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.So, when there is a strife of tongues, at somemeeting, the chairman, to obtain unity, suggests that every one shall speak in French.Perhaps it is bad French; French may not contain the words that express the speaker sthoughts; nevertheless speaking French imposes some order, some uniformity.Replying toher in the same language, Mr Bankes said, No, not at all, and Mr Tansley, who had noknowledge of this language, even spoke thus in words of one syllable, at once suspected itsinsincerity.They did talk nonsense, he thought, the Ramsays; and he pounced on this freshinstance with joy, making a note which, one of these days, he would read aloud, to one ortwo friends.There, in a society where one could say what one liked he would sarcasticallydescribe staying with the Ramsays and what nonsense they talked.It was worth whiledoing it once, he would say; but not again.The women bored one so, he would say.Ofcourse Ramsay had dished himself by marrying a beautiful woman and having eightchildren.It would shape itself something like that, but now, at this moment, sitting stuckthere with an empty seat beside him, nothing had shaped itself at all.It was all in scraps andfragments.He felt extremely, even physically, uncomfortable.He wanted somebody to givehim a chance of asserting himself.He wanted it so urgently that he fidgeted in his chair,37 looked at this person, then at that person, tried to break into their talk, opened his mouthand shut it again.They were talking about the fishing industry.Why did no one ask him hisopinion? What did they know about the fishing industry?Lily Briscoe knew all that.Sitting opposite him, could she not see, as in an X-rayphotograph, the ribs and thigh bones of the young man s desire to impress himself, lyingdark in the mist of his flesh that thin mist which convention had laid over his burningdesire to break into the conversation? But, she thought, screwing up her Chinese eyes, andremembering how he sneered at women, can t paint, can t write, why should I help him torelieve himself?There is a code of behaviour, she knew, whose seventh article (it may be) says that onoccasions of this sort it behoves the woman, whatever her own occupation might be, to goto the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones,the ribs, of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is their duty, shereflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the Tube were to burst intoflames.Then, she thought, I should certainly expect Mr Tansley to get me out.But howwould it be, she thought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there smiling. You re not planning to go to the Lighthouse, are you, Lily, said Mrs Ramsay. Remember poor Mr Langley; he had been round the world dozens of times, but he toldme he never suffered as he did when my husband took him there.Are you a good sailor, MrTansley? she asked.Mr Tansley raised a hammer: swung it high in air; but realising, as it descended, that hecould not smite that butterfly with such an instrument as this, said only that he had neverbeen sick in his life.But in that one sentence lay compact, like gunpowder, that hisgrandfather was a fisherman; his father a chemist; that he had worked his way up entirelyhimself; that he was proud of it; that he was Charles Tansley a fact that nobody thereseemed to realise; but one of these days every single person would know it.He scowledahead of him.He could almost pity these mild cultivated people, who would be blown skyhigh, like bales of wool and barrels of apples, one of these days by the gunpowder that wasin him. Will you take me, Mr Tansley? said Lily, quickly, kindly, for, of course, if Mrs Ramsaysaid to her, as in effect she did, I am drowning, my dear, in seas of fire.Unless you applysome balm to the anguish of this hour and say something nice to that young man there, lifewill run upon the rocks indeed I hear the grating and the growling at this minute.Mynerves are taut as fiddle strings.Another touch and they will snap when Mrs Ramsay saidall this, as the glance in her eyes said it, of course for the hundred and fiftieth time LilyBriscoe had to renounce the experiment what happens if one is not nice to that youngman there and be nice.Judging the turn in her mood correctly that she was friendly to him now he wasrelieved of his egotism, and told her how he had been thrown out of a boat when he was ababy; how his father used to fish him out with a boat-hook; that was how he had learnt toswim.One of his uncles kept the light on some rock or other off the Scottish coast, he said.He had been there with him in a storm.This was said loudly in a pause.They had to listento him when he said that he had been with his uncle in a lighthouse in a storm.Ah, thoughtLily Briscoe, as the conversation took this auspicious turn, and she felt Mrs Ramsay sgratitude (for Mrs Ramsay was free now to talk for a moment herself ), ah, she thought, butwhat haven t I paid to get it for you? She had not been sincere.She had done the usual trick been nice.She would never know him.He would neverknow her.Human relations were all like that, she thought, and the worst (if it had not beenfor Mr Bankes) were between men and women.Inevitably these were extremely insincereshe thought.Then her eye caught the salt cellar, which she had placed there to remind her,and she remembered that next morning she would move the tree further towards themiddle, and her spirits rose so high at the thought of painting tomorrow that she laughedout loud at what Mr Tansley was saying.Let him talk all night if he liked it.38 But how long do they leave men on a Lighthouse? she asked.He told her.He wasamazingly well informed.And as he was grateful, and as he liked her, and as he wasbeginning to enjoy himself, so now, Mrs Ramsay thought, she could return to that dreamland, that unreal but fascinating place, the Mannings drawing-room at Marlow twenty yearsago; where one moved about without haste or anxiety, for there was no future to worryabout.She knew what had happened to them, what to her.It was like reading a good bookagain, for she knew the end of that story, since it had happened twenty years ago, and life,which shot down even from this dining-room table in cascades, heaven knows where, wassealed up there, and lay, like a lake, placidly between its banks.He said they had built abilliard room was it possible? Would William go on talking about the Mannings? Shewanted him to
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