The Curate’s Friend” is one of two Forster’s coming-out stories published in The Celestial Omnibus (1911). In “The Story of a Panic,” it’s Pan who rapes a young boy. But in “The Curate’s Friend,” it’s a Faun who enamors a mature man.
The story takes place during a typical afternoon picnic in the Chiltern Hills attended by Harry, Emily, a young woman Harry is presumably attracted to, her mother, and a nameless young man, who is Emily’s real interest. At the top of the hill where they are about to picnic, the Curate shouts facetiously, “And who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?” and to his surprise, a young naked boy, with horns, hooves, and a tail who answers his call. When Harry begins to act strangely, his companions think that he is play-acting. But in fact, Harry is having a panic attack because he surmises, “a great crisis in my life was approaching.”
When the Faun addresses Harry, “Dear priest, be placid: why are you frightened?” Harry decides to accept the Faun’s attentions. Meanwhile, at the other end of the picnic cloth, Emily and the young man have paired off and are embracing. Rejected by Emily, he’s ready to accept the love of the Faun assures him that he will be true and never leave him.
Telling this story long after, Harry leaves the picnic knowing that his life will be satisfied and be secret. Of course, Harry says he can never tell anyone, except, of course, in a short story such as this: “For if I breathed one word of that, my present life, so agreeable and profitable, would come to an end, my congregation would depart.”
In his life, Forster was still looking for a lover and sexual stability that would eventually satisfy him.
*Pan also appears in disguise in Foster’s novel A Room with a View (1908).
See E. M Forster. “The Curate’s Friend.” (1904).” In The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories, (1911). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947; http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34089/34089-h/34089-h.htm