Who is Mrs. Dalloway: Is she the girl on the hilltop who, within Peter's memory, will remain forever on the hilltop, pointing toward the river? Is she the plumed bird Scrope Purvis saw perched stiffly on the curb? Is she the vain, emotionless grande dame whom Doris Kilman sees? Is she the recluse in the tower room? Is she the frail white-haired lady, mending a dress, crying silently for Peter to take her away? Is she the young girl Sally Seton impulsively kissed? Is she the flower-buyer, deeply and deliciously inhaling the sweet odors of lilacs and roses? Is she the generous, composed lady that Lucy the maid sees? To the doctors, would she be a latent Lesbian who is frigid and harboring paranoid tendencies? Is she a complete stranger, yet someone who knows more thoroughly than even Rezia why Septimus committed suicide?
The list could continue but, concerning Septimus, Clarissa certainly does understand why fie killed himself She is as aware of the reason for his death as she is that the Bradshaws use the suicide as an excuse for being late. Septimus and Clarissa are linked at last. The suicide unnerves Clarissa at first, just as Peter Walsh earlier startled her. Death is an intruder but Clarissa conceals her anxiety well; she has a true lady's discipline. No one, unless it be Peter, would guess at the tumult of emotion that blazes beneath Clarissa's pale, thin exterior. Clarissa understands that Septimus kept his "soul" through death, the ultimate weapon against Fate. Clarissa has preserved herself, her soul, in Richard Dalloway's house and within a social milieu that does not condone violence either in life or death. She prepares her days of living, just as she is trying to prepare for death. She considers consequences, lives carefully — thus is awed, and not a little envious of Peter Walsh, who has flung himself at life, and of Septimus Smith, who has flung himself at death.
