So they're gone, she thought, sighing with relief and disappointment.
Her sympathy seemed to be cast back on her, like a bramble sprungacross her face. She felt curiously1 divided, as if one part of her weredrawn out there—it was a still day, hazy3; the Lighthouse looked thismorning at an immense distance; the other had fixed4 itself doggedly,solidly, here on the lawn. She saw her canvas as if it had floated up andplaced itself white and uncompromising directly before her. It seemed torebuke her with its cold stare for all this hurry and agitation5; this follyand waste of emotion; it drastically recalled her and spread through hermind first a peace, as her disorderly sensations (he had gone and she hadbeen so sorry for him and she had said nothing) trooped off the field;and then, emptiness. She looked blankly at the canvas, with its uncompromisingwhite stare; from the canvas to the garden. There wassomething (she stood screwing up her little Chinese eyes in her smallpuckered face), something she remembered in the relations of those linescutting across, slicing down, and in the mass of the hedge with its greencave of blues6 and browns, which had stayed in her mind; which had tieda knot in her mind so that at odds7 and ends of time, involuntarily, as shewalked along the Brompton Road, as she brushed her hair, she foundherself painting that picture, passing her eye over it, and untying8 theknot in imagination. But there was all the difference in the worldbetween this planning airily away from the canvas and actually takingher brush and making the first mark.
She had taken the wrong brush in her agitation at Mr Ramsay's presence,and her easel, rammed9 into the earth so nervously10, was at thewrong angle. And now that she had ut that right, and in so doing hadsubdued the impertinences and irrelevances that plucked her attentionand made her remember how she was such and such a person, had suchand such relations to people, she took her hand and raised her brush. Fora moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstasy11 in the air.
Where to begin?—that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerablerisks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemedsimple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shapethemselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer amongthem are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming12 crests13. Still the risk mustbe run; the mark made.
With a curious physical sensation, as if she were urged forward and atthe same time must hold herself back, she made her first quick decisivestroke. The brush descended14. It flickered15 brown over the white canvas; itleft a running mark. A second time she did it—a third time. And sopausing and so flickering16, she attained17 a dancing rhythmical18 movement,as if the pauses were one part of the rhythm and the strokes another, andall were related; and so, lightly and swiftly pausing, striking, she scoredher canvas with brown running nervous lines which had no soonersettled there than they enclosed ( she felt it looming19 out at her) a space.
Down in the hollow of one wave she saw the next wave towering higherand higher above her. For what could be more formidable than thatspace? Here she was again, she thought, stepping back to look at it,drawn2 out of gossip, out of living, out of community with people intothe presence of this formidable ancient enemy of hers—this other thing,this truth, this reality, which suddenly laid hands on her, emerged starkat the back of appearances and commanded her attention. She was halfunwilling, half reluctant. Why always be drawn out and haled away?
Why not left in peace, to talk to Mr Carmichael on the lawn? It was anexacting form of intercourse20 anyhow. Other worshipful objects were contentwith worship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate21; but thisform, were it only the shape of a white lamp-shade looming on a wickertable, roused one to perpetual combat, challenged one to a fight in whichone was bound to be worsted. Always (it was in her nature, or in her sex,she did not know which) before she exchanged the fluidity of life for theconcentration of painting she had a few moments of nakedness when sheseemed like an unborn soul, a soul reft of body, hesitating on somewindy pinnacle22 and exposed without protection to all the blasts ofdoubt. Why then did she do it? She looked at the canvas, lightly scoredwith running lines. It would be hung in the servants' bedrooms. It wouldbe rolled up and stuffed under a sofa. What was the good of doing itthen, and she heard some voice saying she couldn't paint, saying shecouldn't create, as if she were caught up in one of those habitual23 currentsin which after a certain time experience forms in the mind, so that one repeatswords without being aware any longer who originally spoke24 them.
Can't paint, can't write, she murmured monotonously25, anxiously consideringwhat her plan of attack should be. For the mass loomed26 beforeher; it protruded27; she felt it pressing on her eyeballs. Then, as if somejuice necessary for the lubrication of her faculties28 were spontaneouslysquirted, she began precariously29 dipping among the blues and umbers,moving her brush hither and thither30, but it was now heavier and wentslower, as if it had fallen in with some rhythm which was dictated31 to her(she kept looking at the hedge, at the canvas) by what she rhythm wasstrong enough to bear her along with it on its current. Certainly she waslosing consciousness of outer things. And as she lost consciousness ofouter things, and her name and her personality and her appearance, andwhether Mr Carmichael was there or not, her mind kept throwing upfrom its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings, and memories andideas, like a fountain spurting32 over that glaring, hideously33 difficult whitespace, while she modelled it with greens and blues.
Charles Tansley used to say that, she remembered, women can't paint,can't write. Coming up behind her, he had stood close beside her, a thingshe hated, as she painted her on this very spot. "Shag tobacco," he said,"fivepence an ounce," parading his poverty, his principles. (But the warhad drawn the sting of her femininity. Poor devils, one thought, poordevils, of both sexes.) He was always carrying a book about under hisarm—a purple book. He "worked." He sat, she remembered, working ina blaze of sun. At dinner he would sit right in the middle of the view. Butafter all, she reflected, there was the scene on the beach. One must rememberthat. It was a windy morning. They had all gone down to thebeach. Mrs Ramsay sat down and wrote letters by a rock. She wrote andwrote. "Oh," she said, looking up at something floating in the sea, "is it alobster pot? Is it an upturned boat?" She was so short-sighted that shecould not see, and then Charles Tansley became as nice as he could possiblybe. He began playing ducks and drakes. They chose little flat blackstones and sent them skipping over the waves. Every now and then MrsRamsay looked up over her spectacles and laughed at them. What theysaid she could not remember, but only she and Charles throwing stonesand getting on very well all of a sudden and Mrs Ramsay watchingthem. She was highly conscious of that. Mrs Ramsay, she thought, steppingback and screwing up her eyes. (It must have altered the design agood deal when she was sitting on the step with James. There must havebeen a shadow.) When she thought of herself and Charles throwingducks and drakes and of the whole scene on the beach, it seemed to dependsomehow upon Mrs Ramsay sitting under the rock, with a pad on her knee, writing letters. (She wrote innumerable letters, and sometimesthe wind took them and she and Charles just saved a page from the sea.)But what a power was in the human soul! she thought. That woman sittingthere writing under the rock resolved everything into simplicity;made these angers, irritations34 fall off like old rags; she brought togetherthis and that and then this, and so made out of that miserable35 sillinessand spite (she and Charles squabbling, sparring, had been silly andspiteful) something—this scene on the beach for example, this momentof friendship and liking—which survived, after all these years complete,so that she dipped into it to re-fashion her memory of him, and there itstayed in the mind affecting one almost like a work of art.
"Like a work of art," she repeated, looking from her canvas to thedrawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And,resting, looking from one to the other vaguely36, the old question whichtraversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general questionwhich was apt to particularise itself at such moments as these, when shereleased faculties that had been on the strain, stood over her, pausedover her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of life? That was all—asimple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The greatrevelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come.
Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedlyin the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other; herselfand Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs Ramsay bringing themtogether; Mrs Ramsay saying, "Life stand still here"; Mrs Ramsay makingof the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herselftried to make of the moment something permanent)—this was of thenature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos37 there was shape; this eternalpassing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking)was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs Ramsay said. "MrsRamsay! Mrs Ramsay!" she repeated. She owed it all to her.
All was silence. Nobody seemed yet to be stirring in the house. Shelooked at it there sleeping in the early sunlight with its windows greenand blue with the reflected leaves. The faint thought she was thinking ofMrs Ramsay seemed in consonance with this quiet house; this smoke;this fine early morning air. Faint and unreal, it was amazingly pure andexciting. She hoped nobody would open the window or come out of thehouse, but that she might be left alone to go on thinking, to go on painting.
She turned to her canvas. But impelled38 by some curiosity, driven bythe discomfort39 of the sympathy which she held undischarged, shewalked a pace or so to the end of the lawn to see whether, down there on the beach, she could see that little company setting sail. Down thereamong the little boats which floated, some with their sails furled, someslowly, for it was very calm moving away, there was one rather apartfrom the others. The sail was even now being hoisted40. She decided41 thatthere in that very distant and entirely42 silent little boat Mr Ramsay wassitting with Cam and James. Now they had got the sail up; now after alittle flagging and silence, she watched the boat take its way with deliberationpast the other boats out to sea.
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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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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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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untying
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| untie的现在分词 | |
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rammed
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| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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precariously
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| adv.不安全地；危险地；碰机会地；不稳定地 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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spurting
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| （液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射 | |
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hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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irritations
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| n.激怒( irritation的名词复数 )；恼怒；生气；令人恼火的事 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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40
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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42
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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