I often wish I'd got on better with your father, ' he said. But he never liked anyone who--our friends, ' said Clarissa; and could have bitten her tongue for thus reminding Peter that he had wanted to marry her. Of course I did, thought Peter; it almost broke my heart too, he thought; and was overcome with his own grief, which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace, ghastly beautiful with light from the sunken day. I was more unhappy than I've ever been since, he thought. And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace he edged a little towards Clarissa; put his hand out; raised it; let it fall. There above them it hung, that moon. She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace, in the moonlight. . Virginia Woolf
About This Quote

When Clarissa said, “I often wish I’d got on better with your father,” she was reminding Peter that he had wanted to marry her. Clarissa knew that she had disappointed Peter by not getting on well with his father. She also knew that this would make it hard for Peter to get along with his father. However, she did not want him to feel sad about this, so she told him what she had wished in the past.

This reminded Peter of his father’s death and how he had felt when he lost him. It also made him remember the loss that he felt at losing Clarissa in the future, so when she pointed out that she had always wished she had gotten on better with his father, he understood her feelings better. He realized how much she was hurting because she could have had a different life with him if things were different between them.

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

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