Reflections in a Golden Eye

The Captain has to conjure up excuses to encounter the Private, whom he both desires and hates. When he does see the Private, his body reacts—he becomes dizzy or momentarily loses his vision or hearing. He begins to walk and drive places hoping to see the Private, even lingering outside the soldiers’ barracks. The Captain notices that he hates the Private but doesn’t truly interrogate this feeling or stop pursuing him. One day, he lingers outside the barracks from afternoon into the evening, watching Private Williams from a distance in his car. When the Private goes inside the barracks for supper, the Captain is overcome with profound loneliness. His eyes tear up, and he then drives home.

Leonora and Susie are assembling an elaborate tray of food for Alison, whose heart palpitations on the night of the party two weeks prior were a heart attack; she is now bedbound. When Leonora returns from delivering the food, the Captain tells her a false, malicious story about Anacleto, but Leonora doesn’t understand it. The Captain often makes up similar stories about Anacleto and the Major and passes them off to other people as hearsay; he doesn’t want the Major to know he is the stories’ source.