На маяк. Уровень 3 / To the Lighthouse

But the picture was not of them, she said. Or, not in this sense. There were other senses too.

A picture must be a tribute. A mother and child can be reduced to a shadow without irreverence. A light here required a shadow there. He considered. He was interested. The truth was that all his prejudices were on the other side, he explained. The largest picture in his drawing-room was of the cherry trees in blossom on the banks of the Kennet. He had spent his honeymoon on the banks of the Kennet, he said. Lily must come and see that picture, he said.

10

Cam grazed the easel by an inch[9 - grazed the easel by an inch – чуть не сшибла мольберт]. She did not stop for Mr. Bankes and Lily Briscoe; though Mr. Bankes held out his hand. She did not stop for her father, whom she grazed also by an inch; nor for her mother, who called

“Cam! I want you a moment!”

She flew like a bird, bullet, or arrow. But when Mrs. Ramsay called “Cam!” a second time, Cam turned to her mother.

“They are not here, and I’ve told Ellen to wait.”

Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley had not come back then. That meant, Mrs. Ramsay thought, one thing. She must accept him, or she must refuse him. Mrs. Ramsay was very, very fond of Minta. But she read,

“Next morning the wife awoke first, and it was just daybreak. From her bed she saw the beautiful country. Her husband was still stretching himself[10 - was still stretching himself – ещё потягивался]…”

But how will Minta refuse him? She read on:

“Ah, wife,” said the man, “why be King? I do not want to be King.

“Come in or go out, Cam,” she said.

“And when he came to the sea, it was quite dark grey. The water heaved up from below, and smelt putrid. Then he went and stood by it and said,

Flounder, flounder, in the sea,

Come, I pray you, here to me;

For my wife, good Ilsabil,

Wills not as I’d have her will

�Well, what does she want then?’ said the Flounder.

And where were they now? Mrs. Ramsay wondered. She was reading and thinking at the same time. The story of the Fisherman and his Wife was like the melody.

If nothing happens, she will speak seriously to Minta. She was responsible to Minta’s parents – the Owl and the Poker.