THE LIGHTHOUSEand down among the waves and Mrs. Ramsay lookingfor her spectacle case among the pebbles. ‘Oh dear!What a nuisance! Lost again. Don’t bother, Mr. Tans-ley. I lose thousands every summer,’ at which hepressed his chin back against his collar, as if afraid tosanction such exaggeration, but could stand it in herwhom he liked, and smiled very charmingly. He musthave confided in her on one of those long expeditionswhen people got separated and walked back alone.He was educating his little sister, Mrs. Ramsay hadtold her. It was immensely to his credit. Her own ideaof him was grotesque, Lily knew well, stirring theplantains with her brush. Half one’s notions of otherpeople were, after all, grotesque. They served privatepurposes of one’s own. He did for her instead of awhipping-boy. She found herself flagellating his leanflanks when she was out of temper. If she wanted tobe serious about him she had to help herself to Mrs.Ramsay’s sayings, to look at him through her eyes.

She raised a little mountain for the ants to climbover. She reduced them to a frenzy of indecision bythis interference in their cosmogony. Some ran thisway, others that.

One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she re-flected. Fifty pairs of eyes were not enough to getround that one woman with, she thought. Amongthem, must be one that was stone blind to her beauty.One wanted most some secret sense, fine as air, withwhich to steal through keyholes and surround herwhere she sat knitting, talking, sitting silent in thewindow alone; which took to itself and treasured up,like the air which held the smoke of the steamer, herthoughts, her imaginations, her desires. What did the229

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