The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories

I wandered about Rome, revolving these questions, and one afternoon found myself in the Pantheon.24 A light spring shower had begun to fall, and I hurried for refuge into the great temple which its Christian altars have but half converted into a church. No Roman monument retains a deeper impress of ancient life, or verifies more forcibly those prod

‘She’s a bit of a coquette, you know.’ ‘Don’t say that – don’t say that!’ Mrs Marden murmured. ‘The nicest girls always are – just a little,’ I was magnanimous enough to plead. ‘Then why are they always punished?’ The intensity of the question startled me – it had come out in a vivid flash. Therefore I had to think a moment before I put to her: ‘Wh

But he seemed to me to have either a strange reserve or a strange simplicity; to be fundamentally unfurnished with ‘ideas’. He had no beliefs nor hopes nor fears, – nothing but senses, appetites, and serenely luxurious tastes. As I watched him strolling about looking at his finger-nails, I often wondered whether he had anything that could properly

It had only then – as the girl flitted away – come home to me that her daughter was unconscious of what had happened. It was that, oddly enough, that gave me a sudden sharp shake – not my own perception of our visitor, which felt quite natural. It made the fact vivid to me that she had been equally unaware of him in church, and the two facts togeth

In those days a young girl of decent breeding could make no advances whatever, and barely respond, indeed, to those that were made. She was expected to sit still in her chair with her eyes on the carpet, watching the spot where the mystic handkerchief should fall.

‘There’s been a great talk about the pagan persecutions; but the Christians persecuted as well, and the old gods were worshipped in caves and woods as well as the new. And none the worse for that! It was in caves and woods and streams, in earth and air and water, they dwelt. And there – and here, too, in spite of all your Christian lustrations – a

The place was so bright, so still, so sacred to the silent, imperturbable past, that drowsy contentment seemed a natural law;

It very soon came to be predicted that he would marry again, and there were at least a dozen young women of whom one may say that it was by no fault of theirs that, for six months after his return, the prediction did not come true.

He had a sort of sunken depth of expression, and a grave, slow smile, suggesting no great quickness of wit, but an unimpassioned intensity of feeling which promised well for Martha’s happiness. He had little of the light, inexpensive urbanity of his countrymen, and more of a sort of heavy sincerity in his gaze which seemed to suspend response until