THE WINDOWthese days, he would read aloud, to one or twofriends. There, in a society where one could saywhat one liked he would sarcastically describe“staying with the Ramsays" and what nonsensethey talked. It was worth while doing it once,he would say; but not again. The women boredone so, he would say. Of course Ramsay haddished himself by marrying a beautiful woman andhaving eight children. It would shape itselfsomething like that, but now, at this moment,sitting stuck there with an empty seat beside himhe had not shaped anythingnothingitselfVW: Lassoed with line to “at all. It was all inHB: Pencil lassoed. outsetgal.35scraps and fragments. He HB: Pencil lassoed. felt extremely[∧], even physicallyVW: Lassoed with line to caret after “extremely”. —peter.shillingsburgun-comfortable.He wanted some-HB: Pencil lassoed. —peter.shillingsburgoutsetgal35body to give him a chance of asserting himself.HB: Pencil lassoed.He wanted it so urgently that he fidgeted in hischair, looked at this person, then at that person,tried to break into their talk, opened his mouthand shut it again. They were talking about thefishing industry. Why did no one ask him hisopinion? What did they know about the fishingindustry?Lily Briscoe knew all that. Sitting oppositehim could she not see, as in an X-ray photograph,the ribs and thigh bones of the young man’s desireto impress himself, that thin mist lying dark in[%]the midstmistof his flesh—that thin mist whichconvention had laid over his burning desire to141