Lucrezia After Septimus: Suicide

Lucrezia is one of my favorite characters in this book (not that Mrs. Dalloway has as wide of a selection as, say, Lord of the Rings, but still). She fascinates me. While maybe not exactly compelling or as complicated as Clarissa or Septimus (some might even say not as well crafted), she manages to fascinate me and fleshes herself out as something more than just ornamentation for Septimus’ character. She, I think, defines herself the most emotional of our main characters, and it is in this emotional, passionate way that she expresses her love for Septimus. And I know the point of good standalone novels is not to endlessly speculate about “what happens next”, but I can’t help but wonder – what is the fate of this sweet, emotional, loving character after Septimus is gone?

I think one of many possible answers is that Rezia also commits suicide because of her loneliness. Woolf frequently seems to be criticizing methods of isolation care through Septimus, suggesting that we need true companionship in order to thrive. Even Clarissa, who is largely a separate character from Rezia and Septimus, addresses the connections between forced solitude and suicide. In one of the last lines of the book, Clarissa speculates on how lucky she that she has Richard, that she is not alone in this world – “if Richard had not been there reading the Times…she must have perished.” What I found most interesting is that she does bring up all these other people who surround her and permeate her thoughts (certainly she thinks more of Peter than Richard, at least on the day of his arrival). Rather, she thinks of Richard, who she almost certainly is not in love with, and attributes her survival to the one person who had been ever-present. If even Clarissa credits the person whom she spent the most time with, was most familiar with, what does this mean for Lucrezia (who is much more openly in love with Septimus than Clarissa is with Richard)? 

One might argue that Rezia, especially without Septimus, is the loneliest of them all. First, there exists her physical and societal isolation – she is an Italian immigrant who really only has Septimus while in London. During her and Septimus’ time in the park (page 26), Rezia thinks of her family back in Italy (who had “warned her what would happen” if she left for England), and laments, asking herself “why hadn’t she stayed at home?” It is also alluded to throughout the book that she has an Italian accent and couldn’t even read a children’s story in English when she met Septimus. (Italians especially were notorious among the English at the time, both for being Catholic and being the “wrong type” of European.) I think Rezia and her family knew very well of the hardship she would face in England, in London, if she moved there with Septimus. There were so many factors telling her not to go, not to leave her people. So why hadn’t she stayed at home?

I think she herself knows the answer to this question. She would not have left Milan in the first place (to England, especially after World War I) if she had not been so deeply in love with Septimus. Just before the passage about Italy (on page 24) she goes on to proclaim passionately that “he was happy without her. Nothing could make her happy without him! Nothing!” And so, here she is, staunchly holding up her end of what she perceives to be a one-sided relationship. The only time we see her truly happy is when Septimus starts to respond to her, when she feels they start to act as husband and wife – “never had she felt so happy! Never in her life!” She seems to react to him in such a way that suggests her happiness depends on him. One could even say that, in a way, she loves Septimus more than she loves herself. But her love in itself brings up another question – why is she so deeply in love with him? 
            In their last moments together, Rezia remarks that “they were perfectly happy now…she could say anything to him now. She could say whatever came into her head...he understood at once. Her own family even were not the same…he could help her. And she too could help him.” This passage suggests that Septimus is the only reprieve her world offers from loneliness. Even her own family could not understand her as Septimus did, and that is why she goes with him to London – his companionship and understanding was more than enough for her. And she despairs every time she is reminded that Septimus is not “himself” (she grieves about her loneliness many times throughout the book) and works tirelessly to bring the old Septimus back, because she desperately feels that she need him. In other words, Rezia loves Septimus because she feels as if he combats the loneliness, fulfills that human need for companionship. Combating loneliness through companionship is what Clarissa Dalloway gives attention to while thinking about suicide, and I do not think it is a coincidence that companionship is exactly what Septimus offers to Rezia.

What happens when this monumental presence in her life is suddenly snatched away? Her only source of true companionship is gone; the person she had loved and planned to spend her life with is dead. Her entire life is so easily reduced to shambles; she is now forever alone without the reprieve or understanding she had received from Septimus. She was just barely hanging on when her husband was “not himself” – how will she manage without him at all? She loved him, needed him so much that she came to London with him, but he has left her a lonely widow in a foreign world. She could go back to Italy, but I think even that would become bitter – she has had a taste of this marvelous companionship, and life seems paler in comparison now that it has been so cruelly taken from her.

While this may seem overdramatic, I think that it is a viable path for Rezia’s mind to take. There is an overwhelmingly direct correlation between the catalysts for suicide and her love for Septimus, and while this similarity may not point singularly to suicide, it certainly does open that door for Rezia.