but his son hated him he hated him for coming up to them for stopping and looking down on them he hated him for interrupting them he hated him for the exaltation and sublimity of his gestures for the magnificence of his head for his exactingness and egotism but most of all he hated the twang and twitter of his fathers emotion which vibrating round them disturbed the perfect simplicity and good sense of his relations with his mother by looking fixedly at the page he hoped to make him move on by pointing his finger at a word he hoped to recall his mothers attention which he knew angrily wavered instantly his father stopped but no nothing would make mr ramsay move on there he stood demanding sympathy mrs ramsay who had been sitting loosely folding her son in her arm braced herself and half turning seemed to raise herself with an effort and at once to pour erect into the air a rain of energy a column of spray looking at the same time animated and alive as if all her energies were being fused into force burning and illuminating and into this delicious fecundity this fountain and spray of life the fatal sterility of the male plunged itself like a beak of brass barren and bare he wanted sympathy he was a failure he said mrs ramsay flashed her needles mr ramsay repeated never taking his eyes from her face that he was a failure she blew the words back at him charles tansley she said but he must have more than that it was sympathy he wanted to be assured of his genius first of all and then to be taken within the circle of life warmed and soothed to have his senses restored to him his barrenness made fertile and all the rooms of the house made full of lifethe drawing room behind the drawing room the kitchen above the kitchen the bedrooms and beyond them the nurseries they must be furnished they must be filled with life charles tansley thought him the greatest metaphysician of the time she said but he must have more than that he must have sympathy he must be assured that he too lived in the heart of life was needed not only here but all over the world flashing her needles confident upright she created drawing room and kitchen set them all aglow bade him take his ease there go in and out enjoy himself she laughed she knitted standing between her knees very stiff james felt all her strength flaring up to be drunk and quenched by the beak of brass the arid scimitar of the male which smote mercilessly again and again demanding sympathy he was a failure he repeated well look then feel then flashing her needles glancing round about her out of the window into the room at james himself she assured him beyond a shadow of a doubt by her laugh her poise her competence that it was real the house was full the garden blowing if he put implicit faith in her nothing should hurt him however deep he buried himself or climbed high not for a second should he find himself without her so boasting of her capacity to surround and protect there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by all was so lavished and spent and james as he stood stiff between her knees felt her rise in a rosy flowered fruit tree laid with leaves and dancing boughs into which the beak of brass the arid scimitar of his father the egotistical man plunged and smote demanding sympathy filled with her words like a child who drops off satisfied he said at last looking at her with humble gratitude restored renewed that he would take a turn he would watch the children playing cricket he went immediately mrs ramsey seemed to fold herself together one petal closed in another and the whole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself so that she had only strength enough to move her finger in exquisite abandonment to exhaustion across the page of grimms fairy story while there throbbed through her like a pulse in a spring which has expanded to its full width and now gently ceases to beat the rapture of successful creation every throb of this pulse seemed as he walked away to enclose her and her husband and to give to each that solace which two different notes one high one low struck together seem to give each other as they combine yet as the resonance died and she turned to the fairy tale again mrs ramsey felt not only exhausted in body but also there tinged her physical fatigue some faintly disagreeable sensation with another origin not that as she read aloud the story of the fishermans wife she knew precisely what it came from nor did she let herself put into words her dissatisfaction when she realized at the turn of the page when she stopped and heard dully ominously a wave fall how it came from this she did not like even for a second to feel finer than her husband and further could not bear not being entirely sure when she spoke to him of the truth of what she said universities and people wanting him lectures and books and their being of the highest importanceall that she did not doubt for a moment but it was their relation and his coming to her like that openly so that any one could see that discomposed her for then people said he depended on her when they must know that of the two he was infinitely the more important and what she gave the world in comparison with what he gave negligible but then again it was the other thing toonot being able to tell him the truth being afraid for instance about the greenhouse roof and the expense it would be fifty pounds perhaps to mend it and then about his books to be afraid that he might guess what she a little suspected that his last book was not quite his best book and then to hide small daily things and the children seeing it and the burden it laid on themall this diminished the entire joy the pure joy of the two notes sounding together and let the sound die on her ear now with a dismal flatness a shadow was on the page she looked up it was augustus carmichael shuffling past precisely now at the very moment when it was painful to be reminded of the inadequacy of human relationships that the most perfect was flawed and could not bear the examination which loving her husband with her instinct for truth she turned upon it when it was painful to feel herself convicted of unworthiness and impeded in her proper function by these lies these exaggerationsit was at this moment when she was fretted thus ignobly in the wake of her exaltation that mr carmichael shuffled past in his yellow slippers and some demon in her made it necessary for her to call out as he passed going indoors mr carmichael 