THE WINDOW

impressions poured in upon her of those two
men, and to follow her thought was like following
a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down
by one's pencil, and the voice was her own voice
saying without prompting undeniable, everlasting,
contradictory things, so that even the fissures
and humps on the bark of the pear tree were
irrevocably fixed there for eternity. You have
greatness, she continued, but Mr. Ramsay has
none of it. He is petty, selfish, vain, egotistical;
he is spoilt; he is a tyrant; he wears Mrs.
Ramsay to death; but he has what you (she
addressed Mr. Bankes) have not; a fiery unworld-
liness; he knows nothing about trifles; he loves
dogs and his children. lie has eight. You
have none. Did he not come down in two coats
the other night and let Mrs, Ramsay trim his
hair into a pudding basin? All of this danced
up and down, like a company of gnats, each
separate, but all marvellously controlled in an
invisible elastic net—danced up and down in
Lily's mind, in and about the branches of the
pear tree, where still hung in effigy the scrubbed
kitchen table, symbol of her profound respect for
Mr. Ramsay's mind, until her thought which had
spun quicker and quicker exploded of its own
intensity; she felt released; a shot went off
close at hand, and there came, flying from its

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