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221235She wanted to go straight up to him & say"Mr. Carmichael!"Then he would look up benevolently. "About Mrs. Ramsay -about life - about death - about everything in the whole world!But you couldn't say that to Mr. Carmichael.You couldsay nothing to anybody.The urgency of themoment alwaysmissed its mark.One saw children strugglingtoWords fluttered sideways & struck the object inches too low.Then onegave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became, likemost middle aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles betweenthe eyes, & a look of perpetual apprehension.She looked at the drawing room steps, empty, They were empty.ItThat came over her violent powerfully, for the first time.thatSsome onewas not sitting there. The frill of a chair in the room stst moved a little in thebreeze.The extreme unpleasantness,that wentwithextremelyunpleasant.It was extremely unpleasant. it Like all strong feelings, thephysical sensation was acute. To want & not to have,sent all up her body a cur starkness, a hollowness, a strain.And itBut the physical sensation merged in the how they hurt the mindAnd then to want & not to have - to want & want! Oh Mrs.how theywrung herheart,left it likethe skin ofan emptyorange.Ramsay she called out silently, as if she could curseher for having& tormented her with this anguish.gone & thus have disturbed her painting.Why had she come allthis way, to be made why should she have done it?Ghost, air,nothingness - for months Lily went without thinking of her now.Nowit seemed as if Mrs. Ramsayhad one only been letting one run alittle to suit her own purposes.She wanted one back.One came back.She was only that.Suddenly she became the only desirable pe thing in lifeThen suddenly she asserted herself again, & the empty drawing room steps& the frill moving & the puppy tumbling on theterraceall seemed tocurves & arabesqueslike hollow phantoms ?curvetting, spouting, round a terrible?infinitesomething; infinitely desirable, be desirable: bec that had goneround complete emptiness.