A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (61 page)

137
“I don’t want to grouse”:
EMF to EC, April 12, 1916, KCC.

138
“do the . . . brotherly” thing:
EMF to GLD, July 28, 1916, KCC.

138
“No admission this way”:
Forster, “Gippo English,”
Egyptian Mail
, Dec. 16, 1919, 2.

138
An essay on the strangeness:
Forster, “Army English,”
Egyptian Mail
, Jan. 12, 1919, 2.

139
“We went up pitch black stairs”:
EMF to EC, May 18, 1916, KCC.

140
“A few days after”:
EMF to Malcolm Darling, Aug. 6, 1916, HRC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:239.

140
“sickened to the vitals”:
EMF to EC, April 13, 1916, KCC.

140
A friend described him as:
Liddell,
Cavafy
, 180.

141
“a literary evening”:
EMF to ACF, Aug. 24, 1916, KCC.

141
a “Greek gentleman in a straw hat”:
Forster, “The Poetry of Cavafy,” 13.

141
“to give the impression”:
Liddell,
Cavafy
, 129–30.

141
“Where could I live better?”:
Ibid., 180.

142
“continuously adjusting the light”:
Ibid., 182.

142
“his better furniture”:
Ibid., 181.

142
“I am back from my work”:
Forster, “The Poetry of Cavafy,” 40.

143
“sensation that I love”:
Cavafy, “Come Back” (1904), trans. Keeley and Sherrard, 43.

143
“How strong the scents were”:
Cavafy, “In the Evening,”
The Complete Poems of Cavafy
, 73.

143
Even more exciting:
Sherrard, “Cavafy’s Sensual City: A Question,” 96.

143
For his nighttime self:
Liddell,
Cavafy
, 130.

144
“expressions . . . that one might actually hear”:
Forster, “The Poetry of Cavafy,” 14.

144
“the world within”:
Ibid., 15.

144
“burn . . . his fingers”:
The journal’s editor was Stephen Pargas, who went by the pseudonym Nikos Zelitas. Haag,
Alexandria
, 68.

144
“The best Alexandrian I know”:
EMF to GLD, Jan. 10, 1917, KCC.

144
liked his own outrageous jokes:
Grafftey-Smith,
Bright Levant
, 36. Sometimes the joke would go too far. “When Johnny decided to raise a gale of laughter by going to a very English party with a mahogany girdle round his waist and a miniature gilt cistern over his head, pulling his little gilt plug-chain to spray his hostess with perfume, no one was amused.”

145
He was a peripatetic fellow:
See Claudel, “‘De la part d’un ami sans visage.’”

145
“To see a Sinadino again”:
Forster, untitled poem in the style of Cavafy, KCC.

146
“It was not my knowledge”:
Forster, “The Poetry of Cavafy,” 40.

146
“All the times I wanted”:
John Chioles, translator. In Leontis et al., eds.,
What These Ithakas Mean
, 68.

147
“I wished you were here”:
EMF to GLD, July 28, 1916, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:236–37.

147
Finally, in mid-October:
Nicola Beauman gives a plausible reading of Morgan’s sexual code in
Morgan
, 299.

148
“Yesterday, for the first time”:
EMF to FB, Oct. 16, 1916, Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:243.

148
“a decadent coward”:
Furbank,
E. M. Forster
, II:28. The correspondence, after the end of July 1916, is preserved in London in the India Records Office.

148
“there is no foundation”:
O. V. B. Bosanquet, Agent to the Governor-General in Indore, to J. B. Wood, Political Secretary, Aug. 28, 1916; India Records Office, British Library.

148
“I realise in the first place”:
EMF to FB, Oct. 16, 1916, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:243.

149
“Well, my dear,”:
Ibid., I:244.

149
“tighter and tinier and shinier”:
EMF to Josie Darling, June 20, 1915, HRC.

149
“To merge myself”:
“Incidents of War Notebook,” KCC; he repeated these phrases, probably copied from the notebook, in a letter to GLD, May 5, 1917; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:251.

150
“Montazah Sta.—”:
Forster,
Alexandria
, 140–42.

151
“unappetizing gloom”:
EMF to Malcolm Darling, Dec. 1, 1916, HRC.

151
“shifted about the sandy wastes”:
Forster, “The Lost Guide,” in
Alexandria
, 355.

152
“Wherever she went”:
Ibid.

152
“charming and polite, I said yes”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Notebook, c. August-September 1922, KCC. The small notebook Forster dedicated to Mohammed contains several separate manuscripts, accreted over fifty years. The first, the memoir of Mohammed’s life and death, Forster began in the form of a letter addressed to his beloved on August 5, 1922, and concluded just after Christmas 1927; the other section, transcripts of letters from Mohammed and snatches of their conversation, which Forster labeled “words spoken,” were transcribed in 1960.

152
“‘nice,’ and the morning was”:
Ibid.

152
“Often as I let myself in at night”:
Ibid.

152
“that to be trusted”:
EMF to FB, July 18, 1917, KCC.

152
“I have plunged into”:
EMF to FB, May 29, 1917, KCC.

153
“c[a]me up into the swirl”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.

153
“God knows how many hours”:
EMF to FB, Jan. 6, 1918, Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:281.

153
Once Mohammed realized:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.

153
“a question about Mohammedans”:
EMF to FB, Jan. 6, 1918, Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:281.

154
“There’s a Mosque”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.

154
“the reprehensible habit of joyrides”:
EMF to FB, Jan. 6, 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:282.

154
“I can only say”:
Ibid.

154
“It had blown away”:
Ibid.

155
“most sympathetic and helpful”:
Furness’s sexuality is a bit of a mystery. He had a passionate but platonic love for Aida, which may have been a psychological beard for them both. He remained a bachelor until he was almost sixty, marrying on his return to England. In his old age, he fathered a daughter, who survived him. His motives for displeasure don’t necessarily preclude fear of exposure. But late in life Forster regretted imposing on him.

155
“an awful nuisance”:
EMF to Furbank, July 18, 1958, in Allott, introduction to Forster,
Alexandria
, xxxii.

155
“the thing I am proudest of”:
EMF to FB, Jan. 6, 1918, KCC.

155
“sensuality . . . came violently”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC. The discovery that this is the wrong station stop I owe to Haag,
Alexandria
, 36.

156
“Mazarita not Ramleh”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.

156
“dark and unfrequented”:
EMF to FB, March 23, 1918, KCC.

156
“look mediaeval by moonlight”:
Forster,
Alexandria
, 130.

156
“I do not care for cakes”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.

156
“Would you like to see”:
EMF, “Words Spoken,” transcriptions of Mohammed el Adl’s sayings, in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.

157
“showered everything in the room”:
EMF to FB, March 23, 1918 and July 18, 1917, KCC.

157
“I have always ate apart”:
EMF, “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.

158
“I have often thought of your sister”:
EMF to FB, May 29, 1917, KCC.

158
It isn’t
happiness: EMF to FB, June 17, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:257–58.

158
“One morning I woke up”:
Ibid.

158
“I did not like Christianity”:
EMF, “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.

159
“inroads on free thought”:
EMF to FB, July 31, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:264.

159
They talked a lot about sex:
EMF to FB, June 4, 1917, KCC.

159
“We hadn’t entirely”:
EMF to FB, July 31, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:265.

159
“Completely to part with Respectability”:
EMF to FB, Sept. 30, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:272.

160
“If we are to be”:
EMF, “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.

160
“feared he was only externals”:
EMF to FB, Sept. 30, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, I:272.

160
“My damn prick stands up”:
EMF, Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.

160
For Forster, who had concluded:
EMF to FB, May 27, 1918, KCC. “A expects marriage and life among his own people, so far as he looks forward at all, and I scarcely look forward to anything different.”

160
made “a sinner”:
Rowson, “Vice Lists,” 72–73. “[O]fficial morality restricted a man’s penetrative options to his wife and female slaves, but if he chose to become ‘profligate’ he could expand these penetrative options . . .”

160
“All have their foolishness”:
EMF, “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.

161
his barely unexpressed desire to be penetrated:
Forster’s diary reveals this was his desire, never realized. He writes: “While in India, I promised myself that on my return [to Egypt] I would get you to penetrate me behind, however much it hurt and although it must decrease your respect for me.” (EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.)

161
Living after Freud and Foucault:
It’s a mistake to think that the passage of time means progress. In
Why Marriage?
the gay historian George Chauncey cautions that “the major error of most post-Foucaultian histories of sexuality has been to assume the triumph of [the] modernist view of sexual identity.” 187.