Mrs Smith, stepping up before us, bid Mrs Lovick and the nurse not stir when we entered: and then we went up softly together.
We beheld the lady in a charming attitude. Dressed, as I told you before, in her virgin white, she was sitting in her elbow-chair, Mrs Lovick close by her in another chair, with her left arm round her neck, supporting it as it were; for it seems the lady had bid her do so, saying she had been a mother to her, and she would delight herself in thinking she was in her mamma’s arms; for she found herself drowsy; perhaps, she said, for the last time she should ever be so.
One faded cheek rested upon the good woman’s bosom, the kindly warmth of which had overspread it with a faint, but charming flush; the other paler, and hollow, as if already iced over by death. Her hands, white as the lily, with her meandering veins more transparently blue than ever I had seen even hers (veins so soon, alas! to be choked up by the congealment of that purpose stream, which already so languidly creeps rather than flows through them!), her hands hanging lifelessly, one before her, the other grasped by the right hand of the kind widow, whose tears bedewed the sweet face which her motherly bosom supported, though unfelt by the fair sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would not disturb her to wipe off, or to change her posture. Her aspect was sweetly calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her sleep seemed easy; her breath indeed short and quick; but tolerably free, and not like that of a dying person.
I'm struck by the frank description of Clarissa's appearance. Belford tells Lovelace about her pale and hollow cheek, her hands, her veins, her breath. I don't think we've seen a description of her in her illness and now while dying. I've been waiting for someone to explain what she looks like (though I wasn't looking forward to it). Why this moment? How did everyone react to this description of Clarissa's *body* in death?
It's very moving (especially the stark contrast between the side of her face warmed by her substitute mother, the side of her face that reveals her dying). We've rarely been allowed to see Clarissa as a real human body in Richardson's text–although we've spent a good deal of time in our class (as 21st century folks–well, okay, I'm actually 20th century) recognizing her full bodily humanity.
For a moment, we're allowed to see our dying Clarissa as a child–as the child, even at nineteen, of the mother and father who could neither understand nor value her. She is still, though they can't see it, THEIR child (and is happy to remember herself as such). They will never know, even in their future regret (I'm just guessing here, having not yet read ahead), what THEY have been.
It's a marvelous moment, and I'm glad that Jessica called us to it. To read this novel humanely, we must pause at this moment as Belford does, as Morden does.
I agree that this moment needed to come–before her death–to draw us into a poignant moment and draw our attention to Clarissa's physicality, which we so rarely get to see. And we needed to see her, even considering her failing health, before she actually dies.
The language here was particularly revealing, I thought: dressed in “virgin white,” her “faded cheek…with a faint, but charming flush, the other paler, and hollow, as if already iced over by death. Her hands, white as the lily,” “her hands hanging lifelessly,” :her breath indeed short and quick; but tolerably free, and not like that of a dying person…”
So we see her cast in so many roles: the virgin in lily-white, suggesting her ultimate innocence; the pale, lifeless, hollowness of a corpse, reminding us of her impending death; and the calmness of breath that connects her to us as a living person, neither a virgin nor a corpse, but just a human being, a daughter without a mother, or a daughter with a substitute mother. Terribly poignant and, as Tony wrote, humanely done on Richardson's part.
It is an extraordinarily poignant moment, and one that surprises us, as Jessica suggests, in its direct description of the body. The detail of the warmer cheek, pressed to Mrs. Lovick's living bosom is striking in its close realism and it's suggestive symbolic meaning. That we can note and cling to tiny details like at the end such a long novel is another tribute to Richardson's genius.
In response to Jessica's question regarding the timing of this description, I think Richardson's placement of this scene is very strategic. It's almost like Richardson waited for this moment (near her death) to describe Clarissa's physical appearance in such depth out of loyalty (not sure if this is the word I'm looking for) to the character he has created. Though we know she is no longer a virgin, she is described here in virginal terms (at least as suggested by her wearing white and coming across as child-like, as Tony noticed). As we've noticed in class, Clarissa has been, through out the novel, very protective over her physical body. Richardson's placement of this kind of in-depth description of her at a place where she has (sort of) finally found peace, then, seems very poignant (as others have commented) as well as faithful to the way Clarissa would want to be remembered.
She seems so “human” here, as many of you have noted, yet she is, according to Belford not quite “like that of a dying person.” Belford writes, “Her aspect was sweetly calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her sleep seemed easy; her breath indeed short and quick; but tolerably free, and not like that of a dying person.” I found this last line really captivating because it shows that though Clarissa's human body is dying (and the physical description Belford provides illustrates that quite well), Belford knows, too, that Clarissa has a sense of peace about her dying that sort of transcends her physical illness. Of course, reading this description in this way also gets at what Richardson hoped to show his readers about death being a passage to a greater life in eternity.