TO THE LIGHTHOUSEtruthfulness — for instance at dinner she had beenthinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak!She had complete trust in him. And dismissing allthis, as one passes in diving now a weed, now a straw,now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as shehad felt in the hall when the others were talking, Thereis something I want — something I have come to get,and she fell deeper and deeper without knowing quitewhat it was, with her eyes closed. And she waited alittle, knitting, wondering, and slowly those words theyhad said at dinner, ‘the China rose is all abloom andbuzzing with the honey bee’, began washing from sideto side of her mind rhythmically, and as they washed,words, like little shaded lights, one red, one blue, oneyellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leav-ing their perches up there to fly across and across, orto cry out and to be echoed; so she turned and felt onthe table beside her for a book.And all the lives we ever livedAnd all the lives to be,Are full of trees and changing leaves,she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking.And she opened the book and began reading hereand there at random, and as she did so she felt thatshe was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving herway up under petals that curved over her, so that sheonly knew this is white, or this is red. She did not knowat first what the words meant at all.Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Marinersshe read and turned the page, swinging herself, zig-zagging this way and that, from one line to another140
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