Utility does." "It is not beautiful," I protested.
"Life isn't, you mean," he smiled.

"Yet you say I was made well.

Do you see this ?" He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes in a clutching sort of way.

Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles writhed and bunched under the skin.
"Feel them," he commanded.
They were hard as iron.

And I observed, also, that his whole body had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons; and that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle.
"Stability, equilibrium," he said, relaxing on the instant and sinking his body back into repose.