TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

Walter's, she saw, adjusting the shade of her lamp
so that the light fell on her knitting. For Charles
Tansley had been saying (she looked up as if she
expected to hear the crash of books on the floor
above) had been saying that people don't read
Scott any more. Then her husband thought,
" That's what they'll say of me "; so he went and
got one of those books. And if he came to the
conclusion " That's true " what Charles Tansley
said, he would accept it about Scott. (She could
see that he was weighing, considering, putting
this with that as he read.) But not about him-
self. He was always uneasy about himself. That
troubled her. He would always be worrying
about his own books—will they be read, are they
good, why aren't they better, what do people
think of me? Not liking to think of him so, and
wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he
suddenly became irritable when they talked about
fame and books lasting, wondering if the children
were laughing at that, she twitched the stocking
out, and all the fine gravings came drawn with
steel instruments about her lips and forehead, and
she grew still like a tree which has been tossing
and quivering and now, when the breeze falls,
settles, leaf by leaf, into quiet.

It didn't matter, any of it, she thought, A
great man, a great book, fame—who could tell?
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