Zuleika Dobson · Chapter
The Concert and the Aftermath explained
During a moonlight concert at Judas College, Zuleika performs her conjuring tricks before a massive crowd of undergraduates, including the Duke, who watches with a mix of pity, jealousy, and adoration.
What happens
During a moonlight concert at Judas College, Zuleika performs her conjuring tricks before a massive crowd of undergraduates, including the Duke, who watches with a mix of pity, jealousy, and adoration. After the performance, she gives the Duke her earrings, then accepts an invitation to lunch with The MacQuern, insisting the Duke also attend. A silent confrontation between the Duke and The MacQuern over carrying Zuleika's casket ends with the Duke victorious. They walk together to Salt Cellar, where the Duke, emboldened, seizes her hands, but she angrily pulls away.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Obsession
The Duke's intense, possessive love for Zuleika is highlighted as he watches her perform with a mix of pity, jealousy, and adoration, and later asserts his dominance over The MacQuern.
Vanity and Self-Absorption
Zuleika's delight in the crowd's adoration and her performance, despite her lack of skill, underscores her vanity and self-absorption.
Death and Sacrifice
The Duke's contemplation of his planned death for Zuleika, and the crowd's 'tragic passion' and 'doom,' permeate the chapter.
Artifice and Performance
Zuleika's conjuring act and her theatrical curtseys emphasize the theme of performance and artifice in social interactions.
Characters to notice
- Duke of Dorset
Watches Zuleika's performance with anguish and jealousy, then asserts his dominance over The MacQuern, feeling restored in manhood.
- Zuleika Dobson
Performs her conjuring act, gives the Duke her earrings, and later invites him to lunch, but rebuffs his romantic advance.
- Noaks
Squats in the front row, peering at Zuleika through spectacles, among the crowd she captivates.
- The MacQuern
Assists Zuleika after her performance, invites her to lunch, and yields to the Duke in a spiritual conflict over carrying her casket.
- The Warden
Notices the crowd of undergraduates and retires hastily to avoid compromising his dignity.
- Mélisande
Zuleika's maid, who does not answer when called to retrieve the casket.
Key passages
“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.”
The crowd of undergraduates appears as a single, passive, monstrous entity in the moonlight, embodying the idea of 'Young Oxford.'
The Duke perceives the assembled students as a unified, almost inhuman mass.
“The Duke blushed to think what these men thought of her. Would love were blind! These her lovers were doubtless judging her. They forgave her—confound their impudence!—because of her beauty. The banality of her performance was an added grace. It made her piteous. Damn them, they were sorry for her.”
The Duke is embarrassed by Zuleika's poor performance and resents the crowd for pitying her rather than judging her harshly.
The Duke's jealousy and protective love cause him to misinterpret the crowd's forgiveness as condescension.
“With a gesture of her disengaged hand, so swift as to be scarcely visible, she unhooked her earrings and 'passed' them into the canister. This she did as she turned away from the crowd, on her way to the Duke.”
Zuleika quickly and secretly drops her earrings into the canister as she moves toward the Duke.
Her sleight-of-hand reveals both her guilt and her natural aptitude for conjuring.
“The Duke threw a prehensile hand on the casket, and, coldly glaring at The MacQuern, pointed with his other hand towards the College gate. He, and he alone, was going to see Zuleika home. It was his last night on earth, and he was not to be trifled with.”
The Duke asserts his right to carry Zuleika's casket and escort her home, glaring down The MacQuern with the resolve of a man on his last night.
The Duke's possessive determination overrides any social niceties, driven by his impending death.
“He came near to thinking of her as a chattel. Then with a pang he remembered his abject devotion to her. Abject no longer though! The victory he had just won restored his manhood, his sense of supremacy among his fellows.”
The Duke momentarily views Zuleika as a possession, but recalls his former devotion; however, his triumph over The MacQuern restores his pride and sense of equality with her.
The Duke's internal shift from abject love to a more dominant, equal footing is catalyzed by his public victory.
