JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 247 из 359Hissecond wife died of a fall-cause unknown.
His two little girls remained in Hill House until the death of Crain's third wife (nothing there-that wife died in Europe), and were then sent to a cousin. They spent the rest of their lives quarreling over ownership of the mansion. Later, the older sister returns to Hill House with a companion, a young girl from the village.
The companion becomes particularly important because it is in her that Hill House seems most specifically to mirror Eleanor's own life. Eleanor too was a companion, during her mother's long terminal illness. Following the death of old Miss Crain, there are stories of neglect; "of a doctor called too late," Montague says, "of the old lady lying neglected upstairs while the younger woman dallied in the garden with some village lout . . .” More bitter feeling followed the death of the old Miss Crain. There was a court case over ownership between the companion and the young Miss Crain. The companion finally wins . . . and shortly after commits suicide by hanging herself in the turret. Later tenants have been . . . well, uncomfortable in Hill House. We have hints that some have been more than uncomfortable; that some of them may actually have fled from Hill House, screaming in terror.
"Essentially," Montague says, "the evil is in the house itself, I think. It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, and it is a place of contained ill will." And the central question that The Haunting of Hill House poses for the reader is whether or not Montague is right. He prefaces his story with several classical references to what we've been calling the Bad Place-the Hebraic for haunted, as in haunted house, tsaraas , meaning "leprous"; Homer's phrase for it, aidao domos , meaning a house of Hades. "I need not remind you,” Montague says, ". . . that the concept of certain houses as unclean or forbidden-perhaps sacred-is as old as the mind of man.” As in The House Next Door , the one thing we can be sure of is that there are no actual ghosts in Hill House. None of the four characters come upon the shade of the companion flapping up the hall with a rope burn around her ectoplasmic neck. This is well enough, however-Montague himself says that in all the records of psychic phenomena, one cannot find any case where a ghost actually hurt a person. What they do if they are malign, he suggests, is work on the mind.
One thing we do know about Hill House is that it is all wrong . It is no one thing we can put our finger on; it's everything.
His two little girls remained in Hill House until the death of Crain's third wife (nothing there-that wife died in Europe), and were then sent to a cousin. They spent the rest of their lives quarreling over ownership of the mansion. Later, the older sister returns to Hill House with a companion, a young girl from the village.
The companion becomes particularly important because it is in her that Hill House seems most specifically to mirror Eleanor's own life. Eleanor too was a companion, during her mother's long terminal illness. Following the death of old Miss Crain, there are stories of neglect; "of a doctor called too late," Montague says, "of the old lady lying neglected upstairs while the younger woman dallied in the garden with some village lout . . .” More bitter feeling followed the death of the old Miss Crain. There was a court case over ownership between the companion and the young Miss Crain. The companion finally wins . . . and shortly after commits suicide by hanging herself in the turret. Later tenants have been . . . well, uncomfortable in Hill House. We have hints that some have been more than uncomfortable; that some of them may actually have fled from Hill House, screaming in terror.
"Essentially," Montague says, "the evil is in the house itself, I think. It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, and it is a place of contained ill will." And the central question that The Haunting of Hill House poses for the reader is whether or not Montague is right. He prefaces his story with several classical references to what we've been calling the Bad Place-the Hebraic for haunted, as in haunted house, tsaraas , meaning "leprous"; Homer's phrase for it, aidao domos , meaning a house of Hades. "I need not remind you,” Montague says, ". . . that the concept of certain houses as unclean or forbidden-perhaps sacred-is as old as the mind of man.” As in The House Next Door , the one thing we can be sure of is that there are no actual ghosts in Hill House. None of the four characters come upon the shade of the companion flapping up the hall with a rope burn around her ectoplasmic neck. This is well enough, however-Montague himself says that in all the records of psychic phenomena, one cannot find any case where a ghost actually hurt a person. What they do if they are malign, he suggests, is work on the mind.
One thing we do know about Hill House is that it is all wrong . It is no one thing we can put our finger on; it's everything.