Chapters 5 and 6 Summary

Chapter 5, "Flayed Bull," opens with Brig. Gen. Warren A. Black jerked awake by a variation of the same dream he has been having for six months. He knows what he calls the Dream will vanish if he resigns, but he cannot do that. The Dream occurs in a bullring, although he has never been to a bullfight. An invisible matador tears strips of flesh from the bull. General Black, in the crowd, notices with satisfaction that the other audience members are people with whom he works. As the bull comes close to him, it is almost has been stripped bare of skin, and he realizes that he has become the bull, which is when he always wakes. He gets up, careful not to awaken his wife, Betty. He goes into the bedroom of their two teenaged sons, twelve and fourteen, arranges...