TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

Now eight candles were stood down the table, andafter the first stoop the flames stood upright anddrew with them into visibility the long table entire,and in the middle a yellow and purple dish of fruit.What had she done with it, Mrs. Ramsay wondered,for Rose’s arrangement of the grapes and pears, ofthe horny pink-lined shell, of the bananas, made herthink of a trophy fetched from the bottom of thesea, of Neptune’s banquet, of the bunch that hangswith vine leaves over the shoulder of Bacchus (insome picture), among the leopard skins and thetorches lolloping red and gold. . . . Thus brought upsuddenly into the light it seemed possessed of greatsize and depth, was like a world in which one couldtake one’s staff and climb hills, she thought, and godown into valleys, and to her pleasure (forit brought them into sympathy momentarily) shesaw that Augustus too feasted his eyes on the sameplate of fruit, plunged in, broke off a bloom there,a tassel here, and returned, after feasting, to hishive. That was his way of looking, different fromhers. But looking together united them.

Now all the candles were lit up, and the faceson both sides of the table were brought nearer bythe candle light, and composed, as they had not beenin the twilight, into a party round a table, for the146

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