not respond. She could not force him. She was disappointed.

  "The children are disgraceful," she said, sighing. He said something

  about punctuality being one of the minor virtues which we do not

  acquire until later in life.

  "If at all," said Mrs Ramsay merely to fill up space, thinking what an

  old maid William was becoming. Conscious of his treachery, conscious

  of her wish to talk about something more intimate, yet out of mood for

  it at present, he felt come over him the disagreeableness of life,

  sitting there, waiting. Perhaps the others were saying something

  interesting? What were they saying?

  That the fishing season was bad; that the men were emigrating. They

  were talking about wages and unemployment. The young man was abusing

  the government. William Bankes, thinking what a relief it was to catch

  on to something of this sort when private life was disagreeable, heard

  him say something about "one of the most scandalous acts of the present

  government." Lily was listening; Mrs Ramsay was listening; they were

  all listening. But already bored, Lily felt that something was lacking;

  Mr Bankes felt that something was lacking. Pulling her shawl round her

  Mrs Ramsay felt that something was lacking. All of them bending

  themselves to listen thought, "Pray heaven that the inside of my mind

  may not be exposed," for each thought, "The others are feeling this.

  They are outraged and indignant with the government about the

  fishermen. Whereas, I feel nothing at all." But perhaps, thought Mr

  Bankes, as he looked at Mr Tansley, here is the man. One was always

  waiting for the man. There was always a chance. At any moment the

  leader might arise; the man of genius, in politics as in anything else.

  Probably he will be extremely disagreeable to us old fogies, thought Mr

  Bankes, doing his best to make allowances, for he knew by some curious

  physical sensation, as of nerves erect in his spine, that he was

  jealous, for himself partly, partly more probably for his work, for his

  point of view, for his science; and therefore he was not entirely open-

  minded or altogether fair, for Mr Tansley seemed to be saying, You have

  wasted your lives. You are all of you wrong. Poor old fogies, you're

  hopelessly behind the times. He seemed to be rather cocksure, this

  young man; and his manners were bad. But Mr Bankes bade himself

  observe, he had courage; he had ability; he was extremely well up in

  the facts. Probably, Mr Bankes thought, as Tansley abused the

  government, there is a good deal in what he says.

  "Tell me now..." he said. So they argued about politics, and Lily

  looked at the leaf on the table-cloth; and Mrs Ramsay, leaving the

  argument entirely in the hands of the two men, wondered why she was so

  bored by this talk, and wished, looking at her husband at the other end

  of the table, that he would say something. One word, she said to

  herself. For if he said a thing, it would make all the difference. He

  went to the heart of things. He cared about fishermen and their wages.

  He could not sleep for thinking of them. It was altogether different

  when he spoke; one did not feel then, pray heaven Then, realising that

  it was because she admired him so much that she was waiting for him to

  speak, she felt as if somebody had been praising her husband to her and

  their marriage, and she glowed all over withiut realising that it was

  she herself who had praised him. She looked at him thinking to find

  this in his face; he would be looking magnificent... But not in the

  least! He was screwing his face up, he was scowling and frowning, and

  flushing with anger. What on earth was it about? she wondered. What

  could be the matter? Only that poor old Augustus had asked for

  another plate of soup--that was all. It was unthinkable, it was

  detestable (so he signalled to her across the table) that Augustus

  should be beginning his soup over again. He loathed people eating when

  he had finished. She saw his anger fly like a pack of hounds into his

  eyes, his brow, and she knew that in a moment something violent would

  explode, and then--thank goodness! she saw him clutch himself and clap

  a brake on the wheel, and the whole of his body seemed to emit sparks

  but not words. He sat there scowling. He had said nothing, he would

  have her observe. Let her give him the credit for that! But why

  after all should poor Augustus not ask for another plate of soup? He

  had merely touched Ellen's arm and said:

  "Ellen, please, another plate of soup," and then Mr Ramsay scowled like

  that.

  And why not? Mrs Ramsay demanded. Surely they could let Augustus have

  his soup if he wanted it. He hated people wallowing in food, Mr Ramsay

  frowned at her. He hated everything dragging on for hours like this.

  But he had controlled himself, Mr Ramsay would have her observe,

  disgusting though the sight was. But why show it so plainly, Mrs

  Ramsay demanded (they looked at each other down the long table sending

  these questions and answers across, each knowing exactly what the other

  felt). Everybody could see, Mrs Ramsay thought. There was Rose gazing

  at her father, there was Roger gazing at his father; both would be off

  in spasms of laughter in another second, she knew, and so she said

  promptly (indeed it was time):

  "Light the candles," and they jumped up instantly and went and fumbled

  at the sideboard.

  Why could he never conceal his feelings? Mrs Ramsay wondered, and she

  wondered if Augustus Carmichael had noticed. Perhaps he had; perhaps

  he had not. She could not help respecting the composure with which he

  sat there, drinking his soup. If he wanted soup, he asked for soup.

  Whether people laughed at him or were angry with him he was the same.

  He did not like her, she knew that; but partly for that very reason she

  respected him, and looking at him, drinking soup, very large and calm

  in the failing light, and monumental, and contemplative, she wondered

  what he did feel then, and why he was always content and dignified; and

  she thought how devoted he was to Andrew, and would call him into his

  room, and Andrew said, "show him things." And there he would lie all

  day long on the lawn brooding presumably ove
r his poetry, till he

  reminded one of a cat watching birds, and then he clapped his paws

  together when he had found the word, and her husband said, "Poor old

  Augustus--he's a true poet," which was high praise from her husband.

  Now eight candles were stood down the table, and after the first stoop

  the flames stood upright and drew with them into visibility the long

  table entire, and in the middle a yellow and purple dish of fruit. What

  had she done with it, Mrs Ramsay wondered, for Rose's arrangement of

  the grapes and pears, of the horny pink-lined shell, of the bananas,

  made her think of a trophy fetched from the bottom of the sea, of

  Neptune's banquet, of the bunch that hangs with vine leaves over the

  shoulder of Bacchus (in some picture), among the leopard skins and the

  torches lolloping red and gold... Thus brought up suddenly into the

  light it seemed possessed of great size and depth, was like a world in

  which one could take one's staff and climb hills, she thought, and go

  down into valleys, and to her pleasure (for it brought them into

  sympathy momentarily) she saw that Augustus too feasted his eyes on the

  same plate of fruit, plunged in, broke off a bloom there, a tassel

  here, and returned, after feasting, to his hive. That was his way of

  looking, different from hers. But looking together united them.

  Now all the candles were lit up, and the faces on both sides of the

  table were brought nearer by the candle light, and composed, as they

  had not been in the twilight, into a party round a table, for the night

  was now shut off by panes of glass, which, far from giving any accurate

  view of the outside world, rippled it so strangely that here, inside

  the room, seemed to be order and dry land; there, outside, a reflection

  in which things waved and vanished, waterily.

  Some change at once went through them all, as if this had really

  happened, and they were all conscious of making a party together in a

  hollow, on an island; had their common cause against that fluidity out

  there. Mrs Ramsay, who had been uneasy, waiting for Paul and Minta to

  come in, and unable, she felt, to settle to things, now felt her

  uneasiness changed to expectation. For now they must come, and Lily

  Briscoe, trying to analyse the cause of the sudden exhilaration,

  compared it with that moment on the tennis lawn, when solidity suddenly

  vanished, and such vast spaces lay between them; and now the same

  effect was got by the many candles in the sparely furnished room, and

  the uncurtained windows, and the bright mask-like look of faces seen by

  candlelight. Some weight was taken off them; anything might happen,

  she felt. They must come now, Mrs Ramsay thought, looking at the door,

  and at that instant, Minta Doyle, Paul Rayley, and a maid carrying a

  great dish in her hands came in together. They were awfully late; they

  were horribly late, Minta said, as they found their way to different

  ends of the table.

  "I lost my brooch--my grandmother's brooch," said Minta with a sound of

  lamentation in her voice, and a suffusion in her large brown eyes,

  looking down, looking up, as she sat by Mr Ramsay, which roused his

  chivalry so that he bantered her.

  How could she be such a goose, he asked, as to scramble about the rocks

  in jewels?

  She was by way of being terrified of him--he was so fearfully clever,

  and the first night when she had sat by him, and he talked about George

  Eliot, she had been really frightened, for she had left the third

  volume of MIDDLEMARCH in the train and she never knew what happened in

  the end; but afterwards she got on perfectly, and made herself out even

  more ignorant than she was, because he liked telling her she was a

  fool. And so tonight, directly he laughed at her, she was not

  frightened. Besides, she knew, directly she came into the room that the

  miracle had happened; she wore her golden haze. Sometimes she had it;

  sometimes not. She never knew why it came or why it went, or if she

  had it until she came into the room and then she knew instantly by the

  way some man looked at her. Yes, tonight she had it, tremendously; she

  knew that by the way Mr Ramsay told her not to be a fool. She sat

  beside him, smiling.

  It must have happened then, thought Mrs Ramsay; they are engaged. And

  for a moment she felt what she had never expected to feel again--

  jealousy. liked these girls, these golden-reddish girls, with something

  flying, something a little wild and harum-scarum about them, who didn't

  "scrape their hair off," weren't, as he said about poor Lily Briscoe,

  "skimpy". There was some quality which she herself had not, some

  lustre, some richness, which attracted him, amused him, led him to make

  favourites of girls like Minta. They might cut his hair from him,

  plait him watch-chains, or interrupt him at his work, hailing him (she

  heard them), "Come along, Mr Ramsay; it's our turn to beat them now,"

  and out he came to play tennis.

  But indeed she was not jealous, only, now and then, when she made

  herself look in her glass, a little resentful that she had grown old,

  perhaps, by her own fault. (The bill for the greenhouse and all the

  rest of it.) She was grateful to them for laughing at him. ("How many

  pipes have you smoked today, Mr Ramsay?" and so on), till he seemed a

  young man; a man very attractive to women, not burdened, not weighed

  down with the greatness of his labours and the sorrows of the world and

  his fame or his failure, but again as she had first known him, gaunt

  but gallant; helping her out of a boat, she remembered; with delightful

  ways, like that (she looked at him, and he looked astonishingly young,

  teasing Minta). For herself--"Put it down there," she said, helping

  the Swiss girl to place gently before her the huge brown pot in which

  was the BOEUF EN DAUBE--for her own part, she liked her boobies. Paul

  must sit by her. She had kept a place for him. Really, she sometimes

  thought she liked the boobies best. They did not bother one with their

  dissertations. How much they missed, after all, these very clever men!

  How dried up they did become, to be sure. There was something, she

  thought as he sat down, very charming about Paul. His manners were

  delightful to her, and his sharp cut nose and his bright blue eyes. He

  was so considerate. Would he tell her--now that they were all talking

  again--what had happened?

  "We went back to look for Minta's brooch," he said, sitting down by

  her. "We"--that was enough. She knew from the effort, the rise in his

  voice to surmount a difficult word that it was the first time he had

  said "we." "We did this, we did that." They'll say that all their

  lives, she thought, and an exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice

  rose from the great brown dish as Marthe, with a little flourish, took

  the cover off. The cook had spent three days over that dish. And she

  must take great care, Mrs Ramsay thought, diving into the soft mass, to

  choose a specially tender piece for William Bankes. And she peered into

  the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and<
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  yellow meats and its bay leaves and its wine, and thought, This will

  celebrate the occasion--a curious sense rising in her, at once freakish

  and tender, of celebrating a festival, as if two emotions were called

  up in her, one profound--for what could be more serious than the love

  of man for woman, what more commanding, more impressive, bearing in its

  bosom the seeds of death; at the same time these lovers, these people

  entering into illusion glittering eyed, must be danced round with

  mockery, decorated with garlands.

  "It is a triumph," said Mr Bankes, laying his knife down for a moment.

  He had eaten attentively. It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly

  cooked. How did she manage these things in the depths of the country?

  he asked her. She was a wonderful woman. All his love, all his

  reverence, had returned; and she knew it.

  "It is a French recipe of my grandmother's," said Mrs Ramsay, speaking

  with a ring of great pleasure in her voice. Of course it was French.

  What passes for cookery in England is an abomination (they agreed). It

  is putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like

  leather. It is cutting off the delicious skins of vegetables. "In

  which," said Mr Bankes, "all the virtue of the vegetable is contained."

  And the waste, said Mrs Ramsay. A whole French family could live on

  what an English cook throws away. Spurred on by her sense that

  William's affection had come back to her, and that everything was all

  right again, and that her suspense was over, and that now she was free

  both to triumph and to mock, she laughed, she gesticulated, till Lily

  thought, How childlike, how absurd she was, sitting up there with all

  her beauty opened again in her, talking about the skins of vegetables.

  There was something frightening about her. She was irresistible.

  Always she got her own way in the end, Lily thought. Now she had

  brought this off--Paul and Minta, one might suppose, were engaged. Mr

  Bankes was dining here. She put a spell on them all, by wishing, so

  simply, so directly, and Lily contrasted that abundance with her own

  poverty of spirit, and supposed that it was partly that belief (for her

  face was all lit up--without looking young, she looked radiant) in this

  strange, this terrifying thing, which made Paul Rayley, sitting at her

  side, all of a tremor, yet abstract, absorbed, silent. Mrs Ramsay,

  Lily felt, as she talked about the skins of vegetables, exalted that,

  worshipped that; held her hands over it to warm them, to protect it,

  and yet, having brought it all about, somehow laughed, led her victims,

  Lily felt, to the altar. It came over her too now--the emotion, the

  vibration, of love. How inconspicuous she felt herself by Paul's side!

  He, glowing, burning; she, aloof, satirical; he, bound for adventure;

  she, moored to the shore; he, ready to implore a share, if it were a

  disaster, in his disaster, she said shyly:

  "When did Minta lose her brooch?"

  He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.

  He shook his head. "On the beach," he said.

  "I'm going to find it," he said, "I'm getting up early." This being

  kept secret from Minta, he lowered his voice, and turned his eyes to

  where she sat, laughing, beside Mr Ramsay.

  Lily wanted to protest violently and outrageously her desire to help

  him, envisaging how in the dawn on the beach she would be the one to

  pounce on the brooch half-hidden by some stone, and thus herself be

  included among the sailors and adventurers. But what did he reply to

  her offer? She actually said with an emotion that she seldom let

  appear, "Let me come with you," and he laughed. He meant yes or no--

  either perhaps. But it was not his meaning--it was the odd chuckle

  he gave, as if he had said, Throw yourself over the cliff if you like,

  I don't care. He turned on her cheek the heat of love, its horror, its

  cruelty, its unscrupulosity. It scorched her, and Lily, looking at