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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
89
Not
in
a
day
can
the
traditions
of
Oxford
be
sent
spinning.
From
all
the
barges
the
usual
punt-loads
of
young
men
were
being
ferried
across
to
the
towing-path--young
men
naked
of
knee,
armed
with
rattles,
post-horns,
motor-hooters,
gongs,
and
other
instruments
of
clangour.
Though
Zuleika
filled
their
thoughts,
they
hurried
along
the
towing-path,
as
by
custom,
to
the
starting-point.
She,
meanwhile,
had
not
taken
her
eyes
off
the
Duke’s
profile.
Nor
had
she
dared,
for
fear
of
disappointment,
to
ask
him
just
what
he
had
meant.
“All
these
men,”
he
repeated
dreamily,
“will
be
coy
of
your
advances.”
It
seemed
to
him
a
good
thing
that
his
death,
his
awful
example,
would
disinfatuate
his
fellow
alumni.
He
had
never
been
conscious
of
public
spirit.
He
had
lived
for
himself
alone.
Love
had
come
to
him
yesternight,
and
to-day
had
waked
in
him
a
sympathy
with
mankind.
It
was
a
fine
thing
to
be
a
saviour.
It
was
splendid
to
be
human.
He
looked
quickly
round
to
her
who
had
wrought
this
change
in
him.
But
the
loveliest
face
in
all
the
world
will
not
please
you
if
you
see
it
suddenly,
eye
to
eye,
at
a
distance
of
half
an
inch
from
your
own.
It
was
thus
that
the
Duke
saw
Zuleika’s:
a
monstrous
deliquium
a-glare.
Only
for
the
fraction
of
an
instant,
though.
Recoiling,
he
beheld
the
loveliness
that
he
knew--more
adorably
vivid
now
in
its
look
of
eager
questioning.
And
in
his
every
fibre
he
thrilled
to
her.
Even
so
had
she
gazed
at
him
last
night,
this
morning.
Aye,
now
as
then,
her
soul
was
full
of
him.
He
had
recaptured,
not
her
love,
but
his
power
to
please
her.
It
was
enough.
He
bowed
his
head;
and
“Moriturus
te
saluto”
were
the
words
formed
silently
by
his
lips.
He
was
glad
that
his
death
would
be
a
public
service
to
the
University.
But
the
salutary
lesson
of
what
the
newspapers
would
call
his
“rash
act”
was,
after
all,
only
a
side-issue.
The
great
thing,
the
prospect
that
flushed
his
cheek,
was
the
consummation
of
his
own
love,
for
its
own
sake,
by
his
own
death.
And,
as
he
met
her
gaze,
the
question
that
had
already
flitted
through
his
brain
found
a
faltering
utterance;
and
“Shall
you
mourn
me?”
he
asked
her.
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