Slide to View Image: Opacity 0%
TO THE LIGHTHOUSEseemed swept bare of objects to talk about; couldonly feel, amazedly, as Mr. Ramsay stood there,how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over thesunny grass and discolour it, and cast over therubicund, drowsy, entirely contented figure ofMr. Carmichael, reading a French novel on adeck-chair, a veil of crape, as if such an existence,flaunting its prosperity in a world of woe, wereenough to provoke the most dismal thoughts ofall. Look at him, he seemed to be saying, lookat me; and indeed, all the time he was feeling,Think of me, think of me. Ah, could that bulkonly be wafted alongside of them, Lily wished;had she only pitched her easel a yard or two closerto him; a man, any man, would staunch thiseffusion, would stop these lamentations. Awoman, she had provoked this horror; a woman,she should have known how to deal with it. Itwas immensely to her discredit, sexually, to standthere dumb. One said—what did one say?—gal59Oh, Mr. RamsHB: Pencil line indicating galley 59ay! Dear Mr. Ramsay! Thatwas what that kind old lady who sketched, Mrs.Beckwith, would have said instantly,[∧]andrightly,kindly. But no. They stood there, isolatedfrom the rest of the world. His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and spreaditself in pools at her feet, and all she did, miserablesinner that she was, was to draw her skirts a little236
