The Turn of the Screw | Page 3

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The text is from the first American appearance in book form.
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 before the fire, to which he had got up to
present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in his
pockets. "Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It's quite too
horrible." This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the
thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his
triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: "It's
beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it."
"For sheer terror?" I remember asking.
He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how
to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing
grimace. "For dreadful--dreadfulness!"
"Oh, how delicious!" cried one of the women.
He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he
saw what he spoke of. "For general uncanny ugliness and horror and
pain."
"Well then," I said, "just sit right down and begin."
He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an instant.
Then as he faced us again: "I can't begin. I shall have to send to town."
There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach; after which,

in his preoccupied way, he explained. "The story's written. It's in a
locked drawer-- it has not been out for years. I could write to my man
and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he finds it." It
was to me in particular that he appeared to propound this-- appeared
almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a thickness of
ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons for a long
silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples
that charmed me.