Chapter 31 Chapter One

What does it mean?What could all this mean?Lily Briscoe thought.She didn't know whether to go to the kitchen for another cup of coffee or wait here, because she was alone in the dining room.What does it mean? —a catchphrase from some book, which roughly suited her thoughts at the time, for it was the first morning of her reunion with the Ramsays, and she could not hold back her feelings. , can only let this sentence echo repeatedly, to cover up the emptiness of her thoughts, until this melancholy mood dissipates.Really, after so many years, I went back to the old place again, but there was no one else, and Mrs. Ramsay was dead. How did she feel?Nothing, nothing—she had nothing to say at all.

She arrived very late last night, and a mysterious night hung over everything.Now she woke up and sat in her old place at the table again, but she was alone.It was very early, not even eight o'clock.The expedition was about to begin--they were going to the lighthouse: Mr. Ramsay, Cam and James.They should have started long ago—they must set sail when the tide is high and the wind is fair.Cam wasn't ready; James wasn't ready; Nancy forgot to tell the kitchen to prepare a sandwich.Mr Ramsay lost his temper, slammed the door and walked out of the room. "What's the use of going now?" he growled.

Nancy suddenly disappeared.Mr. Ramsay paced up and down the platform in a huff.You can seem to hear the slamming of doors and the sound of shouting to each other, resounding through the whole house.Now that Nancy broke in, she looked around and asked in a curious half-bewildered, half-desperate way: "Send something to the lighthouse keeper?" Think there is no hope of doing things. Really, what to send to the lighthouse? !At any other time Lily would have wisely suggested that some tea and tobacco and newspapers should be sent.But, this morning, everything seemed very strange, with that question from Nancy—what to send to the lighthouse? ——opened many doors in her mind, they kept opening and closing, making her at a loss, she just kept asking dumbfounded: What should I give?What should be done?Why on earth am I sitting here?

She sat alone (because Nancy was out again) at the long dining table, facing the washed teacups, feeling cut off from other people, and could only continue to watch, ask, wonder.This house, this place, this morning seemed strange to her.She felt detached from it, had nothing to do with it, anything could happen, no matter what—footsteps outside, a voice calling ("It's not in the cupboard, it's on the landing ’” someone shouted)—it was all a question, as if the chains that usually held things together were cut, and they floated up and down and flew about.She looked at the empty coffee cup in front of her and thought: How aimless, how chaotic, how empty life is.Mrs Ramsay's sudden death; Andrew's untimely death; Prue's death--she might be repeating the same fate, did not, therefore, stir any emotion in her.We meet again in such a house on a morning like this one, she said, looking out of the window.It was a beautiful, calm day.

Mr. Ramsay, who was lingering with his head down, raised his head suddenly as he passed the window, and stared at her with his excited, wild, and very piercing eyes, as if he had only to look at you for a second, as long as he saw You, he was always looking at you; she lifted her empty glass and pretended to be drinking coffee, to avoid his gaze--to avoid his request to her, to postpone that very urgent request for a while.He shook his head at her and went on wandering ('alone', she heard him sigh; 'death', she heard him moan again), and on this strange morning the words became, like everything else, a symbol , painted the grey-green walls.She felt that if only she could put these symbols together and write them out in sentences, then she might be able to grasp the real meaning of life.Elderly Mr. Carmichael came in softly in his slippers, poured out a cup of coffee, and went out with the cup to sit in the sun.The eerie emptiness is scary, but it's also exciting.Go to the lighthouse.But what to send to the lighthouse?die.Lonely.A grey-green dim light on the opposite wall.Those empty seats.These are some of the ingredients that make up life, but how can they be put together into a whole?she asked.As if any slight disturbance would shatter the fragile form she was building at the table, she turned her back to the window so as not to meet Mr. Ramsay's eye.She must hide somewhere, be alone.She suddenly remembered that ten years ago, when she was sitting here, there was a small pattern of branches or leaves on the tablecloth, and she had stared at it for a moment and was inspired.She once considered the layout of the foreground of a picture.She had said that the tree should be moved in the middle.She never finished that painting.She is going to draw it now.Over the years, this painting has been knocking on her heart.She thought: Where has she put the paint?Yes, her paint.Last night she left it in the hall.She wants to start writing right away.She rose hastily before Mr. Ramsay strolled to the end of the platform and turned around.

She got herself a chair.With precise, spinster movements, she set up the easel at the edge of the lawn, not too close to Mr. Carmichael but within his protective sphere.Yes, ten years ago, she must have been standing here exactly.Ahead were the walls, fences, trees.The problem is that these objects have some relationship to each other.All these years, she has been thinking about it in her heart.It seemed the answer was at hand: now she knew what she wanted to do. However, under the constant interference of Mr. Ramsay, she could do nothing.Every time he came near her—he was still lingering on the terrace—she felt disaster and chaos approaching her.She can't paint.She stoops; she turns; she picks up the brush rag; she squeezes the tube of paint.All she did was to temporarily fend him off.He made her useless.For if she gave him the slightest chance, if he saw that she had a moment to spare, if she glanced in his direction, he would come up to her and say (as he said last night): "You Find out that our family has changed a lot." Last night, he stood up from his chair, stood in front of her, and said that sentence.The six children they used to call by the names of the Kings and Queens of England—the red so-and-so, the beautiful so-and-so, the willful so-and-so, the hard so-and-so-though they all sat there silently, staring Looking at their father, she felt how angry they were.Good old Mrs. Beckwith comforted him with a few sensible words.But the family was filled with all sorts of disconnected passions--she had felt that all through the evening.At the height of the confusion Mr. Ramsay stood up, pressed her hand firmly, and said: "You will find that there has been quite a change in our family." Not one of the children stirred, or Say a word, and they all sat there, as if they had no choice but to let him say that.It was just James (the brooding James, of course) staring angrily at the light, and Cam, twisting her handkerchief around her fingers.Then he reminded them that tomorrow they were going to the lighthouse, and at half-past seven they must be ready and waiting in the hall.With his hands on the door, he stopped and turned to face them.Don't they want to go?He asked them to answer.If they dared to say no (and he had some reason for wanting a negative answer), he would fall back miserably and fall to the ground, weeping in despair.He had this genius for posturing.He looked like a prince in exile.James stubbornly agreed.With even more frustration, Cam hesitated to agree.Oh well, they'll be ready, they said.It struck Lily that it was tragedy—not coffins, dust, and shrouds; but children under coercion, their vivacious spirits subdued.James was sixteen, Cam maybe seventeen.Lily looked around for an absent figure, presumably for Mrs Ramsay.However, only the kind Mrs. Beckwith read her sketches under the lamp.She was tired, and her thoughts were still fluctuating with the waves of the sea. The special smell of these places she had been away for many years intoxicated her, and the candlelight flickered in front of her eyes, making her ecstatic and unable to control herself.It was a marvelous night, with a sky full of stars; and as they went upstairs they heard the roar of the waves, and as they passed the window of the staircase they were amazed at the great pale moon.She fell asleep as soon as she got into bed.

She set a clean canvas firmly on the easel, as a kind of flimsy barrier, but she hoped it would be effective enough to keep Mr. Ramsay and his excitement from disturbing.When his back was turned, she stared at her drawing as best she could: a line there; a mass of paint here.However, to no avail.Let him stand fifty feet away, and even though he doesn't speak to you, doesn't even see you, his influence permeates and overwhelms everything, he imposes his influence on you, and you can't escape it.His presence changed everything.She couldn't see the colours; she couldn't see the lines; even with his back to hers, she thought: in a little while, he'll come up to me and ask for something—something she doesn't think she can give him something.She dropped a paintbrush; she picked another.When are the kids coming out?when are they leavingShe was irritable and restless.Her anger flared up, she thought, that man only wanted to wrest sympathy from others, and he never gave any sympathy to others himself.On the other hand, she would be compelled to give him sympathy.Mrs. Ramsay had sympathized with him.She gave her affections generously, gave away, gave away, and now she was dead—leaving the consequences.Really, she resented Mrs Ramsay.The paintbrush trembled slightly in her hand, and she gazed at the hedges, stone steps, and walls.It's all Mrs Ramsay's job.she died.Now, Lily here, at forty-four, wasting her precious time, standing here doing nothing, making fun of painting, making fun of a job she had always taken seriously, was all that. Mrs Ramsay's fault.she died.The stone steps where she used to sit were empty.she died.

But why keep repeating the old tune?Why always try to stir up some emotion she didn't have?There is a kind of profanity in it.Her feelings had long since dried up, shriveled, spent.They shouldn't have invited her in the first place; she shouldn't have come.When a man reaches forty-four, he can no longer waste time.She hated taking painting as a child's play.A paintbrush, the only thing she could trust in a world of strife, destruction, and turmoil--it must not be trifled with, even knowingly: she loathed it.However, he forces her to do so.He seemed to be coming towards her, and said to her: You can't write until you give me what I want.Now he was approaching again, greedily and excitedly.Well, Lili dropped her right hand holding the pen, and she thought desperately: The easier way is to let this matter be settled earlier.She must have been able to imitate, from recollection, the agitated, fevered, submissive expression she had seen on many women's faces, such as Mrs. Ramsay's, and when they encountered such occasions their ardor blazed. Rising (she remembered the look on Mrs. Ramsay's face), lapsed into a kind of fevered sympathy, delighted, though she did not understand why, at the reward they had received, which was evidently what humanity could bestow. their highest happiness.He came over and stayed beside her.She will give him all the sympathy she can.