THE LIGHTHOUSEwhen his father said something or did somethingwhich surprised the others, there were two pairs offootprints only; his own and his father’s. They

alone knew each other. What then was this terror,this hatred? Turning back among the many leaveswhich the past had folded in him, peering into theheart of that forest where light and shade so chequereach other that all shape is distorted, and oneblunders, now with the sun in one’s eyes, now witha dark shadow, he sought an image to cool and de-tach and round off his feeling in a concrete shape.Suppose then that as a child sitting helpless in aperambulator, or on some one’s knee, he had seen awaggon crush ignorantly and innocently, some one’sfoot? Suppose he had seen the foot first, in thegrass, smooth, and whole; then the wheel; and thesame foot, purple, crushed. But the wheel was in-nocent. So now, when his father came striding downthe passage knocking them up early in the morningto go to the Lighthouse down it came over his foot,over Cam’s foot, over anybody’s foot. One sat andwatched it.

But whose foot was he thinking of, and in whatgarden did all this happen? For one had settings forthese scenes; trees that grew there; flowers; a cer-tain light; a few figures. Everything tended to setitself in a garden where there was none of this275
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