by Wendy Moffat
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.
7: “A GREAT UNRECORDED HISTORY”
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.
161 “an understanding rather than an agreement”: EMF to FB, July 18, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:262.
161 “Dearest Florence, R. Has been parted with”: EMF to FB, Oct. 8, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:274. The day of “parting with Respectability” was Oct 5.
161 “The half moon,”: EMF to FB, Aug. 25, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:268–69.
162 “would otherwise be ours”: EMF to FB, Sept. 13, 1917, KCC.
162 “It’s absurd”: EMF to FB, March 23, 1918, KCC.
162 “to be a spy”: EMF to FB, Oct. 8, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:270.
162 “Do you not think”: EMF to FB, Oct. 11, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:274; “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.
163 “it felt like the fall of a curtain”: EMF to FB, Oct. 11, 1917, KCC.
&
nbsp; 163 “You called out my name”: EMF, Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.
163 “Everything seems breaking here”: EMF to FB, Sept. 30, 1917, KCC.
163 His pool of friends: EMF to FB, Aug. 25, 1917, KCC.
164 “whatever that means”: EMF to FB, Oct. 8, 1917, KCC.
164 “stupidity and deadness”: EMF to Lily, Nov. 26, 1917, KCC.
164 “It is very sweet of you”: EMF to FB, Aug. 25, 1917, KCC.
164 “reliability cleanliness, intellectual detachment”: EMF to GLD, Aug. 31, 1917, KCC.
164 “Your good friend, Mrs. Barger”: EC to EMF, March 13, 1918, KCC.
165 “I want to put a few things on record”: EMF to FB, Jan. 6, 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:280.
165 “proof of something larger”: EMF to FB, misdated April 3, 1918 (probably May 3), KCC.
166 “How does anything end?”: EMF to GLD, June 25, 1917, KCC.
166 “nothing in my life”: EMF, Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.
166 And this view: EMF to Plomer, Nov. 20, 1963, Durham.
166 “I never did find”: EMF to GLD, Oct. 9, 1916, KCC.
166 “He is unfortunately black”: EMF to FB, Sept. 13, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:271. “His other . . . suit—besides his uniform—is a long and rather unpleasing nightgown over which you button a sort of frock coat: bare feet in clogs. Thus attired he may walk with me in the neighborhood of his room, but not elsewhere. He always wears a fez.”
167 “Taking me by the sleeve”: EMF to FB, Aug. 25, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:268.
167 “The whole ending of Maurice ”: EMF to FB, Feb. 18, 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:287.
168 “I have known in a way”: EMF to FB, Oct. 8, 1917, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:274.
168 “Oh Florence, what a mean”: EMF to FB, misdated April 3, 1918 (probably May 3), KCC.
168 “he went to hospital”: EMF to FB, March [n.d.] 1918, KCC.
168 “shovels [Egyptians] around like dirt”: EMF to FB, March 23, 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:288.
168 “make an effort over A”: EMF to FB, March [n.d.] 1918, KCC.
168 “obliged to tell him”: EMF to FB, May [n.d.] 1918, KCC.
169 “as Maurice and Clive sat”: EMF to FB, May 14, 1918, KCC.
169 “two days have passed”: EMF, “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.
169 “some lovely cloud”: EMF to FB, May 14, 1918, KCC.
169 “Your new arrangement isn’t possible”: EMF to FB, May 27, 1918, KCC.
169 “He strikes me as more fully attached”: EMF to FB, June 25, 1918, KCC.
169 “chucked that infernal job”: EMF to GLD, May 31, 1918, KCC.
169 “received a wire from Tanta”: MEA to EMF, June [n.d.] 1918, KCC.
169 “Griefs never come”: MEA to EMF, June 27, 1918, KCC.
169 “He was a good swimmer”: EMF to FB, July 16, 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:290.
170 “seldom touched [the muddy floor]”: Ibid., I:290, 291.
170 “Mr. Ganda and all”: MEA to EMF, July 23, 1918, KCC.
170 “I am rather in favour”: EMF to FB, July 16, 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:291.
170 “I theorised to him”: Ibid.
170 “All is exceptions in men”: EMF, “Words Spoken,” in Mohammed el Adl Notebook, KCC.
170 “Sick of” Mansourah: MEA to EMF, July [n.d.] 1918, KCC.
171 “bathing and sprawling”: EMF to FB, Aug. 5, 1918, KCC.
171 “more romantic”: Ibid.
171 “I think A’s [Adl’s] must be the saddest”: EMF to FB, Oct. 2, 1918, KCC.
171 “I have just been writing”: EMF to FB, Oct. 7, 1918, KCC.
172 “was scarcely in the world”: EMF to FB, Oct. [n.d.] 1918, KCC.
172 “She is like some tame”: EMF to FB, Nov. [n.d.] 1918, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:297.
172 “Why not take them”: Ibid.
8: “DO NOT FORGET YOUR EVER FRIEND”
177 To Mohammed el Adl: EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.
177 “I am sure that I could have lived”: EMF to FB, Feb. 25, 1922, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:23.
178 “with my present freedom”: EMF, Locked Diary, Dec. 31, 1919, KCC.
178 “I see my middle age”: EMF, Locked Diary, Aug. 12, 1919, KCC.
178 “I don’t see what it is”: Ibid.
178 “the outward nonsense of England”: EMF to Seigfried Sassoon, March 28, 1919; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, I:300.
178 “[a] couple of sly references”: EMF to FB, Jan. [n.d.] 1919, KCC.
178 “very unwise as it puts me”: EMF, Locked Diary, April 24, 1919, KCC.
179 “The Trouble in Egypt”: EMF, Letter to the Editor, Manchester Guardian, March 29, 1919.
179 “I wish you was American”: MEA to EMF, Oct. 3, 1919, KCC.
179 “I found in my dictionary”: MEA to EMF, Nov. 4, 1919, KCC.
179 “In Egypt the native”: EMF, Letter to the Editor, Daily Herald, May 30, 1919.
180 “going as Prime minister”: EMF to Forrest Reid, Feb. 17, 1921, KCC.
180 Mohammed surprised him: EMF to FB, March 17, 1921, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:2.
180 “a great coat and blue”: EMF to FB, March 17, 1921, May 20, 1921, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:7.
181 “I wish he used”: EMF to FB, May 20, 1921, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:8.
181 “He was a charming creature”: Forster, “Three Countries,” The Hill of Devi, 297.
181 “finish it—it is stuck”: EMF to ACF, March 19, 1916, KCC.
181 “[P]anic and cruelty”: Malcolm Darling to EMF, July 11, 1919, quoted in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:61.
182 “In his social life”: EMF to FB, May 20, 1921, KCC.
182 “You would weep at”: EMF to ACF, April 1, 1921, KCC.
182 “For acres around the soil”: Ibid.
183 “The least I can do”: EMF, Kanaya ms., KCC. The Kanaya ms. has no date. It was typed much later by JRA; the original is likely dated to Forster’s 1921 travels to India.
183 “I think you know”: Ibid.
183 Morgan recorded the conversation: Ibid.
183 “kind of saint”: Forster, “Three Countries,” The Hill of Devi, 297.
184 “I resumed sexual intercourse”: EMF, Kanaya ms., KCC.
184 “It is difficult to find”: Ibid.
184 “Do ‘fondness’ and ‘love’”: EMF to GLD, Aug. 6, 1921, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:10.
185 “I was struck with the remoteness”: EMF to GLD, April 14, 1921, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:4.
185 “intelligent and forthcoming”: EMF to GLD, Sept. 17, 1921, KCC.
186 “Today . . . began exquisitely”: EMF to GLD, Sept. 28, 1921, KCC.
186 “across the slender sphinx”: EMF to GLD, Sept. 17, 1921, KCC.
186 “Why can’t we be friends”: Forster, A Passage to India, 312.
187 “Mohammed collapsed under consumption”: EMF to FB, Jan. 28, 1922, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:21.
187 “an unhappy time”: Ibid.
187 “all the traditional symptoms”: EMF to GLD, Jan. 28, 1922, KCC.
187 “radiant spirits”: EMF to FB, Feb. 25, 1922, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:23.
187 “Mohammed was well enough”: Ibid.
188 “depressed to the verge”: The Diaries of Virginia Woolf, II:171, March 12, 1922.
188 “[t]he wrong channel”: EMF, Locked Diary, April 8, 1922, KCC.
189 “although I know that”: EMF, Mohammed el Adl Memoir, KCC.
189 “determined my life should”: EMF, Locked Diary, May 3, 1922, KCC.
