Chapter 18
Mrs. Ramsay feels happy and woozy with the triumph of her party.
“They would, she thought, going on again, however long they lived, come back to this night; this moon; this wind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her, where she was most susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their hearts, however long they lived she would be woven; and this, and this, and this, she thought, going upstairs, laughing, but affectionately, at the sofa on the landing (her mother’s); at the rocking-chair (her father’s); at the map of the Hebrides. All that would be revived again in the lives of Paul and Minta; “the Rayleys”—she tried the new name over; and she felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community of feeling with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of partition had become so thin that practically (the feeling was one of relief and happiness) it was all one stream, and chairs, tables, maps, were hers, were theirs, it did not matter whose, and Paul and Minta would carry it on when she was dead.”
Peoples’ happy memories will be her posterity, she thinks.
In the nursery, Mrs. Ramsay negotiates a fight between Cam and James, one who can’t go to sleep seeing the pig’s skull, the other who screamed if the maid tried to take it down, by wrapping her shawl around it.
James asks about going to the Lighthouse once more.
“No, not tomorrow, she said, but soon, she promised him; the next fine day. He was very good. He lay down. She covered him up. But he would never forget, she knew, and she felt angry with Charles Tansley, with her husband, and with herself, for she had raised his hopes.”
When Prue says, like a child:
“We thought of going down to the beach to watch the waves,”
“Mrs. Ramsay became like a girl of twenty, full of gaiety. A mood of revelry suddenly took possession of her. Of course they must go; of course they must go, she cried, laughing.”
Chapter 19
Most of the Ramsays’ conversations take place in silent telepathy.
“For Charles Tansley had been saying… that people don’t read Scott any more. Then her husband thought, ‘That’s what they’ll say of me;’ so he went and got one of those books. And if he came to the conclusion ‘That’s true’ what Charles Tansley said, he would accept it… He would always be worrying about his own books—will they be read, are they good, why aren’t they better, what do people think of me? Not liking to think of him so, and wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he suddenly became irritable when they talked about fame and books lasting, wondering if the children were laughing at that, she twitched the stocking out.”
So Mr. Ramsay wages a bet; if Walter Scott still has a chance at posterity, so does he.
“Their eyes met for a second; but they did not want to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but something seemed, nevertheless, to go from him to her. It was the life, it was the power of it, it was the tremendous humor, she knew, that made him slap his thighs. Don’t interrupt me, he seemed to be saying, don’t say anything; just sit there. And he went on reading. His lips twitched. It filled him. It fortified him. He clean forgot all the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him unutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and his being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when they passed his books over as if they didn’t exist at all. But now, he felt, it didn’t matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it—if not he, then another. This man’s strength and sanity, his feeling for straightforward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in Mucklebackit’s cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of something that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back his tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them fall and shook his head from side to side and forgot himself completely… Well, let them improve upon that, he thought as he finished the chapter. He felt that he had been arguing with somebody, and had got the better of him. They could not improve upon that, whatever they might say; and his own position became more secure… That’s first-rate, he thought, putting one thing beside another… if young men did not care for this, naturally they did not care for him either. One ought not to complain, thought Mr. Ramsay, trying to stifle his desire to complain to his wife that young men did not admire him. But he was determined; he would not bother her again. Here he looked at her reading. She looked very peaceful, reading. He liked to think that everyone had taken themselves off and that he and she were alone.”
The actual conversation they have, out loud, is more banal than their internal back and forth.
“They’re engaged,” she said, beginning to knit, “Paul and Minta.”
“So I guessed,” he said.
They sit in silence. She knows he wants her to tell him she loves him.
“You are more beautiful than ever. And she felt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that you love me? He was thinking that, for he was roused, what with Minta and his book, and its being the end of the day and their having quarreled about going to the Lighthouse. But she could not do it; she could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him. And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)—
“Yes, you were right. It’s going to be wet tomorrow.” She had not said it, but he knew it. And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again.”
This is both a prelude to and the sex scene itself.
Join us on May 15 for a virtual discussion of To the Lighthouse with Mona Simpson.
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Oddly Mr. Ramsey seems to genuinely care for his wife; indeed, he appears a bit in awe of her. Yet, her “beauty” seems to be the lens through which his awe is inspired and is necessarily “complimented” by her “ignorance, her simplicity.” Why, indeed, does he need to imagine his wife as “not clever” and unable to “understand what she was reading”? Does a female object of love/a woman worthy of love, need to have diminished intellectual capacities, in order for the man [Mr. Ramsey] to feel adequately “masculine?” Can he not be “a man” if his wife has evident “book-learned” intelligence (given that his books are so integral to his sense of self-worth).
[Mr. Ramsey’s and Mrs. Ramsey’s articulation/manifestation(s) of “love”]:
“He was looking at her quizzically … but at the same time he was thinking, Go on reading. You don’t look sad now, he thought. And he wondered what she was reading, and exaggerated her ignorance, her simplicity, for he liked to think that she was not clever, not book-learned at all. He wondered if she understood what she was reading. Probably not, he thought. She was astonishingly beautiful” (182).
“He [Mr. Ramsey] wanted something – wanted the thing she [Mrs. Ramsey] always found it so difficult to give him; wanted her to tell him that she loved him. And that, no, she could not do … It was only that she never could say what she felt … She knew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever. And she felt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that you love me? … But she could not do it; she could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him. And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him” (184-85).
“And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again. She had not said it: yet he knew (186).
There is so much push/pull in these two chapters, starting with Lily asking herself where is Mrs. Ramsey going so quickly--only to be followed in the next sentence with the statement that she is not going quickly, she's actually going slowly! And then the push/pull of the children. One needs the skull gone; the other needs it right where it is. Mrs. Ramsey to the rescue, as always, it seems. Her night of triumph continues. And then, she and Mr. Ramsey, communing without speaking (the very definition of a long, loving marriage). He wants words; she cannot say words. Again, the push/pull, which--as Mona says--begins to feel very much like two people engaged in foreplay. But this is not just sex; this is sex as love. She is a woman who sees the world through all of her emotions, while he searches desperately to understand the world through words. She cannot be captured--her essence. (So sexy, to be on the loose like that--he wants to capture her but it is impossible.) And now she is full of dreaminess, as well, accepting that she is too old to go down to the beach at night like the young people, but still feeling that want, that desire of youth. (Sex.) I am rambling! When she won't say the words "I love you" but instead sends them to him via her own form of Vulcan mind-meld--well, she wins, always. No wonder everyone loves her. I picture her vibrating at a pulse that all can feel without seeing. She is a force and that force is love. (And honestly, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but this is what comes to mind this morning.)