Simon · Chapter
At Night explained
Simon Rattar takes unusual precautions to secure his top-floor rooms, locking doors and posting warning notes.
What happens
Simon Rattar takes unusual precautions to secure his top-floor rooms, locking doors and posting warning notes. His housemaid Mary MacLean grows increasingly uneasy as she hears strange sounds, including a thud and footsteps. Rattar explains he expects a late visitor to go through old papers, but Mary's sense of dread persists. She hears the visitor arrive, footsteps ascending and descending, and the front door open and close. The next morning, the warnings are removed and keys replaced, leaving the night's events ambiguous.
Themes in this chapter
Secrecy and Silence
Rattar's locked doors, warning notes, and secret nighttime visitor create an atmosphere of hidden activity and unspoken dread.
Suspicion and Rumor
Mary's growing unease and her interpretation of ordinary sounds as sinister reflect the power of suspicion in the absence of clear information.
Characters to notice
- Simon Rattar
Takes extraordinary measures to secure his top-floor rooms, locks doors, posts warning notes, and later receives a mysterious late-night visitor.
- Mary MacLean
The housemaid becomes increasingly frightened by locked rooms, strange sounds, and her master's unusual behavior, sensing something sinister.
- Janet
The cook; Mary fears her scorn and does not confide her fears, though Janet dismisses Mary's alarm.
Key passages
“The result was a warning to those who take superfluous precautions. Under ordinary circumstances Mary would never have thought of touching the handles of those doors. Now, she looked at them for a few moments and then tried the handle nearest to her.”
Rattar's excessive caution backfired, as Mary, who normally would never have touched the doors, was now curious enough to try them.
Illustrates how over-precaution can provoke the very behavior it aims to prevent.
“She had been with the master three years and never presumed or dreamt of presuming to touch his papers. He might have known that, thought she, without having to tell her not to.”
Mary felt insulted that Rattar explicitly forbade her from touching his papers, as she had never even considered doing so in three years of service.
Highlights the tension between master and servant and Rattar's unusual behavior.
“The obvious explanation was that they were bringing down one of those boxes filled with dusty papers which she had often seen in the closed rooms; yet though Mary knew perfectly that this was the common sense of the matter, a feeling of horror increased till she could scarcely refrain from crying out.”
Despite knowing the logical explanation for the sounds, Mary's irrational fear overwhelmed her to the point of near panic.
Shows the conflict between rational understanding and emotional dread.