But what had happened?
Some one had blundered.
Starting from her musing she gave meaning to words which she hadheld meaningless in her mind for a long stretch of time. "Some one hadblundered"—Fixing her short-sighted eyes upon her husband, who wasnow bearing down upon her, she gazed steadily until his closeness revealedto her (the jingle mated itself in her head) that something hadhappened, some one had blundered. But she could not for the life of herthink what.
He shivered; he quivered. All his vanity, all his satisfaction in his ownsplendour, riding fell as a thunderbolt, fierce as a hawk at the head of hismen through the valley of death, had been shattered, destroyed. Stormedat by shot and shell, boldly we rode and well, flashed through the valleyof death, volleyed and thundered—straight into Lily Briscoe and WilliamBankes. He quivered; he shivered.
Not for the world would she have spoken to him, realising, from thefamiliar signs, his eyes averted, and some curious gathering together ofhis person, as if he wrapped himself about and needed privacy intowhich to regain his equilibrium, that he was outraged and anguished.
She stroked James's head; she transferred to him what she felt for herhusband, and, as she watched him chalk yellow the white dress shirt of agentleman in the Army and Navy Stores catalogue, thought what a delightit would be to her should he turn out a great artist; and why shouldhe not? He had a splendid forehead. Then, looking up, as her husbandpassed her once more, she was relieved to find that the ruin was veiled;domesticity triumphed; custom crooned its soothing rhythm, so thatwhen stopping deliberately, as his turn came round again, at the windowhe bent quizzically and whimsically to tickle James's bare calf witha sprig of something, she twitted him for having dispatched "that poor young man," Charles Tansley. Tansley had had to go in and write hisdissertation, he said.
"James will have to write HIS dissertation one of these days," he addedironically, flicking his sprig.
Hating his father, James brushed away the tickling spray with whichin a manner peculiar to him, compound of severity and humour, heteased his youngest son's bare leg.
She was trying to get these tiresome stockings finished to send toSorley's little boy tomorrow, said Mrs Ramsay.
There wasn't the slightest possible chance that they could go to theLighthouse tomorrow, Mr Ramsay snapped out irascibly.
How did he know? she asked. The wind often changed.
The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women'sminds enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, beenshattered and shivered; and now, she flew in the face of facts, made hischildren hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. Hestamped his foot on the stone step. "Damn you," he said. But what hadshe said? Simply that it might be fine tomorrow. So it might.
Not with the barometer falling and the wind due west.
To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for otherpeople's feelings, to rendthe thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally,was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, withoutreplying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt ofjagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. Therewas nothing to be said.
He stood by her in silence. Very humbly, at length, he said that hewould step over and ask the Coastguards if she liked.
There was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him.
She was quite ready to take his word for it, she said. Only then theyneed not cut sandwiches—that was all. They came to her, naturally, sinceshe was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting this, anotherthat; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothingbut a sponge sopped full of human emotions. Then he said, Damn you.
He said, It must rain. He said, It won't rain; and instantly a Heaven of securityopened before her. There was nobody she reverenced more. Shewas not good enough to tie his shoe strings, she felt.
Already ashamed of that petulance, of that gesticulation of the handswhen charging at the head of his troops, Mr Ramsay rather sheepishlyprodded his son's bare legs once more, and then, as if he had her leavefor it, with a movement which oddly reminded his wife of the great sealion at the Zoo tumbling backwards after swallowing his fish and wallopingoff so that the water in the tank washes from side to side, hedived into the evening air which, already thinner, was taking the substancefrom leaves and hedges but, as if in return, restoring to roses andpinks a lustre which they had not had by day.
"Some one had blundered," he said again, striding off, up and downthe terrace.
But how extraordinarily his note had changed! It was like the cuckoo;"in June he gets out of tune"; as if he were trying over, tentatively seeking,some phrase for a new mood, and having only this at hand, used it,cracked though it was. But it sounded ridiculous—"Some one hadblundered"—said like that, almost as a question, without any conviction,melodiously. Mrs Ramsay could not help smiling, and soon, sureenough, walking up and down, he hummed it, dropped it, fell silent.
He was safe, he was restored to his privacy. He stopped to light hispipe, looked once at his wife and son in the window, and as one raisesone's eyes from a page in an express train and sees a farm, a tree, acluster of cottages as an illustration, a confirmation of something on theprinted page to which one returns, fortified, and satisfied, so without hisdistinguishing either his son or his wife, the sight of them fortified himand satisfied him and consecrated his effort to arrive at a perfectly clearunderstanding of the problem which now engaged the energies of hissplendid mind.
It was a splendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano,divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-sixletters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty inrunning over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it hadreached, say, the letter Q. He reached Q. Very few people in the whole ofEngland ever reach Q. Here, stopping for one moment by the stone urnwhich held the geraniums, he saw, but now far, far away, like childrenpicking up shells, divinely innocent and occupied with little trifles attheir feet and somehow entirely defenceless against a doom which heperceived, his wife and son, together, in the window. They needed hisprotection; he gave it them. But after Q? What comes next? After Q thereare a number of letters the last of which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance. Z is only reached once by one man in ageneration. Still, if he could reach R it would be something. Here at leastwas Q. He dug his heels in at Q. Q he was sure of. Q he could demonstrate.
If Q then is Q—R—. Here he knocked his pipe out, with two orthree resonant taps on the handle of the urn, and proceeded. "Then R… "He braced himself. He clenched himself.
Qualities that would have saved a ship's company exposed on a broilingsea with six biscuits and a flask of water—endurance and justice,foresight, devotion, skill, came to his help. R is then—what is R?
A shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flickered over the intensityof his gaze and obscured the letter R. In that flash of darkness heheard people saying—he was a failure—that R was beyond him. Hewould never reach R. On to R, once more. R—Qualities that in a desolate expedition across the icy solitudes of thePolar region would have made him the leader, the guide, the counsellor,whose temper, neither sanguine nor despondent, surveys with equanimitywhat is to be and faces it, came to his help again. R—The lizard's eye flickered once more. The veins on his forehead bulged.
The geranium in the urn became startlingly visible and, displayedamong its leaves, he could see, without wishing it, that old, that obviousdistinction between the two classes of men; on the one hand the steadygoers of superhuman strength who, plodding and persevering, repeatthe whole alphabet in order, twenty-six letters in all, from start to finish;on the other the gifted, the inspired who, miraculously, lump all the letterstogether in one flash—the way of genius. He had not genius; he laidno claim to that: but he had, or might have had, the power to repeatevery letter of the alphabet from A to Z accurately in order. Meanwhile,he stuck at Q. On, then, on to R.
Feelings that would not have disgraced a leader who, now that thesnow has begun to fall and the mountain top is covered in mist, knowsthat he must lay himself down and die before morning comes, stole uponhim, paling the colour of his eyes, giving him, even in the two minutes ofhis turn on the terrace, the bleached look of withered old age. Yet hewould not die lying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there,his eyes fixed on the storm, trying to the end to pierce the darkness, hewould die standing. He would never reach R.
He stood stock-still, by the urn, with the geranium flowing over it.
How many men in a thousand million, he asked himself, reach Z afterall? Surely the leader of a forlorn hope may ask himself that, and answer, without treachery to the expedition behind him, "One perhaps." One in ageneration. Is he to be blamed then if he is not that one? provided he hastoiled honestly, given to the best of his power, and till he has no moreleft to give? And his fame lasts how long? It is permissible even for a dyinghero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. Hisfame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousandyears? (asked Mr Ramsay ironically, staring at the hedge). What, indeed,if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? Thevery stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare. His ownlittle light would shine, not very brightly, for a year or two, and wouldthen be merged in some bigger light, and that in a bigger still. (Helooked into the hedge, into the intricacy of the twigs.) Who then couldblame the leader of that forlorn party which after all has climbed highenough to see the waste of the years and the perishing of the stars, if beforedeath stiffens his limbs beyond the power of movement he does alittle consciously raise his numbed fingers to his brow, and square hisshoulders, so that when the search party comes they will find him deadat his post, the fine figure of a soldier? Mr Ramsay squared his shouldersand stood very upright by the urn.
Who shall blame him, if, so standing for a moment he dwells uponfame, upon search parties, upon cairns raised by grateful followers overhis bones? Finally, who shall blame the leader of the doomed expedition,if, having adventured to the uttermost, and used his strength wholly tothe last ounce and fallen asleep not much caring if he wakes or not, henow perceives by some pricking in his toes that he lives, and does not onthe whole object to live, but requires sympathy, and whisky, and someone to tell the story of his suffering to at once? Who shall blame him?
Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, andhalts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant atfirst, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head areclearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensityof his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, andfinally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent headbefore her—who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of theworld?