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TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

[Here Mr. Carmichael, who was reading Virgil,blew out his candle. It was midnight.]

III

But what after all is one night? A short space,especially when the darkness dims so soon, and sosoon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint greenquickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of thewave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winterholds a pack of them in store and deals them equally,evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen;they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets,plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged asthey are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindlingin the gloom of cool cathedral caves where goldletters on marble pages describe death in battle andhow bones bleach and burn far away in Indiansands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moon-light, in the light of harvest moons, the light whichmellows the energy of labour, and smooths thestubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to theshore.

It seemed now as if, touched by human penitenceand all its toil, divine goodness had parted the cur-tain and displayed behind it, single, distinct, thehare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking,192