Reflections in a Golden Eye - Carson McCullers [45]
He never thought of her in connection with the stables or the open air. To him she was always in the room where he had watched her in the night with such absorption. His memory of these times was wholly sensual. There was the thick rug beneath his feet, the silk spread, the faint scent of perfume. There was the soft luxurious warmth of woman flesh, the quiet darkness the alien sweetness in his heart and the tense power in his body as he crouched there near to her. Once having known this he could not let it go; in him was engendered a dark, drugged craving as certain of fulfillment as death.
The rain stopped at midnight. Long ago the lights in the barracks had been turned off. Private Williams had not undressed himself, and when the rain was over he put on his tennis shoes and went outside. On his way to the Captain's quarters he took his usual route, skirting the woods surrounding the post. But tonight there was no moon and the soldier was walking much faster than usual. Once he lost himself, and when at last he reached the Captain's house he had an accident. In the darkness he stumbled into what seemed to him at first to be a deep pit. In order to get his bearings he struck a few matches and saw that he had fallen into a recently dug hole. The house was dark, and the soldier, who was now scratched, muddy, and breathless, waited a few moments before going inside. In all he had come six times before, and this was the seventh and would be the last.
Captain Penderton was standing at the back window of his bedroom. He had taken three capsules, but still he could not sleep. He was slightly drunk with brandy, and a little drugged but that was all. The Captain, who was keenly sensitive to luxury and a finicky dresser, wore only the coarsest sleeping garments. He had on now a wrapper of rough black wool that might have been bought for a recently widowed matron of a jail. His pajamas were of some unbleached material as stiff as canvas. He was barefooted, although the floor was now cold.
The Captain was listening to the sough of the wind in the pine trees when he saw out in the night a tiny flicker of flame. The light was blown out by the wind in only a moment, but during that instant the Captain had seen a face. And that face, brightened by the flame and set in darkness, made the Captain stop his breath. He watched and could vaguely make out the figure that crossed the lawn. The Captain clutched the front of his wrapper and pressed his hand against his breast. He closed his eyes and waited.
At first no sound came to him. Then he could feel rather than hear the cautious footsteps on the stairs. The Captain's door was ajar and through the crack he saw a dark silhouette. He whispered something, but his voice was so sibilant and low that it sounded like the wind outside.
Captain Penderton waited. With his eyes closed again, he stood there for moments of anguished suspense. Then he went out into the hall and saw outlined against the pale gray window of his wife's room the one for whom he sought. Afterward the Captain was to tell himself that in this one instant he knew everything. Actually, in a moment when a great but unknown shock is expected, the mind instinctively prepares itself by abandoning momentarily the faculty of surprise. In that vulnerable instant a kaleidoscope of half guessed possibilities project themselves, and when the disaster has defined itself there is the feeling of having understood beforehand in some supernatural way. The Captain took his pistol from the drawer of his bed table, crossed the hall, and switched on the light in his wife's room. As he did this, certain dormant fragments of memory a shadow at the window, a sound in the night came to him. He said to himself that he knew all. But what it was he knew he could not have expressed. He was only certain that this was the end.
The soldier did not have time to rise from his squatting position. He blinked at the light and there was no fear in his face;