TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

It flattered him; snubbed as he had been, it soothedhim that Mrs. Ramsay should tell him this. CharlesTansley revived. Insinuating, too, as she did thegreatness of man's intellect, even in its decay, thesubjection of all wives — not that she blamed thegirl, and the marriage had been happy enough, shebelieved — to their husband's labours, she made himfeel better pleased with himself than he had doneyet, and he would have liked, had they taken a cab,for example, to have paid the fare. As for her littlebag, might he not carry that? No, no, she said, shealways carried that herself. She did too. Yes, he feltthat in her. He felt many things, something in par-ticular that excited him and disturbed him for reasonswhich he could not give. He would like her to seehim, gowned and hooded, walking in a procession. Afellowship, a professorship, — he felt capable of any-thing and saw himself — but what was she lookingat? At a man pasting a bill. The vast flapping sheetflattened itself out, and each shove of the brush re-vealed fresh legs, hoops, horses, glistening reds andblues, beautifully smooth, until half the wall was cov-ered with the advertisement of a circus; a hundredhorsemen, twenty performing seals, lions, tigers . . .Craning forwards, for she was short-sighted, she readout how it . . . 'will visit this town.' It was terribly dan-gerous work for a one-armed man, she exclaimed, tostand on top of a ladder like that — his left arm hadbeen cut off in a reaping machine two years ago.

'Let us all go!' she cried, moving on, as if all thoseriders and horses had filled her with child-like exulta-tion and made her forget her pity.

'Let's go,' he said, repeating her words, clicking16
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