Maurice

Later the same morning, Clive and Maurice take the latter’s motorbike and side-car for a drive. As they leave campus, the Dean shouts at Maurice about skipping class, but Maurice ignores him: “They became a cloud of dust, a stench, and a roar to the world, but the air they breathed was pure, and all the noise they heard was the long drawn cheer of the wind” (76). The couple drive until the bike breaks down, and then stop to picnic.

Clive naps, waking in the mid-afternoon. Neither he nor Maurice knows how to fix the bike, so they leave on foot, following (and sometimes swimming in) a dike until they reach a farm. After having tea and drying off, they ask the farmer’s wife to contact them if anyone finds the bike, and then walk to the train station, arriving back at Cambridge after dark: “The whole day had been ordinary. Yet it had never come before to either of them, nor was it to be repeated” (78).

The next day, Dean Cornwallis confronts Maurice; he sends him home for the term’s remainder, and says that unless Maurice apologizes, he won’t readmit him in the fall. Unperturbed, Maurice leaves.

Cornwallis doesn’t punish Clive, who has permission to skip lectures while studying for exams. Nevertheless, Clive doesn’t share Maurice’s good mood and mails a distressed letter to him, which sparks Maurice’s “first explosion of rage against the world” (80).

Maurice’s expulsion and the loss of the motorbike—a present from his grandfather—upset his mother. Maurice insists that he’s done nothing wrong and refuses to apologize: “[H]onesty is like blood. In his unbending mood the boy thought it would be possible to live without compromise, and ignore all that didn’t yield to himself and Clive!” (82). Nevertheless, he begins to regret his actions the same day he returns home, feeling that he wasted his one full day with Clive. The couple write one another frequently and passionately but find this unsatisfying. A lunch together also goes poorly: “Both were tired, and they had chosen a restaurant where they could not hear themselves speak. […] They agreed that they would confine themselves to facts in their letters, and only write when anything was urgent” (83).

Meanwhile, Mrs. Hall approaches Dr. Barry for help dealing with Maurice. Barry tells Maurice (somewhat cuttingly) that he’s not the sort of person who needs a university degree; he also upbraids Maurice for his ungentlemanly treatment of his mother. The accusation upsets Maurice, but he suspects Barry wouldn’t have scolded him if he’d skipped classes to see a woman, and therefore walks away surer than ever of his own correctness.

Shortly after turning 21, Maurice visits Penge—Clive’s family estate. Penge intimidates him until he learns Clive has placed him in a room adjoining his own; Clive visits him as he unpacks, kissing him and telling him they’ll have most of their time to themselves. Reassured, Maurice is indifferent to Mrs. Durham’s cross-examination over dinner.

Later that evening, Clive tells Maurice he quarreled with his mother about staying at Cambridge for a fourth year. He made this decision believing Maurice would return in the fall; when Maurice explains he hasn’t apologized, Clive urges him to, saying the apology’s hypocrisy would “serve[] these people right” (90). They discuss how they discovered their feelings for one another, and the conversation turns to art as Clive muses about the relationship between aesthetic and erotic appreciation. Maurice struggles to follow, but the two continue talking until early morning; he asks Clive to kiss him before parting, but Clive good-naturedly refuses.

Mrs. Durham seeks Maurice’s opinion on Clive’s proposed fourth year at Cambridge; she agrees that Clive is free to do as he wishes—Penge itself belongs to him—but thinks he “should take his place in the countryside” (95). She especially wants him to go into politics, and would like him to travel to the US and the British colonies in preparation, rather than Greece and Italy as he intends.

Clive dismisses America when Maurice mentions it and says his mother only cares about him producing an heir. The thought that their relationship is “sterile” depresses Maurice: “He and the beloved would vanish utterly—would continue neither in Heaven nor on Earth. They had won past the conventions, but Nature still faced them” (97). Clive doesn’t share this concern, claiming that what they have is better than children.

Two years pass, and Maurice and Clive remain happy together, although the relationship is never consummated: “Clive knew that ecstasy cannot last, but can carve a channel for something lasting, and he contrived a relation that proved permanent. […] [A]s time went on they abstained from avowals (‘we have said everything’) and almost from caresses” (98). Clive’s beliefs derive partly from his readings of Greek literature and philosophy, and Maurice acquiesces to them without fully understanding. They both complete a final year at Cambridge, after which Maurice enters his father’s firm, and Clive studies for the bar exam.

Meanwhile, Clive and Maurice’s mothers and sisters have become friends, which bewilders the men: “[D]uring their love women had become as remote as horses or cats; all that the creatures did seemed silly” (100). Mrs. Durham considers Ada a potential wife for Clive, since she is pliable and stands to inherit her grandfather’s money. Maurice doesn’t face the same pressure to marry, and spends every Wednesday evening and weekend at Clive’s London apartment.