Jacob’s Room. Вирджиния Вулф

stations, and, above all, the white sand bays with the waves breaking unseen by anyone, rose to heaven in a kind of ecstasy.

      But imperceptibly the cottage smoke droops, has the look of a mourning emblem, a flag floating its caress over a grave. The gulls, making their broad flight and then riding at peace, seem to mark the grave.

      No doubt if this were Italy, Greece, or even the shores of Spain, sadness would be routed by strangeness and excitement and the nudge of a classical education. But the Cornish hills have stark chimneys standing on them; and, somehow or other, loveliness is infernally sad. Yes, the chimneys and the coast-guard stations and the little bays with the waves breaking unseen by anyone make one remember the overpowering sorrow. And what can this sorrow be?

      It is brewed by the earth itself. It comes from the houses on the coast. We start transparent, and then the cloud thickens. All history backs our pane of glass. To escape is vain.

      But whether this is the right interpretation of Jacob’s gloom as he sat naked, in the sun, looking at the Land’s End, it is impossible to say; for he never spoke a word. Timmy sometimes wondered (only for a second) whether his people bothered him. … No matter. There are things that can’t be said. Let’s shake it off. Let’s dry ourselves, and take up the first thing that comes handy. … Timmy Durrant’s notebook of scientific observations.

      “Now …” said Jacob.

      It is a tremendous argument.

      Some people can follow every step of the way, and even take a little one, six inches long, by themselves at the end; others remain observant of the external signs.

      The eyes fix themselves upon the poker; the right hand takes the poker and lifts it; turns it slowly round, and then, very accurately, replaces it. The left hand, which lies on the knee, plays some stately but intermittent piece of march music. A deep breath is taken; but allowed to evaporate unused. The cat marches across the hearth-rug. No one observes her.

      “That’s about as near as I can get to it,” Durrant wound up.

      The next minute is quiet as the grave.

      “It follows …” said Jacob.

      Only half a sentence followed; but these half-sentences are like flags set on tops of buildings to the observer of external sights down below. What was the coast of Cornwall, with its violet scents, and mourning emblems, and tranquil piety, but a screen happening to hang straight behind as his mind marched up?

      “It follows …” said Jacob.

      “Yes,” said Timmy, after reflection. “That is so.”

      Now Jacob began plunging about, half to stretch himself, half in a kind of jollity, no doubt, for the strangest sound issued from his lips as he furled the sail, rubbed the plates—gruff, tuneless—a sort of pasan, for having grasped the argument, for being master of the situation, sunburnt, unshaven, capable into the bargain of sailing round the world in a ten-ton yacht, which, very likely, he would do one of these days instead of settling down in a lawyer’s office, and wearing spats.

      “Our friend Masham,” said Timmy Durrant, “would rather not be seen in our company as we are now.” His buttons had come off.

      “D’you know Masham’s aunt?” said Jacob.

      “Never knew he had one,” said Timmy.

      “Masham has millions of aunts,” said Jacob.

      “Masham is mentioned in Domesday Book,” said Timmy.

      “So are his aunts,” said Jacob.

      “His sister,” said Timmy, “is a very pretty girl.”

      “That’s what’ll happen to you, Timmy,” said Jacob.

      “It’ll happen to you first,” said Timmy.

      “But this woman I was telling you about—Masham’s aunt—”

      “Oh, do get on,” said Timmy, for Jacob was laughing so much that he could not speak.

      “Masham’s aunt …”

      Timmy laughed so much that he could not speak.

      “Masham’s aunt …”

      “What is there about Masham that makes one laugh?” said Timmy.

      “Hang it all—a man who swallows his tie-pin,” said Jacob.

      “Lord Chancellor before he’s fifty,” said Timmy.

      “He’s a gentleman,” said Jacob.

      “The Duke of Wellington was a gentleman,” said Timmy.

      “Keats wasn’t.”

      “Lord Salisbury was.”

      “And what about God?” said Jacob.

      The Scilly Isles now appeared as if directly pointed at by a golden finger issuing from a cloud; and everybody knows how portentous that sight is, and how these broad rays, whether they light upon the Scilly Isles or upon the tombs of crusaders in cathedrals, always shake the very foundations of scepticism and lead to jokes about God.

      “Abide with me:

      Fast falls the eventide;

      The shadows deepen;

      Lord, with me abide,”

      sang Timmy Durrant.

      “At my place we used to have a hymn which began

      Great God, what do I see and hear?”

      said Jacob.

      Gulls rode gently swaying in little companies of two or three quite near the boat; the cormorant, as if following his long strained neck in eternal pursuit, skimmed an inch above the water to the next rock; and the drone of the tide in the caves came across the water, low, monotonous, like the voice of someone talking to himself.

      “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

      Let me hide myself in thee,”

      sang Jacob.

      Like the blunt tooth of some monster, a rock broke the surface; brown; overflown with perpetual waterfalls.

      “Rock of Ages,”

      Jacob sang, lying on his back, looking up into the sky at midday, from which every shred of cloud had been withdrawn, so that it was like something permanently displayed with the cover off.