There is scarcely any real action in this scene. Yet a few commonplace acts structure the real matter of this scene — Clarissa's thoughts about life and death. Virginia Woolf does not use these labels, of course, but they are the fundamental considerations at the core of the scene.
Already Clarissa has mulled over certain aspects of dying. Looking into Hatchards' shop window this morning, she pondered the idea that bits and pieces of herself might continue to live after she had ceased living. Also, the lines from Cymbeline that caught her attention concerned death; "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages" is part of a funeral song. Clarissa, in the midst of noisy and colorful London, thought about death. As contrast, note what it is that accompanies Clarissa's current thoughts of death: we read that the Dalloway hall is as "cool as a vault." This is the first thing we learn about Clarissa's house when she returns home; this is our first impression. Thus there are two kinds of life to consider here: one is the busy living on the streets of London; the other kind is that which is lived within the Dalloway house. Clarissa has stepped out of the milieu of the London life and returned to her life, her sanctuary where living is, to extend the metaphor, as "cool as a vault." Virginia Woolf suggests a certain death-in-life atmosphere in the Dalloway house.
Mrs. Dalloway is aristocratic and wealthy, but one should not stereotype her; she is not a one-dimensional well-bred, well-mannered, gently religious lady. Clarissa is a lady in the old sense — but she is also an atheist. This is a surprise and thus Virginia Woolf's allusion to Clarissa's being like a nun is ironic; Clarissa is a paradox, a secular nun. Consider how Clarissa's day-to-day acts of living are performed: she does what is expected of her and whatever she does she is very orderly. Her acts are performed with the regularity of a rosary being recited. There is something holy about Clarissa's observance of day-to-day acts. But what Clarissa seems like, she is not really like. She seems nun-like, her daily acts are performed with religious devotion, yet she is an atheist. We are impressed with the irony between appearance and reality.
