Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson Mccullers Read Free Book Online Page A

to her. She and Anacleto had got back into the car and
     driven off again. The insult of it happening in her own house that was what she could
     not swallow. And then, of all times in the world, when they slowed down at the outpost
     there was a new soldier on duty who did not know them, and he had stopped the car. He
     looked into the little coupe as though they might be concealing a machine gun and then
     stood staring at Anacleto who, dressed in his jaunty burnt orange jacket, was ready to
     burst into tears. He asked for the name in a tone of voice which suggested that he did not
     believe they could possibly screw up one between them.
    Never would she forget that soldier's face. At the moment she did not have it in her to
     speak her husband's name. The young soldier waited, stared, and said not a word. Later she
     had seen this same soldier at the stables when she went to fetch Morris in the car. He had
     the strange, rapt face of a Gauguin primitive. They looked at each other for perhaps a
     minute and at last an officer came up.
    She and Anacleto had driven for three hours in the cold without speaking. And after that
     the plans she had made at night when she was sick and restless, schemes that as soon as
     the sun came up would seem so foolish. And the evening she had run home from the
     Pendertons' and done that ghastly thing. She had seen the garden shears on the wall and,
     beside herself with anger and despair, she had tried to stab and kill herself. But the
     shears were too blunt. And then for a few moments she must have been quite out of her
     head, for she herself did not know just how it had happened. Alison shuddered and hid her
     face in her hands. She heard her husband open his door and put his boots out in the hall.
     Quickly she turned off her light.
    The Major had finished his magazine and hidden it again in the drawer. He took a last
     drink and then lay comfortably in the bed, looking up into the dark. What was it that
     meeting Leonora for the first time reminded him of? It had happened the year after the
     baby died, when for twelve solid months Alison had either been in the hospital or prowling
     around the house like a ghost Then he had met Leonora down at the stables the first week
     he had come to this post, and she had offered to show him around. They left the bridle
     path and had a dandy gallop. When they had tied the horses for a rest, Leonora had seen
     some blackberry bushes near by and said she might as well pick enough to make a cobbler
     for dinner. And Lord! when they were scrambling around those bushes together filling his
     hat with berries, it had first happened. At nine in the morning and two hours after they
     met! Even now he could hardly believe it. But what had it seemed like to him at the time?
     Oh, yes it was like being out on maneuvers, shivering all through a cold rainy night in
     a tent that leaked. And then to get up at dawn and see that the rain was over and the sun
     was out again. And to watch the fine looking soldiers making coffee over camp fires and
     see the sparks rise up into a clear white sky. A wonderful feeling the best in the
     world!
    The Major giggled guiltily, hid his head underneath the sheet, and began to snore
     immediately.
    At twelve thirty Captain Penderton fretted alone in his study. He was working on a
     monograph and had made little progress that night. He had drunk a good deal of wine and
     tea and had smoked dozens of cigarettes. At last he had given up work altogether and now
     he was walking restlessly up and down the room. There are times when a man's greatest need
     is to have someone to love, some focal point for his diffused emotions. Also there are
     times when the irritations, disappointments, and fears of life, restless as spermatozoids,
     must be released in hate. The unhappy Captain had no one to hate and for the past months
     he had been miserable.
    Alison Langdon, that big nosed female Job,