Edward Forster - Maurice

Mr Maurice. Dear Sir. I waited both nights in the boathouse. I said the boathouse as the ladder as taken away and the woods is to damp to lie down. So please come to "the boathouse" tomorrow night or next, pretend to the other gentlemen you want a stroll, easily managed, then come down to the boathouse. Dear Sir, let me share with you once before leaving Old England if it is not asking to much. I have key, will let you in. I leave per Ss Normannia Aug 29. I since cricket match do long to talk with one of my arms round you, then place both arms round you and share with you, the above now seems sweeter to me than words can say. I am perfectly aware I am only a servant that never presume on your loving kindness to take liberties or in any other way.

Yours respectfully,

A. Scudder.

(gamekeeper to C. Durham Esq.)

Maurice, was you taken ill that you left, as the indoors servants say? I hope you feel all as usual by this time. Mind and write if you can't come, for I get no sleep waiting night after night, so come without fail to "Boathouse Penge" tomorrow night, or failing the after.

Well, what did this mean? The sentence Maurice pounced on to the neglect of all others was "I have the key." Yes, he had, and there was a duplicate, kept up at the house, with which an accomplice, probably Simcox — In this light he interpreted the whole letter. His mother and aunt, the coffee he was drinking, the college cups on the sideboard, all said in their different ways, "If you go you are ruined, if you reply your letter will be used to put pressure upon you. You are in a nasty position but you have this advantage: he hasn't a scrap of your handwriting, and he's leaving England in ten days' time. Lie low, and hope for the best." He made a wry face. Butchers' sons and the rest of them may pretend to be innocent and affectionate, but they read the Police Court News, they know… If he heard again, he must consult a reliable solicitor, just as he was going to Lasker Jones for the emotional fiasco. He had been very foolish, but if he played his cards carefully for the next ten days he ought to get through.

"Mornin', doctor. Think you can polish me off this time?" he began, very flippant in his manner; then flung himself down in the chair, half closed his eyes and said, "Well, go ahead." He was in a fury to be cured. The knowledge of this interview had helped him to bear up against the vampire. Once normal, he could settle him. He longed for the trance, wherein his personality would melt and be subtly reformed. At the least he gained five minutes' oblivion, while the will of the doctor strove to penetrate his own.

"I will go ahead in one moment, Mr Hall. First tell me how you have been?"

"Oh, as usual. Fresh air and exercise, as you told me. All serene."

"Have you frequented female society with any pleasure?"

"Some ladies were at Penge. I only stayed one night there. The day after you saw me, Friday, I returned to London — that's to say home."

"You had intended to stop longer with your friends, I think."

"I think I did."

Lasker Jones then sat down on the side of his chair. "Let yourself go now," he said quietly.

"Rather."

He repeated the passes. Maurice looked at the fire irons as before.

"Mr Hall, are you going into a trance?"

There was a long silence, broken by Maurice saying gravely, "I'm not quite sure."

They tried again.

"Is the room at all dark, Mr Hall?"

Maurice said, "A bit," in the hope that it would become so. And it did darken a little.

"What do you see?"

"Well, if it's dark I can't be expected to see."

"What did you see last time?"

"A picture."

"Quite so, and what else?"

"What else?"

"What else? A cr — a cr —"

"Crack in the floor."

"And then?"

Maurice changed his position and said, "I stepped over it."

"And then?"

He was silent.

"And then?" the persuasive voice repeated.

"I hear you all right," said Maurice. "The bother is I've not gone off. I went just a little muzzy at the start, but now I'm as wide awake as you are. You might have another shot."

They tried again, with no success.

"What in Hell can have happened? You could bowl me out last week first ball. What's your explanation?"

"You should not resist me."

"Damn it all, I don't."

"You are less suggestible than you were."

"I don't know what that may mean, not being an expert in the jargon, but I swear from the bottom of my heart I want to be healed. I want to be like other men, not this outcast whom nobody wants —"

They tried again.

"Then am I one of your twenty-five per cent failures?"

"I could do a little with you last week, but we do have these sudden disappointments."

"Sudden disappointment, am I? Well, don't be beat, don't give up," he guffawed, affectedly bluff.

"I do not propose to give up, Mr Hall."

Again they failed.

"And what's to happen to me?" said Maurice, with a sudden drop in his voice. He spoke in despair, but Mr Lasker Jones had an answer to every question. "I'm afraid I can only advise you to live in some country that has adopted the Code Napoleon," he said.

"I don't understand."

"France or Italy, for instance. There homosexuality is no longer criminal."

"You mean that a Frenchman could share with a friend and yet not go to prison?"

"Share? Do you mean unite? If both are of age and avoid public indecency, certainly."

"Will the law ever be that in England?"

"I doubt it. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature."

Maurice understood. He was an Englishman himself, and only his troubles had kept him awake. He smiled sadly. "It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted."

"That is so, Mr Hall; or, as psychiatry prefers to put it, there has been, is, and always will be every conceivable type of person. And you must remember that your type was once put to death in England."

"Was it really? On the other hand, they could get away. England wasn't all built over and policed. Men of my sort could take to the greenwood."

"Is that so? I was not aware."

"Oh, it's only my own notion," said Maurice, laying the fee down. "It strikes me there may have been more about the Greeks — Theban Band — and the rest of it. Well, this wasn't unlike. I don't see how they could have kept together otherwise — especially when they came from such different classes."

"An interesting theory."

Words flying out of him again, he said, "I've not been straight with you."

"Indeed, Mr Hall."

What a comfort the man was! Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.

"Since I was last here I went wrong with a — he's nothing but a gamekeeper. I don't know what to do."

"I can scarcely advise you on such a point."

"I know you can't. But you might tell me whether he's pulling me away from sleep. I half wondered."

"No one can be pulled against his will, Mr Hall."

"I'd a notion he'd stopped me going into the trance, and I wished — that seems silly — that I hadn't happened to have a letter from him in my pocket — read it as I've told you so much. I feel simply walking on a volcano. He's an uneducated man; he's got me in his power. In court would he have a case?"

"I am no lawyer," came the unvarying voice, "but I do not think this letter can be construed as containing a menace. It's a matter on which you should consult your solicitor, not me."

"I'm sorry, but it's been a relief. I wonder if you'd be awfully kind — hypnotize me once more. I feel I might go off now I've told you. I'd hoped to get cured without giving myself away. Are there such things as men getting anyone in their power through dreams?"