The Feast of St. Eustace

Tom Claiborne had promised his wife to rise early the morning of the fête. But he had not slept well the night before. He was still at breakfast on the terrace when Vera came around the corner of the house leading the bull. Claiborne had been reading the newspaper and until he looked up and saw his wife and the bull standing at the end of the terrace he had not known how bright the morning was. He fixed his eyes on his wife. She was already dressed for what she called her “morning’s work” in a faded blouse and dungarees. Straws, glistening with moisture, adhered to the soles of her canvas sneakers; she had been working in the bull’s stall long enough to get up a sweat. The sweat made the short, dark hairs about her forehead curl a little. The bull stood behind her on legs that might have been carved from solid mahogany, moving his jaws a little from side to side, staring past them both out of eyes the color of old port. His hair, red as henna, broke into curls, too, and rippled even deeper over his chest. That was the result of Art. Joe Kress had come over last night and showed Vera and Rodney, the stable boy, how to set it.

Vera suddenly laughed and, standing on tiptoe, stretched her arms over her head, so high that the bull’s head was jerked sharply upward. “Gee whillikins!” she said—she had been brought up in France and had learned that expletive from an American cousin when she was eleven years old and was still using it at the age of forty-three. “Gee whillikins!” she said again. “Haven’t we got a fine day for the Coming Out Party!”