Description
The Turn of the Screw
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but
except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in
an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no
comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case
he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case,
I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as
had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to
a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in
the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him
to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had
succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this
observation that drew from Douglas—not immediately, but later in the
evening—a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call
attention. Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which
I saw he was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself
something to produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in
fact till two nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered,
he brought out what was in his mind.
“I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was—that
its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a
particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming
kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the
effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to _two_ children—?”
“We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that they give two turns!
Also that we want to hear about them.”
I can see Douglas there b
Product ID: 9781776788705
Sku: 9781776788705
