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I would like to ask for help with clarification with the following sentence: (for the context, the narrator is in a cathedral wherein a bier is placed)

"If you wish, you may go forward and gaze upon her.'

So I went down the cathedral aisle, even to the side of the bier, whose opulent fabrics trailed on the cold flags.

I assume "even" here refers to a position in space but I am not sure because I know just a phrase "even with (e.g. a surface).

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  • Another even question! We need more context here, otherwise it's not really possible to distinguish the meanings of even discussed in your other question.
    – legatrix
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 12:20
  • @legatrix Yeah, this word seems to be used in the work I am reading in quite a special way :) I tried to simplify the sentence, it is a bit different, so will change it back to the original.
    – John V
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 12:21
  • When was it written? The repeated use of even might purposely be trying to evoke Biblical language. (Specifically, the King James Version.) Especially since it seems to be set in and around cathedrals.
    – legatrix
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 13:07
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    @legatrix Smith was born in 1893 and died in 1961, most of his stories were written between 1920-1950.
    – John V
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 13:09
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    @legatrix Gosh, and a few sentences below, there is yet another "even" I am unable to completely understand:*and even as once before (was it eons or instants ago?) my soul was locked in the marble hell of its supreme grief and regret.*
    – John V
    Commented Dec 10, 2020 at 13:14

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I think it means "all the way to", right up to the side of the bier.

Merriam-Webster "even"
adverb
2a: : to a degree that extends : fully, quite faithful even unto death
or
2c: exactly, precisely

So, it's an adverb modifying the preposition phrase "to the side of the bier", rather than an adjective, as it would be if the sense were "even with the side".

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