A Dose of Fame
In the final stages of writing Howards End, and nervous of success, E.M. Forster grapples with a mysterious death, his own sexuality and the seed of an idea for his next novel Maurice.
Morgan....Stephen Campbell Moore
Lily.............Diana Quick
Masood.....Navin Chowdhry
Malcolm.......Matt Addis
Ernest.....Benjamin Askew
Unwin......Sam Dale
Edward Arnold.Philip Fox
Roger Fry...Malcolm Tierney
Hilda........Caroline Guthrie
Written by Stephen Wakelam
Directed by David Hunter
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2009
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In the final stages of writing Howards End, and nervous of success, E.M. Forster grapples with a mysterious death, his own sexuality and the seed of an idea for his next novel Maurice.
Morgan....Stephen Campbell Moore
Lily.............Diana Quick
Masood.....Navin Chowdhry
Malcolm.......Matt Addis
Ernest.....Benjamin Askew
Unwin......Sam Dale
Edward Arnold.Philip Fox
Roger Fry...Malcolm Tierney
Hilda........Caroline Guthrie
Written by Stephen Wakelam
Directed by David Hunter
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2009
Do you enjoy the variety on Oldtuberadio?
Like, Share and Subscribe to be notified of our new shows
#radio #crime #thriller #drama
To Support this channel please visit
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/oldtuberadio
https://ko-fi.com/oldtuberadio98
https://www.patreon.com/oldtuberadio
https://locals.com/Oldtuberadio
Category
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FunTranscript
00:00A Dose of Fame
00:12by Stephen Wakelam
00:28Take today.
00:308th of July, 1909.
00:34Idling, mainly.
00:36Breakfast from 10.30.
00:39Read papers and errands for mother till 11.30.
00:42Some writing till lunch, mainly revision.
00:46Played piano, slackly.
00:48Slept in garden till three,
00:50then painted a garden seat.
00:53Then up to town.
00:55Dinner with friend, Malcolm Darling,
00:57and someone new to me.
01:00Morgan, there you are.
01:01This is Ernest Mertz.
01:03Do you remember one another from Cambridge?
01:05I was wondering, I don't think so,
01:07but I do remember the name.
01:08Was your father German?
01:10Grandfather.
01:10I came over the middle of the last century.
01:12Where to?
01:13Manchester, originally.
01:14What are you having to drink, Morgan?
01:16What's that, gin?
01:17Yes.
01:17The same.
01:18I'm writing about some Germans in the moment, oddly.
01:21Second generation Germans over here.
01:23A novel?
01:23Yes.
01:24It's very stodgy.
01:25What's it about?
01:26Two sisters and a house.
01:29Their house?
01:29No, or not immediately.
01:31A house they come to live in.
01:33Inherit.
01:36I don't know what people will make of it,
01:38but it interests me.
01:40How far on are you with it?
01:42Not as far as I should be.
01:43Isn't that always the case?
01:45That's very reassuring, Malcolm.
01:47Do you write every day?
01:49No.
01:50I'm much too lazy,
01:52and partly because I feel I ought to write well,
01:54and no, I can't.
01:55Why do you write?
01:57Why?
01:58Do you have to?
02:00No.
02:00Maybe I write instead of living.
02:03And people remember my name?
02:05My name?
02:08Immortality.
02:10I think the novel has to be good.
02:12Is it?
02:13It may be barely intelligible.
02:15Oh, come on.
02:16What is it, you're fools?
02:17I don't think intelligibility can be taken for granted with me.
02:22All through the evening,
02:23a Spanish restaurant, cheerful,
02:26I was thinking about the garden seat.
02:30Was it wise to have left it without some kind of cover on?
02:32Or a sign?
02:34Wet paint?
02:36Would the stupid garden boy have sat on it?
02:40How is the Buddha?
02:42He's in Ghent.
02:43Who's the Buddha?
02:44A friend of mine, Indian.
02:46He's Mohammedan, in fact.
02:48I tutored him.
02:49He's called Masood,
02:50and he thinks very highly of himself.
02:52It's as well I share that opinion.
02:54Ah, chilled tomato soup.
02:57What do they call it?
02:58A gazpacho.
02:58Just right.
02:59So, what's he doing in Ghent?
03:01He's meant to be brushing up his French,
03:03and he seems to be playing a lot of tennis
03:04and generally showing off.
03:05I like Ghent.
03:06I went through it once, I think, on the train.
03:09But there's an altarpiece.
03:11Van Eyck.
03:12Now, I'm remembering I stopped and I still missed it.
03:17If I'm determined to get to know a person, I can do.
03:20But though he was friendly and agreeable enough,
03:23I didn't with Mertz.
03:25Has your novel got a name?
03:27What do I look out for?
03:29Howard's End, name of the house.
03:31But let me get it finished first.
03:33Good name.
03:34I was thinking of something fixed and harmonious.
03:37Which way are you heading, Malcolm?
03:38Up to Baker Street, so I'll leave you.
03:41And Ernest?
03:42St. James' Square.
03:43Are you walking?
03:44Yes.
03:45I'll walk along with you.
03:46I'll get that cab.
03:47Goodbye.
03:48Bye, Malcolm.
03:48So I walked a little with Ernest Mertz,
03:52and he left me, normal, at about 9.40.
03:57I know it was that time,
03:58because I jumped on a train at Charing Cross,
04:00just in time to catch the 9.56 from Waterloo to Weybridge.
04:04You're certain about the train time, sir?
04:07As certain as I can be.
04:09And the following evening, I'm talking at home to the police.
04:12You see, I find it incredible.
04:14Mr. Mertz's death?
04:15Yes.
04:16Where did he get the rope from?
04:17Well, the building where he lived was being decorated.
04:20There were builder's materials, including some rope.
04:23He'd taken it and cut it down to the right size.
04:26I would have no idea how to do that.
04:29To kill yourself in that way.
04:31You read about these things.
04:34Who found him?
04:35The decorators.
04:36Them.
04:39Did you know him well, sir?
04:40I met him only last night.
04:42The other gentleman, Mr. Darling, he was his friend?
04:46That was the connection.
04:47Was there a reason for the meeting, sir?
04:49It was all quite last minute.
04:51There were the three of us.
04:52My friend, Malcolm Darling, was in town.
04:55He'd met up with Mertz, who came along, too.
04:58Did the other gentleman, Mr. Darling, say that Mr. Mertz was keen to meet you?
05:03He may have done.
05:04Yes, I think that was said, but it could mean anything.
05:08You're a novelist.
05:10Which means that people run after me a bit these days.
05:12Something of a figure to people?
05:16I've just remembered something.
05:18He was due to be groomsman at Malcolm's wedding.
05:21Mr. Mertz?
05:22Malcolm gets married in two weeks.
05:24Mertz was groomsman.
05:26He liked Malcolm's wife to be, Jesse.
05:28He told me.
05:29Mr. Mertz told you?
05:31Yes, last night.
05:32Anything else you talked about, sir?
05:35All sorts of things.
05:36He was interested in my book.
05:37Book?
05:38I'm writing a novel.
05:39There was a lot about that.
05:41I don't dominate conversations, or at least I don't think I do.
05:44Well, I try not to, but there were a lot of questions from Mertz, and then we walked along Piccadilly together.
05:52Just the two of you?
05:53Malcolm was heading in a different direction.
05:55Mertz was on his way to his club.
05:57Yes.
05:58The Devonshire St. James Square.
05:59Yes.
06:01Did anybody see him there?
06:02We're checking, sir.
06:05What I didn't do is suggest we meet again.
06:08It's not the kind of thing that leads to suicide, sir, is it?
06:11Well, there wouldn't be many people left in the world.
06:14Mother.
06:21Yes, yes?
06:23You're sitting in the dark.
06:26Has the policeman gone?
06:29Yes.
06:30It's a mess.
06:33Yes, it's terrible for Malcolm.
06:35He was his friend?
06:37Yes.
06:38Well, don't let yourself be bothered by it.
06:41Hard not to be.
06:42I only decided to go at the last minute.
06:46The meeting could easily never have happened.
06:49I don't think I was very warm-hearted.
06:51What do you mean?
06:53There wasn't enough about him.
06:54I didn't go for him.
06:58People can be misled.
06:59My way with them.
07:00We've talked about it.
07:00My manner.
07:01Imagine they count for more in my life than they really do.
07:04You see a great many people these days.
07:06I've learned to be careful.
07:08I don't encourage permanency.
07:10It's got to be somebody special.
07:14Now I'm better known.
07:15But if he wasn't your friend...
07:16He was Malcolm's groomsman.
07:19Due to be groomsman at Malcolm's wedding.
07:28It's good of you to come up to town.
07:29Well, what have you been doing, Malcolm?
07:32What I can.
07:33I've written to his family.
07:34Have you seen them?
07:36The father's down here handling things now.
07:38No, not yet.
07:39But there's still a lot of police work to be gone through.
07:41Where are they from?
07:42Newcastle.
07:43The father works there.
07:45It's where Mertz would have been normally.
07:46What did he do?
07:48He was a solicitor.
07:49Just finishing his training.
07:50And the father?
07:51Businessman.
07:52High up in some electricity company.
07:54Very practical.
07:55Only he's been writing a book.
07:57The father?
07:57A history of philosophical thought.
08:00Writing it in his spare time.
08:01Gets up at five in the morning.
08:02Hard to live up to.
08:03Father and son.
08:04Yes, I've had that thought.
08:06Brothers?
08:06Sisters?
08:07Siblings, certainly.
08:08I'm not sure of the distribution.
08:10Ernest was the youngest.
08:11But he kept the flat down here.
08:12It was the father's.
08:13The family used it when in town.
08:14Did anybody see him after me that night?
08:16I don't know.
08:17But we know he'd been drinking.
08:19Do we?
08:20Whiskey bottle found next to him.
08:21Was the whiskey bottle empty?
08:23Yes.
08:23But how full it had been before?
08:24Drunk it neat.
08:26That's a funny question.
08:28I'm just trying to get a picture.
08:31You think how much you didn't know.
08:34I think was I the last to see him alive or talk to him.
08:38What I could have done or might have said or not said.
08:41I think did something happen to him.
08:44What do you mean?
08:44Was he accosted?
08:46Who by?
08:47A prostitute.
08:48Or saw something discussed.
08:50Saw.
08:51You see, what I think lies at the root of this is homosexuality.
08:55Have you said that to the police?
08:57No.
08:58You think he was homosexual?
09:00I'd wondered.
09:01Why?
09:02He wrote to me about Josie after he met her.
09:05He said how much he liked my wife to be.
09:07But there was a kind of regret in his letter.
09:10As if marriage was somehow out of the question for him.
09:14And his manner with me sometimes.
09:15What?
09:16A bit schoolboy.
09:17Hero worshipping.
09:18Did he declare himself?
09:20It happens, no.
09:21But I wouldn't be surprised if his inclinations were that way.
09:24Can you tell?
09:25No.
09:26It's guesswork.
09:27But I say it to you.
09:29As we were walking along Piccadilly, he said it seemed as if everyone he knew was getting married.
09:35Did he?
09:36Well, there's me and Arthur Cole.
09:38Do you know him?
09:39No.
09:40He was a friend of his.
09:41Were there any women in his life apart from family?
09:44One, I think.
09:45Can't remember her name.
09:46But you'd imagine it was Cicely.
09:49I'm 30.
09:49I'm unmarried.
09:50I don't have any women friends.
09:52I mean, of the passionate kind.
09:54Do you think he was disturbed by something he saw or somebody who approached him?
09:58The more shameless type.
09:59A man.
10:00Piccadilly.
10:01That time of night.
10:02I think he'd be too aware of the legal consequences.
10:05I don't see the man we met finishing up that night with some tart, male or female.
10:08Perhaps not.
10:10What do you think?
10:10He was very glad to be in our company.
10:13You getting married.
10:14Me the writer.
10:16It seemed to me as if he hadn't even got started.
10:19Let it be known to the worthy and highly esteemed Forster that your humble like under the dust
10:33beneath thy feet scribe intends reaching the town which is known to us as Weybridge on Tuesday
10:39this 13th of July.
10:42The scribe is looking forward to the pleasure he will have of seeing the inhabitants, the
10:47great novelist and his mother of Harnam Lodge.
10:52I've been gardening a good deal lately.
10:54I think there's something inside me at the moment, inclining me to dawdle.
10:59And the weather.
11:00So, you're not writing?
11:02I don't have to write.
11:04The world's not exactly waiting.
11:06Ah, I am.
11:08Yes.
11:09Well, now, observe the garden seat.
11:13Sit down on it, if you wish.
11:15I'm happy to stroll.
11:17Very wise.
11:19It's rather rickety.
11:20What do you notice about it?
11:22Um, is there anything to notice?
11:25Well, what colour is it?
11:27Green.
11:28Well done.
11:29Do you like the colour?
11:30Yes.
11:31I painted it.
11:32You?
11:33Well, don't sound so surprised.
11:35Why do you do things like that?
11:39It came into my mind to do it.
11:40I enjoy it.
11:41You'd employ a servant, of course, to do that.
11:43Or buy a new seat.
11:46We are the English middle classes.
11:49We preserve.
11:50What are you doing?
11:51Moving it under the tree.
11:53Oh.
11:53Where it's shady.
11:55It's been there for years.
11:57It can't be moved.
11:58Well, it just has been.
11:59We sit in the shade in India, as you will see when you visit.
12:04You can write your novel under it now.
12:06So, tell me, why are you wasting your time?
12:11Now, this is a bit pot and kettle, isn't it?
12:13Shove up you, Westrell.
12:15Now, what have you been doing in Ghent?
12:16Oh.
12:17Everybody else was working.
12:19It was so depressing.
12:21You know what they say in Belgium?
12:22The weather's bad for nine months of the year, and then it's winter.
12:26I don't understand.
12:27Oh, yes, of course.
12:28But wasn't the weather quite good when you were there?
12:31I'm in Belgium's more or less.
12:32It's just their joke.
12:35Generally.
12:36I thought you English were good at jokes.
12:38Well, I'm not on very good form, apart from seeing you.
12:40I've rather missed you.
12:43Weybridge isn't the same without you.
12:45Why?
12:46What's the matter?
12:47It's something I've realised.
12:48That the impulse to write in me is bound up with optimism.
12:52That the universe is good.
12:55Life worth living.
12:57I suppose my writing, whatever happens along the way in the book,
12:59has that kind of...
13:01Would you call it a message?
13:03Justifies the effort of writing.
13:05And then, of course, there's the real world.
13:09Events.
13:11Your visit is well-timed.
13:14Is your mother not well?
13:16She was not...
13:16She's just gone to see her sister today.
13:18She...
13:18She's, um...
13:20She's sorry to have missed you.
13:22She is very fond of you.
13:24I'm very concerned that you're flippering away your time rather than working.
13:28She is not.
13:29You're making it up.
13:30I'm sorry.
13:32Ghent was not a success.
13:33The native straight out of Bruegel.
13:35Dull.
13:36Ugly.
13:37Oh, dear.
13:39I wanted you to be there.
13:43I wish I had been.
13:44Would you like to go to Paris?
13:50I've...
13:51I've never been to Paris.
13:52I've...
13:52I've...
13:52I've never stopped.
13:54That's extraordinary.
13:55I'm not especially fond of France.
13:57It's not really my cup of tea.
13:57I wasn't thinking for long.
14:02How long?
14:03A week.
14:04How long could you manage?
14:06Well, you get bored with me.
14:08I would like to get you away from here.
14:09What do you mean?
14:10Convention.
14:11Yes.
14:14Yes, I suppose...
14:15You say how much it bores you at times?
14:17This place is not the same without you.
14:21When?
14:22Not summer.
14:23There'll be nobody there.
14:24It doesn't matter.
14:26I want to have you as much to myself as ever I can.
14:30You are the kindest fella.
14:34I've been living much the same life for years.
14:38Pottering along.
14:40Demanding no excitement.
14:42And then this joy.
14:45When I'm with him and for days later, it's like this great shout of joy.
14:50It goes beyond the physical.
14:52The whole world is transformed by it.
14:57I rode with Mother on the river this evening, thinking of Massoud.
15:02Massoud.
15:04Massoud.
15:04Shall we go on a little further?
15:10Isn't it getting a little cool?
15:12Not if you're rowing.
15:15It's as you wish.
15:16I think just round that bend.
15:19You know it's folly.
15:21That this can't be happening.
15:23That he exaggerates his affection.
15:26Esteems.
15:27Rather than loves you.
15:29Massoud has asked me to go to Paris with him.
15:31He's just come back from Ghent.
15:33Oh, not immediately.
15:34I think probably Christmas holidays.
15:38Christmas?
15:39But before Christmas itself.
15:41You'd be all right, wouldn't you?
15:43Get Aunt Laura in.
15:44Well, if she wanted to come.
15:47You think?
15:48Is this it?
15:50Is my life about to begin?
15:54When does he finish at Oxford?
15:56Not till next year.
15:59You're always accusing him of not doing very much work.
16:03I don't think he does.
16:05He'll scramble through.
16:07And is that good enough?
16:08Oh, he's an aristocrat, Mother.
16:10He can do what he likes.
16:12He always seems to make you more cheerful.
16:19I must say, I like him very much.
16:20I enjoyed tutoring him, though we never did much work even then.
16:24He'd say, let's not talk about that.
16:26Let's talk about this.
16:29Well, you've needed cheering up lately.
16:33Oh, let's start heading back now.
16:35It was after his wedding, where we didn't talk, or not about Mertz.
16:48I met Malcolm at the bath club.
16:50It's the strangest thing.
16:52I thought once the wedding was out of the way, it might fade.
16:55But I've been worrying around the thing a lot.
16:57Can't get it out of my head.
16:58Beneath us, at the club, was an oblong of blue-green water.
17:02The members, sleek, drying between their toes,
17:05and finally hurrying off to taxis and their city desks.
17:10Was Mertz a member here?
17:11That's right, I met him.
17:12Or came across him again after Cambridge.
17:15Sensuous.
17:17Do you notice it?
17:19A little.
17:20You mean...
17:21Opportunity.
17:23Do you think?
17:23Yes.
17:24So why didn't he take advantage of it?
17:26Nobody wants to get arrested.
17:28I've wondered about blackmail.
17:30He's getting involved with someone unsuitable.
17:32I think his problem was, if you're right, maybe wanting to be normal.
17:36I'm not sure the man I saw would make that kind of a mess of things.
17:39I think he would be overscrupulous.
17:41His father believed that Ernest had a vision.
17:44Heard a voice which said,
17:46Come to me.
17:46And he went.
17:47Was he religious?
17:48I think so.
17:48And the father?
17:49Yes, Quaker.
17:50Do you believe that?
17:51Going to Jesus?
17:52No.
17:52But if it helps the family?
17:54As I don't believe in immortality for myself,
17:56I find it hard to believe it possible for others.
17:59It's nice to think of him looking down on us,
18:02the way we look down on this swimming park.
18:04They're bringing out some letters of his.
18:06Ernest's.
18:07Privately printed as a kind of memento.
18:09I've contributed several that he wrote to me.
18:12Most were to this woman.
18:13Sister of a friend of his.
18:14A family he was close to.
18:15What's she called?
18:16Hilda...
18:17What's the name of her?
18:19Garnet?
18:20That's it.
18:21The two families, Mertz and them, Garnet, were good friends.
18:25Hilda Garnet.
18:26They lived near one another.
18:27Newcastle.
18:28Have you met them?
18:28Well, I've seen the Mertz's parents.
18:30I think you may be contacted by them.
18:31You can't keep me out of it, can you?
18:33I mean, I don't think I've got much to say.
18:35You may have been the last to have seen him alive,
18:37at least to talk to.
18:39And they recognize your name.
18:41So did nobody else see him again that night?
18:43I think they've drawn a blank wherever they've looked.
18:46Or nobody remembers seeing him.
18:49What have you been doing with yourself?
18:51Not much.
18:52Very little writing.
18:54I've handed in 30 chapters of the novel into the publishers,
18:56keep them off my back for a while.
18:58How much is that?
18:59About two-thirds.
19:00I suppose it will get finished.
19:03But not yet.
19:05I've given a couple of talks, made some new acquaintance.
19:08Somebody wants to paint me.
19:10Paint you?
19:10Who?
19:11Oil paints.
19:11You know, not just freshen me out.
19:13Who?
19:15Roger Fry.
19:16Very grand.
19:18You are becoming famous.
19:19What's the feeling with this novel?
19:21I'm not sure I could tell anybody else but you.
19:25Well, my publisher thinks I'm in for what he calls a dose of fame.
19:31And needless to say,
19:33it worries me.
19:35It's like nothing I've ever done before.
19:41No.
19:42It doesn't mean I qualify automatically for a dose of fame.
19:46It's an odd phrase, that.
19:48What do you mean?
19:49What I said.
19:50You've said to me that you feared success.
19:53Being wrecked by success.
19:55Well, batten down the hatches, you're on your way to the rocks.
19:59I think Howard's End is an amalgam of all your talents
20:02and well on its way to being a significant novel.
20:06You're going to have me staring at the carpet
20:07all the way through this conversation.
20:09All right.
20:10Practicalities.
20:11What proportion of it do we have here?
20:1430 chapters.
20:15Yes, but how much is that?
20:17The bulk.
20:17Good.
20:18We don't want it excessively long.
20:20I mean, I have to get everybody back to Howard's End
20:22at the end of the novel.
20:23It's past the point of no return.
20:25It's, well, just a question of working everything out
20:28as naturally as I can.
20:30What happens?
20:31Well, there's a killing.
20:33Good.
20:34Well, I think it's a killing.
20:36A death and a birth.
20:38Who?
20:38That would be telling.
20:39I mean, whose is the baby?
20:40Oh, Helen's.
20:41It's not just Plot, of course.
20:42No, no.
20:43No, it's the house.
20:43Yes.
20:44The appeal of the house.
20:45Howard's End.
20:46Who gets it?
20:47That's the problem.
20:48But it's more than just bricks and mortar.
20:50Yes.
20:51It's a Condition of England novel.
20:52Which makes me a little nervous.
20:54Why?
20:55Well, I'm not Goulsworthy or Wells.
20:57You're better than them.
20:58I'm not naturally political.
21:00I make stabs at things.
21:02I'm fatally instinctive.
21:04Every now and again in the book,
21:06there's a great uplifting of thought,
21:09like a mountain breaking out of clouds.
21:12I can't force it.
21:14When I do, it's no good.
21:15When do you think you might finish it?
21:19I don't want to rush.
21:21In part, that's what the book's about.
21:24Rush and hurry.
21:25The spring?
21:26We could make a splash.
21:28Fry's painting you.
21:29Yes.
21:30We might talk about something decorative.
21:32End papers.
21:33Depends on what kind of picture of you he comes up with.
21:35I should think it might scare people.
21:38Well, or something of the house, then.
21:40Howard's End.
21:41Yes.
21:42Not a falling off, then.
21:44The book?
21:45No.
21:46I'm going to look at you.
21:53Oh, dear.
21:54Maybe sketch you until I get a sense of you and what I want to do.
21:59Let's sit you down.
22:00Where?
22:01That should be comfortable.
22:02Oh, I may disappear into it.
22:04How long have you been wearing that suit?
22:07Since this morning.
22:09It rather encloses you.
22:10Isn't that what suits are supposed to do?
22:13When I've met you before, you've looked...
22:15Shabia.
22:17Yes.
22:18It wasn't entirely my idea, the new suit.
22:21Your mother?
22:22I think she's had enough of seeing me with tea stains.
22:24Dribbles.
22:25Custard.
22:27That's it.
22:28She knows a little of your work, you see.
22:30Approve?
22:31Not entirely, no.
22:32She says, make sure he paints your face clean.
22:36Looks clean enough to me.
22:37I mean, not one sheet yellow, one sheet green.
22:40Tell her it's not a photographic studio.
22:44I will.
22:45Yeah, I'm very keen on being done a little bit more colourful than I am.
22:49I've been reading your books again.
22:51There's quite a distinct personality there, the narrator.
22:55Yes, I...
22:56I think I found myself very early on, oddly, as a novelist.
23:01The rest is still catching up.
23:03The rest?
23:04Yes.
23:05What rest?
23:07That I was different from other men.
23:11Explain.
23:11Men?
23:12My liking for other men.
23:13I mean, rather than women.
23:15In bed?
23:16Well, it's quite theoretical with me, if that's the word.
23:21If I didn't know who E.M.
23:22Forster was, I might well imagine that the novels were written by a woman.
23:26Oh, spinsterish.
23:28Why be more polite?
23:29I'd say a certain feminine brilliance of perception.
23:33Sympathetic, intuitive, but sharp.
23:35With the books, I knew I had a certain definite talent for observation and expression.
23:40You seem to suggest the books are different from you, or only a part of you.
23:44Oh, they are.
23:46And I may be getting tired of that.
23:47All the subjects, the eternal subject.
23:51Men and women marrying.
23:52If you're not the marrying type, you mean.
23:54Yes.
23:56Yes, that's one way of putting it.
23:58I could do you wafting a carnation.
24:00Morgie?
24:06Yes?
24:08Living with your mother, keeping her happy, content, is not an ignoble aim, but not perhaps
24:16what a man of 30 should most concern himself with.
24:19Do we want any more runner beans?
24:20They're getting so big, they're almost inedible.
24:23It's been a bumper crop.
24:24Look at this one.
24:25I think we overdid it.
24:27I think we should plant more peas next year.
24:30I don't think they're so easy.
24:31When did you get back?
24:32About an hour ago.
24:34How did it go?
24:35Well, all he wanted to do was to talk to me.
24:38Talk?
24:39Sizing me up, finding out who I am, you know, that sort of thing.
24:42Pulled out his sketchbook eventually.
24:44No painting.
24:46Um, there's a letter.
24:48Second post has only just arrived.
24:50Thanks.
24:51Who's this?
24:53I've told the housemaid to start turning out the drawing room.
24:56She missed doing it yesterday, so don't go...
24:57Oh, dear.
24:58What's the matter?
25:00Is it bad news?
25:01Oh, somebody wants to see me.
25:03I thought I might have avoided it.
25:05Who?
25:06A friend of the man, Mertz.
25:09She says it's a strange request.
25:11It isn't, actually.
25:14Can I see?
25:15Yes.
25:17Hilda Garnett.
25:18I think she was quite close to him.
25:20To put her mind at rest, she says.
25:23I know Mrs. Mertz, Alice, very much wanted to talk to you, but she has not been well.
25:33No.
25:34He was her youngest.
25:35They were very close.
25:37And your two families were close.
25:39We still are.
25:41Yes.
25:42We were all shocked by what happened.
25:45I'm glad that it was with you he spent his last evening.
25:49I feel somewhat differently.
25:51I've gone over many times what we...
25:53You think if I'd done something different...
25:56I think you came in at the very end of something, Mr. Forster.
25:59Do you have any explanation for what happened?
26:03Did his letters to the family were collecting them reveal anything?
26:06That he'd scarcely got going, really.
26:09That was my feeling, too.
26:11I don't think he'd found his feet anywhere.
26:14The people he admired, he said, were sensitive.
26:17He said, the people I admire are sensitive and want to create something or discover something.
26:24He asked me why I wrote.
26:27It was quite abrupt, the question.
26:28He said something to me that I've only just remembered lately.
26:31He said, so people remember my name.
26:34Like a little slip of the tongue.
26:36I don't understand.
26:38Instead of saying, so people remember your, Forster's name, or the writer's name, he said, my name.
26:43An odd turn of phrase.
26:45It can be quite revealing.
26:47If you do what he did, and I say this reluctantly,
26:49then nobody you know is going to forget your name.
26:53Never.
26:53You see, I've never seen much purpose in the universe, and now I see much less.
27:00Oh, don't say that, Mr. Forster.
27:02What of the pain he caused his family?
27:05Yours.
27:05I measure it by how much I, a near stranger, have been affected.
27:09I think he would have liked to have loved, but couldn't.
27:17Would like to have loved you?
27:20I think he was in love with all of us.
27:22All my family.
27:24You got him away from his.
27:25I think that's too harsh.
27:26He was being propelled into a business career.
27:28It's not enough in itself to end your own life.
27:31And I wasn't as friendly to him as I could have been that night, and that's no explanation either.
27:36He was very close to my brother.
27:39He thinks the same as you, that he should have spotted some signs,
27:43but he was getting married and hadn't seen Ernest before.
27:45He was getting married?
27:46Yes.
27:48What he said to me that night was that everyone seems to be getting married.
27:53Now, why should that bother him?
27:55If it did?
27:56I think it did.
27:58I thought once, two or three years ago, that Ernest and I would marry one day.
28:05And he went abroad for a time.
28:07We exchanged letters, but I missed him more than he did me.
28:14And then he returned, but I could tell.
28:18I think he was more interested in seeing my brother than me.
28:23I think they had more in common.
28:26Is your brother married now?
28:28Yes.
28:29I think Ernest would have liked a wife, Mr. Forster.
28:33But he couldn't.
28:35Couldn't?
28:36He was always very honest.
28:38Didn't want to hurt people.
28:41Or let them down.
28:41I think he wanted to love.
28:45And I was the wrong sex.
28:49When he was with my brother, there was a closeness, a camaraderie I can't explain.
28:55And Envid.
28:57He could be so charming, so merry, so...
29:00Please, don't...
29:01Don't upset yourself.
29:02And I think that's all I want to say, Mr. Forster.
29:08You've been a great help.
29:10Have I?
29:12Though I loved him, I want to go on living.
29:16So do I.
29:19And I would have settled for less than love.
29:23Why are people so afraid of difference?
29:31Can I talk?
29:32I think you'd find it difficult not to.
29:35Try to speak with less animation.
29:37And don't use your hands.
29:39Well, I can't use one of them anymore.
29:41You've got me to sit on it.
29:42Well, that was the idea.
29:44Won't it look odd, Roger?
29:45Let me worry about that.
29:47Is the hand uncomfortable?
29:48No.
29:50Go on.
29:51Don't fidget.
29:53Why are people so afraid of difference?
29:55Yes.
29:56You're not.
29:57No?
29:58Well, you'd paint like an angry.
29:59Well, wish I could.
30:01Why do all men in the city wear suits?
30:03Live lives of such routine.
30:05Well, you live with your mother.
30:07I would like to live with a man.
30:09What's stopping him?
30:10Availability, mainly.
30:12I sometimes dream of missing my train and having adventures all night in London.
30:15Well, maybe you should.
30:16But my experience of the Saturnine is that it generally ends in regret and a certain grossness.
30:24However gross my desires, I'm never going to satisfy them for fear of annoying others.
30:28You might get found out.
30:29Yes.
30:30It is what I suppose it comes down to.
30:32What about one man in a kind of marriage?
30:35That would be ideal.
30:37Anyone in mind?
30:38Yes.
30:38Only he doesn't love me.
30:40He's not that sort.
30:41No one whom I like seems to be.
30:43It's frustrating.
30:45Yes.
30:45And angry.
30:46Angry.
30:48I've loved men.
30:49I've always loved men for as long as I can remember.
30:52You think that if society was structured in a way that this did not matter, then someone like Mertz would not be dead.
30:59The chap who committed suicide?
31:01Yes.
31:03Well, people kill themselves for all sorts of reasons.
31:05A story came to me yesterday.
31:07It just presented itself to me wholesale.
31:10A young man would call him Mertz, in love with someone who gets married.
31:16A rather prosaic sort of chap.
31:18Dutiful.
31:18Morally upright.
31:19He has these friends, a family, the Garnets.
31:22It seems he was in love with one of them.
31:24A man or woman?
31:25A man.
31:26Handsome, sporty.
31:27Leader of men, achievement, ethic.
31:28And our hero is none of these things.
31:31But people fall in love with the wrong people all the time.
31:34They don't string themselves up.
31:35No.
31:35This character, the one I want to write about, he doesn't.
31:38He hates himself.
31:40What he is.
31:40Tries to cure it.
31:41His friend gets married and he's unhappy.
31:45Thinks of suicide, but is rescued.
31:48Finds a lover.
31:48Or a lover.
31:50Finds him.
31:51Just takes him.
31:52Overwhelms him.
31:54Overwhelms him.
31:55And then I don't know quite what to do with him after that.
32:00They could go to jail, of course.
32:02I want them to continue.
32:04To remain in love.
32:07Will you publish this novel?
32:09Frighten the horses a bit, won't you?
32:10Yes, probably not.
32:11You might have another visit from the police.
32:16You can stretch your legs now, did you want?
32:22I'm having enough difficulties with the end of the present novel.
32:26My publisher's worried.
32:28Perfectly respectable woman, one of the sisters, Helen, I call her,
32:31has an illegitimate child.
32:33Do you describe what leads up to the child?
32:35No, it's very discreet.
32:37Oh.
32:38He wants me to change it.
32:39I told him it's too late now.
32:41I'd like to have a look at it.
32:49Lunch is going to be late.
32:51The cook's not well, or says she isn't well.
32:53So we're running this house on a maid.
32:56She seems to know at least the top of a stove.
32:58Well, we could eat something cold.
33:02Did you read the proofs?
33:05Yes.
33:06You have misgivings.
33:08I presume it sells, this kind of thing.
33:12This kind of thing.
33:14Immorality.
33:16Illegitimacy.
33:17Casual couplings.
33:18The characters decide, finally, what they will do.
33:21Do they?
33:22Do they?
33:23You sound hysterical.
33:24It's you.
33:25You decide.
33:27Drag readers through the gutter.
33:28Illegitimacy is a fact of life, Mother.
33:31Sex is a fact of life.
33:33I thought it was going to be about a house.
33:36The spirit of a house.
33:39But we end up among the bedclothes.
33:42You've spoiled the effect.
33:43You dislike my books.
33:44No, that's not true.
33:45But you're indifferent to them.
33:46Not this one, Morgie.
33:48I hate this one.
33:49It's not you.
33:50Well, that very much depends what I am, doesn't it?
33:53And I'm not writing this for stuffy Surrey types.
33:55Then don't give it me to read.
33:57I'm talking about these concerns of yours about what the neighbours think,
34:00which is quite different from what we might call morality.
34:03Oh, don't you try that Cambridge stuff on me.
34:07I'm sick of formalities.
34:09They're stifling the heart out of my life.
34:11A man who lives with his mistress, marries her,
34:13and then impregnates somebody else.
34:18Did you think I was going to enjoy a novel like that?
34:22It's designed to shock you.
34:23It isn't.
34:24It's working out these characters' fates.
34:26It's contrived.
34:27It's strange coincidence.
34:29And one loses patience.
34:31It deals with all sorts of things, probably dully.
34:34Oh, it's not dull, Morgie.
34:36Or not for most people.
34:38It's a dirty book, calculatedly so.
34:40It's going to sell like hot gates.
34:43You want to stir it up.
34:45I obviously have done.
34:47And nearly all novels go off towards the end.
34:54Blanche is ready, madam.
34:57Sir?
35:00You want to smash the china and cut your throat, then hers, or the other way round.
35:10But you don't, of course.
35:13I can't go on pleasing, mother.
35:16If I'm to survive, I have to change my life and gain more freedom.
35:21Declare myself.
35:22At least to the one to whom it matters.
35:27The Gare du Nord.
35:28Five days before Christmas.
35:31I'm leaving before him and don't want to.
35:34Less than a week together in Paris, but we've reached the stage where the other person has ceased to be interested.
35:41He's bored with me.
35:44I can tell.
35:44Will you go back to that restaurant?
35:48Tonight?
35:50Yes.
35:50And then?
35:52The opera, I don't know.
35:54A play?
35:54Or musical, Masoud.
35:56That's what you want to do.
35:57Not your kind of thing, Morgan.
35:59So I've been saving it.
36:00No, girls lifting their dresses.
36:02It's all triviality.
36:03Means nothing.
36:04I think love the most important thing in the world.
36:10Not titillation or waitresses, cocots, what seems to interest you.
36:14I love you more than any other man, Masoud.
36:18I would like to spend the rest of my life with you.
36:21But not while you're using your French on waitresses or creeping down to the bar at night after I've gone to bed looking for someone to take your pleasure with.
36:28I'm not a buffoon.
36:30My need, my real need is you.
36:34I can't imagine, I don't, that you can share the desire and the love that I have for you.
36:41But perhaps something could be worked out or salvaged.
36:47Teodoro is what it amounts to.
36:54Will you think about what I've said?
36:56Of course.
36:59But you didn't need to have said them.
37:02Did you know I had these feelings?
37:04Yes.
37:06You will forget me as soon as I am out of your sight.
37:10And spend the night with a waitress.
37:12You are one of the greatest gentlemen of the British Empire.
37:20What a dear fellow you are.
37:24He said if it produced gentlemen like me, the British Empire might last for a thousand years.
37:30Which didn't help at all.
37:32But I'm glad I spoke, despite the embarrassment.
37:37It's better to have tried and got burnt than never to have tried at all.
37:40Oh, love, every time thou goest out of my sight I die a new day.
37:46And then there was a gap.
37:49No contact.
37:52No comfort.
37:53When I was a boy, I must have been ten or eleven, with some inkling of these things,
38:03I remember looking out of the drawing room window at the deserted road and thinking,
38:08it all depends on whether a man or a woman first passes.
38:13That will be my future.
38:15From the right came a gentleman, hatless, a brown moustache.
38:23And I was relieved.
38:27It's part of an exhibition?
38:29Yes.
38:29Quite a large exhibition, I think.
38:31It's not just my portrait.
38:33He's done quite a few.
38:34He particularly wanted you to come along.
38:37Which scarf?
38:39The silk one.
38:40Does it look like you, this painting?
38:45It's not drab and mousy, so I don't know.
38:48I look much more capable than I really am.
38:52This year has given me a great deal to be grateful for.
38:55A novel published with success, had a portrait painted.
38:59Are you saying it looks like you or not?
39:02It seems to represent a brilliant and somewhat pleasing youth.
39:06Fry has a very curious power of observation.
39:08The general effect is quite nonchalant.
39:11I'm saying I like what he's done.
39:14The face is a little green.
39:16I think it's green.
39:17The eyes are pink, but my eyes are pink.
39:19My left hand seems to have been struck by diabetes.
39:22I don't think I'm going to like this painting.
39:24Well, it got too much like me at one point,
39:26but he was confident he'd be able to alter that.
39:28The way I'm seated, it makes me look like I've been dropped from an aeroplane.
39:32It all sounds very advanced.
39:35I'm going to buy it.
39:36Spend some of the proceeds of Howard's End, your favourite novel.
39:40I don't like popularity.
39:42It seems so mad.
39:45Don't quite know what to do with it.
39:47Can't live up to it.
39:50While I'm missing the thing I most desire.
39:52Dearest boy, where are you?
39:59What are you doing?
40:01If you use your imagination,
40:03you will see that I'm not having much of a time.
40:07Here in Weybridge, spirits are low, I'm afraid.
40:10Turn your mind to Surrey, dear fellow.
40:15It won't hurt.
40:17And better still, visit.
40:20It's sunny here.
40:22I sit on the garden seat
40:24and think of you.
40:26Are you vexed with me?
40:36Are you angry with me for what I couldn't help?
40:38No, of course not.
40:39You've kept away from me.
40:41You're absolutely useless at a distance.
40:44You're so damn slack,
40:45I don't know whether you're alive or dead for months.
40:48You could have helped me with a letter or two.
40:50I don't want you disturbed over me.
40:56Or with any misconceptions.
40:59I haven't any.
41:01I've just missed you.
41:03You wake me out of my suburban, academic life.
41:09So, what have you been doing?
41:12Writing.
41:13For myself, mainly.
41:15Why for yourself?
41:16It's a novel,
41:17but one that no one will ever see.
41:20Or certainly the public.
41:22But you're a success.
41:23I'm halfway to being a public figure,
41:25whatever that is.
41:27People want my views on things.
41:30But one advantage is that Howard's End
41:32is selling so well
41:33that I shall probably make enough money by it
41:35to come to India,
41:36if you're interested in that.
41:38Oh, you must go.
41:39I've told you,
41:40India will exceed all your expectations.
41:42You haven't seen the half of it.
41:43But why are you writing a novel for yourself?
41:46It will offend.
41:48It's about a young man who can't love
41:49because society won't let him.
41:52His undeveloped heart.
41:54I call him Morris.
41:56He's homosexual and frustrated.
41:58There seems no future for him.
42:00He thinks of suicide.
42:02And then I make him happy ever after
42:04in the way that fiction allows.
42:06I'm determined on that.
42:07Two men dragging one another to salvation.
42:10Hmm.
42:11I think you'll find that homosexuality
42:15is more of a problem for you in the West
42:16than in India.
42:17Really?
42:19Well, I said I was writing it for myself.
42:23In an ideal heaven, Morgan,
42:25you must admit there would be no homosexuality.
42:28In an ideal heaven, my dear Masood,
42:31there would be variety.
42:32And men could kiss one another in the street
42:37if they felt like it
42:38and fumble and caress.
42:42Life never gives us what we want
42:44at the moment we consider it appropriate.
42:46Adventures do occur,
42:49but not punctually.
42:50I look forward to some unpunctual adventures.
43:05In A Dose of Fame by Stephen Wakelam,
43:09E.M. Forster was played by Stephen Campbell Moore,
43:13Lily by Diana Quick,
43:15and Masood by Naveen Chowdhury.
43:17Malcolm was played by Matt Addis,
43:22Roger Fry by Malcolm Tierney,
43:24Hilda by Caroline Guthrie,
43:27Ernest by Benjamin Askew,
43:30Sergeant Unwin by Sam Dale,
43:33and the publisher by Philip Fox.
43:36The director was David Hunter.
43:47of the
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