PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 34

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WHEN they were gone,
Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against
Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters
which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent. They contained
no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or
any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every
line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used
to characterize her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of
a mind at ease with itself, and kindly disposed towards every one, had
been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying
the idea of uneasiness with an attention which it had hardly received
on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's shameful boast of what misery he had
been able to inflict gave her a keener sense of her sister's sufferings.
It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end
on the day after the next, and a still greater that in less than a fortnight
she should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the
recovery of her spirits by all that affection could do.

She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that his
cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that
he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not mean
to be unhappy about him.

While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of
  the door bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of
  its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late
  in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her.
  But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently
  affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into
  the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after
  her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better.
  She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments,
  and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised,
  but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards
  her in an agitated manner, and thus began,

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be
  repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love
  you."

Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured,
  doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement,
  and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately
  followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the
  heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of
  tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority -- of its being
  a degradation -- of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed
  to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the
  consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his
  suit.

In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible
  to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions
  did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he
  was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language,
  she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself
  to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded
  with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite
  of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with
  expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance
  of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt
  of a favourable answer. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his
  countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could only
  exasperate farther, and when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks,
  and she said,

"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to
  express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally
  they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt,
  and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot --
  I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed
  it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one.
  It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of
  short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented
  the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming
  it after this explanation."

Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantle-piece with his eyes
  fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment
  than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance
  of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the
  appearance of composure, and would not open his lips, till he believed
  himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful.
  At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said,

"And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!
  I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour
  at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance."

"I might as well enquire," replied she, "why, with so evident a
  design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you
  liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your
  character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil?
  But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings
  decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been
  favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept
  the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness
  of a most beloved sister?"

As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion
  was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while
  she continued.

"I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive
  can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare
  not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only
  means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure
  of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision
  for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest
  kind."

She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening
  with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse.
  He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.

"Can you deny that you have done it?" she repeated.

With assumed tranquillity he then replied, "I have no wish of denying
  that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister,
  or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than
  towards myself."

Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection,
  but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate, her.

"But it is not merely this affair," she continued, "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. On this subject, what can you have
  to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself?
  or under what misrepresentation, can you here impose upon others?"

"You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns," said
  Darcy in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.

"Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling
  an interest in him?"

"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "yes, his misfortunes
  have been great indeed."

"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth with energy. "You have
  reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You
  have withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed
  for him. You have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence
  which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and
  yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule."

"And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the
  room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold
  me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to
  this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps," added he, stopping
  in his walk, and turning towards her, "these offences might have been
  overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of
  the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design.
  These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater
  policy concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of
  my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination -- by reason,
  by reflection, by every thing. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.
  Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just.
  Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?
  To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in
  life is so decidedly beneath my own?"

Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried
  to the utmost to speak with composure when she said,

"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your
  declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern
  which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like
  manner."

She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued,

"You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible
  way that would have tempted me to accept it."

Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an expression
  of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on.

"From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say,
  of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest
  belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of
  the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation,
  on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I
  had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in
  the world whom I 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. Forgive me
  for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes
  for your health and happiness."

And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard
  him the next moment open the front door and quit the house.

The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to
  support herself, and from actual weakness 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 Mr. Darcy! that he should have been in love with her for
  so many months! so much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of
  all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying
  her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own
  case, was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously
  so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pride, his shameless
  avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane, his unpardonable assurance
  in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling
  manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom
  he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration
  of his attachment had for a moment excited.

She continued in very agitating reflections till the sound of Lady
  Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter
  Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room.

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1. Ebooks list page : 81
2. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 58
3. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 44
4. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 42
5. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 41
6. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 40
7. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 39
8. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 38
9. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 11
10. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 12
11. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 45
12. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 46
13. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 49
14. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 57
15. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 56
16. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: Chapter 55