TRANSLATION OF A LETTER FROM F.J. DE LA TOUR.
TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. NEAR SOHO-SQUARE, LONDON. TRENT, DEC. 18, N.S.
SIR,
I have melancholy news to inform you of, by order of the Chevalier Lovelace…
…
They parried with equal judgment several passes. My chevalier drew the first blood, making a desperate push, which, by a sudden turn of his antagonist, missed going clear through him, and wounded him on the fleshy part of the ribs of his right side; which part the sword tore out, being on the extremity of the body; but, before my chevalier could recover himself, the Colonel, in return, pushed him into the inside of the left arm, near the shoulder; and the sword (raking his breast as it passed,) being followed by a great effusion of blood, the Colonel said, Sir, I believe you have enough.
My chevalier swore by G—d he was not hurt; ’twas a pin’s point; and so made another pass at his antagonist; which he, with a surprising dexterity, received under his arm, and run my dear chevalier into the body; who immediately fell; saying, The luck is yours, Sir—O my beloved Clarissa!—Now art thou—inwardly he spoke three or four words more. His sword dropt from his hand. Mr. Morden threw his down, and ran to him, saying in French—Ah, Monsieur! you are a dead man!——Call to God for mercy!
…
The surgeons told him that my chevalier could not live over the day.
When the Colonel took leave of him, Mr. Lovelace said, You have well revenged the dear creature.
I have, Sir, said Mr. Morden; and perhaps shall be sorry that you called upon me to this work, while I was balancing whether to obey, or disobey, the dear angel.
There is a fate in it! replied my chevalier—a cursed fate!—or this could not have been!—But be ye all witnesses, that I have provoked my destiny, and acknowledge that I fall by a man of honour.
Sir, said the Colonel, with the piety of a confessor, (wringing Mr. Lovelace’s hand,) snatch these few fleeting moments, and commend yourself to God.
…
Contrary to all expectation, he lived over the night: but suffered much, as well from his impatience and disappointment, as from his wounds; for he seemed very unwilling to die.
He was delirious, at times, in the two last hours: and then several times cried out, as if he had seen some frightful spectre, Take her away! Take her away!but named nobody. And sometimes praised some lady, (that Clarissa, I suppose, whom he had invoked when he received his death’s wound,) calling her Sweet Excellence! Divine Creature! Fair Sufferer!— And once he said, Look down, Blessed Spirit, look down!—And there stopt; —his lips, however, moving.
At nine in the morning he was seized with convulsions, and fainted away; and it was a quarter of an hour before he came out of them.
His few last words I must not omit, as they show an ultimate composure; which may administer some consolation to his honourable friends.
Blessed—said he, addressing himself no doubt to Heaven; for his dying eyes were lifted up—a strong convulsion prevented him for a few moments saying more—but recovering, he again, with great fervour, (lifting up his eyes, and his spread hands,) pronounced the word blessed: Then, in a seeming ejaculation, he spoke inwardly, so as not to be understood: at last, he distinctly pronounced these three words,
LET THIS EXPIATE!
And then, his head sinking on his pillow, he expired, at about half an hour after ten.
He little thought, poor gentleman! his end so near: so had given no direction about his body. I have caused it to be embowelled, and deposited in a vault, till I have orders from England.
This is a favour that was procured with difficulty; and would have been refused, had he not been an Englishman of rank: a nation with reason respected in every Austrian government—for he had refused ghostly attendance, and the sacraments in the Catholic way.—May his soul be happy, I pray God!
Although the duel itself is not a surprise–the letters return cyclically to the original dramatic tension that opened the novel–I was surprised by how much of Lovelace's words were unheard here: spoken under his breath, murmured only to himself or to his fantasies, etc.
I wonder: in what ways did Lovelace really “lose” in this narrative? and how is that represented in this, his last scene?
(And on a side note, I wonder how this last scene lived up to your expectations for the Death of the Rakiest of Rakes–and if it lived up to the expectations of Richardson's readers then, too.)
I love that we don't actually get to hear what he says about Clarissa, those “three or four words” are spoken “inwardly” (to see Lovelace direct anything inwardly was a surprise). It seemed to fit, though, with what we've been talking about all semester in terms of our inability to ever get past a performance to the “real” Lovelace (whether or not there is a real Lovelace is a slightly different question).
What does Lovelace “lose” here? I'm not really sure. I'd say some kind of coherence or integrity, in the end, for all his philosophizing, he does seem to renounce rakedom — but then, I'm not sure I can make an argument for a coherent Lovelace before this moment. Maybe its just the “hardened” rationalizing of his way of life, maybe in this moment he's finally a little soft.
I'm looking forward to talking about this in class — especially “LET THIS EXPIATE.” Does it? Can it? Softness or no, I'm not sure how Richardson wants us to feel about Lovelace in this moment.
I'm glad I beat Debra to the punch on posting for this one–she and I spent much time talking about this letter over our weekend in Boston (NCTE–hence these late posts).
We agreed that once real remorse and understanding begins to dawn on Lovelace, he (as Clarissa had earlier) loses his native sense of wanting to live. That he reads and dwells upon her will and her last letter to him both deepens him as a character and “dis-arms” him somewhat as a swordsman (no Freudian readings here, please–well, none yet). Supremely skilled as he is said to be, and as he has proven (merely wounding James Harlowe when he could easily have killed him; intending, if he can, only to wound Morden and thereby end the conflict), I think he enters the duel not caring whether he lives or dies–maybe even intending some kind of honorable form of “suicide.” I find it fascinating that he rejects all direct religious ritual at his end, and counts on his appeals to Clarissa herself to judge him worthy or not of salvation. And, as one among the blessed, such intervention would count more than anything. “LET THIS EXPIATE” becomes, then, an amazing, unexpected, and marvelous moment.
His final words surprised me. Like Tony, I saw how Lovelace was starting to lose his want to live. Arranging the duel seemed reckless, and he seemed to go into it with more apathy than arrogance. Asking Clarissa to “look down”… I admit, it affected me. “Let this expiate,” to me, means “I hope my life will do, because I have nothing else to give.”
At the same time, that's not what Clarissa wanted. She wanted him to live long and become a better person. She never asked for his death.