Jacob sitting at his table with his pipe, his book, reading a dialogue of Plato's. It draws to an end, stowed in Jacob's mind.
Or, Jacob in a room, above a mews, somewhere near the river, between two and three in the morning, watching fifty excited people; then striding home exhilarated to let himself in with his latch-key at his own door; and so bring into his empty room ten or eleven people he had not known before. So to bed.
A new day. Jacob engaged upon a chess problem, the board on a stool between his knees: which to move from their square – the white queen, the white knight, perhaps the bishop?
And now Jacob is in Leicester Square, being casually introduced by Nick Bramham the painter to Fanny Elmer his model. Very awkward was Jacob; said little but the little he said – Fanny thought – was firm. She fell in love.
Here Jacob goes abroad – to Paris. Where in the company of two painter men and a Miss Carslake from Devonshire he has scraps of conversation concerning art, or London's pigeons; and joins them on an outing to Versailles. His letters to Mrs. Flanders, near Scarborough, England, told none of this. Paris, a very gay time.
Now to Italy, a train journey, seen through Jacob's eyes: striped tulips growing; a motor car packed with Italian soldiers; trees laced together with vines – as Virgil described. Here a station, women in high yellow boots and pale boys in ringed socks. There sharp-winged hawks, flying, circling, diving over roofs. Peaks covered with sharp trees; white villages crowded on ledges; a whole hillside ruled with olive trees and red-frilled villas. A scenic landscape; all seen from a damnably hot carriage with the afternoon sun beating full upon it.
In Greece, Jacob got lost in back streets; read advertisements of corsets; and wondered why he wasn't in Rome. Jacob was a picture of boredom, of gloom. He wrote to his mother; to Bonamy; told Betty Flanders nothing she wanted to know, and made Bonamy sigh as he laid aside the thin sheets of notepaper.
On the way to Olympia Jacob sees Greek peasant women among the vines, old Greek men sipping sweet wine; sharp bare hills and between them blue sea. Out of England, on one's own.
An English boy on tour, leaving his hotel at five (in the morning) to climb the mountain; breakfasting early to look at statues; walking up Greek hills at midday. A young man in a grey check suit invited by other hotel guests – the Williamses (Evan, Sandra) – to “come to Corinth, Flanders!” Jacob accepted and went; to be surprised by Mrs. Williams' direct manner and dress: she wore breeches under her short skirts.
The Williamses had been to Athens, Jacob went all the same. It struck him as both suburban and immortal; continental and rustic. The yellow columns of the Parthenon – all silent composure – could be seen at all hours. More statues, more landmarks, pestered by native guides. At sunset – the sky pink feathered – the ships in the Piraeus fire their guns; women and children troop back to homes. Jacob morose; he seldom thought of Plato or Socrates; but was drawn to the architecture; although more consumed with his love for Sandra Wentworth Williams.
He climbed Pentelicus; he went up the Acropolis; he sat overlooking Marathon thinking about politics; he watched French ladies below opening and shutting their umbrellas – rain or fine weather? Damn these women! They spoil everything, Jacob thought.
Picture credit: Poppy, P R Francis
See
Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf.
Written February
2022.
