Mr. Ramsay thought her foolish for saying that, about a serious thing, like a scholarship.
“I will be very proud of Andrew if he gets a scholarship,” he said.
“And I will be just as proud of him if he doesn’t,” she answered.
They disagreed always about this, but it did not matter. She liked him to believe in scholarships. He liked her to be proud of Andrew whatever he did. Suddenly she remembered those little paths on the edge of the cliffs.
Wasn’t it late? she asked.
They hadn’t come home yet. He looked at his watch. It was only just past seven. He held his watch open for a moment. It was not reasonable to be nervous. Andrew is not a little boy. Then, he wanted to tell her that when he was walking on the terrace just now, – here he became uncomfortable. He felt that solitude, that aloofness, that remoteness of hers. But she pressed him. What did he want to tell her, she asked.
She was thinking it was about going to the Lighthouse. Was he going to say he was sorry for being harsh? But no. He did not like to see her look so sad, he said. She flushed a little. They both felt uncomfortable, as if they did not know whether to go on or go back.
She was reading fairy tales to James, she said.
No, they could not share that; they could not say that.
They had reached the gap between the two clumps of red-hot pokers. There was the Lighthouse again. But she did not look at it.
She looked over her shoulder, at the town. The lights were rippling and running as if they were drops of silver water in a wind.
All the poverty, all the suffering had turned to that, Mrs. Ramsay thought.
The lights of the town and of the harbour and of the boats seemed like a phantom net. Mr. Ramsay wanted to tell the story how Hume was stuck in a bog. He wanted to laugh. It was nonsense to be anxious about Andrew. When he was Andrew’s age he used to walk about the country all day long. He had nothing but a biscuit in his pocket and nobody bothered about him.
He said he was going to spend a day alone. Enough of Bankes and of Carmichael. He wanted a little solitude.
Yes, she said.
It annoyed him that she did not protest. She knew that he would never do it. He was too old now to walk all day long with a biscuit in his pocket. She worried about the boys, but not about him. Years ago, before he had married, he thought, he had walked all day. He had made a meal off bread and cheese in a public house[16]. He had worked ten hours.
That was the view he liked best, over there; those sandhills. One could walk all day without meeting a soul. There was not a house scarcely, not a single village for miles on end. There were little sandy beaches where no one had been since the beginning of time. The seals sat up and looked at you.
It sometimes seemed to him that in a little house out there, alone – he stopped. He sighed. He had no right. The father of eight children – he reminded himself. He will be a beast and a cur if he changes something. Andrew will be a better man than he was. Prue will be a beauty, her mother says. His eight children – a good bit of work.
“Poor little place,” he murmured with a sigh.
She heard him. He said the most melancholy things. But she knew when he said them he always seemed more cheerful afterwards. All this phrase-making was a game, she thought.
It annoyed her, this phrase-making, and she said to him, that it was a perfectly lovely evening. And what was he groaning about, she asked.
She was half laughing, half complaining, for she guessed what he was thinking. He can write better books if he is not married.
He was not complaining, he said.
She knew that he did not complain. She knew that he had nothing whatever to complain of. And he seized her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it with an intensity that brought the tears to her eyes. Then he dropped it.
They turned away and began to walk up the path where the silver-green spear-like plants grew, arm in arm.
His arm was almost like a young man’s arm, Mrs. Ramsay thought, thin and hard.
She thought with delight how strong he still was, though he was over sixty. And how untamed and optimistic. He was convinced of all sorts of horrors, but they did not depress him, but cheered him.
Was it not odd, she reflected?
Indeed he seemed to her sometimes blind, deaf, and dumb to the ordinary things. But to the extraordinary things, he had an eye like an eagle’s. His understanding often astonished her. But did he notice the flowers? No. Did he notice the view? No. Did he even notice his own daughter’s beauty, or a pudding on his plate or roast beef? He sits at table with them like a person in a dream. And his habit of talking aloud, or saying poetry aloud!
“Best and brightest come away!”
Mrs. Ramsay showed him, by a little pressure on his arm, that he walked up hill too fast for her. She must stop for a moment to see whether those were fresh molehills on the bank. A great mind like his must be different from ours.
At that moment, he said, “Very fine,” to please her. He pretended to admire the flowers. But she knew quite well that he did not admire them. He did not even realise that they were there. It was only to please her.
Ah, but was that not Lily Briscoe with William Bankes? She focused her eyes upon the backs of the couple. Yes, indeed it was. Did that not mean that they would marry? Yes, it must! What an admirable idea! They must marry!
13
He had been to Amsterdam, Mr. Bankes was saying as he strolled across the lawn with Lily Briscoe. He had seen the Rembrandts[17].
He had been to Madrid. Unfortunately, it was Good Friday[18] and the Prado was shut.
He had been to Rome. Had Miss Briscoe never been to Rome? Oh, she must! It will be a wonderful experience for her – the Sistine Chapel[19]; Michael Angelo[20]; and Padua, with its Giottos[21].
She had been to Brussels; she had been to Paris but only for a short visit to see an aunt who was ill. She had been to Dresden; there were masses of pictures she had not seen. However, Lily Briscoe reflected, perhaps it was better not to see pictures. They only made one hopelessly discontented with one’s own work.
We can’t all be Titians and we can’t all be Darwins, he said. At the same time, we won’t have Darwins and Titians if we don’t have humble people like ourselves. Lily wanted to pay him a compliment; you’re not humble, Mr. Bankes. But he did not want compliments (most men do, she thought), and she was a little ashamed of her impulse and said nothing.
Anyhow, said Lily, she would always go on painting, because it interested her.
Yes, said Mr. Bankes, he was sure she would.
As they reached the end of the lawn he was asking her whether she could easily find subjects in London when they turned and saw the Ramsays. So that is marriage, Lily thought.
Mrs. Ramsay greeted them with her usual smile (oh, she’s thinking we’re going to get married, Lily thought) and said,
“I have triumphed tonight”.
That meant Mr. Bankes had agreed to dine with them. Then Prue ran to them with a ball. Her mother said,
“Haven’t they come back yet?”
Then she asked,
“Did Nancy go with them?”
14
Certainly, Nancy had gone with them. Minta Doyle had asked