THE WINDOW 59one's perceptions, half-way to truth, were tangled ina golden mesh? or did she lock up within her somesecret which certainly Lily Briscoe believed peoplemust have for the world to go on at all? Every onecould not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth as shewas. But if they knew, could they tell one what theyknew? Sitting on the floor with her arms roundMrs Ramsay's knees, close as she could get, smilingto think that Mrs Ramsay would never know thereason of that pressure, she imagined how in thechambers of the mind and heart of the woman whowas, physically, touching her, were stood, like thetreasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearingsacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them outwould teach one everything, but they would never beoffered openly, never made public. What art wasthere, known to love or cunning, by which onepressed through into those secret chambers? Whatdevice for becoming, like waters poured into one jar,inextricably the same, one with the object oneadored? Could the body achieve it, or the mind,subtly mingling in the intricate passages of thebrain? or the heart? Could loving, as people calledit, make her and Mrs Ramsay one? for it was notknowledge but unity that she desired, not inscrip-tions on tablets, nothing that could be written inany language known to men, but intimacy itself,which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning herhead on Mrs Ramsay's knee.

Nothing happened. Nothing! Nothing! as sheleant her head against Mrs Ramsay's knee. Andyet, she knew knowledge and wisdom were stored inMrs Ramsay's heart. How then, she had asked
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