After the tinker has left and Elisa bathes before she and
her husband go out to celebrate his sale of thirty steer, she hears her husband enter.
When he comes "banging out of the door" after bathing and dressing--something like a
steer himself--he stiffens and Elisa's face tightens. "Why--why Elisa. You look so
nice," her husband tells her. When she asks him what he means, Henry Allen
"blunders,"and replies,
"I don't know. I mean you look different, strong
and happy."
"I am strong? Yes, strong. What do you mean
'strong'"?
Unable to speak in
anything but ranch language, Henry awkwardly tells her she is strong enough to "break a
calf over [her]knee." This is hardly what Elisa who has felt a near-erotic experience
in her conversation with the tinker over her chrysanthemums wants to hear. For, Elisa
anticipates a romantic evening--"That's a bright direction. There's a glowing
there"--with her husband as they share a meal with wine. But, Henry returns to his
formal language with her, saying only that he will get the car out. Like the "closed
pot" of the Salinas Valley, Elisa and Henry Allan have a closed, reserved relationship
in which Elisa's passionate nature cannot be released or satisfied. It can only be
"strong" on the ranch.
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