What does one send to the Lighthouse indeed!At any other time Lily could have suggested reason-ably tea, tobacco, newspapers. But this morning every-thing seemed so extraordinarily queer that a questionlike Nancy’s — What does one send to the Lighthouse?

Sitting alone (for Nancy went out again) amongthe clean cups at the long table she felt cut off fromother people, and able only to go on watching, ask-ing, wondering. The house, the place, the morning,all seemed strangers to her. She had no attachmenthere, she felt, no relations with it, anything mighthappen, and whatever did happen, a step outside, avoice calling (‘It’s not in the cupboard; it’s on thelanding,’ some one cried), was a question, as if thelink that usually bound things together had been cut,and they floated up here, down there, off, anyhow.How aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it was,she thought, looking at her empty coffee cup. Mrs.Ramsay dead; Andrew killed; Prue dead too — re-peat it as she might, it roused no feeling in her. Andwe all get together in a house like this on a morninglike this, she said, looking out of the window — it was