Maurice

Thank you.

Hall, come here please.

Sir?

Come on.

Have a good send off?

Yes sir, thank you sir.

Mr. Abrahams gave me a picture, the light of the world.

The fellas have given me a set of Guatemalas.

Up to two dollars!

The ones with the parrot and the pillar on.

Look, sir.

Oh, splendid, splendid.

And um, what did Mr. Abrahams say to you?

Told you you were a miserable sinner, I hope.

Mr. Abrahams said I'm never to do anything

I'd be ashamed to do in front of my mother.

He said my next school will be more like the world.

Did he, did he?

What's the world like, do you suppose?

Don't know, sir, I'm a boy.

Do you, um, have any older brothers, Hall?

No, sir, only Kitty and Ada.

They're my sisters, sir.

No uncles?

No, sir.

There's Dr. Barry.

He knew my father before he died.

So you don't really know a great many grown-up fellows.

No, not really, sir.

Mother keeps a coachman, and George for the garden.

But of course, you mean gentlemen.

Hall, I'm going to talk to you for a few moments

as if I were your father.

It isn't anything your mother could say.

Do you, do you see?

Your body, is about to experience

various changes, physical changes.

Now, Mr. Abrahams has explained

to you that in the beginning,

"God created he man and woman,

"that the earth should be peopled abundantly."

Yes sir, Sir...

what changes?

I speak, Hall, of the sacred mystery of sex,

the act of procreation between a man and his wife.

The procreation indeed of all creeping things.

You will discover that your membrum virilis,

that's Latin from vir.

Vir, sir, it means man, sir.

Very good, very good.

Um, uh, look.

Uh, this might be easier if I...

That, that, that, um, that thing.

There, now, that will...

develop and grow larger.

You see?

And when that happens, the man lies

very, very close to his wife,

and he puts his membrum virilis into her vagina...

thus.

Then, in due course, she will bring forth his child.

Seminiferous tubules,

labia major and minor, ducts...

vulva.

That, that is the very crown of life, Hall.

God's wondrous purpose.

Your body is his temple.

You must never, ever pollute that temple.

And when, as one day I'm sure you will,

you fall in love and marry, you will discover

to serve and protect a woman,

and have children by her,

is life's chiefest glory.

Yes, sir.

You must never,

ever mention any of this to your mother,

or, or, or indeed to any lady.

And if at your next school the fellows mention it,

just shut them up.

Tell them you know.

I think I shan't marry.

What?

Look, um, in 10 years to the day,

I invite you and your wife to dine

with me and my wife as our guests.

What do you say?

Oh, sir.

Yes, it's a bargain then, is it?

Oh, God, those infernal designs.

Sir, won't they be all right?

The tide will have covered them by now.

Oh, yes, the rising tide.

I only hope to God he's right, by God.

Come, Victoria, come.

Wagner's utter rubbish.

Fat women with horns on their heads,

singing at the tops of their voices

about how happy they are to be dying.

It's a horrible noise, and it's unhealthy.

But music is about death, it always has been.

I think he's trying to provoke us.

Go on then, Risley, enlighten us.

A superior mind wouldn't need enlightening.

Music is the highest of the arts.

It needs no reference to the figurative, or the corporeal.

It is therefore, of all the arts,

the closest to death.

Wagner's by no means unhealthy.

He's merely expressing

most exactly the state of things.

Help yourselves to potatoes, Hall.

Don't stand on ceremony.

I can't stand music.

Or concert halls.

I don't go in for being superior.

Don't you?

I do.

Come along, Chapman, you're in need of food.

I expect Lord Risley isn't.

I've put him off with my low talk.

I simply can't think of a reply to that.

What about saying nothing?

Say nothing?

Horrible, he must be mad.

What you do is more important than what you say.

Your deeds are more important

than your words.

What is the difference?

Words are deeds.

Are you trying to say that these few minutes

talking in the dean's rooms

have done nothing for you?

Will you, for instance,

ever forget that you've met me?

You're confusing what is important

with what is impressive.

Chapman and Hall will always remember

they've met you, of that I have no doubt.

Exactly, because of my conversation.

Oh, they'll forget that they were engaged

in the act of eating a cutlet.

At least the cutlet does some good to them.

You do not.

I mean, Dean, that a cutlet

merely influences their subconscious life.

I, by my words,

shape the consciousness.

I am therefore not only

more impressive than the cutlet,

but infinitely more important.

Your dean here dwells in superstitious clouds

of Christian self-righteousness.

Your dean pretends that

only insensate faith is of any significance.

And daily he droops, soporific, into his soup.

Oh, Risley, shut up.

Come on.

I think if a man has ideas like that,

he should have the courtesy to keep them to himself.

No, no, no, on the contrary, one must talk, talk, talk.

It's only by talking that we shall caper upon the summit.

Otherwise the mountains will overshadow us.

I'm sure, Hall, you will agree.

Wait.

I'm eager to hear

more of your interesting ideas

about words and deeds.

My rooms are in Trinity.

And I have a dining club whose members would,

if I'm not mistaken, interest you.

No need to bring your chum.

Oh, well.

You're not going, are you?

Salutations, Risley.

You've bargained for more than you've gained.

Risley.

You've, uh, you've bargained for more than you've gained.

Salutations.

Look.

Come in.

Hello?

You're Durham, aren't you?

Yes.

I was looking for Risley, don't know where he is.

He's debating at the Union.

I was just stealing his pathetic symphony.

I'm reading a paper on Tchaikovsky,

but I cannot find the third movement.

If it's here at all, which I don't think it is.

Featherstonhaugh's got a Pianola.

I know.

His rooms are directly above mine.

Oh, well, I'll come back with you then.

You're living in college now?

Beginning my second year.

I'm third.

I have seen you, though.

Hall, isn't it?

If Risley's not coming,

perhaps I'd better get back.