Reflections in a Golden Eye - Carson McCullers [17]
Alison Langdon, that big nosed female Job, together with her loathsome Filipino those two he abhorred. But he could not hate Alison, as she did not give him the opportunity. It chafed him no end to be under obligation to her. She was the only person in the world who knew of a certain woeful shortcoming in his nature; Captain Penderton was inclined to be a thief. He was continually resisting an urge to take things he saw in other people's houses. However, only twice had this weakness got the best of him. When he was a child of seven he had become so infatuated with the school yard bully who had once beaten him that he stole from his aunt's dressing table an old fashioned hair receiver as a love offering. And here on the post, twenty seven years later, the Captain had once again succumbed.
At a dinner party given by a young bride he had been so fascinated by a certain piece of silver that he had carried it home in his pocket. It was an unusual and beautiful little dessert spoon, delicately chased and very old. The Captain had been miserably enchanted with it (the rest of the silver at his place was quite ordinary) and in the end he could not resist. When after some skillful manipulation he had his booty safe in his pocket, he realized that Alison, who was next to him, had seen the theft. She looked him full in the face with the most amazed expression. Even now he could not think of it without a shudder. And after a horribly long stare Alison had burst out laughing yes, laughing. She laughed so hard that she choked herself and someone had to beat her on the back. Finally she excused herself from the table. And all through that tormenting evening whenever he looked at her she gave him such a mocking smile. Since then she was careful to keep a sharp watch on him when he was a guest at her table. The spoon was now hidden in his closet, wrapped carefully in a silk handkerchief and concealed in the box that his truss had come in.
But in spite of this he could not hate Alison. Nor could he truly hate his wife. Leonora maddened him to insanity, but even in the wildest fits of jealousy he could not hate her any more than he could hate a cat, or a horse, or a tiger cub. The Captain walked around in his study and once he gave the closed door a fretful kick. If that Alison finally made up her mind to divorce Morris, then how would it go? He could not bear to contemplate this possibility, so distressed was he at the thought of being left alone.
It seemed to the Captain that he heard a sound and he stopped short. The house was still. It has been mentioned before that the Captain was a coward. Sometimes when he was by himself he was overcome by a rootless terror. And now, as he stood in the silent room, it seemed that his nervousness and distress were not caused by forces within himself and others, things that in some measure he could control but by some menacing outward circumstance which he could only sense from a distance. Fearfully the Captain looked all about the room. Then he straightened his desk and opened the door.
Leonora had fallen asleep on the rug before the fire in the sitting room. The Captain looked down at her and laughed to himself. She was turned over on her side and he gave her a sharp little kick on the buttocks. She grumbled something about the stuffing for a turkey, but did not awake. The Captain bent down, shook her, talked into her face, and finally got her on her feet. But like a child who has to be aroused and taken to the toilet the last thing at night, Leonora bad the gift of being able to remain asleep even while standing up. As the Captain led her ponderously to the stairs, her eyes were closed and she still grumbled about the turkey.
'I'll be damned if I'll undress you,' the Captain said.
But Leonora