TO THE LIGHTHOUSElife? he said. It is not sensible. For it was odd; and shebelieved it to be true; that with all his gloom and des-peration he was happier, more hopeful on the whole,than she was. Less exposed to human worries — per-haps that was it. He had always his work to fall backon. Not that she herself was ‘pessimistic’, as he accusedher of being. Only she thought life — and a little stripof time presented itself to her eyes, her fifty years.There it was before her — life. Life: she thought butshe did not finish her thought. She took a look at life,for she had a clear sense of it there, something real,something private, which she shared neither with herchildren nor with her husband. A sort of transactionwent on between them, in which she was on one side,and life was on another, and she was always trying toget the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes theyparleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remem-bered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the mostpart, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt thisthing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick topounce on you if you gave it a chance. There were theeternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. Therewas always a woman dying of cancer even here. Andyet she had said to all these children, You shall gothrough with it. To eight people she had said relent-lessly that (and the bill for the greenhouse would befifty pounds). For that reason, knowing what was be-fore them — love and ambition and being wretchedalone in dreary places—she had often the feeling,Why must they grow up and lose it all? And then shesaid to herself, brandishing her sword at life, nonsense.They will be perfectly happy. And here she was, shereflected, feeling life rather sinister again, making72
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