Then savage, reckless, drenched with the rain, he saw in the first glimmer of dawn the window of Durham's room, and his heart leapt alive and shook him to pieces. It cried 'You love and are loved.' He looked round the court. It cried 'You are strong, he weak and alone,' won over his will. Terrified at what he must do, he caught hold of the mullion and sprang.
'Maurice-'
As he alighted his name had been called out of dreams. The violence went out of his heart, and a purity that he had never imagined dwelt there instead. His friend had called him. He stood for a moment entranced, then the new emotion found him words, and laying his hand very gently upon the pillows he answered 'Clive!' (查看原文)
They walked arm in arm or arm around shoulder now. When they sat it was nearly always in the same position—Maurice in a chair, and Durham at his feet, leaning against him. In the world of their friends this attracted no notice. Maurice would stroke Durham's hair. (查看原文)
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. (查看原文)
The mist would lower again, he felt sure, and with an unhappy sigh he pulled Durham's head against his knee, as though it was a talisman for clear living. It lay there, and he had accomplished a new tenderness—stroked it steadily from temple to throat. Then, removing both hands, he dropped them on either side of him and sat sighing.
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 Durh... (查看原文)
Maurice gave a cry of pain. It was so unmistakable that Durham, who was about to close the door between them, said, "Very well, 111 discuss if you like. What's the matter? You appear to want to apologize about something. Why? You behave as if I'm annoyed with you. What have you done wrong? You've been thoroughly decent from first to last."
In vain he protested.
"So decent that I mistook your ordinary friendliness. When you were so good to me, above all the afternoon I came up— I thought it was something else. I am more sorry than I can ever say. I had no right to move out of my books and music, which was what I did when I met you."
His voice was feeble but clear, and his face like a sword. Mau-rice flung useless words about love. (查看原文)
Towards the end of the term he noticed that Hall had acquired a peculiar and beautiful expression. It came only now and then, was subtle and lay far down; he noticed it first when they were squabbling about theology. It was affectionate, kindly, and to that extent a natural expression, but there was mixed in it something that he had not observed in the man, a touch of— impudence? He was not sure, but liked it. It recurred when they met suddenly or had been silent. (查看原文)
He remembered that Clive and he had only been together one day! And they had spent it careering about like fools—instead of in one another's arms! Maurice did not know that they had thus spent it perfectly—he was too young to detect the triviality of contact for contact's sake. (查看原文)
"I should have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone."
"Perhaps we woke up one another. I like to think that any way."
"I think you're beautiful, the only beautiful person I've ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you." (查看原文)
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. (查看原文)
"No, you may not ask," interrupted the other. "You belong to the past. I'll tell you everything up to this moment—not a word beyond."
"You care for me a little bit, I do think," he admitted, "but I can't hang all my life on a little bit. I can't hang mine on to the five minutes you spare me from her and politics. You'll do anything for me except see me. "
"You do care a little for me, I know, but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me.I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now—I can't hang about whining for ever—and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?"
The Blue Room would glimmer, ferns undulate. Out of some external Cambridge his friend began beckoning to him, clothed in the ... (查看原文)
They were his last words, because Maurice had disappeared thereabouts, leaving no trace of his presence except a little pile of the petals of the evening primrose, which mourned from the ground like an expiring fire. To the end of his life Clive was not sure of the exact moment of departure, and with the approach of old age he grew uncertain whether the moment had yet occured. The Blue Room would glimmer, ferns undulate. Out of some external Cambridge his friend began backoning to him, clothed in the sun, and shaking out the scents and sounds of the May Term. (查看原文)
