TO THE LIGHTHOUSEseemed, could survive the Hood, the profusion ofdarkness which, creeping in at keyholes andcrevices, stole round window blinds, came intobedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin,there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there thesharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers.Not only was furniture confounded; there wasscarcely anything left of body or mind by whichone could say “ This is he " or " This is she.’Sometimes a hand was raised as if to clutchsomething or ward off something, or somebodygroaned, or somebody laughed aloud as if sharinga joke with nothingness.

Nothing stirred in the drawing-room or in thedining—room or on the staircase. Only throughthe rusty hinges and swollen sea-moistened woodwork certain airs, detached from the body of thewind (the house was ramshackle after all) creptround corners and ventured indoors. Almost onemight imagine them, as they entered the drawingroom, questioning and wondering, toying with theflap of hanging wall-paper, asking, would it hangmuch longer, when would it fall? Then smoothlybrushing the walls, they passed on musingly as ifasking the red and yellow roses on the wall—paperwhether they would fade, and questioning (gently,for there was time at their disposal) the torn lettersin the wastepaper basket, the flowers, the books,196