Duchess And The Jeweller

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Summary of the Duchess and the Jeweller The Duchess and the Jeweller is a short story written by Virginia Woolf. Set in London, England. The narrative told by the main character, Oliver Bacon, who is the richest jeweller in England. First, the reader introduced to his wealth. He lives in the best place in England, wore the best dress, and own the best furniture. Now and then he would flash back to his past as a young boy who live at slum, selling stolen dogs to a fashionable women in whitechapel. On a wall in his private room hangs a picture of his late mother, which he frequently talks to, once chuckling at his past endeavors. The reader then would know that despite everything he owns, despite all his wealth and property, he never feel satisfied. He regrets his appearance; his elephant-like nose, and his camel-like way of walk. One day, Oliver enters to his private room in his shop, he makes The Duchess of Lambourne wait for ten minutes while he adoring his gems. He is so content on making the Duchess wait. The Duchess' entrance is so striking, “she loomed up, filling the door, filling the room with the aroma, the prestige, the arrogance, the pomp, the pride of all the Dukes and Duchesses swollen in one wave […] covering him with sparkling bright colours, green, rose, violet; and odours; and iridescences; and rays shooting from fingers, nodding from plumes, flashing from silk; for she was very large, very fat, tightly girt in pink taffeta, and past her prime. As a parasol with many flounces, as a peacock with many feathers, shuts its flounces, folds its feathers.” The Duchess and the Jeweller are described as "... friends, yet enemies; he was master, she was mistress; each cheated the other, each needed the other, each feared the other..." They shake hands, and the duchess explains that she want to sell ten pearls that she said “From the Appleby cincture,
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