Read Online Clock Without Hands by Carson Mccullers - Free Book Online Page B

advancing age, which indeed the Judge did not admit, he went early every morning to his office in the courthouse—walking the morning way, being driven back at noon for a long midday dinner, and being driven back for the afternoon work hours. He argued vociferously in the court house square and in Malone's drugstore. On Saturday night he played poker in a game held in the back room of the New York Café.
    All these years the Judge had as his motto: "Mens sana in corpore sano." His "stroke" did not alter this as much as would have been supposed. After a cantankerous convalescence, he returned to his usual ways; although he went to the office only in the morning and did little but open his diminishing mail and read the
Milan Courier,
the
Flowering Branch Ledger
and, on Sundays, the
Atlanta Constitution,
which infuriated him. The Judge had fallen in the bathroom and had lain there for hours until Jester, sleeping his sound boy's sleep, finally heard his grandfather's cries. The "little seizure" had happened instantaneously so that the Judge had at first hoped that his recovery would come about with the same instant speed. He would not admit it was a true stroke—spoke of "a light case of polio," "little seizure," etc. When he was up and around, he declared he used the walking stick because he liked it and that the "little attack" had probably benefited him as his mind had grown keener because of contemplation and "new studies."

    The old man waited restlessly for the sound of a doorlatch. "Jester is out so late," he said, with a note of complaint. "He's usually such a thoughtful boy about letting me know where he is when he goes out at night. Before my bath, when I heard some sound of music from not far away, I wondered if he had not stepped out in the yard to listen. But the music stopped and when I called there was only silence, and although it's past his bedtime, he has not come home."
    Malone put his long upper lip against his mouth, as he did not like Jester, but he only said mildly: "Well, boys will be boys."
    "Often I have worried about him, brought up in a house of sorrow. If ever there was one. Sometimes I think that's why he loves sad music, although his mother was a great one for music," the Judge said, forgetting he had skipped a generation. "I mean of course his grandmother," he corrected. "Jester's mother was with us only at that time of violence, sorrow and confusion ... so much so that she passed through the family almost unnoticed, so that now I can hardly remember her face. Light hair, brownish eyes, a nice voice ... although her father was a well-known rum runner. In spite of our feelings she was a blessing in disguise if ever there was one.
    "The trouble was, she was just sandwiched in between Johnny's death, Jester's birth, and Miss Missy's second failing. It would take the strongest personality to not blur against all this and Mirabelle was not strong." Indeed, the only memory that stood out was one Sunday dinner when the gentle stranger said: "I love baked Alaskas" and the Judge took it upon himself to correct her. "Mirabelle," he said sternly, "you love me. You love the memory of your husband. You love Miss Missy. But you don't love baked Alaskas, see?" He pointed out, with a most loving glance at the piece he was cutting, "You like baked Alaskas. See the difference, child?" She saw, but her appetite had quite left her. "Yes sir," she said as she put down her fork. The Judge, feeling guilty, said angrily: "Eat, child. You've got to eat in your condition." But the idea of being in her condition only made her cry, and leave the table. Miss Missy, with a glance of reproach to her husband, followed soon after, leaving him to eat in solitary fury. As a punishment to them he deliberately deprived them of his presence most of the afternoon, playing solitaire in the library behind locked doors; it was a great satisfaction when the doorknob was rattled and he refused to budge or answer. He even went so far as to