The Three Stages of Clarinda Thorbald

by William T. Hamilton

It was different in the case of my Father. He loved me, and I know now as I look back that he adored me. His one ambition in life was to make existence for me as free from all source of worry as the human can. But he failed, and he failed because his perspective was bad. He didn’t understand the longings of a real woman. He knew the world from a man’s point of view. There he stopped. He knew nothing of it from a love’s point of view. He loved, but he loved materially. I asked him once whether he loved Mother as much as when he married her. He could not answer. He knew his love had left her and centered about his own success, which meant money and position—the flattery of men.

I am hastening these two developments because I want to tell you of the third stage of my life—the third development, and what it has cost me, how I arrived at this stage at which I find myself and what if anything I have gained by my conduct towards you.

There is a curious thing comes to my mind. It may not strike you exactly as it does me. But I am going to mention it for the reason that it interests me. You, Peter, even today, are the only thing in life as far as I am concerned, and it took the greatest amount of determination to withstand the temptation which assailed me.

Many times in the past twenty-odd years I have gotten out of my bed with the firm determination to come back to you. To say that probably after all I was wrong, that I laid too much stress upon the condition in which I found myself. You know, or probably you have not thought it out—that once a woman gives herself to a man, once she has borne him children, her whole heart, her whole life is wrapped up in the one experience. Women are not like men. They are monogamous. There is barely a woman in the world who has given herself to one man, and afterwards goes through a divorce court or leaves him, that at times she does not feel within herself an urge that is nearly unconquerable to go back to that man. Women re-marry and they live in what is supposed to be contentment, but in their hearts there is no contentment.

You will never know the tugs I have had or the strength I have used to carry out this thing to its bitter end, but I was certain to do this.

Eight years after I had gone from the house, I stood for hours outside the wall. I looked through the bars of the gate. I looked upon the garden. There was a light in the room in which you had placed the divan—the dear old divan, with the soft light burning behind it. I stood for hours on a clear night. The moon shone through the trees, and I could see the flowers. I could even make out the fountain around which we had walked and you had told me of what you had done during the day. This only happened once—a walk such as this. What joy that walk gave me. I feel it even now. The great door was open. The light beckoned to me. It invited me to come. It seemed to say, “Enter, and you will be forgiven. Love waits for you.” I shook with fear. For I was afraid that I might weaken.

I walked furiously up and down the pavement. My eyes were pinned upon that light, and except for the light that fled through the front doors everything else was dark. Nowhere was there a single light except in that one room. I thought I could see you in it. I wondered whether you were happy. I didn’t believe you were. Somehow I saw you much changed. You were gray. Your shoulders were not full. You seemed to me to be stooped. I wondered if I went in how you would greet me. I was afraid.

It was late when I left. Midnight. The light still burned. It struck me as curious. I wondered why this was so. After I went away, I knew I had made a mistake. I should have gone in to you. I should have walked up to that little room and sat myself down upon the divan, and if you were not there I should have waited. I believe now and I believed then that you would have taken me in your arms and comforted me. You would not have berated me. You didn’t know how lonely I had been. But, Peter, I failed you. You told me so.

I left as I say, at midnight. I walked past my father’s house. Some one was laughing in there. New people. People who had children. Life. The lights were all lit. It looked so gay. I believe I wept. A man came out upon the porch. I could see him from the lodge gates. He put out his hand as if to see if it rained. He did not see the moon. I thought that so funny. He went back again, closed the door and after sometime the lights began to go down one by one, and finally the house became dark. It was so peaceful. And I was so unhappy. So lacking in peace.

I thought of all that I had done in that old house. I saw my early life again. I felt its happiness creep over me. I felt my father at my side. I saw him stand by me. I could almost feel the grasp of his hand. His breath fanned my cheek. And it seemed to me he whispered in my ear. He said with such depth in his voice, “I forgive you Clarinda. I pity you. Go back.” The thing became so vivid to me, that I turned and ran. I don’t know how far I ran; but I ran until a man stopped me. He said, “Why do you run? Are you scared? Has anything happened to you?”