Speaker 1: Us studious. Clara left her house at six forty five.
Speaker 1: Every evening. She wore the same coat in winter and
Speaker 1: the same linen jacket in summer, and she carried a
Speaker 1: long brass pole over her shoulder, its hook polished to
Speaker 1: a dull shine by twenty years of use. The pole
Speaker 1: was heavier than it looked, but Clara had strong shoulders,
Speaker 1: and she had long ago stopped noticing the weight. She
Speaker 1: walked down Maple Street, past the bakery that closed at six,
Speaker 1: past the bookshop with its hand painted sign, past the
Speaker 1: row of houses with their front gardens just beginning to
Speaker 1: catch the evening light. The sun was low, stretching shadows
Speaker 1: across the cobblestones, and the air had that particular warmth
Speaker 1: that comes just before dusk, when the day is tired
Speaker 1: but not yet ready to sleep. The first lamp was
Speaker 1: at the corner of Maple and Bridge. It was an
Speaker 1: old gas lamp, one of twelve that lined the main
Speaker 1: street of the village. It had a glass enclosure slightly
Speaker 1: clouded by years of weather, and inside it a mantle
Speaker 1: that Clara had replaced herself three times. She set the
Speaker 1: pole's hook around the lever at the base of the lamp,
Speaker 1: turned it and heard the soft hiss of gas filling
Speaker 1: the mantle. She struck a match, held it to the nozzle,
Speaker 1: and the lamp bloomed into light. The light was different
Speaker 1: from electric light. It was warmer, softer, and it moved.
Speaker 1: It bathed with the gas, flickering slightly when the wind
Speaker 1: came steady. When the air was calm, Clara stood for
Speaker 1: a moment and watched it the way she always did.
Speaker 1: She knew this lamp the way she knew her own kitchen.
Speaker 1: One side of the glass was slightly more clouded than
Speaker 1: the other. The mantle had a small dark spot near
Speaker 1: the top that did not affect the light, but would
Speaker 1: need replacing next month. The bass had a crack in
Speaker 1: the stone that had been there since before Clara started,
Speaker 1: and she had never tried to fix it because it
Speaker 1: was part of the lamp's character. She moved on. The
Speaker 1: second lamp was outside the post office. This one was
Speaker 1: her favorite, though she would never say so to the others.
Speaker 1: It hummed, not loudly, not enough for anyone walking past
Speaker 1: to notice, but Clara heard it, a low, steady hum,
Speaker 1: like a purring, and when she lit it, the hum
Speaker 1: grew slightly louder, as if the lamp were happy to
Speaker 1: be awake. She touched the glass with her gloved hand
Speaker 1: a small greeting, and continued down the street. The third
Speaker 1: lamp was near the river. This one was difficult. It
Speaker 1: stood at the edge of the breach, exposed to every
Speaker 1: wind that came off the water, and its flame often
Speaker 1: guttered or went out entirely on stormy nights. Clara had
Speaker 1: learned to shield it with her body, turning her back
Speaker 1: to the wind while she lit the mantle, and she
Speaker 1: had learned to check it twice on evenings when the
Speaker 1: weather was uncertain. Tonight, the air was still, and the
Speaker 1: lamp caught on the first try, its flame steady and
Speaker 1: bright against the darkening sky. She could see the river
Speaker 1: from here, black and smooth, reflecting the lamp of the sunset.
Speaker 1: A heron stood on the far bank, motionless, waiting for fish.
Speaker 1: Clara watched it for a moment. The heron did not move.
Speaker 1: It was part of the evening, as much a fixture
Speaker 1: as the lamp itself. The fourth lamp was outside the pub.
Speaker 1: The door was open, and she could hear voices and
Speaker 1: the clink of glasses. Someone called out to her evening Clara,
Speaker 1: and she waved without stopping. The pub lamp was the
Speaker 1: brightest of the twelve, its mantle new, its glass clean.
Speaker 1: She lit it quickly and moved on, because stopping at
Speaker 1: the pub was not part of her circuit, and Clara
Speaker 1: did not deviate from her circuit. By the time she
Speaker 1: reached the seventh lamp, the sky had turned the deep
Speaker 1: blue that comes just after sunset. The first stars were
Speaker 1: appearing faint and tentative, and the street was growing darker.
Speaker 1: But the lamps she had already lit were glowing behind her,
Speaker 1: each one a small pool of warm light on the cobblestones,
Speaker 1: and as she walked, she passed through their light and
Speaker 1: out of it, like stepping through rooms in a house.
Speaker 1: The eighth lamp was outside the school. Clara paused here,
Speaker 1: as she always did. Her daughter had gone to this
Speaker 1: school thirty years ago. The building had been repainted since then,
Speaker 1: and the playground had new equipment, but the lamp was
Speaker 1: the same It had been here when Clara was a girl,
Speaker 1: and her mother had lit it before Clara did three
Speaker 1: generations of lamp lighters, and the lamp still stood, patient
Speaker 1: and faithful, waiting for the match and the hiss of gas.
Speaker 1: She lit it. The light fell on the school yard,
Speaker 1: illuminating the swings and the slide, and the small garden
Speaker 1: where the children grew tomatoes in summer. Everything was still.
Speaker 1: The school was empty, the children gone home hours ago,
Speaker 1: but the lamp lit the yard anyway, because that was
Speaker 1: what lamps did. They lit the places where people had been,
Speaker 1: and they waited for morning. The last lamp was at
Speaker 1: the top of the hill, overlooking the village. From here,
Speaker 1: Clara could see all twelve lamps, each one a point
Speaker 1: of warm light in the blue dusk. They formed a
Speaker 1: line down the main street, a chain of small fires
Speaker 1: that marked the heart of the village. She stood at
Speaker 1: the top of the hill and looked down at them,
Speaker 1: the way she did every evening, and she felt the
Speaker 1: same quiet satisfaction she had felt the first time she
Speaker 1: lit a lamp twenty years ago. Clara lowered the pole
Speaker 1: and rested it on her shoulder. The evening breeze picked
Speaker 1: up cool against her face, and she breathed it in.
Speaker 1: Below her, the village settled into night. Windows glowed, doors closed,
Speaker 1: The sounds of the day faded, replaced by the softer
Speaker 1: sounds of evening. Crickets, distant music, the river moving over stones.
Speaker 1: She walked home. The lamps lit her way. Each one
Speaker 1: she passed a small greeting, a reminder that she had
Speaker 1: been there, that she had turned the gas and struck
Speaker 1: the match and made the light. She did not think
Speaker 1: of it as work. She thought of it as a conversation,
Speaker 1: a nightly exchange between herself and the village. She gave light,
Speaker 1: and the village gave her the quiet satisfaction of knowing
Speaker 1: that somewhere someone walking home under a lamp she had lit.
Speaker 1: Clara reached her front door. She hung the pole on
Speaker 1: its hook by the door, removed her coat, and stepped inside.
Speaker 1: The house was warm, the kettle was already hot. She
Speaker 1: sat in her chair by the window, the one that
Speaker 1: looked out over the hill, and she could see the
Speaker 1: twelve lamps glowing in the dusk, a string of pearls
Speaker 1: along the dark street. She closed her eyes. The hum
Speaker 1: of the gas lamps was faint, almost imaginary, but she
Speaker 1: heard it, a low, steady sound, like a cat purring,
Speaker 1: like a village breathing in its sleep. Clara listened, and
Speaker 1: the sound wrapped around her, like the warm coat she
Speaker 1: had taken off like the evening itself, and she slept