“It was awful, he cried, awful, awful!
Still, the sun was hot. Still, one got over things.
Still, life had a way of adding day to day. Still, he thought, yawning and beginning to take notice Regent’s Park had changed very little since he was a boy, except for the squirrel still, presum- ably there were compensations–when little Elise
Mitchell, who had been picking up pebbles to add to the pebble collection which she and her brother were making on the nursery mantelpiece, plumped her handful down on the nurse’s knee and scudded off again full tilt into a lady’s legs. Peter Walsh
laughed out. But Lucrezia Warren Smith was saying to her- self, It’s wicked; why should I suffer? she was asking, as she walked down the broad path…….”he was talking to himself again—it was awful, awful!” (pp. 97-98, 104 ).
Peter is standing at the fountain in the park after Clarissa turned him down for Mr. Dalloway, feeling sorry for himself as Lucrezia is walking up to the park away from Septimus when a little girl bumps into her legs. There is a “stream on consciousness” shift between Peter watching the young girl fall into Lucrezia’s legs and changing to Lucrezia’s point of view where she is worrying about Septimus’ mental illness. Both Peter and Lucrezia are in a torment and exclaim, “it was awful, awful!” This phrase connects the two as they are crossing paths.