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The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
XII
The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose, though I reinforced it with the mention of still another remark that he had made before we separated. “It all lies in half a dozen words,” I said to her, “words that really settle the matter. ‘Think, you know, what I MIGHT do!’ He threw that off to show me how good he is. He knows down to the ground what he ‘might’ do. That’s what he gave them a taste of at school.”
“Lord, you do change!” cried my friend.
“I don’t change — I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it, perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had been with either child, you would clearly have understood. The more I’ve watched and waited the more I’ve felt that if there were nothing else to make it sure it would be made so by the systematic2 silence of each. NEVER, by a slip of the tongue, have they so much as alluded3 to either of their old friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion. Oh, yes, we may sit here and look at them, and they may show off to us there to their fill; but even while they pretend to be lost in their fairytale they’re steeped in their vision of the dead restored. He’s not reading to her,” I declared; “they’re talking of THEM— they’re talking horrors! I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it’s a wonder I’m not. What I’ve seen would have made YOU so; but it has only made me more lucid4, made me get hold of still other things.”
My lucidity5 must have seemed awful, but the charming creatures who were victims of it, passing and repassing in their interlocked sweetness, gave my colleague something to hold on by; and I felt how tight she held as, without stirring in the breath of my passion, she covered them still with her eyes. “Of what other things have you got hold?”
“Why, of the very things that have delighted, fascinated, and yet, at bottom, as I now so strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their more than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural6 goodness. It’s a game,” I went on; “it’s a policy and a fraud!”
“On the part of little darlings —?”
“As yet mere7 lovely babies? Yes, mad as that seems!” The very act of bringing it out really helped me to trace it — follow it all up and piece it all together. “They haven’t been good — they’ve only been absent. It has been easy to live with them, because they’re simply leading a life of their own. They’re not mine — they’re not ours. They’re his and they’re hers!”
“Quint’s and that woman’s?”
“Quint’s and that woman’s. They want to get to them.”
Oh, how, at this, poor Mrs. Grose appeared to study them! “But for what?”
“For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put into them. And to ply1 them with that evil still, to keep up the work of demons8, is what brings the others back.”
“Laws!” said my friend under her breath. The exclamation9 was homely10, but it revealed a real acceptance of my further proof of what, in the bad time — for there had been a worse even than this! — must have occurred. There could have been no such justification11 for me as the plain assent12 of her experience to whatever depth of depravity I found credible13 in our brace14 of scoundrels. It was in obvious submission15 of memory that she brought out after a moment: “They WERE rascals16! But what can they now do?” she pursued.
“Do?” I echoed so loud that Miles and Flora17, as they passed at their distance, paused an instant in their walk and looked at us. “Don’t they do enough?” I demanded in a lower tone, while the children, having smiled and nodded and kissed hands to us, resumed their exhibition. We were held by it a minute; then I answered: “They can destroy them!” At this my companion did turn, but the inquiry18 she launched was a silent one, the effect of which was to make me more explicit19. “They don’t know, as yet, quite how — but they’re trying hard. They’re seen only across, as it were, and beyond — in strange places and on high places, the top of towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the further edge of pools; but there’s a deep design, on either side, to shorten the distance and overcome the obstacle; and the success of the tempters is only a question of time. They’ve only to keep to their suggestions of danger.”
“For the children to come?”
“And perish in the attempt!” Mrs. Grose slowly got up, and I scrupulously20 added: “Unless, of course, we can prevent!”
Standing21 there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly turned things over. “Their uncle must do the preventing. He must take them away.”
“And who’s to make him?”
She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me a foolish face. “You, miss.”
“By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little nephew and niece mad?”
“But if they ARE, miss?”
“And if I am myself, you mean? That’s charming news to be sent him by a governess whose prime undertaking22 was to give him no worry.”
Mrs. Grose considered, following the children again. “Yes, he do hate worry. That was the great reason — ”
“Why those fiends took him in so long? No doubt, though his indifference23 must have been awful. As I’m not a fiend, at any rate, I shouldn’t take him in.”
My companion, after an instant and for all answer, sat down again and grasped my arm. “Make him at any rate come to you.”
I stared. “To ME?” I had a sudden fear of what she might do. “‘Him’?”
“He ought to BE here — he ought to help.”
I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than ever yet. “You see me asking him for a visit?” No, with her eyes on my face she evidently couldn’t. Instead of it even — as a woman reads another — she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, his contempt for the breakdown24 of my resignation at being left alone and for the fine machinery25 I had set in motion to attract his attention to my slighted charms. She didn’t know — no one knew — how proud I had been to serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the measure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. “If you should so lose your head as to appeal to him for me — ”
She was really frightened. “Yes, miss?”
“I would leave, on the spot, both him and you.”
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1
ply
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| v.(搬运工等)等候顾客，弯曲 | |
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2
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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3
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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5
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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6
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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7
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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8
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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9
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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10
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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11
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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12
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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14
brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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15
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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17
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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18
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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19
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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23
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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24
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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