TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

" Lily/' she said, wearily, " over there/' They
had that—Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle—she,
only this—an infinitely long table and plates and
knives. At the far end, was her husband, sitting
down, all in a heap, frowning. What at? She
did not know. She did not mind. She could not
understand how she had ever felt any emotion or
any affection for him. She had a sense of being
past everything, through everything, out of every-
thing, as she helped the soup, as if there was an
eddy—there—and one could be in it, or one
could be out of it, and she was out of it. It's all
come to an end, she thought, while they came in
one after another, Charles Tansley—" Sit there,
please," she said—Augustus Carmichael—and sat
down. And meanwhile she waited, passively, for-
someone to answer her, for something to happen.
But this is not a thing, she thought, ladling out
soup, that one says.

Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy—that
was what she was thinking, this was what she
was doing—ladling out soup—she felt, more and
more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade
had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things
truly. The room (she looked round it) was
very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere.
She forebore to look at Mr. Tansley. Nothing
seemed to have merged. They all sat separate.
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