TO   THE   LIGHTHOUSE
she couldn't paint, saying she couldn't create,
as if she were caught up in one of those
habitual currents which after a certain time forms
experience in the mind, so that one repeats words
without being aware any longer who originally
spoke them.
Can't paint, can't write, she murmured mono-
tonously, anxiously considering what her plan of
attack should be. For the mass loomed before
her; it protruded; she felt it pressing on her
eyeballs. Then, as if some juice necessary for the
lubrication of her faculties were spontaneously
squirted, she began precariously dipping among
the blues and umbers, moving her brush hither
and thither, but it was now heavier and went
slower, as if it had fallen in with some rhythm
which was dictated to her (she kept looking at the
hedge, at the canvas) by what she saw, so that
while her hand quivered with life, this rhythm
was strong enough to bear her along with it on its
current. Certainly she was losing consciousness
of outer things. And as she lost consciousness of
outer things, and her name and her personality
and her appearance, and whether Mr. Carmichael
was there or not, her mind kept throwing up
from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings,
and memories and ideas, like a fountain spurt-
ing over that glaring, hideously difficult white
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