Pride and Prejudice

CHAPTER XXXIV.

When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself against Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all Jane’s letters from Kent. They contained no actual complaint, but in all there was a want of cheerfulness. It was some consolation to think his visit was to end the day after the next, and greater still that in less than a fortnight she should be with Jane again. She could not think of Darcy’s leaving Kent without remembering his cousin was to go with him; but the Colonel had made it clear he had no intentions, and, agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him.

While settling this, she was roused by the door-bell and saw Darcy walk into the room. He began an inquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing she were better. After a silence of several minutes he came towards her in an agitated manner and declared he had struggled in vain: his feelings would not be repressed, and he must tell her how ardently he admired and loved her. He dwelt on his sense of her inferiority, of the family obstacles judgment had always opposed to inclination, with warmth unlikely to recommend his suit. In spite of her dislike she could not be insensible to the compliment, and was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till roused to resentment by his language, she lost all compassion in anger. He concluded by expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance.

When he ceased she answered that in such cases it was the established mode to express a sense of obligation, but she had never desired his good opinion, and he had certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. Darcy, leaning against the mantel-piece, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise; his complexion became pale with anger: “And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!” She replied that, with so evident a design of offending and insulting her, he had chosen to tell her that he liked her against his will, his reason, and even his character. She continued: had not her own feelings decided against him, she asked whether any consideration would tempt her to accept the man who had been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister. She accused him of separating Bingley from Jane. He replied, with assumed tranquillity: “I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success.”

She continued: “But it is not merely this affair on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham.” Darcy said she took an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns. She cried that he had reduced Wickham to comparative poverty and withheld the advantages designed for him. Darcy replied that this was her opinion of him, her estimation of him; these offences might have been overlooked, had not her pride been hurt by his honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented his forming any serious design. He was not ashamed of the feelings he related—they were natural and just. Could she expect him to rejoice in the inferiority of her connections? She said he was mistaken if he supposed the mode of his declaration affected her in any other way than as it spared her the concern she might have felt in refusing him, had he behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner. From the very beginning of her acquaintance, his manners had impressed her with the fullest belief of his arrogance, his conceit, and his selfish disdain of the feelings of others, forming that groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events had built so immovable a dislike; she had not known him a month before she felt that he was the last man in the world whom she could ever be prevailed on to marry.

“You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been.” With these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth sat down and cried for half an hour.

Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Darcy! It was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane, and his unfeeling manner of mentioning Wickham, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. The sound of Lady Catherine’s carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte’s observation, and she hurried away to her room.