The appearance was full upon us that I had already had to deal with here:
Peter Quint had come into view like a sentinel before a prison.
The next thing I saw was that, from outside, he had reached the window,
and then I knew that, close to the glass and glaring in through it,
he offered once more to the room his white face of damnation.
It represents but grossly what took place within me at the sight
to say that on the second my decision was made; yet I believe that no
woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time recovered her grasp
of the ACT. It came to me in the very horror of the immediate
presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw
and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration--
I can call it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily,
how transcendently, I MIGHT. It was like fighting with a demon
for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how
the human soul--held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length--
had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead.
The face that was close to mine was as white as the face against
the glass, and out of it presently came a sound, not low nor weak,
but as if from much further away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance.
"Yes--I took it."
At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close;
and while I held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden
fever of his little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart,
I kept my eyes on the thing at the window and saw it move and shift
its posture.
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