The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as,

I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and

This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as Mrs. Grose said,

Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just preoccupations, a snub that could check the

It was not that I didn’t wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was rooted as deeply as I

Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she loomed again into view. “What

It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in presence of what we had now

I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give no intelligible account

What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter I had put before her

I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from my consternation. A very few of them,

I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect presently of understanding that when my visitor

It was not till late next day that I spoke to Mrs. Grose; the rigor with which I kept my

The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light, I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose,

It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as much as ever an effort

Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my side and his sister, in advance of

The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but

I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be marked by a demonstration that I was

I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had changed back, a great wind

The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me quietly: “Have you written, miss?” “Yes—I’ve

We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay rightly called, though I reflect

Just as in the churchyard with Miles, the whole thing was upon us. Much as I had made of the

Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. Grose, who had come to

Yet it was when she had got off—and I missed her on the spot—that the great pinch really came. If

“Oh, more or less.” I fancy my smile was pale. “Not absolutely. We shouldn’t like that!” I went on. “No—I

My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something that I can describe only as a