TO   THE   LIGHTHOUSE
^aves—all this was real.   Thinking this, she was
murmuring to herself "We perished, each alone",
for her father's words broke and broke again in
her mind, when her father, seeing her gazing so
vaguely, began to tease her.   Didn't she know the
points of the compass?   he asked.    Didn't she
know the North from the South?   Did she really
think they lived right out there?   And he pointed
again, and showed her where their house was,
there, by those trees.   He wished she would try
to be more accurate, he said: " Tell me—which
is East, which is West? " he said, half laughing
at her, half scolding her, for he could not under-
stand the state of mind of any one, not absolutely
imbecile, who did not know the points of~tlreN
compass.   Yet she did not know.   And seeing her
gazing, with her vague, now rather frightenexd,-.
eyes fixed where no house was Mr. Ramsay forgot
his dream; how he walked up and down between
the urns on the terrace;   how the arms were
stretched out to him.    He thought, women are
always like that;  the vagueness of their minds is
hopeless; it was a thing he had never been able to
understand;  but so it was.    It had been so with
her—his wife.    They could not keep anything
clearly fixed in their minds.    But he had been
wrong to be angry with her;   moreover, did he
not rather like this vagueness in women?  It was