A Fall of Marigolds

Clara attempts to regain her composure after Dr. Randall has asked her about the fire. Like always, the familiar routine helps her. Indeed, Clara notes it is this routine that “kept [her] and her colleagues from being swallowed whole by what [they] saw every day” (106) and also allows her to forget her own private tragedies. Andrew sympathizes with Clara over the fire but refuses to allow Clara to help him use the bathroom, and Clara finds “[h]is modesty […] strangely alluring” (106). At lunch, the nurses gossip about Dr. Randall, and one of them notes that he “took a shine to Clara” (108), which causes Ivy to retort that he was “only interested in the fire, that’s all!” (109). This upsets Clara all over again; as she leaves the table, she hears the other women scolding Ivy for mentioning the fire and upsetting Clara.

Clara thinks about the nature of disease, particularly scarlet fever. She notes that though disease is “powerful” it “has no intent. It doesn’t want anything. It has no malevolent desire to kill” (111). When people have contracted a deadly illness, however, “the disease seems heinous, deliberate, and personal” (112). This is easier, Clara thinks, than acknowledging the fragility of the human body or confronting one’s mortality.