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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"The Turn of the Screw"


I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle,
so that the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal.
I saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination,
and on the perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window
was still to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert
the climax of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation.
"No more, no more, no more!" I shrieked, as I tried to press him against me,
to my visitant.
"Is she HERE?" Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes
the direction of my words. Then as his strange "she" staggered
me and, with a gasp, I echoed it, "Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!"
he with a sudden fury gave me back.
I seized, stupefied, his supposition--some sequel to what we
had done to Flora, but this made me only want to show him
that it was better still than that. "It's not Miss Jessel!
But it's at the window--straight before us. It's THERE--
the coward horror, there for the last time!"
At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a
baffled dog's on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air
and light, he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly
over the place and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense,
filled the room like the taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence.


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