Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

Author:Max Beerbohm [Beerbohm, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781907360220
Publisher: Collector's Library
Published: 1911-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

XII

NOT LESS AVERSE THAN FROM DOGGING THE DUKE was I from remaining another instant in the presence of Miss Dobson. There seemed to be no possible excuse for her. This time she had gone too far. She was outrageous. As soon as the Duke had had time to get clear away, I floated out into the night.

I may have consciously reasoned that the best way to forget the present was in the revival of memories. Or I may have been driven by a mere homing instinct. Anyhow, it was in the direction of my old College that I went. Midnight was tolling as I floated in through the shut grim gate at which I had so often stood knocking for admission.

The man who now occupied my room had sported his oak—my oak. I read the name on the visiting-card attached thereto—E. J. Craddock—and went in.

E. J. Craddock, interloper, was sitting at my table, with elbows squared and head on one side, in the act of literary composition. The oars and caps on my walls betokened him a rowing-man. Indeed, I recognised his somewhat heavy face as that of the man whom, from the Judas barge this afternoon, I had seen rowing “stroke” in my College Eight.

He ought, therefore, to have been in bed and asleep two hours ago. And the offence of his vigil was aggravated by a large tumbler that stood in front of him, containing whisky and soda. From this he took a deep draught. Then he read over what he had written. I did not care to peer over his shoulder at MS. which, though written in my room, was not intended for my eyes. But the writer’s brain was open to me; and he had written “I, the undersigned Edward Joseph Craddock, do hereby leave and bequeath all my personal and other property to Zuleika Dobson, spinster. This is my last will and testament.”

He gnawed his pen, and presently altered the “hereby leave” to “hereby and herewith leave.” Fool!

I thereby and therewith left him. As I emerged through the floor of the room above—through the very carpet that had so often been steeped in wine, and encrusted with smithereens of glass, in the brave old days of a well-remembered occupant—I found two men, both of them evidently reading-men. One of them was pacing round the room. “Do you know,” he was saying, “what she reminded me of, all the time? Those words—aren’t they in the Song of Solomon?—‘fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and … and …’ ”

“ ‘Terrible as an army with banners,’ ” supplied his host—rather testily, for he was writing a letter. It began “My dear Father. By the time you receive this I shall have taken a step which …”

Clearly it was vain to seek distraction in my old College. I floated out into the untenanted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour, trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent of these meadows’ moisture is the scent of Oxford.

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