Chapter 9 chapter eight

He said nothing.He is an opium smoker.The children said he had let the opium yellow his beard too.Maybe it is.She felt that the poor man was so unfortunate that he wanted to come to them every year as an escape from reality; yet she felt the same way every year: he didn't trust her.She said, "I'm going into town. Shall I bring you some stamps or paper or tobacco?" And she always cringed and refused, she thought.He doesn't trust her.It was a good thing his wife did.She remembered his wife's bad treatment of him.In that dreadful little room in St. John's Lane, she had been terrified when she saw the hideous woman drive him out of the house.He was disheveled; his coat was stained; he was tired and weary like an idle old man; and she would throw him out of the room.She said in a distasteful tone, "Now I will talk to Mrs. Ramsay for a while," and Mrs. Ramsay saw the untold miseries of his life seem to come to mind.Doesn't he even have money to buy tobacco?Did he have to reach out and ask her for money?Two and a half shillings?Eighteen pence?Ah, it was unbearable for her to think of all the humiliation that woman had caused him.But now he kept avoiding her, (she couldn't guess why, maybe because the woman had treated him badly and kept women at arm's length.) He never told her anything.But what more could she do for him?A sunny room has been made for him.The children treated him well.She never showed him the slightest disapproval.In fact, she often went out of her way to be kind to him: Would you like a stamp?Do you want tobacco?Maybe you will like this book?She often shows her concern for him in such ways.After all—after all (thinking of this, she straightened up unconsciously, and her rare beauty, which she rarely noticed, was unfolding in front of her eyes), after all, generally speaking, it was easy for people to like her .For example, George Manning and Mr. Wallace, notwithstanding their eminence, would come to her at dusk and talk to her quietly by the fire.She could not but be aware that she possessed a torch of radiant beauty which she carried to every room she entered.Though she concealed it as best she could with veils, and though she recoiled from the monotonous burden her beauty imposed upon her, her beauty was evident.She is admired.She is admired.She had walked into rooms where mourners sat, and people wept before her.Men, as well as women, poured out all kinds of concerns to her.They allowed themselves and her a frank, unadulterated relief.Mr. Carmichael actually avoided her.This made her very unhappy.It broke her heart.And it had broken her heart unobtrusively and inappropriately.This unpleasant incident, at a time when she felt the strongest displeasure with her husband, made her heartbroken.Now Mr. Carmichael, in yellow slippers and with a book under his arm, shuffled lazily by, nodding indifferently to her invitation.She felt that he did not trust her; she felt that her desire to help and comfort others was nothing but vanity.She desires so instinctively to help and comfort others, for her own gratification, for the admiration of others: "Oh, Mrs. Ramsay! Lovely Mrs. Ramsay . . . Mrs. Ramsay, but I really didn’t say anything!” And she made others need her, sent people to invite her, and everyone loved her.Isn't this what she secretly pursued in her heart?So Mr. Carmichael, avoiding her as he does now, and going into some corner, chanting his acrostics, not only felt her helpful nature neglected, but made her realize that Something small in itself, a sense of how imperfect, how mean, how self-serving, even in the best of circumstances, human relationships are.Haggard and worn out, she knew with certainty (with thin cheeks and gray hair) that she was no longer a beauty that made other people's eyes shine with joy, and that she had better concentrate on the fisherman and his wife's story, in order to calm that extremely sensitive child, her youngest son James (none of her children was more sensitive than him).

"The fisherman became heavy-hearted," she read aloud. "He didn't want to go. He thought, 'It shouldn't be.' Yet, he went anyway. When he got to the beach, the water was deep purple, blue-black, gray, cloudy. It was no longer It's chartreuse, but it's calm. When he stood by the sea and said—" Mrs Ramsay wished her husband had not chosen such a moment to stop before them.Why didn't he go to see the boys play cricket, as he had just said?But he said nothing; he glanced at it, nodded his approval, and walked on.As he walked quietly, he saw the fence in front of him revolve again and again around the pauses of his steps, symbolizing some kind of conclusion; he saw his wife and children; , stone urn with sprawling red geraniums, and between the leaves of the geraniums, writing (as if they were sheets of paper), notes scribbled in rapid reading—he saw Having said all of this, it comes to mind in an article in The Times about the estimated number of Americans who visit Shakespeare's hometown each year.If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world look very different from what it is today?Does the progress of civilization depend on great men?Is the fate of ordinary people better than the fate of people in the era of ancient Egyptian pharaohs?However, he wondered, is the fate of ordinary people the standard by which we measure the degree of civilization?Maybe not.Perhaps the greatest and most beautiful civilization depends on the existence of a slave class.The workers who drive the elevators in the London Underground Railway are always indispensable.The thought displeased him.He looked up.In order to avoid this conclusion, he had to find a way to weaken the dominant position of art.He wants to argue that the world exists for all beings; the arts are mere decorations imposed on human life; they do not express the true meaning of life.Nor is Shakespeare essential to life.He himself can't figure out why he should belittle Shakespeare and favor the workers who are always standing at the elevator door.He angrily tore a leaf from the hedge.All these arguments, next month, will be served on platters to the young students of Cardiff Academy, and here, on his balcony, he thinks, he is just foraging for hay and having a little picnic (he Throwing away the leaf he just tore off in a fit of anger), like a man on a horse who plucks a bush of roses or picks a few walnuts to fill his pockets, swaying leisurely Satisfied to walk through the ridges and ridges of the countryside that he had known since childhood; the turning fork, the ladder by the fence, and the shortcut across the field were all familiar to him.He often took his pipe and spent the evening in this way, thinking, wandering back and forth in these old and familiar narrow alleys and public lawns, these places reminded him of a battle, there reminded him of a battle The history of war, here reminds him of the life of a statesman, and poems and anecdotes, and even figures, this thinker, that warrior, etc.; all this is very vivid and clear, but in the end The alleys, the rows, the meadows, the fruit-laden walnut trees, and the red-flowered hedges led him to the bend at the other end of that road, where he always dismounted and tied it to a tree. up, on foot alone.He walked to the edge of the lawn and looked down at the bay.

Such was his destiny, his unique destiny, whether it suited his wishes or not: thus he came to a small piece of land slowly being eroded by the sea, and stood there, alone, like a lonely seabird.Such was his strength, his genius—he suddenly threw away all the superfluous talent, subdued his illusions, lowered his voice, made his appearance more straightforward and simple, even physically, but he did not Lost the sharpness of thought, and so he stood on that little cliff, facing the ignorance and darkness of mankind: the sea is eroding and washing away the ground under our feet, and we don't know it-- This is his destiny, his gift.When he dismounted he had thrown off all pomp and gesture, all souvenirs of walnuts and roses, and his wild imagination had so subdued that not only his reputation but his own name Even in such a lonely state, he still maintains a kind of vigilance that does not indulge in fantasies and indulging in illusions. It is this realistic attitude that makes him in William Banks (intermittently) admiration, sympathy, and gratitude aroused deep in Charles Tansley (flatteringly) and now in his wife (who looked up to see him standing at the edge of the lawn) Like a buoy inserted into the bottom of the sea, seagulls perch on it, waves beat against it, it stands alone in the waves to fulfill its duty, marks the course, stirs up in the joyous ships full of passengers A feeling of gratitude.

"But a father of eight doesn't have a choice," he murmured quietly as his meditation was interrupted as he turned, sighed, and looked up for his wife, who was reading a story to his young children. In the shadow of a man, he filled his pipe.He might have achieved something if he had been fixated on the folly of man, the fate of man, and the erosion of the earth beneath our feet by the sea; So insignificant in comparison with the sublime subject he had just faced that he wanted to overlook and belittle this consolation, as if he were found happy in a miserable world, To a man it is a most ignominious crime.Indeed, he was generally happy: he had his wife; he had his children; he had been invited in six weeks' time to speak to the young men of Cardiff College about Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and the French The "nonsense" of the cause of the Revolution.But the thing, and the pleasure he took in it, from his lectures, from the enthusiasm of youth, from the beauty of his wife, from Swanzie, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton, Kate The honor and gratification in the praise of Minestre, Oxford, and Cambridge—all must be belittled and glossed over by the humble words of "a few words of nonsense," for, in fact, In fact, he did not complete the work he should have completed.It's a cover-up; it's the subterfuge of a man who dares not confess his own feelings openly.He could not say: This is what I like--this is what I am; and William Banks and Lily Briscoe were rather sorry and awkward, and they were puzzled why he had to hide it so artificially ?Why does he always need others to support him?Why is he so brave in the realm of thought, and so cowardly in the realm of life?How amazing that he is respectable and ridiculous at the same time!

Doctrine and preaching are things beyond human ability, Lily guessed. (She's packing up her paint supplies and putting them away.) If you're admired; you're bound to stumble before you know it.Mrs. Ramsay gave what he wanted.A sudden change in circumstances would certainly upset him, Lily said.He emerged from his books and found us playing and chatting.Just think what a change that was from what he was thinking, Lily said. He was closing in on them.He stopped suddenly and stared silently at the sea.Now he turned away again.