Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve

She draped the green scarf over her shoulders.She took his arm.He was so pretty, she said; she started talking about Kennedy the gardener, and he was suddenly so handsome that she couldn't bear to fire him.There was a ladder leaning against the front of the conservatory, with a few small pieces of putty stuck around it, because they were about to fix the conservatory.Yes, when she and her husband walked along the way, she felt that the evil that was particularly worrying had been lying there.While they were walking, she was on the tip of her tongue: "It will cost fifty pounds to repair." But she did not say it, for her nerves failed at the mention of money.She picked up another topic, about Jasper shooting the bird.He at once reassured her that it was natural for a boy, and he believed that Jasper would soon find better diversions.Her husband is so wise, so just.So she said, "Yes, all children go through stages of development." She began to think about the dahlias in that big flower bed, and wondered how they would bloom next year.She asked him again if he had heard the nicknames the children called Charles Tansley.Atheist, they called him a petty atheist. "He's not a model of good manners," Mr Ramsay said. "Not so far," said Mrs Ramsay.

She thought it best to leave him to his own devices, said Mrs. Ramsay, while she wondered whether it would do any good to give flower bulbs to the servants, and would they plant them? "Oh, he's got his dissertation to write," said Mr. Ramsay.She knew all about the paper, Mrs. Ramsay said, about someone's influence on something.He didn't talk about anything but this paper. "Well, he's totally counting on the paper," said Mr. Ramsay. "Please God; don't make him fall in love with Prue," said Mrs. Ramsay.If she married Tansley he would disinherit her, Mr Ramsay said.His eyes were not fixed on the flowers which his wife was scrutinizing, but a foot or so above them.Tansley meant no harm, he went on, and he was almost on the verge of saying that, after all, he was the only young man in England who admired his writings—but he refrained from saying it.He didn't want to bother her with his books any longer.The flowers seemed worthy of admiration, said Mr Ramsay.He looked down and noticed something red and brown.Yes, these are her own flowers, said Mrs Ramsay.The question was, if she gave all the flower bulbs to the gardener, would Kennedy plant them?He's too lazy to be law-abiding, she went on, walking forward.If she prodded him all day with a shovel in hand, he sometimes did a little work.They strolled like this, towards the fiery red iron fence. "You're teaching your daughters to exaggerate," Mr Ramsay reprimanded her.Her aunt Camilla was better at hyperbole than she was, Mrs Ramsay said. "As far as I know, your Aunt Camilla has never been held up as a model of good morals," said Mr Ramsay. "She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw," said Mrs Ramsay. "It's not she who is the most beautiful, it's someone else," said Mr Ramsay.Prue will be much more beautiful than she is, said Mrs Ramsay.Mr Ramsay said he couldn't see it at all. "Well, you can look at it to-night, then," said Mrs Ramsay.They stopped.He hoped to push Andrew to work harder.If he doesn't study, he will miss every chance of getting a scholarship. "Oh, a scholarship!" she said.Mr. Ramsay thought she was a little silly to speak so lightly of such a serious matter as a scholarship.He would be proud of Andrew if he got the scholarship, he said.If he didn't get a scholarship, she'd be just as proud of him, she replied.They always disagree on this, but that's okay.She liked that he believed so much in scholarship; and he liked that she was proud of Andrew no matter what he did.Suddenly, she thought of the trails on the edge of the cliff.

Isn't it very late?she asked.They haven't come back yet.He casually opened his pocket watch.It's only past seven o'clock.He left the watch cover open, and after a while he decided to tell her how he had felt on the balcony.In the first place, there was no reason to make such a fuss, and Andrew could take care of himself; then, he would tell her that when he was walking on the balcony just now - he was a little embarrassed at this point, as if he had intruded into her solitude and ecstasy. Flying, far away from the spiritual world of the world... But she held him tightly.What was he trying to say to her?she asked.He'd talk about going to the lighthouse, she supposed; he'd regret it because he'd just said "Damn it."No.He didn't like how forlorn and lonely she looked just now, he said.Just dreaming, she retorted, feeling a little hot in the face.They both felt awkward, as if they didn't know whether to go on walking or go back.She was reading fairy tales to James just now, she said.No, they had no common feeling on this point; they could not discuss the subject.

They came to a gap between two hedges with fiery iron bars, and the lighthouse could be seen again, but she would not allow herself to look at it.If she had known that he was looking at her just now, she thought, she would not have allowed herself to sit there thinking.She disliked anything that reminded her of someone who had seen her sitting lost in thought.So she looked back at the town.Those lights fluctuated and rushed, like a stream of silvery water droplets held firmly by a gust of wind.All poverty and misery, into that one light, thought Mrs Ramsay.The lights of towns, ports, and ships hung there like a phantom net, marking objects sunk in the twilight.If he could not share her thoughts, Mr. Ramsay said to himself, he would go away alone.He was going to go on thinking, telling himself the story of how Hume had gotten himself into the mud; he was going to have a good laugh.But first he would say that worrying about Andrew was really unfounded.When he was Andrew's age, he used to roam the country all day with nothing but a biscuit in his pocket, and no one worried about him lest he fall off a precipice.He said aloud that he thought that if the weather was fine tomorrow, he would like to go out and walk all day.He had had enough of Banks and Carmichael.He wanted to be able to live alone.Well, she said.She made no objection, which annoyed him.She knew he would never do that.He was too old for him to go out all day with a biscuit in his pocket.She worried about the children's safety, but not about him.They stood between two hedges with fiery red iron bars, and he looked across the bay and thought to himself: Years ago, before they were married, he used to walk all day and eat in a tavern. A little bread and cheese for lunch.He used to work ten hours at a stretch; only an old woman came in now and then to tend the stove.That was his favorite country, where the dunes faded into the night.You could walk all day and not meet a soul, not a house, not a village for miles.By yourself, you can rack your brains to think and solve some problems.There, there are some small sandy beaches that have been inaccessible since ancient times.The seals rear up their bodies and stare at you.Sometimes it seemed to him that, in that little house in the wild, by himself, he could—his thoughts broke off, and he sighed.He doesn't have that right.He's the father of eight—he reminded himself.He's an insatiable brute and a villain if he wants to change the status quo a little bit.Andrew will be a better man than he is.Prue was going to be a beauty, her mother said.They'll hold back that torrent a little bit.But on the whole it was a small masterpiece—his eight children.Their presence, he thought, showed that he did not quite curse this poor little universe, for on such an evening, as he watched the land before him shrink in the night, the island seemed pitifully small, half of it has been swallowed by sea water.

"Poor, small place," he murmured, sighing. She heard it.He said the most melancholy things.But she noticed that immediately after he said something like this, he often seemed happier than usual.The words were nothing more than a play on words, she thought, and if she said half what he had said, she would shoot her own skulls out with a gun. Such rhetoric really annoyed her, and she told him, in a matter-of-fact tone, that it was a perfect, lovely evening.What was he moaning about, she asked half amused, half complaining, for she guessed what he was thinking—he would have written better books if he hadn't married.

He's not complaining, he said.She knew he wasn't complaining.She knew he had nothing to complain about.He grabbed her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it with great emotion.This brought tears to her eyes.He put her hand down immediately. They turned away from the view, and, arm in arm, started up the path of the silver-green spear-like plants.His arms were almost like a boy's, thought Mrs Ramsay, lean and firm.She thought happily, how strong, bold and optimistic he was, even though he was over sixty years old.How strange it seemed to cheer him up rather than discourage him, to be convinced, as he was, that there were all sorts of terrible things in the world.Isn't that weird?She pondered in her mind.It seemed to her that he was really different sometimes: he was born to see nothing, hear nothing, and say nothing about ordinary trivial matters; but for extraordinary things, his eyes were as keen as a vulture.His thorough understanding often surprised her.But did he notice those flowers?No.Did he notice the view?No.Did he notice the beauty of his own daughter, or whether he had a pudding or a roast on his plate?Sitting at the dinner table with them, he was absent-minded as if in a dream.She feared that his habit of talking aloud to himself and reciting poems had grown stronger; for sometimes it was embarrassing—

The best and brightest days are gone! Poor Miss Gittings, she was almost taken aback when he yelled that line at her.Although Mrs. Ramsay would be on his side in a moment against all the Gittings and fools in the world, she thought... and she squeezed his arm lightly and affectionately, because he ran too far up the hill. Soon, she will stop for a while to see if the raised sand dunes on the coast are new mole nests.Then, she thought, stooping to stare, a brain as great as his must be different from ours in every way.Every great man she had ever known, she thought (she must have been a rabbit and not a mole into the dunes), was like him.The lads were good (although for her the atmosphere in the lecture hall was almost unbearably oppressive) just to hear his speeches and to see his presence.But she didn't know of any other way of leveling the hillocks than shooting the rabbits.It might be a rabbit; it might be a mole.Some kind of animal, after all, was destroying her primroses.Looking up, she saw the first ray of light of the twinkling stars through the sparse branches and leaves.She wanted her husband to look at it too, for the sight filled her with intense joy.But she restrained herself.He never enjoys the scenery.If he glanced at it, he would just sigh and say: Poor little world!

He said "very well" to please his wife, and pretended to admire the flowers.But she knew very well that he didn't appreciate the flowers, or even realize they existed.It's just to please her...Ah, isn't that Lily Briscoe and William Banks walking together?Her nearsighted eyes stared straight at the backs of the retreating couple.Yes, it was the two of them.Doesn't this mean that they will combine in the future?Yes, the two of them must get married!What a great idea!The two of them must get married!