The Duchess and the Jeweller ~ Virginia Woolf

In this article, we will discuss one of the most interesting short stories by Virginia Woolf which is The Duchess and the Jeweller

The Duchess and the Jeweller

Virginia Woolf

  • Birth - 25 January 1882
  • Death - 28 March 1941
  • An English modernist writer
  • Use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
  • Famous Works - Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own.

The Duchess & The jeweller

  1. Published in 1938
  2. Stream of consciousness
  3. Theme - corruption and selfishness

A brief summary of "The Duchess and Jewellery


  1. Oliver Bacon lived at the top of a house overlooking the green park.

  2. He had a well-furnished house. He had a feel at chairs fitted out at the right angles, chairs Covered in the hide.

  3. Sofas filled the bays of the windows sofa was covered, in a tapestry

  4. The windows had the proper allowance of discreet neet and figured satin. There were three long windows. The Mahogany sideboard belonged to whiskies and liquor.

  5. And from the window, he looked down upon the glossy roofies of the fashionable cars in the narrow straits of Piccadilly.

  6. He had his breakfast at eight in the morning. It was brought by a servant on a tray. The servant would unfold his crimson dressing gown. He would rip his letters open. He would extract thick white invitation cards.

  7. These cards were from duchesses, Countesses, viscountesses, and honorable ladies. Then he would wash, read and eat by the brightly burning fire of electric coals.

  8. Then Oliver goes back to his childhood days. He said, "Behold Oliver..., that he had begun his life in a filthy alley.

  9. Then coming back to his present, he looked down at his legs, his shapely trousers. His clothes were made with the best scissors in Savile row.

  10. But often he dismantled himself and became the little boy in the dark alley. Once his ambition was selling Stolen dogs to fashionable women in Whitechapel. He recalled how his mother was led. How she used to tell him, "oh Oliver when will you have sense, my son!

  11. On this memory, he would chuckle, as how the old Oliver, remembered the young He recalled. He had done well with the three diamonds. He had the commission, the emerald also.

  12. He recalled how he went into the private room, behind the shop in Hatton Garden. He recalled the room with the scale and the thick magnifying glasses.

  13. He recalled how he passed through the knots of jewellers in the hot evenings, How they discussed prices, gold mines, diamonds, and reports from South Africa.

  14. He remembered how they lay a finger to the side of his nose and murmured, "Hum-m-m! Though there was nothing as such today, but Oliver still felt purring down the spire, the nudge, the murmur meant "Look at him young Oliver, the young jeweller - there he goes"

  15. Then he was young, his dress, his ways, and his fortune became better and better, he had a cab then a car,  and he had a villa at Richmond, overlooking the river. It had the trellises of a red horse.

  16. Mademoiselle was wired to pick one every morning and stick in his buttonhole.

  17. Then he stood beneath the picture of an old lady on the mantelpiece. Addressing the old lady in the picture, folding his palms said, "I have kept my word" It seemed he was doing homage to her.

  18. He had won the bet. Today he was the richest jeweller in England, but his nose which was long and like an elephant trunk quivered.

  19. The quivering of his nose seemed to say he was not satisfied yet. He wanted something more. The writer compared this thirst for more to a giant hog. The giant hog digs the earth for his truffle. But then again unearths as he smells a bigger truffle further.

  20. In the same way, Oliver always snuffed another black truffle in the rich earth of Mayfair. Then he straightened the pearl of his ring and put his gloves on. He swayed as he descended the stairs and passed out Piccadilly. 

  21. He was still a sad man, a dissatisfied man, seeking something that is hidden, even after she had won the bed. 

  22. Further, the writer Virginia Woolf compared him to a camel, who walked along the asphalt path. This path was Laden with groceries. Their wives ate from the paper bag and threw it on the path.

  23. The camel despises the grocers. It is dissatisfied. The camel sees the blue Lake and the fringe of palm leaves in front of it in the same way Olive the richest jeweller was dissatisfied. He walked down the Piccadilly streets till he reached the famous dark little shop in Germany, France, Austria Italy & all over America.

  24. He strode through the shop without speaking to anyone. He went through the four men - Marshall and Spencer, and Hammond & Wicks.

  25. They all envied him. It was with one finger he acknowledged him. Then he went to his room.

  26. He unlocked the grating that barred the window. The cries of the street come in and the purr of the distant traffic. 

  27. The trees waved six leaves as it was June.

  28. Mademoiselle had married Mr. Peddar of the local brewery, so now no one stuck roses in his buttonhole.

  29. Then he opened the steel safely, one after another. There was the pad of deep crimson velvet, and in each lay jewels, bracelets, necklaces, rings, tiaras, rubies, emeralds, & pearls. All were safely shining cool. Yet burning eternally with their own compressed light.

  30. Looking at the pearls, he said, 'pearls'.

  31. Looking at the rubies, he said, 'heart blood'.

  32. He continued, saying, 'gunpowder', rattling the diamond so that it flashed blazed.

  33. He head back and made a sound like a horse neighing. Then the telephone buzzed obsequiously in a low muted voice then he shut the safe. He decided not to pick up the phone for 10 minutes

  34. Oliver again dismantled himself and became once more the little boy playing marbles in the alley. He used to sell stolen dogs on Sundays. Again he became the wily astute little boy.

  35. He dabbled his fingers in rope tripe. Heidi Dodged in and out of the crowd.

  36. The Duchess of Lambourne waited for him. But he would not pick up the phone before 10 minutes. The Duchess of Lambourne waiting for him, and 10 minutes passed.

  37. He hard soft slow footstep Mr. Hammond announced that 'her grace' had come Oliver could hear the rustle of her dress down the passage.

  38. She was large, very fat, and passed her prime. As a parasol with many flounces, as a peacock with many feathers, shuts its flounces, folds its feathers, so she shut herself as she sank down in the leather armchair.

  39. Virginia Woolf says that as a wave broke. As she sat down, her brightness fell over Bacon, covering him with various colors, green rose, and violet.

  40. The rays and the iridescences were shooting from her finger, from the plumes, from the silk. She greeted Oliver and held out her hand through the shit of her gloves.

  41. Oliver bent low as he shook her hand.

  42. The writer says they are friends yet enemies. Both were cheating on each other.

  43. Oliver politely asked her what he could do for her.

  44. The Duchess looks out from her bag, a long washed leather pouch. It looked like a lean yellow ferret.

  45. And from it, she dropped ten pearls Virginia Woolf says the pearls rolled down the slopes of the vast mountainsides. It seemed Says the writer, there they lay in the glows of the peach blossom taffeta.

  46. This was the last from the Appleby cincture, she told Oliver. Oliver looks at the pearls. He suspected if the pearls were real or fake. 

  47. She also told Oliver that the Duke, her husband, should not know about all these. She called the Duke a 'poker'.

  48. She said all these pearls were for her daughters Acaminta, Daphne, and Diana. She told him that he knew all her secrets. Tears rolled down from her cheeks.

  49. She asked Twenty thousand for the pearls. but Oliver suspected that they were real.

  50. He stretched his hands to ring the bell and call Spenser or Hammond. He wanted to get the pearls checked.

  51. But he drew back his hand as the Duchess invited him to her place. That Diana would also be there. "Oliver took his hand off the bell' Hearing shout Diana, Oliver could not test it. He drew his checkbook.

  52. But the woman in the picture warned him. It seemed she was telling Oliver to have sense, not to be a fool.

  53. Oliver hesitated. But the Duchess pleaded again. She was again inviting. him for his weakened stay. That he would be "Alone with Diana in the woods. Riding alone in the woods with Diana "

  54. Now he overlooked the warning of his mother, framed in the picture. He gave the Duchess the cheque.

  55. As she rose from the chair the flounces of the parasol, the plumes of the peacock and the radiance of the wave opened describe the writer.

  56. The young men Spencer, Marshall, Wicks, and Hammand envied him.

  57. He took the Duchess down the corridor. She holds the cheque firmly in her hand. Coming back to his room again, he doubts if the pearls were real. 

  58. Virginia Woolf says, "this is as the truffle, he routed the earth! Rotten at the center - rotten at the Core!"

  59. Raising his handle to the old woman in the picture, he asked for forgiveness. 

  60. He had again become the little boy in the alley.

  61. Laying his palms together, he murmured that, 'it was to be a long weekend'.


Click here for The Basement Room ~ Graham Greene
Short story by 
Somerset Maugham



Post a Comment

0 Comments