TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

conversation? But, she thought, screwing up
her Chinese eyes, and remembering how he
sneered at women, " can't paint, can't write",
why should I help him to relieve himself?

There is a code of behaviour she knew, whose
seventh article (it may be) says that on occasions
of this sort it behoves the woman, whatever
her own occupation may be, to go to the help
of the young man opposite so that he may
expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs, of
his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself;
as indeed it is their duty, she reflected, in her
old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the
Tube were to burst into flames. Then, she
thought, I should certainly expect Mr. Tansley
to get me out. But how would it be, she thought,
if neither of us did either of these things? So she
sat there smiling.

" You're not planning to go to the Lighthouse,
are you, Lily? " said Mrs. Ramsay. " Remember
poor Mr. Langley; he had been round the world
dozens of times, but he told me he never suffered
as he did when my husband took him there. Are
you a good sailor, Mr. Tansley? " she asked.

Mr. Tansley raised a hammer: swung it high
in air; but realising, as it descended, that he could
not smite that butterfly with such an instrument
as this, said only that he had never been sick in
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