Chapter 17 Chapter Sixteen

Well, Nancy went with them, then, thought Mrs Ramsay.She is doing her makeup in the mirror.She put down a hairbrush, picked up a comb, said "Come in" when she heard a knock at the door (Jesper and Ruth entered), and she thought, Nancy was with them , whether this increases or decreases the probability of an accident; it appears that the probability decreases.For some reason, Mrs. Ramsay had an irrational intuition that a tragedy of this magnitude was, after all, impossible.They couldn't all be drowned.Once again she felt alone and helpless against her old enemy - life. Jesper and Ruth said that Madrethe wanted to know if she had to wait until dinner.

"Not waiting for the Queen of England," said Mrs. Ramsay emphatically. "Not waiting for the Queen of Mexico," she added, and smiled at Jasper, who had the same bad habit as his mother: he also liked to exaggerate. She told Ruth that when Jasper delivered the message, if she liked, she could choose the jewelry for her to wear tonight.You can't keep people waiting with fifteen people sitting around for dinner.They didn't come back so late, and she started to get angry because they were so naive.Besides being anxious for them, she was angry with them for being late tonight.Now that Mr. Bankes had at last done him the honor of agreeing to dine with them, she hoped it would be a particularly successful dinner; besides, Maderathe the cook was making her special dish, Beef Dobo.Everything depends on being served in time.The beef, the cinnamon leaves, the wine—everything had to be properly cooked and brought to the table in time, and it was impossible to delay dinner.They're going out to-night, and they're late, and the food has to be served; it has to be simmered for them; and the Beef Doubt is all ruined.

Jasper chose her a cream necklace; Ruth a gold one.Which one looks better against her black gown?Which was the prettier string, said Mrs. Ramsay absently, looking at her neck and shoulders in the mirror (she avoided looking at her own face).As the two children rummaged through her jewelry box, she looked out the window at a scene that often amused her—the rooks flying through the air, trying to decide which tree to roost in.Whenever they were about to land, they seemed to change their minds suddenly, and flew into the air again.She thought it was because the old rook, the father, whom she had named Joseph, was a half-hearted and eccentric bird.It was a plain old bird with half the feathers on its wings missing.It was like one of those old gentlemen in top hats and rags she had seen playing trumpets in front of taverns.

"Look!" she said, laughing.They are indeed arguing.Joseph and Mary are arguing.Anyway, they took off again, the air being blown sideways by their black wings and tearing into delicate, crescent-shaped fragments.Those wings fluttering out, out, out—she had never been able to describe them precisely enough to please her—was a loveliest sight to her.Look over there, she said to Ruth, wishing she could see better than she could.Because, your child tends to push your own observations a little further. But which string to choose?They opened all the compartments in her jewelry box.The Italian gold choker, or the cream necklace that Uncle James had brought her from India?Or should she be wearing the amethyst string?

"Pick, dearest, pick," she said, wishing they would hurry. But she gave them plenty of time to choose: she especially liked having Ruth choose this and that, putting her jewels to the front of her black gown, for she knew it was a nightly routine. The little ceremony of choosing jewelry was Ruth's favorite.Ruth made it a point to choose jewelry for her mother, and for her own secret reasons.For what reason, Mrs. Ramsay was not sure, and standing still while Ruth clasps the necklace she had chosen, looking back at her own past, she surmised that, like Ruth, A girl of her age deeply buried her indescribable feelings for her mother.Like all emotions felt by one's own self, Mrs Ramsay found it melancholy.How disproportionate to the affection you could give in return; how disproportionate what Ruth felt to what she was.Ruth would grow up, Ruth so affectionate, and suffer, she thought.She said she was ready, they were going downstairs, and she wanted Jesper to take her arm because he was a gentleman, and she wanted Ruth to hold her handkerchief because she was a lady (she put hands her the handkerchief).What else?Oh yes, it might be cold: bring a scarf.Pick out a scarf for me, she said, because she knew Ruth would be pleased, a child doomed to suffer. "Look," she said, standing at the landing window, "there are the birds again." Joseph was already perched on the top of another tree. "If their wings were broken," she asked Jesper, "do you think they would suffer?" Why did he shoot poor Joseph and Mary?Jesper faltered on the stairs, he felt reprimanded, but not harshly; she didn't understand the joy of shooting birds; they didn't feel it; Partly; but he liked to hear her tell the story of Joseph and Mary.She made him laugh.How did she know they were Joseph and Mary?Did she think that these few birds flew to these few trees every night?he asked.At this point, like all adults, she suddenly ignored him at all.She was listening to the chatter and laughter in the restaurant.

"They're back!" she exclaimed.She felt at once that her dissatisfaction with them was stronger than the relief of her anxiety.Then, she secretly wondered: Did Lei Lei propose to Min Tai?She was going downstairs and they would have told her--but no.With these people here, they would say nothing to her.So she had to go downstairs, start eating supper, and wait patiently.Then, like a queen, finding her subjects assembled in the hall, she looks down on them, comes among them, and tacitly acknowledges their praise, accepts their homage (Paul even She didn't move a single muscle, just stared absently), she walked down the stairs and across the restaurant, nodding slightly as if she accepted what they couldn't express—their admiration for her beauty.

But she stopped.There is a burnt smell.Did they overcook the Dobo?She was a little suspicious.God, don't overcook it!The resounding gong declared solemnly and authoritatively that all people who are scattered everywhere, reading, writing, combing their hair, and dressing up in their attics, in their bedrooms, and in their respective resting places, must put all these Put them all down, leave the odds and ends on their washstands and dressers, put the novels on the bedside table, and put away the diaries that involve privacy. All these have to be temporarily put aside, and everyone gathers in the dining room Come to dinner.