308
PARTISAN
R'EVIEW
of my sisters-of all
his
children, the one most disastrously unsuccessful
in her relations with him-decided that she wanted the ashes, and
they are buried now under a tree in her back yard on Long Island.
Since my father died in Florida-a final assertion of will had
brought him to that health-giving climate, where he died within
twelve hours-an uncompromising respect for common sense would
have suggested that he be cremated there; and there was some
sentiment for this plan, which would have avoided a great deal of
trouble and expense. But various considerations, not all of them
"pure," led to the decision that his body should be shipped to
New York. I was very glad of this, because I found myself anxious to
see the body: primarily, perhaps, to convince myself that he was
really dead.
As
soon as the undertaker informed us that the body
was "ready"-it was by then three days after his death-I went to
see.
What could I have expected? So far as any evidence could go,
it was convincing enough. He was dead as a doornail- the crudity
of this phrase served some purpose for me at the time, though it
repels me now. The flesh of his face had shrunk, drawing the lips
tight and thin in an upward curve only abstractly (which is to say,
not at all) suggestive of a smile, as
if
he had had his face "lifted";
his nose, now bony and lean, revealed a sharp curve that had not
been visible when he was alive; only the heavy gray hands were as
they had been. Above all, there was that appearance of perfect
grooming which is never to be found except on a corpse: the face
shaved cruelly clean and carefully powdered, the few strands of
gray hair motionlessly neat, the necktie (a surprisingly bright one)
once and for all in place. I restrained a desire to touch the face, be–
cause I was not alone ,and even more because of an obscure fear that
my hand might leave a mark on the dead flesh, which I thought of
as being malleable.
It is a fact not surprising, perhaps, but worth remark, that no
one looks out of place in a coffin; somehow the coffin itself, with
its appearance of functional economy, its undisguisable appropriate–
ness, is chiefly responsible for this. Barring the grosser accidents, and
with the discreet support of the undertaker, we shall all make a
good showing for a day or so after we are dead. I happened once
to see a man dead whom I had never seen alive, and yet he filled
his coffin completely; though he did not know it, he was still in the
