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THE LIGHTHOUSE13

Mr. Ramsay had almost done reading. Onehand hovered over the page as if to be in readinessto turn it the very instant he had finished it. Hesat there bareheaded with the wind blowing hishair about, extraordinarily exposed to everything.He looked very old. He looked, James thought,getting his head now against the Lighthouse, nowagainst the waste of waters running away into theopen, like some old stone lying on the sand; helooked as if he had become physically what wasalways at the back of both of their minds—thatloneliness which was for both of them the truthabout things.

He was reading very quickly, as if he wereeager to get to the end. Indeed they were veryclose to the Lighthouse now. There it loomedup, stark and straight, glaring white and black,and one could see the waves breaking in whitesplinters like smashed glass upon the rocks. Onecould see lines and creases in the rocks. Onecould see the windows clearly; a dab of white onone of them, and a little tuft of green on the rock.A man had come out and looked at them througha glass and gone in again. So it was like that,James thought, the Lighthouse one had seenacross the bay all these years; it was a stark tower311