Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson Mccullers

while. The young soldier looked into their faces and seemed to be on the
     point of asking some question of them.
    But in the end he did not speak, and after a time he went away.
    Private Williams always had been so unsociable that hardly half of his sleeping mates
     even knew his name. Actually the name he used in the army was not his own. On his
     enlistment a tough old Sergeant had glared down at his signature L. G. Williams and
     then bawled out at him: 'Write your name, you snotty little hayseed, your full name!' The
     soldier had waited a long time before revealing the fact that those initials were his
     name, and the only name he had. 'Well, you can't go into the U.S. Army with a goddam name
     like that,' the Sergeant said. 'I'll change it to E l l g e e. O.K.?' Private Williams
     nodded and in the face of such indifference the Sergeant burst into a loud raw laugh. 'The
     half wits they do send us now,' he had said as he turned back to his papers.
    It was now November and for two days a high wind had blown. Overnight the young maples
     along the sidewalks were stripped of their leaves. The leaves lay in a bright gold blanket
     beneath the trees and the sky was filled with white changing clouds. The next day there
     was a cold rain, The leaves were left sodden and dun colored, trampled on the wet streets,
     and finally raked away. The weather had cleared again and the bare branches of the trees
     made a sharp filigree against the winter sky. In the early morning there was frost on the
     dead grass.
    After four nights of rest Private Williams returned to the Captain's house. This time, as
     he knew the habits of the house, he did not wait until the Captain had gone to bed. At
     midnight while the officer worked in his study he went up to The Lady's room and stayed an
     hour there. Then he stood by the study window and watched curiously until at two o'clock
     the Captain went upstairs. For something was happening at this time that the soldier did
     not understand.
    In these reconnoiterings, and during the dark vigils in The Lady's room, the soldier had
     no fear. He felt, but did not think; he experienced without making any mental resume of
     his present or past actions. Five years before L. G. Williams had killed a man. In an
     argument over a wheelbarrow of manure he had stabbed a negro to death and hidden the body
     in an abandoned quarry. He had struck out in a fit of fury, and he could remember the
     violent color of blood and the weight of the limp body as he dragged it through the woods.
     He could remember the hot sun of that July afternoon, the smell of dust and death. He had
     felt a certain wondering, numb distress, but there was no fear in him, and not once since
     that time had the thought shaped definitely in his mind that he was a murderer. The mind
     is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of
     the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect The mind of
     Private Williams was imbued with various colors of strange tones, but it was without
     delineation, void of form.
    Through these first winter days only one realization came to Private Williams, and it was
     this: he began to perceive that the Captain was following him. Twice a day, his face
     bandaged and still raw with rash, the Captain went out for short rides. And then when he
     had checked in the horse he lingered for a while before the stables. Three times on his
     way to mess Private Williams had looked behind him to see the Captain only about ten yards
     away. Far more often than chance could account for the officer passed him on the sidewalk.
     Once after one of these encounters the soldier stopped and looked behind him. After a
     short distance the Captain paused also and turned halfway around. It was late afternoon
     and the winter dusk had in it a pale violet tint. The Captain's eyes were steady, cruel,
     and bright Almost a minute