She seemed to have shrivelled slightly, he thought. She looked a littleskimpy, wispy; but not unattractive. He liked her. There had been sometalk of her marrying William Bankes once, but nothing had come of it.

　　His wife had been fond of her. He had been a little out of temper too atbreakfast. And then, and then—this was one of those moments when anenormous need urged him, without being conscious what it was, to approachany woman, to force them, he did not care how, his need was sogreat, to give him what he wanted: sympathy.

　　Was anybody looking after her? he said. Had she everything shewanted?

　　"Oh, thanks, everything," said Lily Briscoe nervously. No; she couldnot do it. She ought to have floated off instantly upon some wave ofsympathetic expansion: the pressure on her was tremendous. But she remainedstuck. There was an awful pause. They both looked at the sea.

　　Why, thought Mr Ramsay, should she look at the sea when I am here?

　　She hoped it would be calm enough for them to land at the Lighthouse,she said. The Lighthouse! The Lighthouse! What's that got to do with it?

　　he thought impatiently. Instantly, with the force of some primeval gust(for really he could not restrain himself any longer), there issued fromhim such a groan that any other woman in the whole world would havedone something, said something—all except myself, thought Lily, girdingat herself bitterly, who am not a woman, but a peevish, ill-tempered,dried-up old maid, presumably.

　　[Mr Ramsay sighed to the full. He waited. Was she not going to sayanything? Did she not see what he wanted from her? Then he said hehad a particular reason for wanting to go to the Lighthouse. His wifeused to send the men things. There was a poor boy with a tuberculouship, the lightkeeper's son. He sighed profoundly. He sighed significantly.

　　All Lily wished was that this enormous flood of grief, this insatiable hungerfor sympathy, this demand that she should surrender herself up tohim entirely, and even so he had sorrows enough to keep her suppliedfor ever, should leave her, should be diverted (she kept looking at thehouse, hoping for an interruption) before it swept her down in its flow.

　　"Such expeditions," said Mr Ramsay, scraping the ground with his toe,"are very painful." Still Lily said nothing. (She is a stock, she is a stone, hesaid to himself.) "They are very exhausting," he said, looking, with asickly look that nauseated her (he was acting, she felt, this great man wasdramatising himself), at his beautiful hands. It was horrible, it was indecent.

　　Would they never come, she asked, for she could not sustain thisenormous weight of sorrow, support these heavy draperies of grief (hehad assumed a pose of extreme decreptitude; he even tottered a little ashe stood there) a moment longer.

　　Still she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare ofobjects to talk about; could only feel, amazedly, as Mr Ramsay stoodthere, how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over the sunny grass anddiscolour it, and cast over the rubicund, drowsy, entirely contented figureof Mr Carmichael, reading a French novel on a deck-chair, a veil ofcrape, as if such an existence, flaunting its prosperity in a world of woe,were enough to provoke the most dismal thoughts of all. Look at him, heseemed to be saying, look at me; and indeed, all the time he was feeling,Think of me, think of me. Ah, could that bulk only be wafted alongsideof them, Lily wished; had she only pitched her easel a yard or two closerto him; a man, any man, would staunch this effusion, would stop theselamentations. A woman, she had provoked this horror; a woman, sheshould have known how to deal with it. It was immensely to her discredit,sexually, to stand there dumb. One said—what did one say?—Oh, MrRamsay! Dear Mr Ramsay! That was what that kind old lady whosketched, Mrs Beckwith, would have said instantly, and rightly. But, no.

　　They stood there, isolated from the rest of the world. His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and spread itself in pools at therfeet, and all she did, miserable sinner that she was, was to draw herskirts a little closer round her ankles, lest she should get wet. In completesilence she stood there, grasping her paint brush.

　　Heaven could never be sufficiently praised! She heard sounds in thehouse. James and Cam must be coming. But Mr Ramsay, as if he knewthat his time ran short, exerted upon her solitary figure the immensepressure of his concentrated woe; his age; his frailty: his desolation;when suddenly, tossing his head impatiently, in his annoyance—for afterall, what woman could resist him?—he noticed that his boot-laces wereuntied. Remarkable boots they were too, Lily thought, looking down atthem: sculptured; colossal; like everything that Mr Ramsay wore, fromhis frayed tie to his half-buttoned waistcoat, his own indisputably. Shecould see them walking to his room of their own accord, expressive inhis absence of pathos, surliness, ill-temper, charm.

　　"What beautiful boots!" she exclaimed. She was ashamed of herself. Topraise his boots when he asked her to solace his soul; when he hadshown her his bleeding hands, his lacerated heart, and asked her to pitythem, then to say, cheerfully, "Ah, but what beautiful boots you wear!"deserved, she knew, and she looked up expecting to get it in one of hissudden roars of ill-temper complete annihilation.

　　Instead, Mr Ramsay sm............