The Golden Fishes
"What are you looking for, Rog?" she asked romantically, thinking it was pretty to call him 'Rog' instead of 'Roger'; to ask little questions in a soft voice; and he still stood there by the bridge, looking into the golden water and smiling lightly. He had a nice face when he was smiling. When he wasn't, his eyes looked tragic and his cheeks went long and sombre, but when he smiled, they widened rather and he looked dear, she thought, the sort of man one wouldn't think it was mad to marry. The sort of man who would look good in a picture in the 'Wedding' section of the dailies. The sort of man her mum would be glad to see her be in love with, and as a result, be eager to shop for dresses and shoes and matching tiaras; the sort of man her dad would think worthy of his daughter in that loving, pompous way old men had.
"What are you looking for, Rog?" she asked again, and this time he turned, still smiling; perhaps a little childishly now, but smiling; and said,--
"Doesn't it make you wonder, that all those fish are swimming upstream? Well, I suppose if they went downstream they'd end up in the sea finally, and they don't want to, but really, one does think. It looks a lot of work, and they're not getting anywhere."
"Perhaps," she said, going and sitting on the wide stone guard, "perhaps that's how they eat. Perhaps they're looking upstream so that food floats down into their mouths."
"I say," said Rog, and he laughed. "That's probably right. Brilliant, you are."
And that was it. That was the kind of thing. They asked each other stupid things and they answered trivial little questions, but Rog liked it, and called her 'brilliant', and that was why she wanted him to be the sort of man one wouldn't think was mad to marry. Her mum and dad could only like someone, couldn't they, who thought walking out was strolling in the park and wondering why the fish swum upstream?
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