MAURICE

by E.M. Forster

Beneath it all, he was bewildered. He had lost the precocious clearness of the child which transfigures and explains the universe, offering answers of miraculous insight and beauty.

He could die for such a friend, he would allow such a friend to die for him; they would make any sacrifice for each other, and count the world nothing, neither death nor distance nor crossness could part them, because “this is my friend.”

As soon as his body developed he became obscene. He supposed some special curse had descended on him, but he could not help it, for even when receiving the Holy Communion filthy thoughts would arise in his mind.

He longed for smut,

Thoughts: he had a dirty little collection. Acts: he desisted from these after the novelty was over, finding that they brought him more fatigue than pleasure.

The adoration was mutual on one occasion, both yearning for they knew not what, but the result was the same.

The school clapped not because Maurice was eminent but because he was average.

As soon as he thought about other people as real, Maurice became modest and conscious of sin: in all creation there could be no one as vile as himself: no wonder he pretended to be a piece of cardboard; if known as he was, he would be hounded out of the world.

It had struck him at once that Risley was serious. “And are you serious?”

He was not attracted to the man in the sense that he wanted him for a friend, but he did feel he might help him—how, he didn’t formulate.

Looking up, he noticed the night. He was indifferent to beauty as a rule, but “what a show of stars!” he thought.

But his heart had lit never to be quenched again, and one thing in him at last was real.

It was impossible to get his life straight.

He saw Risley there, but with indifference.

Some instinct, deep below his consciousness, had advised him to let Durham and his thoughts about Durham have a twenty-four-hours’ rest.

He didn’t so much as have hopes, for hope distracts, and he had a great deal to see to.

Next term they were intimate at once.

“Give me a cigarette. Put it in my mouth. Thanks.”

“Absolute Hell, misery and Hell.”

He fell between Maurice’s knees.

When they sat it was nearly always in the same position—Maurice in a chair, and Durham at his feet, leaning against him.

During the meal they looked at each other. They sat at different tables, but Maurice had contrived to move his seat so that he could glance at his friend.

I’ve a rotten head any way—I mean a headache.

No more was said at the time, but he was free of another subject, and one that he had never mentioned to any living soul. He hadn’t known it could be mentioned, and when Durham did so in the middle of the sunlit court a breath of liberty touched him.

He wrote often to Durham—long letters trying carefully to express shades of feeling. Durham made little of them and said so. His replies were equally long. Maurice never let them out of his pocket, changing them from suit to suit and even pinning them in his pyjamas when he went to bed. He would wake up and touch them and, watching the reflections from the street lamp, remember how he used to feel afraid as a little boy.

He stared at the ceiling with wrinkled mouth and eyes, understanding nothing except that man has been created to feel pain and loneliness without help from heaven. Now Durham stretched up to him, stroked his hair. They clasped one another. They were lying breast against breast soon, head was on shoulder, but just as their cheeks met someone called “Hall” from the court, and he answered: he always had answered when people called. Both started violently, and Durham sprang to the mantelpiece where he leant his head on his arm.

Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, “I love you.”

He had lied. He phrased it “been fed upon lies,” but lies are the natural food of boyhood, and he had eaten greedily.

He loved men and always had loved them. He longed to embrace them and mingle his being with theirs. Now that the man who returned his love had been lost, he admitted this.

“Durham, I love you.” He laughed bitterly. “I do—I have always—” “Good night, good night.”

Furious he stood on the bridge in a night that resembled the first—drizzly with faint stars.