TO THE LIGHTHOUSEWalter’s, she saw, adjusting the shade of her lampso that the light fell on her knitting. For CharlesTansley had been saying (she looked up as if sheexpected to hear the crash of books on the floorabove) had been saying that people don’t readScott any more. Then her husband thought,“That’s what they’ll say of me"; so he went andgot one of those books. And if he came to theconclusion "That’s true" what Charles Tansleysaid, he would accept it about Scott. (She couldsee that he was weighing, considering, puttingthis with that as he read.) But not about himself.He was always uneasy about himself. Thattroubled her. He would always be worryingabout his own books—will they be read, are theygood, why aren’t they better, what do peoplethink of me? Not liking to think of him so, andwondering if they had guessed at dinner why hesuddenly became irritable when they talked aboutfame and books lasting, wondering if the childrenwere laughing at that, she twitched the stockingout, and all the fine gravings came drawn withsteel instruments about her lips and forehead, andshe grew still like a tree which has been tossingand quivering and now, when the breeze falls,settles, leaf by leaf, into quiet.

It didn’t matter, any of it, she thought. Agreat man, a great book, fame—who could tell?182
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