The Turn Of The Screw

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 ChristmasEve 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 inwhich 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 theoccasion—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 hisdread 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 thisobservation 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 tolda 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 onlyhave 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—inregard 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 firstoccurrence 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—?”