Maurice

Maurice returns home to the London suburbs, where he learns from his mother that the garden boy, George, recently left the family's employment. She then congratulates him on his headmaster’s report, which says he resembles his father, but Maurice abruptly begins crying.

After recovering his composure, Maurice asks the coachman, Mr. Howell, about George. Howell explains that George left to improve himself. Maurice leaves, and Howell comments approvingly on the boy’s condescending demeanor: “[The Howells] had been servants all their lives, and liked a gentleman to be a snob” (19).

The Halls have dinner with the neighboring Barry family, and Maurice goes to bed. Alone in his room, Maurice is frightened by the way the mirror reflects his shadow. He also can’t stop thinking about George, which confuses him.

Maurice’s time at Sunnington, his public school, is outwardly uneventful; he’s likeable, but unexceptional. Privately, Maurice feels confused. He’s especially troubled by two dreams. In one, he’s playing football (i.e. soccer) with a “nondescript” figure who eventually turns into George, naked and running towards him: “‘I shall go mad if he turns wrong [back into “the nondescript”] now,’ said Maurice, and just as they collared this happened, and a brutal disappointment woke him up” (22). The second dream consists simply of a face, a feeling of overwhelming “beauty” and “tenderness” (22), and a voice telling Maurice, “That is your friend” (22). Meanwhile, Maurice struggles with the physical changes of puberty. He frequently develops intense attachments to other boys, but nothing comes of them, and even Maurice isn’t sure what he’s seeking.

Before graduating from Sunnington, Maurice receives a prize for a Greek composition, which he delivers aloud at the awards ceremony: “The Greek was vile: Maurice had got the prize on account of the Thought, and barely thus. The examining master had stretched a point in his favour since he was leaving and a respectable chap, and moreover leaving for Cambridge” (25).

While the guests mingle after the ceremony, Dr. Barry approaches Maurice and asks him about his future; Maurice expects to enter the investment agency where his father worked. Barry remarks that Maurice will then likely marry and have children. Before leaving, Barry teases Maurice about shaking the hand of the housemaster’s wife: “Well, Maurice; a youth irresistible in love” (27). Maurice abruptly remembers Ducie’s lecture and becomes flustered.

Maurice’s first year at Cambridge is unremarkable; he attends the same college as a friend (Chapman) from Sunnington, and his life changes very little. He begins to mature the following year, and becomes more aware of other peoples’ inner lives, as distinct from how they behave publicly. He considers his own inner world especially “vile”: “[N]o wonder he pretended to be a piece of cardboard; if known as he was, he would be hounded out of the world” (30).

One day, Maurice and Chapman have lunch with their school’s dean. Dean Cornwallis brings along a relative—also a Cambridge student—named Risley, who speaks “continually” and “use[s] strong yet unmanly superlatives” (31). Chapman and Risley bicker throughout the meal; Risley enjoys conversation and verbal sparring, though he also insists that he means everything he says. After lunch, Risley privately disparages Cornwallis to Maurice and Chapman, calling him a “eunuch.” This shocks Chapman, but Maurice is secretly amused.