TO THE LIGHTHOUSEcould almost fancy that had[∧]Mr.Carmichael spoken,for instance, a little tear would have rent thesurface[∧]pool VW: Line from margin to insert position. —peter.shillingsburg.And then? Something would emerge.A hand would be shoved up, a blade would be orflashed. It was nonsense of course.

A curious notion came to her that he did afterall hear the things she could not say. He was aninscrutable old man, with the yellow stain on hisbeard, and his poetry, and his puzzles, sailingserenely through a world which satisfied all hiswants, so that she thought he had only to putdown his hand where he lay on the lawn to fishup anything he wanted. She looked at herpicture. That would have been his answer,presumably—how "you" and "I" and "she"pass and vanish—nothing stays; all changes; butnot words, not paint. Yet it would be hung inthe attics, she thought; it would be rolled up andflung under a sofa; yet even so, even of a picturelike that, it was true. One might say, even ofthis scrawl, not of that actual picture, perhaps,but of what it attempted, that it "remained forever", she was going to say, or, for the wordsspoken sounded even to herself, too boastful, tohint, wordlessly; when, looking at the picture, shewas surprised to find that she could not see it.Her eyes were full of a hot liquid (she did notthink of tears at first) which, without disturbing276
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