The Three Stages of Clarinda Thorbald

by William T. Hamilton

Candles gave a fitful light and the tiny blaze they bore swung here and there like imprisoned souls, that longed to be free. Tiny trails of smoke went from them into the air, and the smoke melted away in the mass of flowers which decorated the mantels and the casket.

Clarinda like her mother was covered with a veil. She looked through it, and it came back to her vividly the last time a crowd of people had been gathered in this same place. It had been decorated as now, except an altar stood where the casket was now. It was swept as then with a soft breeze when the doors to the hall were opened. Almost the same people were here now as were here then. A musician presided at the organ before and the soft tones filled the hall then as now. The only difference was that the song was changed. Instead of “O Perfect Love,” it played now, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” As then, now a small voice sang in the offing and the sweet, gentle tones filled the hall even as before.

Then, there were smiles and tones of laughter and now only suppressed polite moanings. Sorrow instead of joy, tears instead of laughter. None of the guests weaved his way across the polished floors. They sat stiff, immovable. Instead of a bridegroom, an undertaker slipped noiselessly about the place, like some gnome, or bird of ill omen. The priest was still. He stood beside the coffin and in a few moments read in subdued tones from his rubric and his face was drawn and somber. There was none of the lightsomeness of the other occasion when he had married the man to Clarinda, who sat stiff and stolid beside her.

Peter looked about furtively. He saw the mother of Clarinda and wondered why she should be so grief-stricken. He had known her as a person who delighted in the Church and believed perfectly in its history and its manifold benefits. He knew she prayed each night that she might be taken up into heaven and stand upon the right hand of the Throne of Power. He could not understand how with her belief she could not have rejoiced at the death of this person. To him it was a wonderful release. The fight was done. The struggle to hold on to the meagre possessions that this one had accumulated was over. He had succeeded.

To him the atmosphere was bad. The paid pall-bearers were bad, they seemed an incongruous note in the place, he disliked them. He hoped in his heart that when he should become as the one in the box, that some of his friends would carry him out of his house and place him in the hearse. Peter did not fear death. He liked to dwell upon it. He liked to try to reason exactly what it meant to him, for he looked upon it as a release. He believed nothing and feared nothing. Peter scoffed at religion and it amused him to discover that the symbols of the church were the same as those to which the Egyptians bowed thousands of years ago.

They left the house, and they came back again. The dirt had fallen with a hollow sound over the bones of the old man. They ate. The flowers had disappeared from the hall. The servants resumed their same tones of servility and nature reasserted itself and life went on as before.

Clarinda and he went back to their own house. Peter lit a cigarette, and stretched himself. Clarinda sat upon the divan, and didn’t think of anything. Time went by her without notice.

Peter blew the smoke from his cigarette into the air, and it curled in fantastic waves about his head and sank away into nothingness. His mind was almost as much a blank as Clarinda’s. He could not think, things had happened so rapidly that his head was in a whirl and he saw the future darkly.

The maid came into the room and asked quietly whether they desired anything, but received no response from either of them. She went out as quietly as she had come, and she shook her head as she closed the door behind her. Under her breath she said as if to herself:

“I’ve seen many just like these. It is the end. They will separate. It is bad, and she so beautiful.”