Chapter 34

After everyone left, Elizabeth acted like someone who had decided to grow even angrier at Mr. Darcy. Since coming to Kent, she had spent her time reading all of Jane's letters to her again. The letters held no open complaints. They did not bring up the past, and they said nothing about the pain Jane was feeling now. But in almost every line of almost every letter, the cheerfulness that used to fill Jane's writing was gone. That cheerfulness used to come from a calm mind and a warm heart toward everyone, and it had rarely been dimmed before. Elizabeth looked closely now at sentences she had passed over lightly on the first reading. They were sentences that showed an uneasy mind. Mr. Darcy had spoken with something like pride about how much unhappiness he had been able to cause. That shameful boast made her sister's pain feel even sharper. It was some comfort to think that his visit to Rosings would end the day after tomorrow. It was a much greater comfort to think that in less than two weeks she would be with Jane again, and could do everything love allowed to bring back her sister's spirits.

Thinking that Darcy would leave Kent made her think of his cousin leaving too. But Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he meant nothing by his attention. However pleasant a man he was, she did not mean to be unhappy because of him.

While she was thinking this over, the sound of the doorbell suddenly broke into her thoughts. She felt a small flutter of hope that it might be Colonel Fitzwilliam himself. He had come by late in the evening before, so perhaps he had come again this time to ask how she was doing. But that thought soon faded. To her surprise, Mr. Darcy walked into the room. Seeing him stirred her feelings in a very different way. He asked at once, in a hurry, about her health. He said he had come hoping to hear that she was feeling better. Elizabeth answered him coldly but politely. Darcy sat for a moment, then stood up and walked around the room. Elizabeth was surprised but said nothing. After a few minutes of silence, he came toward her, looking greatly disturbed, and began to speak.

"I have tried and tried, but it is no use. I cannot hold back my feelings any longer. Please let me tell you how deeply I admire and love you."

Elizabeth was more surprised than words could say. She stared at him and turned red. She said nothing, hardly able to believe her own ears. Darcy took her silence as enough encouragement. He went straight on to tell her all he felt for her now, and all he had felt for a long time. He spoke well. But love was not the only feeling he had to explain in detail. He spoke of his pride as freely as he spoke of his tenderness. He talked at length about her low social position, about how marrying her would lower his own rank, and about the problems in her family, which reason had always set against his feelings. This passionate way of speaking suited a man who felt his pride was wounded. But it was hardly likely to make her want to accept him.

Elizabeth disliked Darcy deeply. Still, she could not feel nothing at all when a man like him praised her through his love. Her resolve did not waver for a moment. At first she felt sorry for the pain he would receive. But anger rose at what he said next, and all her pity disappeared. Even so, she calmed herself, meaning to answer him patiently when he finished. Darcy explained how strong his affection was — an affection he had not been able to overcome, despite all his efforts. He ended by saying that he hoped she would now accept his hand and return his love. It was easy to see that he had no doubt of a good answer. His words spoke of fear and worry, but his face showed clear certainty. That sight only made Elizabeth angrier. When Darcy stopped speaking, she answered, her cheeks red.

"At a time like this, I know that good manners call for showing thanks, even when I cannot return the feeling that was offered. It is only natural to feel grateful. If I could feel it, I would thank you now. But I cannot. I never wanted your regard, and you have surely given it very much against your own will. I am sorry to cause pain to anyone. But I did so with no idea I was doing it, and I hope the pain will not last long. The feelings that kept you from admitting this to yourself for so long should not be hard to overcome, once you have heard what I have to say."

Mr. Darcy had been leaning against the mantelpiece, watching her face. Now he listened to her words with anger as much as surprise. His face turned pale with anger. Every feature showed how troubled his mind was. He struggled to appear calm, and only spoke once he believed he had gained control of himself. That silence was hard for Elizabeth to bear. At last he spoke, in a voice he had forced to sound calm.

"Is that all the answer I am to have the honor of receiving! I suppose I might ask why you refuse me with so little attempt at courtesy. But it hardly matters."

"Then I might ask something in return," she answered. "You have made it very clear that you meant to insult and offend me. Why did you say you liked me against your own will, your reason, and even your character? If I was rude, doesn't that give my rudeness some excuse? But I have more reason to be angry than that. You know it yourself. Even if I had no dislike of you, even if I felt nothing at all toward you, or even liked you, do you think there is anything that could make me accept the man who has perhaps ruined my dearest sister's happiness forever?"

On hearing this, Mr. Darcy's face changed color. But his agitation lasted only a moment. He listened closely while Elizabeth kept speaking, without trying to interrupt her.

"I have every reason in the world to think badly of you. Nothing can excuse the unjust and unkind way you acted in that matter. You will not dare deny it. No, you cannot deny it. You were the main cause, even if not the only cause, that separated those two people. You made one of them face the world's blame for being fickle and changeable, and you made the other face mockery for having his hopes broken. You brought the worst kind of suffering on them both."

Elizabeth stopped speaking. She grew very angry when she saw that Darcy was listening without any sign of regret. He even looked at her with a deliberate smile, as if he could not believe what she said.

"Can you deny that you did this?" she asked again.

He answered with forced calm. "I do not mean to deny that I did everything I could to separate my friend from your sister, or that I am glad I succeeded. I treated him more kindly than I treated myself."

Elizabeth did not want to show that she had noticed this polite remark. But she did not miss its meaning, and it did nothing to soften her feelings.

"But this is not the only reason I dislike you," she went on. "My opinion of you was already formed long before that happened. Months ago, I learned about your character from what Mr. Wickham told me. What can you say about this? This time, what made-up act of friendship will you use to defend yourself, and what lie will you use to fool people?"

"You take a remarkably warm interest in that gentleman's affairs," Darcy said, in a voice less calm than before. His face grew a deeper color.

"How could anyone who knows what misfortune he has suffered fail to take an interest?"

"His misfortune!" Darcy repeated with scorn. "Yes, indeed, his misfortunes have been very great."

"Misfortunes that you caused," Elizabeth cried out sharply. "You brought him down to his present poverty—or at least, poverty compared with others. You held back the help that was clearly meant for him. You took away, in the best years of his youth, the independent life he had every right to expect. And after doing all that, you can still speak of his misfortunes with scorn and mockery."

"So," Darcy cried, walking quickly across the room, "this is how you see me! This is the judgment you have made of me! Thank you for explaining it so fully. By this reckoning, my faults are heavy indeed!" Then he stopped and turned to face her, and added, "But perhaps you would have overlooked these faults if I had not wounded your pride by honestly admitting how long your low social position made me hesitate over such a serious decision. If I had been clever enough to hide my true feelings, perhaps you would have borne this bitter blame. I could have let you believe that pure love, free of any condition or unworthy motive, had won me over through reason and careful thought and everything else. Then perhaps you would have endured these bitter reproaches. But I hate any kind of pretending. I am not ashamed of the feelings I described. They were natural and right. Did you expect me to feel glad about the low position of your relations? Did you think I would congratulate myself on the hope of gaining relations whose social standing is clearly beneath my own?"

Elizabeth grew angrier with every moment. Still, she tried to speak as calmly as she could.

"Mr. Darcy, if the way you proposed made me feel anything at all, it is only this: it spared me any of the discomfort I might have felt in refusing you, if you had behaved in a more gentlemanly way. If you think it had any other effect on me, you are mistaken."

She could see him flinch. But he said nothing, and Elizabeth went on.

"No matter how you had proposed, nothing could have tempted me to accept you."

Once again, he looked openly astonished. He gazed at her with a look that mixed disbelief and humiliation. Elizabeth went on.

"From the start, almost from the first moment I met you, your manner gave me a firm belief that you were proud, full of yourself, and selfishly careless of other people's feelings. That belief became the foundation of my dislike, and everything that happened afterward built an unshakable dislike on top of it. Before I had known you a month, I felt that you were the last man in the world I could ever be persuaded to marry."

"You have said quite enough, madam. I understand your feelings completely. Now all that is left is to feel ashamed of the feelings I once had. Forgive me for taking up so much of your time, and please accept my sincere wishes for your health and happiness."

With these words, Darcy hurried out of the room. The very next moment, she heard the front door open and the sound of him leaving the house. Elizabeth's mind was now painfully shaken. She did not know how to hold herself up. In fact, her strength gave way, and she sat down and cried for thirty minutes. Every time she went back over what had just happened, her astonishment grew greater. A proposal from Mr. Darcy! He had loved her for months! He had made his friend give up marrying her sister, and in his own case, even though there was at least as strong an objection, he had loved her deeply enough to want to marry her! It was almost impossible to believe. It was a pleasant thing to know that she had caused such strong love without even realizing it. But then she remembered his pride—that hateful pride. He had admitted what he did to Jane without any shame. She remembered his unforgivable boldness in openly admitting something that could not even be justified. She remembered how coldly he had spoken of Mr. Wickham. He had not even tried to deny that he had treated him cruelly. And so the pity she had felt for a moment, thinking of his love, quickly disappeared.

Elizabeth stayed deep in thought, still badly shaken. At last she heard the sound of Lady Catherine's carriage. Realizing she could not bear to face Charlotte's eyes in this state, she hurried away to her own room.