Chapter 10 Chapter nine

"Yes, that's a shame," said Mr Banks, watching Mr Ramsay leave. (Lily had said that Mr. Ramsay surprised her—his moodiness, his changes of mood so suddenly.) Yes, Mr. Bankes said, it was a pity that Ramsay's behavior was unusual. (He liked Lily Briscoe; he could talk to her about Ramsay fairly frankly.) It was for this reason, he said, that young people did not like to read Carlyle.Why should we have to listen to a grumpy, fastidious old fellow who gets into a rage over the little things?This is the rhetoric of contemporary young people in Mr. Banks' mind.If you consider Carlyle to be one of the great teachers of mankind, his behavior is quite deplorable.Lily was ashamed to say that she hadn't seen Carlyle's work since her school days.But she thought Mr. Ramsay was more liked when he thought that his little finger ached and the whole world would be over.She didn't mind his attitude.Who can he fool?He quite explicitly asks you to praise him and adore him.No one can be fooled by the little tricks he plays.What she hates is his narrowness and blindness. When she speaks, her eyes follow his figure.

"A bit of a hypocrite?" asked Mr. Bankes, who also looked after Mr. Ramsay.Wasn't he thinking of his friendship, of Cam refusing to give him a flower, of all those boys and girls?He thought that his own house was very comfortable, but, since his wife's death, hadn't it been a little deserted?He still had his job, of course... Still, he would have liked Lily to agree that Ramsay was, as he put it, "a bit of a hypocrite." Lily continued to pack her painting utensils, she looked up for a while, and looked down for a while.Looking up, she saw him there—Mr. Ramsay—coming toward them, staggering, careless, absent-minded, dreamy.A bit of a hypocrite?She repeated what Banks had said.Oh, no—he was the most sincere, truest man (he came up), the best man; but, as she looked down and thought: He was only thinking of himself, he was a tyrant, he Unjust; she purposely continued to keep her head down because, being with the Ramsays, was the only way she could keep her emotionally stable.As soon as you looked up and saw them, they were overwhelmed by a surge of passion she called "love."They become part of the fanciful, yet insightful, passionate universe seen through the eyes of love.The sky was close to them, and the birds sang among them.And what thrilled her even more was when she saw Mr Ramsay approaching and backing away, saw Mrs Ramsay and James sitting in the window, saw the white clouds floating in the sky, and the branches of the trees swaying in the wind, she thought How life is made up of little things that are next to each other and are independent of each other, condensed into a whole, undulating wave, and people roll with this wave, and there, all at once, they wash up on the beach.

Mr. Bankes waited for her to answer his opinion of Ramsay, and she wanted to say a few words against Mrs. Ramsay, she wanted to say that Mrs. Ramsay also had her domineering, which is amazing, Or just a few words to that effect, and when she saw Mr. Bankes in ecstasy, she needn't say anything at all.In spite of his sixties, in spite of his cleanliness and lack of personality, which seemed to be clad in a white scientific coat, Lily saw in his gaze on Mrs. Ramsay there was a kind of fanatical ecstasy, and this ecstasy, It weighed, Lily felt, the love of a dozen young men (perhaps Mrs Ramsay had never inspired so many young men).This is love, she thought, (pretending to move her canvas) This is distilled and filtered love without impurities; a love that does not seek to possess the other; as mathematicians love their symbols and poets love them Like the verses of the verse, it means spreading them all over the world and making them part of the common wealth of mankind.indeed so.If Mr. Banks could explain why that woman attracted him so much, if he could explain why seeing her read a story to a child had such a satisfying effect as the solution of some scientific puzzle, that it made him bow his head and feel As if he had proved some unshakable theory about the digestive system of plants, and felt that the wild had been tamed and the chaos kept in check, if Mr. Banks could explain all this, he would undoubtedly make the world Come share this feeling.

Such an ecstatic intoxication—what other word could be used for it but intoxication? —to make Lily Briscoe completely forget what she was about to say.It doesn't matter; it's something about Mrs Ramsay.It paled in comparison with this ecstatic intoxication, and she was deeply moved by the silent gaze of Mr. Bankes; for nothing brought her so high a power, a divine gift, so much. Come to comfort her, eliminate her confusion about life, and miraculously unload the burden of life.While this state of rapture lasts, you will no more disturb it than you would interrupt a ray of sunlight that falls through a window across the floor.

It was rewarding and exciting that there should be such a pure love, and that Mr. Bankes should have such a sublime and sincere affection for Mrs. Ramsay (she gazed at him in silent contemplation).She purposely wiped off her oil paint brushes one by one with a worn rag, humbly and deferentially.She took refuge in this admiration for all women; she felt herself being admired.Let him gaze and ponder; she will peek stealthily at her pictures. She could literally shed a tear.Bad, really bad, really bad!Of course, she could have painted in another way: the colors could have been thinner and paler;However, that's not what she saw.She saw colors burn on steel frames; on church vaults, butterfly-winged lights.All these scenes, with only a few scattered marks left, are scribbled on the canvas.The picture must never be shown; it must never even be hung up.What Mr. Tansley had said lingered quietly in her ears again: "Women can't paint, and women can't write..."

She remembered now at last what she had been about to say about Mrs Ramsay.She didn't know how to put it; but there was definitely something critical about it.She was irritated by her domineering attitude that night.She followed Mr Banks's gaze on Mrs Ramsay, and she thought that no woman would adore another woman as he did; Find a place to stay.Following his gaze, and adding her own, she thought Mrs Ramsay, bending over her book, without a doubt the loveliest person; perhaps the best; yet she and The perfect image that people see there is still different.But why and how?She wondered, scraping off her palette of piles of blue and green oil paint, which now seemed like lifeless clods to her, but which, she swore, would give them back tomorrow. Inspiration, making them move and flow on the canvas according to her will, adding luster to the picture.How was she different from that perfect image?What is the soul within her?If you find a wrinkled glove in the corner of a sofa, you can be sure, by virtue of its twisted fingers, that it must belong to Mrs Ramsay.What, then, are the essential features by which we know her soul?She is like a bird flying with fluttering wings; an arrow going straight to the bull's-eye.She's capricious; she's bossy (of course, Lily reminded herself, I'm thinking about her approach to same-sex relationships, and I myself am much younger, a little guy, and live far from here. Bromton Road, no wonder she was so capricious towards me).She opened the bedroom casement.She closes all doors. (She tried to begin to picture Mrs. Ramsay in her own mind.) She came late at night to Lily's bedroom door and knocked lightly on it, wrapped in an old leather coat (she was beautiful and slovenly - always dressed sloppily, but fitting), she can re-enact anything for you - Charles Tansley lost his umbrella; Mr Carmichael snorted contemptuously and Mr. Banks babbling: "The minerals are lost in those vegetables." She can show you all this skillfully, and even distort and exaggerate it mischievously; she went to the window , pretending that it was time for her to go—it was dawn and she could see the sun rising—she turned halfway with a more intimate expression, still laughing, insisting, Lily Li had to marry, and Mintae had to marry, they both had to marry, no matter what glory she had in the world (but she dismissed Lily's painting), or victory (perhaps Mrs Ramsay had Such a victory), and here she looked dejected, returned to her chair, and went on, it was indisputable: an unmarried woman (she gently shook Lily's hand for a moment), A woman who does not marry misses out on the best parts of life.The whole house seemed to be crowded with sleeping children, and Mrs. Ramsay was listening: the lampshade obscured the dim light, and the sleeping children breathed softly and evenly.

Oh, but, Lily retorted, she still had her father; her family; even her paintings, if she had the courage to speak out.However, all this seems so insignificant and so girly compared with the big event of marriage.The night was gone, the dawn had lifted the curtains, and the birds were now and then chirping in the garden, and she mustered up her courage to assert that she herself should be excluded from the general law; this was the fate she prayed for; she liked celibate; she likes to be what she is; she was born to be an old maid; thus, she has to meet Mrs Ramsay's stern glance of infinitely deep eyes, and has to listen to Mrs Ramsay's frank lectures ( She's almost like a child now): her dear Lily, her little Briscoe, what a little fool.Later, she remembered, she laid her head on Mrs. Ramsay's knee and laughed, thinking of Mrs. Ramsay's unshakable coolness, who insisted on imposing a fate that she could not understand at all. For her, she laughed almost hysterically.Mrs Ramsay sat there, simple and serious.She had recovered what she knew of Mrs Ramsay--it was the twisted fingers of the glove.However, what sacred forbidden zone has people's eyes penetrated?Lily Briscoe looked up at last, and there sat Mrs Ramsay, quite unaware of Lily's laugh, still insisting on her point, but now without a trace of willfulness, and instead a A bright mood, like a sky finally cleared—like the bright night sky around the clear light of the moon.

Is this wisdom?This is knowledge?Is this another beautiful lie, to trap all one's understanding in a golden net in the search for truth?Or was Mrs. Ramsay harboring some secret which Lily Briscoe was sure would keep the world going?There's no one like her, running around just making ends meet.But if they knew the secret, could they tell her what they knew?Sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped tightly around Mrs Ramsay's knees, Lily smiled and thought that Mrs Ramsay would never understand the cause of her oppressive feelings.In her imagination, she saw that in the secret chamber of the soul of the woman whose body was in contact with her, like a treasure in an emperor's tomb, there stood a stele with a sacred inscription. If anyone could read this inscription, he would Will know all things, but this mystic text will never be taught openly, will never be revealed to the world.What treasures of art can be comprehended with love and dexterity, should you intrude into the inner sanctum?Is there any way by which a man and his beloved are inseparably united, like water poured into a jug?Can the body achieve such a union?Could thoughts, delicately and subtly tangled in the intricate channels of the brain, be united in this way?Or, can the human mind be so united?Could love, as it was called, unite her and Mrs Ramsay?It was not knowledge that she longed for, but harmony; not inscriptions on stone tablets, not things that could be written in any language a man could understand, but the intimacy itself, which she had thought knowledge, she thought, resting her head on Mrs. Ramsay's lap.

Nothing happened.Nothing, nothing!Nothing happened when she laid her head on Mrs Ramsay's lap.However, she knew that knowledge and wisdom were buried in Mrs. Ramsay's heart.Then, she couldn't help asking herself, if everyone is so secretive, how can you know anything about other people?You can only be like the bee, attracted by the elusive and untasteful sweetness or strong fragrance in the air, and haunts the dome-shaped hive; you wander alone in the desert of the air of the world, and then haunt In those hives that hum and stir; and those hives are people.Mrs Ramsay stood up.Lily also stood up.Mrs Ramsay is gone.For days on end, as if after a great dream, you felt some subtle change in the characters you dreamed of, that buzzing of bees clearer and more vivid than any words Mrs Ramsay had spoken , still ringing in Lily's ears, and, as Mrs Ramsay sat in her wicker chair by the drawing-room window, she seemed to Lily to have a dignified appearance, like a dome temple.

Lily's eyes were level with those of Mr. Bankes, and they were directed at Mrs. Ramsay, who sat reading, with James leaning on her lap.She was still staring straight now, but Mr Banks had withdrawn his gaze.He puts on his glasses and takes a few steps back.He raised his hand.He narrowed his clear blue eyes slightly, and Lily cringed like a dog at a hand raised to strike when it dawned on her that she saw something on which his gaze was directed.She would have taken her picture off the easel at once, but she said to herself, you must be calm.She braced herself to endure the dreadful ordeal of others looking at her work.You must, she said, you must...If the picture must be seen, let it be shown to Mr. Bankes, who is less terrible than the others.This painting is condensed from her thirty-three years of life. It is the crystallization of her daily life and her inner secrets that have never been told or disclosed for many years. It is a great pain.At the same time, it is a great excitement.

There could not have been a calmer, more serene attitude.Mr. Banks took out a pencil sharpener and tapped the canvas lightly with the bony handle.What was the purpose of that purple triangle, "Over there?" he asked. This is Mrs. Ramsay reading to James, she said.She knew he would object - no one would say that the thing looked like a shadow.But she only seeks similarity in spirit, not appearance, she said.So why paint it, he asked.Why exactly? —There, in that corner, the colors are bright; here, in this corner, she feels that she needs a little dark color to set it off, and nothing else.Rustic, bright, ordinary, that's all, Mr. Bankes was interested.Then it symbolizes mother and child—an object of universal reverence, and the mother is noted for her beauty—so sublime a relationship, so simply reduced to a single shade of purple, and without profanity, This, he thought, was intriguing. But the picture is not of the two of them, she said.Or rather, not the mother and son he was aware of.There are other meanings, which may include her respect for the mother and son.For example, expressed by a shadow here and a bright color there.She paid her homage that way, if, as she vaguely thought, a picture had to be a homage.Mother and child could be condensed into a single shadow without irreverence.A bright color here needs a shadow over there to set it off.He thought it over.He is very interested.He accepts it scientifically with all sincerity and sincerity.In fact, his biases manifested in another way, he explained.The largest painting in his drawing room, much admired by painters and worth more now than when he bought it, was of a cherry-blossoming grove on the Kennet coast.He had spent his honeymoon on the Kennet coast, he said.Lily must see the picture, he said.But now—he turned, pushed his spectacles up to his forehead, and examined her painting with a scientific attitude.Since it was a question of the relationship between objects, of light and shadow, which, frankly, had never occurred to him, he would like to hear her explain—what exactly was she trying to express with it?He pointed with his finger at the scene that unfolded before them.She glanced at it.She could not point out to him what she wanted to express, not even herself could have seen it if she hadn't held a paintbrush in her hand.She resumed her original painting pose, squinting her blurry eyes in a trancelike manner, repressing all her sense of being a woman and concentrating on something more universal; Once under the spell of the landscape she had seen so clearly, she must now grope among hedges, houses, mothers and children to find - the picture of her imagination.She remembered: How to connect this piece of scenery on the right with the one on the left is a problem.She could do this by extending the line of the branch over there, or by filling the foreground gap with an object (James, perhaps).But if she writes like that, the harmony of the whole picture is in danger of being destroyed.She fell silent; she did not want to bore him; she gently took the canvas from the easel. But the picture had been seen, it had been taken from her.The man had shared with her something deeply inner.It was thanks to the Ramsays that she had met her soulmate at last, and to the time and place, to this world with a power she had never imagined--she had never imagined, she To be able to walk down this long corridor no longer alone, but to walk hand in hand with someone—the strangest feeling in the world, the most exciting feeling—she turned the catch of her painting box Well, she was pushing too hard, and the shackle seemed to be spinning endlessly around the box, around the lawn, around Mr. Banks, and that little rascal, Cam, who was coming straight up.