Chapters 4-6 | Bly Manor - The Turn Of The Screw

Relax and listen to Chapters 4-6 of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, a gothic novella first published in 1898.

A story about a young governess who arrives at Bly Manor to care for two orphaned children. Initially charmed by the picturesque estate and her delightful wards, she soon encounters disturbing phenomena. Ghostly apparitions of former staff members begin to appear, their intentions toward the children seemingly malevolent.

As reality blurs with imagination, the governess desperately tries to protect Miles and Flora, uncertain whether she's battling genuine evil or losing touch with reality.

Narrated by Jane Watson

Transcript

Chapter 4 It was not that I didn't wait,

On this occasion,

For more,

For I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken.

Was there a secret at Bly,

A mystery of Udolpho,

Or an insane and unmentionable relative,

Kept in unsuspected confinement?

I can't say how long I turned it over.

Or how long,

In a confusion of curiosity and dread,

I remained where I had had my collision.

I only recall that when I re-entered the house,

Darkness had quite closed in.

Agitation,

In the interval,

Certainly had held me and driven me,

For I must,

Encircling about the place,

Have walked three miles.

But I was to be,

Later on,

So much more overwhelmed,

That this mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill.

The most singular part of it,

In fact,

Singular as the rest had been,

Was the part I became,

In the hall,

Aware of in meeting Mrs.

Gross.

This picture comes back to me in the general train,

The impression,

As I received it on my return,

Of the wide,

White-paneled space,

Bright in the lamplight,

And with its portraits and red carpet,

And of the good-surprised look of my friend,

Which immediately told me she had missed me.

It came to me straight away,

Under her contact,

That,

With plain heartiness,

Mere relieved anxiety at my appearance,

She knew nothing,

Whatever,

That could bear upon the incident I had there ready for her.

I had not suspected in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up,

And I somehow measured the importance of what I had seen,

By my thus finding myself hesitate to mention it.

Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd as this fact,

That my real beginning of fear was won,

As I may say,

With the instinct of sparing my companion.

On the spot,

Accordingly,

In the pleasant hall,

And with her eyes on me,

I,

For a reason that I couldn't then have phrased,

Achieved an inward resolution,

Offered a vague pretext for my lateness,

And,

With a plea of the beauty of the night,

And of the heavy dew and wet feet,

Went as soon as possible to my room.

Here it was another affair,

Here,

For many days after,

It was a queer affair enough.

There were hours,

From day to day,

Or at least there were moments,

Snatched even from clear duties,

When I had to shut myself up to think.

It was not so much yet,

That I was more nervous than I could bear to be,

As that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so,

For the truth I had now to turn over was,

Simply and clearly,

The truth that I could arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so inexplicably,

And yet,

As it seemed to me,

So intimately concerned.

It took little time to see what I could sound,

Without forms of inquiry,

And without exciting remark,

Any domestic complications.

The shock I had suffered must have sharpened all my senses.

I felt sure,

At the end of three days,

And as a result of mere closer attention,

That I had not been practiced upon,

By the servants,

Nor made the object of any game.

Of whatever it was that I knew,

Nothing was known around me.

There was but one sane inference,

Someone had taken a liberty rather gross.

That was what,

Repeatedly,

I dipped into my room,

And locked the door to say to myself.

We had been,

Collectively,

Subject to an intrusion.

Some unscrupulous traveler,

Curious in old houses,

Had made his way in,

Unobserved,

Enjoyed the prospect,

From the best point of view,

And then stolen out as he came.

If he had given me such a bold,

Hard stare,

That was but a part of his indiscretion.

The good thing,

After all,

Was that we should surely see no more of him.

This was not so good a thing,

I admit,

As not to leave me to judge that what,

Essentially,

Made nothing else much signify,

Was simply my charming work.

My charming work was just my life,

With miles and flora,

And through nothing could I so like it,

As through feeling that I could throw myself into it in trouble.

The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy,

Leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original fears.

The distaste I had begun by entertaining,

For the probable gray prose,

Of my office.

There was to be no gray prose.

It appeared,

And no long grind.

So how could work not be charming,

That presented itself as daily beauty?

It was all the romance of the nursery,

And the poetry of the schoolroom.

I don't mean by this,

Of course,

That we studied only fiction and verse.

I mean,

I can express no otherwise,

The sort of interest my companions inspired.

How can I describe that,

Except by saying,

That instead of growing used to them,

And it's a marvel for a governess,

I call the sisterhood to witness.

I made constant fresh discoveries.

There was one direction,

Assuredly,

In which these discoveries stopped.

Deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the boy's conduct at school.

It had been promptly given me,

I have noted,

To face that mystery without a pang.

Perhaps even it would be nearer the truth to say that,

Without a word,

He himself had cleared it up.

He had made the whole charge absurd.

My conclusion bloomed there with a real rose flesh of his innocence.

He was only too fine and fair for the little horrid,

Unclean schoolworld,

And he had paid a price for it.

I reflected acutely that the sense of such differences,

Such superiorities of quality,

Always on the part of the majority,

Which could include even stupid,

Sordid headmasters,

Turn infallibly to the vindictive.

Both the children had a gentleness.

It was their only fault,

And it never made Miles a muff.

That kept them,

How shall I express it,

Almost impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable.

They were like the cherubs of the anecdote,

Who had,

Morally at any rate,

Nothing to whack.

I remember feeling with Miles,

And especial,

As if he had had,

As it were,

No history.

We expect of a small child a scant one.

But there was in this beautiful little boy,

Something extraordinarily sensitive,

Yet extraordinarily happy,

That,

More than in any creature of his age,

I have seen,

Struck me as beginning anew each day.

He had never for a second suffered.

I took this,

As a direct disproof,

Of his having really been chastised.

If he had been wicked,

He would have caught it,

And I should have caught it by the rebound.

I should have found the trace.

I found nothing at all,

And he was,

Therefore,

An angel.

He never spoke of his school,

Never mentioned a comrade or a master,

And I,

For my part,

Was quite too much disgusted to allude to them.

Of course,

I was under the spell,

And the wonderful part is that,

Even at that time,

I perfectly knew I was.

But I gave myself up to it.

It was an antidote to any pain,

And I had more pains than one.

I was in receipt,

In these days,

Of disturbing letters from home,

Where things were not going well.

But with my children,

What things in the world mattered?

That was a question I used to put to my scrappy retirements.

I was dazzled by their loveliness.

There was a Sunday,

To get on,

When it rained with such force,

And for so many hours,

That there could be no procession to church.

In consequence of which,

As the day declined,

I had arranged with Mrs.

Gross that,

Should the evening show improvement,

We would attend together the late service.

The rain happily stopped,

And I prepared for our walk,

Which,

Through the park and by the good road to the village,

Would be a matter of twenty minutes.

Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall,

I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches,

And that had received them,

With a publicity perhaps not edifying,

While I sat with the children at their tea,

Served on Sundays,

By exception,

In that cold,

Clean temple of mahogany and brass,

The grown-up dining room.

The gloves had been dropped there,

And I turned in to recover them.

The day was gray enough,

But the afternoon light still lingered,

And it enabled me,

On crossing the threshold,

Not only to recognize,

On a chair near the wide window,

Then closed,

The articles I wanted,

But to become aware of a person,

On the other side of the window,

And looking straight in.

One step into the room had sufficed,

My vision was instantaneous,

It was all there.

The person,

Looking straight in,

Was a person who had already appeared to me.

He appeared thus again,

With I won't say greater distinctness,

For that was impossible,

But with a nearness that represented a forward stride in our intercourse,

And made me,

As I met him,

Catch my breath and turn cold.

He was the same and seen this time,

As he had been seen before,

From the waist up.

The window,

Though the dining room was on the ground floor,

Not going down to the terrace on which he stood,

His face was close to the glass,

Yet the effect of this better view was,

Strangely,

Only to show me how intense the former had been.

He remained but a few seconds,

Long enough to convince me,

He also saw and recognized.

But it was as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always.

Something,

However,

Happened this time that had not happened before.

His stare into my face,

Through the glass and across the room,

Was as deep and hard as then.

But it quitted me for a moment,

During which I could still watch it,

See it fix successfully several other things.

On the spot,

There came to me the added shock of assertitude that it was not for me he had come there.

He had come for someone else.

The flash of this knowledge,

For it was knowledge in the midst of dread,

Produced in me the most extraordinary effect.

Started as I stood there,

A sudden vibration of duty and courage.

I say courage because I was beyond all doubt already far gone.

I bounded straight out of the door again,

Reached that of the house,

Got,

In an instant upon the drive,

And passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush,

Turned a corner and came full in sight.

But it was in sight of nothing now.

My visitor had vanished.

I stopped,

I almost dropped,

With a real relief of this.

But I took in the whole scene.

I gave him time to reappear.

I call it time,

But how long was it?

I can't speak to the purpose today of the duration of these things.

That kind of measure must have left me.

They couldn't have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last.

The terrace and the whole place,

The lawn and the garden beyond it,

All I could see of the park,

Were empty with a great emptiness.

There were shrubberies and big trees,

But I remember the clear assurance I felt that none of them concealed him.

He was there or was not there,

Not there if I didn't see him.

I got hold of this,

Then,

Instinctively,

Instead of returning as I had come,

Went to the window.

It was confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had stood.

I did so.

I applied my face to the pane and looked as he had looked into the room.

As if,

At this moment,

To show me exactly what his range had been.

Mrs.

Gross,

As I had done for himself just before,

Came in from the hall.

With this I had the full image of a repetition of what had already occurred.

She saw me as I had seen my own visitant.

She pulled up short as I had done.

I gave her something of the shock that I had received.

She turned white,

And this made me ask myself if I had blanched as much.

She stared in short and retreated on just my lines,

And I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and that I should presently meet her.

I remained where I was,

And while I waited,

I thought of more things than one.

But there's only one I take space to mention.

I wondered why she should be scared.

Chapter 5 Oh,

She let me know as soon as,

Round the corner of the house,

She loomed again into view.

What in the name of goodness is the matter?

She was now flushed and out of breath.

I said nothing till she came quite near.

With me?

I must have made a wonderful face.

Do I show it?

You're as white as a sheet,

You look awful.

I considered I could meet on this without scruple any innocence.

My need to respect the bloom of Mrs.

Gross's had dropped without a rustle from my shoulders.

And if I wavered for the instant,

It was not with what I kept back.

I put up my hand to her and she took it.

I held her heart a little,

Liking to feel her close to me.

There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise.

You came for me for church,

Of course,

But I can't go.

Has anything happened?

Yes,

You must know now.

Did I look very queer?

Through this window?

Dreadful.

Well,

I said,

I've been frightened.

Mrs.

Gross's eyes expressed plainly that she had no wish to be,

Yet also that she knew too well her place,

Not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience.

Oh,

It was quite settled that she must share.

Just what you saw from the dining room a minute ago was the effect of that.

What I saw,

Just before,

Was much worse.

Her hand tightened.

What was it?

An extraordinary man looking in.

What extraordinary man?

I haven't the least idea.

Mrs.

Gross gazed round us in vain.

Then where has he gone?

I know still less.

Have you seen him before?

Yes,

Once,

On the old tower.

She could only look at me harder.

Do you mean he's a stranger?

Oh,

Very much.

Yet you didn't tell me?

No,

For reasons,

But now that you've guessed.

Mrs.

Gross's round eyes encountered this charge.

How can I if you don't imagine?

I don't in the very least.

You've seen him nowhere but on the tower?

And on this spot just now?

Mrs.

Gross looked round again.

What was he doing on the tower?

Only standing there and looking down at me.

She thought a minute.

Was he a gentleman?

I found I had no need to think.

No,

She gazed in deeper wonder.

Then nobody about the place?

Nobody from the village?

Nobody,

Nobody.

I didn't tell you,

But I made sure.

She breathed a vague relief.

This was,

Oddly,

So much to the good.

It only went indeed a little way.

But if he isn't a gentleman.

.

.

What is he?

He's a horror.

A horror?

He's.

.

.

God help me if I know what he is.

Mrs.

Gross looked round once more.

She fixed her eyes on the duskier distance.

Then pulling herself together,

Turned to me with abrupt inconsequence.

It's time we should be at church.

Oh,

I'm not fit for church.

Won't it do you good?

It won't do them,

I nodded at the house.

The children?

I can't leave them now.

You're afraid?

I spoke boldly.

I'm afraid of him.

Mrs.

Gross's large face showed me,

At this,

For the first time,

The faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute.

I somehow made out in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her,

And that was as yet quite obscure to me.

It comes back to me that I thought instantly of this as something I could get from her,

And I felt it to be connected with a desire she presently showed to know more.

When was it on the tower?

About the middle of the month,

At this same hour.

Almost at dark,

Said Mrs.

Gross.

Oh no,

Not nearly.

I saw him as I see you.

Then how did he get in?

And how did he get out?

I laughed.

I had no opportunity to ask him.

This evening,

You see,

I pursued.

He has not been able to get in.

He only peeps.

I hope it will be confined to that.

She had now let go of my hand.

She turned away a little.

I waited an instant,

Then I brought out,

Go to church,

Goodbye.

I must watch.

Slowly she faced me again.

Do you fear for them?

We met in another long look.

Don't you?

Instead of answering,

She came nearer to the window,

And,

For a minute,

Applied her face to the glass.

You could see how he could see,

I meanwhile went on.

She didn't move.

How long was he here?

Till I came out.

I came to meet him.

Mrs.

Gross at last turned round,

And there was still more in her face.

I couldn't have come out.

Neither could I.

I laughed again.

But I did come.

I have my duty.

So I have mine,

She replied.

After which she added,

What is he like?

I've been dying to tell you,

But he's like nobody.

Nobody?

She echoed.

He has no hat.

Then seeing in her face that she already in this,

With a deeper dismay,

Found a touch of picture,

I quickly added stroke to stroke.

He has red hair,

Very red,

Close curling,

And a pale face,

Long in shape,

With straight good features,

And little,

Rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair.

His eyebrows are somehow darker.

They look particularly arched,

And as if they might move a good deal.

His eyes are sharp,

Strange awfully,

But I only know clearly that they're rather small and very fixed.

His mouth's wide,

And his lips are thin,

And except for his little whiskers he's quite clean-shaven.

He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor.

An actor?

It was impossible to resemble one less,

At least,

Than Mrs.

Gross at that moment.

I have never seen one,

But so I suppose them.

He's tall,

Active,

Erect,

I continued.

But never,

No,

Never a gentleman.

My companion's face had blanched as I went on.

Her round eyes started,

And her mild mouth gaped.

A gentleman,

She gasped,

Confounded,

Stupefied.

A gentleman,

He?

You know him,

Then?

She visibly tried to hold herself.

But he is handsome.

I saw the way to help her.

Remarkably.

And dressed.

In somebody's clothes.

They're smart,

But they're not his own.

She broke into a breathless,

Affirmative groan.

They're the masters.

I caught it up.

You do know him.

She faltered but a second.

Quint,

She cried.

Quint?

Peter Quint,

His own man,

His valet,

When he was here.

When the master was?

Gaping still,

But meeting me,

She pieced it all together.

He never wore his hat,

But he did wear,

Well,

There were waistcoats,

Missed.

They were both here last year.

Then the master went,

And Quint was alone.

I followed,

But halting a little.

Alone?

Alone with us.

Then,

As from a deeper depth,

In charge,

She added.

And what became of him?

She hung fire so long,

That I was still more mystified.

He went too,

She brought out at last.

Went where?

Her expression at this became extraordinary.

God knows where.

He died.

Died?

I almost shrieked.

She seemed fairly to square herself,

Plan herself more firmly to utter the wonder of it.

Yes,

Mr.

Quint is dead.

Chapter 6 It took,

Of course,

More than that particular passage,

To place us together,

In presence of what we had now to live with,

As we could.

My dreadful liability to impressions of the order,

So vividly exemplified,

And my companion's knowledge,

Henceforth,

A knowledge half consternation and half compassion,

Of that liability.

There had been,

This evening,

After the revelation left me,

For an hour,

So prostrate.

There had been,

For either of us,

No attendance on any service,

But a little service of tears and vows,

Of prayers and promises,

A climax to the series of mutual challenges and pledges,

That had straightway ensued on our retreating together to the schoolroom,

And shutting ourselves,

Up there,

To have everything out.

The result,

Of our having everything out,

Was simply to reduce our situation,

To the last rigor of its elements.

She herself had seen nothing,

Not the shadow of a shadow,

And nobody in the house,

But the governess,

Was in the governess's plight.

Yet she accepted,

Without directly impugning my sanity,

The truth as I gave it to her,

And ended by showing me,

On this ground,

An awestruck in tenderness,

An expression of the sense of my more than questionable privilege,

Of which the very breath has remained with me,

As that of the sweetest of human charities.

What was settled between us,

Accordingly,

That night,

Was that we thought we might bear things together,

And I was not even sure that,

In spite of her exemption,

It was she who had the best of the burden.

I knew at this hour,

I think,

As well as I knew later,

What I was capable of meeting to shelter my pupils,

But it took me some time to be wholly sure of what my honest ally,

Was prepared for to keep terms,

Was so compromising a contract.

I was queer company enough,

Quite as queer as the company I received,

But as I trace over what we went through,

I see how much common ground we must have found in the one idea that,

By good fortune,

Could steady us.

It was the idea,

The second movement,

That led me straight out,

As I may say,

Of the inner chamber of my dread.

I could take the air in the court,

At least,

And there Mrs.

Gross could join me.

Perfectly can I recall now,

The particular way strength came to me,

Before we separated for the night.

We had gone over and over every feature of what I had seen.

He was looking for someone else,

You say,

Someone who is not you?

He was looking for little Miles.

A portentous clearness now possessed me.

That's whom he was looking for.

But how do you know?

I know,

I know,

I know.

My exultation grew.

And you know,

My dear.

She didn't deny this,

But I required,

I felt,

Not even so much telling as that.

She resumed in a moment,

At any rate.

What if he should see him?

Little Miles?

That's what he wants.

She looked immensely scared again.

The child?

Heaven forbid,

The man.

He wants to appear to them.

That he might was an awful conception,

And yet,

Somehow,

I could keep it at bay,

Which,

Moreover,

As we lingered there,

Was what I succeeded in practically proving.

I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I had already seen.

But something within me said that by offering myself bravely,

As a sole subject of such experience,

By accepting,

By inviting,

By surmounting it all,

I should serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of my companions.

The children,

In especial,

I should thus fence about and absolutely save.

I recall one of the last things I said that night to Mrs.

Gross.

It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned.

She looked at me hard,

As I musingly pulled up.

His having been here,

And the time they were with him?

The time they were with him,

And his name,

His presence,

His history,

In any way?

Oh,

The little lady doesn't remember.

She never heard or knew.

The circumstances of his death?

I thought with some intensity.

Perhaps not.

But Miles would remember.

Miles would know.

Ah,

Don't try him,

Broke for Mrs.

Gross.

I returned her the look she had given me.

Don't be afraid,

I continued to think.

It is rather odd.

That he has never spoken of him?

Never by the least illusion.

And you tell me,

They were great friends?

Oh,

It wasn't him,

Mrs.

Gross with emphasis declared.

It was Quint's own fancy.

To play with him,

I mean.

To spoil him.

She paused a moment,

Then she added,

Quint was much too free.

This gave me,

Straight from my vision of his face,

Such a face,

A sudden sickness of disgust.

Too free with my boy?

Too free with everyone.

I forbore,

For the moment,

To analyze this description further than by the reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of the household,

Of the half-dozen maids and men who were still of our small colony.

But there was for everything,

For our apprehension,

And the lucky fact,

That no discomfortable legend,

No perturbation of Scullion's,

Had ever,

Within anyone's memory,

Attached to the kind old place.

It had neither bad name nor ill fame,

And Mrs.

Gross,

Most apparently,

Only desired to cling to me and to quake in silence.

I even put her,

The very last thing of all,

To the test.

It was when,

At midnight,

She had her hand on the schoolroom door to take leave.

I have it from you,

Then,

For it's of great importance,

That he was definitely and admittedly bad.

Oh,

Not admittedly,

I knew it,

But the Master didn't.

And you never told him?

Well,

He didn't like tail-bearing,

He hated complaints,

He was terribly short with anything of that kind,

And if people were all right to him,

He wouldn't be bothered with more.

This squared well enough with my impressions of him.

He was not a trouble-loving gentleman,

Nor so very particular,

Perhaps,

About some of the company he kept.

All the same,

I pressed her.

I promise you,

I would have told.

She felt my discrimination.

I dare say I was wrong,

But really,

I was afraid.

Afraid of what?

Of things that man could do.

Quint was so clever,

He was so deep.

I took this instill more than probably I showed.

You weren't afraid of anything else?

Not of his effect?

His effect,

She repeated,

With a face of anguish and waiting,

While I faltered.

On innocent little precious lives,

They were in your charge.

No,

They were not in mine.

She roundly and distressfully returned.

The Master believed in him and placed him here because he was supposed not to be well,

And the country air so good for him,

So he had everything to say yes.

She let me have it,

Even about them.

Them?

That creature?

I had to smother a kind of howl.

And you could bear it?

No,

I couldn't,

And I can't now.

And the poor woman burst into tears.

A rigid control from the next day was,

As I have said,

To follow them.

Yet how often and how passionately,

For a week,

We came back together to the subject.

Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night,

I was,

In the immediate later hours in a special,

For it may be imagined whether I slept,

Still haunted with the shadow of something she had not told me.

I myself had kept back nothing,

But there was a word Mrs.

Gross had kept back.

I was sure,

Moreover,

By morning,

That this was not from a failure of frankness,

But because on every side there were fears.

It seems to me indeed,

In retrospect,

That by the time the morning sun was high,

I had restlessly read into the facts before us almost all the meaning they were to receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences.

What they gave me above all was just the sinister figure of the living man,

The dead one would keep a while,

And of the months he had continuously passed at Bly,

Which,

Added up,

Made a formidable stretch.

The limit of this evil time had arrived only when,

On the dawn of a winter's morning,

Peter Quint was found,

By a laborer going to early work,

Stone dead on the road from the village.

A catastrophe explained,

Superficially at least,

By a visible wound to his head,

Such a wound as might have been produced,

And as,

On the final evidence,

Had been,

By a fatal slip,

In the dark and after leaving the public house,

On the steepest icy slope.

A wrong path altogether,

At the bottom of which he lay.

The icy slope,

The turn mistaken at night and in liquor,

Accounted for much,

Practically in the end,

And after the inquest and boundless chatter,

For everything.

But there had been matters in his life,

Strange passages and perils,

Secret disorders,

Vices more than suspected,

That would have accounted for a good deal more.

I scarce know how to put my story into words,

That shall be a credible picture of my state of mind.

But I was,

In these days,

Literally able to find a joy,

In the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of me.

I now saw that I had been asked for a service,

Admirable and difficult,

And there would be a greatness in letting it be seen,

Oh,

In the right quarter,

That I could succeed where many another girl might have failed.

It was an immense help to me,

I confess I rather applaud myself as I look back,

That I saw my service so strongly and so simply.

I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world,

The most bereaved and the most lovable.

The appeal of whose helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit,

A deep constant ache of one's own committed heart.

We were cut off,

Really together,

We were united in our danger.

They had nothing but me and I,

Well,

I had them.

It was in short a magnificent chance.

This chance presented itself to me in an image richly material.

I was a screen,

I was to stand before them.

The more I saw,

The less they would.

I began to watch them in a stifled suspense,

A disguised excitement that might well,

Had it continued too long,

Have turned to something like madness.

What saved me,

As I now see,

Was that it turned to something else altogether.

It didn't last a suspense,

It was superseded by horrible proofs.

Proofs,

I say yes,

From the moment I really took hold.

The moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the grounds with the younger of my pupils alone.

We had left miles indoors,

On the red cushion of a deep window seat.

He had wished to finish a book and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young man,

Whose only defect was an occasional excess of the restless.

His sister,

On the contrary,

Had been alert to come out,

And I strolled with her half an hour,

Seeking the shade,

For the sun was still high,

And the day exceptionally warm.

I was aware afresh,

With her,

As we went,

Of how,

Like her brother,

She contrived,

It was a charming thing in both children,

To let me alone,

Without appearing to drop me,

And to accompany me,

Without appearing to surround.

They were never unfortunate,

And yet never listless.

My attention to them,

All really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me.

This was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare,

And that engaged me as an active admirer.

I walked in a world of their invention.

They had no occasion whatever to draw upon mine,

So that my time was taken only with being,

For them,

Some remarkable person or thing,

That the game of the moment required,

And that was merely,

Thanks to my superior,

My exalted stamp,

A happy and highly distinguished sinecure.

I forget what I was in the present occasion.

I only remember that I was something very important,

And very quiet,

And that Flora was playing very hard.

We were on the edge of the lake,

And,

As we had lately begun geography,

The lake was the Sea of Azov.

Suddenly,

In these circumstances,

I became aware that,

On the other side of the Sea of Azov,

We had an interested spectator.

The way this knowledge gathered in me,

Was the strangest thing in the world,

The strangest that is,

Except the very much stranger,

In which it quickly merged itself.

I had sat down,

With a piece of work,

For I was something or other that could sit,

On the old stone bench which overlooked the pond,

And in this position,

I began to take in with certitude,

And yet without direct vision,

The presence at a distance of a third person.

The old trees,

The thick shrubbery,

Made a great and pleasant shade,

But it was all suffused with brightness of the hot,

Still hour.

There was no ambiguity in anything,

None whatever at least,

And the conviction,

I,

From one moment to another,

Found myself forming,

As to what I should see straight before me,

And across the lake,

As a consequence of raising my eyes.

They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I was engaged,

And I can feel once more the spasm of my effort,

Not to move them,

Till I should so have studied myself,

As to be able to make up my mind what to do.

There was an alien object in view,

A figure,

Whose right of presence I instantly,

Passionately questioned.

I recollect counting over perfectly the possibilities,

Reminding myself that nothing was more natural,

For instance,

Than the appearance of one of the men about the place,

Or even of a messenger,

A postman,

Or a tradesman's boy from the village.

That reminder had as little effect on my practical certitude as I was conscious,

Still even without looking,

Of its having upon the character and attitude of our visitor.

Nothing was more natural than that these things should be the other things that they absolutely were not.

Of the positive identity of the apparition,

I would assure myself as soon as a small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right second.

Meanwhile,

With an effort that was already sharp enough,

I transferred my eyes straight to little Flora,

Who,

At the moment,

Was about ten yards away.

My heart had stood still for an instant with the wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see,

And I held my breath while I waited for what,

A cry from her,

What some sudden innocent sign,

Either of interest or of alarm would tell me.

I waited,

But nothing came.

Then,

In the first place,

And there is something more dire in this,

I feel than in anything I have to relate,

I was determined by a sense that,

Within a minute,

All sounds from her had previously dropped,

And,

In the second,

By the circumstance that,

Also within the minute,

She had,

In her play,

Turned her back to the water.

This was her attitude when I at last looked at her,

Looked with the confirmed conviction that we were still,

Together,

Under direct personal notice.

She had picked up a small,

Flat piece of wood,

Which happened to have in it a little hole,

That it evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat.

This second morsel,

As I watched her,

She was very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place.

My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so,

That after some seconds,

I felt I was ready for more.

Then I again shifted my eyes.

I faced what I had to face.

Reviews

Wow. Getting a bit mysterious ….to say the least😳. Thank you for reading❤️!