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No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Time is beginning this morning in June, she assured herself, but it is a time that is strangely new and of itself; in these few seconds I have lived a lifetime in a house with two lions in front.
‘She wants her cup of stars.’
Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again;
‘In delay there lies no plenty,’
For a minute the girl flashed at her, from what might have been an emptiness greater than any Eleanor had ever known.
‘In delay there lies no plenty; . . . present mirth hath present laughter
The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once.
No human eye can isolate the unhappy coincidence of line and place which suggests evil in the face of a house, and yet somehow a maniac juxtaposition, a badly turned angle, some chance meeting of roof and sky, turned Hill House into a place of despair, more frightening because the face of Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice. Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a mischievous little chimney, or a dormer like a dimple, can catch up a
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Journeys end in lovers meeting,
It had an unbelievably faulty design which left it chillingly wrong in all its dimensions, so that the walls seemed always in one direction a fraction longer than the eye could endure, and in another direction a fraction less than the barest possible tolerable length;
some houses are born bad.
in his opinion the house ought to be burned down and the ground sowed with salt.
‘The house. It watches every move you make.’
‘This, I should think, is considerably colder. The heart of the house.’
‘You have the feeling that something—whatever it is—is going to happen soon?’ ‘Yes. Everything seems to be waiting.’
She moves like an animal, nervous and alert; she can’t sit still while there is any scent of disturbance in the air; we are all uneasy.
very quiet—‘doesn’t it begin to seem that the intention is, somehow, to separate us?’
‘No ghost in all the long histories of ghosts has ever hurt anyone physically. The only damage done is by the victim to himself.
‘God God—whose hand was I holding?’
I am learning the pathways of the heart, Eleanor thought quite seriously, and then wondered what she could have meant by thinking any such thing.
It is too much, she thought, I will relinquish my possession of this self of mine, abdicate, give over willingly what I never wanted at all; whatever it wants of me it can have.
No stone lions for me, she thought, no oleanders; I have broken the spell of Hill House and somehow come inside. I am home, she thought, and stopped in wonder at the thought. I am home, I am home, she thought; now to climb.
Hill House watched, arrogant and patient.
Hill House is not as easy as they are; just by telling me to go away they can’t make me leave, not if Hill House means me to stay.
I am really doing it, she thought, turning the wheel to send the car directly at the great tree at the curve of the driveway, I am really doing it, I am doing this all by myself, now, at last; this is me, I am really really really doing it by myself.
In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don’t they stop me?
Hill House itself, not sane, stood against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, its walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
