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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
135
It
was
impossible
for
her
to
give
her
entertainment
in
full.
Some
of
her
tricks
(notably
the
Secret
Aquarium,
and
the
Blazing
Ball
of
Worsted)
needed
special
preparation,
and
a
table
fitted
with
a
“servante”
or
secret
tray.
The
table
for
to-night’s
performance
was
an
ordinary
one,
brought
out
from
the
porter’s
lodge.
The
MacQuern
deposited
on
it
the
great
casket.
Zuleika,
retaining
him
as
her
assistant,
picked
nimbly
out
from
their
places
and
put
in
array
the
curious
appurtenances
of
her
art--the
Magic
Canister,
the
Demon
Egg-Cup,
and
the
sundry
other
vessels
which,
lost
property
of
young
Edward
Gibbs,
had
been
by
a
Romanoff
transmuted
from
wood
to
gold,
and
were
now
by
the
moon
reduced
temporarily
to
silver.
In
a
great
dense
semicircle
the
young
men
disposed
themselves
around
her.
Those
who
were
in
front
squatted
down
on
the
gravel;
those
who
were
behind
knelt;
the
rest
stood.
Young
Oxford!
Here,
in
this
mass
of
boyish
faces,
all
fused
and
obliterated,
was
the
realisation
of
that
phrase.
Two
or
three
thousands
of
human
bodies,
human
souls?
Yet
the
effect
of
them
in
the
moonlight
was
as
of
one
great
passive
monster.
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