The Crocodile | Page 6

did you see?"
"Tell him," said Virginia.
"Ay, tell me," said my father.
"I saw Virginia's face," said I.
Then we left him. But in the hall Virginia laid her hand on my
shoulder.
"Haven't you noticed?" said she.
"What?" said I.
"Your father," said she.
"No," said I. "What ails him?"
Virginia tapped her forehead.
"Mildewed here," said she.
"I don't understand," said I.
"Never mind then, Richard," said she. "I'll take care of you."
That night I dreamed that I heard my father calling the name of Allah.
But in the morning I rose early, and, going to the woods, gathered an
armful of jasmine for Virginia.
She received it cheerfully.
"Is this in memory of any one?" she asked.

"Yes," I said boldly, "it's in memory of me."
"Then I will keep it, Richard," she said. "Flowers are for the living."
"Yes," I said.
"And crocodiles," said she, "are for the dead."
For a long time I looked upon the innocent gayness and frivolity of
Virginia with blinking eyes, as a person blinks at the sudden match
lighted in the middle of the night. I had been pledged to darkness from
my earliest years, and now, while my character, still happily plastic,
was receiving its definite stamps, I blinked hankeringly at the light that
I might have loved, and at the same time steeled myself to go through
with the prearranged marriage. As in the Yankee states children are
brought up to believe that it is wicked to be joyous on Sunday so I had
been taught to believe of every twenty-four hours in the week.
I cannot think peacefully of that unhappy period in Virginia's life
forced on her by us two moribunds. She was the sun, soaring in bright,
beneficent career, brought suddenly to impotence by a London fog.
And I take it that to be bright and happy, and to fail in making others so,
is the most grievous chapter in life. But Virginia's glowing nature had
its effect on mine, and in the end she set my spirits dancing. With my
father, however, the effect of a madcap sunbeam in the house was
altogether different. For it served only to plunge him deeper into gloom
and regret. If we came to dinner with him fresh from the joyous
morning and in love with laughter, the misery into which he was too
palpably thrown reacted so that for all three of us the afternoon became
clouded. Sometimes his sorrow would take the form of mocking at all
things peaceful and pleasant. In particular the institution of marriage
aroused in him hostility.
"Ay, marry," he would say, "Richard, and beget death. It may be
hereditary in our family. Exchange your wife, who is your soul, for a
red and puling inconsequence, that shall serve down the tiresome years
to remind you day and night of the sunshine which has been
extinguished for you."

And I remember once retorting on him sharply to the effect that if he
threw me so constantly in my own face I would leave his roof, and in
the intemperance of the moment I fully purposed to do so. "I will do no
worse among strangers," I said, "or in hell, for that matter."
My father fairly shriveled before the unfilial words and retreated so
pathetically from his foolish position that my attack melted clean away.
"But why," I said afterward to Virginia, "wouldn't he let me go? Why
did he say that he could not live without me? And why, in God's name,
when it was all over, did he cry?"
And Virginia thought for a few moments, which was unusual with her,
and said presently: "Richard, either your father is the greatest lover that
ever lived, or else he is a tiresome egomaniac. Frankly, I believe the
latter. You are an accessory, a dismal carving on the moldy frame in
which he pictures himself. When I first came I used to tell him how
terribly sorry I was that he had lost his wife. But I've given that up.
Between you and me, it made him a little peevish. Now I say to him,
'Uncle Richard, you're the unhappiest man I ever saw,' and that
comforts him tremendously. Sometimes he asks me if I really think so,
and when I say that I do he almost smiles. And I have caught him,
immediately after a scene like that, looking at himself in the mirror and
pulling his face even longer than usual.... There, I've shocked you."
"No, Virginia," I said, "but I should hate to believe of any man what
you believe of my father. His grief must be sincere."
"It may be," said Virginia, "or it may have been once. I believe it isn't
now. I believe that if your