‘…I’m telling you all this because of your charitable interest in him.’
‘The trembling spread all over his body, and his clothes stuck to him … He had assumed at Penge that a white-faced parson in a cassock could never have conceived of masculine love, but he knew now that there is no secret of humanity which, from a wrong angle, orthodoxy has not viewed, that religion is far more acute than science, and if it only added judgement to insight would be the greatest thing in the world. Destitute of the religious sense himself, he had never yet encountered it in another, and the shock was terrific. He feared and hated Mr Borenius, he wanted to kill him.’ – E. M. Forster, Maurice (1999 edition), p.205
“I done sentry under your window ever since you came. Didn’t you know?”
Chapter XXXIX* (1914) becomes Chapter XXXVIII in the published novel (1971)
“I ought to go,” said Alec softly.“I’m due to go now,” said a voice.Maurice
woke up.stirred; the night still glimmered, but not from the moon. He proved the voice human, then re-entered sleep.“Please excuse me, sir – I’ve got to help roll the cricket pitch.”
“Not yet … stop …”
“I heard the church go four.”
“I must, sir, it’s coming all light – please release me. I’ve my work.”
“Call me Maurice.”
“I’ve old Ayres to report to,’ he pursued. “He gets up at five.”
“What are you going to report about?”“You mustn’t call me sir – my name’s Maurice – what’s your name?”
“Scudder.”
“No, your real name.”
“Alec, just.”
“The men’ll be coming down the park Longton way. I wouldn’t like to be seen by anyone.”
“Alec, do stop andTalk a little to me. You can’t guess what being with you means.”“I’m afraid I’ve been rough,” he said, shy but unashamed: each word, like his silence, fell perfect. “I climbed up ’fore I knew. The ladder came in handy when you signed … I never looked for a ladder. There wasn’t the other nights.”
“Other…”
“I done sentry under your window ever since you came. Didn’t you know?”
“Yes … no …” Maurice alternated, drowsy in his arms.
“Didn’t you sign to me each night, sir? – look out or something?”
“Don’t know…” He lost consciousness. Reawakening, he said “But I know why you wouldn’t take my tip yesterday.”
“I saw you all yesterday.”
“Couldn’t have, Alec. I was in town till late.”
“I mean sort of … like dreaming now. Why did you go up to London, sir, and come back so quick?”
“Business, oh business.”
The church struck the quarter.
“What did you mean by ‘like dreaming now’?” Did you ever see a friend in a dream?”
He repeated, “I’ve my work.” Class was calling him.But the moment for speech had gone: it was a miracle it should ever have come. Class called the servant, the crack in the floor was re-opening. As he took hold of the ladder, Maurice said “Scudder!” – and he turned like a well trained dog.
“Alec, you’re a dear fellow, and we’ve been very happy.”
“You get to sleep again, there’s no hurry for you” he said kindly, and vanished as he had come.
Maurice dozed, unconscious of time and place, and of all except extreme well being. The growing light, the twittering birds, even the distant noises of labour became part of him, and, when he did sleep, of his dreams. Nothing heals like response. He had loved and been loved – how nobly didn’t matter for the time. The moralist, even if Hellenic, may condemn the episode, but it bore no relation to Dickie’s, and
they were unashamedhe was sinless so far. Mutuality seemed for the moment enough, and the same keeper went about his work in the same sensuous content, though he spoke as little as possible to old Ayres. The sun rose into white for a most glorious day; men rolled the cricket pitch against Clive’s return, and Maurice lay sleeping until the valet rapped on his door with the morning tea.
Reconstructed from
pp. 169–71 (Maurice, Chapter XXXVIII)
and pp. 261–5 (notes to Chapter XXXVIII) in
E. M. Forster (1999) Maurice: The Abinger Edition, edited by Philip Gardner (London: Andre Deutsch)
Notes
*Chapter XXXIX is a pencilled renumbering of this chapter. The 1914 manuscript presents it as having previously been Chapter XL, crossed out in pencil. Why care? See Gardner, below.
Gardner (1999: 261–2): ‘In 1914 the chapter number (typed) is XL; this is crossed out in pencil and replaced by XXXIX, also in pencil. Above the two numbers is pencilled ‘Part IV’. Various inferences are possible, but unverifiable: that Part IV did not originally begin here; that Part IV began with a Chapter XXXIX which was subsequently lost or destroyed; that the last three pages of 1914’s Chapter XXXVIII (Forster’s holograph, beginning “Maurice saw him out”) replaced material which originally constituted a separate chapter. 1914’s Ch. XXXIX (as renumbered) presents material currently embodied in chapters XXXVIII and XXXIX which were essentially established by 1932. Its pages are in typescript, with extensive deletions and additions … The [1971] Ch. XXXVIII is represented by only two 1914 pages, which read as [above].’
Maurice, 1914: from E. M. Forster’s earliest surviving unpublished draft.
(Reconstructed from the notes to the 1999 Abinger Edition of Maurice, edited by Philip Gardner.)
For more info (and more extracts) see the Maurice 1914 project @ exponential63 LJ.
“Now we shall never be parted. It’s finished.”
Alec, you fill my heart with joy everytime I watch this movie♥
‘I was yours till death, if you’d cared to keep me once.
Still. As featured in The Story of Maurice making-of doc (6:46–).
Photoshop-manip’d by me (just a little) for your enhanced enjoyment.
That awkward moment when you realise you’re still a massive homo and worse, attracted to working class men.
But I am someone else’s now.
And he is mine in a way that shocks you.
Why don’t you stop being shocked?
and attend to your own happiness.’
FUCKING YES. TAKE THAT YOU BASTARD.