actually come down to the beach itself at least to lift the blind and
look out. They would see then night flowing down in purple; his head
crowned; his sceptre jewelled; and how in his eyes a child might look.
And if they still faltered (Lily was tired out with travelling and
slept almost at once; but Mr Carmichael read a book by candlelight), if
they still said no, that it was vapour, this splendour of his, and the
dew had more power than he, and they preferred sleeping; gently then
without complaint, or argument, the voice would sing its song. Gently
the waves would break (Lily heard them in her sleep); tenderly the
light fell (it seemed to come through her eyelids). And it all looked,
Mr Carmichael thought, shutting his book, falling asleep, much as it
used to look.
Indeed the voice might resume, as the curtains of dark wrapped
themselves over the house, over Mrs Beckwith, Mr Carmichael, and Lily
Briscoe so that they lay with several folds of blackness on their eyes,
why not accept this, be content with this, acquiesce and resign? The
sigh of all the seas breaking in measure round the isles soothed them;
the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep, until, the birds
beginning and the dawn weaving their thin voices in to its whiteness, a
cart grinding, a dog somewhere barking, the sun lifted the curtains,
broke the veil on their eyes, and Lily Briscoe stirring in her sleep.
She clutched at her blankets as a faller clutches at the turf on the
edge of a cliff. Her eyes opened wide. Here she was again, she
thought, sitting bold upright in bed. Awake.
THE LIGHTHOUSE
1
What does it mean then, what can it all mean? Lily Briscoe asked
herself, wondering whether, since she had been left alone, it behoved
her to go to the kitchen to fetch another cup of coffee or wait here.
What does it mean?--a catchword that was, caught up from some book,
fitting her thought loosely, for she could not, this first morning with
the Ramsays, contract her feelings, could only make a phrase resound to
cover the blankness of her mind until these vapours had shrunk. For
really, what did she feel, come back after all these years and Mrs
Ramsay dead? Nothing, nothing--nothing that she could express at all.
She had come late last night when it was all mysterious, dark. Now she
was awake, at her old place at the breakfast table, but alone. It was
very early too, not yet eight. There was this expedition--they were
going to the Lighthouse, Mr Ramsay, Cam, and James. They should have
gone already--they had to catch the tide or something. And Cam was
not ready and James was not ready and Nancy had forgotten to order the
sandwiches and Mr Ramsay had lost his temper and banged out of the
room.
"What's the use of going now?" he had stormed.
Nancy had vanished. There he was, marching up and down the terrace in
a rage. One seemed to hear doors slamming and voices calling all over
the house. Now Nancy burst in, and asked, looking round the room, in a
queer half dazed, half desperate way, "What does one send to the
Lighthouse?" as if she were forcing herself to do what she despaired of
ever being able to do.
What does one send to the Lighthouse indeed! At any other time Lily
could have suggested reasonably tea, tobacco, newspapers. But this
morning everything seemed so extraordinarily queer that a question like
Nancy's--What does one send to the Lighthouse?--opened doors in one's
mind that went banging and swinging to and fro and made one keep
asking, in a stupefied gape, What does one send? What does one do?
Why is one sitting here, after all?
Sitting alone (for Nancy went out again) among the clean cups at the
long table, she felt cut off from other people, and able only to go on
watching, asking, wondering. The house, the place, the morning, all
seemed strangers to her. She had no attachment here, she felt, no
relations with it, anything might happen, and whatever did happen, a
step outside, a voice calling ("It's not in the cupboard; it's on the
landing," some one cried), was a question, as if the link that usually
bound things together had been cut, and they floated up here, down
there, off, anyhow. How aimless it was,, how chaotic, how unreal it
was, she thought, looking at her empty coffee cup. Mrs Ramsay dead;
Andrew killed; Prue dead too--repeat it as she might, it roused no
feeling in her. And we all get together in a house like this on a
morning like this, she said, looking out of the window. It was a
beautiful still day.
Suddenly Mr Ramsay raised his head as he passed and looked straight at
her, with his distraught wild gaze which was yet so penetrating, as if
he saw you, for one second, for the first time, for ever; and she
pretended to drink out of her empty coffee cup so as to escape him--to
escape his demand on her, to put aside a moment longer that imperious
need. And he shook his head at her, and strode on ("Alone" she heard
him say, "Perished" she heard him say) and like everything else this
strange morning the words became symbols, wrote themselves all over the
grey-green walls. If only she could put them together, she felt, write
them out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of
things. Old Mr Carmichael came padding softly in, fetched his coffee,
took his cup and made off to sit in the sun. The extraordinary
unreality was frightening; but it was also exciting. Going to the
Lighthouse. But what does one send to the Lighthouse? Perished. Alone.
The grey-green light on the wall opposite. The empty places. Such were
some of the parts, but how bring them together? she asked. As if any
interruption would break the frail shape she was building on the table
she turned her back to the window lest Mr Ramsay should see her. She
must escape somewhere, be alone somewhere. Suddenly she remembered.
When she had sat there last ten years ago there had been a little sprig
or leaf pattern on the table-cloth, which she had looked at in a moment
of revelation. There had been a problem about a foreground of a
picture. Move the tree to the middle, she had said. She had never
finished that picture. She would paint that picture now. It had been
knocking about in her mind all these years. Where were her paints, she
wondered? Her paints, yes. She had left them in the hall last night.
She would start at once. She got up quickly, before Mr Ramsay turned.
She fetched herself a chair. She pitched her easel with her precise
old-maidish movements on the edge of the lawn, not too close to Mr
Carmichael, but close enough for his protection. Yes, it must have
been precisely here that she had stood ten years ago. There was the
wall; the hedge; the tree. The question was of some relation between
those masses. She had borne it in her mind all these years. It seemed
as if the solution had come to her: she knew now what she wanted to do.
But with Mr Ramsay bearing down on her, she could do nothing. Every
time he approached--he was walking up and down the terrace--ruin
approac
hed, chaos approached. She could not paint. She stooped, she
turned; she took up this rag; she squeezed that tube. But all she did
was to ward him off a moment. He made it impossible for her to do
anything. For if she gave him the least chance, if he saw her
disengaged a moment, looking his way a moment, he would be on her,
saying, as he had said last night, "You find us much changed." Last
night he had got up and stopped before her, and said that. Dumb and
staring though they had all sat, the six children whom they used to
call after the Kings and Queens of England--the Red, the Fair, the
Wicked, the Ruthless--she felt how they raged under it. Kind old Mrs
Beckwith said something sensible. But it was a house full of unrelated
passions--she had felt that all the evening. And on top of this chaos
Mr Ramsay got up, pressed her hand, and said: "You will find us much
changed" and none of them had moved or had spoken; but had sat there as
if they were forced to let him say it. Only James (certainly the
Sullen) scowled at the lamp; and Cam screwed her handkerchief round her
finger. Then he reminded them that they were going to the Lighthouse
tomorrow. They must be ready, with his hand on the door, he stopped;
he turned upon them. Did they not want to go? he demanded. Had they
dared say No (he had some reason for wanting it) he would have flung
himself tragically backwards into the bitter waters of depair. Such a
gift he had for gesture. He looked like a king in exile. Doggedly
James said yes. Cam stumbled more wretchedly. Yes, oh, yes, they'd
both be ready, they said. And it struck her, this was tragedy--not
palls, dust, and the shroud; but children coerced, their spirits
subdued. James was sixteen, Cam, seventeen, perhaps. She had looked
round for some one who was not there, for Mrs Ramsay, presumably. But
there was only kind Mrs Beckwith turning over her sketches under the
lamp. Then, being tired, her mind still rising and falling with the
sea, the taste and smell that places have after long absence possessing
her, the candles wavering in her eyes, she had lost herself and gone
under. It was a wonderful night, starlit; the waves sounded as they
went upstairs; the moon surprised them, enormous, pale, as they passed
the staircase window. She had slept at once.
She set her clean canvas firmly upon the easel, as a barrier, frail,
but she hoped sufficiently substantial to ward off Mr Ramsay and his
exactingness. She did her best to look, when his back was turned, at
her picture; that line there, that mass there. But it was out of the
question. Let him be fifty feet away, let him not even speak to you,
let him not even see you, he permeated, he prevailed, he imposed
himself. He changed everything. She could not see the colour; she
could not see the lines; even with his back turned to her, she could
only think, But he'll be down on me in a moment, demanding--something
she felt she could not give him. She rejected one brush; she chose
another. When would those children come? When would they all be off?
she fidgeted. That man, she thought, her anger rising in her, never
gave; that man took. She, on the other hand, would be forced to give.
Mrs Ramsay had given. Giving, giving, giving, she had died--and had
left all this. Really, she was angry with Mrs Ramsay. With the brush
slightly trembling in her fingers she looked at the hedge, the step,
the wall. It was all Mrs Ramsay's doing. She was dead. Here was Lily,
at forty-four, wasting her time, unable to do a thing, standing there,
playing at painting, playing at the one thing one did not play at, and
it was all Mrs Ramsay's fault. She was dead. The step where she used
to sit was empty. She was dead.
But why repeat this over and over again? Why be always trying to bring
up some feeling she had not got? There was a kind of blasphemy in it.
It was all dry: all withered: all spent. They ought not to have asked
her; she ought not to have come. One can't waste one's time at forty-
four, she thought. She hated playing at painting. A brush, the one
dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos--that one should not
play with, knowingly even: she detested it. But he made her. You
shan't touch your canvas, he seemed to say, bearing down on her, till
you've given me what I want of you. Here he was, close upon her again,
greedy, distraught. Well, thought Lily in despair, letting her right
hand fall at her side, it would be simpler then to have it over.
Surely, she could imitate from recollection the glow, the rhapsody, the
self-surrender, she had seen on so many women's faces (on Mrs Ramsay's,
for instance) when on some occasion like this they blazed up--she could
remember the look on Mrs Ramsay's face--into a rapture of sympathy, of
delight in the reward they had, which, though the reason of it escaped
her, evidently conferred on them the most supreme bliss of which human
nature was capable. Here he was, stopped by her side. She would give
him what she could.
2
She seemed to have shrivelled slightly, he thought. She looked a little
skimpy, wispy; but not unattractive. He liked her. There had been some
talk of her marrying William Bankes once, but nothing had come of it.
His wife had been fond of her. He had been a little out of temper too
at breakfast. And then, and then--this was one of those moments when
an enormous need urged him, without being conscious what it was, to
approach any woman, to force them, he did not care how, his need was so
great, to give him what he wanted: sympathy.
Was anybody looking after her? he said. Had she everything she
wanted?
"Oh, thanks, everything," said Lily Briscoe nervously. No; she could
not do it. She ought to have floated off instantly upon some wave of
sympathetic expansion: the pressure on her was tremendous. But she
remained stuck. There was an awful pause. They both looked at the
sea. Why, thought Mr Ramsay, should she look at the sea when I am
here? She hoped it would be calm enough for them to land at the
Lighthouse, she said. The Lighthouse! The Lighthouse! What's that
got to do with it? he thought impatiently. Instantly, with the force
of some primeval gust (for really he could not restrain himself any
longer), there issued from him such a groan that any other woman in the
whole world would have done something, said something--all except
myself, thought Lily, girding at herself bitterly, who am not a woman,
but a peevish, ill-tempered, dried-up old maid, presumably.
[Mr Ramsay sighed to the full. He waited. Was she not going to say
anything? Did she not see what he wanted from her? Then he said he
had a particular reason for wanting to go to the Lighthouse. His boy
with a tuberculous hip, the lightkeeper's son. He sighed profoundly.
He sighed significantly. All Lily wished was that this enormous flood
of grief, this insatiable hunger for sympathy, this demand that she
should surrender herself up to him entirely, and even so he had sorrows
enough to keep her supplied for ever, should leave her, sho
uld be
diverted (she kept looking at the house, hoping for an interruption)
before it swept her down in its flow.
"Such expeditions," said Mr Ramsay, scraping the ground with his toe,
"are very painful." Still Lily said nothing. (She is a stock, she is a
stone, he said to himself.) "They are very exhausting," he said,
looking, with a sickly look that nauseated her (he was acting, she
felt, this great man was dramatising himself), at his beautiful hands.
It was horrible, it was indecent. Would they never come, she asked,
for she could not sustain this enormous weight of sorrow, support these
heavy draperies of grief (he had assumed a pose of extreme
decreptitude; he even tottered a little as he stood there) a moment
longer.
Still she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare of
objects to talk about; could only feel, amazedly, as Mr Ramsay stood
there, how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over the sunny grass and
discolour it, and cast over the rubicund, drowsy, entirely contented
figure of Mr Carmichael, reading a French novel on a deck-chair, a veil
of crape, as if such an existence, flaunting its prosperity in a world
of woe, were enough to provoke the most dismal thoughts of all. Look
at him, he seemed to be saying, look at me; and indeed, all the time he
was feeling, Think of me, think of me. Ah, could that bulk only be
wafted alongside of them, Lily wished; had she only pitched her easel a
yard or two closer to him; a man, any man, would staunch this effusion,
would stop these lamentations. A woman, she had provoked this horror;
a woman, she should have known how to deal with it. It was immensely
to her discredit, sexually, to stand there dumb. One said--what did
one say?--Oh, Mr Ramsay! Dear Mr Ramsay! That was what that kind old
lady who sketched, Mrs Beckwith, would have said instantly, and
rightly. But, no. They stood there, isolated from the rest of the
world. His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and
spread itself in pools at ther feet, and all she did, miserable sinner
that she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer round her ankles,
lest she should get wet. In complete silence she stood there, grasping
her paint brush.
Heaven could never be sufficiently praised! She heard sounds in the
house. James and Cam must be coming. But Mr Ramsay, as if he knew
that his time ran short, exerted upon her solitary figure the immense
pressure of his concentrated woe; his age; his frailty: his desolation;
when suddenly, tossing his head impatiently, in his annoyance--for
after all, what woman could resist him?--he noticed that his boot-laces
were untied. Remarkable boots they were too, Lily thought, looking
down at them: sculptured; colossal; like everything that Mr Ramsay
wore, from his frayed tie to his half-buttoned waistcoat, his own
indisputably. She could see them walking to his room of their own
accord, expressive in his absence of pathos, surliness, ill-temper,
charm.
"What beautiful boots!" she exclaimed. She was ashamed of herself. To
praise his boots when he asked her to solace his soul; when he had
shown her his bleeding hands, his lacerated heart, and asked her to
pity them, then to say, cheerfully, "Ah, but what beautiful boots you
wear!" deserved, she knew, and she looked up expecting to get it in one
of his sudden roars of ill-temper complete annihilation.
Instead, Mr Ramsay smiled. His pall, his draperies, his infirmities
fell from him. Ah, yes, he said, holding his foot up for her to look
at, they were first-rate boots. There was only one man in England who
could make boots like that. Boots are among the chief curses of
mankind, he said. "Bootmakers make it their business," he exclaimed,
"to cripple and torture the human foot." They are also the most
obstinate and perverse of mankind. It had taken him the best part of
his youth to get boots made as they should be made. He would have her
To The Lighthouse Page 16
