For Clive wasn't kind: it was to Maurice the most serious of all the symptoms. He would make slightly malicious remarks, and use his intimate knowledge to wound. He failed: i.e., his knowledge was incomplete, or he would have known the impossibility of vexing athletic love. If Maurice sometimes parried outwardly it was because he felt it human to respond: he always had been put off Christ turning the other cheek. Inwardly nothing vexed him. The desire for union was too strong to admit resentment. And sometimes, quite cheerfully, he would conduct a parallel conversation, hitting out at Clive at times in acknowledgement of his presence, but going his own way towards light, in hope that the beloved would follow.
Their last conversation took place on these lines. It was the evening before Clive's departure, and he had the whole of the
Hall family to dine with him at the Savoy, as a return for their kindness to him, and had sandwiched them out between some other friends. "We shall know what it is if you fall this time," cried Ada, nodding at the champagne. "Your health!" he replied. "And the health of all ladies. Come, Maurice!" It pleased him to be slightly old-fashioned. Healths were drunk, and only Maurice detected the underlying bitterness.
After the banquet he said to Maurice, "Are you sleeping at home?"
"No."
"I thought you might want to see your people home."
"Not he, Mr Durham," said his mother. "Nothing I can do or say can make him miss a Wednesday. Maurice is a regular old bachelor."
"My flat's upside down with packing," remarked Clive. "I leave by the morning train, and go straight through to Marseilles."
Maurice took no notice, and came. They stood yawning at each other, while the lift descended for them, then sped upwards, climbed another stage on their feet, and went down a passage that recalled the approach to Risley's rooms at Trinity. The flat, small, dark, and silent, lay at the end. It was, as Clive said, littered with rubbish, but his housekeeper, who slept out, had made up Maurice's bed as usual, and had arranged drinks.
"Yet again," remarked Clive.
Maurice liked alcohol, and had a good head.
"I'm going to bed. I see you've found what you wanted."
"Take care of yourself. Don't overdo the ruins. By the way—" He took a phial out of his pocket. "I knew you'd forget this. Chlorodyne."
"Chlorodyne! Your contribution!"
He nodded,
"Chlorodyne for Greece. . . . Ada has been telling me that
you thought I was going to die. Why on earth do you worry about my health? There's no fear. I shan't ever have so clean and clear an experience as death."
"I know I shall die some time and I don't want to, nor you to. If either of us goes, nothing's left for both. I don't know if you call that clean and clear?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then I'd rather be dirty," said Maurice, after a pause. Clive shivered.
"Don't you agree?"
"Oh, you're getting like everyone else. You will have a theory. We can't go quietly ahead, we must always be formulating, though every formula breaks down. 'Dirt at all costs' is to be yours. I say there are cases when one gets too dirty. Then Lethe, if there is such a river, will wash it away. But there may not be such a river. The Greeks assumed little enough, yet too much perhaps. There may be no forgetfulness beyond the grave. This wretched equipment may continue. In other words, beyond the grave there may be Hell."
"Oh, balls."
Clive generally enjoyed his metaphysics. But this time he went on. "To forget everything—even happiness. Happiness! A casual tickling of someone or something against oneself— that's all. Would that we had never been lovers! For then, Maurice, you and I should have lain still and been quiet. We should have slept, then had we been at rest with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves—"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"—or as an hidden untimely birth, we had not been: as infants which never saw light. But as it is—Well, don't look so serious."
"Don't try to be funny then," said Maurice. "I never did think anything of your speeches."
"Words conceal thought. That theory?"
"They make a silly noise. I don't care about your thoughts either."
"Then what do you care about in me?"
Maurice smiled: as soon as this question was asked, he felt happy, and refused to answer it.
"My beauty?" said Clive cynically. "These somewhat faded charms. My hair is falling out. Are you aware?"
"Bald as an egg by thirty."
"As an addled egg. Perhaps you like me for my mind. During and after my illness I must have been a delightful companion."
Maurice looked at him with tenderness. He was studying him, as in the earliest days of their acquaintance. Only then it was to find out what he was like, now what had gone wrong with him. Something was wrong. The diseases still simmered, vexing the brain, and causing it to be gloomy and perverse, and Maurice did not resent this: he hoped to succeed where the doctor had failed. He knew his own strength. Presently he would put it forth as love, and heal
