her. He could not interrupt her.
He wanted urgently to speak to her now. James was gone and she was alone at last. But he resolved, no. He won’t interrupt her. She was aloof from him now in her beauty, in her sadness. He passed her without a word, though it hurt him. She looked distant, and he could not reach her, he could do nothing to help her. And again he passed her without a word.
She called to him and took the green shawl off the picture frame, and went to him. For he wished, she knew, to protect her.
12
She folded the green shawl about her shoulders. She took his arm. She began to speak of Kennedy the gardener. His beauty was so great, she said, he was so awfully handsome, that she couldn’t dismiss him. There was a ladder against the greenhouse. Little lumps of putty stuck about. They were beginning to mend the greenhouse.
She strolled along with her husband. She had it on the tip of her tongue to say[14], as they strolled, “It’ll cost fifty pounds”. But instead she talked about Jasper who was shooting birds. He said, at once, that it was natural in a boy. He soothed her instantly. Her husband was so sensible, so just. And so she said, “Yes; all children go through stages[15],” and began considering the dahlias in the big bed. She was wondering about next year’s flowers. Had he heard the children’s nickname for Charles Tansley, she asked. The atheist, they called him, the little atheist.
“He’s not a polished specimen,” said Mr. Ramsay.
“Far from it,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
Mrs. Ramsay was wondering whether it was any use sending down bulbs; did they plant them?
“Oh, he has his dissertation to write,” said Mr. Ramsay.
She knew all about that, said Mrs. Ramsay. He talked of nothing else. It was about the influence of somebody upon something.
“Well, it’s all he has to count on,” said Mr. Ramsay.
“Pray Heaven he won’t fall in love with Prue,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
“He’ll disinherit her if she marries him,” said Mr. Ramsay.
He did not look at the flowers, which his wife was considering.
“There is no harm in him,” he added.
He was just about to say that anyhow he was the only young man in England who admired his – when he stopped. He did not want to bother her again about his books.
“These flowers seem creditable,” Mr. Ramsay said.
He lowered his gaze and noticed something red, something brown.
“Yes, I put in these flowers with my own hands,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
The question was, what happened if she sent bulbs down; did Kennedy plant them? It was his incurable laziness; she added.
So they strolled along, towards the red-hot pokers.
“You’re teaching your daughters to exaggerate,” said Mr. Ramsay.
Her Aunt Camilla was far worse than she was, Mrs. Ramsay remarked.
“Nobody ever saw your Aunt Camilla as a model of virtue,” said Mr. Ramsay.
“She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
“Somebody else was that,” said Mr. Ramsay.
Prue was going to be far more beautiful than she was, said Mrs. Ramsay.
He saw no trace of it, said Mr. Ramsay.
“Well, then, look tonight,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
They paused. Andrew must work harder. He will lose every chance of a scholarship if he doesn’t.
“Oh, scholarships!” she said.
Mr. Ramsay thought her foolish for saying that, about a serious thing, like a scholarship.
“I will be very proud of Andrew if he gets a scholarship,” he said.
“And I will be just as proud of him if he doesn’t,” she answered.
They disagreed always about this, but it did not matter. She liked him to believe in scholarships. He liked her to be proud of Andrew whatever he did. Suddenly she remembered those little paths on the edge of the cliffs.
Wasn’t it late? she asked.
They hadn’t come home yet. He looked at his watch. It was only just past seven. He held his watch open for a moment. It was not reasonable to be nervous. Andrew is not a little boy. Then, he wanted to tell her that when he was walking on the terrace just now, – here he became uncomfortable. He felt that solitude, that aloofness, that remoteness of hers. But she pressed him. What did he want to tell her, she asked.
She was thinking it was about going to the Lighthouse. Was he going to say he was sorry for being harsh? But no. He did not like to see her look so sad, he said. She flushed a little. They both felt uncomfortable, as if they did not know whether to go on or go back.
She was reading fairy tales to James, she said.
No, they could not share that; they could not say that.
They had reached the gap between the two clumps of red-hot pokers. There was the Lighthouse again. But she did not look at it.
She looked over her shoulder, at the town. The lights were rippling and running as if they were drops of silver water in a wind.
All the poverty, all the suffering had turned to that, Mrs. Ramsay thought.
The lights of the town and of the harbour and of the boats seemed like a phantom net. Mr. Ramsay wanted to tell the story how Hume was stuck in a bog. He wanted to laugh. It was nonsense to be anxious about Andrew. When he was Andrew’s age he used to walk about the country all day long. He had nothing but a biscuit in his pocket and nobody bothered about him.
He said he was going to spend a day alone. Enough of Bankes and of Carmichael. He wanted a little solitude.
Yes, she said.
It annoyed him that she did not protest. She knew that he would never do it. He was too old now to walk all day long with a biscuit in his pocket. She worried about the boys, but not about him. Years ago, before he had married, he thought, he had walked all day. He had made a meal off bread and cheese in a public house[16]. He had worked ten hours.
That was the view he liked best, over there; those sandhills. One could walk all day without meeting a soul. There was not a house scarcely, not a single village for miles on end. There were little sandy beaches where no one had been since the beginning of time. The seals sat up and looked at you.
It sometimes seemed to him that in a little house out there, alone – he stopped. He sighed. He had no right. The father of eight children – he reminded himself. He will be a beast and a cur if he changes something. Andrew will be a better man than he was. Prue will be a beauty, her mother says. His eight children – a
she had it on the tip of her tongue to say – у неё вертелось на языке
all children go through stages – у всех детей переходный возраст
public house – трактир
