THE WINDOWOh but, Lily would say, there was her father; herhome; even, had she dared to say it, her painting.But all this seemed so little, so virginal, against theother. Yet, as the night wore on, and white lightsparted the curtains, and even now and then somebird chirped in the garden, gathering a desperatecourage she would urge her own exemption from theuniversal law; plead for it; she liked to be alone;she liked to be herself; she was not made for that;and so have to meet a serious stare from eyes of un-paralleled depth, and confront Mrs. Ramsay’s simplecertainty (and she was child-like now) that her dearLily, her little Brisk, was a fool. Then, she remem-bered, she had laid her head on Mrs. Ramsay’s lapand laughed and laughed and laughed, laughed al-most hysterically at the thought of Mrs. Ramsay pre-siding with immutable calm over destinies which shecompletely failed to understand. There she sat, sim-ple, serious. She had recovered her sense of her now— this was the glove’s twisted finger. But into whatsanctuary had one penetrated? Lily Briscoe had lookedup at last, and there was Mrs. Ramsay, unwittingentirely what had caused her laughter, still presiding,but now with every trace of wilfulness abolished, andin its stead, something clear as the space which theclouds at last uncover — the little space of sky whichsleeps beside the moon.
Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it, oncemore, the deceptiveness of beauty, so that all one’sperceptions, half-way to truth, were tangled in agolden 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 one61
