THE WINDOWthem go, and hearing a word or two about the pol-icy of the Labour Party, they had gone up on to thebridge of the ship and were taking their bearings; thechange from poetry to politics struck her like that; soMr. Bankes and Charles Tansley went off, while theothers stood looking at Mrs. Ramsay going upstairsin the lamplight alone. Where, Lily wondered, wasshe going so quickly?
Not that the did in fact run or hurry; she went in-deed rather slowly. She felt rather inclined just for amoment to stand still after all that chatter, and pickout one particular thing; the thing that mattered; todetach it; separate it off; clean it of all the emotions
and odds and ends of things, and so hold it before her,and bring it to the tribunal where, ranged about inconclave, sat the judges she had set up to decide thesethings. Is it good, is it bad, is it right or wrong?Where are we going to? and so on. So she rightedherself after the shock of the event, and quite uncon-sciously and incongruously, used the branches of theelm trees outside to help her to stabilise her position.Her world was changing: they were still. The eventhad given her a sense of movement. All must be inorder. She must get that right and that right, shethought, insensibly approving of the dignity of thetrees’ stillness, and now again of the superb upwardrise (like the beak of a ship up a wave) of the elmbranches as the wind raised them. For it was windy(she stood a moment to look out). It was windy, sothat the leaves now and then brushed open a star,and the stars themselves seemed to be shaking anddarting light and trying to flash out between the edgesof the leaves. Yes, that was done then, accomplished;133
