TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

head, or ran across the grass, or scolded Kennedy}
the gardener? Who could tell her? Who could
help her?

Against her will she had come to the surface,
and found herself half out of the picture, looking,
a little dazedly, as if at unreal things, at Mr.
Carmichael. He lay on his chair with his hands
clasped above his paunch not reading, or sleeping,
but basking like a creature gorged with existence.
His book had fallen on to the grass.

She wanted to go straight up to him and say,
" Mr. Carmichael! " Then he would look up
benevolently as always, from his smoky vague
green eyes. But one only woke people if one
knew what one wanted to say to them. And she
wanted to say not one thing, but everything.
Little words that broke up the thought and dis-
membered it said nothing. " About life, about
death; about Mrs. Ramsay"—no, she thought,
one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency
of the moment always missed its mark. Words
fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too
low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk
back again; then one became like most middle-
aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles
between the eyes and a look of perpetual appre-
hension. For how could one express in words
these emotions of the body? express that empti-
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