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The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
XI
It was not till late next day that I spoke1 to Mrs. Grose; the rigor2 with which I kept my pupils in sight making it often difficult to meet her privately3, and the more as we each felt the importance of not provoking — on the part of the servants quite as much as on that of the children — any suspicion of a secret flurry or that of a discussion of mysteries. I drew a great security in this particular from her mere4 smooth aspect. There was nothing in her fresh face to pass on to others my horrible confidences. She believed me, I was sure, absolutely: if she hadn’t I don’t know what would have become of me, for I couldn’t have borne the business alone. But she was a magnificent monument to the blessing5 of a want of imagination, and if she could see in our little charges nothing but their beauty and amiability6, their happiness and cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sources of my trouble. If they had been at all visibly blighted8 or battered9, she would doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough to match them; as matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyed them, with her large white arms folded and the habit of serenity10 in all her look, thank the Lord’s mercy that if they were ruined the pieces would still serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steady fireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive how, with the development of the conviction that — as time went on without a public accident — our young things could, after all, look out for themselves, she addressed her greatest solicitude11 to the sad case presented by their instructress. That, for myself, was a sound simplification: I could engage that, to the world, my face should tell no tales, but it would have been, in the conditions, an immense added strain to find myself anxious about hers.
At the hour I now speak of she had joined me, under pressure, on the terrace, where, with the lapse12 of the season, the afternoon sun was now agreeable; and we sat there together while, before us, at a distance, but within call if we wished, the children strolled to and fro in one of their most manageable moods. They moved slowly, in unison13, below us, over the lawn, the boy, as they went, reading aloud from a storybook and passing his arm round his sister to keep her quite in touch. Mrs. Grose watched them with positive placidity14; then I caught the suppressed intellectual creak with which she conscientiously15 turned to take from me a view of the back of the tapestry16. I had made her a receptacle of lurid17 things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority — my accomplishments18 and my function — in her patience under my pain. She offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch’s broth19 and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a large clean saucepan. This had become thoroughly20 her attitude by the time that, in my recital21 of the events of the night, I reached the point of what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, at such a monstrous22 hour, almost on the very spot where he happened now to be, I had gone down to bring him in; choosing then, at the window, with a concentrated need of not alarming the house, rather that method than a signal more resonant23. I had left her meanwhile in little doubt of my small hope of representing with success even to her actual sympathy my sense of the real splendor24 of the little inspiration with which, after I had got him into the house, the boy met my final articulate challenge. As soon as I appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he had come to me as straight as possible; on which I had taken his hand without a word and led him, through the dark spaces, up the staircase where Quint had so hungrily hovered25 for him, along the lobby where I had listened and trembled, and so to his forsaken26 room.
Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered — oh, HOW I had wondered! — if he were groping about in his little mind for something plausible27 and not too grotesque28. It would tax his invention, certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment29, a curious thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn’t play any longer at innocence30; so how the deuce would he get out of it? There beat in me indeed, with the passionate31 throb32 of this question an equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce I should. I was confronted at last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding my own horrid33 note. I remember in fact that as we pushed into his little chamber34, where the bed had not been slept in at all and the window, uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that there was no need of striking a match — I remember how I suddenly dropped, sank upon the edge of the bed from the force of the idea that he must know how he really, as they say, “had” me. He could do what he liked, with all his cleverness to help him, so long as I should continue to defer35 to the old tradition of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who minister to superstitions36 and fears. He “had” me indeed, and in a cleft37 stick; for who would ever absolve38 me, who would consent that I should go unhung, if, by the faintest tremor39 of an overture40, I were the first to introduce into our perfect intercourse41 an element so dire7? No, no: it was useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely less so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in the dark, he fairly shook me with admiration42. I was of course thoroughly kind and merciful; never, never yet had I placed on his little shoulders hands of such tenderness as those with which, while I rested against the bed, I held him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, in form at least, to put it to him.
“You must tell me now — and all the truth. What did you go out for? What were you doing there?”
I can still see his wonderful smile, the whites of his beautiful eyes, and the uncovering of his little teeth shine to me in the dusk. “If I tell you why, will you understand?” My heart, at this, leaped into my mouth. WOULD he tell me why? I found no sound on my lips to press it, and I was aware of replying only with a vague, repeated, grimacing43 nod. He was gentleness itself, and while I wagged my head at him he stood there more than ever a little fairy prince. It was his brightness indeed that gave me a respite44. Would it be so great if he were really going to tell me? “Well,” he said at last, “just exactly in order that you should do this.”
“Do what?”
“Think me — for a change — BAD!” I shall never forget the sweetness and gaiety with which he brought out the word, nor how, on top of it, he bent45 forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything. I met his kiss and I had to make, while I folded him for a minute in my arms, the most stupendous effort not to cry. He had given exactly the account of himself that permitted least of my going behind it, and it was only with the effect of confirming my acceptance of it that, as I presently glanced about the room, I could say —
“Then you didn’t undress at all?”
He fairly glittered in the gloom. “Not at all. I sat up and read.”
“And when did you go down?”
“At midnight. When I’m bad I AM bad!”
“I see, I see — it’s charming. But how could you be sure I would know it?”
“Oh, I arranged that with Flora46.” His answers rang out with a readiness! “She was to get up and look out.”
“Which is what she did do.” It was I who fell into the trap!
“So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also looked — you saw.”
He literally48 bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly to assent49. “How otherwise should I have been bad enough?” he asked. Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed on my recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, he had been able to draw upon.
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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2
rigor
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| n.严酷，严格，严厉 | |
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3
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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4
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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5
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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6
amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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7
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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8
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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10
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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11
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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12
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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13
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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14
placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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15
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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16
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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17
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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18
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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19
broth
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| n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等) | |
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20
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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21
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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22
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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23
resonant
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| adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的 | |
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24
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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25
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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26
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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27
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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28
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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29
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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30
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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31
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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32
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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33
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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34
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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35
defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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36
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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37
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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38
absolve
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| v.赦免，解除（责任等） | |
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39
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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40
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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41
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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42
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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43
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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44
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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45
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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46
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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47
concurred
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| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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48
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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49
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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