Zuleika Dobson Or, An Oxford Love Story

  Produced by Judy Boss

  ZULEIKA DOBSON

  or, AN OXFORD LOVE STORY

  By Max Beerbohm

  NOTE to the 1922 edition

  I was in Italy when this book was first published. A year later (1912) I visited London, and I found that most of my friends and acquaintances spoke to me of Zu-like-a--a name which I hardly recognised and thoroughly disapproved. I had always thought of the lady as Zu-leek-a. Surely it was thus that Joseph thought of his Wife, and Selim of his Bride? And I do hope that it is thus that any reader of these pages will think of Miss Dobson.

  M.B. Rapallo, 1922.

  ILLI ALMAE MATRI

  ZULEIKA DOBSON

  I

  That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxfordstation and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures intweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idlyup the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine,they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stoodon, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls of that antiquestation, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper tothe tourist the last enchantments of the Middle Age.

  At the door of the first-class waiting-room, aloof and venerable, stoodthe Warden of Judas. An ebon pillar of tradition seemed he, in his garbof old-fashioned cleric. Aloft, between the wide brim of his silk hatand the white extent of his shirt-front, appeared those eyes whichhawks, that nose which eagles, had often envied. He supported his yearson an ebon stick. He alone was worthy of the background.

  Came a whistle from the distance. The breast of an engine was descried,and a long train curving after it, under a flight of smoke. It grewand grew. Louder and louder, its noise foreran it. It became a furious,enormous monster, and, with an instinct for safety, all men recededfrom the platform's margin. (Yet came there with it, unknown to them,a danger far more terrible than itself.) Into the station it cameblustering, with cloud and clangour. Ere it had yet stopped, the door ofone carriage flew open, and from it, in a white travelling dress, in atoque a-twinkle with fine diamonds, a lithe and radiant creature slippednimbly down to the platform.

  A cynosure indeed! A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as manyhearts lost to her. The Warden of Judas himself had mounted on his nosea pair of black-rimmed glasses. Him espying, the nymph darted in hisdirection. The throng made way for her. She was at his side.

  "Grandpapa!" she cried, and kissed the old man on either cheek. (Not ayouth there but would have bartered fifty years of his future for thatsalute.)

  "My dear Zuleika," he said, "welcome to Oxford! Have you no luggage?"

  "Heaps!" she answered. "And a maid who will find it."

  "Then," said the Warden, "let us drive straight to College." He offeredher his arm, and they proceeded slowly to the entrance. She chattedgaily, blushing not in the long avenue of eyes she passed through. Allthe youths, under her spell, were now quite oblivious of the relativesthey had come to meet. Parents, sisters, cousins, ran unclaimed aboutthe platform. Undutiful, all the youths were forming a serried suite totheir enchantress. In silence they followed her. They saw her leap intothe Warden's landau, they saw the Warden seat himself upon her left. Norwas it until the landau was lost to sight that they turned--how slowly,and with how bad a grace!--to look for their relatives.

  Through those slums which connect Oxford with the world, the landaurolled on towards Judas. Not many youths occurred, for nearly all--itwas the Monday of Eights Week--were down by the river, cheering thecrews. There did, however, come spurring by, on a polo-pony, a verysplendid youth. His straw hat was encircled with a riband of blue andwhite, and he raised it to the Warden.

  "That," said the Warden, "is the Duke of Dorset, a member of my College.He dines at my table to-night."

  Zuleika, turning to regard his Grace, saw that he had not reined in andwas not even glancing back at her over his shoulder. She gave a littlestart of dismay, but scarcely had her lips pouted ere they curved to asmile--a smile with no malice in its corners.

  As the landau rolled into "the Corn," another youth--a pedestrian, andvery different--saluted the Warden. He wore a black jacket, rusty andamorphous. His trousers were too short, and he himself was too short:almost a dwarf. His face was as plain as his gait was undistinguished.He squinted behind spectacles.

  "And who is that?" asked Zuleika.

  A deep flush overspread the cheek of the Warden. "That," he said, "isalso a member of Judas. His name, I believe, is Noaks."

  "Is he dining with us to-night?" asked Zuleika.

  "Certainly not," said the Warden. "Most decidedly not."

  Noaks, unlike the Duke, had stopped for an ardent retrospect. He gazedtill the landau was out of his short sight; then, sighing, resumed hissolitary walk.

  The landau was rolling into "the Broad," over that ground which had onceblackened under the fagots lit for Latimer and Ridley. It rolled pastthe portals of Balliol and of Trinity, past the Ashmolean. From thosepedestals which intersperse the railing of the Sheldonian, the highgrim busts of the Roman Emperors stared down at the fair stranger inthe equipage. Zuleika returned their stare with but a casual glance. Theinanimate had little charm for her.

  A moment later, a certain old don emerged from Blackwell's, where he hadbeen buying books. Looking across the road, he saw, to his amazement,great beads of perspiration glistening on the brows of those Emperors.He trembled, and hurried away. That evening, in Common Room, he toldwhat he had seen; and no amount of polite scepticism would convince himthat it was but the hallucination of one who had been reading too muchMommsen. He persisted that he had seen what he described. It was notuntil two days had elapsed that some credence was accorded him.

  Yes, as the landau rolled by, sweat started from the brows of theEmperors. They, at least, foresaw the peril that was overhanging Oxford,and they gave such warning as they could. Let that be remembered totheir credit. Let that incline us to think more gently of them. In theirlives we know, they were infamous, some of them--"nihil non commiseruntstupri, saevitiae, impietatis." But are they too little punished, afterall? Here in Oxford, exposed eternally and inexorably to heat and frost,to the four winds that lash them and the rains that wear them away, theyare expiating, in effigy, the abominations of their pride and crueltyand lust. Who were lechers, they are without bodies; who were tyrants,they are crowned never but with crowns of snow; who made themselves evenwith the gods, they are by American visitors frequently mistaken forthe Twelve Apostles. It is but a little way down the road that the twoBishops perished for their faith, and even now we do never pass the spotwithout a tear for them. Yet how quickly they died in the flames! Tothese Emperors, for whom none weeps, time will give no surcease. Surely,it is sign of some grace in them that they rejoiced not, this brightafternoon, in the evil that was to befall the city of their penance.