Against her will she had come to the surface, andfound herself half out of the picture, looking, a littledazedly, as if at unreal things, at Mr Carmichael.He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above hispaunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like acreature gorged with existence. His book had fallenon to the grass.

She wanted to go straight up to him and say, 'MrCarmichael!' Then he would look up benevolentlyas always, from his smoky vague green eyes. Butone only woke people if one knew what one wantedto say to them. And she wanted to say not onething, but everything. Little words that broke upthe thought and dismembered it said nothing.'About life, about death; about Mrs Ramsay’—no,she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. Theurgency of the moment always missed its mark.Words fluttered sideways and struck the objectinches too low. Then one gave it up; then the ideasunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles betweenthe eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. Forhow could one express in words these emotions of thebody? express that emptiness there? (She waslooking at the drawing-room steps; they lookedextraordinarily empty.) It was one’s body feeling,not one's mind. The physical sensations that wentwith the bare look of the steps had become suddenlyextremely unpleasant. To want and not to have,sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a