192 TO THE LIGHTHOUSElonger any part. Which was their house? Shecould not see it.

‘But I beneath a rougher sea,’ Mr Ramsay mur-mured. He had found the house and so seeing it,he had also seen himself there; he had seen himselfwalking on the terrace, alone. He was walking upand down between the urns; and he seemed to him-self very old, and bowed. Sitting in the boat hebowed, he crouched himself, acting instantly his part

—the part of a desolate man, widowed, bereft; andso called up before him in hosts people sympathizingwith him; staged for himself as he sat in the boat, alittle drama; which required of him decrepitude andexhaustion and sorrow (he raised his hands andlooked at the thinness of them, to confirm his dream)and then there was given him in abundance women’ssympathy, and he imagined how they would soothehim and sympathize with him, and so getting in hisdream some reflection of the exquisite pleasurewomen’s sympathy was to him, he sighed and saidgently and mournfully:But I beneath a rougher seaWas whelmed in deeper gulfs than he,so that the mournful words were heard quite clearlyby them all. Cam half started on her seat. Itshocked her—it outraged her. The movementroused her father; and he shuddered, and broke off,exclaiming: ‘Look! Look!’ so urgently that Jamesalso turned his head to look over his shoulder at theisland. They all looked. They looked at the island.

But Cam could see nothing. She was thinkinghow all those paths and the lawn, thick and knottedwith the lives they had lived there, were gone: were

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