To the Lighthouse: The Window, 16 Summary & Analysis

Finishing up dressing for dinner in her bedroom with Jasper and Rose, Mrs. Ramsay tries to push aside an inward fear that something bad has happened to Nancy, Andrew, Paul, and Minta while outwardly entertaining Jasper and Rose by letting them choose her jewelry and imagining personalities for the rooks flying around outside whom she has named Mary and Joseph. She tells Jasper to tell Mildred absolutely not to delay dinner, laughing it should not be held even “for the Queen of England.”

Observing how carefully and seriously Rose chooses her mother’s necklace for her, Mrs. Ramsay tries to think back to her own childhood, “some quite speechless feeling that one had for one’s mother at Rose’s age.” Rose’s gravity saddens Mrs. Ramsay, who feels she cannot give anything adequate in return and that “what Rose felt was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was.” She thinks how Rose will grow up and “suffer...with these deep feelings.”

Then, her outfit complete, Mrs. Ramsay invites the children to escort her downstairs. Catching sight of the rooks again outside the window, she asks Jasper if he thinks they mind being shot at (as Jasper shoots at them). Jasper is momentarily “rebuked, but not seriously” thinking his mother lives “in another division of the world” and just doesn’t understand that birds “did not feel.” Still, he asks her if she thinks the birds he shoots are really Mary and Joseph. But Mrs. Ramsay, distracted, doesn’t answer him.

Entering the hall, Mrs. Ramsay discovers Nancy, Paul, Minta, and Andrew returned, and immediately feels “much more annoyed with them than relieved.” She wonders what has happened but knows she will not be told just yet and passes them silently, bowing slightly like “some queen.” The dinner gong sounds which means that everyone must leave all their private, separate activities in their rooms and gather with the others for dinner.