TO THE LIGHTHOUSEsible. Everything seemed right. Just now (but thiscannot last, she thought, dissociating herself from themoment while they were all talking about boots) justnow she had reached security; she hovered like ahawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element ofjoy which filled every nerve of her body fully andsweetly, not noisily, solemnly rather, for it arose, shethought, looking at them all eating there, from hus-band and children and friends; all of which rising inthis profound stillness (she was helping William Bankesto one very small piece more and peered into thedepths of the earthenware pot) seemed now for nospecial reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fumerising upwards, holding them safe together. Nothingneed be said; nothing could be said. There it was,all round them. It partook, she felt, carefully helpingMr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity;as she had already felt about something differentonce before that afternoon; there is a coherence inthings, a stability; something, she meant, is immunefrom change, and shines out (she glanced at the win-dow with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face ofthe flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; sothat again to-night she had the feeling she had hadonce to-day, already, of peace, of rest. Of such mo-ments, she thought, the thing is made that remainsfor ever after. This would remain.

‘Yes,’ she assured William Bankes, ‘there is plentyfor everybody.'

‘Andrew,’ she said, ‘hold your plate lower, or Ishall spill it.’ (The Bœuf en Daube was a perfecttriumph.) Here, she felt, putting the spoon down,was the still space that lies about the heart of things,124
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