To THE LIGHTHOUSEin the air with excitement. Or he might sit at thehead of the table dead silent from one end ofdinner to the other. Yes,. thought james, whilethe boat slapped and dawdled there in the hotsun; there was a waste of snow and rock verylonely and austere; and there he had come tofeel, quite often lately, when his father saidsomething which surprised the others, were twopairs of footprints only; his own and his father’s.They alone knew each other. What then wasthis terror, this hatred? Turning back amongthe many leaves which the past had folded inhim, peering into the heart of that forestwhere light and shade so chequer each otherthat all shape is distorted, and one blunders,now with the sun in one’s eyes, now with adark shadow, he sought an image to cool anddetach and round off his feeling in a concreteshape. Suppose then that as a child sittinghelpless in a perambulator, or on someone’sknee, he hadiseen a waggon crush ignorantlyand innocently, someone’s foot? Suppose he hadseen the foot first, in the grass, smooth, and whole;then the wheel; and the same foot, purple,crushed. But the wheel was innocent. So now,when his father came striding down the passageknocking them up early in the morning to go tothe Lighthouse down it came over his foot, over284
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