Yes, Mr Bankes said, watching him go. It was a thousand pities. (Lily hadsaid something about his frightening her—he changed from one mood toanother so suddenly.) Yes, said Mr Bankes, it was a thousand pities thatRamsay could not behave a little more like other people. (For he likedLily Briscoe; he could discuss Ramsay with her quite openly.) It was forthat reason, he said, that the young don't read Carlyle. A crusty oldgrumbler who lost his temper if the porridge was cold, why should hepreach to us? was what Mr Bankes understood that young people saidnowadays. It was a thousand pities if you thought, as he did, that Carlylewas one of the great teachers of mankind. Lily was ashamed to say thatshe had not read Carlyle since she was at school. But in her opinion oneliked Mr Ramsay all the better for thinking that if his little finger achedthe whole world must come to an end. It was not THAT she minded. Forwho could be deceived by him? He asked you quite openly to flatterhim, to admire him, his little dodges1 deceived nobody. What she dislikedwas his narrowness, his blindness, she said, looking after him.
"A bit of a hypocrite?" Mr Bankes suggested, looking too at MrRamsay's back, for was he not thinking of his friendship, and of Cam refusingto give him a flower, and of all those boys and girls, and his ownhouse, full of comfort, but, since his wife's death, quiet rather? Of course,he had his work… All the same, he rather wished Lily to agree that Ram-say was, as he said, "a bit of a hypocrite."Lily Briscoe went on putting away her brushes, looking up, lookingdown. Looking up, there he was—Mr Ramsay—advancing towardsthem, swinging, careless, oblivious2, remote. A bit of a hypocrite? she repeated.
Oh, no—the most sincere of men, the truest (here he was), thebest; but, looking down, she thought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical,he is unjust; and kept looking down, purposely, for only socould she keep steady, staying with the Ramsays. Directly one looked upand saw them, what she called "being in love" flooded them. They becamepart of that unreal but penetrating3 and exciting universe which is the world seen through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the birdssang through them. And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, asshe saw Mr Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs Ramsay sittingwith James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending,how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which onelived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore oneup and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach.
Mr Bankes expected her to answer. And she was about to saysomething criticizing Mrs Ramsay, how she was alarming, too, in herway, high-handed, or words to that effect, when Mr Bankes made it entirelyunnecessary for her to speak by his rapture5. For such it was consideringhis age, turned sixty, and his cleanliness and his impersonality6, andthe white scientific coat which seemed to clothe him. For him to gaze asLily saw him gazing at Mrs Ramsay was a rapture, equivalent, Lily felt,to the loves of dozens of young men (and perhaps Mrs Ramsay had neverexcited the loves of dozens of young men). It was love, she thought,pretending to move her canvas, distilled7 and filtered; love that never attemptedto clutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians8 beartheir symbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over theworld and become part of the human gain. So it was indeed. The worldby all means should have shared it, could Mr Bankes have said why thatwoman pleased him so; why the sight of her reading a fairy tale to herboy had upon him precisely9 the same effect as the solution of a scientificproblem, so that he rested in contemplation of it, and felt, as he felt whenhe had proved something absolute about the digestive system of plants,that barbarity was tamed, the reign10 of chaos11 subdued12.
Such a rapture—for by what other name could one call it?—made LilyBriscoe forget entirely4 what she had been about to say. It was nothing ofimportance; something about Mrs Ramsay. It paled beside this "rapture,"this silent stare, for which she felt intense gratitude13; for nothing sosolaced her, eased her of the perplexity of life, and miraculously14 raisedits burdens, as this sublime15 power, this heavenly gift, and one would nomore disturb it, while it lasted, than break up the shaft16 of sunlight, lyinglevel across the floor.
That people should love like this, that Mr Bankes should feel this forMrs Ramsey (she glanced at him musing) was helpful, was exalting17. Shewiped one brush after another upon a piece of old rag, menially, on purpose.
She took shelter from the reverence18 which covered all women; shefelt herself praised. Let him gaze; she would steal a look at her picture.
She could have wept. It was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely19 bad! Shecould have done it differently of course; the colour could have beenthinned and faded; the shapes etherealised; that was how Pauncefortewould have seen it. But then she did not see it like that. She saw the col-our burning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly's wing lyingupon the arches of a cathedral. Of all that only a few random20 marksscrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen; neverbe hung even, and there was Mr Tansley whispering in her ear, "Womencan't paint, women can't write… "She now remembered what she had been going to say about Mrs Ram-say. She did not know how she would have put it; but it would havebeen something critical. She had been annoyed the other night by somehighhandedness. Looking along the level of Mr Bankes's glance at her,she thought that no woman could worship another woman in the way heworshipped; they could only seek shelter under the shade which MrBankes extended over them both. Looking along his beam she added toit her different ray, thinking that she was unquestionably the loveliest ofpeople (bowed over her book); the best perhaps; but also, different toofrom the perfect shape which one saw there. But why different, and howdifferent? she asked herself, scraping her palette of all those mounds21 ofblue and green which seemed to her like clods with no life in them now,yet she vowed22, she would inspire them, force them to move, flow, do herbidding tomorrow. How did she differ? What was the spirit in her, theessential thing, by which, had you found a crumpled23 glove in the cornerof a sofa, you would have known it, from its twisted finger, hers indisputably?
She was like a bird for speed, an arrow for directness. She waswillful; she was commanding (of course, Lily reminded herself, I amthinking of her relations with women, and I am much younger, an insignificantperson, living off the Brompton Road). She opened bedroomwindows. She shut doors. (So she tried to start the tune24 of Mrs Ramsayin her head.) Arriving late at night, with a light tap on one's bedroomdoor, wrapped in an old fur coat (for the setting of her beauty was alwaysthat—hasty, but apt), she would enact25 again whatever it mightbe—Charles Tansley losing his umbrella; Mr Carmichael snuffling andsniffing; Mr Bankes saying, "The vegetable salts are lost." All this shewould adroitly26 shape; even maliciously27 twist; and, moving over to thewindow, in pretence28 that she must go,—it was dawn, she could see thesun rising,—half turn back, more intimately, but still always laughing,insist that she must, Minta must, they all must marry, since in the wholeworld whatever laurels29 might be tossed to her (but Mrs Ramsay cared not a fig30 for her painting), or triumphs won by her (probably Mrs Ram-say had had her share of those), and here she saddened, darkened, andcame back to her chair, there could be no disputing this: an unmarriedwoman (she lightly took her hand for a moment), an unmarried womanhas missed the best of life. The house seemed full of children sleepingand Mrs Ramsay listening; shaded lights and regular breathing.
Oh, but, Lily would say, there was her father; her home; even, had shedared to say it, her painting. But all this seemed so little, so virginal,against the other. Yet, as the night wore on, and white lights parted thecurtains, and even now and then some bird chirped31 in the garden, gatheringa desperate courage she would urge her own exemption32 from theuniversal law; plead for it; she liked to be alone; she liked to be herself;she was not made for that; and so have to meet a serious stare from eyesof unparalleled depth, and confront Mrs Ramsay's simple certainty (andshe was childlike now) that her dear Lily, her little Brisk, was a fool.
Then, she remembered, she had laid her head on Mrs Ramsay's lap andlaughed and laughed and laughed, laughed almost hysterically33 at thethought of Mrs Ramsay presiding with immutable34 calm over destinieswhich she completely failed to understand. There she sat, simple, serious.
She had recovered her sense of her now—this was the glove's twistedfinger. But into what sanctuary35 had one penetrated36? Lily Briscoe hadlooked up at last, and there was Mrs Ramsay, unwitting entirely whathad caused her laughter, still presiding, but now with every trace of wilfulnessabolished, and in its stead, something clear as the space whichthe clouds at last uncover—the little space of sky which sleeps beside themoon.
Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it, once more, the deceptivenessof beauty, so that all one's perceptions, half way to truth, weretangled in a golden mesh37? or did she lock up within her some secretwhich certainly Lily Briscoe believed people must have for the world togo on at all? Every one could not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth asshe was. But if they knew, could they tell one what they knew? Sitting onthe floor with her arms round Mrs Ramsay's knees, close as she couldget, smiling to think that Mrs Ramsay would never know the reason ofthat pressure, she imagined how in the chambers38 of the mind and heartof the woman who was, physically39, touching40 her, were stood, like thetreasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions41, whichif one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they wouldnever be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, knownto love or cunning, by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricablythe same, one with the object one adored? Could the bodyachieve, or the mind, subtly mingling42 in the intricate passages of thebrain? or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and MrsRamsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity43 that she desired, not inscriptionson tablets, nothing that could be written in any languageknown to men, but intimacy44 itself, which is knowledge, she had thought,leaning her head on Mrs Ramsay's knee.
Nothing happened. Nothing! Nothing! as she leant her head againstMrs Ramsay's knee. And yet, she knew knowledge and wisdom werestored up in Mrs Ramsay's heart. How, then, she had asked herself, didone know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?
Only like a bee, drawn45 by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangibleto touch or taste, one haunted the dome46-shaped hive, ranged thewastes of the air over the countries of the world alone, and then hauntedthe hives with their murmurs47 and their stirrings; the hives, which werepeople. Mrs Ramsay rose. Lily rose. Mrs Ramsay went. For days therehung about her, as after a dream some subtle change is felt in the personone has dreamt of, more vividly48 than anything she said, the sound ofmurmuring and, as she sat in the wicker arm-chair in the drawing-roomwindow she wore, to Lily's eyes, an august shape; the shape of a dome.
This ray passed level with Mr Bankes's ray straight to Mrs Ramsay sittingreading there with James at her knee. But now while she still looked,Mr Bankes had done. He had put on his spectacles. He had stepped back.
He had raised his hand. He had slightly narrowed his clear blue eyes,when Lily, rousing herself, saw what he was at, and winced49 like a dogwho sees a hand raised to strike it. She would have snatched her pictureoff the easel, but she said to herself, One must. She braced50 herself tostand the awful trial of some one looking at her picture. One must, shesaid, one must. And if it must be seen, Mr Bankes was less alarming thananother. But that any other eyes should see the residue51 of her thirty-threeyears, the deposit of each day's living mixed with something more secretthan she had ever spoken or shown in the course of all those days was anagony. At the same time it was immensely exciting.
Nothing could be cooler and quieter. Taking out a pen-knife, MrBankes tapped the canvas with the bone handle. What did she wish toindicate by the triangular52 purple shape, "just there"? he asked.
It was Mrs Ramsay reading to James, she said. She knew his objection—that no one could tell it for a human shape. But she had made no attempt at likeness53, she said. For what reason had she introduced themthen? he asked. Why indeed?—except that if there, in that corner, it wasbright, here, in this, she felt the need of darkness. Simple, obvious, commonplace,as it was, Mr Bankes was interested. Mother and childthen—objects of universal veneration54, and in this case the mother wasfamous for her beauty—might be reduced, he pondered, to a purpleshadow without irreverence55.
But the picture was not of them, she said. Or, not in his sense. Therewere other senses too in which one might reverence them. By a shadowhere and a light there, for instance. Her tribute took that form if, as shevaguely supposed, a picture must be a tribute. A mother and child mightbe reduced to a shadow without irreverence. A light here required ashadow there. He considered. He was interested. He took it scientificallyin complete good faith. The truth was that all his prejudices were on theother side, he explained. The largest picture in his drawing-room, whichpainters had praised, and valued at a higher price than he had given forit, was of the cherry trees in blossom on the banks of the Kennet. He hadspent his honeymoon56 on the banks of the Kennet, he said. Lily mustcome and see that picture, he said. But now—he turned, with his glassesraised to the scientific examination of her canvas. The question being oneof the relations of masses, of lights and shadows, which, to be honest, hehad never considered before, he would like to have it explained—whatthen did she wish to make of it? And he indicated the scene before them.
She looked. She could not show him what she wished to make of it,could not see it even herself, without a brush in her hand. She took uponce more her old painting position with the dim eyes and the absentmindedmanner, subduing57 all her impressions as a woman to somethingmuch more general; becoming once more under the power of that visionwhich she had seen clearly once and must now grope for among hedgesand houses and mothers and children—her picture. It was a question,she remembered, how to connect this mass on the right hand with thaton the left. She might do it by bringing the line of the branch across so; orbreak the vacancy58 in the foreground by an object (James perhaps) so. Butthe danger was that by doing that the unity of the whole might bebroken. She stopped; she did not want to bore him; she took the canvaslightly off the easel.
But it had been seen; it had been taken from her. This man had sharedwith her something profoundly intimate. And, thanking Mr Ramsay forit and Mrs Ramsay for it and the hour and the place, crediting the worldwith a power which she had not suspected—that one could walk away down that long gallery not alone any more but arm in arm with somebody—the strangest feeling in the world, and the most exhilarating—shenicked the catch of her paint-box to, more firmly than was necessary, andthe nick seemed to surround in a circle forever the paint-box, the lawn,Mr Bankes, and that wild villain59, Cam, dashing past.
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dodges
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| n.闪躲( dodge的名词复数 )；躲避；伎俩；妙计v.闪躲( dodge的第三人称单数 )；回避 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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impersonality
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| n.无人情味 | |
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distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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mathematicians
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| 数学家( mathematician的名词复数 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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exalting
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| a.令人激动的，令人喜悦的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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enact
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| vt.制定(法律)；上演，扮演 | |
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adroitly
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| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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maliciously
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| adv.有敌意地 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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chirped
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的过去式 ) | |
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exemption
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| n.豁免，免税额，免除 | |
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hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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mesh
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| n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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irreverence
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| n.不尊敬 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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subduing
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| 征服( subdue的现在分词 )； 克制； 制服； 色变暗 | |
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vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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