Henry James - The Map of Time and The Turn of the Screw

THE MAP OF TIME

By Félix J. Palma

and

THE TURN OF THE SCREW

By Henry James

This omnibus edition first published HarperCollins 2011©

The Turn of the Screw

This edition of The Turn of the Screw first published by HarperCollins in 2011

Life & Times section by Gerard Cheshire

Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from

Collins English Dictionary

The Map of Time

Copyright © Felix Palma 2008 Translation copyright © Nick Caistor 2011 First published in Spanish as El Mapa Del Tiempo 2008

Felix Palma asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9780007344123

Ebook edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007344147

Version 2

These novels are entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in them are the work of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007344154

Version: 2016-10-04

Title Page THE MAP OF TIME By Félix J. Palma and THE TURN OF THE SCREW By Henry James

Copyright Copyright This omnibus edition first published HarperCollins 2011© The Turn of the Screw This edition of The Turn of the Screw first published by HarperCollins in 2011 Life & Times section by Gerard Cheshire Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from Collins English Dictionary The Map of Time Copyright © Felix Palma 2008 Translation copyright © Nick Caistor 2011 First published in Spanish as El Mapa Del Tiempo 2008 Felix Palma asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9780007344123 Ebook edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007344147 Version 2 These novels are entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in them are the work of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007344154 Version: 2016-10-04

THE MAP OF TIME

THE TURN OF THE SCREW

About the Publisher

FELIX PALMA

The Map of Time

Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor

‘The distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, but a very persistent one.’

ALBERT EINSTEIN

‘Mankind’s most perfectly terrifying work of art is the division of time.’

ELIAS CANETTI

‘What is waiting for me in the direction I don’t take?’

JACK KEROUAC

Contents

Cover

Title Page FELIX PALMA The Map of Time Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor

Epigraph ‘The distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, but a very persistent one.’ ALBERT EINSTEIN ‘Mankind’s most perfectly terrifying work of art is the division of time.’ ELIAS CANETTI ‘What is waiting for me in the direction I don’t take?’ JACK KEROUAC

PART ONE

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

PART TWO

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

PART THREE

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII

Chapter XXXIX

Chapter XL

Chapter XLI

Chapter XLII

Chapter XLIII

About the Author

PART ONE

Chapter I

Andrew Harrington would gladly have died several times over if that meant not having to choose just one pistol from among his father’s vast collection in the living-room cabinet. Decisions had never been Andrew’s strong point. On close examination, his life had been a series of mistaken choices, the last of which threatened to cast its lengthy shadow over the future. But that life of unedifying blunders was about to end. This time he was sure he had made the right decision, because he had decided not to decide. There would be no more mistakes in the future because there would be no future. He was going to destroy it completely by putting one of those guns to his right temple. He could see no other solution: obliterating the future was the only way for him to eradicate the past.

He scanned the contents of the cabinet, the lethal assortment his father had lovingly assembled after his return from the war. He was fanatical about those weapons, though Andrew suspected it was not so much nostalgia that drove him to collect them as his desire to contemplate the novel ways mankind kept coming up with for taking one’s own life outside the law. In stark contrast to his father, Andrew was impassive as he surveyed the apparently docile, almost humdrum implements that had brought thunder to men’s fingertips and freed war from the unpleasantness of hand-to-hand combat.

He tried to imagine what kind of death might be lurking inside each of them, lying in wait like some predator. Which would his father have recommended he use to blow his brains out? He calculated that death from one of those antiquated muzzle-loading flintlocks, which had to be refilled with gunpowder and a ball, then tamped down with a paper plug each time it was fired, would be a noble but drawn-out and tedious affair. He preferred the swift death guaranteed by one of the more modern revolvers nestling in their luxurious velvet-lined wooden cases.

He considered a Colt single-action model, which looked easy to handle and reliable – but he had seen Buffalo Bill brandishing one in his Wild West Adventures: a pitiful attempt to re-enact his transoceanic exploits with a handful of imported Red Indians and a dozen lethargic, apparently opium-sated buffalo. Death for him was not just another adventure. He also rejected a fine Smith & Wesson, the gun that had killed the outlaw Jesse James, of whom he considered himself unworthy, and a Webley specially designed to hold back the charging hordes in Britain’s colonial wars; he thought it looked too cumbersome.