"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; never a word was said. Her pillow was wet with tears.
Kind Mr. Bowley and dear Rose Shaw marvelled and deplored. Bowley had
rooms in the Albany. Rose was re-born 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 with 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 couchant at twenty 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. For
my own part, I find it exceedingly difficult to interpret songs without
words. And now Jimmy feeds crows in Flanders and Helen visits hospitals.
Oh, life is damnable, life is wicked, as Rose Shaw said."

Jacob's Room : Virginia Woolf (1922)
FULL TEXT

[first edition cover via mantex]