This realization of Peter's is that irony and ambiguity inevitably accompany most human relationships. Both Peter and Clarissa have, individually, considered and decided about the death of Clarissa's soul. Clarissa was sure that she was saving her soul when she chose to renounce Peter and marry Richard; Peter is sure, even today, that the death of Clarissa's soul began the moment that Clarissa married Richard Dalloway. In so many ways we saw that Clarissa and Peter were able to talk to one another without verbal communication, yet about this all-important point — Clarissa's soul — their ideas are antithetical.
There is also irony surrounding Peter's and Charissa's confessions of love. The day Clarissa rejected Peter is in vivid juxtaposition to the scene just finished at the Dalloway house. Earlier we saw Peter telling Clarissa about his new-found love, a married woman with children; now we see how Clarissa told Peter of her affection for Richard. Never before had Clarissa been so open and free with him. Peter, however, insisted later on Clarissa's pronouncing the truth about herself and Richard. He wept then and he wept today. He called after Clarissa then just as she called after him today. But above all other of the impressions we have about Clarissa and Peter, there is a strong pervading sense that in spite of Peter's "love" and Clarissa's "security" that each of them is still lonely for the other. When we left Clarissa calling after Peter, the mood was one of agonized loneliness. And Peter is in love, and should be happy, yet he is not.
