Chapter 2 Chapter One

"Well, if it's fine tomorrow, I'll let you go," said Mrs Ramsay. "But you get up early," she added. To her son, this was extraordinary news, as if it were a foregone conclusion: the journey to the lighthouse was inevitable, after a dark night tonight, a day of sailing tomorrow, the long-awaited journey A miracle is just around the corner.James was only six years old, and even at this age he belonged to that great race that could not separate the two different feelings, and must let the anticipation of the future and its joys and sorrows cloud what was at hand. A cloud, for such a person, even in infancy, every shift of feeling has the power to fix the momentary crystallization of depression or radiance.James Ramsay sat on the floor, clipping illustrations from an Army-Navy store catalogue, embellishing with great joy a picture of a refrigerator while his mother spoke to him.Even it was tinged with joy.The car rattles outside the window, the lawn mower rolls across the lawn, the poplars rustle in the wind, their leaves turn pale and dull before the rain, rooks sing in the air, brooms touch the floor, and skirts rip The rustling sound—all these are so colorful and distinct in his mind, it can be said that he has mastered a personal code, a mysterious language of his own, although outwardly, he His face was stern, stubborn and severe, his forehead was high, his strong blue eyes were frank and pure, and he frowned slightly at the sight of human frailty, so his mother watched him neatly cut off the A picture of a refrigerator, in the imagination, seems to see him wearing a red ribbon and a judge's robe, sitting on the bench, or in some crisis of public affairs, presiding over a serious and important business .

"But," said his father, coming up and standing at the drawing-room window, "it won't be sunny tomorrow." Had an ax been handy, or a poker, any deadly weapon capable of piercing his father's heart, James would have seized it then and there.Mr. Ramsay, who had stirred up such extreme emotions in his boy on his appearance, stood there now, thin as a knife, thin as a blade, grinning with a sarcastic expression; Not only was he satisfied with his son's disappointment, he mocked his wife's annoyance (James felt that she was ten thousand times better than him in every way), but he secretly took pride in his own accurate judgment.What he said was the truth and always will be the truth.He would not falsify; he would never distort the truth; he would never soften a harsh word to flatter anyone, let alone his children, who were his own flesh and blood and must have known each other from infancy. Realizing that life is hard, facts will not budge, toward that fabled world where our brightest hopes are extinguished, and our frail hulks drown in vast darkness (Speaking of which, La Mr. Muzzy will straighten his back, squint his little blue eyes, and look at the distant horizon) The most important qualities a man needs are courage, truth, perseverance.

"But it might be fine tomorrow--I think it will," said Mrs. Ramsay, slightly twisting impatiently the reddish-brown wool stocking she was knitting.If she can finish knitting it tonight, if they do go to the lighthouse tomorrow, the sock will be taken to the lighthouse keeper's little boy, who has tuberculosis in his hip; Old magazines and some tobacco, really, if she could find anything that was useless to keep the room untidy, she'd give it to the poor souls, who must be bored with nothing but wiping the lamp-shades. Trimming the wicks, and amusing themselves with tidying their garden, and sitting there all day with nothing to do.How would you feel if you were chained to a rock the size of a tennis court for a month at a time, maybe longer during stormy season?she would ask; and there are no letters and papers, and no one to see; and if you are married, you can't see your wife, and you don't know how your children are--whether they're ill, Broke a thigh or an arm; week after week you watch the same monotonous spray, and then the dreadful storm comes, sprays the windows, the birds hit that tower light, the whole The rocks are shaking, and you don't dare stick your head out of the door for fear of being swept into the sea by huge waves; if that happens, how would you feel?She asks her daughters this question in particular.So, she continued, in a rather different tone, they must be given some reassurance if possible.

"Wind to the west," said the atheist Tansley, stretching his bony fingers through the gaps to test the direction of the wind, for he was out on the terrace with Mr. Ramsay at this evening. Walk back and forth.In other words, it is the most unfavorable wind direction for the sailboat to approach the lighthouse.Yes, he keeps saying bad things, thought Mrs Ramsay, what a nuisance this man is, repeating what Mr Ramsay has said, which will disappoint James still more; but, on the other hand, , she didn't want the children to laugh at him.They all called him "the atheist", "that little atheist".Ruth taunted him; Prue taunted him; Andrew, Jesper, and Roger taunted him; even Begie, the old dog who lost his teeth, bit him.According to Nancy, Tansley became the target of public criticism because he was already the one hundred and tenth young man who followed them all the way to the Hibrite Islands. It would be much better if they could be left alone .

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Ramsay, very sharply.They had learned from her a habit of exaggeration, and they implied (and it was true) that she had invited so many guests that the villa could not be accommodated, and had to send some of them to the town; She can't stand anyone being rude to her guests, especially poor young men whom her husband says are "superbly talented" and who are his admirers and come here for the holidays.She did indeed take all the opposite sex under her wing, and loved them all; she could not tell herself why, perhaps because of their chivalry, their prowess, perhaps because of the treaty they had signed. , ruled India, controlled the finances, displayed extraordinary courage; in the last analysis, or because of their attitude to her, a kind of childlike trust and reverence; It would be a disaster for a young girl to receive such admiration from a young man, as an elderly woman can accept without loss of dignity—thank goodness for her daughters. Kind of adoration! ——A girl will not feel its value and connotation deeply!

She turned around and reprimanded Nancy severely.Mr Tansley did not follow them, she said.He was invited. They have to figure out a way to solve all the problems.There might be an easier way, a less laborious way, she sighed.She saw her gray hair, her haggard face in the mirror, and at fifty, she thought, perhaps she could have arranged things better—her husband; the family finances; his books .As far as she is concerned, she will never have the slightest regret for the decisions she has made. She never avoids difficulties, nor is she perfunctory.Her daughters, Prue, Nancy, and Ruth, looked up at her from their plates, and after her stern words about Charles Tansley, she was a little daunting, they were now left to silently contemplate their unorthodox ideas, which they had cultivated in a life different from hers, perhaps in Paris, a more free-spirited life; They do not think it necessary to be constantly concerned about the men, for they have tacit questions in their hearts about respect for women and chivalry, about the Bank of Britain and the Empire of India, about ring fingers and lace wedding dresses, though to them Come, there was something inherently beautiful in all this, which awakened the manliness buried in their maiden hearts, and made them sit at table, under their mother's gaze, to her unnatural sternness. Attitude and extreme politeness awe-inspiring, like seeing a queen lift a beggar's dirty feet out of the mud and wash them clean with water, when they talk about that nasty atheist who follows them all the way— — or rather, invited — to spend holidays with them in the archipelago, their mother's persuasive admonitions kept them in awe.

"It's impossible to go to the lighthouse tomorrow," Tansley said, clasping his hands together.He was standing by the window with her husband.Really, he should have said enough!She wished he would continue talking with her husband and leave her and James alone.She looked at him.The children said he was a hunchback, with sunken cheeks, and he was an ugly creature.He couldn't even play cricket; he fiddled with the bat clumsily, shuffling it and throwing it around.Andrew said he was a sarcastic brute.They knew what his greatest hobby was, and that was pacing up and down with Mr. Ramsay, babbling on and on about who had won this honor, who had won that prize, who was "A first-rate" Latin poet, someone "very talented, but I think his arguments are basically unfounded", someone who is undoubtedly "the first of the scholars in the Barrio", someone who is temporarily in the Burio Listo or Bedford hide their strengths, and when his treatise dealing with some aspects of mathematics and philosophy will be published, he will be famous all over the world. If Mr. Ramsay wants to read it, he happens to have the first part of this masterpiece Proof.The two of them talked about these things.

Thinking of Mr. Tansley's eloquence, she herself sometimes couldn't help laughing.I remember that one day, she said something like "big waves are monstrous".Yes, said Charles Tansley, a little rough. "Aren't your clothes soaked?" she asked.Tansley wrung the clothes, touched the socks and said, "It's a little damp, but not soaked." But it wasn't that, the children said, that they hated, not his looks, not his manner, but him—his point of view.The children complained that whenever they were chatting cheerfully about something interesting, such as characters, music, history, or why don't you sit outside a little longer because of the nice weather this evening, that Mr. Tansley always interrupted, Sing a few contradictory tunes; he is always boasting and belittling others, and he will say something else when you say something, unless he completely negates other people's opinions, he will not be satisfied and let it go.He would even ask people on art gallery tours if they liked his ties, they said.God knows!Ruth said, I don't like it!

Just after dinner, the Ramsays' eight children slipped away like deer, and they hid in their bedroom, which was their own little world, and there was nothing else in the whole house. Hidden places where they could argue, where they discussed everything: Tansley's ties; Various characters and so on.The children's bedrooms are on the top floor of the house, and there is only a board between the rooms. Every footstep can be heard clearly. The Swiss girl was sobbing for her dying father from cancer in the Gleason Valley as the sun lit up the rackets, flannel shirts, straw hats, inkwells, paint pots, beetles and bird skulls in the room The sun's rays hit the strips of seaweed nailed to the wall, giving them a salty, weedy smell that lingers on gritty towels from sea baths.

Quarrels, disagreements, disagreements, prejudices of every kind are woven into every fiber of life; oh, why do children argue at such an early age?Mrs Ramsay could not help sighing.They love to judge too much, her children.They're just talking nonsense, it's ridiculous.She took James by the hand, and she left the dining room; only he would not go away with his brothers and sisters, but was always close to his mother.She thought it was almost absurd—God knows, people have enough differences, why should they artificially create differences?There were enough real differences, she thought, standing at the living room window, too many.At that moment, she thought of the disparity between rich and poor in life, the difference between high and low, how marked the difference; half guilty, half reverent, she thought of the noble blood her children inherited from her; because, in her veins, Isn't the noble blood of the famous Italian family with mythical color flowing in it?The great ladies of Italy, scattered in the drawing-rooms of English homes in the nineteenth century, were charming with their eloquence and passion; and all her wit, stamina, and tenacity came from them, not from insensitivity the Englishman, or the Scotchman; but it was the other question, the disparity between the rich and the poor, which she had witnessed here and in London every moment.When she would personally visit a poor widow or a struggling woman with a handbag in her hand, with notebook and pencil in hand, she would carefully record each house item by category. Income and expenditure, employment or unemployment of each household, she wished she were no longer a woman doing good in a private capacity (her alms were partly to appease her indignation, partly to satisfy her curiosity), She wanted to be that illuminating investigator of social problems that her unworldly mind so admired.

She stood there, holding James' hand, feeling as if these problems would never be resolved.The young man they were laughing at followed her into the living room. He was standing by the table, fiddling with something in his hand, so dazed that she didn't have to look back to feel his bewildered embarrassment.They were all gone—the children; Mintae Doyle and Paul Rayleigh; Augustus Carmichael; her husband—they were all gone.Then she turned and said with a sigh: "Mr. Tansley, you don't like going out with me, do you?" She was going into town on some little errand; she had to go into the back room to write a letter or two, and put on her hat; it might take ten minutes or so.Ten minutes later, she was carrying a basket and a women's parasol, and signaled to Tansley that she had brought all the necessary things and was ready to go, but she had to stop when they walked past the grass court where they played tennis. Just ask Mr. Carmichael what to bring, for he is sunbathing there, his yellow cat eyes are half-closed, like a cat's eyes, reflecting in the sun quivering branches and drifting waves. The passing clouds, but did not reveal the inner thoughts or feelings. They're going on a great expedition, she said with a smile.They are going into the city.He wants something. "Stamps? Stationery? Tobacco?" she suggested, standing beside him.But no, he wanted nothing.He crossed his hands over his big belly, and squinted his eyes, as if he wanted to respond politely to her attentions (she was charming, but a little neurotic), but he couldn't, he was intoxicated by the surrounding Among their drowsy greens, he gazed idly at the houses, the world, all the people in silence, with a kindly kind heart, because, at lunch He used to slip a few drops of the potion into his glass when he was young, and the children thought that explained why his beard, which had been milky white, had been tinged a bright yellow like canary down.No, nothing, he murmured. On their way to the fishing village, Mrs. Ramsay said that Mr. Carmichael would have been a great philosopher if he had not made that unhappy marriage.She was holding her black parasol upright, and she was walking forward with an indescribable look of anticipation, as if she were going to meet someone who was waiting for her at the corner of the street.She revealed Mr. Carmichael's background: he fell in love with a girl at Oxford and married early; penniless and went to India; translated a bit of poetry, "I believe that's beautiful;" He wanted to teach the boys Persian or Sanskrit, but what was that? —he ended up lying there on the grass, just as they had just seen him. Tansley was flattered; Mrs. Ramsay told him all that he had always been treated coldly, to his great relief.He regained his confidence.Mrs. Ramsay had the insight to appreciate the high talents of men in poverty, and to admit that all wives—she did not blame the girl, and believed that their union had been happy—were Submissively support their husbands in their work.She gave Tansley a sense of pride he had never had before, and he thought that if they took a taxi he would pay for it himself.Can he hold that little handbag for her?No, no, she said, she always carried it by herself.She is like this.Yes, he thought she did.He felt many things, something that agitated and disturbed him, for what reason he could not say.He really hoped that one day she could see him wearing a doctor's cap and gown, walking slowly among the ranks of scholars.He was going to be a researcher, a professor, he felt it was possible, he saw himself - but what was she looking at?A person posting an ad.The giant advertising picture crackling in the wind was gradually pasted flat on the wall, and every time the advertising worker's paste brush swung, some new thighs, hoops, horses and dazzling red faces appeared. Green, the scroll unfolded beautifully and evenly, until the circus advertisement covered half the wall: a hundred riders, twenty seals performing, lions, tigers, ... the myopic La Mrs. Muzzy craned her neck and read the words of the advertisement... "Visiting the city soon," she read.It was too dangerous a job to have a one-armed man standing at the top of a ladder, she exclaimed—two years ago his left arm was severed by a wheat cutter. "Let us all go!" she cried, walking on as if the riders and horses filled her with childlike ecstasy and made her forget her pity for the advertising worker. "Let's all go," he said word for word, repeating what she had said mechanically, but with a coyness that made her cringe. "Let's go to the circus." No.His words are not expressive.He felt unnatural.But why?She felt strange.What's the matter with him?Now she liked him a lot.Did no one take them to the circus when they were kids?she asked.Never, he replied.As if she happened to ask a question he'd been expecting; as if he'd been dying to tell her these days why they hadn't been to a circus.It was a large family of nine brothers and sisters, all dependent on his father for his hard work. "My father was a pharmacist, Mrs. Ramsay. He kept a small pharmacy." Tansley had been earning his own living since he was thirteen.He often does not have a coat in winter.In college, he was never in a position to "repay hospitality" (that was the dry language he used).He had to make his daily necessities last twice as long as other people's; he smoked the cheapest tobacco, the thick cut tobacco, like the old men on the docks.He worked hard—seven hours a day; his present research subject was the effect of something on someone—and they walked away, Mrs. Ramsay not really getting what he meant, only intermittently Heard some words...dissertation...researcher...reviewer...lecturer.She couldn't understand the obnoxious, academic jargon he blurted out, but she thought to herself, and now she understood why the subject of going to the circus suddenly took away his reserve, poor boy, and made him In an instant, he told the whole situation about his parents, brothers, and sisters.She'd have to be careful not to let them tease him again; she'd have to tell Prue that.She guessed that he liked to tell people how he went to an Ibsen play with the Ramsays instead of going to a circus.He's such a prudish pedant, yes, an unbearable nuisance.Although they were in the city, walking the streets, the cars rumbling by on the cobblestone streets, he was still talking about housing, teaching, workers, helping his class, academic lectures, and so on, until she felt as if he Already confident enough, freed from the circus-induced inferiority complex, and (now that she felt quite fond of him again) he was ready to tell her about—but here, the houses on either side were far from Left behind, they were on the open quay, and the whole bay stretched out before them, and Mrs Ramsay could not help exclaiming, "Oh, how beautiful!" She faced the endless blue sea; the pale lighthouse , standing in the hazy smog in the distance; on the right, as far as the eye can see, is the green sand dune covered with weeds, which gradually collapses under the turbulence of the sea, forming soft, low-return The creases; the sea water with silt seems to keep rushing towards the uninhabited fairyland and dream country. That view, she said, stopping and opening her eyes, which grew darker, was her husband's favorite. She was silent for a moment.Now, she says, the artists are here.Sure enough, just a few steps away from them, there stood a painter, wearing a Panama hat and yellow leather boots, serious, gentle, and focused; although there were a dozen or so boys watching, his ruddy round face was bleeding. With an expression of self-satisfaction and contentment; he gazed at the scene ahead, dipping the tip of his brush with the soft mounds of green or pink paint on his palette at each glance.Since the painter Mr. Pancefort came three years ago, she said, all the paintings looked like this: a piece of dark green water, dotted with a few lemon yellow sailing boats, and on the beach, there were people in pink clothes. women in skirts. She glanced warily at the painting as they walked by.Her grandmother's friends, she said, were painstaking to paint; they mixed the paint, then ground it, and covered it with a damp cloth to keep the color moist. She meant, therefore, Mr. Tansley supposed, that he should see that the man had drawn so-so.Is that what people say?Those color mismatches?Is that what you said?There was an extraordinary feeling which developed during this walk; it began when he was in the garden to carry Mrs. Ramsay's handbag; By the time he had told her all, the feeling had intensified; and under the influence of it he saw his own image, and everything he had ever been familiar with, a little distorted.This is so strange. She took him into a small, rough house, and she was going upstairs a while to see a woman; he stood in the drawing room and waited.He heard her light footsteps above; he heard her voice cheerful and lively, and then fell to a low voice; he looked at the mats and tea-caddy and glass; he was impatient to wait; he longed to go home he resolved to carry her bag; he heard her come out and close the door; he heard her say that they should leave the window open and the door shut, and that if they needed anything, they should bring it up on the spot (she would was talking to a child); she came in suddenly, and stood there silently (as if she had just had some civility upstairs and was now going to quiet herself for a while), wearing the blue ribbon Garter For a moment there stood before the medal's portrait of Queen Victoria; and it dawned on him that it was true, yes, it was true: she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen in his life. With stars in her eyes, a veil in her hair, primroses and violets on her bosom—what was he thinking?She was at least fifty years old; she already had eight children.She came lightly from among thousands of flowers, holding withered buds and fallen lambs in her arms; stars were shining in her eyes, and her curly hair was blowing in the wind—he took her handbag. "Goodbye, Elsie," she said.They walked the street, and she walked slowly, holding her parasol upright, as if expecting to meet some one at the corner; and for the first time in his life Charles Tansley felt immensely proud; A workman who was digging a gutter by the side of the road stopped and looked at her with his arms down; The scent of flowers and violets, for he was walking side by side with a beautiful woman, and he was holding her handbag.