Reflections in a Golden Eye - Carson McCullers [27]
At nine o'clock they heard in the distance the sound of horses' hoofs, coming in very slowly. Soon the weary, shadowy figures of Private Williams and the two horses could be seen. The soldier led them both by the bridle. Blinking a little, he came up to the hurricane lamp. He looked into the Captain's face with such a long strange stare that the Sergeant felt a sudden shock. He did not know what to make of this, and he left it with the Captain to deal with the situation. The Captain was silent, but his eyelids twitched and his hard mouth trembled.
The Captain followed Private Williams into the stable. The young soldier fed the horses mash and gave them a rubdown. He did not speak, and the Captain stood outside the stall and watched him. He looked at the fine, skillful hands and the tender roundness of the soldier's neck. The Captain was overcome by a feeling that both repelled and fascinated him it was as though he and the young soldier were wrestling together naked, body to body, in a fight to death. The Captain's strained loin muscles were so weak that he could hardly stand. His eyes, beneath his twitching eyelids, were like blue burning flames. The soldier quietly finished his work and left the stable. The Captain followed and stood watching as he walked off into the night. They had not spoken a word.
It was only when he got into his automobile that the Captain remembered the party at his house.
Anacleto did not come home until late in the evening. He stood in the doorway of Alison's room looking rather green and jaded, as crowds exhausted him. 'Ah,' he said philosophically, 'the world is choked up with too many people.'
Alison saw, however, from a swift little snap of his eyes, that something had happened. He went into her bathroom and rolled up the sleeves of his yellow linen shirt to wash his hands. 'Did Lieutenant Weincheck come over to see you?'
'Yes, he visited with me quite a while.'
The Lieutenant had been depressed. She sent him downstairs for a bottle of sherry. Then after they had drunk the wine he sat by the bed with the chessboard on his knees and they played a game of Russian bank. She had not realized until too late that it was very tactless of her to suggest the game, as the Lieutenant could hardly make out the cards and tried to hide this failing from her.
'He has just heard that the medical board did not pass him,' she said. 'He will get his retirement papers shortly.'
'Tssk! What a pity!' Then Anacleto added, 'At the same time I should be glad about it if I were he.'
The doctor had left her a new prescription that afternoon and from the bathroom mirror she saw Anacleto examine the bottle carefully and then take a taste of it before measuring it out for her. Judging by the look on his face, he did not much like the flavor. But he smiled brightly when he came back into the room.
'You have never been to such a party,' he said. 'What a great constellation!'
'Consternation, Anacleto.'
'At any rate, havoc. Captain Penderton was two hours late to his own party. Then, when he came in, I thought he had been half eaten by a lion. The horse threw him in a blackberry bush and ran away. You have never seen such a face.'
'Did he break any bones?'
'He looked to me as though he had broken his back,' said Anacleto, with some satisfaction. 'But he carried it off fairly well went upstairs and put on his evening clothes and tried to pretend that he wasn't upset. Now everybody has left except the Major and the Colonel with the red hair whose wife looks like a woery woman.'
'Anacleto,' she warned him softly. Anacleto had used the term 'woery woman' several times before she caught