To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

Had there been an axe handy, or a poker, any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it.

“Stamps, writing-paper, tobacco?” she suggested, stopping by his side. But no, he wanted nothing.

wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother of pearl.

she wanted only to be like other people, insignificant. He did not know. He did not know.

To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people’s feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilisation so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There was nothing to be said.