"A secret trouble, eh? Well, come along."
They went into the dining-room, which was still strewn with dessert. The Venus de Medici in bronze stood on the mantelpiece, copies of Greuze hung on the walls. Maurice tried to speak and failed, poured out some water, failed again, and broke into a fit of sobbing.
"Take your time," said the old man quite kindly, "and remember of course that this is professional. Nothing you say will ever reach your mother's ears."
The ugliness of the interview overcame him. It was like being back in the train. He wept at the hideousness into which he had been forced, he who had meant to tell no one but Clive. Unable to say the right words, he muttered, "It's about women —"
Dr Barry leapt to a conclusion — indeed he had been there ever since they spoke in the hall. He had had a touch of trouble himself when young, which made him sympathetic about it. "We'll soon fix that up," he said.
Maurice stopped his tears before more than a few had issued, and felt the rest piled in an agonizing bar across his brain. "Oh, fix me for God's sake," he said, and sank into a chair, arms hanging. "I'm close on done for."
"Ah, women! How well I remember when you spouted on the platform at school… the year my poor brother died it was… you gaped at some master's wife… he's a lot to learn and life's a hard school, I remember thinking. Only women can teach us and there bad women as well as good. Dear, dear!" He cleared his throat. "Well, boy, don't be afraid of me. Only tell me the truth, and I'll get you well. When did you catch the beastly thing? At the Varsity?"
Maurice did not understand. Then his brow went damp. "It's nothing as filthy as that," he said explosively. "In my own rotten way I've kept clean."
Dr Barry seemed offended. He locked the door, saying, "Impotent, eh? Let's have a look," rather contemptuously.
Maurice stripped, throwing the garments from him in a rage. He had been insulted as he had insulted Ada.
"You're all right," was the verdict.
"What d'ye mean, sir, by all right?"
"What I say. You're a clean man. Nothing to worry about here."
He sat down by the fire, and, dulled though he was to impressions, Dr Barry noted the pose. It wasn't artistic, yet it could have been called superb. He sat in his usual position, and his body as well as his face seemed gazing indomitably at the flames. He wasn't going to knuckle under — somehow he gave that impression. He might be slow and clumsy, but if once he got what he wanted he would hold to it till Heaven and Earth blushed crimson.
"You're all right," repeated the other. "You can marry tomorrow if you like, and if you take an old man's advice you will. Cover up now, it's so draughty. What put all this into your head?"
"So you've never guessed," he said, with a touch of scorn in
his terror. "I'm an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort." His eyes closed, and driving clenched fists against them he sat motionless, having appealed to Caesar.
At last judgement came. He could scarcely believe his ears. It was "Rubbish, rubbish!" He had expected many things, but not this; for if his words were rubbish his life was a dream.
"Dr Barry, I can't have explained —"
"Now listen to me, Maurice, never let that evil hallucination, that temptation from the devil, occur to you again."
The voice impressed him, and was not Science speaking?
"Who put that he into your head? You whom I see and know to be a decent fellow! We'll never mention it again. No ril not discuss. I'll not discuss. The worst thing I could do for you is to discuss it."
"I want advice," said Maurice, struggling against the overwhelming manner. "It's not rubbish to me, but my life."
"Rubbish," came the voice authoritatively.
"I've been like this ever since I can remember without knowing why. What is it? Am I diseased? If I am, I want to be cured, I can't put up with the loneliness any more, the last six months specially. Anything you tell me, I'll do. That's all. You must help me."
He fell back into his original position, gazing body and soul into the fire.
"Come! Dress yourself."
"I'm sorry," he murmured, and obeyed. Then Dr Barry unlocked the door and called, "Polly! Whisky!" The consultation was over.
Dr Barry had given the best advice he could. He had read no scientific works on Maurice's subject. None had existed when he walked the hospitals, and any published since were in German, and therefore suspect. Averse to it by temperament, he endorsed the verdict of society gladly; that is to say, his verdict was theological. He held that only the most depraved could glance at Sodom, and so, when a man of good antecedents and physique confessed the tendency, "Rubbish, rubbish!" was his natural reply. He was quite sincere. He believed that Maurice had heard some remark by chance, which had generated morbid thoughts, and that the contemptuous silence of a medical man would at once dispel them.
And Maurice went away not unimpressed. Dr Barry was a great name at home. He had twice saved Kitty and had attended Mr Hall through his last illness, and he was so honest and independent and never said what he did not feel. He had been their ultimate authority for nearly twenty years — seldom appealed to, but known to exist and to judge righteousness, and now that he pronounced "rubbish", Maurice wondered whether it might not be rubbish, though every fibre in him protested. He hated Dr Barry's mind; to tolerate prostitution struck him as beastly. Yet he respected it and went away inclined for another argument with destiny.
He was the more inclined for a reason that he could not tell to the doctor. Clive had turned towards women soon after he reached the age of twenty-four. He himself would be twenty-four in August. Was it possible that he would turn also… and now that he came to think, few men married before twenty-four. Maurice had the Englishman's inability to conceive variety. His troubles had taught him that other people are alive, but not yet that they are different, and he attempted to regard Clive's development as a forerunner of his own.
It would be jolly certainly to be married, and at one with society and the law. Dr Barry, meeting him on another day, said, "Maurice, you get the right girl — there'll be no more trouble then." Gladys Olcott recurred to him. Of course he was not a crude undergraduate now. He had suffered and explored himself, and knew he was abnormal. But hopelessly so? Suppose he met a woman who was sympathetic in other ways? He wanted children. He was capable of begetting children — Dr Barry had said so. Was marriage impossible after all? The topic was in the air at home, owing to Ada, and his mother would often suggest that he should find someone for Kitty and Kitty someone for him. Her detachment was amazing. The words "marriage," "love," "a family" had lost all meaning to her during widowhood. A concert ticket sent by Miss Tonks to Kitty revealed possibilities. Kitty could not use it, and offered it round the table. Maurice said he should like to go. She reminded him that it was his Club night, but he said he would cut that. He went, and it happened to be the symphony of Tchaikovsky Clive had taught him to like. He enjoyed the piercing and the tearing and the soothing — the music did not mean more to him than that — and they induced a warm feeling of gratitude towards Miss Tonks. Unfortunately, after the concert he met Risley.
"Symphonie Pathique," said Risley gaily.
"Symphony Pathetic," corrected the Philistine.
"Symphonie Incestueuse et Pathique." And he informed his young friend that Tchaikovsky had fallen in love with his own nephew, and dedicated his masterpiece to him. "I come to see all respectable London flock. Isn't it supreme!"
"Queer things you know," said Maurice stuffily. It was odd that when he had a confidant he didn't want one. But he got a life of Tchaikovsky out of the library at once. The episode of the composer's marriage conveys little to the normal reader, who vaguely assumes incompatibility, but it thrilled Maurice. He knew what the disaster meant and how near Dr Barry had dragged him to it. Reading on, he made the acquaintance of "Bob", the wonderful nephew to whom Tchaikovsky turns after the breakdown, and in whom is his spiritual and musical resurrection. The book blew off the gathering dust and he respected it as the one literary work that had ever helped him. But it only helped him backwards. He was where he had been in the train, having gained nothing except the belief that doctors are fools.