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The Turn of the Screw-Part13_HENRY JAMES(1843-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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out of me and that the proof of it, for him, would be just this

awkward collapse. He had got out of me that there was something



I was much afraid of and that he should probably be able to make

use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, more freedom.



My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable question

of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was



really but the question of the horrors gathered behind.

That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things



was a solution that, strictlyspeaking, I ought now to have

desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness



and the pain of it that I simply procrastinated and lived

from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep discomposure,



was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to me:

"Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this



interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me

to lead with you a life that's so unnatural for a boy."



What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was concerned

with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan.



That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in.

I walked round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected



that I had already, with him, hurt myself beyond repair.

Therefore I could patch up nothing, and it was too



extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew:

he would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm



into mine and make me sit there for an hour in close,

silent contact with his commentary on our talk. For the first



minute since his arrival I wanted to get away from him.

As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the sounds



of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me,

I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement.



I might easily put an end to my predicament by getting

away altogether. Here was my chance; there was no one to stop me;



I could give the whole thing up--turn my back and retreat.

It was only a question of hurrying again, for a few preparations,



to the house which the attendance at church of so many of

the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No one,



in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off.

What was it to get away if I got away only till dinner?



That would be in a couple of hours, at the end of which--

I had the acute prevision--my little pupils would play at



innocent wonder about my nonappearance in their train.

"What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world,



to worry us so--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?--

did you desert us at the very door?" I couldn't meet such



questions nor, as they asked them, their false little lovely eyes;

yet it was all so exactly what I should have to meet that,



as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last let myself go.

I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came straight



out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps through the park.

It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house I had made up my mind I



would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of the interior,

in which I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of opportunity.



Were I to get off quickly, this way, I should get off without a scene,

without a word. My quickness would have to be remarkable, however,



and the question of a conveyance was the great one to settle.

Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and obstacles, I remember



sinking down at the foot of the staircase--suddenly collapsing there

on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it



was exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night

and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of the most



horrible of women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went

the rest of the way up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom,



where there were objects belonging to me that I should have to take.

But I opened the door to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed.



In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight back upon my resistance.

Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom,



without my previous experience, I should have taken at

the first blush for some housemaid who might have stayed



at home to look after the place and who, availing herself

of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom



table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself

to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart.






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