 CHAPTER 5 I rather think," said Jacob, taking his pipe from his mouth. It's in Virgil, and pushing back his chair he went to the window. The rashest drivers in the world are certainly the drivers of post office vans. Swinging down Lamb's conduit street, the scarlet van rounded the corner by the pillar box in such a way as to graze the curb and make the little girl who was standing on Tiptoe to post a letter look up, half frightened, half curious. She paused with her hand in the mouth of the box, then dropped her letter and ran away. It is seldom only that we see a child on Tiptoe with pity, more often a dim discomfort, a grain of sand in the shoe which it's scarcely worthwhile to remove—that's our feeling—and so Jacob turned to the bookcase. Long ago great people lived here, and coming back from court past midnight stood, huddling their satin skirts, under the carved doorposts while the footman roused himself from his mattress on the floor, hurriedly fastened the lower buttons of his waistcoat and let them in. The bitter eighteenth-century rain rushed down the kennel. South Hampton Row, however, is chiefly remarkable nowadays for the fact that you will always find a man there trying to sell a tortoise to a tailor. Showing off the tweed, sir, what the gentry wants is something singular to catch the eye, sir, and clean in their habits, sir, so they display their tortoises. At Moody's Corner in Oxford Street all the red and blue beads had run together on the string. The motor omnibuses were locked. Mr. Spalding, going to the city, looked at Mr. Charles Budgeon, bound for Shepard's Bush. The proximity of the omnibuses gave the outside passengers an opportunity to stare into each other's faces, yet few took advantage of it. Each had his own business to think of. Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart, and his friends could only read the title. James Spalding, or Charles Budgeon, and the passengers going the opposite way could read nothing at all, save a man with a red mustache, a young man in gray smoking a pipe. The October sunlight rested upon all these men and women sitting immobile, and little Johnny Sturgeon took the chance to swing down the staircase, carrying his large, mysterious parcel, and so dodging a zig-zag course between the wheels he reached the pavement, started to whistle a tune and was soon out of sight, forever. The omnibuses jerked on, and every single person felt relief at being a little nearer to his journey's end, though some could jolt themselves past the immediate engagement by promise of indulgence beyond, steak and kidney pudding, drink, or a game of dominoes in the smoky corner of a city restaurant. Oh yes, human life is very tolerable on the top of an omnibus in Holborn, when the policeman holds up his arm and the sun beats on your back, and if there is such a thing as a shell secreted by man to fit man himself here we find it, on the banks of the Thames, where the great streets join in St. Paul's Cathedral like the volute on the top of the snail-shell finishes it off. Jacob, getting off his omnibus, loitered up the steps, consulted his watch, and finally made up his mind to go in. Does it need an effort? Yes, these changes of mood wear us out. Dim it is, haunted by ghosts of white marble to whom the organ forever chants, if a boot creaks, it's awful. Then the order, the discipline, the burger with his rod has life ironed out beneath him. Sweet and holy are the angelic choristers, and forever round the marble shoulders, in and out of the folded fingers, go the thin high sounds of voice and organ, forever requiem, repose. Tired with scrubbing the steps of the Prudential Society's office, which she did year in, year out, Mrs. Liget took her seat beneath the great duke's tomb, folded her hands, and half closed her eyes. A magnificent place for an old woman to rest in, by the very side of the great duke's bones, whose victories mean nothing to her, whose name she knows not, though she never fails to greet the little angel's opposite, as she passes out, wishing the like on her own tomb, for the leather and curtain of the heart has flapped wide, and out-steel on tiptoe thoughts of rest. Sweet melodies. Old Spicer, jute merchant, thought nothing of the kind, though. Strangely enough, he'd never been in St. Paul's these fifty years, though his office windows looked on the churchyard. So that's all. Well, a gloomy old place. Where's Nelson's tomb? No time now. Come again, the coin to leave in the box. Rain or fine is it, well, if it would only make up its mind. Idly the children stray in. The verger dissuades them, and another, and another. Man, woman, man, woman, boy, casting their eyes up, pursing their lips, the same shadow brushing the same faces, the leather and curtain of the heart flaps wide. Nothing could appear more certain from the steps of St. Paul's than that each person is miraculously provided with coat, skirt, and boots, an income, an object. Only Jacob, carrying in his hand Finlay's Byzantine Empire, which he had bought in Ludgate Hill, looked a little different, for in his hand he carried a book, which he would at nine-thirty precisely, by his own fireside, open and study, as no one else of all these multitudes would do. They have no houses, the streets belong to them, the shops, the churches, there's the innumerable desks, the stretched office lights, the vans are theirs, and the railway slung high above the street. If you look closer you will see that three elderly men, at a little distance from each other, run spiders along the pavement, as if the street were their parlor, and here, against the wall, a woman stares at nothing. Bootlace is extended, which she does not ask you to buy. The posters are theirs too, and the news on them. A town destroyed, a race won. A homeless people circling beneath the sky whose blue or white is held off by a ceiling cloth of steel filings and horse dung shredded to dust. There, under the green shade, with his head bent over white paper, Mr. Sibley transferred figures to folios, and upon each desk you observe, like Provinder, a bunch of papers, the day's nutriment, slowly consumed by the industrious pen. Enumerable overcoats of the quality prescribed hung empty all day in the corridors, but as the clock struck six each was exactly filled, and the little figures split apart into trousers or molded into a single thickness, jerked rapidly with angular forward motion along the pavement, then dropped into darkness. Beneath the pavement, sunk in the earth, hollow drains lined with yellow light forever conveyed them this way and that, and large letters upon enamel plates represented in the underworld, the parks, squares, and circuses of the upper. Marvellarch, Shepherd's Bush, to the majority of the arch and the bush, are eternally white letters upon a blue ground. Only at one point it may be Acton, Holloway, Kensal Rise, Caledonian Road, does the name mean shops where you buy things, and houses, in one of which, down to the right, where the pollard trees grow out of the paving stones, there is a square, curtained window, and a bedroom. Long past sunset, an old blind woman sat on a camp stool with her back to the stone wall of the Union of London and Smith's Bank, clasping a brown, mongrel, tightener arms, and singing out loud, not for coppers, no, from the depths of her gay, wild heart. Her sinful, tanned heart, the child who fetches her, is the fruit of sin, and should have been in bed, curtained, asleep. Instead of hearing in the lamp-light her mother's wild song, where she sits against the bank, singing not for coppers, with her dog against her breast. Home they went, the Grey Church spires receive them, the Horry City old, sinful, and majestic, one behind another, round or pointed, piercing the sky or massing themselves, like sailing ships, like granite cliffs, spires, and offices, wharves, and factories, crowd the bank. Eternally the pilgrims' trudge barges rest in midstream heavy laden, as some believe the city loves her prostitutes. But few, it seems, are admitted to that degree. Of all the carriages that leave the arch of the opera house, not one turns eastward, and when the little thief is caught in the empty marketplace, no one in black and white, or rose-colored evening dress blocks the way by pausing with a hand upon the carriage door to help, or condemn, the Lady Charles to do her justice, sighs sadly, as she ascends her staircase, takes down Thomas a compass, and does not sleep till her mind has lost itself tunneling into the complexity of things. Why, why, why she sighs? On the whole it's best to walk back from the opera house. Fatigue is the safest sleeping draft. The autumn season was in pull-swing. Tristan was twitching his rug up under his armpits twice a week. Esold waved her scarf in miraculous sympathy with the conductor's baton. In all parts of the house would be found pink faces and glittering breasts, when a royal hand attached to an invisible body slipped out and withdrew the red and white bouquet, reposing on the scarlet ledge the Queen of England seemed to name worth dying for. Beauty in its hot house variety, which is none of the worst, flowered in box after box, and though nothing was said of profound importance, and though it is generally agreed that Witt deserted beautiful lips about the time that Walpole died, at any rate when Victoria in her nightgown descended to meet her ministers, the lips, through an opera glass, remained red, adorable. Bald, distinguished men with gold-headed canes strolled down the crimson avenues between the stalls, and only broke from intercourse with the boxes when the lights went down, and the conductor, first bowing to the Queen, next to the bald-headed men, swept round on his feet and raised his wand. Then, two thousand hearts in the semi-darkness remembered, anticipated, traveled dark labyrinths, and Clara Durant said farewell to Jacob Glanders, and tasted the sweetness of death and epigee, and Mrs. Durant, sitting behind her in the dark of the box, sighed her sharp sigh, and Mr. Wartley, shifting his position behind the Italian ambassador's wife, thought that Brangina was a trifle horse, and suspended in the gallery many feet above their heads, Edward Whitaker surreptitiously held a torch to his miniature score, and, and, in short, the observer is choked with observations. Only to prevent us from being submerged by chaos, nature and society between them have arranged a system of classification which is simplicity itself. Stalls, boxes, amphitheater, gallery, the molds are filled nightly. There is no need to distinguish details. But the difficulty remains. One has to choose. For though I have no wish to be Queen of England, or only for a moment, I would willingly sit beside her. I would hear the Prime Minister's gossip, the Countess whisper, and share her memories of halls and gardens. The massive fronts of the respectable conceal, after all their secret code. Or why so impermeable? And then, doffing one's own headpiece, how strange to assume for a moment someone's, any one's, to be a man of valor who has ruled the Empire, to refer while Banjania sings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, as the shepherd pipes his tune, bridges and aqueducts. But no, we must choose. Never was there a harsher necessity, or one which entails greater pain. More certain disaster. For wherever I seat myself I die in exile. Whittaker, in his lodging-house. Lady Charles, at the manor. A young man with a welling to nose, who had occupied a seven and six penny seat, made his way down the stone stairs when the opera ended, as if he were still set a little apart from his fellows by the influence of the music. At midnight Jacob Flanders heard a rap on his door. By Jove, he exclaimed, you're the very man I want. And without more ado they discovered the lines which he had been seeking all day, only they come not in Virgil, but in Lucretius. Yes, that should make him sit up, said Bonomy, as Jacob stopped reading. Jacob was excited. It was the first time he had read his essay aloud. Damn, swine, he said, rather too extravagantly. But the praise had gone to his head. Professor Baltiel, of Leeds, had issued an addition of witcherly, without stating, that he had left out, or indicated only by asterisks, several indecent words and some indecent phrases. An outrage, Jacob said, a breach of faith, sheer prudery, token of a lewd mind and a disgusting nature. Aristophanes and Shakespeare recited, modern life was repudiated, great play was made with a professional title, and Leeds as a seat of learning was lapped to scorn. And the extraordinary thing was that these young men were perfectly right. Extraordinary because even as Jacob copied his pages, he knew that no one would ever print them, and sure enough, back they came from the fortnightly, the contemporary, the nineteenth century, when Jacob threw them into the black wooden box where he kept his mother's letters, his old flannel trousers, and a note or two with the cornish postmark, the Leeds shut upon the truth. This black wooden box upon which his name was still legible in white paint, stood between the long windows of the sitting room. The street ran beneath. No doubt the bedroom was behind. The furniture, three wicker chairs and a gate-legged table came from Cambridge. These houses, Mrs. Garfitt's daughter, Mrs. Whitehorn, was the landlady of this one, were built, say, a hundred and fifty years ago. The rooms are shapely, the ceilings high, over the doorway arose, or a ram-skull is carved in the wood. The eighteenth century has its distinction. Even the panels, painted in raspberry-colored paint, have their distinction. Distinction, Mrs. Durant said, that Jacob Glanders was distinguished looking. Extremely awkward, she said, but so distinguished looking. Seeing him for the first time, that no doubt is the word for him. Lying back in his chair, taking his pipe from his lips and saying to Bonamy, about this opera now, for they had done with indecency, this fellow Wagner. Distinction was one of the words to use naturally, though, from looking at him. One would have found it difficult to say which seat in the opera house was his. Stalls, gallery, or dress circle. A writer? He lacked self-consciousness. A painter. There was something in the shape of his hands. He was descended on his mother's side from a family of the greatest antiquity and deepest obscurity, which indicated taste. Then his mouth. But surely, of all feudal occupations, this of cataloging features is the worst. One word is sufficient, but if one cannot find it. I like Jacob Glanders, wrote Clara Durant in her diary. He is so unworldly. He gives himself no heirs, and one can say what one likes to him, though he's frightening because. But Mr. Lutz allows little space in his shilling diaries. Clara was not the one to encroach upon Wednesday. Humblest, most candid of women. No, no, no, she sighed, standing at the greenhouse door. Don't break. Don't spoil. What? Something infinitely wonderful. But then this is only a young woman's language. One, two who loves or refrains from loving. She wished the moment to continue forever precisely as it was that July morning. And moments don't. Now, for instance, Jacob was telling a story about some walking tour he'd taken, and the inn was called the Filming Pot, which, considering the landlady's name, they shouted with laughter. The joke was indecent. Then Julia Elliott said, the silent young man. And as she dined with prime ministers, no doubt she meant, if he is going to get on in the world, he will have to find his tongue. Timothy Durant never made any comment at all. The housemaid found herself very liberally rewarded. Mr. Sopwitz's opinion was as sentimental as Clara's, though far more skillfully expressed. Betty Flanders was romantic about archer and tender about John. She was unreasonably irritated by Jacob's clumsiness in the house. Captain Barth would liked him best of the boys, but as per saying, why? It seems then that men and women are equally at fault. It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young or growing old. In any case, life is but a procession of shadows and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this, and much more than this is true, why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us? Why, indeed, for the moment after we know nothing about him? Such is the manner of our seeing, such the conditions of our love. I am twenty-two. It's nearly the end of October. Life is thoroughly pleasant, although, unfortunately, there are a great number of fools about. One must apply oneself to something or other. God knows what. Everything is really very jolly, except getting up in the morning and wearing a tailcoat. I say, Bonomy, what about Beethoven? Bonomy is an amazing fellow. He knows practically everything. Not more about English literature than I do, but then he's read all those Frenchmen. I rather suspect you're talking rot, Bonomy, in spite of what you say. Poor old Tennyson. The truth is what ought to have been taught French. Now, I suppose, old Barfoot is talking to my mother. That's an odd affair, to be sure. But I can't see Bonomy down there. Damn, London! For the market carts were lumbering down the street. What about a walk on Saturday? What's happening on Saturday? Then, taking out his pocketbook, he assured himself that the night of the Durant's party came next week. But though all this may very well be true, so Jacob thought and spoke, so he crossed his legs, filled his pipe, sipped his whiskey, and once looked at his pocketbook, rumbling his hair as he did so, there remains over something which can never be conveyed to a second person, saved by Jacob himself. Moreover, part of this is not Jacob but Richard Bonomy, the room, the market carts, the hour, the very moment of history. Thanks consider the effect of sex, how between man and woman it hangs wavy, tremulous, so that here's a valley, there's a peak, when in truth perhaps all's as flat as my hand. Even the exact words get the wrong accent on them, but something is always impelling one to hum vibrating, like the hawk moth at the mouth of the cavern of mystery, endowing Jacob Blanders with all sorts of qualities he had not at all. For though certainly he sat talking to Bonomy, half of what he said was too dull to repeat, much unintelligible about unknown people and Parliament, what remains is mostly a matter of guesswork, yet over him we hang, vibrating. Yes, said Captain Barfoot knocking at his pipe on Betty Flanders' hob and buttoning his coat, it doubles the work, but I don't mind that. He was now town counsellor. They looked at the night, which was the same as the London night, only a good deal more transparent. Church bells down in the town were striking eleven o'clock, the wind was off the sea, and all the bedroom windows were dark, the pages were asleep, the garfits were asleep, the cranches were asleep, whereas in London at this hour they were burning Guy Fawkes on Parliament Hill. CHAPTER VI The flames had fairly caught. There, St. Paul's, someone cried, as the wood caught the city of London was lit up for a second. On other sides of the fire there were trees. Of the faces which came out fresh and vivid as though painted in yellow and red, the most prominent was a girl's face. By a trick of the firelight she seemed to have no body. The oval of the face and hair hung beside the fire with a dark vacuum for background. As if dazed by the glare, her green blue eyes stared at the flames. Every muscle of her face was taught. There was something tragic in her thus staring, her age between twenty and twenty-five. A hand descending from the checkered darkness thrust on her head, the conical white hat of a puro. Shaking her head she still stared. A whiskered face appeared above her. They dropped two legs of a table upon the fire and a scattering of twigs and leaves. All this blazed up and showed faces far back, round, pale, smooth, bearded, some with billycock hats on. All intent. Showed two St. Paul's floating on the uneven white mist, and two or three narrow, paper-white, extinguisher-shaped spires. The flames were struggling through the wood and roaring up when goodness knows wherefrom. Pails flung water in beautiful hollow shapes as of polished tortoise shell, flung again and again until the hiss was like a swarm of bees and all the faces went out. Oh, Jacob said the girl as they pounded up the hill in the dark. I'm so frightfully unhappy. Shouts of laughter came from the others, high, low, some before, others after. The hotel dining-room was brightly lit. A stag's head in plaster was at one end of the table. At the other some Roman bust blackened and reddened to represent Guy Fox, whose night it was. The diners were linked together by lengths of paper roses so that when it came to singing Old Lang's sign with their hands crossed a pink and yellow line rose and fell the entire length of the table. There was an enormous tapping of green wine glasses. A young man stood up, and Florenda, taking one of the purplish globes that lay on the table, flung it straight at his head. It crushed to powder. I'm so frightfully unhappy, she said, turning to Jacob who sat beside her. The table ran, as if on invisible legs, to the side of the room, and a barrel organ decorated with a red cloth and two pots of paper flowers reeled out Walt's music. Jacob could not dance. He stood against the wall, smoking a pipe. We think, said two of the dancers, breaking off from the rest and bowing profoundly before him, that you are the most beautiful man we have ever seen. So they wreathed his head with paper flowers. Then somebody brought out a white and gilt chair and made him sit on it. As they passed, people hung glass grapes on his shoulders until he looked like the figurehead of a wrecked ship. Then Florenda got upon his knee and hit her face in his waistcoat. With one hand he held her, with the other his pipe. Now, let us talk, said Jacob, as he walked down Haverstock hill between four and five o'clock in the morning of November the sixth arm in arm with Timmy Durant, about something sensible. The Greeks, yes, that was what they talked about, how when all said and done, when one's rinsed one's mouth with every literature in the world, including Chinese and Russian, but these slabs aren't civilized, it's the flavor of Greek that remains. Durant quoted Escalus, Jacob Sophocles. It is true that no Greek could have understood or Professor Riff Reign from pointing out. Never mind. What is Greek for if not to be shouted on Haverstock hill in the dawn? Moreover, Durant never listened to Sophocles nor Jacob to Escalus. They were boastful, triumphant. It seemed to both that they had read every book in the world known every sin, passion and joy. Civilizations stood round them like flowers ready for picking. Ages lapped at their feet like waves fit for sailing. And surveying all this, looming through the fog, the lamp light, the shades of London, the two young men decided in favor of Greece. Probably, said Jacob, we are the only people in the world who know what the Greeks meant. They drank coffee at a stall where the urns were burnished and little lamps burnt along the counter. Taking Jacob for a military gentleman, the stallkeeper told him about his boy at Gibraltar. And Jacob cursed the British army and praised the Duke of Wellington. So on again, they went down the hill talking about the Greeks. A strange thing when you come to think of it, this love of Greek, flourishing in such obscurity, distorted, discouraged, yet leaping out, all of a sudden, especially on leaving crowded rooms or after a surfative print or when the moon floats among the waves of the hills, or in hollow, sallow, fruitless London days, like a specific, a clean blade, always a miracle. Jacob knew no more Greek than served him to stumble through a plague. Of ancient history, he knew nothing. However, as he tramped into London, it seemed to him that they were making the flagstones ring on the road to the Acropolis, and that if Socrates saw them coming, he would bestow himself and say, My fine fellows, for the whole sentiment of Athens was entirely after his heart, free, venturesome, high spirited. She had called him Jacob without asking his leave. She had sat upon his knee, thusted all good women in the days of the Greeks. At this moment there shook out into the air a wavering, quavering, doleful lamentation which seemed to lack strength to unfold itself, and yet flagged on, at the sound of which doors and back streets burst sullenly open. Workmen stumped forth. Florenda was sick. Mrs. Durant, sleepless as usual, scored a mark by the side of certain lines in the Inferno. Clara slept buried in her pillows. On her dressing table, disheveled roses and a pair of long, white gloves. Still wearing the conical, white hat of a Perot, Florenda was sick. The bedroom seemed fit for these catastrophes. Cheap, mustard colored, half attic, half studio, curiously ornamented with silver paper stars, Welsh women's hats, and rosaries pendant from the gas brackets. As for Florenda's story, her name had been bestowed upon her by a painter who had wished to signify that the flower of her maidenhood was still unplugged. Be that as it may, she was without a surname, and for parents had only the photograph of a tombstone beneath which, she said, her father lay buried. Sometimes she would dwell upon the size of it, and rumour had it that Florenda's father had died from the growth of his bones which nothing could stop, just as her mother enjoyed the confidence of a royal master. And now and again Florenda herself was a princess, but chiefly when drunk. Thus deserted, pretty into the bargain, with tragic eyes and the lips of a child, she talked more about virginity than women mostly do, and had lost it only the night before, or cherished it beyond the heart in her breast, according to the man she talked to. But did she always talk to men? No, she had her confidant Mother Stuart, Stuart, as the lady would point out, is the name of a royal house. But what that signified, and what her business was, no one knew, only that Mrs. Stuart got postal orders every Monday morning, kept a parrot, believed in the transmigration of souls, and could read the future in tea leaves. Dirty lodging house wallpaper she was behind the chastity of Florenda. Now Florenda wept and spent the day wandering the streets, stood at Chelsea watching the river swim past, trailed along the shopping streets, opened her bag and powdered her cheeks and omnibuses, read love letters, propping them against the milk pot in the ABC shop, detected glass in the sugar bowl, accused the waitress of wishing to poison her, declared that young men stared at her, and found herself towards evening, slowly sauntering down Jacob's street. When it struck her that she liked that man, Jacob, better than dirty Jews, and sitting at his table, he was copying his essay upon the ethics of indecency, drew off her gloves and told him how Mother Stuart had banged her on the head with the tea cozy. Jacob took a word for it that she was chased. She prattled sitting by the fireside of famous painters. The tomb of her father was mentioned, wild and frail and beautiful she looked, and thus the women of the Greeks were, Jacob thought, and this was life and himself a man in Florenda chased. She left with one of Shelley's poems beneath her arm. Mrs. Stuart, she said, often talked of him. Marvelous are the innocent. To believe that the girl herself transcends all lies. For Jacob was not such a fool as to believe implicitly, to wonder enviously at the unanchored life, his own seeming petted and even cloistered in comparison, to have at hand as sovereign specifics for all disorders of the soul at an A and the plays of Shakespeare, to figure out a comradeship all spirited on her side, protective on his, yet equal on both. For women thought Jacob are just the same as men. Innocence such as this is marvelous enough, and perhaps not so foolish after all. For when Florenda got home that night, she first washed her head, then ate chocolate creams, then opened Shelley. True, she was horribly bored. What on earth was it about? She had to wager with herself that she would turn the page before she ate another. In fact, she slept. But then her day had been a long one. Mother Stuart had thrown the tea cozy. There are formidable sights in the streets. And though Florenda was ignorant as an owl and would never learn to read even her love letters correctly, still she had her feelings, like some men better than others, and was entirely at the beck and call of life. Whether or not she was a virgin seems a matter of no importance, whatever. Unless, indeed, it is the only thing of any importance at all. Jacob was restless when she left him. All night men and women see up and down the well-known beats. Late homecomers could see shadows against the blinds, even in the most respectable suburbs, not a square and snow or fog lacked its amorous couple. All plays turned on the same subject. Bullets went through heads in hotel bedrooms almost nightly on that account. When the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred. Little else was talked of in theaters and popular novels. Yet we say it is a matter of no importance at all. What with Shakespeare and Adonais, Mozart and Bishop Berkeley, choose whom you like. The fact is concealed in the evenings for most of us pass reputably, or with only the sort of tremor that a snake makes sliding through the grass. But then concealment by itself distracts the mind from the print and the sound. If Florenda had had a mind, she might have read with clearer eyes than we can. She and her sword have solved the question by turning it to a trifle of washing the hands nightly before going to bed. The only difficulty being whether you prefer your water hot or cold, which being settled, the mind can go about its business on a sale. But it did occur to Jacob, halfway through dinner, to wonder whether she had a mind. They sat at a little table in the restaurant. Florenda lent the points of her elbows on the table and held her chin in the cup of her hands. Her cloak had slipped behind her. Gold and white with bright beads on her, she emerged. Her face flowering from her body, innocent, scarcely tinted, the eyes gazing frankly about her or slowly settling on Jacob and resting there. She talked. You know that big black box the Australian left in my room ever so long ago. I do think furs make a woman look old. That's Bexton coming now. I was wondering what you look like when you were a little boy Jacob. She nibbled her roll and looked at him. Jacob, you're like one of those statues. I think there are lovely things in the British Museum, don't you? Lots of lovely things. She spoke dreamily. The room was filling. The heat increasing. Talk in a restaurant is dazed sleepwalkers talk so many things to look at. So much noise other people talking. Can one over here? Oh, but they mustn't over here. Us. That's like Ellen Nagel. That girl and so on. I'm awfully happy since I've known you, Jacob. You're such a good man. The room got fuller and fuller. Talk louder. Knives more cluttering. Well, you see what makes her say things like that is she stopped. So did everyone. Tomorrow, Sunday, a beastly. You tell me go then crash and out she swept. It was at the table next them that the voices spun higher and higher. Suddenly the woman dashed the plates to the floor. The man was left there. Everybody stared then. Well, poor chap. We mustn't sit staring. What a go. Did you hear what she said? By God, he looks a fool. Didn't come up to the scratch, I suppose. All the mustard on the tablecloth. The waiters laughing. Jacob observed Florenda in her face there seemed to him something horribly brainless as she sat staring. Out she swept the black woman with the dancing feather in her hat. Yet she had to go somewhere. The night is not a tumultuous black ocean in which you sink or sail as a star. As a matter of fact, it was a wet November night. The lamps of Soho made large greasy spots of light upon the pavement. The by streets were dark enough to shelter man or woman leaning against the doorways. One detached herself as Jacob and Florenda approached. She's dropped her glove, said Florenda. Jacob, pressing forward, gave it her. Effusively she thanked him, retraced her steps, dropped her glove again. But why? For whom? Meanwhile, where had the other woman got to? And the man. The street lamps do not carry far enough to tell us. The voices, angry, lustful, despairing, passionate, were scarcely more than the voices of caged beasts at night. Only they are not caged. Nor beasts. Stop a man. Ask him the way. He'll tell it to you. But one's afraid to ask him the way. What does one fear? The human eye. At once the pavement narrows. The chasm deepens. There! They've melted into it. Both man and woman. Further on, blatantly advertising its meritorious solidity, a boarding-house exhibits behind uncurtained windows its testimony to the soundness of London. There they sit, plainly illuminated, dressed like ladies and gentlemen in bamboo chairs. The widows of businessmen prove laboriously that they are related to judges. The wives of coal merchants instantly retort that their fathers kept coachmen. A servant brings coffee, and the crochet basket has to be moved. And so on again into the dark, passing a girl here for sale, or there an old woman with only matches to offer, passing the crowd from the tube station, the women with veiled hair, passing at length no one but shut doors, carved doorposts, and a solitary policeman, Jacob, with Florenda on his arm, reached his room and, lighting the lamp, said nothing at all. I don't like you when you look like that, said Florenda. The problem is insoluble. The body is harnessed to a brain. Beauty goes hand in hand with stupidity. There she sat staring at the fire as she had stared at the broken mustard pot. In spite of defending indecency, Jacob doubted whether he liked it in the raw. He had a violent reversion towards male society, cloistered rooms, and the works of the classics, and was ready to turn with wrath upon whoever it was who had fashioned life thus. Then Florenda laid her hand upon his knee. After all, it was none of her fault, but the thought saddened him. It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases that age and kill us. It's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses. Any excuse, though, serves a stupid woman. He told her his head ached. But when she looked at him, dumbly, half guessing, half understanding, apologizing perhaps, anyhow saying, as he had said, it's none of my fault, straight and beautiful in body, her face like a shell within its cap. Then he knew that cloisters and classics are no use whatever. The problem is insoluble. End of Chapter 6. Recording by Elizabeth Marant, Port Ritchie, Florida. Liz Marant at gmail.com. Without this time, a firm of merchants having dealings with the East put on the market little paper flowers which opened on touching water. As it was the custom also to use finger bowls at the end of dinner, the new discovery was found of excellent service. In these sheltered lakes, the little colored flowers swam and slid, surmounted smooth slippery waves, and sometimes foundered and lay-like pebbles on the glass floor. Their fortunes were in their eyes intent and lovely. It is surely a great discovery that leads to the union of hearts and foundation of homes. The paper flowers did no less. It must not be thought, though, that they ousted the flowers of nature. Roses, lilies, carnations in particular looked over the rims of vases and surveyed the bright leaves and swift dooms of their artificial relations. Mr. Stuart Ormond made this very observation, and charming it was thought. And Kitty Craster married him on the strength of its six months later. But real flowers can never be dispensed with. If they could, human life would be a different affair altogether. For flowers fade. Chrysanthemums are the worst. Perfect overnight. Yellow and jaded next morning. Not fit to be seen. On the whole, though, the price is sinful. Carnations pay best. It's a question, however, whether it's wise to have them wired. Some shops advise it. Certainly it's the only way to keep them at a dance. But whether it is necessary at dinner parties, unless the rooms are very hot, remains in dispute. Old Mrs. Temple used to recommend an ivy leaf, just one, dropped into the bowl. She said it kept the water pure for days and days. But there is some reason to think that Old Mrs. Temple was mistaken. The little cards, however, with names engraved on them, are a more serious problem than the flowers. More horses' legs have been worn out, more coachman's lives consumed, more hours of sound after noon time vainly lavished, than served to win us the battle of Waterloo and pay for it into the bargain. The little demons are the source of as many reprieves, calamities, and anxieties as the battle itself. Sometimes Mrs. Bonham has just gone out. At others she is at home. But even if the cards should be superseded, which seems unlikely, there are unruly powers blowing life into storms, disordering, sedulous mornings, and uprooting the stability of the afternoon. Dressmakers, that is to say, and confectioners' shops. Six yards of silk will cover one body, but if you have to devise six hundred shapes for it, and twice as many colors, in the middle of which there is the urgent question of the pudding with tufts of green cream and battlements of almond paste, it has not arrived. The flamingo hours fluttered softly through the sky. But regularly they dipped their wings in pitch black, knotting hill, for instance, or the upper louise of Clerkenwell. No wonder that Italian remained a hidden art, and the piano always played the same sonata. In order to buy one pair of elastic stockings for Mrs. Page, Widow, aged sixty-three, and received a five shillings outdoor relief, and help from her only son employed in Messer's Mackey's die-works, suffering in winter with his chest, letters must be written, columns filled up in the same round, simple hand that wrote in Mr. Let's Diary how the weather was fine, the children, demons, and Jacob Flanders unworldly. Clara Durant procured the stockings, played the sonata, filled the vases, fetched the pudding, left the cards, and when the great invention of paper flowers to swim in finger bowls was discovered, was one of those who marveled at their brief lives. Nor were there wanting poets to celebrate the theme. Edwin Mallet, for example, wrote his verses ending, and read their doom in Chloe's eyes, which caused Clara to blush at the first reading, and to laugh at the second, saying that it was just like him to call her Chloe when her name was Clara, ridiculous young man. But when, between ten and eleven on a rainy morning, Edwin Mallet laid his life at her feet, she ran out of the room and hid herself in her bedroom, and Timothy Below could not get on with his work all that morning on account of her sobs. Which is the result of enjoying yourself, said Mrs. Durant severely, surveying the dance program all scored with the same initials, or rather they were different ones this time, R-B instead of E-M. Richard Bonomy it was now, the young man with the welling to nose. But I could never marry a man with a nose like that, said Clara. Nonsense, said Mrs. Durant. But I am too severe, she thought to herself. For Clara, losing all vivacity, tore up her dance program and threw it in the fender. Such were the very serious consequences of the invention of paper flowers to swim in bowls. Please, said Julie Elliott, taking up her position by the curtain almost opposite the door, don't introduce me. I am gone. The amusing thing, she went on, addressing Mr. Salvin, who, owing to his lameness, was accommodated with a chair, the amusing thing about a party is to watch the people, coming and going, coming and going. Last time we met, said Mr. Salvin, was at the Far Quares. Poor lady, she has much to put up with. Doesn't she look charming, exclaimed Mrs. Elliott, as Clara Durant passed them? And which of them, asked Mr. Salvin, dropping his voice and speaking in quizzical tones? There are so many, Mrs. Elliott replied. Three young men stood at the doorway, looking about for their hostess. You don't remember Elizabeth as I do, said Mr. Salvin, dancing, highland reels, adventuring. Clara lacks her mother's spirit. Clara is a little pale. What different people one sees here, said Mrs. Elliott. Happily, we are not governed by the evening papers, said Mr. Salvin. I never read them, said Mrs. Elliott. I know nothing about politics, she added. The piano is in tune, said Clara, passing them, but we may have to ask someone to move it for us. Are they going to dance, asked Mr. Salvin. Nobody shall disturb you, said Mrs. Durant peremptorily as she passed. Julia Elliott, it is Julia Elliott, said old Lady Hibbert, holding out both her hands, and Mr. Salvin. What is going to happen to us, Mr. Salvin, with all my experience of English politics? My dear, I was thinking of your father last night, one of my oldest friends, Mr. Salvin. Never tell me that girls often are incapable of love. I had all Shakespeare by heart before I was in my teens, Mr. Salvin. You don't say so, said Mr. Salvin. But I do, said Lady Hibbert. Oh, Mr. Salvin, I'm so sorry. I will remove myself if you'll kindly lend me a hand, said Mr. Salvin. You shall sit by my mother, said Clara. Everybody seems to come in here. Mr. Calthorpe, let me introduce you to Miss Edwards. Are you going away for Christmas, said Mr. Calthorpe? If my brother gets his leave, said Miss Edwards. What regiment is he in, said Mr. Calthorpe? The 20th Hussars, said Miss Edwards. Perhaps he knows my brother, said Mr. Calthorpe. I am afraid I did not catch your name, said Miss Edwards. Calthorpe, said Mr. Calthorpe. But what proof was there that the marriage service was actually performed, said Mr. Crosby? There is no reason to doubt that Charles James Fox, Mr. Burley began. But here Mrs. Stratton told him that she knew his brother well, had stayed with her not six weeks ago and thought the house charming but bleak in winter. Going about as girls do nowadays, said Mrs. Forster. Mr. Bowley looked round to him and catching sight of Rose Shaw moved towards her, threw out his hands and exclaimed, Well, nothing, she replied, nothing at all, though I left them alone the entire afternoon on purpose. Dear me, dear me, said Mr. Burley, I will ask Jimmy to breakfast. But who could resist her, cried Rose Shaw? Dearest Clara, I know we mustn't try to stop you. You and Mr. Bowley are talking dreadful gossip, I know, said Clara. Life is wicked, life is detestable, cried Rose Shaw. There's not much to be said for this sort of thing, is there, said Timothy Durant to Jacob. Women like it? Like what, said Charlotte Wilding, coming up to them. Where have you come from, said Timothy? Dining somewhere, I suppose. I don't see why not, said Charlotte. People must go downstairs, said Clara, passing. Take Charlotte, Timothy. How do you do, Mr. Flanders? How do you do, Mr. Flanders? said Julia Elliott, holding out her hand. What's been happening to you? Who is Sylvia? What is she? That all our swans commend her, saying Elspeth didn't. Everyone stood where they were or sat down if a chair was empty. Ah, sighed Clara, who stood beside Jacob, halfway through. Then did Sylvia let us sing that Sylvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling to her let us garlands bring, sang Elspeth's sit-ins. Ah, Clara exclaimed out loud and clapped her gloved hands and Jacob clapped his bare ones and then she moved forward and directed people to come in from the doorway. You were living in London, said Miss Julia Elliott. Yes, said Jacob. In rooms, yes. There is Mr. Clutterbuck. You always see Mr. Clutterbuck here. He is not very happy at home, I am afraid. They say that Mrs. Clutterbuck she dropped her voice. That's why he stays with the Durans. Were you there when they acted Mr. Wortley's play? Oh, no, of course not. At the last moment, did you hear remember at Harrogate? At the last moment, as I was saying, just as everything was ready, the clothes finished and everything. Now Elspeth is going to sing again. Clara is playing her accompaniment or turning over for Mr. Carter, I think. No, Mr. Carter is playing by himself. This is back, she whispered, as Mr. Carter played the first bars. Are you fond of music, said Mr. Durant? Yes, I like hearing it, said Jacob. I know nothing about it. Very few people do that, said Mrs. Durant. I dare say you were never taught. Why is that, Sir Jasper? Sir Jasper bigum, Mr. Flanders. Why is nobody taught anything that they ought to know, Sir Jasper? She left them standing against the wall. Neither of the gentlemen said anything for three minutes, though Jacob shifted perhaps five inches to the left and then as many to the right. He grunted and suddenly crossed the room. Will you come and have something to eat, he said to Clara Durant. Yes, an ice, quickly. Now, she said. Downstairs they went. But halfway down they met Mr. and Mrs. Gresham, Herbert Turner, Sylvia Rashley and a friend whom they had dared to bring from America. Knowing that Mrs. Durant wishing to show Mr. Pilcher, was Mrs. Durant, whom I have heard so much of, said Mr. Pilcher, bowing low. So Clara left him. End of Chapter 7. Reading by Elizabeth Morant. Liz Morant at gmail.com Chapter 8 of Jacob's Room. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. For more information, visit LibriVox.org. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Liz Morant. Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf. Chapter 8. About half past nine, Jacob left the house. His door slamming. Other doors slamming. Buying his paper, mounting his omnibus or weather permitting, walking his road as other people do. Head bent down. Electric leather. Electric light. Fresh cold, sir. Your tea, sir. Talk about football, the hot spurs, the Harlequins. 630 Star brought in by the office boy. The rooks of Grey's Inn passing overhead. Branches in the fog, thin and brittle. And through the roar of traffic, now and again a voice shouting, verdict, verdict, winner, winner. While letters accumulate in a basket, and each evening finds him as he takes his coat down with some muscle of the brain news stretched. Then, sometimes a game of chess or pictures in Bond Street or a long way home to take the air with bonomy on his arm, meditatively marching, head thrown back, the world a spectacle, the early moon above, the steeples coming in for praise, the seagulls flying high, Nelson on his column surveying the horizon and the world our ship. Meanwhile, poor Betty Flanders letter, having caught the second post, lay on the hall table, poor Betty Flanders writing her son's name, Jacob Allen Flanders Esquire, as mothers do. And the ink pale, profuse, suggesting how mothers down at Scarborough scribble over the fire with their feet on the fender when tease cleared away and can never, never say whatever it may be. Probably this. Don't go with bad women. Do be a good boy. Wear your thick shirts and come back, come back, come back to me. But she said nothing of the kind. Do you remember old Miss Wargrave who used to be so kind when you had the whooping cough she wrote? She's dead at last, poor thing. They would like it if you wrote. Ellen came over and we spent a nice day shopping. Old Mouse gets very stiff and we have to walk him up the smallest hill. Rebecca at last, after I don't know how long, went into Mr. Adamson's three teeth he says must come out. Such mild weather for the time of year. The little buds actually on the pear trees and Mrs. Jarvis tells me Mrs. Flanders liked Mrs. Jarvis. Always said of her that she was too good for such a quiet place and though she never listened to her discontent and told her at the end of it looking up, sucking her thread and taking off her spectacles that a little peat wrapped around the iris roots keeps them from the frost and parrot's great white sail is Tuesday next. Do remember, Mrs. Flanders knew precisely how Mrs. Jarvis felt and how interesting her letters were about Mrs. Jarvis could one read them year in, year out. The unpublished works of women written by the fireside in pale profusion dried by the flame papers worn to holes in the nib cleft and cluttered then Captain Barfoot him she called the Captain spoke of frankly yet never without reserve. The Captain was inquiring for her about Garfit's acre advised chickens could promise profit or had the sciatica or Mrs. Barfoot had been indoors for weeks or the Captain says things look bad politics that is for as Jacob knew the Captain would sometimes talk as the evening waned about Ireland or India and then Mrs. Flanders would fall musing about Morty, her brother lost all these years had the natives got him was his ship sunk would the Admiralty tell her the Captain knocking his pipe out as Jacob knew rising to go stiffly stretching to pick up Mrs. Flanders' wool which had rolled beneath the chair and came back and back the women even at 50 impulsive at heart sketching on the cloudy future flocks of leg horns Cochin Chinas, Orpingtons like Jacob in the blur of her outline but powerful as he was fresh and vigorous running about the house scolding Rebecca the letter lay upon the hall table Florenda coming in that night took it up with her put it on the table as she kissed Jacob and Jacob seeing the hand left it there under the lamp between the biscuit tin and the tobacco box they shut the bedroom door behind them the sitting room neither noon or cared the door was shut and to suppose that wood when it creaks transmits anything save that rats are busy and wood dry is childish these old houses are only brick and wood soaked in human sweat grained with human dirt but if the pale blue envelope lying by the biscuit box had the feelings of a mother the heart was torn by the little creek the sudden stir behind the door was the obscene thing the alarming presence and terror would come over her as a death or the birth of a child better perhaps burst in and face it than sit in the anti chamber listening to the little creek the sudden stir for her heart was swollen and the pain threaded it my son my son such would be her cry uttered to hide her vision and him stretched with florinda inexcusable irrational and a woman with three children living at Scarborough and the fault lay with florinda indeed when the door opened and the couple came out mrs. Flanders would have flounced upon her only it was Jacob who came first in his dressing gown amiable authoritative beautifully healthy like a baby after an airing with an eye clear as running water florinda followed stretching yawning a little arranging her hair at the looking glass while Jacob read his mother's letter let us consider letters how they come at breakfast and at night with their yellow stamps and their green stamps immortalized by the post mark for to see one's own envelope on another's table is to realize how soon deeds sever and become alien then at last the power of the mind to quit the body is manifest and perhaps we fear or hate or wish annihilated this phantom of ourselves lying on the table still there are letters that merely say how dinners at seven others ordering coal making appointments the hand in them is scarcely perceptible let alone the voice or the scowl ah but when the post knocks and the letter comes always the miracle seems repeated speech attempted venerable our letters infinitely brave alone and lost life would split asunder without them come to tea come to dinner what's the truth of the story have you heard the news life in the capital is gay the russian dancers these are our stays and props these lace our days together and make of life a perfect globe and yet and yet when we go to dinner perhaps we hope to meet somewhere soon a doubt insinuates itself is this the way to spend our days the rare the limited so soon dealt out to us drinking tea dining out and the notes accumulate and the telephones ring and everywhere we go wires and tubes surround us to carry the voices that try to penetrate before the last card is dealt and the days are over try to penetrate we lift the cup shake the hand express the hope something whispers is this all can I never know share be certain am I doomed all my days to write letters send voices which fall upon the tea table fade upon the passage making appointments while life dwindles to come and dine yet letters are venerable and the telephone valiant for the journey is a lonely one and if bound together by notes and telephones we went in company perhaps who knows we might talk by the way well, people have tried Byron wrote letters so did Cowper for centuries the writing desk has contained sheets fit precisely for the communications of friends masters of language poets of long ages have turned from the sheet that endures to the sheet that perishes pushing aside the tea tray close to the fire for letters are written when the dark presses round a bright red cave and address themselves to the task of reaching, touching penetrating the individual heart were it possible but words have been used too often touched and turned and left exposed to the dust of the street the words we seek hang close to the tree we come at dawn and find them sweet beneath the leaf flanders wrote letters Mrs. Jarvis wrote them Mrs. Durant too mother Stewart actually sent at her pages thereby adding a flavor which the English language fails to provide Jacob had written in his day long letters about art, morality, and politics young men at college Clara Durant's letters were those of a child Florenda the impediment between Florenda and her pen was something impassable fancy a butterfly attached to a twig which clogged with mud it rolls across a page her spelling was abominable her sentiments infantile and for some reason when she wrote she declared her belief in God then there were crosses, tear stains and the hand itself rambling and redeemed only by the fact which always did redeem Florenda by the fact that she cared yes, whether it was for chocolate creams, hot baths the shape of her face in the looking glass Florenda could no more pretend a feeling than swallow whiskey incontinent was her rejection great men are truthful and these little prostitutes staring in the fire taking out a powder puff decorating lips at an inch of looking glass have, so Jacob thought an inviolable fidelity then he saw her turning up Greek street upon another man's arm the light from the arc lamp drenched him from head to toe he stood for a minute motionless beneath it shadows checkered the street other figures single and together poured out, wavered across and obliterated Florenda and the man the light drenched Jacob from head to toe you could see the pattern on his trousers the old thorns on his stick his shoelaces bare hands and face it was as if a stone were ground to dust as if white sparks flew from a livid whetstone which was his spine as if the switchback railway having swooped to the depths fell, fell, fell this was in his face whether we know it was in his mind is another question granted ten years seniority and a difference of sex fear of him comes first this is swallowed up by a desire to help overwhelming sense, reason and the time of night anger would follow close on that with Florenda, with destiny and then upward bubble and irresponsible optimism surely there's enough light in the street at this moment to drown all our cares in gold ah, what's the use of saying it even while you speak and look over your shoulder towards Shaftesbury Avenue destiny is chipping a dent in him he has turned to go as for following him back to his rooms no, that we won't do yet that of course is precisely what one does he let himself in and shut the door though it was only striking ten on one of the city clocks no one can go to bed at ten nobody was thinking of going to bed it was January and dismal but Mrs. Wags stood on her doorstep as if expecting something to happen a barrel organ played like an obscene nightingale beneath wet leaves children ran across the road here and there one could see brown paneling inside the hall door but the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough now distracted by brown paneling now by a fern in a pot here improvising a few phrases to dance with the barrel organ again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other so outright, so lusty yet all the while having for centre for magnet, a young man alone in his room life is wicked, life is detestable cried Rose Shaw the strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to everyone for hundreds of years no one has left any adequate account of it the streets of London have their map but our passions are uncharted what are you going to meet if you turn this corner Holborn straight ahead of you says the policeman ah, but where are you going if instead of brushing past the old man the silver medal and the cheap violin you let him go on with his story which ends in an invitation to step somewhere to his room, presumably off Queen Square and there he shows you a collection of birds eggs and a letter from the Prince of Wales secretary and this, skipping the intermediate stages brings you one winter's day to the Essex coast where the little boat makes off to the ship and the ship sails and you behold on the skyline the azores flamingos rise and there you sit on the verge of the marsh drinking rum punch an outcast from civilization for you have committed a crime are infected with yellow fever as likely as not and fill in the sketch as you like as frequent as street corners in Holborn are these chasms in the continuity of our ways yet we keep straight on Rose Shaw caulking in rather an emotional manner to Mr. Bowley at Mrs. Durant's evening party a few nights back said that life was wicked because a man called Jimmy refused to marry a woman called if memory serves Helen Aitken both were beautiful, both were inanimate the oval tea table invariably separated them and the plate of biscuits was all he ever gave her he bowed, she inclined her head they danced he danced divinely they sat in the alcove her word was said her pillow was wet with tears kind Mr. Bowley and dear Rose Shaw marveled and deplored Bowley had rooms in the Albany Rose was reborn every evening precisely as the clock struck eight all four were civilization's triumphs and if you persist that a command of the English language is part of our inheritance one can only reply that beauty is almost always dumb male beauty in association female beauty breeds in the onlooker a sense of fear often have I seen them Helen and Jimmy and likened them to ships adrift and feared for my own little craft or again have you ever watched fine collie dogs cruchant at 20 yards distance as she passed him his cup there was that quiver in her flanks Bowley saw what was up asked Jimmy to breakfast Helen must have confided in Rose my own part I find it exceedingly difficult to interpret songs without words and now Jimmy feeds crows and Flanders and Helen visits hospitals oh life is damnable life is wicked as Rose Shaw said the lamps of London uphold the dark as upon the points of burning bayonets the yellow canopy sinks and swells over the great four poster passengers and the male coaches running into London in the 18th century looked through leafless branches and saw it flaring beneath them the light burns behind yellow blinds and pink blinds and above fan lights and down in basement windows the street market and so ho is fierce with light raw meat china mugs and silk stockings blaze in it raw voices wrap themselves around the flaring gas jets arms of Kimbo they stand on the pavement balling Messers Kettle and Wilkinson their wives sit in the shop around their necks arms folded eyes contemptuous such faces as one sees the little man fingering the meat must have squatted before the fire in innumerable lodging houses and heard and seen and known so much that it seems to utter itself even volubly from dark eyes loose lips as he fingers the meat silently his face sad as a poet's and never a song sung shod women carry babies with purple eyelids boys stand at street corners girls look across the road rude illustrations pictures in a book whose pages we turn over and over as if we should at last find what we look for every face every shop bedroom window public house and dark square is a picture feverishly turned in search of what it is the same with books what do we seek through millions of pages still hopefully turning the pages oh here is Jacob's room he sat at the table reading the globe the pinkish sheet was spread flat before him he propped his face in his hand so that the skin of his cheek was wrinkled in deep folds terribly severe he looked set and defiant what people go through in half an hour but nothing could save him these events are features of our landscape a foreigner coming to London could scarcely miss seeing St. Paul's he judged life these pinkish and greenish newspapers are thin sheets of gelatin pressed nightly over the brain and heart of the world they take the impression of the whole Jacob cast his eye over it a strike a murder football bodies found vociferation from all parts of England simultaneously how miserable it is that the globe newspaper offers nothing better to Jacob Flanders when a child begins to read history one marvel sorrowfully to hear him spell out in his new voice the ancient words the prime minister's speech was reported in something over five columns feeling in his pocket Jacob took out a pipe and proceeded to fill it five minutes ten minutes fifteen minutes passed Jacob took the paper over to the fire the prime minister proposed a measure for giving home rule to Ireland Jacob knocked out his pipe he was certainly thinking about home rule in Ireland a very difficult matter a very cold night the snow which had been falling all night lay at three o'clock in the afternoon over the fields and the hill clumps of withered grass stood out upon the hilltop the furs bushes were black shiver crossed the snow as the wind drove flurries of frozen particles before it the sound was that of a broom sweeping sweeping the stream crept along by the road unseen by anyone sticks and leaves caught in the frozen grass the sky was sullen grey in the trees of black iron uncompromising was the severity of the country at four o'clock the snow was again falling the day had gone out it had changed yellow about two feet across a lone combat at the white fields and the black trees at six o'clock a man's figure carrying a lantern crossed the field a raft of twigs stayed upon a stone suddenly detached itself and floated towards the culvert a load of snow slipped and fell from a fur branch later there was a mournful cry a motor car came along the road shoving the dark before it the dark shut down behind it spaces of complete immobility separated each of these movements the land seemed to lie dead then the old shepherd returned stiffly across the field stiffly and painfully the frozen earth was trodden under and gave beneath pressure like a treadmill the worn voices of clocks repeated the fact of the hour all night long Jacob too heard them and raked out the fire he rose he stretched himself he went to bed end of chapter 8 recording by Liz Morant Port Richie, Florida Liz Morant at gmail.com Chapter 9 of Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Liz Morant Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf Chapter 9 the Countess of Roxbury sat at the head of the table alone with Jacob fed upon champagne and spices for at least two centuries four if you count the female line the Countess Lucy looked well fed a discriminating nose she had for plants prolonged as if in quest of them her underlip protruded a narrow red shelf her eyes were small with sandy tufts for eyebrows and her jowl was heavy behind her the window looked on Grovesner Square stood mall-pratt on the pavement offering violets for sale and Mrs. Hilda Thomas lifting her skirts preparing to cross the road one was from Walworth the other from Putney both wore black stockings but Mrs. Thomas was coiled in furs the comparison was much in Lady Roxbury's favor mall had more humor but was violent stupid too Hilda Thomas was mealy-mouthed all her silver frames a slant egg cups in the drawing room and the windows shrouded Lady Roxbury whatever the deficiencies of her profile had been a great rider to hounds she used her knife with authority tore her chicken bones asking Jacob's pardon with her own hands who is that driving by she asked Boxall the butler Lady Fertlmire's carriage my lady which reminded her to send a card to ask after Jacob's health a rude old lady Jacob thought the wine was excellent she called herself an old woman so kind a lunch with an old woman which flattered him she talked of Joseph Chamberlain whom she had known she said that Jacob must come and meet one of our celebrities and the lady Alice came in with three dogs on a leash and Jackie who ran to kiss his grandmother with a telegram and Jacob was given a good cigar a few moments before a horse jumps it slows sidles gathers itself together goes up like a monster wave and pitches down on the further side hedges and skies swoop in a semi-circle then as if your own body ran into the horse's body it was your own four legs grown with his that sprang the ground resilient bodies a mass of muscles yet you have command too upright stillness eyes accurately judging then the curves cease changing to downright hammer strokes which jar and you draw up with a jolt sitting back a little sparkling tingling glazed with ice over pounding arteries gasping ah ho ha steam going up from the horses as they jostle together at the crossroads where the signpost is and the woman in the apron stands and stares at the doorway the man raises himself from the cabbages to stare too so Jacob galloped over the fields of Essex flopped in the mud lost the hunt and rode by himself eating sandwiches looking over the hedges noticing the colors as if cursing his luck he had tea at the inn and there they all were slapping, stamping, saying after you clipped, curt, jacos red as the waddles of turkeys using free speech until Mrs. Horsefield and her friend Miss Dutting appeared at the doorway with their skirts hitched up and hair looping down then Tom Dutting wrapped at the window with his whip a motor car throbbed in the courtyard gentlemen, feeling for matches moved out and Jacob went into the bar with Brandy Jones to smoke with the rustics there was old Jebens with one eye gone and his clothes the color of mud his bag over his back and his brains laid feet down in earth among the violet roots and the nettle roots Mary Sanders with her box of wood all set for beer the half wooded son of the sexton all this within 30 miles of London Mrs. Papworth of Endle Street Covent Garden did for Mr. Bonomy in New Square, Lincoln's Inn and as she washed up the dinner things in the scullery she heard the young gentlemen talking in the room next door Mr. Sanders was there again Flanders she meant and where an inquisitive old woman gets a name wrong what chance is there that she will faithfully report an argument as she held the plates under water and then dealt them on the pile beneath the hissing gas she listened heard Sanders speak in a loud rather overbearing tone of voice good he said and absolute and justice and punishment and the will of the majority then her gentlemen piped up she backed him for argument against Sanders yet Sanders was a fine young fellow here all the scraps went swirling around the sink scoured after by her purple almost nailless hands women she thought and wondered what Sanders and her gentlemen did in that line one eyelid sinking perceptively as she mused for she was the mother of nine three stillborn and one deaf and dumb from birth the plates in the rack she heard once more Sanders at it again he don't give Bonomy a chance she thought objective something said Bonomy and common ground and something else all very long words she noted book learning does it she thought to herself and as she thrust her arms into her jacket heard something might be the little table by the fire fall stamp as if they were having at each other making the plates dance tomorrow's breakfast sir she said opening the door and there were Sanders and Bonomy driving each other up and down making such a racket and all of them chairs in the way they never noticed her she felt motherly towards them your breakfast sir she said and Bonomy all his hair tousled and his tie flying broke off and pushed Sanders into the armchair and said Mr. Sanders had smashed the coffee pot and he was teaching Mr. Sanders sure enough the coffee pot lay broken on the heart rug any day this week except Thursday wrote Miss Perry and this was not the first invitation by any means she was blank with the exception of Thursday and was her only desire to see her old friend son time is issued to spinster ladies of wealth in long white ribbons these they wind round and round round and round assisted by five female servants a butler a fine Mexican parrot regular meals Moody's library and friends dropping in to see that Jacob had not called your mother she said is one of my oldest friends Miss Rosseter who was sitting by the fire holding the spectator between her cheek and the blaze refused to have a fire screen but finally accepted one the weather was then discussed for indeference to parks who was opening little tables graver matters were postponed Miss Rosseter drew his attention to the beauty of the cabinet so wonderfully clever in picking things up she said Miss Perry had found it in Yorkshire the north of England was discussed when Jacob spoke they both listened Miss Perry was be thinking her of something suitable and manly to say when the door opened and Mr. Benson was announced now there were four people sitting in that room Miss Perry aged 66 Miss Rosseter 42 Mr. Benson 38 and Jacob 25 my old friend looks as well as ever said Mr. Benson tapping the bars of the parrot's cage Miss Rosseter simultaneously praised the tea Jacob handed the wrong plates and Miss Perry signified her desire to approach more closely your brothers she began vaguely Archer and John Jacob supplied her then to her pleasure she recovered Rebecca's name and how one day when you were all little boys playing in the drawing room but Miss Perry has the kettle holder said Miss Rosseter and indeed Miss Perry was clasping it to her breast had she then loved Jacob's father so clever not so good as usual I thought it most unfair said Mr. Benson and Miss Rosseter discussing the Saturday Westminster did they not compete regularly for prizes had not Mr. Benson three times one again and Miss Rosseter once ten and six pence of course ever Benson had a weak heart but still to win prizes remember parrots toady Miss Perry despise Miss Rosseter give tea parties in his rooms which were in the style of Whistler with pretty books on tables all this so Jacob felt without knowing him made him a contemptible ass as for Miss Rosseter she had nursed cancer and now painted watercolors running away so soon said Miss Perry vaguely at home every afternoon if you have nothing better to do except Thursdays I've never known you dessert ladies once Miss Rosseter was saying and Mr. Benson was stooping over the parrot's cage and Miss Perry was moving towards the bell the fire burnt clear between two pillars of greenish marble and on the mantelpiece there was a green clock guarded by Britannia leaning on her spear as for pictures a maiden in a large hat offered roses over the garden gate to a gentleman in 18th century costume a mastif lay extended against a battered door the lower panes of the windows were of ground glass and the curtains accurately looped were of plush and green too Lauret and Jacob sat with their toes in the fenders side by side in two large chairs covered in green plush Lauret's skirts were short her legs long thin and transparently covered her fingers stroked her ankles it's not exactly that I don't understand them she was saying thoughtfully I must go and try again what time will you be there said Jacob she shrugged her shoulders tomorrow? no, not tomorrow this weather makes me long for the country she said looking over her shoulder at the back view of tall houses through the window I wish she'd been with me on Saturday said Jacob she said she got up gracefully calmly she smiled at him as she shut the door he put so many shillings on the mantelpiece altogether a most reasonable conversation a most respectable room an intelligent girl only Madame herself seeing Jacob out had about her that leer that lewdness that quake of the surface visible in the eyes chiefly filled the whole bag of orger with difficulty held together over the pavement in short, something was wrong not so very long ago the workmen had guilt the final why in Lord Macaulay's name and this name stretched an unbroken file around the dome of the British Museum at a considerable depth beneath many hundreds of the living sat at the spokes of a cartwheel copying from printed books into manuscript books now and then rising to consult the catalog regaining their places stealthily while from time to time a silent man replenished their compartments there was a little catastrophe Miss Marchmont's pile overbalanced and fell into Jacob's compartment such things happened to Miss Marchmont what was she seeking through millions of pages in her old plush dress the wig of cleric colored hair with her gems and her chill veins sometimes one thing sometimes another to confirm her philosophy that color is sound or perhaps it has something to do with music she could never quite say though it was not for lack of trying and she could not ask you back to her room for it was not very clean I'm afraid so she must catch you in the passage or take a chair and hide park to explain her philosophy the rhythm of the soul depends on it how rude the little boys are she would say and Mr. Asquith's Irish policy and Shakespeare comes in and Queen Alexandra most graciously once acknowledged a copy of my pamphlet she would say waving the little boys magnificently away but she needs funds to publish her book for publishers are capitalists publishers are cowards and so digging her elbow into her pile of books it fell over Jacob remained quite unmoved but Fraser the atheist on the other side detesting plush more than once accosted with leaflets shifted irritably he abhorred vagueness the Christian religion for example and old Dean Parker's pronouncements Dean Parker wrote books Fraser utterly destroyed them by force of logic and left his children unbaptized his wife did it secretly in the washing basin but Fraser ignored her and went on supporting blasphemers distributing leaflets getting up his facts in the British Museum always in the same Czech suit and fury tie but pale spotted irritable indeed what a work to destroy religion Jacob transcribed a whole passage from Marlowe Miss Julia Hedge the feminist waited for her books they did not come she wedded her pen she looked about her her eye was caught by the final letters and Lord Macaulay's name and she read them all round the dome the names of great men which remind us oh damn said Julia Hedge why didn't they leave room for an Elliott Bronte unfortunate Julia wedding her pen in bitterness and leaving her shoelaces untied when her books came she applied herself to her gigantic labors but perceived through one of the nerves of her exasperated sensibility how composately unconcernedly and with every consideration the male readers applied themselves to theirs that young man for example had he got to do except copy out poetry and she must study statistics there are more women than men yes but if you let women work as men work they'll die off much quicker they'll become extinct that was her argument death and gall and bitter dust were on her pen tip and as the afternoon were on red had worked into her cheekbones and a light was in her eyes but what brought Jacob Flanders to read Marlowe in the British Museum youth youth something savage something pedantic for example there is Mr. Macefield there is Mr. Bennett stuff them into the flame of Marlowe and burn them to cinders but not a shred remain don't paltry with the second rate detest your own age build a better one and to set that on foot read incredibly dull essays upon Marlowe to your friends for which purpose one must collate editions in the British Museum one must do the thing oneself useless to trust to the Victorians who disembowel or to the living who are mere publicists the flesh and blood of the future depends entirely upon six young men and as Jacob was one of them no doubt he looked a little regal and pompous as he turned his page and Julia Hedge disliked him naturally enough but then of putting face man pushed a note towards Jacob and Jacob leaning back in his chair began an uneasy murmured conversation and they went off together Julia Hedge watched them and laughed aloud she thought directly they were in the hall nobody laughed in the reading room there were shirtings apologetic sneezes and sudden unashamed devastating coughs the lesson hour was almost over ushers were collecting exercises lazy children wanted to stretch good ones scribbled assiduously ah another day over and so little done and now and then was to be heard from the whole collection of human beings a heavy sigh after which the humiliating old man would cough shamelessly and Miss Marchmont hinnied like a horse Jacob came back only in time to return his books the books were now replaced a few letters of the alphabet were sprinkled round the dome closely stood together in a ring round the dome were Plato Aristotle Sophocles and Shakespeare the literature of Rome Greece was pressed flat against another leaf one burnish letter laid smooth against another in a density of meaning a conglomeration of loveliness one does want one's tea said Miss Marchmont reclaiming her shabby umbrella Miss Marchmont wanted her tea but could never resist a last look at the Elgin marbles she looked at them sideways waving her hand and muttering a word or two of salutation which made Jacob and the other man turn round she smiled at them amably it all came into her philosophy that color is sound or perhaps it has something to do with music and having done her service she hobbled off to tea it was closing time the public collected in the hall to receive their umbrellas for the most part the students wait their turn very patiently to stand and wait while someone examines the white discs is soothing the umbrella will certainly be found but the fact leads to on all day through Macaulay, Hobbes, Gibbon through Octavos, Quartos, Folios sinks deeper and deeper through ivory pages and Morocco bindings into this density of thought this conglomeration of knowledge Jacob's walking stick was like all the others they had muddled the pigeonholes perhaps there is in the British Museum an enormous mind consider that Plato is there cheek by jowl with Aristotle and Shakespeare with Marlow this great mind is hoarded beyond the power of any single mind to possess it nevertheless as they take so long finding one's walking stick one can't help thinking how one might come with a notebook sit at a desk and read it a learned man is the most venerable of all a man like Huxtable of Trinity who writes all his letters in Greek they say and could have kept his end up with Bentley and then there is science pictures, architecture an enormous mind they push the walking stick across the counter Jacob stood beneath the porch of the British Museum it was raining Great Russell Street was glazed and shining here yellow here outside the chemists red and pale blue people scuttled quickly close to the wall carriage is rattled rather helter skelter down the streets well but a little rain hurts nobody Jacob walked off much as if he had been in the country and late that night there he was sitting at his table with his pipe and his book the rain poured down the British Museum stood in one solid mound very pale, very sleek in the rain not a quarter of a mile from him the vast mind was sheeted with stone and each compartment in the depths of it was safe and dry the night watchmen flashing their lanterns over the backs of Plato and Shakespeare saw that on the 22nd of February, neither flame rat nor burglar was going to violate these treasures poor, highly respectable men with wives and families at Cuntish Town do their best for 20 years to protect Plato and Shakespeare and then are buried at Highgate stone lie solid over the British Museum as bone lies cool over the visions and heat of the brain only here the brain is Plato's brain and Shakespeare's the brain has made pots and statues great bowls and little jewels and crossed the river of death this way and that incessantly seeking some landing now wrapping the body well for its long sleep now laying a penny piece on the eyes now turning the toes scrupulously to the east meanwhile, Plato continues his dialogue in spite of the rain in spite of the cob whistles in spite of the woman in the muse behind Great Ormond Street and cries all night long let me in let me in in the street below Jacob's room voices were raised but he read on for after all Plato continues imperturbally and Hamlet utters his soliloquy and there the Elgin marvels lie all night long old Jones' lanterns sometimes recalling Ulysses or a horse's head or sometimes a flash of gold and the homies sunk yellow cheek Plato and Shakespeare continue and Jacob, who was reading the Fadris heard people vociferating around the lamppost and the woman battering at the door and crying let me in as if a coal had dropped from the fire or a fly falling from the ceiling had lain on its back two weeks to turn over the Fadris is very difficult and so when at length he reads straight ahead falling into step marching on becoming so it seems momentarily part of this rolling imperturbable energy which has driven darkness before it since Plato walked the Apropolis it is impossible to see to the fire the dialogue draws to its close Plato's argument is done Plato's argument is stowed away in Jacob's mind and for five minutes Jacob's mind continues alone onwards into the darkness then getting up he parted the curtains and saw with astonishing clearness how the spring gets opposite had gone to bed how it rained how the Jews and the foreign woman at the end of the street stood by the pillar box arguing every time the door opened and fresh people came in slightly those who were standing looked over their shoulders those who were sitting stopped in the middle of sentences what with the light the wine the strumming of a guitar something exciting happened each time the door opened who was coming in that's Gibson the painter but go on with what you were saying they were saying something that was far far too intimate to be said outright but the noise of the voices served like a clapper in little Mrs. Wither's mind scaring into the air blocks of small birds and then they'd settle and then she'd feel afraid put one hand to her hair bind both around her knees and look up at Oliver Skelton nervously and say promise, promise you'll tell no one so considerate he was so tender it was her husband's character that she discussed he was cold she said down upon them came the splendid Magdalene brown voluminous scarcely brushing the grass with her sandaled feet her hair flew pins seemed scarcely to attach the flying silks an actress of course a line of light perpetually beneath her it was only my dear she said but her voice went yodeling between alpine passes and down she tumbled on the floor and sang since there was nothing to be said round oz and oz mangan the poet coming up to her stood looking down at her drawing at his pipe the dancing began gray-haired Mrs. Keemer asked Dick Graves to tell her who mangan was he had seen too much of this sort of thing in Paris Magdalene had gotten upon his knees now his pipe was in her mouth to be shocked who is that she said staying her glasses when they came to Jacob for indeed he looked quiet not indifferent but like someone on a beach watching oh my dear let me lean on you gasped Helen asked you hopping on one foot her ankle had worked loose Mrs. Keemer turned and looked at the picture on the wall look at Jacob said Helen they were binding his eyes for some game and Dick Graves being a little drunk very faithful and very simple-minded told her that he thought Jacob the greatest man he had ever known and down they sat cross-legged upon cushions and talked about Jacob and Helen's voice trembled both seemed heroes to her and the friendship between them so much more beautiful than women's friendships Anthony Pollitt now asked her to dance and as she danced she looked at them over her shoulder standing at the table drinking together the magnificent world the live saying vigorous world these words refer to the stretch of wood pavement between Hammersmith and Holburn between 2 and 3 in the morning that was the ground beneath Jacob's feet it was healthy and magnificent because one room above a muse somewhere near the river contained 50 excited talkative friendly people and then destroyed over the pavement there was scarcely a cab or policeman in sight is of itself exhilarating the long loop of Piccadilly it shows to best advantage when it is empty a young man has nothing to fear on the contrary though he may not have said anything brilliant he feels pretty confident he can hold his own he was pleased to have met mangan he admired the young woman on the floor he liked them all he liked that sort of thing in short all the drums and trumpets were sounding street scavengers were the only people about at the moment it is scarcely necessary to say how well disposed Jacob felt towards them how it pleased him to let himself in with his latch key at his own door how he seemed to bring back with him into the empty room 10 or 11 people whom he had not known when he set out how he looked about for something to read and found it and never read it how he fell asleep indeed drums and trumpets is no phrase indeed Piccadilly and Holborn and the empty sitting room and the sitting room with 50 people in it are liable at any moment to blow music into the air women perhaps are more excitable than men it is seldom that anyone says anything about it and to see the hordes crossing Waterloo Bridge to catch the non-stop to Serbaton no, no it is the drums and trumpets only should you turn aside into one of those little bays on Waterloo Bridge to think the matter over it will probably seem to you all a muddle all a mystery they cross the bridge incessantly sometimes in the midst of carts and omnibuses a lorry will appear with great forest trees chained to it then perhaps a mason's van with newly-lettered tombstones recording how someone loved someone who is buried at Putney then the motor car in front jerks forward and the tombstones pass too quick for you to read more all the time the stream of people never ceases passing from the Surrey side to the Strand from the Strand to the Surrey side it seems as if the poor had gone raiding the town and now traipsed back to their own quarters like beetles scurrying to their holes for that old woman fairly hobbles towards Waterloo grasping a shiny bag as if she had been out into the light and now made off with some scraped chicken bones to her hobble underground on the other hand though the wind is rough and blowing in their faces those girls there striding hand in hand shouting at a song seem to feel neither cold nor shame they are hatless they triumph the wind has blown up the waves the river races beneath us and the men standing on the barges have to lean all their weight on the tiller a black tarpaulin is tied down over a swelling load of gold avalanches of coal glitter blackly as usual painters are slung on planks across the great Riverside hotels and the hotel windows have already got points of light in them on the other side the city is white as if with age St. Paul's swells white above the fretted, pointed or oblong buildings beside it the cross alone shines rosy gilt but what century have we reached has this procession from the Surrey side to the Strand gone on forever that old man has been crossing the bridge these six hundred years with the rabble of little boys his heels for he is drunk or blind with misery and tied around with old clout of clothing such as pilgrims might have worn he shuffles on no one stands still it seems as if we march to the sound of music perhaps the wind and the river perhaps these same drums and trumpets the ecstasy and hubbub of the soul why even the unhappy laugh far from judging the drunk man surveys him humorously and the little boys scamper back again and the clerk from Somerset House has nothing but tolerance for him and the man who is reading half a page of Lothair at the bookstore muses charitably with his eyes off the print and the girl hesitates at the crossing and turns on him the bright yet vague glance of the young bright yet vague she is perhaps twenty-two she is shabby she crosses the road and looks at the daffodils and the red tulips in the florist's window she hesitates and makes off in the direction of Temple Bar she walks fast and yet anything distracts her now she seems to see and now to notice nothing nothing End of Chapter 9 Reading by Liz Morant Liz Morant at gmail.com