SSC (2004) The Complete Stories of Truman Capote Read Online Free PDF Page A

that the first match went out. When the second attempt connected she managed a trite smile. After a while he quieted. “I’m so ashamed … please forgive me.”
    “Oh, we understand,” the woman said. “We understand perfectly.”
    “Did it hurt?” the girl asked.
    “No, no, it doesn’t hurt.”
    “I was scared ’cause I thought it hurt. It sure looks that way. ’Spose it’s sorta like hiccups?” She gave a sudden start as though someone had kicked her.
    The Corporal traced his finger along the table rim and presently he said, “I was all right till I got on the train. They said I’d be fine. Said, ‘You’re o.k., soldier.’ But it’s the excitement, the knowing you’re in the States and free and the goddamned waiting’s over.” He brushed at his eye.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    The waiter set the coffee down and the woman tried to help him. With a little angry push he shoved her hand away. “Now please don’t. I know how!” Embarrassingly confused she turned to the window and met her face mirrored there. The face was calm and it surprised her because she felt a dizzy unreality as if she were swinging between two dream points. Channeling her thoughts elsewhere she followed the solemn trip of the Marine’s fork from plate to mouth. The girl was eating now very voraciously but her own food was growing cold.
    Then it began again, not violently as before. In the rawish glare ofan oncoming train’s searchlight distorted reflection blurred and the woman sighed.
    He was swearing softly and it sounded more as though he were praying. Then he frantically clutched the sides of his head in a strong hand vise.
    “Listen, fella, you betta get a doctor,” the Marine suggested.
    The woman reached out and rested her hand on his upraised arm. “Is there anything I can do?” she said.
    “What they used to do to stop it was look in my eyes … as long as I’m looking in somebody’s eyes it’ll quit.”
    She leaned her face close to his. “There,” he said, quieting instantly, “there, now. You’re a sweetheart.”
    “Where was it?” she said.
    He frowned and said, “There was lots of places … it’s my nerves. They’re all torn up.”
    “And where are you going now?”
    “Virginia.”
    “And that’s home, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah, that’s where home is.”
    The woman felt an ache in her fingers and loosened her suddenly intense grip on his arm. “That’s where home is and you must remember that the other is unimportant.”
    “You know something,” he whispered. “I love you. I love you because you’re very silly and very innocent and ’cause you’ll never know anything but what you see in pictures. I love you ’cause we’re in Virginia and I’m almost home.” Abruptly the woman looked away. An offended tenseness embroidered on the silence.
    “So you think that’s all?” he said. He leaned on the table and pawed his face sleepily. “There’s that but then there’s dignity. When it happens with people I’ve always known what then? D’ya think I want to sit down at a table with them or someone like you and make ’em sick? D’ya think I want to scare a kid like this one over here and put ideas in her head about her own guy! I’ve been waiting formonths, and they tell me I’m well but the first time …” He stopped and his eyebrows concentrated.
    The woman slipped two bills on top of her check and pushed her chair back. “Would you let me through now, please?” she said.
    The Corporal heaved up and stood there looking down at the woman’s untouched plate. “Go on an’ eat, damn you,” he said. “You’ve got to eat!” And then, without looking back he disappeared in the direction of the coaches.
    The woman paid for the coffee.

J UG OF S ILVER

(1945)
    After school I used to work in the Valhalla drugstore. It was owned by my uncle, Mr. Ed Marshall. I call him Mr. Marshall because everybody, including his wife, called him Mr. Marshall. Nevertheless he was a