[ { "path": "LICENSE", "content": "The MIT License (MIT)\n\nCopyright (c) 2014 Christian Schramm \n\nPermission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy\nof this software and associated documentation files (the \"Software\"), to deal\nin the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights\nto use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell\ncopies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is\nfurnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:\n\nThe above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in\nall copies or substantial portions of the Software.\n\nTHE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR\nIMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,\nFITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE\nAUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER\nLIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,\nOUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN\nTHE SOFTWARE.\n\n" }, { "path": "Makefile", "content": "FLAGS=$(CFLAGS) -std=c99 -O3 -Wall\nSOURCES=shoco.c\nOBJECTS=$(SOURCES:.c=.o)\nHEADERS=shoco.h shoco_model.h\nGENERATOR=generate_compressor_model.py\nTRAINING_DATA_DIR=training_data\nTRAINING_DATA=$(wildcard training_data/*.txt)\nTABLES_DIR=models\nTABLES=$(TABLES_DIR)/text_en.h $(TABLES_DIR)/words_en.h $(TABLES_DIR)/filepaths.h\n\n.PHONY: all\nall: shoco\n\nshoco: shoco-bin.o $(OBJECTS) $(HEADERS)\n\t$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) -s $< -o $@\n\ntest_input: test_input.o $(OBJECTS) $(HEADERS)\n\t$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) -s $< -o $@\n\n$(OBJECTS): %.o: %.c $(HEADERS)\n\t$(CC) $(FLAGS) $< -c\n\nshoco_model.h: $(TABLES_DIR)/words_en.h\n\tcp $< $@\n\n.PHONY: models\nmodels: $(TABLES)\n\n$(TABLES_DIR)/text_en.h: $(TRAINING_DATA) $(GENERATOR)\n\tpython $(GENERATOR) $(TRAINING_DATA) -o $@\n\n$(TABLES_DIR)/words_en.h: $(TRAINING_DATA) $(GENERATOR)\n\tpython $(GENERATOR) --split=whitespace --strip=punctuation $(TRAINING_DATA) -o $@\n\n$(TABLES_DIR)/dictionary.h: /usr/share/dict/words $(GENERATOR)\n\tpython $(GENERATOR) $< -o $@\n\n# Warning: This is *slow*! Use pypy when possible\n$(TABLES_DIR)/filepaths.h: $(GENERATOR)\n\tfind / -print 2>/dev/null | pypy $(GENERATOR) --optimize-encoding -o $@\n\n.PHONY: check\ncheck: tests\n\ntests: tests.o $(OBJECTS) $(HEADERS)\n\t$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) $< -o $@\n\t./tests\n\n.PHONY: clean\nclean:\n\trm *.o\n\n.PHONY: js\njs: shoco.js\n\nshoco.js: $(OBJECTS) $(HEADERS) pre.js\n\temcc shoco.c -O3 -o $@ --closure 1 -s EXPORTED_FUNCTIONS=\"['_shoco_compress', '_shoco_decompress']\" --pre-js pre.js\n" }, { "path": "README.md", "content": "**Note: This project is unmaintained. You should use ZStandard nowadays**\n\n**shoco**: a fast compressor for short strings\n--------------------------------------------\n\n**shoco** is a C library to compress and decompress short strings. It is [very fast](#comparisons-with-other-compressors) and [easy to use](#api). The default compression model is optimized for english words, but you can [generate your own compression model](#generating-compression-models) based on *your specific* input data.\n\n**shoco** is free software, distributed under the [MIT license](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ed-von-Schleck/shoco/master/LICENSE).\n\n## Quick Start\n\nCopy [shoco.c](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ed-von-Schleck/shoco/master/shoco.c), [shoco.h](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ed-von-Schleck/shoco/master/shoco.h) and [shoco_model.h](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ed-von-Schleck/shoco/master/shoco_model.h) from [github/shoco](https://github.com/Ed-von-Schleck/shoco) over to your project. Include `shoco.h` and you are ready to use the [API](#api)!\n\n### API\n\nHere is all of it:\n\n```C\nsize_t shoco_compress(const char * in, size_t len, char * out, size_t bufsize);\nsize_t shoco_decompress(const char * in, size_t len, char * out, size_t bufsize);\n```\n\nIf the `len` argument for `shoco_compress` is 0, the input char is assumed to be null-terminated. If it’s a positive integer, parsing the input will stop after this length, or at a null-char, whatever comes first. `shoco_decompress` however will need a positive integer for `len` (most likely you should pass the return value of `shoco_compress`).\n\nThe return value is the number of bytes written. If it is less than `bufsize`, all is well. In case of decompression, a null-terminator is written. If the return value is exactly `bufsize`, the output is all there, but _not_ null-terminated. It is up to you to decide if that’s an error or not. If the buffer is not large enough for the output, the return value will be `bufsize` + 1. You might want to allocate a bigger output buffer. The compressed string will never be null-terminated.\n\nIf you are sure that the input data is plain ASCII, your `out` buffer for `shoco_compress` only needs to be as large as the input string. Otherwise, the output buffer may need to be up to 2x as large as the input, if it’s a 1-byte encoding, or even larger for multi-byte or variable-width encodings like UTF-8.\n\nFor the standard values of _shoco_, maximum compression is 50%, so the `out` buffer for `shoco_decompress` needs to be a maximum of twice the size of the compressed string.\n\n## How It Works\n\nHave you ever tried compressing the string “hello world” with **gzip**? Let’s do it now:\n\n```bash\n$ echo \"hello world\" | gzip -c | wc -c\n32\n```\n\nSo the output is actually *larger* than the input string. And **gzip** is quite good with short input: **xz** produces an output size of 68 bytes. Of course, compressing short strings is not what they are made for, because you rarely need to make small strings even smaller – except when you do. That’s why **shoco** was written.\n\n**shoco** works best if your input is ASCII. In fact, the most remarkable property of **shoco** is that the compressed size will *never* exceed the size of your input string, provided it is plain ASCII. What is more: An ASCII string is suitable input for the decompressor (which will return the exact same string, of course). That property comes at a cost, however: If your input string is not entirely (or mostly) ASCII, the output may grow. For some inputs, it can grow quite a lot. That is especially true for multibyte encodings such as UTF-8. Latin-1 and comparable encodings fare better, but will still increase your output size, if you don’t happen to hit a common character. Why is that so?\n\nIn every language, some characters are used more often than others. English is no exception to this rule. So if one simply makes a list of the, say, sixteen most common characters, four bits would be sufficient to refer to them (as opposed to eight bits – one byte – used by ASCII). But what if the input string includes an uncommon character, that is not in this list? Here’s the trick: We use the first bit of a `char` to indicate if the following bits refer to a short common character index, or a normal ASCII byte. Since the first bit in plain ASCII is always 0, setting the first bit to 1 says “the next bits represent short indices for common chars”. But what if our character is not ASCII (meaning the first bit of the input `char` is not 0)? Then we insert a marker that says “copy the next byte over as-is”, and we’re done. That explains the growth for non-ASCII characters: This marker takes up a byte, doubling the effective size of the character.\n\nHow **shoco** actually marks these packed representations is a bit more complicated than that (e.g., we also need to specify *how many* packed characters follow, so a single leading bit won’t be sufficient), but the principle still holds.\n\nBut **shoco** is a bit smarter than just to abbreviate characters based on absolute frequency – languages have more regularities than that. Some characters are more likely to be encountered next to others; the canonical example would be **q**, that’s *almost always* followed by a **u**. In english, *the*, *she*, *he*, *then* are all very common words – and all have a **h** followed by a **e**. So if we’d assemble a list of common characters *following common characters*, we can do with even less bits to represent these *successor* characters, and still have a good hit rate. That’s the idea of **shoco**: Provide short representations of characters based on the previous character.\n\nThis does not allow for optimal compression – by far. But if one carefully aligns the representation packs to byte boundaries, and uses the ASCII-first-bit-trick above to encode the indices, it works well enough. Moreover, it is blazingly fast. You wouldn’t want to use **shoco** for strings larger than, say, a hundred bytes, because then the overhead of a full-blown compressor like **gzip** begins to be dwarfed by the advantages of the much more efficient algorithms it uses.\n\nIf one would want to classify **shoco**, it would be an [entropy encoder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_encoding), because the length of the representation of a character is determined by the probability of encountering it in a given input string. That’s opposed to [dictionary coders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_coder) that maintain a dictionary of common substrings. An optimal compression for short strings could probably be achieved using an [arithmetic coder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_coding) (also a type of entropy encoder), but most likely one could not achieve the same kind of performance that **shoco** delivers.\n\nHow does **shoco** get the information about character frequencies? They are not pulled out of thin air, but instead generated by analyzing text with a relatively simple script. It counts all *bigrams* – two successive characters – in the text and orders them by frequency. If wished for, it also tests for best encodings (like: Is it better to spend more bits on the leading character or on the successor character?), and then outputs its findings as a header file for `shoco.c` to include. That means the statistical model is compiled in; we simply can’t add it to the compressed string without blowing it out of proportions (and defeating the whole purpose of this exercise). This script is shipped with **shoco**, and the [next section](#generating-compression-models) is about how *you* can use it to generate a model that’s optimized for *your* kind of data. Just remember that, with **shoco**, you need to control both ends of the chain (compression **and** decompression), because you can’t decompress data correctly if you’re not sure that the compressor has used the same model.\n\n## Generating Compression Models\n\nMaybe your typical input isn’t english words. Maybe it’s german or french – or whole sentences. Or file system paths. Or URLs. While the standard compression model of **shoco** should work for all of these, it might be worthwile to train **shoco** for this specific type of input data.\n\nFortunately, that’s really easy: **shoco** includes a python script called `generate_compression_model.py` that takes one or more text files and ouputs a header file ready for **shoco** to use. Here’s an example that trains **shoco** with a dictionary (btw., not the best kind of training data, because it’s dominated by uncommon words):\n\n```bash\n$ ./generate_compression_model.py /usr/share/dict/words -o shoco_model.h\n```\n\nThere are options on how to chunk and strip the input data – for example, if we want to train **shoco** with the words in a readme file, but without punctuation and whitespace, we could do\n\n```bash\n$ ./generate_compression_model.py --split=whitespace --strip=punctuation README.md\n```\n\nSince we haven’t specified an output file, the resulting table file is printed on stdout.\n\nThis is most likely all you’ll need to generate a good model, but if you are adventurous, you might want to play around with all the options of the script: Type `generate_compression_model.py --help` to get a friendly help message. We won’t dive into the details here, though – just one word of warning: Generating tables can be slow if your input data is large, and _especially_ so if you use the `--optimize-encoding` option. Using [pypy](http://pypy.org/) can significantly speed up the process.\n\n## Comparisons With Other Compressors\n\n### smaz\n\nThere’s another good small string compressor out there: [**smaz**](https://github.com/antirez/**smaz**). **smaz** seems to be dictionary based, while **shoco** is an entropy encoder. As a result, **smaz** will often do better than **shoco** when compressing common english terms. However, **shoco** typically beats **smaz** for more obscure input, as long as it’s ASCII. **smaz** may enlarge your string for uncommon words (like numbers), **shoco** will never do that for ASCII strings.\n\nPerformance-wise, **shoco** is typically faster by at least a factor of 2. As an example, compressing and decompressing all words in `/usr/dict/share/words` with **smaz** takes around 0.325s on my computer and compresses on average by 28%, while **shoco** has a compression average of 33% (with the standard model; an optimized model will be even better) and takes around 0.145s. **shoco** is _especially_ fast at decompression.\n\n**shoco** can be trained with user data, while **smaz**’s dictionary is built-in. That said, the maximum compression rate of **smaz** is hard to reach for **shoco**, so depending on your input type, you might fare better with **smaz** (there’s no way around it: You have to measure it yourself).\n\n### gzip, xz\n\nAs mentioned, **shoco**’s compression ratio can’t (and doesn’t want to) compete with gzip et al. for strings larger than a few bytes. But for very small strings, it will always be better than standard compressors.\n\nThe performance of **shoco** should always be several times faster than about any standard compression tool. For testing purposes, there’s a binary inlcuded (unsurprisingly called `shoco`) that compresses and decompresses single files. The following timings were made with this command line tool. The data is `/usr/share/dict/words` (size: 4,953,680), compressing it as a whole (not a strong point of **shoco**):\n\ncompressor | compression time | decompression time | compressed size\n-----------|------------------|--------------------|----------------\nshoco | 0.070s | 0.010s | 3,393,975\ngzip | 0.470s | 0.048s | 1,476,083\nxz | 3.300s | 0.148s | 1,229,980\n\nThis demonstates quite clearly that **shoco**’s compression rate sucks, but also that it’s _very_ fast.\n\n## Javascript Version\n\nFor showing off, **shoco** ships with a Javascript version (`shoco.js`) that’s generated with [emscripten](https://github.com/kripken/emscripten). If you change the default compression model, you need to re-generate it by typing `make js`. You do need to have emscripten installed. The output is [asm.js](http://asmjs.org/) with a small shim to provide a convenient API:\n\n```js\ncompressed = shoco.compress(input_string);\noutput_string = shoco.decompress(compressed);\n```\n\nThe compressed string is really a [Uint8Array](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Uint8Array), since that resembles a C string more closely. The Javascript version is not as furiously fast as the C version because there’s dynamic (heap) memory allocation involved, but I guess there’s no way around it.\n\n`shoco.js` should be usable as a node.js module.\n\n## Tools And Other Included Extras\n\nMost of them have been mentioned already, but for the sake of completeness – let’s have a quick overview over what you’ll find in the repo:\n\n#### `shoco.c`, `shoco.h`, `shoco_model.h`\n\nThe heart of the project. If you don’t want to bother with nitty-gritty details, and the compression works for you, it’s all you’ll ever need.\n\n#### `models/*`\n\nAs examples, there are more models included. Feel free to use one of them instead of the default model: Just copy it over `shoco_model.h` and you’re all set. Re-build them with `make models`.\n\n#### `training_data/*`\n\nSome books from [Project Gutenberg](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/) used for generating the default model.\n\n#### `shoco.js`\n\nJavascript library, generated by **emscripten**. Also usable as a [node.js](http://nodejs.org/) module (put it in `node_modules` and `require` it). Re-build with `make js`.\n\n#### `shoco.html`\n\nA example of how to use `shoco.js` in a website.\n\n#### `shoco`\n\nA testing tool for compressing and decompressing files. Build it with `make shoco` or just `make`. Use it like this:\n\n```bash\n$ shoco compress file-to-compress.txt compressed-file.shoco\n$ shoco decompress compressed-file.shoco decompressed-file.txt\n```\n\nIt’s not meant for production use, because I can’t image why one would want to use **shoco** on entire files.\n\n#### `test_input`\n\nAnother testing tool for compressing and decompressing every line in the input file. Build it with `make test_input`. Usage example:\n\n```bash\n$ time ./test_input < /usr/share/dict/words \nNumber of compressed strings: 479828, average compression ratio: 33%\n\nreal 0m0.158s\nuser 0m0.145s\nsys 0m0.013s\n```\n\nAdding the command line switch `-v` gives line-by-line information about the compression ratios.\n\n#### `Makefile`\n\nIt’s not the cleanest or l33test Makefile ever, but it should give you hints for integrating **shoco** into your project.\n\n#### `tests`\n\nInvoke them with `make check`. They should pass.\n\n## Things Still To Do\n\n**shoco** is stable, and it works well – but I’d have only tested it with gcc/clang on x86_64 Linux. Feedback on how it runs on other OSes, compilers and architectures would be highly appreciated! If it fails, it’s a bug (and given the size of the project, it should be easy to fix). Other than that, there’s a few issues that could stand some improvements:\n\n* There should be more tests, because there’s _never_ enough tests. Ever. Patches are very welcome!\n* Tests should include model generation. As that involves re-compilation, these should probably written as a Makefile, or in bash or Python (maybe using `ctypes` to call the **shoco**-functions directly).\n* The Python script for model generation should see some clean-up, as well as documentation. Also it should utilize all cpu cores (presumably via the `multiprocess`-module). This is a good task for new contributers!\n* Again for model generation: Investigate why **pypy** isn’t as fast as should be expected ([jitviewer](https://bitbucket.org/pypy/jitviewer/) might be of help here).\n* Make a real **node.js** module.\n* The current SSE2 optimization is probably not optimal. Anyone who loves to tinker with these kinds of micro-optimizations is invited to try his or her hand here.\n* Publishing/packaging it as a real library probably doesn’t make much sense, as the model is compiled-in, but maybe we should be making it easier to use **shoco** as a git submodule (even if it’s just about adding documentation), or finding other ways to avoid the copy&paste installation.\n\n## Feedback\n\nIf you use **shoco**, or like it for whatever reason, I’d really love to [hear from you](mailto:christian.h.m.schramm at gmail.com - replace the 'at' with @ and delete this sentence-)! If wished for, I can provide integration with **shoco** for your commercial services (at a price, of course), or for your totally awesome free and open source software (for free, if I find the time). Also, a nice way of saying thanks is to support me financially via\n[git tip](https://www.gittip.com/Ed-von-Schleck/) or [flattr](https://flattr.com/submit/auto?user_id=Christian.Schramm&url=https://ed-von-schleck.github.io/shoco&language=C&tags=github&category=software).\n\nIf you find a bug, or have a feature request, [file it](https://github.com/Ed-von-Schleck/shoco/issues/new)! If you have a question about usage or internals of **shoco**, ask it on [stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask) for good exposure – and write me a mail, so that I don’t miss it.\n\n## Authors\n\n**shoco** is written by [Christian Schramm](mailto:christian.h.m.schramm at gmail.com - replace the 'at' with @ and delete this sentence).\n" }, { "path": "generate_compressor_model.py", "content": "#!/usr/bin/python\n\nfrom __future__ import print_function\n\nimport collections\nimport argparse\nimport itertools\nimport re\nimport sys\n\nWHITESPACE = b\" \\t\\n\\r\\x0b\\x0c\\xc2\\xad\"\nPUNCTUATION = b\"!\\\"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\\\\]^_`{|}~\"\nTABLE_C = \"\"\"#ifndef _SHOCO_INTERNAL\n#error This header file is only to be included by 'shoco.c'.\n#endif\n#pragma once\n/*\nThis file was generated by 'generate_compressor_model.py'\nso don't edit this by hand. Also, do not include this file\nanywhere. It is internal to 'shoco.c'. Include 'shoco.h'\nif you want to use shoco in your project.\n*/\n\n#define MIN_CHR {min_chr}\n#define MAX_CHR {max_chr}\n\nstatic const char chrs_by_chr_id[{chrs_count}] = {{\n {chrs}\n}};\n\nstatic const int8_t chr_ids_by_chr[256] = {{\n {chrs_reversed}\n}};\n\nstatic const int8_t successor_ids_by_chr_id_and_chr_id[{chrs_count}][{chrs_count}] = {{\n {{{successors_reversed}}}\n}};\n\nstatic const int8_t chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id[MAX_CHR - MIN_CHR][{successors_count}] = {{\n {{{chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id}}}\n}};\n\n#ifdef _MSC_VER\n#pragma warning(push)\n#pragma warning(disable: 4324) // structure was padded due to __declspec(align())\n#endif\n\ntypedef struct Pack {{\n const uint32_t word;\n const unsigned int bytes_packed;\n const unsigned int bytes_unpacked;\n const unsigned int offsets[{max_elements_len}];\n const int16_t _ALIGNED masks[{max_elements_len}];\n const char header_mask;\n const char header;\n}} Pack;\n\n#ifdef _MSC_VER\n#pragma warning(pop)\n#endif\n\n#define PACK_COUNT {pack_count}\n#define MAX_SUCCESSOR_N {max_successor_len}\n\nstatic const Pack packs[PACK_COUNT] = {{\n {pack_lines}\n}};\n\"\"\"\n\nPACK_LINE = \"{{ {word:#x}, {packed}, {unpacked}, {{ {offsets} }}, {{ {masks} }}, {header_mask:#x}, {header:#x} }}\"\n\ndef accumulate(seq, start=0):\n total = start\n for elem in seq:\n total += elem\n yield total\n\nclass Structure(object):\n def __init__(self, datalist):\n self.datalist = list(datalist)\n\n @property\n def header(self):\n return self.datalist[0]\n\n @property\n def lead(self):\n return self.datalist[1]\n\n @property\n def successors(self):\n return self.datalist[2:]\n\n @property\n def consecutive(self):\n return self.datalist[1:]\n\n\nclass Bits(Structure):\n def __init__(self, bitlist):\n Structure.__init__(self, bitlist)\n\nclass Masks(Structure):\n def __init__(self, bitlist):\n Structure.__init__(self, [((1 << bits) -1) for bits in bitlist])\n\nclass Offsets(Structure):\n def __init__(self, bitlist):\n inverse = accumulate(bitlist)\n offsets = [32 - offset for offset in inverse]\n Structure.__init__(self, offsets)\n\n\nclass Encoding(object):\n def __init__(self, bitlist):\n self.bits = Bits(bitlist)\n self.masks = Masks(bitlist)\n self.offsets = Offsets(bitlist)\n self.packed = sum(bitlist) / 8\n self.size = len([bits for bits in bitlist if bits])\n self.unpacked = self.size - 1\n self._hash = tuple(bitlist).__hash__()\n\n @property\n def header_code(self):\n return ((1 << self.bits.header) - 2) << (8 - self.bits.header)\n\n @property\n def header_mask(self):\n return self.masks.header << (8 - self.bits.header)\n\n @property\n def word(self):\n return ((1 << self.bits.header) - 2) << self.offsets.header\n\n def __hash__(self):\n return self._hash\n\n def can_encode(self, part, successors, chrs_indices):\n lead_index = chrs_indices.get(part[0], -1)\n if lead_index < 0:\n return False\n if lead_index > (1 << self.bits.header):\n return False\n last_index = lead_index\n last_char = part[0]\n for bits, char in zip(self.bits.consecutive, part[1:]):\n if char not in successors[last_char]:\n return False\n successor_index = successors[last_char].index(char)\n if successor_index > (1 << bits):\n return False\n last_index = successor_index\n last_char = part[0]\n return True\n\nPACK_STRUCTURES = (\n (1, (\n (2, 4, 2),\n (2, 3, 3),\n (2, 4, 1, 1),\n (2, 3, 2, 1),\n (2, 2, 2, 2),\n (2, 3, 1, 1, 1),\n (2, 2, 2, 1, 1),\n (2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1),\n (2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1),\n )),\n (2, (\n (3, 5, 4, 2, 2),\n (3, 5, 3, 3, 2),\n (3, 4, 4, 3, 2),\n (3, 4, 3, 3, 3),\n (3, 5, 3, 2, 2, 1),\n (3, 5, 2, 2, 2, 2),\n (3, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1),\n (3, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2),\n (3, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1),\n (3, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2),\n (3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2),\n (3, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1),\n (3, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1),\n (3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1),\n (3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2),\n (3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2),\n (3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1),\n (3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1),\n (3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1),\n )),\n (4, (\n (4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2),\n (4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2),\n (4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2),\n (4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3),\n ))\n\n)\n\nENCODINGS = [(packed, [Encoding(bitlist) for bitlist in bitlists]) for packed, bitlists in PACK_STRUCTURES]\n\nMAX_CONSECUTIVES = 8\n\ndef make_log(output):\n if output is None:\n def _(*args, **kwargs):\n pass\n return _\n return print\n\n\ndef bigrams(sequence):\n sequence = iter(sequence)\n last = next(sequence)\n for item in sequence:\n yield last, item\n last = item\n\n\ndef format_int_line(items):\n return r\", \".join([r\"{}\".format(k) for k in items])\n\n\ndef escape(char):\n return r\"'\\''\" if char == \"'\" else repr(char)\n\n\ndef format_chr_line(items):\n return r\", \".join([r\"{}\".format(escape(k)) for k in items])\n\ndef chunkinator(files, split, strip):\n if files:\n all_in = (open(filename, \"rb\").read() for filename in files)\n else:\n all_in = [sys.stdin.read()]\n\n split = split.lower()\n if split == \"none\":\n chunks = all_in\n elif split == \"newline\":\n chunks = itertools.chain.from_iterable(data.splitlines() for data in all_in)\n elif split == \"whitespace\":\n chunks = itertools.chain.from_iterable(re.split(b\"[\" + WHITESPACE + \"]\", data) for data in all_in)\n\n strip = strip.lower()\n for chunk in chunks:\n if strip == \"whitespace\":\n chunk = chunk.strip()\n elif strip == \"punctuation\":\n chunk = chunk.strip(PUNCTUATION + WHITESPACE)\n\n if chunk:\n yield chunk\n\n\ndef nearest_lg(number):\n lg = 0\n while (number > 0):\n number >>= 1\n lg += 1\n return lg\n\n\ndef main():\n parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=\"Generate a succession table for 'shoco'.\")\n parser.add_argument(\"file\", nargs=\"*\", help=\"The training data file(s). If no input file is specified, the input is read from STDIN.\")\n parser.add_argument(\"-o\", \"--output\", type=str, help=\"Output file for the resulting succession table.\")\n parser.add_argument(\"--split\", choices=[\"newline\", \"whitespace\", \"none\"], default=\"newline\", help=r\"Split the input into chunks at this separator. Default: newline\")\n parser.add_argument(\"--strip\", choices=[\"whitespace\", \"punctuation\", \"none\"], default=\"whitespace\", help=\"Remove leading and trailing characters from each chunk. Default: whitespace\")\n\n generation_group = parser.add_argument_group(\"table and encoding generation arguments\", \"Higher values may provide for better compression ratios, but will make compression/decompression slower. Likewise, lower numbers make compression/decompression faster, but will likely make hurt the compression ratio. The default values are mostly a good compromise.\")\n generation_group.add_argument(\"--max-leading-char-bits\", type=int, default=5, help=\"The maximum amount of bits that may be used for representing a leading character. Default: 5\")\n generation_group.add_argument(\"--max-successor-bits\", type=int, default=4, help=\"The maximum amount of bits that may be used for representing a successor character. Default: 4\")\n generation_group.add_argument(\"--encoding-types\", type=int, default=3, choices=[1, 2, 3], help=\"The number of different encoding schemes. If your input strings are very short, consider lower values. Default: 3\")\n generation_group.add_argument(\"--optimize-encoding\", action=\"store_true\", default=False, help=\"Find the optimal packing structure for the training data. This rarely leads to different results than the default values, and it is *slow*. Use it for very unusual input strings, or when you use non-default table generation arguments.\")\n args = parser.parse_args()\n\n log = make_log(args.output)\n\n chars_count = 1 << args.max_leading_char_bits\n successors_count = 1 << args.max_successor_bits\n\n\n log(\"finding bigrams ... \", end=\"\")\n sys.stdout.flush()\n bigram_counters = collections.OrderedDict()\n first_char_counter = collections.Counter()\n chunks = list(chunkinator(args.file, args.split, args.strip))\n for chunk in chunks:\n bgs = bigrams(chunk)\n for bg in bgs:\n a, b = bg\n first_char_counter[a] += 1\n if a not in bigram_counters:\n bigram_counters[a] = collections.Counter()\n bigram_counters[a][b] += 1\n\n\n log(\"done.\")\n # generate list of most common chars\n successors = collections.OrderedDict()\n for char, freq in first_char_counter.most_common(1 << args.max_leading_char_bits):\n successors[char] = [successor for successor, freq in bigram_counters[char].most_common(1 << args.max_successor_bits)]\n successors[char] += ['\\0'] * ((1 << args.max_successor_bits) - len(successors[char]))\n\n max_chr = ord(max(successors.keys())) + 1\n min_chr = ord(min(successors.keys()))\n\n chrs_indices = collections.OrderedDict(zip(successors.keys(), range(chars_count)))\n chrs_reversed = [chrs_indices.get(chr(i), -1) for i in range(256)]\n\n successors_reversed = collections.OrderedDict()\n for char, successor_list in successors.items():\n successors_reversed[char] = [None] * chars_count\n s_indices = collections.OrderedDict(zip(successor_list, range(chars_count)))\n for i, s in enumerate(successors.keys()):\n successors_reversed[char][i] = s_indices.get(s, -1)\n\n zeros_line = ['\\0'] * (1 << args.max_successor_bits)\n chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id = [successors.get(chr(i), zeros_line) for i in range(min_chr, max_chr)]\n\n\n if args.optimize_encoding:\n log(\"finding best packing structures ... \", end=\"\")\n sys.stdout.flush()\n counters = {}\n\n for packed, _ in ENCODINGS[:args.encoding_types]:\n counters[packed] = collections.Counter()\n\n for chunk in chunks:\n for i in range(len(chunk)):\n for packed, encodings in ENCODINGS[:args.encoding_types]:\n for encoding in encodings:\n if (encoding.bits.lead > args.max_leading_char_bits) or (max(encoding.bits.consecutive) > args.max_successor_bits):\n continue\n if encoding.can_encode(chunk[i:], successors, chrs_indices):\n counters[packed][encoding] += packed / float(encoding.unpacked)\n\n best_encodings_raw = [(packed, counter.most_common(1)[0][0]) for packed, counter in counters.items()]\n max_encoding_len = max(encoding.size for _, encoding in best_encodings_raw)\n best_encodings = [Encoding(encoding.bits.datalist + [0] * (MAX_CONSECUTIVES - encoding.size)) for packed, encoding in best_encodings_raw]\n log(\"done.\")\n else:\n max_encoding_len = 8\n best_encodings = [Encoding([2, 4, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]),\n Encoding([3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0]),\n Encoding([4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2])][:args.encoding_types]\n\n log(\"formating table file ... \", end=\"\")\n sys.stdout.flush()\n\n pack_lines_formated = \",\\n \".join(\n PACK_LINE.format(\n word=best_encodings[i].word,\n packed=best_encodings[i].packed,\n unpacked=best_encodings[i].unpacked,\n offsets=format_int_line(best_encodings[i].offsets.consecutive),\n masks=format_int_line(best_encodings[i].masks.consecutive),\n header_mask=best_encodings[i].header_mask,\n header=best_encodings[i].header_code,\n )\n for i in range(args.encoding_types)\n )\n out = TABLE_C.format(\n chrs_count=chars_count,\n successors_count=successors_count,\n chrs=format_chr_line(successors.keys()),\n chrs_reversed=format_int_line(chrs_reversed),\n successors_reversed=\"},\\n {\".join(format_int_line(l) for l in successors_reversed.values()),\n chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id=\"},\\n {\".join(format_chr_line(l) for l in chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id),\n\n pack_lines=pack_lines_formated,\n max_successor_len=max_encoding_len - 1,\n max_elements_len=MAX_CONSECUTIVES,\n pack_count=args.encoding_types,\n max_chr=max_chr,\n min_chr=min_chr\n )\n log(\"done.\")\n\n log(\"writing table file ... \", end=\"\")\n sys.stdout.flush()\n if args.output is None:\n print(out)\n else:\n with open(args.output, \"wb\") as f:\n f.write(out)\n log(\"done.\")\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n main()\n" }, { "path": "models/dictionary.h", "content": "#ifdef _SHOCO_INTERNAL\n/*\nThis file was generated by 'generate_successor_table.py',\nso don't edit this by hand. Also, do not include this file\nanywhere. It is internal to 'shoco.c'. Include 'shoco.h'\nif you want to use shoco in your project.\n*/\n\nstatic const char chrs[32] = {\n 'e', 'i', 'o', 't', 'a', 'r', 'l', 's', 'n', 'u', 'c', 'd', 'h', 'm', 'v', 'p', 'g', 'b', 'k', 'f', 'q', 'z', 'w', '-', 'y', 'x', 'M', 'C', 'j', 'B', 'S', 'P'\n};\n\nstatic const char successors[32][16] = {\n {'r', 's', 'n', 'd', 'l', 't', 'a', 'c', 'm', 'e', 'p', '-', 'o', 'x', 'i', 'u'},\n {'n', 's', 'c', 't', 'a', 'o', 'l', 'e', 'd', 'm', 'r', 'v', 'g', 'z', 'p', 'f'},\n {'n', 'r', 'u', 'l', 'm', 's', 'p', 't', 'c', 'g', 'o', 'd', 'v', 'w', 'i', 'b'},\n {'i', 'e', 'o', 'a', 'r', 'h', 'u', 't', 'y', 's', 'l', '-', 'c', 'w', 'm', 'n'},\n {'n', 't', 'l', 'r', 's', 'c', 'b', 'm', 'd', 'p', 'g', 'i', 'u', 'e', 'v', 'k'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 's', 't', 'y', 'm', 'd', 'u', 'r', 'c', 'n', 'g', 'l', 'p'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'l', 'o', 'y', 'u', 't', 'd', '-', 's', 'f', 'm', 'p', 'v', 'c'},\n {'t', 'e', 's', 'i', 'h', 'u', 'o', 'a', 'c', 'p', 'm', 'l', 'y', 'n', 'k', 'w'},\n {'e', 'g', 't', 'i', 'o', 'a', 'd', 's', 'c', 'n', 'u', 'f', '-', 'k', 'p', 'y'},\n {'n', 's', 'r', 'l', 't', 'm', 'b', 'a', 'p', 'c', 'i', 'd', 'e', 'g', 'f', 'o'},\n {'o', 'a', 'h', 'e', 'i', 't', 'k', 'r', 'u', 'l', 'y', 'c', 's', 'n', 'q', '-'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 'r', 'u', 'l', '-', 's', 'd', 'y', 'n', 'g', 'm', 'w', 'h'},\n {'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 'y', 'r', 't', 'u', 'l', '-', 'n', 'm', 's', 'w', 'b', 'f'},\n {'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'p', 'b', 'u', 'm', 'y', 's', 'n', '-', 'l', 'f', 'r', 't'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 'u', 'y', 'r', 's', 'v', 'l', 'n', 'k', 'd', 't', '-', 'g'},\n {'e', 'h', 'r', 'o', 'a', 'i', 'l', 't', 'p', 'u', 's', 'y', '-', 'n', 'm', 'b'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'r', 'l', 'o', 'h', 'u', 'n', 'g', 'y', 's', '-', 'm', 't', 'w'},\n {'l', 'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 'r', 'u', 'b', 's', 'y', 't', 'd', 'c', 'j', '-', 'm'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 's', 'l', '-', 'o', 'n', 'y', 'h', 'u', 'r', 'w', 't', 'm', 'b'},\n {'i', 'o', 'e', 'l', 'a', 'u', 'f', 'r', '-', 't', 'y', 's', 'm', 'n', 'b', 'h'},\n {'u', 'a', 'i', 't', 'r', 'q', 'e', 's', 'l', 'w', 'o', 'p', 'v', 'h', 'n', '-'},\n {'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 'z', 'y', 'l', 'u', 'h', 'b', 'm', '-', 'k', 't', 's', 'n'},\n {'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 'h', 'n', '-', 'r', 's', 'l', 'd', 'b', 'k', 'y', 't', 'm'},\n {'s', 'b', 'c', 'f', 'p', 't', 'd', 'h', 'l', 'e', 'a', 'm', 'r', 'w', 'g', 'o'},\n {'l', 's', 'p', 'n', 'e', 'm', '-', 'a', 'c', 't', 'r', 'o', 'i', 'd', 'g', 'b'},\n {'i', 't', 'e', 'a', 'p', 'o', 'y', 'c', 'u', '-', 'h', 's', 'l', 'b', 'f', 'm'},\n {'a', 'e', 'o', 'i', 'u', 'c', 'y', 'S', 'P', 'C', 'M', 'r', 'B', 'n', 'g', '-'},\n {'a', 'o', 'h', 'r', 'l', 'e', 'u', 'y', 'i', 'S', 'C', 'M', 'P', 'B', 'z', 't'},\n {'a', 'u', 'o', 'e', 'i', 'n', 'r', 'd', 'k', 'c', 'j', 's', 'y', 'h', 'm', 'p'},\n {'a', 'e', 'r', 'o', 'u', 'i', 'l', 'S', 'y', 'h', 'M', 'C', 'P', 'B', '-', 'd'},\n {'a', 't', 'e', 'h', 'c', 'i', 'o', 'p', 'u', 'y', 'w', 'l', 'S', 'C', 'P', 'k'},\n {'a', 'e', 'r', 'o', 'h', 'i', 'l', 'u', 's', 'y', 'S', 't', 'C', 'P', 'M', 'B'}\n};\n\nstatic const int chrs_reversed[256] = {\n -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 23, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 29, 27, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 26, -1, -1, 31, -1, -1, 30, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, 17, 10, 11, 0, 19, 16, 12, 1, 28, 18, 6, 13, 8, 2, 15, 20, 5, 7, 3, 9, 14, 22, 25, 24, 21, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1\n};\n\nstatic const int successors_reversed[32][32] = {\n {9, 14, 12, 5, 6, 0, 4, 1, 2, 15, 7, 3, -1, 8, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {7, -1, 5, 3, 4, 10, 6, 1, 0, -1, 2, 8, -1, 9, 11, 14, 12, -1, -1, 15, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, 14, 10, 7, -1, 1, 3, 5, 0, 2, 8, 11, -1, 4, 12, 6, 9, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 0, 2, 7, 3, 4, 10, 9, 15, 6, 12, -1, 5, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, 11, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {13, 11, -1, 1, -1, 3, 2, 4, 0, 12, 5, 8, -1, 7, 14, 9, 10, 6, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 3, 5, 2, 10, 14, 4, 12, 9, 11, 8, -1, 7, -1, 15, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 4, 7, 2, -1, 3, 10, -1, 6, 15, 8, -1, 12, 14, 13, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, 9, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 6, 0, 7, -1, 11, 2, 13, 5, 8, -1, 4, 10, -1, 9, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 3, 4, 2, 5, -1, -1, 7, 9, 10, 8, 6, -1, -1, -1, 14, 1, -1, 13, 11, -1, -1, -1, 12, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {12, 10, 15, 4, 7, 2, 3, 1, 0, -1, 9, 11, -1, 5, -1, 8, 13, 6, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {3, 4, 0, 5, 1, 7, 9, 12, 13, 8, 11, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, 14, -1, -1, 15, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 3, -1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 5, -1, 9, 15, 13, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, 7, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 2, 3, 6, 1, 5, 8, 12, 10, 7, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, 15, -1, -1, 13, 9, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 2, 3, 15, 0, 14, 12, 9, 10, 6, -1, -1, -1, 7, -1, 4, -1, 5, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, 11, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 3, 13, 2, 6, 9, 7, 10, 4, -1, 12, -1, -1, 8, -1, 15, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 5, 3, 7, 4, 2, 6, 10, 13, 9, -1, -1, 1, 14, -1, 8, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 12, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 5, 14, 2, 3, 4, 11, 8, 7, -1, -1, 6, 13, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, 12, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 4, 10, 2, 5, 0, 8, -1, 6, 12, 11, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, 9, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 6, 13, 2, 11, 4, 3, 7, 10, -1, -1, 9, 14, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, 12, 5, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 0, 1, 9, 4, 7, 3, 11, 13, 5, -1, -1, 15, 12, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, 8, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {6, 2, 10, 3, 1, 4, 8, 7, 14, 0, -1, -1, 13, -1, 12, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, 5, -1, 9, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 2, 3, 13, 1, -1, 6, 14, 15, 7, -1, -1, 8, 10, -1, -1, -1, 9, 12, -1, -1, 4, -1, 11, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 2, 3, 14, 1, 7, 9, 8, 5, -1, -1, 10, 4, 15, -1, -1, -1, 11, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {9, -1, 15, 5, 10, 12, 8, 0, -1, -1, 2, 6, 7, 11, -1, 4, 14, 1, -1, 3, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {4, 12, 11, 9, 7, 10, 0, 1, 3, -1, 8, 13, -1, 5, -1, 2, 14, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 0, 5, 1, 3, -1, 12, 11, -1, 8, 7, -1, 10, 15, -1, 4, -1, 13, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, 9, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 2, -1, 0, 11, -1, -1, 13, 4, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, 6, -1, 10, 9, -1, 12, 7, 8},\n {5, 8, 1, 15, 0, 3, 4, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, 7, -1, 11, 10, -1, 13, 9, 12},\n {3, 4, 2, -1, 0, 6, -1, 11, 5, 1, 9, 7, 13, 14, -1, 15, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 5, 3, -1, 0, 2, 6, -1, -1, 4, -1, 15, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, 8, -1, 10, 11, -1, 13, 7, 12},\n {2, 5, 6, 1, 0, -1, 11, -1, -1, 8, 4, -1, 3, -1, -1, 7, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, 9, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, 12, 14},\n {1, 5, 3, 11, 0, 2, 6, 8, -1, 7, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 9, -1, 14, 12, -1, 15, 10, 13}\n};\n\n\ntypedef struct Pack {\n uint32_t word;\n unsigned int bytes_packed;\n unsigned int bytes_unpacked;\n unsigned int n_successors;\n unsigned const int offsets[8];\n const int masks[8];\n char header_mask;\n char header;\n} Pack;\n\n#define PACK_COUNT 3\n#define MAX_SUCCESSOR_N 7\n\nstatic const Pack packs[PACK_COUNT] = {\n { 0x80000000, 1, 2, 1, { 26, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24 }, { 15, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xc0, 0x80 },\n { 0xc0000000, 2, 4, 3, { 25, 22, 19, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 }, { 15, 7, 7, 7, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xe0, 0xc0 },\n { 0xe0000000, 4, 8, 7, { 23, 19, 15, 11, 8, 5, 2, 0 }, { 31, 15, 15, 15, 7, 7, 7, 3 }, 0xf0, 0xe0 }\n};\n\n#endif\n" }, { "path": "models/filepaths.h", "content": "#ifndef _SHOCO_INTERNAL\n#error This header file is only to be included by 'shoco.c'.\n#endif\n#pragma once\n/*\nThis file was generated by 'generate_compressor_model.py'\nso don't edit this by hand. Also, do not include this file\nanywhere. It is internal to 'shoco.c'. Include 'shoco.h'\nif you want to use shoco in your project.\n*/\n\n#define MIN_CHR 45\n#define MAX_CHR 121\n\nstatic const char chrs_by_chr_id[32] = {\n '/', 'e', 's', 'r', 'o', 'i', 't', 'c', 'a', 'n', 'm', 'l', 'h', '.', 'u', 'd', 'g', 'b', 'p', '-', 'f', '2', 'k', '0', '_', '1', '3', 'v', '4', 'x', '6', 'w'\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t chr_ids_by_chr[256] = {\n -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 19, 13, 0, 23, 25, 21, 26, 28, -1, 30, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 24, -1, 8, 17, 7, 15, 1, 20, 16, 12, 5, -1, 22, 11, 10, 9, 4, 18, -1, 3, 2, 6, 14, 27, 31, 29, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t successor_ids_by_chr_id_and_chr_id[32][32] = {\n {-1, -1, 0, -1, -1, 9, 4, 1, -1, -1, 12, 6, 2, 11, 5, 10, 3, -1, 7, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 8},\n {0, -1, 2, 1, -1, -1, 10, 7, 12, 5, 9, 6, -1, 13, -1, 11, -1, 3, 15, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1},\n {1, 5, 6, 2, 3, 9, 0, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, 8, 13, -1, -1, -1, 12, 10, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {3, 1, 9, -1, 4, 0, 6, 2, 5, 12, 7, 15, -1, 8, 11, 14, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {7, -1, 12, 2, 8, -1, 11, 5, 9, 3, 0, 6, -1, -1, 1, 4, 15, 10, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14},\n {14, 15, 0, 13, 8, -1, 2, 5, 1, 4, 12, 6, -1, -1, -1, 9, 11, 3, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 1, 5, 7, 8, 0, -1, 15, 4, -1, 14, -1, 9, 10, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, 11, 12, -1, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {3, 1, 11, 8, 2, -1, 5, 12, 4, -1, -1, 7, 0, 13, 14, -1, -1, 15, 10, -1, -1, 9, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {12, -1, 4, 1, -1, 10, 2, 5, -1, 0, 11, 3, -1, -1, 15, 9, 6, 13, 8, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 6, 4, -1, 1, 10, 2, 7, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, 11, 5, 3, -1, -1, 8, 9, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {4, 0, 8, -1, 3, 9, -1, -1, 1, -1, 12, 6, -1, 14, 15, 7, -1, 11, 2, 13, 5, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {4, 1, 7, -1, 3, 0, 11, -1, 2, -1, -1, 5, -1, 12, 6, 9, -1, -1, 8, 10, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {6, 3, -1, 1, 0, 5, 4, -1, 2, -1, 13, -1, -1, 8, 15, -1, 10, -1, 9, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, 13, 4, 2, -1, -1, 9, 7, -1, 0, -1, 10, 14, -1, 8, -1, 3, 1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1},\n {12, 14, 1, 0, -1, 7, 5, -1, 15, 3, 2, 4, -1, -1, -1, 6, 9, 10, 8, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1},\n {3, 0, 6, 13, 2, 1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, 12, -1, 10, 7, 15, -1, 5, -1, 8, 14, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {4, 2, 6, 5, 8, 3, 1, -1, -1, 0, -1, 7, 10, 9, 12, 14, -1, 15, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 5, 6, -1, 11, 13, -1, 15, 3, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, 4, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1},\n {5, 2, 8, 7, 6, 10, 9, 13, 0, 3, 15, 1, 14, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, 15, 2, -1, -1, -1, 4, 6, -1, 14, 12, 9, -1, -1, -1, 1, 8, 13, 3, -1, 7, 0, -1, 11, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1},\n {7, 5, 11, 9, 0, 1, -1, 2, 4, -1, 6, -1, -1, 13, -1, 10, -1, 12, -1, 3, 8, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 8, -1, 4, -1, 1, -1, 12, 11, -1, 3, 13, 7, -1},\n {3, 2, 6, -1, 10, 0, 12, -1, 5, 8, -1, 11, -1, 7, -1, 13, -1, 15, -1, 1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 3, -1, 6, -1, 1, 5, 4, 8, -1, 9, -1, 12, -1},\n {-1, -1, 4, 10, -1, -1, 8, 11, -1, -1, 6, 0, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, 15, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, 2, 13, 9, 5, -1, -1, -1, 1, 12},\n {0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, -1, 14, -1, 15, -1, 9, -1, 5, -1, 2, 13, 4, 3, -1, 7, -1, 6, -1},\n {1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, 2, -1, 5, 3, 6, 7, -1, 9, -1, 11, -1},\n {8, 0, 13, -1, 3, 2, -1, 9, 1, 6, 5, -1, -1, 10, -1, 15, 4, -1, 14, 12, 7, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, 2, 15, 10, -1, 3, -1, 5, 7, -1, 8, -1, 12, -1},\n {3, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, 8, -1, 0, 1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, 11, 5, -1, 6, -1, -1, 14, 13, 15, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, 15, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, 3, -1, 5, 1, 9, 7, -1, 0, -1, 6, -1},\n {11, 0, 10, 9, 3, 1, 12, 15, 2, 4, 6, -1, 13, 7, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1}\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id[MAX_CHR - MIN_CHR][16] = {\n {'2', 'd', 's', 'p', 't', '1', 'c', 'f', 'g', 'l', 'x', '0', 'm', 'b', 'n', 'e'},\n {'p', '3', 'h', '1', 'l', 'c', '9', 'g', '0', 'd', 'f', '4', 'o', 'm', '2', 'P'},\n {'s', 'c', 'h', 'g', 't', 'u', 'l', 'p', 'w', 'i', 'd', '.', 'm', 'S', 'W', 'f'},\n {'.', '0', '/', '-', '1', '_', '2', '9', '3', '4', '7', '8', '6', '5', ':', 'a'},\n {'/', '.', '0', '3', '1', '2', '6', '4', '5', '-', '7', '8', '9', '_', 'd', 'b'},\n {'.', '0', '/', '4', '2', '8', '5', '6', '-', '7', '9', '3', '1', 'x', 'a', 'c'},\n {'.', '/', '2', '_', '7', '0', '1', '3', '8', '4', '5', '6', '9', '-', 'a', 'd'},\n {'/', '.', '-', '0', '8', '1', '5', '3', '4', '9', '2', '7', '6', 'b', 'e', 'f'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'4', '_', '/', '2', '.', '0', '6', '3', '8', '1', '7', '9', '5', 'a', 'b', 'd'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'l', '6', '0', 'p', 's', '3', 'm', 'M', 't', '1', 'r', 'c', 'w', '_', 'd', 'b'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'n', 'r', 't', 'l', 's', 'c', 'g', '-', 'p', 'd', 'i', 'm', '/', 'b', 'v', 'u'},\n {'k', '/', 'C', 'a', 'u', 'e', 's', 'j', 'l', 'K', 'W', 'o', '6', 'i', 'g', 'c'},\n {'h', 'e', 'o', '/', 'a', 't', 'k', 'l', 'r', '2', 'p', 's', 'c', '.', 'u', 'b'},\n {'e', 'i', 'o', '/', 'a', 'b', 's', 'u', '-', 'S', '.', '_', 'l', 'r', 'f', 'd'},\n {'/', 'r', 's', 'b', 'x', 'n', 'l', 'c', '-', 'm', 't', 'd', 'a', '.', '_', 'p'},\n {'o', 'i', 'c', '-', 'a', 'e', 'm', '/', 'f', 'r', 'd', 's', 'b', '.', '8', '2'},\n {'n', 't', 'e', 'i', '/', 'r', 's', 'l', 'o', '.', 'h', 'z', 'u', '-', 'd', 'b'},\n {'o', 'r', 'a', 'e', 't', 'i', '/', 'y', '.', 'p', 'g', '-', '_', 'm', 'C', 'u'},\n {'s', 'a', 't', 'b', 'n', 'c', 'l', 'v', 'o', 'd', 'p', 'g', 'm', 'r', '/', 'e'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'i', '-', 'e', '/', '_', 'a', 's', '.', 'n', '+', 'o', 'l', 't', 'd', 'M', 'b'},\n {'i', 'e', 'a', 'o', '/', 'l', 'u', 's', 'p', 'd', '-', 't', '.', 'k', 'v', 'y'},\n {'e', 'a', 'p', 'o', '/', 'f', 'l', 'd', 's', 'i', '_', 'b', 'm', '-', '.', 'u'},\n {'/', 'o', 't', 'g', 's', 'd', 'e', 'c', '-', 'f', 'i', 'u', 'a', '.', 'k', '3'},\n {'m', 'u', 'r', 'n', 'd', 'c', 'l', '/', 'o', 'a', 'b', 't', 's', 'p', 'w', 'g'},\n {'a', 'l', 'e', 'n', 'p', '/', 'o', 'r', 's', 't', 'i', 'y', 'u', 'c', 'h', 'm'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'i', 'e', 'c', '/', 'o', 'a', 't', 'm', '.', 's', 'v', 'u', 'n', '-', 'd', 'l'},\n {'t', '/', 'r', 'o', 'h', 'e', 's', 'c', '.', 'i', '-', 'y', 'p', 'u', 'k', 'v'},\n {'i', 'e', '/', 'k', 'a', 's', 'g', 'r', 'o', 'h', '.', '-', 'f', 'y', 'm', 'c'},\n {'r', 's', 'm', 'n', 'l', 't', 'd', 'i', 'p', 'g', 'b', 'f', '/', 'x', 'e', 'a'},\n {'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 'g', 'm', 'n', 'f', '/', 'c', '.', '_', '-', 's', 'p', 'd'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 'n', '_', 'm', '.', '-', 'r', 's', '/', 't', 'h', 'd', 'c'},\n {'m', 'l', '8', '/', 't', '-', '2', 'y', 'a', 'e', '.', 'p', '4', '1', '_', '3'}\n};\n\n\ntypedef struct Pack {\n const uint32_t word;\n const unsigned int bytes_packed;\n const unsigned int bytes_unpacked;\n const unsigned int offsets[8];\n const int16_t _ALIGNED masks[8];\n const char header_mask;\n const char header;\n} Pack;\n\n#define PACK_COUNT 3\n#define MAX_SUCCESSOR_N 8\n\nstatic const Pack packs[PACK_COUNT] = {\n { 0x80000000, 1, 2, { 26, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24 }, { 15, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xc0, 0x80 },\n { 0xc0000000, 2, 4, { 25, 21, 18, 16, 16, 16, 16 }, { 15, 15, 7, 3, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xe0, 0xc0 },\n { 0xe0000000, 4, 8, { 24, 20, 16, 12, 9, 6, 3, 0 }, { 15, 15, 15, 15, 7, 7, 7, 7 }, 0xf0, 0xe0 }\n};\n" }, { "path": "models/text_en.h", "content": "#ifndef _SHOCO_INTERNAL\n#error This header file is only to be included by 'shoco.c'.\n#endif\n#pragma once\n/*\nThis file was generated by 'generate_compressor_model.py'\nso don't edit this by hand. Also, do not include this file\nanywhere. It is internal to 'shoco.c'. Include 'shoco.h'\nif you want to use shoco in your project.\n*/\n\n#define MIN_CHR 32\n#define MAX_CHR 122\n\nstatic const char chrs_by_chr_id[32] = {\n ' ', 'e', 't', 'a', 'o', 'n', 'i', 'h', 's', 'r', 'd', 'l', 'u', 'm', 'c', 'w', 'y', 'f', 'g', ',', 'p', 'b', '.', 'v', 'k', 'I', '\"', '-', 'H', 'M', 'T', '\\''\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t chr_ids_by_chr[256] = {\n -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, 26, -1, -1, -1, -1, 31, -1, -1, -1, -1, 19, 27, 22, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 28, 25, -1, -1, -1, 29, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 30, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 3, 21, 14, 10, 1, 17, 18, 7, 6, -1, 24, 11, 13, 5, 4, 20, -1, 9, 8, 2, 12, 23, 15, -1, 16, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t successor_ids_by_chr_id_and_chr_id[32][32] = {\n {12, -1, 0, 1, 5, 13, 6, 2, 4, -1, 11, 14, -1, 7, 10, 3, -1, 9, -1, -1, 15, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 8, 7, 5, -1, 2, 15, -1, 4, 1, 3, 6, -1, 10, 11, -1, 14, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, 13, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 6, 5, 2, -1, 4, 0, 13, 7, -1, 12, 9, -1, 15, 14, 11, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {6, -1, 1, -1, -1, 0, 7, -1, 2, 3, 5, 4, -1, 10, 12, -1, 8, -1, 13, -1, 14, 11, -1, 9, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, -1, 6, -1, 8, 1, 15, -1, 9, 3, 12, 10, 0, 5, -1, 7, -1, 4, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, 11, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 3, 4, 10, 5, 11, 8, -1, 7, -1, 1, 14, -1, -1, 6, -1, 12, -1, 2, 9, -1, -1, 13, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, 9, 2, 11, 4, 0, -1, -1, 1, 8, 7, 5, -1, 3, 6, -1, -1, 12, 10, -1, -1, 15, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {3, 0, 5, 1, 4, -1, 2, -1, 13, 7, -1, 14, 8, 12, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, 6, -1, 15, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 2, 7, 5, -1, 4, 3, 6, -1, -1, 13, 8, 15, 12, 14, -1, -1, -1, 9, 11, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 0, 7, 4, 3, 12, 2, -1, 5, 11, 9, 15, -1, 14, 13, -1, 6, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, -1, 6, 3, -1, 2, -1, 7, 9, 11, 12, 10, -1, -1, -1, 8, -1, 15, 4, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {3, 0, 11, 7, 6, -1, 2, -1, 12, -1, 5, 1, 9, -1, -1, 15, 4, 8, -1, 10, -1, -1, 14, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {5, 9, 1, 11, -1, 4, 10, -1, 3, 0, 12, 2, -1, 13, 7, -1, -1, -1, 6, 15, 8, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 0, -1, 2, 3, -1, 4, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, 5, 12, -1, -1, 7, 14, -1, 9, 6, 11, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {12, 1, 4, 3, 0, -1, 6, 2, 15, 7, -1, 8, 9, -1, 11, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {5, 3, -1, 0, 4, 6, 1, 2, 9, 7, 12, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, 11, -1, 15, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 4, 6, -1, 1, -1, 7, -1, 5, -1, 8, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 2, -1, 14, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, 10},\n {0, 2, 8, 4, 1, -1, 5, -1, -1, 3, -1, 9, 7, -1, -1, -1, 13, 6, -1, 10, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 2, -1, 4, 3, 12, 6, 1, 9, 5, -1, 7, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, 8, -1, 15, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, 3, -1, -1, -1, 2},\n {7, 0, 8, 2, 3, -1, 6, 11, 10, 1, -1, 4, 9, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, 13, 5, 15, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {12, 0, 10, 5, 2, -1, 7, 15, 8, 6, -1, 1, 3, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, 11, 14, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, 1, 4, -1, -1, -1, 3},\n {-1, 0, -1, 2, 3, -1, 1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 0, -1, 13, -1, 2, 3, 5, 4, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, 14, 10, 9, -1, 6, -1, -1, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, -1, 1, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, 7, -1, -1, -1, 3, -1, 6, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 5},\n {0, -1, 12, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, -1, -1, 7, 6, 4, -1},\n {8, -1, 1, 2, -1, 9, 15, 5, 4, 7, 14, 13, -1, 12, 6, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, 11, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, 0, -1, 1, 2, -1, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {8, 4, -1, 3, 5, -1, 1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {9, 2, -1, 8, 1, -1, 4, 0, -1, 6, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, 7, 13, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 15, 1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, 8, 7, 4, -1, 5, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1}\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id[MAX_CHR - MIN_CHR][16] = {\n {'t', 'a', 'h', 'w', 's', 'o', 'i', 'm', 'b', 'f', 'c', 'd', ' ', 'n', 'l', 'p'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {' ', 'I', 'Y', 'W', 'T', 'A', 'M', 'H', 'O', 'B', 'N', 'D', 't', 'S', 'a', ','},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'s', 't', ' ', 'c', 'l', 'm', 'a', 'd', 'r', 'v', 'T', 'A', 'L', '\"', ',', 'e'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {' ', '\"', '\\'', '-', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'-', 't', 'a', 'b', 's', 'h', 'c', 'r', ' ', 'n', 'w', 'p', 'm', 'l', 'd', 'i'},\n {' ', '\"', '.', '\\'', '-', ',', '?', ';', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'e', 'a', 'o', 'i', 'u', 'A', 'y', 'E', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {' ', 't', 'n', 'f', 's', '\\'', ',', 'm', 'I', 'N', '_', 'A', 'E', 'L', '.', 'R'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'r', 'i', 'y', 'a', 'e', 'o', 'u', 'Y', ' ', '.', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'h', 'o', 'e', 'E', 'i', 'u', 'r', 'w', 'a', ' ', 'H', ',', '.', 'y', 'R', 'Z'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'n', 't', 's', 'r', 'l', 'd', ' ', 'i', 'y', 'v', 'm', 'b', 'c', 'g', 'p', 'k'},\n {'e', 'l', 'o', 'u', 'y', 'a', 'r', 'i', 's', 'j', 't', 'b', ' ', 'v', '.', 'h'},\n {'o', 'e', 'h', 'a', 't', 'k', 'i', 'r', 'l', 'u', 'y', 'c', ' ', 'q', '.', 's'},\n {' ', 'e', 'i', 'o', ',', '.', 'a', 's', 'y', 'r', 'u', 'd', 'l', ';', '-', 'g'},\n {' ', 'r', 'n', 'd', 's', 'a', 'l', 't', 'e', ',', 'm', 'c', 'v', '.', 'y', 'i'},\n {' ', 'o', 'e', 'r', 'a', 'i', 'f', 'u', 't', 'l', ',', '.', '-', 'y', ';', '?'},\n {' ', 'h', 'e', 'o', 'a', 'r', 'i', 'l', ',', 's', '.', 'u', 'n', 'g', '-', 'b'},\n {'e', 'a', 'i', ' ', 'o', 't', ',', 'r', 'u', '.', 'y', '!', 'm', 's', 'l', 'b'},\n {'n', 's', 't', 'm', 'o', 'l', 'c', 'd', 'r', 'e', 'g', 'a', 'f', 'v', 'z', 'b'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'e', ' ', 'n', 'i', 's', 'h', ',', '.', 'l', 'f', 'y', '-', ';', 'a', 'w', '!'},\n {'e', 'l', 'i', ' ', 'y', 'd', 'o', 'a', 'f', 'u', ',', 't', 's', 'k', '.', 'w'},\n {'e', ' ', 'a', 'o', 'i', 'u', 'p', 'y', 's', ',', '.', 'b', 'm', ';', 'f', '?'},\n {' ', 'd', 'g', 'e', 't', 'o', 'c', 's', 'i', ',', 'a', 'n', 'y', '.', 'l', 'k'},\n {'u', 'n', ' ', 'r', 'f', 'm', 't', 'w', 'o', 's', 'l', 'v', 'd', 'p', 'k', 'i'},\n {'e', 'r', 'a', 'o', 'l', 'p', 'i', ' ', 't', 'u', 's', 'h', 'y', ',', '.', 'b'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'e', ' ', 'i', 'o', 'a', 's', 'y', 't', '.', 'd', ',', 'r', 'n', 'c', 'm', 'l'},\n {' ', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'o', 's', 'a', 'u', ',', '.', 'p', 'c', 'l', 'w', 'm'},\n {'h', ' ', 'o', 'e', 'i', 'a', 't', 'r', ',', 'u', '.', 'y', 'l', 's', 'w', 'c'},\n {'r', 't', 'l', 's', 'n', ' ', 'g', 'c', 'p', 'e', 'i', 'a', 'd', 'm', 'b', ','},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 'y', 'u', 'r', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'a', 'i', 'h', 'e', 'o', ' ', 'n', 'r', ',', 's', 'l', '.', 'd', ';', '-', 'k'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {' ', 'o', ',', '.', 'e', 's', 't', 'i', 'd', ';', '\\'', '?', 'l', '!', 'b', '-'}\n};\n\n\ntypedef struct Pack {\n const uint32_t word;\n const unsigned int bytes_packed;\n const unsigned int bytes_unpacked;\n const unsigned int offsets[8];\n const int16_t _ALIGNED masks[8];\n const char header_mask;\n const char header;\n} Pack;\n\n#define PACK_COUNT 3\n#define MAX_SUCCESSOR_N 7\n\nstatic const Pack packs[PACK_COUNT] = {\n { 0x80000000, 1, 2, { 26, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24 }, { 15, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xc0, 0x80 },\n { 0xc0000000, 2, 4, { 25, 22, 19, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 }, { 15, 7, 7, 7, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xe0, 0xc0 },\n { 0xe0000000, 4, 8, { 23, 19, 15, 11, 8, 5, 2, 0 }, { 31, 15, 15, 15, 7, 7, 7, 3 }, 0xf0, 0xe0 }\n};\n" }, { "path": "models/words_en.h", "content": "#ifndef _SHOCO_INTERNAL\n#error This header file is only to be included by 'shoco.c'.\n#endif\n#pragma once\n/*\nThis file was generated by 'generate_compressor_model.py'\nso don't edit this by hand. Also, do not include this file\nanywhere. It is internal to 'shoco.c'. Include 'shoco.h'\nif you want to use shoco in your project.\n*/\n\n#define MIN_CHR 39\n#define MAX_CHR 122\n\nstatic const char chrs_by_chr_id[32] = {\n 'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 't', 'h', 'n', 'r', 's', 'l', 'u', 'c', 'w', 'm', 'd', 'b', 'p', 'f', 'g', 'v', 'y', 'k', '-', 'H', 'M', 'T', '\\'', 'B', 'x', 'I', 'W', 'L'\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t chr_ids_by_chr[256] = {\n -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 26, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 22, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 27, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 23, 29, -1, -1, 31, 24, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 25, -1, -1, 30, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, 15, 11, 14, 0, 17, 18, 5, 2, -1, 21, 9, 13, 6, 3, 16, -1, 7, 8, 4, 10, 19, 12, 28, 20, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t successor_ids_by_chr_id_and_chr_id[32][32] = {\n {7, 4, 12, -1, 6, -1, 1, 0, 3, 5, -1, 9, -1, 8, 2, -1, 15, 14, -1, 10, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, -1, 6, -1, 1, -1, 0, 3, 2, 4, 15, 11, -1, 9, 5, 10, 13, -1, 12, 8, 7, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {9, 11, -1, 4, 2, -1, 0, 8, 1, 5, -1, 6, -1, 3, 7, 15, -1, 12, 10, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, -1, 14, 7, 5, -1, 1, 2, 8, 9, 0, 15, 6, 4, 11, -1, 12, 3, -1, 10, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 4, 3, 1, 5, 0, -1, 6, 10, 9, 7, 12, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, 8, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, -1, -1, 5, 9, 10, 6, -1, -1, 8, 15, 11, -1, 14, -1, -1, 7, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 8, 7, 4, 3, -1, 9, -1, 6, 11, -1, 5, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, 14, 1, 15, 10, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 3, 1, 2, 6, -1, 9, 8, 4, 12, 13, 10, -1, 11, 7, -1, -1, 15, 14, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 6, 3, 4, 1, 2, -1, -1, 5, 10, 7, 9, 11, 12, -1, -1, 8, 14, -1, -1, 15, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 6, 2, 5, 9, -1, -1, -1, 10, 1, 8, -1, 12, 14, 4, -1, 15, 7, -1, 13, 3, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {8, 10, 9, 15, 1, -1, 4, 0, 3, 2, -1, 6, -1, 12, 11, 13, 7, 14, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 6, 0, 4, 2, -1, 7, 13, 8, 9, 11, -1, -1, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 10, 5, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {3, 0, 1, 4, -1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, -1, 14, -1, -1, 9, 15, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, 10, 11, -1, -1, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 3, 2, 15, -1, 12, -1, 7, 14, 4, -1, -1, 9, -1, 8, 5, 10, -1, -1, 6, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 3, 1, 2, -1, -1, 12, 6, 4, 9, 7, -1, -1, 14, 8, -1, -1, 15, 11, 13, 5, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 5, 7, 2, 10, 13, -1, 6, 8, 1, 3, -1, -1, 14, 15, 11, -1, -1, -1, 12, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 2, 6, 3, 7, 10, -1, 1, 9, 4, 8, -1, -1, 15, -1, 12, 5, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 4, 0, 7, -1, 12, 2, 11, 8, 6, 13, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, 10, 15, 9, -1, -1, -1, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 3, 5, 2, 13, 0, 9, 4, 7, 6, 8, -1, -1, 15, -1, 11, -1, -1, 10, -1, 14, -1, 12, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 2, 1, 3, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {1, 11, 4, 0, 3, -1, 13, 12, 2, 7, -1, -1, 15, 10, 5, 8, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 9, 2, 14, 15, 4, 1, 13, 3, 5, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, 12, -1, 7, -1, 8, -1, -1, -1, 11, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, 2, 14, -1, 1, 5, 8, 7, 4, 12, -1, 6, 9, 11, 13, 3, 10, 15, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {0, 1, 3, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {4, 3, 1, 5, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {2, 8, 4, 1, -1, 0, -1, 6, -1, -1, 5, -1, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 10, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {12, 5, -1, -1, 1, -1, -1, 7, 0, 3, -1, 2, -1, 4, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1, 15, -1, 13, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 11},\n {1, 3, 2, 4, -1, -1, -1, 5, -1, 7, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 8, -1, -1},\n {5, 3, 4, 12, 1, 6, -1, -1, -1, -1, 8, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, 0, 9, -1, -1, 11, -1, 10, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1},\n {-1, -1, -1, -1, 0, -1, 1, 12, 3, -1, -1, -1, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, 6, -1, 10},\n {2, 3, 1, 4, -1, 0, -1, 5, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 7, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 6, -1, -1},\n {5, 1, 3, 0, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 4, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 2, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, 6, -1, 7}\n};\n\nstatic const int8_t chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id[MAX_CHR - MIN_CHR][16] = {\n {'s', 't', 'c', 'l', 'm', 'a', 'd', 'r', 'v', 'T', 'A', 'L', 'e', 'M', 'Y', '-'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'-', 't', 'a', 'b', 's', 'h', 'c', 'r', 'n', 'w', 'p', 'm', 'l', 'd', 'i', 'f'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'u', 'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 'r', 'y', 'l', 'I', 'E', 'R', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'e', 'a', 'o', 'i', 'u', 'A', 'y', 'E', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'t', 'n', 'f', 's', '\\'', 'm', 'I', 'N', 'A', 'E', 'L', 'Z', 'r', 'V', 'R', 'C'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'o', 'a', 'y', 'i', 'u', 'e', 'I', 'L', 'D', '\\'', 'E', 'Y', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'r', 'i', 'y', 'a', 'e', 'o', 'u', 'Y', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'h', 'o', 'e', 'E', 'i', 'u', 'r', 'w', 'a', 'H', 'y', 'R', 'Z', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'h', 'i', 'e', 'a', 'o', 'r', 'I', 'y', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'n', 't', 's', 'r', 'l', 'd', 'i', 'y', 'v', 'm', 'b', 'c', 'g', 'p', 'k', 'u'},\n {'e', 'l', 'o', 'u', 'y', 'a', 'r', 'i', 's', 'j', 't', 'b', 'v', 'h', 'm', 'd'},\n {'o', 'e', 'h', 'a', 't', 'k', 'i', 'r', 'l', 'u', 'y', 'c', 'q', 's', '-', 'd'},\n {'e', 'i', 'o', 'a', 's', 'y', 'r', 'u', 'd', 'l', '-', 'g', 'n', 'v', 'm', 'f'},\n {'r', 'n', 'd', 's', 'a', 'l', 't', 'e', 'm', 'c', 'v', 'y', 'i', 'x', 'f', 'p'},\n {'o', 'e', 'r', 'a', 'i', 'f', 'u', 't', 'l', '-', 'y', 's', 'n', 'c', '\\'', 'k'},\n {'h', 'e', 'o', 'a', 'r', 'i', 'l', 's', 'u', 'n', 'g', 'b', '-', 't', 'y', 'm'},\n {'e', 'a', 'i', 'o', 't', 'r', 'u', 'y', 'm', 's', 'l', 'b', '\\'', '-', 'f', 'd'},\n {'n', 's', 't', 'm', 'o', 'l', 'c', 'd', 'r', 'e', 'g', 'a', 'f', 'v', 'z', 'b'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'e', 'n', 'i', 's', 'h', 'l', 'f', 'y', '-', 'a', 'w', '\\'', 'g', 'r', 'o', 't'},\n {'e', 'l', 'i', 'y', 'd', 'o', 'a', 'f', 'u', 't', 's', 'k', 'w', 'v', 'm', 'p'},\n {'e', 'a', 'o', 'i', 'u', 'p', 'y', 's', 'b', 'm', 'f', '\\'', 'n', '-', 'l', 't'},\n {'d', 'g', 'e', 't', 'o', 'c', 's', 'i', 'a', 'n', 'y', 'l', 'k', '\\'', 'f', 'v'},\n {'u', 'n', 'r', 'f', 'm', 't', 'w', 'o', 's', 'l', 'v', 'd', 'p', 'k', 'i', 'c'},\n {'e', 'r', 'a', 'o', 'l', 'p', 'i', 't', 'u', 's', 'h', 'y', 'b', '-', '\\'', 'm'},\n {'\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'e', 'i', 'o', 'a', 's', 'y', 't', 'd', 'r', 'n', 'c', 'm', 'l', 'u', 'g', 'f'},\n {'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'o', 's', 'a', 'u', 'p', 'c', 'l', 'w', 'm', 'k', 'f', 'y'},\n {'h', 'o', 'e', 'i', 'a', 't', 'r', 'u', 'y', 'l', 's', 'w', 'c', 'f', '\\'', '-'},\n {'r', 't', 'l', 's', 'n', 'g', 'c', 'p', 'e', 'i', 'a', 'd', 'm', 'b', 'f', 'o'},\n {'e', 'i', 'a', 'o', 'y', 'u', 'r', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'a', 'i', 'h', 'e', 'o', 'n', 'r', 's', 'l', 'd', 'k', '-', 'f', '\\'', 'c', 'b'},\n {'p', 't', 'c', 'a', 'i', 'e', 'h', 'q', 'u', 'f', '-', 'y', 'o', '\\x00', '\\x00', '\\x00'},\n {'o', 'e', 's', 't', 'i', 'd', '\\'', 'l', 'b', '-', 'm', 'a', 'r', 'n', 'p', 'w'}\n};\n\n\ntypedef struct Pack {\n const uint32_t word;\n const unsigned int bytes_packed;\n const unsigned int bytes_unpacked;\n const unsigned int offsets[8];\n const int16_t _ALIGNED masks[8];\n const char header_mask;\n const char header;\n} Pack;\n\n#define PACK_COUNT 3\n#define MAX_SUCCESSOR_N 7\n\nstatic const Pack packs[PACK_COUNT] = {\n { 0x80000000, 1, 2, { 26, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24 }, { 15, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xc0, 0x80 },\n { 0xc0000000, 2, 4, { 25, 22, 19, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16 }, { 15, 7, 7, 7, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, 0xe0, 0xc0 },\n { 0xe0000000, 4, 8, { 23, 19, 15, 11, 8, 5, 2, 0 }, { 31, 15, 15, 15, 7, 7, 7, 3 }, 0xf0, 0xe0 }\n};\n" }, { "path": "pre.js", "content": "var Module = {\n 'preRun': function() {\n var _shoco_compress = Module['cwrap']('shoco_compress', 'number', ['string', 'number', 'number', 'number']);\n var _shoco_decompress = Module['cwrap']('shoco_decompress', 'number', ['number', 'number', 'number', 'number']);\n\n var shoco = {\n 'compress': function(str_in) {\n var out_heap = Module['_malloc'](str_in.length * 8);\n var out_buffer = new Uint8Array(Module['HEAPU8']['buffer'], out_heap, str_in.length * 8);\n\n var len = _shoco_compress(str_in, 0, out_buffer.byteOffset, out_buffer.byteLength);\n var result = new Uint8Array(out_buffer.subarray(0, len));\n\n Module['_free'](out_buffer.byteOffset);\n return result;\n },\n 'decompress': function(cmp) {\n var out_heap = Module['_malloc'](cmp.length * 8);\n var out_buffer = new Uint8Array(Module['HEAPU8']['buffer'], out_heap, cmp.length * 8);\n\n var in_heap = Module['_malloc'](cmp.length);\n var in_buffer = new Uint8Array(Module['HEAPU8']['buffer'], in_heap, cmp.length);\n in_buffer.set(new Uint8Array(cmp.buffer));\n\n var len = _shoco_decompress(in_buffer.byteOffset, cmp.length, out_buffer.byteOffset, out_buffer.byteLength);\n var result = decodeURIComponent(escape(String.fromCharCode.apply(null, out_buffer.subarray(0, len))));\n\n Module['_free'](in_buffer.byteOffset);\n Module['_free'](out_buffer.byteOffset);\n return result;\n }\n }\n\n // node.js\n if (typeof module !== \"undefined\")\n module.exports = shoco;\n // browser\n else\n window['shoco'] = shoco;\n }\n};\n" }, { "path": "shoco-bin.c", "content": "#include \n#include \n#include \n\n#include \"shoco.h\"\n\nstatic const char USAGE[] = \"compresses or decompresses your (presumably short) data.\\n\"\n\"usage: shoco {c(ompress),d(ecompress)} \\n\";\n\ntypedef enum {\n JOB_COMPRESS,\n JOB_DECOMPRESS,\n} Job;\n\n#define MAX_STACK_ALLOCATION_SIZE 65536\n\nint main(int argc, char **argv) {\n Job job; \n unsigned long in_size;\n char *in_buffer;\n char *out_buffer;\n FILE *fin;\n FILE *fout;\n int len;\n\n if (argc < 4) {\n puts(USAGE);\n return 1;\n }\n if (argv[1][0] == 'c')\n job = JOB_COMPRESS;\n else if (argv[1][0] == 'd')\n job = JOB_DECOMPRESS;\n else {\n puts(USAGE);\n return 1;\n }\n char *infile = argv[2];\n char *outfile = argv[3];\n\n fin = fopen (infile, \"rb\" );\n if (fin == NULL) {\n fputs(\"Something went wrong opening the file. Does it even exist?\", stderr);\n exit(1);\n }\n\n // obtain file size:\n fseek(fin, 0, SEEK_END);\n in_size = ftell(fin);\n rewind(fin);\n\n if (in_size > MAX_STACK_ALLOCATION_SIZE) {\n in_buffer = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * in_size);\n out_buffer = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * in_size * 4);\n if ((in_buffer == NULL) || (out_buffer == NULL)) {\n fputs(\"Memory error. This really shouldn't happen.\", stderr);\n exit(2);\n }\n } else {\n in_buffer = (char *)alloca(sizeof(char) * in_size);\n out_buffer = (char *)alloca(sizeof(char) * in_size * 4);\n }\n\n if (fread(in_buffer, sizeof(char), in_size, fin) != in_size) {\n fputs(\"Error reading the input file.\", stderr);\n exit(3);\n }\n fclose(fin);\n\n if (job == JOB_COMPRESS)\n len = shoco_compress(in_buffer, in_size, out_buffer, in_size * 4);\n else\n len = shoco_decompress(in_buffer, in_size, out_buffer, in_size * 4);\n\n fout = fopen(outfile, \"wb\");\n fwrite(out_buffer , sizeof(char), len, fout);\n fclose(fout);\n\n if (in_size > MAX_STACK_ALLOCATION_SIZE) {\n free(in_buffer);\n free(out_buffer);\n }\n\n return 0;\n}\n" }, { "path": "shoco.c", "content": "#include \n\n#if (defined (__BYTE_ORDER__) && (__BYTE_ORDER__ == __ORDER_BIG_ENDIAN__) || __BIG_ENDIAN__)\n #define swap(x) (x)\n#else\n #if defined(_MSC_VER)\n #include \n #define swap(x) _byteswap_ulong(x)\n #elif defined (__GNUC__)\n #if defined(__builtin_bswap32)\n #define swap(x) __builtin_bswap32(x)\n #else\n #define swap(x) ((x<<24) + ((x&0x0000FF00)<<8) + ((x&0x00FF0000)>>8) + (x>>24))\n #endif\n #else\n #include \n #define swap(x) bswap_32(x)\n #endif\n#endif\n\n#if defined(_MSC_VER)\n #define _ALIGNED __declspec(align(16))\n #define inline __inline\n#elif defined(__GNUC__)\n #define _ALIGNED __attribute__ ((aligned(16)))\n#else\n #define _ALIGNED\n#endif\n\n#if defined(_M_X64) || defined (_M_AMD64) || defined (__x86_64__)\n #include \"emmintrin.h\"\n #define HAVE_SSE2\n#endif\n\n#include \"shoco.h\"\n#define _SHOCO_INTERNAL\n#include \"shoco_model.h\"\n\nstatic inline int decode_header(unsigned char val) {\n int i = -1;\n while ((signed char)val < 0) {\n val <<= 1;\n ++i;\n }\n return i;\n}\n\nunion Code {\n uint32_t word;\n char bytes[4];\n};\n\n#ifdef HAVE_SSE2\nstatic inline int check_indices(const int16_t * shoco_restrict indices, int pack_n) {\n __m128i zero = _mm_setzero_si128();\n __m128i indis = _mm_load_si128 ((__m128i *)indices);\n __m128i masks = _mm_load_si128 ((__m128i *)packs[pack_n].masks);\n __m128i cmp = _mm_cmpgt_epi16 (indis, masks);\n __m128i mmask = _mm_cmpgt_epi16 (masks, zero);\n cmp = _mm_and_si128 (cmp, mmask);\n int result = _mm_movemask_epi8 (cmp);\n return (result == 0);\n}\n#else\nstatic inline int check_indices(const int16_t * shoco_restrict indices, int pack_n) {\n for (unsigned int i = 0; i < packs[pack_n].bytes_unpacked; ++i)\n if (indices[i] > packs[pack_n].masks[i])\n return 0;\n return 1;\n}\n#endif\n\nstatic inline int find_best_encoding(const int16_t * shoco_restrict indices, unsigned int n_consecutive) {\n for (int p = PACK_COUNT - 1; p >= 0; --p)\n if ((n_consecutive >= packs[p].bytes_unpacked) && (check_indices(indices, p)))\n return p;\n return -1;\n}\n\nsize_t shoco_compress(const char * const shoco_restrict original, size_t strlen, char * const shoco_restrict out, size_t bufsize) {\n char *o = out;\n char * const out_end = out + bufsize;\n const char *in = original;\n int16_t _ALIGNED indices[MAX_SUCCESSOR_N + 1] = { 0 };\n int last_chr_index;\n int current_index;\n int successor_index;\n unsigned int n_consecutive;\n union Code code;\n int pack_n;\n unsigned int rest;\n const char * const in_end = original + strlen;\n\n while ((*in != '\\0')) {\n if (strlen && (in == in_end))\n break;\n\n // find the longest string of known successors\n indices[0] = chr_ids_by_chr[(unsigned char)in[0]];\n last_chr_index = indices[0];\n if (last_chr_index < 0)\n goto last_resort;\n\n rest = in_end - in;\n for (n_consecutive = 1; n_consecutive <= MAX_SUCCESSOR_N; ++n_consecutive) {\n if (strlen && (n_consecutive == rest))\n break;\n\n current_index = chr_ids_by_chr[(unsigned char)in[n_consecutive]];\n if (current_index < 0) // '\\0' is always -1\n break;\n\n successor_index = successor_ids_by_chr_id_and_chr_id[last_chr_index][current_index];\n if (successor_index < 0)\n break;\n\n indices[n_consecutive] = (int16_t)successor_index;\n last_chr_index = current_index;\n }\n if (n_consecutive < 2)\n goto last_resort;\n\n pack_n = find_best_encoding(indices, n_consecutive);\n if (pack_n >= 0) {\n if (o + packs[pack_n].bytes_packed > out_end)\n return bufsize + 1;\n\n code.word = packs[pack_n].word;\n for (unsigned int i = 0; i < packs[pack_n].bytes_unpacked; ++i)\n code.word |= indices[i] << packs[pack_n].offsets[i];\n\n // In the little-endian world, we need to swap what's\n // in the register to match the memory representation.\n // On big-endian systems, this is a dummy.\n code.word = swap(code.word);\n\n // if we'd just copy the word, we might write over the end\n // of the output string\n for (unsigned int i = 0; i < packs[pack_n].bytes_packed; ++i)\n o[i] = code.bytes[i];\n\n o += packs[pack_n].bytes_packed;\n in += packs[pack_n].bytes_unpacked;\n } else {\nlast_resort:\n if (*in & 0x80) {\n // non-ascii case\n if (o + 2 > out_end)\n return bufsize + 1;\n // put in a sentinel byte\n *o++ = 0x00;\n } else {\n // an ascii byte\n if (o + 1 > out_end)\n return bufsize + 1;\n }\n *o++ = *in++;\n }\n }\n\n return o - out;\n}\n\nsize_t shoco_decompress(const char * const shoco_restrict original, size_t complen, char * const shoco_restrict out, size_t bufsize) {\n char *o = out;\n char * const out_end = out + bufsize;\n const char *in = original;\n char last_chr;\n union Code code = { 0 };\n int offset;\n int mask;\n int mark;\n const char * const in_end = original + complen;\n\n while (in < in_end) {\n mark = decode_header(*in);\n if (mark < 0) {\n if (o >= out_end)\n return bufsize + 1;\n\n // ignore the sentinel value for non-ascii chars\n if (*in == 0x00) {\n if (++in >= in_end)\n return SIZE_MAX;\n }\n\n *o++ = *in++;\n } else {\n if (o + packs[mark].bytes_unpacked > out_end)\n return bufsize + 1;\n else if (in + packs[mark].bytes_packed > in_end)\n return SIZE_MAX;\n\n // This should be OK as well, but it fails with emscripten.\n // Test this with new versions of emcc.\n //code.word = swap(*(uint32_t *)in);\n for (unsigned int i = 0; i < packs[mark].bytes_packed; ++i)\n code.bytes[i] = in[i];\n code.word = swap(code.word);\n\n // unpack the leading char\n offset = packs[mark].offsets[0];\n mask = packs[mark].masks[0];\n last_chr = o[0] = chrs_by_chr_id[(code.word >> offset) & mask];\n\n // unpack the successor chars\n for (unsigned int i = 1; i < packs[mark].bytes_unpacked; ++i) {\n offset = packs[mark].offsets[i];\n mask = packs[mark].masks[i];\n last_chr = o[i] = chrs_by_chr_and_successor_id[(unsigned char)last_chr - MIN_CHR][(code.word >> offset) & mask];\n }\n\n o += packs[mark].bytes_unpacked;\n in += packs[mark].bytes_packed;\n }\n }\n\n // append a 0-terminator if it fits\n if (o < out_end)\n *o = '\\0';\n\n return o - out;\n}\n" }, { "path": "shoco.h", "content": "#pragma once\n\n#include \n\n#if defined(_MSC_VER)\n#define shoco_restrict __restrict\n#elif __GNUC__\n#define shoco_restrict __restrict__\n#else\n#define shoco_restrict restrict\n#endif\n\n#ifdef __cplusplus\nextern \"C\" {\n#endif\n\nsize_t shoco_compress(const char * const shoco_restrict in, size_t len, char * const shoco_restrict out, size_t bufsize);\nsize_t shoco_decompress(const char * const shoco_restrict in, size_t len, char * const shoco_restrict out, size_t bufsize);\n\n#ifdef __cplusplus\n}\n#endif\n\n\n" }, { "path": "shoco.html", "content": "\n\n \n \n \n shoco example\n \n \n \n \n \n

see shoco in action

\n \n compression ratio: %\n output: \n \n \n" }, { "path": "shoco.js", "content": "function e(a){throw a;}var i=void 0,j=!0,l=null,m=!1;function n(){return function(){}}\nvar p={preRun:function(){var a=p.cwrap(\"shoco_compress\",\"number\",[\"string\",\"number\",\"number\",\"number\"]),b=p.cwrap(\"shoco_decompress\",\"number\",[\"number\",\"number\",\"number\",\"number\"]),c={compress:function(b){var c=p._malloc(8*b.length),c=new Uint8Array(p.HEAPU8.buffer,c,8*b.length),b=a(b,0,c.byteOffset,c.byteLength),b=new Uint8Array(c.subarray(0,b));p._free(c.byteOffset);return b},decompress:function(a){var c=p._malloc(8*a.length),c=new Uint8Array(p.HEAPU8.buffer,c,8*a.length),g=p._malloc(a.length),\ng=new Uint8Array(p.HEAPU8.buffer,g,a.length);g.set(new Uint8Array(a.buffer));a=b(g.byteOffset,a.length,c.byteOffset,c.byteLength);a=decodeURIComponent(escape(String.fromCharCode.apply(l,c.subarray(0,a))));p._free(g.byteOffset);p._free(c.byteOffset);return a}};\"undefined\"!==typeof module?module.Wd=c:window.shoco=c}},aa={},q;for(q in p)p.hasOwnProperty(q)&&(aa[q]=p[q]);\nvar ba=\"object\"===typeof process&&\"function\"===typeof require,ca=\"object\"===typeof window,da=\"function\"===typeof importScripts,fa=!ca&&!ba&&!da;\nif(ba){p.print||(p.print=function(a){process.stdout.write(a+\"\\n\")});p.printErr||(p.printErr=function(a){process.stderr.write(a+\"\\n\")});var ga=require(\"fs\"),ha=require(\"path\");p.read=function(a,b){var a=ha.normalize(a),c=ga.readFileSync(a);!c&&a!=ha.resolve(a)&&(a=path.join(__dirname,\"..\",\"src\",a),c=ga.readFileSync(a));c&&!b&&(c=c.toString());return c};p.readBinary=function(a){return p.read(a,j)};p.load=function(a){ia(read(a))};p.arguments=process.argv.slice(2);module.exports=p}else fa?(p.print||(p.print=\nprint),\"undefined\"!=typeof printErr&&(p.printErr=printErr),p.read=\"undefined\"!=typeof read?read:function(){e(\"no read() available (jsc?)\")},p.readBinary=function(a){return read(a,\"binary\")},\"undefined\"!=typeof scriptArgs?p.arguments=scriptArgs:\"undefined\"!=typeof arguments&&(p.arguments=arguments),this.Module=p,eval(\"if (typeof gc === 'function' && gc.toString().indexOf('[native code]') > 0) var gc = undefined\")):ca||da?(p.read=function(a){var b=new XMLHttpRequest;b.open(\"GET\",a,m);b.send(l);return b.responseText},\n\"undefined\"!=typeof arguments&&(p.arguments=arguments),\"undefined\"!==typeof console?(p.print||(p.print=function(a){console.log(a)}),p.printErr||(p.printErr=function(a){console.log(a)})):p.print||(p.print=n()),ca?window.Module=p:p.load=importScripts):e(\"Unknown runtime environment. 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(listen on __ATMAIN__)\");w(0==Ha.length,\"cannot call main when preRun functions remain to be called\");a=a||[];Ma||(Ma=j,Q(Ia));var c=a.length+1,d=[M(G(\"/bin/this.program\"),\"i8\",0)];b();for(var f=0;f\n#include \n#include \n\n#include \"shoco.h\"\n\n#define BUFFER_SIZE 1024\n\nstatic double ratio(int original, int compressed) {\n return ((double)(original - compressed) / (double)original);\n}\n\nstatic int percent(double ratio) {\n return ratio * 100;\n}\n\nstatic void print(char *in, double ratio) {\n printf(\"'%s' (%d%%)\\n\", in, percent(ratio));\n}\n\nint main(int argc, char ** argv) {\n char buffer[BUFFER_SIZE] = { 0 };\n char comp[BUFFER_SIZE] = { 0 };\n char out[BUFFER_SIZE] = { 0 };\n int count = 0;\n double ratios = 0;\n double rat = 0;\n int inlen, complen, outlen;\n\n while (fgets(buffer, BUFFER_SIZE, stdin) != NULL) {\n char *end = strchr(buffer, '\\n');\n if (end != NULL)\n *end = '\\0';\n else\n break;\n\n inlen = strlen(buffer);\n complen = shoco_compress(buffer, 0, comp, BUFFER_SIZE);\n outlen = shoco_decompress(comp, complen, out, BUFFER_SIZE);\n rat = ratio(inlen, complen);\n if (complen != 0) {\n ++count;\n ratios += rat;\n }\n if ((argc > 1) && ((strcmp(argv[1], \"-v\") == 0) || (strcmp(argv[1], \"--verbose\") == 0))) {\n print(buffer, rat);\n }\n assert(inlen == outlen);\n assert(strcmp(buffer, out) == 0);\n }\n printf(\"Number of compressed strings: %d, average compression ratio: %d%%\\n\", count, percent(ratios / count));\n return 0;\n}\n" }, { "path": "tests.c", "content": "#include \"stdint.h\"\n#include \"stdio.h\"\n#include \"assert.h\"\n#include \"string.h\"\n\n#include \"shoco.h\"\n\nstatic const char LARGE_STR[] = \"This is a large string that won't possibly fit into a small buffer\";\nstatic const char NON_ASCII_STR[] = \"Übergrößenträger\";\n\nint main() {\n char buf_1[1];\n char buf_2[2];\n char buf_4[4];\n char buf_large[4096];\n size_t ret;\n\n // test compression\n ret = shoco_compress(LARGE_STR, 0, buf_2, 2);\n assert(ret == 3); // bufsize + 1 if buffer too small\n\n ret = shoco_compress(LARGE_STR, 0, buf_large, 4096);\n assert(ret <= strlen(LARGE_STR));\n\n ret = shoco_compress(\"a\", 0, buf_1, 1);\n assert(ret == 1); // bufsize if null byte didn't fit\n\n buf_2[1] = 'x';\n ret = shoco_compress(\"a\", 0, buf_2, 2);\n assert(ret == 1); // compressed string length without null byte\n assert(buf_2[1] == 'x'); // Canary is still alive\n\n ret = shoco_compress(\"a\", 0, buf_4, 4);\n assert(ret == 1);\n\n ret = shoco_compress(\"test\", 0, buf_4, 4);\n assert(ret <= 4);\n\n buf_4[1] = 'x';\n ret = shoco_compress(\"test\", 1, buf_4, 4); // buffer large enough, but strlen said \"just compress first char\"\n assert(ret == 1);\n assert(buf_4[1] == 'x');\n\n ret = shoco_compress(\"t\\x80\", 1, buf_4, 4);\n assert(ret == 1);\n assert(buf_4[1] == 'x');\n\n buf_4[1] = 'y';\n ret = shoco_compress(\"test\", 1, buf_4, 1);\n assert(ret == 1);\n assert(buf_4[1] == 'y'); // no null byte written\n\n buf_4[1] = 'z';\n ret = shoco_compress(\"a\", 1, buf_4, 4);\n assert(ret == 1);\n assert(buf_4[1] == 'z');\n\n buf_4[1] = 'b';\n ret = shoco_compress(\"a\", 2, buf_4, 4);\n assert(ret == 1);\n assert(buf_4[1] == 'b');\n\n ret = shoco_compress(\"ä\", 0, buf_1, 1); // this assumes that 'ä' is not in the frequent chars table\n assert(ret == 2);\n\n \n //test decompression\n char compressed_large[4096];\n int large_len = strlen(LARGE_STR);\n int comp_len;\n comp_len = shoco_compress(LARGE_STR, 0, compressed_large, 4096);\n\n buf_large[large_len] = 'x';\n ret = shoco_decompress(compressed_large, comp_len, buf_large, 4096);\n assert(ret == large_len);\n assert(strcmp(buf_large, LARGE_STR) == 0);\n assert(buf_large[large_len] == '\\0'); // null byte written\n \n ret = shoco_decompress(compressed_large, comp_len, buf_2, 2);\n assert(ret == 3); // ret = bufsize + 1, because buffer too small\n\n buf_large[large_len] = 'x';\n ret = shoco_decompress(compressed_large, comp_len, buf_large, large_len);\n assert(ret == large_len);\n assert(buf_large[large_len] != '\\0'); // no null byte written\n\n ret = shoco_decompress(compressed_large, 5, buf_large, 4096);\n assert((ret < large_len) || (ret == 4097)); // either fail (bufsize + 1) or it happened to work\n\n\n char compressed_non_ascii[256];\n int non_ascii_len = strlen(NON_ASCII_STR);\n comp_len = shoco_compress(NON_ASCII_STR, 0, compressed_non_ascii, 256);\n\n buf_large[non_ascii_len] = 'x';\n ret = shoco_decompress(compressed_non_ascii, comp_len, buf_large, 4096);\n assert(ret == non_ascii_len);\n assert(strcmp(buf_large, NON_ASCII_STR) == 0);\n assert(buf_large[non_ascii_len] == '\\0'); // null byte written\n\n ret = shoco_decompress(\"\\x00\", 1, buf_large, 4096);\n assert(ret == SIZE_MAX);\n\n ret = shoco_decompress(\"\\xe0\"\"ab\", 3, buf_large, 4096);\n assert(ret == SIZE_MAX);\n\n puts(\"All tests passed.\");\n return 0;\n}\n" }, { "path": "training_data/dorian_gray.txt", "content": "The Picture of Dorian Gray\r\n\r\nby\r\n\r\nOscar Wilde\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE PREFACE\r\n\r\nThe artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and\r\nconceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate\r\ninto another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful\r\nthings.\r\n\r\nThe highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.\r\nThose who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without\r\nbeing charming. This is a fault.\r\n\r\nThose who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the\r\ncultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom\r\nbeautiful things mean only beauty.\r\n\r\nThere is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well\r\nwritten, or badly written. That is all.\r\n\r\nThe nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing\r\nhis own face in a glass.\r\n\r\nThe nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban\r\nnot seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part\r\nof the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists\r\nin the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove\r\nanything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has\r\nethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an\r\nunpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist\r\ncan express everything. Thought and language are to the artist\r\ninstruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for\r\nan art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is\r\nthe art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the\r\nactor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol.\r\nThose who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read\r\nthe symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life,\r\nthat art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art\r\nshows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree,\r\nthe artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making\r\na useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for\r\nmaking a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.\r\n\r\n All art is quite useless.\r\n\r\n OSCAR WILDE\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 1\r\n\r\nThe studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light\r\nsummer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through\r\nthe open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate\r\nperfume of the pink-flowering thorn.\r\n\r\nFrom the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was\r\nlying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry\r\nWotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured\r\nblossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to\r\nbear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then\r\nthe fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long\r\ntussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,\r\nproducing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of\r\nthose pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of\r\nan art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of\r\nswiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their\r\nway through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous\r\ninsistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,\r\nseemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London\r\nwas like the bourdon note of a distant organ.\r\n\r\nIn the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the\r\nfull-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,\r\nand in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist\r\nhimself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago\r\ncaused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many\r\nstrange conjectures.\r\n\r\nAs the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so\r\nskilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his\r\nface, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up,\r\nand closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he\r\nsought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he\r\nfeared he might awake.\r\n\r\n\"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,\" said\r\nLord Henry languidly. \"You must certainly send it next year to the\r\nGrosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have\r\ngone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been\r\nable to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that\r\nI have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor\r\nis really the only place.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't think I shall send it anywhere,\" he answered, tossing his head\r\nback in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at\r\nOxford. \"No, I won't send it anywhere.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through\r\nthe thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls\r\nfrom his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. \"Not send it anywhere? My\r\ndear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters\r\nare! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as\r\nyou have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you,\r\nfor there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,\r\nand that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you\r\nfar above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite\r\njealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know you will laugh at me,\" he replied, \"but I really can't exhibit\r\nit. I have put too much of myself into it.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.\"\r\n\r\n\"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you\r\nwere so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with\r\nyour rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young\r\nAdonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why,\r\nmy dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an\r\nintellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends\r\nwhere an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode\r\nof exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one\r\nsits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something\r\nhorrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.\r\nHow perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But\r\nthen in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the\r\nage of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,\r\nand as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.\r\nYour mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but\r\nwhose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of\r\nthat. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always\r\nhere in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in\r\nsummer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter\r\nyourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him.\"\r\n\r\n\"You don't understand me, Harry,\" answered the artist. \"Of course I am\r\nnot like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry\r\nto look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the\r\ntruth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual\r\ndistinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the\r\nfaltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's\r\nfellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.\r\nThey can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing\r\nof victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They\r\nlive as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without\r\ndisquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it\r\nfrom alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they\r\nare--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we\r\nshall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?\" asked Lord Henry, walking across the\r\nstudio towards Basil Hallward.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you.\"\r\n\r\n\"But why not?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their\r\nnames to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have\r\ngrown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make\r\nmodern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is\r\ndelightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my\r\npeople where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It\r\nis a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great\r\ndeal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully\r\nfoolish about it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not at all,\" answered Lord Henry, \"not at all, my dear Basil. You\r\nseem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that\r\nit makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I\r\nnever know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing.\r\nWhen we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go\r\ndown to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the\r\nmost serious faces. My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact,\r\nthan I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do.\r\nBut when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes\r\nwish she would; but she merely laughs at me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,\" said Basil\r\nHallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. \"I\r\nbelieve that you are really a very good husband, but that you are\r\nthoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary\r\nfellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.\r\nYour cynicism is simply a pose.\"\r\n\r\n\"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,\"\r\ncried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the\r\ngarden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that\r\nstood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over\r\nthe polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.\r\n\r\nAfter a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. \"I am afraid I must be\r\ngoing, Basil,\" he murmured, \"and before I go, I insist on your\r\nanswering a question I put to you some time ago.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is that?\" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.\r\n\r\n\"You know quite well.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you\r\nwon't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason.\"\r\n\r\n\"I told you the real reason.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of\r\nyourself in it. Now, that is childish.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry,\" said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, \"every\r\nportrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not\r\nof the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is\r\nnot he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on\r\nthe coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit\r\nthis picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of\r\nmy own soul.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry laughed. \"And what is that?\" he asked.\r\n\r\n\"I will tell you,\" said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came\r\nover his face.\r\n\r\n\"I am all expectation, Basil,\" continued his companion, glancing at him.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,\" answered the painter;\r\n\"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will\r\nhardly believe it.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from\r\nthe grass and examined it. \"I am quite sure I shall understand it,\" he\r\nreplied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,\r\n\"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it\r\nis quite incredible.\"\r\n\r\nThe wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy\r\nlilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the\r\nlanguid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a\r\nblue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze\r\nwings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart\r\nbeating, and wondered what was coming.\r\n\r\n\"The story is simply this,\" said the painter after some time. \"Two\r\nmonths ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor\r\nartists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to\r\nremind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a\r\nwhite tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain\r\na reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room\r\nabout ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious\r\nacademicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at\r\nme. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.\r\nWhen our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation\r\nof terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some\r\none whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to\r\ndo so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art\r\nitself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know\r\nyourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my\r\nown master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.\r\nThen--but I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to\r\ntell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had\r\na strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and\r\nexquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was\r\nnot conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take\r\nno credit to myself for trying to escape.\"\r\n\r\n\"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil.\r\nConscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.\r\nHowever, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used\r\nto be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course,\r\nI stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so\r\nsoon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill\r\nvoice?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,\" said Lord Henry,\r\npulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.\r\n\r\n\"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and\r\npeople with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras\r\nand parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only\r\nmet her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I\r\nbelieve some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at\r\nleast had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the\r\nnineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself\r\nface to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely\r\nstirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again.\r\nIt was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.\r\nPerhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable.\r\nWe would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure\r\nof that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were\r\ndestined to know each other.\"\r\n\r\n\"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?\" asked his\r\ncompanion. \"I know she goes in for giving a rapid precis of all her\r\nguests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old\r\ngentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my\r\near, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to\r\neverybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I\r\nlike to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests\r\nexactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them\r\nentirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants\r\nto know.\"\r\n\r\n\"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!\" said Hallward\r\nlistlessly.\r\n\r\n\"My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in\r\nopening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did\r\nshe say about Mr. Dorian Gray?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely\r\ninseparable. Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do\r\nanything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr.\r\nGray?' Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at\r\nonce.\"\r\n\r\n\"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far\r\nthe best ending for one,\" said the young lord, plucking another daisy.\r\n\r\nHallward shook his head. \"You don't understand what friendship is,\r\nHarry,\" he murmured--\"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like\r\nevery one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.\"\r\n\r\n\"How horribly unjust of you!\" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back\r\nand looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of\r\nglossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the\r\nsummer sky. \"Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference\r\nbetween people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my\r\nacquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good\r\nintellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.\r\nI have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some\r\nintellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that\r\nvery vain of me? I think it is rather vain.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must\r\nbe merely an acquaintance.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance.\"\r\n\r\n\"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die,\r\nand my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry!\" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.\r\n\r\n\"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting my\r\nrelations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand\r\nother people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize\r\nwith the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices\r\nof the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and\r\nimmorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of\r\nus makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves. When\r\npoor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite\r\nmagnificent. And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the\r\nproletariat live correctly.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is\r\nmore, Harry, I feel sure you don't either.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his\r\npatent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. \"How English you are\r\nBasil! That is the second time you have made that observation. If one\r\nputs forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to\r\ndo--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong.\r\nThe only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes\r\nit oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do\r\nwith the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the\r\nprobabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely\r\nintellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured\r\nby either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don't\r\npropose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I\r\nlike persons better than principles, and I like persons with no\r\nprinciples better than anything else in the world. Tell me more about\r\nMr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?\"\r\n\r\n\"Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is\r\nabsolutely necessary to me.\"\r\n\r\n\"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but\r\nyour art.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is all my art to me now,\" said the painter gravely. \"I sometimes\r\nthink, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the\r\nworld's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art,\r\nand the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also.\r\nWhat the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of\r\nAntinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will\r\nsome day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from\r\nhim, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much\r\nmore to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am\r\ndissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such\r\nthat art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express,\r\nand I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good\r\nwork, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way--I wonder\r\nwill you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an\r\nentirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see\r\nthings differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate\r\nlife in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days\r\nof thought'--who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian\r\nGray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad--for he\r\nseems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over\r\ntwenty--his merely visible presence--ah! I wonder can you realize all\r\nthat that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh\r\nschool, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic\r\nspirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of\r\nsoul and body--how much that is! We in our madness have separated the\r\ntwo, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is\r\nvoid. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember\r\nthat landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price\r\nbut which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have\r\never done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian\r\nGray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and\r\nfor the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I\r\nhad always looked for and always missed.\"\r\n\r\n\"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray.\"\r\n\r\nHallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. After\r\nsome time he came back. \"Harry,\" he said, \"Dorian Gray is to me simply\r\na motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in\r\nhim. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is\r\nthere. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find\r\nhim in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of\r\ncertain colours. That is all.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?\" asked Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of\r\nall this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never\r\ncared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know\r\nanything about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare\r\nmy soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put\r\nunder their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing,\r\nHarry--too much of myself!\"\r\n\r\n\"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion\r\nis for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hate them for it,\" cried Hallward. \"An artist should create\r\nbeautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We\r\nlive in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of\r\nautobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I\r\nwill show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall\r\nnever see my portrait of Dorian Gray.\"\r\n\r\n\"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only\r\nthe intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very\r\nfond of you?\"\r\n\r\nThe painter considered for a few moments. \"He likes me,\" he answered\r\nafter a pause; \"I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him\r\ndreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I\r\nknow I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to\r\nme, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and\r\nthen, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real\r\ndelight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away\r\nmy whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put\r\nin his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a\r\nsummer's day.\"\r\n\r\n\"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,\" murmured Lord Henry.\r\n\"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think\r\nof, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That\r\naccounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate\r\nourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have\r\nsomething that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and\r\nfacts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly\r\nwell-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the\r\nthoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a\r\nbric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above\r\nits proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day\r\nyou will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little\r\nout of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.\r\nYou will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think\r\nthat he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you\r\nwill be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for\r\nit will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance\r\nof art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind\r\nis that it leaves one so unromantic.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of\r\nDorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change\r\ntoo often.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are\r\nfaithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who\r\nknow love's tragedies.\" And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty\r\nsilver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and\r\nsatisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was\r\na rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy,\r\nand the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like\r\nswallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other\r\npeople's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it\r\nseemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's\r\nfriends--those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to\r\nhimself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed\r\nby staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his aunt's, he\r\nwould have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole\r\nconversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the\r\nnecessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the\r\nimportance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity\r\nin their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift,\r\nand the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. It was\r\ncharming to have escaped all that! As he thought of his aunt, an idea\r\nseemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward and said, \"My dear fellow,\r\nI have just remembered.\"\r\n\r\n\"Remembered what, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where was it?\" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.\r\n\r\n\"Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She\r\ntold me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help\r\nher in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am bound to\r\nstate that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no\r\nappreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. She said\r\nthat he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature. I at once\r\npictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly\r\nfreckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known it was\r\nyour friend.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am very glad you didn't, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't want you to meet him.\"\r\n\r\n\"You don't want me to meet him?\"\r\n\r\n\"No.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir,\" said the butler, coming into\r\nthe garden.\r\n\r\n\"You must introduce me now,\" cried Lord Henry, laughing.\r\n\r\nThe painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.\r\n\"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few moments.\" The\r\nman bowed and went up the walk.\r\n\r\nThen he looked at Lord Henry. \"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend,\" he\r\nsaid. \"He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite\r\nright in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to\r\ninfluence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and\r\nhas many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one\r\nperson who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an\r\nartist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you.\" He spoke very\r\nslowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.\r\n\r\n\"What nonsense you talk!\" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward\r\nby the arm, he almost led him into the house.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 2\r\n\r\nAs they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with\r\nhis back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's\r\n\"Forest Scenes.\" \"You must lend me these, Basil,\" he cried. \"I want\r\nto learn them. They are perfectly charming.\"\r\n\r\n\"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of\r\nmyself,\" answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a\r\nwilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint\r\nblush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. \"I beg your\r\npardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I\r\nhave just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you\r\nhave spoiled everything.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord\r\nHenry, stepping forward and extending his hand. \"My aunt has often\r\nspoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am\r\nafraid, one of her victims also.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present,\" answered Dorian with a\r\nfunny look of penitence. \"I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel\r\nwith her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to\r\nhave played a duet together--three duets, I believe. I don't know what\r\nshe will say to me. I am far too frightened to call.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you.\r\nAnd I don't think it really matters about your not being there. The\r\naudience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to\r\nthe piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,\" answered Dorian,\r\nlaughing.\r\n\r\nLord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,\r\nwith his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp\r\ngold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at\r\nonce. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's\r\npassionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from\r\nthe world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.\r\n\r\n\"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too\r\ncharming.\" And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened\r\nhis cigarette-case.\r\n\r\nThe painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes\r\nready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last\r\nremark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,\r\n\"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it\r\nawfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray. \"Am I to go, Mr. Gray?\"\r\nhe asked.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky\r\nmoods, and I can't bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell\r\nme why I should not go in for philanthropy.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious a\r\nsubject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I\r\ncertainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You\r\ndon't really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you\r\nliked your sitters to have some one to chat to.\"\r\n\r\nHallward bit his lip. \"If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.\r\nDorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry took up his hat and gloves. \"You are very pressing, Basil,\r\nbut I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the\r\nOrleans. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon\r\nStreet. I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when\r\nyou are coming. I should be sorry to miss you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Basil,\" cried Dorian Gray, \"if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,\r\ntoo. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is\r\nhorribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask\r\nhim to stay. I insist upon it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,\" said Hallward,\r\ngazing intently at his picture. \"It is quite true, I never talk when I\r\nam working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious\r\nfor my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay.\"\r\n\r\n\"But what about my man at the Orleans?\"\r\n\r\nThe painter laughed. \"I don't think there will be any difficulty about\r\nthat. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,\r\nand don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry\r\nsays. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the\r\nsingle exception of myself.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek\r\nmartyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he\r\nhad rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a\r\ndelightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few\r\nmoments he said to him, \"Have you really a very bad influence, Lord\r\nHenry? As bad as Basil says?\"\r\n\r\n\"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence\r\nis immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does\r\nnot think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His\r\nvirtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as\r\nsins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an\r\nactor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is\r\nself-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each\r\nof us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They\r\nhave forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to\r\none's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and\r\nclothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage\r\nhas gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror\r\nof society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is\r\nthe secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. And\r\nyet--\"\r\n\r\n\"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good\r\nboy,\" said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look\r\nhad come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.\r\n\r\n\"And yet,\" continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with\r\nthat graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of\r\nhim, and that he had even in his Eton days, \"I believe that if one man\r\nwere to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to\r\nevery feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I\r\nbelieve that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we\r\nwould forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the\r\nHellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it\r\nmay be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The\r\nmutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial\r\nthat mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse\r\nthat we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body\r\nsins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of\r\npurification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,\r\nor the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is\r\nto yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for\r\nthe things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its\r\nmonstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that\r\nthe great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the\r\nbrain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place\r\nalso. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your\r\nrose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,\r\nthoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping\r\ndreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop!\" faltered Dorian Gray, \"stop! you bewilder me. I don't know\r\nwhat to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't\r\nspeak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think.\"\r\n\r\nFor nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and\r\neyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh\r\ninfluences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have\r\ncome really from himself. The few words that Basil's friend had said\r\nto him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in\r\nthem--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,\r\nbut that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.\r\n\r\nMusic had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times.\r\nBut music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather\r\nanother chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How\r\nterrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not\r\nescape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They\r\nseemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to\r\nhave a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere\r\nwords! Was there anything so real as words?\r\n\r\nYes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.\r\nHe understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him.\r\nIt seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not\r\nknown it?\r\n\r\nWith his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise\r\npsychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely\r\ninterested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had\r\nproduced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,\r\na book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he\r\nwondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.\r\nHe had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How\r\nfascinating the lad was!\r\n\r\nHallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had\r\nthe true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes\r\nonly from strength. He was unconscious of the silence.\r\n\r\n\"Basil, I am tired of standing,\" cried Dorian Gray suddenly. \"I must\r\ngo out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can't think of\r\nanything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still.\r\nAnd I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the\r\nbright look in the eyes. I don't know what Harry has been saying to\r\nyou, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression.\r\nI suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn't believe a\r\nword that he says.\"\r\n\r\n\"He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is the\r\nreason that I don't believe anything he has told me.\"\r\n\r\n\"You know you believe it all,\" said Lord Henry, looking at him with his\r\ndreamy languorous eyes. \"I will go out to the garden with you. It is\r\nhorribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something iced to\r\ndrink, something with strawberries in it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will\r\ntell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I\r\nwill join you later on. Don't keep Dorian too long. I have never been\r\nin better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my\r\nmasterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his\r\nface in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their\r\nperfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him and put his hand\r\nupon his shoulder. \"You are quite right to do that,\" he murmured.\r\n\"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the\r\nsenses but the soul.\"\r\n\r\nThe lad started and drew back. He was bareheaded, and the leaves had\r\ntossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads.\r\nThere was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are\r\nsuddenly awakened. His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some\r\nhidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" continued Lord Henry, \"that is one of the great secrets of\r\nlife--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means\r\nof the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you\r\nthink you know, just as you know less than you want to know.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking\r\nthe tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic,\r\nolive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. There was\r\nsomething in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.\r\nHis cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. They\r\nmoved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their\r\nown. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had\r\nit been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? He had known\r\nBasil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never\r\naltered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life who\r\nseemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery. And, yet, what was\r\nthere to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or a girl. It was\r\nabsurd to be frightened.\r\n\r\n\"Let us go and sit in the shade,\" said Lord Henry. \"Parker has brought\r\nout the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be\r\nquite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must\r\nnot allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be unbecoming.\"\r\n\r\n\"What can it matter?\" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on\r\nthe seat at the end of the garden.\r\n\r\n\"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing\r\nworth having.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't feel that, Lord Henry.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled\r\nand ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and\r\npassion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you\r\nwill feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world.\r\nWill it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr.\r\nGray. Don't frown. You have. And beauty is a form of genius--is\r\nhigher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the\r\ngreat facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the\r\nreflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It\r\ncannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It\r\nmakes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost\r\nit you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only\r\nsuperficial. That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as\r\nthought is. To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only\r\nshallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of\r\nthe world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the\r\ngods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take\r\naway. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly,\r\nand fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then\r\nyou will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or\r\nhave to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of\r\nyour past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes\r\nbrings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and\r\nwars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and\r\nhollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.... Ah!\r\nrealize your youth while you have it. Don't squander the gold of your\r\ndays, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure,\r\nor giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.\r\nThese are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live\r\nthe wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be\r\nalways searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.... A new\r\nHedonism--that is what our century wants. You might be its visible\r\nsymbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The\r\nworld belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that\r\nyou were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really\r\nmight be. There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must\r\ntell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if\r\nyou were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will\r\nlast--such a little time. The common hill-flowers wither, but they\r\nblossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now.\r\nIn a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after\r\nyear the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. But we\r\nnever get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty\r\nbecomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into\r\nhideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were\r\ntoo much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the\r\ncourage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in\r\nthe world but youth!\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell\r\nfrom his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it\r\nfor a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated\r\nglobe of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest\r\nin trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import\r\nmake us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we\r\ncannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays\r\nsudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time the\r\nbee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian\r\nconvolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to\r\nand fro.\r\n\r\nSuddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made\r\nstaccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each other and\r\nsmiled.\r\n\r\n\"I am waiting,\" he cried. \"Do come in. The light is quite perfect,\r\nand you can bring your drinks.\"\r\n\r\nThey rose up and sauntered down the walk together. Two green-and-white\r\nbutterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of\r\nthe garden a thrush began to sing.\r\n\r\n\"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord Henry, looking at\r\nhim.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?\"\r\n\r\n\"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it.\r\nWomen are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to\r\nmake it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only\r\ndifference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice\r\nlasts a little longer.\"\r\n\r\nAs they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's\r\narm. \"In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,\" he murmured,\r\nflushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and\r\nresumed his pose.\r\n\r\nLord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.\r\nThe sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that\r\nbroke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back\r\nto look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams that\r\nstreamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden. The\r\nheavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.\r\n\r\nAfter about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for\r\na long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,\r\nbiting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning. \"It is quite\r\nfinished,\" he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in\r\nlong vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.\r\n\r\nLord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a\r\nwonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.\r\n\r\n\"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,\" he said. \"It is the\r\nfinest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at\r\nyourself.\"\r\n\r\nThe lad started, as if awakened from some dream.\r\n\r\n\"Is it really finished?\" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.\r\n\r\n\"Quite finished,\" said the painter. \"And you have sat splendidly\r\nto-day. I am awfully obliged to you.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is entirely due to me,\" broke in Lord Henry. \"Isn't it, Mr.\r\nGray?\"\r\n\r\nDorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture\r\nand turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks\r\nflushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes,\r\nas if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there\r\nmotionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to\r\nhim, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own\r\nbeauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.\r\nBasil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the\r\ncharming exaggeration of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed\r\nat them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had\r\ncome Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his\r\nterrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and\r\nnow, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full\r\nreality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a\r\nday when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and\r\ncolourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet\r\nwould pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair. The\r\nlife that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become\r\ndreadful, hideous, and uncouth.\r\n\r\nAs he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a\r\nknife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes\r\ndeepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt\r\nas if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.\r\n\r\n\"Don't you like it?\" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the\r\nlad's silence, not understanding what it meant.\r\n\r\n\"Of course he likes it,\" said Lord Henry. \"Who wouldn't like it? It\r\nis one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything\r\nyou like to ask for it. I must have it.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is not my property, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Whose property is it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Dorian's, of course,\" answered the painter.\r\n\r\n\"He is a very lucky fellow.\"\r\n\r\n\"How sad it is!\" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon\r\nhis own portrait. \"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and\r\ndreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be\r\nolder than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other\r\nway! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was\r\nto grow old! For that--for that--I would give everything! Yes, there\r\nis nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul\r\nfor that!\"\r\n\r\n\"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,\" cried Lord\r\nHenry, laughing. \"It would be rather hard lines on your work.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should object very strongly, Harry,\" said Hallward.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray turned and looked at him. \"I believe you would, Basil.\r\nYou like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a\r\ngreen bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.\"\r\n\r\nThe painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like\r\nthat. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed\r\nand his cheeks burning.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your\r\nsilver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me?\r\nTill I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one\r\nloses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.\r\nYour picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right.\r\nYouth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing\r\nold, I shall kill myself.\"\r\n\r\nHallward turned pale and caught his hand. \"Dorian! Dorian!\" he cried,\r\n\"don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I\r\nshall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things,\r\nare you?--you who are finer than any of them!\"\r\n\r\n\"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of\r\nthe portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must\r\nlose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives\r\nsomething to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture\r\ncould change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint\r\nit? It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!\" The hot tears welled\r\ninto his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the\r\ndivan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.\r\n\r\n\"This is your doing, Harry,\" said the painter bitterly.\r\n\r\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders. \"It is the real Dorian Gray--that\r\nis all.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is not.\"\r\n\r\n\"If it is not, what have I to do with it?\"\r\n\r\n\"You should have gone away when I asked you,\" he muttered.\r\n\r\n\"I stayed when you asked me,\" was Lord Henry's answer.\r\n\r\n\"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between\r\nyou both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever\r\ndone, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and colour? I will\r\nnot let it come across our three lives and mar them.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid\r\nface and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal\r\npainting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window. What\r\nwas he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter\r\nof tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was for\r\nthe long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had\r\nfound it at last. He was going to rip up the canvas.\r\n\r\nWith a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to\r\nHallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of\r\nthe studio. \"Don't, Basil, don't!\" he cried. \"It would be murder!\"\r\n\r\n\"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian,\" said the painter\r\ncoldly when he had recovered from his surprise. \"I never thought you\r\nwould.\"\r\n\r\n\"Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself. I\r\nfeel that.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and\r\nsent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself.\" And he walked\r\nacross the room and rang the bell for tea. \"You will have tea, of\r\ncourse, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Or do you object to such\r\nsimple pleasures?\"\r\n\r\n\"I adore simple pleasures,\" said Lord Henry. \"They are the last refuge\r\nof the complex. But I don't like scenes, except on the stage. What\r\nabsurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man\r\nas a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given.\r\nMan is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after\r\nall--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You\r\nhad much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn't really\r\nwant it, and I really do.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!\"\r\ncried Dorian Gray; \"and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy.\"\r\n\r\n\"You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it\r\nexisted.\"\r\n\r\n\"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you\r\ndon't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! this morning! You have lived since then.\"\r\n\r\nThere came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden\r\ntea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a\r\nrattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.\r\nTwo globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray\r\nwent over and poured out the tea. The two men sauntered languidly to\r\nthe table and examined what was under the covers.\r\n\r\n\"Let us go to the theatre to-night,\" said Lord Henry. \"There is sure\r\nto be something on, somewhere. I have promised to dine at White's, but\r\nit is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I\r\nam ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a\r\nsubsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it\r\nwould have all the surprise of candour.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes,\" muttered Hallward.\r\n\"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" answered Lord Henry dreamily, \"the costume of the nineteenth\r\ncentury is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the\r\nonly real colour-element left in modern life.\"\r\n\r\n\"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the\r\none in the picture?\"\r\n\r\n\"Before either.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry,\" said the\r\nlad.\r\n\r\n\"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should like that awfully.\"\r\n\r\nThe painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.\r\n\"I shall stay with the real Dorian,\" he said, sadly.\r\n\r\n\"Is it the real Dorian?\" cried the original of the portrait, strolling\r\nacross to him. \"Am I really like that?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; you are just like that.\"\r\n\r\n\"How wonderful, Basil!\"\r\n\r\n\"At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter,\"\r\nsighed Hallward. \"That is something.\"\r\n\r\n\"What a fuss people make about fidelity!\" exclaimed Lord Henry. \"Why,\r\neven in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to\r\ndo with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old\r\nmen want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian,\" said Hallward. \"Stop and\r\ndine with me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't, Basil.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him.\"\r\n\r\n\"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises. He always\r\nbreaks his own. I beg you not to go.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray laughed and shook his head.\r\n\r\n\"I entreat you.\"\r\n\r\nThe lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them\r\nfrom the tea-table with an amused smile.\r\n\r\n\"I must go, Basil,\" he answered.\r\n\r\n\"Very well,\" said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on\r\nthe tray. \"It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had\r\nbetter lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. Come and see\r\nme soon. Come to-morrow.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly.\"\r\n\r\n\"You won't forget?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, of course not,\" cried Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"And ... Harry!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Basil?\"\r\n\r\n\"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have forgotten it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I trust you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish I could trust myself,\" said Lord Henry, laughing. \"Come, Mr.\r\nGray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.\r\nGood-bye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon.\"\r\n\r\nAs the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a\r\nsofa, and a look of pain came into his face.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 3\r\n\r\nAt half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon\r\nStreet over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial\r\nif somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called\r\nselfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was\r\nconsidered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him.\r\nHis father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young\r\nand Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a\r\ncapricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at\r\nParis, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by\r\nreason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches,\r\nand his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his\r\nfather's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat\r\nfoolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months\r\nlater to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great\r\naristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. He had two large town\r\nhouses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and\r\ntook most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention to the\r\nmanagement of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself\r\nfor this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of\r\nhaving coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of\r\nburning wood on his own hearth. In politics he was a Tory, except when\r\nthe Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them\r\nfor being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied\r\nhim, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn.\r\nOnly England could have produced him, and he always said that the\r\ncountry was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but\r\nthere was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.\r\n\r\nWhen Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough\r\nshooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over The Times. \"Well,\r\nHarry,\" said the old gentleman, \"what brings you out so early? I\r\nthought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till\r\nfive.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get\r\nsomething out of you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Money, I suppose,\" said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. \"Well, sit\r\ndown and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that\r\nmoney is everything.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; \"and\r\nwhen they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It is only\r\npeople who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay\r\nmine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly\r\nupon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and\r\nconsequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not\r\nuseful information, of course; useless information.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry,\r\nalthough those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in\r\nthe Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in\r\nnow by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure\r\nhumbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite\r\nenough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George,\" said\r\nLord Henry languidly.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?\" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy\r\nwhite eyebrows.\r\n\r\n\"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know\r\nwho he is. He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson. His mother was a\r\nDevereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his\r\nmother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly\r\neverybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much\r\ninterested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Kelso's grandson!\" echoed the old gentleman. \"Kelso's grandson! ...\r\nOf course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her\r\nchristening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret\r\nDevereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless\r\nyoung fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or\r\nsomething of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if\r\nit happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few\r\nmonths after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They\r\nsaid Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult\r\nhis son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and that\r\nthe fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was\r\nhushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some\r\ntime afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told,\r\nand she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The\r\ngirl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had\r\nforgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he\r\nmust be a good-looking chap.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is very good-looking,\" assented Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"I hope he will fall into proper hands,\" continued the old man. \"He\r\nshould have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing\r\nby him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to\r\nher, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him\r\na mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad,\r\nI was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble\r\nwho was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They\r\nmade quite a story of it. I didn't dare show my face at Court for a\r\nmonth. I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know,\" answered Lord Henry. \"I fancy that the boy will be\r\nwell off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so.\r\nAnd ... his mother was very beautiful?\"\r\n\r\n\"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw,\r\nHarry. What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could\r\nunderstand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was\r\nmad after her. She was romantic, though. All the women of that family\r\nwere. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful.\r\nCarlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed\r\nat him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after\r\nhim. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is\r\nthis humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an\r\nAmerican? Ain't English girls good enough for him?\"\r\n\r\n\"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll back English women against the world, Harry,\" said Lord Fermor,\r\nstriking the table with his fist.\r\n\r\n\"The betting is on the Americans.\"\r\n\r\n\"They don't last, I am told,\" muttered his uncle.\r\n\r\n\"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a\r\nsteeplechase. They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a\r\nchance.\"\r\n\r\n\"Who are her people?\" grumbled the old gentleman. \"Has she got any?\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry shook his head. \"American girls are as clever at concealing\r\ntheir parents, as English women are at concealing their past,\" he said,\r\nrising to go.\r\n\r\n\"They are pork-packers, I suppose?\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that\r\npork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after\r\npolitics.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is she pretty?\"\r\n\r\n\"She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is\r\nthe secret of their charm.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are\r\nalways telling us that it is the paradise for women.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively\r\nanxious to get out of it,\" said Lord Henry. \"Good-bye, Uncle George.\r\nI shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer. Thanks for giving me\r\nthe information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my\r\nnew friends, and nothing about my old ones.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where are you lunching, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her latest\r\nprotege.\"\r\n\r\n\"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with\r\nher charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman thinks\r\nthat I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads.\"\r\n\r\n\"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect.\r\nPhilanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their\r\ndistinguishing characteristic.\"\r\n\r\nThe old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his\r\nservant. Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street\r\nand turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.\r\n\r\nSo that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage. Crudely as it had\r\nbeen told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a\r\nstrange, almost modern romance. A beautiful woman risking everything\r\nfor a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a\r\nhideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a\r\nchild born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to\r\nsolitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes; it was an\r\ninteresting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it\r\nwere. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something\r\ntragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might\r\nblow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as\r\nwith startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat\r\nopposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer\r\nrose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking to him was like playing\r\nupon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the\r\nbow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of\r\ninfluence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into\r\nsome gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's\r\nown intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of\r\npassion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though\r\nit were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in\r\nthat--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited\r\nand vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and\r\ngrossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad,\r\nwhom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be\r\nfashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the\r\nwhite purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for\r\nus. There was nothing that one could not do with him. He could be\r\nmade a Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was\r\ndestined to fade! ... And Basil? From a psychological point of view,\r\nhow interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of\r\nlooking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence\r\nof one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in\r\ndim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing\r\nherself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for\r\nher there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are\r\nwonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things\r\nbecoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value,\r\nas though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect\r\nform whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was! He\r\nremembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, that artist\r\nin thought, who had first analyzed it? Was it not Buonarotti who had\r\ncarved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own\r\ncentury it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray\r\nwhat, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned\r\nthe wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him--had already,\r\nindeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own.\r\nThere was something fascinating in this son of love and death.\r\n\r\nSuddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had\r\npassed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.\r\nWhen he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they\r\nhad gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and\r\npassed into the dining-room.\r\n\r\n\"Late as usual, Harry,\" cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.\r\n\r\nHe invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to\r\nher, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed to him shyly from\r\nthe end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek.\r\nOpposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and\r\ngood temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample\r\narchitectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are\r\ndescribed by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat, on\r\nher right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who\r\nfollowed his leader in public life and in private life followed the\r\nbest cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in\r\naccordance with a wise and well-known rule. The post on her left was\r\noccupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable\r\ncharm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence,\r\nhaving, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he\r\nhad to say before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur,\r\none of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so\r\ndreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book.\r\nFortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most\r\nintelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement\r\nin the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely\r\nearnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once\r\nhimself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of\r\nthem ever quite escape.\r\n\r\n\"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry,\" cried the duchess,\r\nnodding pleasantly to him across the table. \"Do you think he will\r\nreally marry this fascinating young person?\"\r\n\r\n\"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess.\"\r\n\r\n\"How dreadful!\" exclaimed Lady Agatha. \"Really, some one should\r\ninterfere.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American\r\ndry-goods store,\" said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.\r\n\r\n\"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?\" asked the duchess, raising\r\nher large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.\r\n\r\n\"American novels,\" answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.\r\n\r\nThe duchess looked puzzled.\r\n\r\n\"Don't mind him, my dear,\" whispered Lady Agatha. \"He never means\r\nanything that he says.\"\r\n\r\n\"When America was discovered,\" said the Radical member--and he began to\r\ngive some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a\r\nsubject, he exhausted his listeners. The duchess sighed and exercised\r\nher privilege of interruption. \"I wish to goodness it never had been\r\ndiscovered at all!\" she exclaimed. \"Really, our girls have no chance\r\nnowadays. It is most unfair.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered,\" said Mr.\r\nErskine; \"I myself would say that it had merely been detected.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants,\" answered the\r\nduchess vaguely. \"I must confess that most of them are extremely\r\npretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in\r\nParis. I wish I could afford to do the same.\"\r\n\r\n\"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris,\" chuckled Sir\r\nThomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.\r\n\r\n\"Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?\" inquired the\r\nduchess.\r\n\r\n\"They go to America,\" murmured Lord Henry.\r\n\r\nSir Thomas frowned. \"I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced\r\nagainst that great country,\" he said to Lady Agatha. \"I have travelled\r\nall over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters,\r\nare extremely civil. I assure you that it is an education to visit it.\"\r\n\r\n\"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?\" asked Mr.\r\nErskine plaintively. \"I don't feel up to the journey.\"\r\n\r\nSir Thomas waved his hand. \"Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on\r\nhis shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about\r\nthem. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are\r\nabsolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing\r\ncharacteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I\r\nassure you there is no nonsense about the Americans.\"\r\n\r\n\"How dreadful!\" cried Lord Henry. \"I can stand brute force, but brute\r\nreason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use.\r\nIt is hitting below the intellect.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not understand you,\" said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.\r\n\r\n\"I do, Lord Henry,\" murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.\r\n\r\n\"Paradoxes are all very well in their way....\" rejoined the baronet.\r\n\r\n\"Was that a paradox?\" asked Mr. Erskine. \"I did not think so. Perhaps\r\nit was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test\r\nreality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become\r\nacrobats, we can judge them.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dear me!\" said Lady Agatha, \"how you men argue! I am sure I never can\r\nmake out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite vexed with\r\nyou. Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up\r\nthe East End? I assure you he would be quite invaluable. They would\r\nlove his playing.\"\r\n\r\n\"I want him to play to me,\" cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked\r\ndown the table and caught a bright answering glance.\r\n\r\n\"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,\" continued Lady Agatha.\r\n\r\n\"I can sympathize with everything except suffering,\" said Lord Henry,\r\nshrugging his shoulders. \"I cannot sympathize with that. It is too\r\nugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly\r\nmorbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with\r\nthe colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's\r\nsores, the better.\"\r\n\r\n\"Still, the East End is a very important problem,\" remarked Sir Thomas\r\nwith a grave shake of the head.\r\n\r\n\"Quite so,\" answered the young lord. \"It is the problem of slavery,\r\nand we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.\"\r\n\r\nThe politician looked at him keenly. \"What change do you propose,\r\nthen?\" he asked.\r\n\r\nLord Henry laughed. \"I don't desire to change anything in England\r\nexcept the weather,\" he answered. \"I am quite content with philosophic\r\ncontemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt\r\nthrough an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should\r\nappeal to science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is\r\nthat they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is\r\nnot emotional.\"\r\n\r\n\"But we have such grave responsibilities,\" ventured Mrs. Vandeleur\r\ntimidly.\r\n\r\n\"Terribly grave,\" echoed Lady Agatha.\r\n\r\nLord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. \"Humanity takes itself too\r\nseriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known\r\nhow to laugh, history would have been different.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are really very comforting,\" warbled the duchess. \"I have always\r\nfelt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no\r\ninterest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to\r\nlook her in the face without a blush.\"\r\n\r\n\"A blush is very becoming, Duchess,\" remarked Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"Only when one is young,\" she answered. \"When an old woman like myself\r\nblushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell\r\nme how to become young again.\"\r\n\r\nHe thought for a moment. \"Can you remember any great error that you\r\ncommitted in your early days, Duchess?\" he asked, looking at her across\r\nthe table.\r\n\r\n\"A great many, I fear,\" she cried.\r\n\r\n\"Then commit them over again,\" he said gravely. \"To get back one's\r\nyouth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.\"\r\n\r\n\"A delightful theory!\" she exclaimed. \"I must put it into practice.\"\r\n\r\n\"A dangerous theory!\" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. Lady Agatha\r\nshook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"that is one of the great secrets of life.\r\nNowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and\r\ndiscover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are\r\none's mistakes.\"\r\n\r\nA laugh ran round the table.\r\n\r\nHe played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and\r\ntransformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent\r\nwith fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went\r\non, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and\r\ncatching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her\r\nwine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the\r\nhills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled\r\nbefore her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge\r\npress at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round\r\nher bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over\r\nthe vat's black, dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary\r\nimprovisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him,\r\nand the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose\r\ntemperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and\r\nto lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic,\r\nirresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they\r\nfollowed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him,\r\nbut sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips\r\nand wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.\r\n\r\nAt last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room\r\nin the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was\r\nwaiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. \"How annoying!\" she\r\ncried. \"I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take\r\nhim to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be\r\nin the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't\r\nhave a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word\r\nwould ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you\r\nare quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don't\r\nknow what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some\r\nnight. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?\"\r\n\r\n\"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess,\" said Lord Henry with a\r\nbow.\r\n\r\n\"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you,\" she cried; \"so mind you\r\ncome\"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the\r\nother ladies.\r\n\r\nWhen Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking\r\na chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.\r\n\r\n\"You talk books away,\" he said; \"why don't you write one?\"\r\n\r\n\"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I\r\nshould like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely\r\nas a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public in\r\nEngland for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias.\r\nOf all people in the world the English have the least sense of the\r\nbeauty of literature.\"\r\n\r\n\"I fear you are right,\" answered Mr. Erskine. \"I myself used to have\r\nliterary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And now, my dear\r\nyoung friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you\r\nreally meant all that you said to us at lunch?\"\r\n\r\n\"I quite forget what I said,\" smiled Lord Henry. \"Was it all very bad?\"\r\n\r\n\"Very bad indeed. In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if\r\nanything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being\r\nprimarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life.\r\nThe generation into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you\r\nare tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your\r\nphilosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate\r\nenough to possess.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege.\r\nIt has a perfect host, and a perfect library.\"\r\n\r\n\"You will complete it,\" answered the old gentleman with a courteous\r\nbow. \"And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due at\r\nthe Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there.\"\r\n\r\n\"All of you, Mr. Erskine?\"\r\n\r\n\"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English\r\nAcademy of Letters.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry laughed and rose. \"I am going to the park,\" he cried.\r\n\r\nAs he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm.\r\n\"Let me come with you,\" he murmured.\r\n\r\n\"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,\"\r\nanswered Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you. Do\r\nlet me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks\r\nso wonderfully as you do.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day,\" said Lord Henry, smiling.\r\n\"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with\r\nme, if you care to.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 4\r\n\r\nOne afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious\r\narm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair. It\r\nwas, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled\r\nwainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling\r\nof raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,\r\nlong-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette\r\nby Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for\r\nMargaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies\r\nthat Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars and\r\nparrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small\r\nleaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a\r\nsummer day in London.\r\n\r\nLord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his\r\nprinciple being that punctuality is the thief of time. So the lad was\r\nlooking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages\r\nof an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had\r\nfound in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the\r\nLouis Quatorze clock annoyed him. Once or twice he thought of going\r\naway.\r\n\r\nAt last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. \"How late you\r\nare, Harry!\" he murmured.\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray,\" answered a shrill voice.\r\n\r\nHe glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. \"I beg your pardon. I\r\nthought--\"\r\n\r\n\"You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. You must let me\r\nintroduce myself. I know you quite well by your photographs. I think\r\nmy husband has got seventeen of them.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other night at the\r\nopera.\" She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her\r\nvague forget-me-not eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses\r\nalways looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a\r\ntempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion\r\nwas never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look\r\npicturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name was\r\nVictoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.\r\n\r\n\"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagner's music better than\r\nanybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other\r\npeople hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don't you\r\nthink so, Mr. Gray?\"\r\n\r\nThe same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her\r\nfingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.\r\n\r\nDorian smiled and shook his head: \"I am afraid I don't think so, Lady\r\nHenry. I never talk during music--at least, during good music. If one\r\nhears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? I always hear\r\nHarry's views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of\r\nthem. But you must not think I don't like good music. I adore it, but\r\nI am afraid of it. It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped\r\npianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don't know what\r\nit is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all\r\nare, ain't they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners\r\nafter a time, don't they? It is so clever of them, and such a\r\ncompliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it? You have\r\nnever been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I\r\ncan't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make\r\none's rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in\r\nto look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I\r\nfound Mr. Gray here. We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We\r\nhave quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different.\r\nBut he has been most pleasant. I am so glad I've seen him.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his\r\ndark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused\r\nsmile. \"So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of\r\nold brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.\r\nNowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid I must be going,\" exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an\r\nawkward silence with her silly sudden laugh. \"I have promised to drive\r\nwith the duchess. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Good-bye, Harry. You are\r\ndining out, I suppose? So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady\r\nThornbury's.\"\r\n\r\n\"I dare say, my dear,\" said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her\r\nas, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the\r\nrain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of\r\nfrangipanni. Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the\r\nsofa.\r\n\r\n\"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian,\" he said after a\r\nfew puffs.\r\n\r\n\"Why, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because they are so sentimental.\"\r\n\r\n\"But I like sentimental people.\"\r\n\r\n\"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women,\r\nbecause they are curious: both are disappointed.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love.\r\nThat is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do\r\neverything that you say.\"\r\n\r\n\"Who are you in love with?\" asked Lord Henry after a pause.\r\n\r\n\"With an actress,\" said Dorian Gray, blushing.\r\n\r\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders. \"That is a rather commonplace\r\ndebut.\"\r\n\r\n\"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Who is she?\"\r\n\r\n\"Her name is Sibyl Vane.\"\r\n\r\n\"Never heard of her.\"\r\n\r\n\"No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They\r\nnever have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women\r\nrepresent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the\r\ntriumph of mind over morals.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry, how can you?\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so\r\nI ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.\r\nI find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain\r\nand the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to\r\ngain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down\r\nto supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one\r\nmistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our\r\ngrandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and\r\nesprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman\r\ncan look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly\r\nsatisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London\r\nworth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent\r\nsociety. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known\r\nher?\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Never mind that. How long have you known her?\"\r\n\r\n\"About three weeks.\"\r\n\r\n\"And where did you come across her?\"\r\n\r\n\"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.\r\nAfter all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. You\r\nfilled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days\r\nafter I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. As I lounged\r\nin the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one\r\nwho passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they\r\nled. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There\r\nwas an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations....\r\nWell, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search\r\nof some adventure. I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,\r\nwith its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,\r\nas you once phrased it, must have something in store for me. I fancied\r\na thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I\r\nremembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we\r\nfirst dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret\r\nof life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered\r\neastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black\r\ngrassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little\r\ntheatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A hideous\r\nJew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was\r\nstanding at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy\r\nringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled\r\nshirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off\r\nhis hat with an air of gorgeous servility. There was something about\r\nhim, Harry, that amused me. He was such a monster. You will laugh at\r\nme, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the\r\nstage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if\r\nI hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest\r\nromance of my life. I see you are laughing. It is horrid of you!\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you\r\nshould not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the\r\nfirst romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will\r\nalways be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of\r\npeople who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes\r\nof a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store\r\nfor you. This is merely the beginning.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you think my nature so shallow?\" cried Dorian Gray angrily.\r\n\r\n\"No; I think your nature so deep.\"\r\n\r\n\"How do you mean?\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really\r\nthe shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,\r\nI call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.\r\nFaithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life\r\nof the intellect--simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I\r\nmust analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There\r\nare many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that\r\nothers might pick them up. But I don't want to interrupt you. Go on\r\nwith your story.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a\r\nvulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. I looked out from behind the\r\ncurtain and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and\r\ncornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were\r\nfairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and\r\nthere was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the\r\ndress-circle. Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there\r\nwas a terrible consumption of nuts going on.\"\r\n\r\n\"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama.\"\r\n\r\n\"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder\r\nwhat on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill. What\r\ndo you think the play was, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'. Our fathers\r\nused to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian,\r\nthe more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is\r\nnot good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandperes ont\r\ntoujours tort.\"\r\n\r\n\"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I\r\nmust admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare\r\ndone in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in\r\na sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.\r\nThere was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat\r\nat a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the\r\ndrop-scene was drawn up and the play began. Romeo was a stout elderly\r\ngentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure\r\nlike a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad. He was played by the\r\nlow-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most\r\nfriendly terms with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the\r\nscenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But\r\nJuliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a\r\nlittle, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of\r\ndark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were\r\nlike the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen\r\nin my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that\r\nbeauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you,\r\nHarry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came\r\nacross me. And her voice--I never heard such a voice. It was very low\r\nat first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's\r\near. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a\r\ndistant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy\r\nthat one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There\r\nwere moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You\r\nknow how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane\r\nare two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear\r\nthem, and each of them says something different. I don't know which to\r\nfollow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is\r\neverything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One\r\nevening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have\r\nseen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from\r\nher lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of\r\nArden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.\r\nShe has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and\r\ngiven him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been\r\ninnocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike\r\nthroat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary\r\nwomen never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their\r\ncentury. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as\r\neasily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is\r\nno mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and\r\nchatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped\r\nsmile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an\r\nactress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn't you tell me\r\nthat the only thing worth loving is an actress?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary\r\ncharm in them, sometimes,\" said Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane.\"\r\n\r\n\"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life\r\nyou will tell me everything you do.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things.\r\nYou have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would\r\ncome and confess it to you. You would understand me.\"\r\n\r\n\"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,\r\nDorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And\r\nnow tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are\r\nyour actual relations with Sibyl Vane?\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.\r\n\"Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!\"\r\n\r\n\"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,\" said\r\nLord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. \"But why\r\nshould you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day.\r\nWhen one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one\r\nalways ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a\r\nromance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?\"\r\n\r\n\"Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the\r\nhorrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and\r\noffered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was\r\nfurious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds\r\nof years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I\r\nthink, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the\r\nimpression that I had taken too much champagne, or something.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not surprised.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I\r\nnever even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and\r\nconfided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy\r\nagainst him, and that they were every one of them to be bought.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other\r\nhand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all\r\nexpensive.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means,\" laughed Dorian.\r\n\"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,\r\nand I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly\r\nrecommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the\r\nplace again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that\r\nI was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute,\r\nthough he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me\r\nonce, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely\r\ndue to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think\r\nit a distinction.\"\r\n\r\n\"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction. Most\r\npeople become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose\r\nof life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour. But when\r\ndid you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?\"\r\n\r\n\"The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. I could not help\r\ngoing round. I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at\r\nme--at least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He\r\nseemed determined to take me behind, so I consented. It was curious my\r\nnot wanting to know her, wasn't it?\"\r\n\r\n\"No; I don't think so.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Harry, why?\"\r\n\r\n\"I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy and so gentle. There is something of a\r\nchild about her. Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told\r\nher what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious\r\nof her power. I think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood\r\ngrinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate\r\nspeeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like\r\nchildren. He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure\r\nSibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to\r\nme, 'You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming.'\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.\"\r\n\r\n\"You don't understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person\r\nin a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives with her mother, a\r\nfaded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta\r\ndressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen\r\nbetter days.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know that look. It depresses me,\" murmured Lord Henry, examining\r\nhis rings.\r\n\r\n\"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest\r\nme.\"\r\n\r\n\"You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about\r\nother people's tragedies.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came\r\nfrom? From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and\r\nentirely divine. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every\r\nnight she is more marvellous.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. I\r\nthought you must have some curious romance on hand. You have; but it\r\nis not quite what I expected.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have\r\nbeen to the opera with you several times,\" said Dorian, opening his\r\nblue eyes in wonder.\r\n\r\n\"You always come dreadfully late.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play,\" he cried, \"even if it is\r\nonly for a single act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think\r\nof the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I\r\nam filled with awe.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?\"\r\n\r\nHe shook his head. \"To-night she is Imogen,\" he answered, \"and\r\nto-morrow night she will be Juliet.\"\r\n\r\n\"When is she Sibyl Vane?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never.\"\r\n\r\n\"I congratulate you.\"\r\n\r\n\"How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in\r\none. She is more than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she\r\nhas genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know\r\nall the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I\r\nwant to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to\r\nhear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir\r\ntheir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God,\r\nHarry, how I worship her!\" He was walking up and down the room as he\r\nspoke. Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks. He was terribly\r\nexcited.\r\n\r\nLord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure. How different\r\nhe was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's\r\nstudio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of\r\nscarlet flame. Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and\r\ndesire had come to meet it on the way.\r\n\r\n\"And what do you propose to do?\" said Lord Henry at last.\r\n\r\n\"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. I\r\nhave not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to\r\nacknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.\r\nShe is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight\r\nmonths--from the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of\r\ncourse. When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and\r\nbring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has made\r\nme.\"\r\n\r\n\"That would be impossible, my dear boy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in\r\nher, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it\r\nis personalities, not principles, that move the age.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, what night shall we go?\"\r\n\r\n\"Let me see. To-day is Tuesday. Let us fix to-morrow. She plays\r\nJuliet to-morrow.\"\r\n\r\n\"All right. The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not eight, Harry, please. Half-past six. We must be there before the\r\ncurtain rises. You must see her in the first act, where she meets\r\nRomeo.\"\r\n\r\n\"Half-past six! What an hour! It will be like having a meat-tea, or\r\nreading an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before\r\nseven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to\r\nhim?\"\r\n\r\n\"Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather\r\nhorrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful\r\nframe, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous\r\nof the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit\r\nthat I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don't\r\nwant to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good\r\nadvice.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry smiled. \"People are very fond of giving away what they need\r\nmost themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit\r\nof a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered\r\nthat.\"\r\n\r\n\"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his\r\nwork. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his\r\nprejudices, his principles, and his common sense. The only artists I\r\nhave ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good\r\nartists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly\r\nuninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is\r\nthe most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are\r\nabsolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more\r\npicturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of\r\nsecond-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the\r\npoetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they\r\ndare not realize.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wonder is that really so, Harry?\" said Dorian Gray, putting some\r\nperfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that\r\nstood on the table. \"It must be, if you say it. And now I am off.\r\nImogen is waiting for me. Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye.\"\r\n\r\nAs he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began\r\nto think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as\r\nDorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused\r\nhim not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by\r\nit. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always\r\nenthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary\r\nsubject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no\r\nimport. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by\r\nvivisecting others. Human life--that appeared to him the one thing\r\nworth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any\r\nvalue. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of\r\npain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,\r\nnor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the\r\nimagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There\r\nwere poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken\r\nof them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through\r\nthem if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great\r\nreward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To\r\nnote the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life\r\nof the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated,\r\nat what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at\r\ndiscord--there was a delight in that! What matter what the cost was?\r\nOne could never pay too high a price for any sensation.\r\n\r\nHe was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his\r\nbrown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical\r\nwords said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned\r\nto this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent\r\nthe lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was\r\nsomething. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its\r\nsecrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were\r\nrevealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect\r\nof art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately\r\nwith the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex\r\npersonality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,\r\nin its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,\r\njust as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.\r\n\r\nYes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was\r\nyet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was\r\nbecoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his\r\nbeautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.\r\nIt was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like\r\none of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem\r\nto be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,\r\nand whose wounds are like red roses.\r\n\r\nSoul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were! There was\r\nanimalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.\r\nThe senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could\r\nsay where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?\r\nHow shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!\r\nAnd yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various\r\nschools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the\r\nbody really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of\r\nspirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter\r\nwas a mystery also.\r\n\r\nHe began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a\r\nscience that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it\r\nwas, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.\r\nExperience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to\r\ntheir mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of\r\nwarning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation\r\nof character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow\r\nand showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in\r\nexperience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.\r\nAll that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same\r\nas our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we\r\nwould do many times, and with joy.\r\n\r\nIt was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by\r\nwhich one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and\r\ncertainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to\r\npromise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane\r\nwas a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no\r\ndoubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire\r\nfor new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex\r\npassion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of\r\nboyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,\r\nchanged into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from\r\nsense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the\r\npassions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most\r\nstrongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we\r\nwere conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were\r\nexperimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.\r\n\r\nWhile Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the\r\ndoor, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for\r\ndinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had\r\nsmitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.\r\nThe panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a\r\nfaded rose. He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and\r\nwondered how it was all going to end.\r\n\r\nWhen he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram\r\nlying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian\r\nGray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl\r\nVane.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 5\r\n\r\n\"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!\" whispered the girl, burying her face\r\nin the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to\r\nthe shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their\r\ndingy sitting-room contained. \"I am so happy!\" she repeated, \"and you\r\nmust be happy, too!\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her\r\ndaughter's head. \"Happy!\" she echoed, \"I am only happy, Sibyl, when I\r\nsee you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr.\r\nIsaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money.\"\r\n\r\nThe girl looked up and pouted. \"Money, Mother?\" she cried, \"what does\r\nmoney matter? Love is more than money.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to\r\nget a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty\r\npounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,\"\r\nsaid the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window.\r\n\r\n\"I don't know how we could manage without him,\" answered the elder\r\nwoman querulously.\r\n\r\nSibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. \"We don't want him any more,\r\nMother. Prince Charming rules life for us now.\" Then she paused. A\r\nrose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted\r\nthe petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion\r\nswept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. \"I love\r\nhim,\" she said simply.\r\n\r\n\"Foolish child! foolish child!\" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.\r\nThe waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the\r\nwords.\r\n\r\nThe girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. Her\r\neyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a\r\nmoment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of\r\na dream had passed across them.\r\n\r\nThin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at\r\nprudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name\r\nof common sense. She did not listen. She was free in her prison of\r\npassion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on\r\nmemory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it\r\nhad brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her\r\neyelids were warm with his breath.\r\n\r\nThen wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. This\r\nyoung man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of.\r\nAgainst the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. The\r\narrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.\r\n\r\nSuddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her.\r\n\"Mother, Mother,\" she cried, \"why does he love me so much? I know why\r\nI love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be.\r\nBut what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yet--why, I\r\ncannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble. I\r\nfeel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love\r\nPrince Charming?\"\r\n\r\nThe elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her\r\ncheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. Sybil rushed\r\nto her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. \"Forgive me,\r\nMother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only\r\npains you because you loved him so much. Don't look so sad. I am as\r\nhappy to-day as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy for\r\never!\"\r\n\r\n\"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. Besides,\r\nwhat do you know of this young man? You don't even know his name. The\r\nwhole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away\r\nto Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you\r\nshould have shown more consideration. However, as I said before, if he\r\nis rich ...\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy!\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical\r\ngestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a\r\nstage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment, the door opened\r\nand a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was\r\nthick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat\r\nclumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One\r\nwould hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between\r\nthem. Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile. She\r\nmentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure\r\nthat the tableau was interesting.\r\n\r\n\"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,\" said the\r\nlad with a good-natured grumble.\r\n\r\n\"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim,\" she cried. \"You are a\r\ndreadful old bear.\" And she ran across the room and hugged him.\r\n\r\nJames Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. \"I want you\r\nto come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don't suppose I shall ever\r\nsee this horrid London again. I am sure I don't want to.\"\r\n\r\n\"My son, don't say such dreadful things,\" murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up\r\na tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She\r\nfelt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would\r\nhave increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.\r\n\r\n\"Why not, Mother? I mean it.\"\r\n\r\n\"You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a\r\nposition of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in\r\nthe Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made\r\nyour fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London.\"\r\n\r\n\"Society!\" muttered the lad. \"I don't want to know anything about\r\nthat. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the\r\nstage. I hate it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Jim!\" said Sibyl, laughing, \"how unkind of you! But are you\r\nreally going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you\r\nwere going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who\r\ngave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for\r\nsmoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last\r\nafternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the park.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am too shabby,\" he answered, frowning. \"Only swell people go to the\r\npark.\"\r\n\r\n\"Nonsense, Jim,\" she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.\r\n\r\nHe hesitated for a moment. \"Very well,\" he said at last, \"but don't be\r\ntoo long dressing.\" She danced out of the door. One could hear her\r\nsinging as she ran upstairs. Her little feet pattered overhead.\r\n\r\nHe walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned to\r\nthe still figure in the chair. \"Mother, are my things ready?\" he asked.\r\n\r\n\"Quite ready, James,\" she answered, keeping her eyes on her work. For\r\nsome months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this\r\nrough stern son of hers. Her shallow secret nature was troubled when\r\ntheir eyes met. She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The\r\nsilence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her.\r\nShe began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as\r\nthey attack by sudden and strange surrenders. \"I hope you will be\r\ncontented, James, with your sea-faring life,\" she said. \"You must\r\nremember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a\r\nsolicitor's office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in\r\nthe country often dine with the best families.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hate offices, and I hate clerks,\" he replied. \"But you are quite\r\nright. I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl.\r\nDon't let her come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her.\"\r\n\r\n\"James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to\r\ntalk to her. Is that right? What about that?\"\r\n\r\n\"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the\r\nprofession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying\r\nattention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That\r\nwas when acting was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at\r\npresent whether her attachment is serious or not. But there is no\r\ndoubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is\r\nalways most polite to me. Besides, he has the appearance of being\r\nrich, and the flowers he sends are lovely.\"\r\n\r\n\"You don't know his name, though,\" said the lad harshly.\r\n\r\n\"No,\" answered his mother with a placid expression in her face. \"He\r\nhas not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic of\r\nhim. He is probably a member of the aristocracy.\"\r\n\r\nJames Vane bit his lip. \"Watch over Sibyl, Mother,\" he cried, \"watch\r\nover her.\"\r\n\r\n\"My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special\r\ncare. Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why\r\nshe should not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the\r\naristocracy. He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be\r\na most brilliant marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming\r\ncouple. His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices\r\nthem.\"\r\n\r\nThe lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane\r\nwith his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something\r\nwhen the door opened and Sibyl ran in.\r\n\r\n\"How serious you both are!\" she cried. \"What is the matter?\"\r\n\r\n\"Nothing,\" he answered. \"I suppose one must be serious sometimes.\r\nGood-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is\r\npacked, except my shirts, so you need not trouble.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good-bye, my son,\" she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.\r\n\r\nShe was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and\r\nthere was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.\r\n\r\n\"Kiss me, Mother,\" said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the\r\nwithered cheek and warmed its frost.\r\n\r\n\"My child! my child!\" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in\r\nsearch of an imaginary gallery.\r\n\r\n\"Come, Sibyl,\" said her brother impatiently. He hated his mother's\r\naffectations.\r\n\r\nThey went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled\r\ndown the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder at the\r\nsullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the\r\ncompany of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a common\r\ngardener walking with a rose.\r\n\r\nJim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of\r\nsome stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on\r\ngeniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl,\r\nhowever, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her\r\nlove was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince\r\nCharming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not\r\ntalk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to\r\nsail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful\r\nheiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted\r\nbushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or\r\nwhatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor's existence was\r\ndreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse,\r\nhump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts\r\ndown and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to\r\nleave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain,\r\nand go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to\r\ncome across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had\r\never been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon\r\nguarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them\r\nthree times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was\r\nnot to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where\r\nmen got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad\r\nlanguage. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was\r\nriding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a\r\nrobber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course,\r\nshe would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get\r\nmarried, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes,\r\nthere were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very\r\ngood, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was\r\nonly a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He\r\nmust be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his\r\nprayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and\r\nwould watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years\r\nhe would come back quite rich and happy.\r\n\r\nThe lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick\r\nat leaving home.\r\n\r\nYet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.\r\nInexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger\r\nof Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love to her could\r\nmean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated\r\nhim through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,\r\nand which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was\r\nconscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,\r\nand in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.\r\nChildren begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge\r\nthem; sometimes they forgive them.\r\n\r\nHis mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that\r\nhe had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he\r\nhad heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears\r\none night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of\r\nhorrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a\r\nhunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like\r\nfurrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.\r\n\r\n\"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim,\" cried Sibyl, \"and I\r\nam making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something.\"\r\n\r\n\"What do you want me to say?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us,\" she answered,\r\nsmiling at him.\r\n\r\nHe shrugged his shoulders. \"You are more likely to forget me than I am\r\nto forget you, Sibyl.\"\r\n\r\nShe flushed. \"What do you mean, Jim?\" she asked.\r\n\r\n\"You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me\r\nabout him? He means you no good.\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop, Jim!\" she exclaimed. \"You must not say anything against him. I\r\nlove him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, you don't even know his name,\" answered the lad. \"Who is he? I\r\nhave a right to know.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. Oh! you silly\r\nboy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think\r\nhim the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet\r\nhim--when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much.\r\nEverybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could come to the\r\ntheatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet.\r\nOh! how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet!\r\nTo have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may\r\nfrighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to\r\nsurpass one's self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius'\r\nto his loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he\r\nwill announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his\r\nonly, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am\r\npoor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in\r\nat the door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want\r\nrewriting. They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time\r\nfor me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is a gentleman,\" said the lad sullenly.\r\n\r\n\"A prince!\" she cried musically. \"What more do you want?\"\r\n\r\n\"He wants to enslave you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shudder at the thought of being free.\"\r\n\r\n\"I want you to beware of him.\"\r\n\r\n\"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sibyl, you are mad about him.\"\r\n\r\nShe laughed and took his arm. \"You dear old Jim, you talk as if you\r\nwere a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will\r\nknow what it is. Don't look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to\r\nthink that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have\r\never been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and\r\ndifficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new\r\nworld, and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and\r\nsee the smart people go by.\"\r\n\r\nThey took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds\r\nacross the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white\r\ndust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air.\r\nThe brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous\r\nbutterflies.\r\n\r\nShe made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He\r\nspoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as\r\nplayers at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not\r\ncommunicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all\r\nthe echo she could win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly\r\nshe caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open\r\ncarriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past.\r\n\r\nShe started to her feet. \"There he is!\" she cried.\r\n\r\n\"Who?\" said Jim Vane.\r\n\r\n\"Prince Charming,\" she answered, looking after the victoria.\r\n\r\nHe jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm. \"Show him to me.\r\nWhich is he? Point him out. I must see him!\" he exclaimed; but at\r\nthat moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when\r\nit had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park.\r\n\r\n\"He is gone,\" murmured Sibyl sadly. \"I wish you had seen him.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does\r\nyou any wrong, I shall kill him.\"\r\n\r\nShe looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. They cut the air\r\nlike a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close\r\nto her tittered.\r\n\r\n\"Come away, Jim; come away,\" she whispered. He followed her doggedly\r\nas she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said.\r\n\r\nWhen they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. There was\r\npity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head\r\nat him. \"You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy,\r\nthat is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don't know\r\nwhat you are talking about. You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I\r\nwish you would fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said\r\nwas wicked.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am sixteen,\" he answered, \"and I know what I am about. Mother is no\r\nhelp to you. She doesn't understand how to look after you. I wish now\r\nthat I was not going to Australia at all. I have a great mind to chuck\r\nthe whole thing up. I would, if my articles hadn't been signed.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those\r\nsilly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. I am not\r\ngoing to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is\r\nperfect happiness. We won't quarrel. I know you would never harm any\r\none I love, would you?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not as long as you love him, I suppose,\" was the sullen answer.\r\n\r\n\"I shall love him for ever!\" she cried.\r\n\r\n\"And he?\"\r\n\r\n\"For ever, too!\"\r\n\r\n\"He had better.\"\r\n\r\nShe shrank from him. Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm. He\r\nwas merely a boy.\r\n\r\nAt the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to\r\ntheir shabby home in the Euston Road. It was after five o'clock, and\r\nSibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting. Jim\r\ninsisted that she should do so. He said that he would sooner part with\r\nher when their mother was not present. She would be sure to make a\r\nscene, and he detested scenes of every kind.\r\n\r\nIn Sybil's own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lad's\r\nheart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed\r\nto him, had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his\r\nneck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed\r\nher with real affection. There were tears in his eyes as he went\r\ndownstairs.\r\n\r\nHis mother was waiting for him below. She grumbled at his\r\nunpunctuality, as he entered. He made no answer, but sat down to his\r\nmeagre meal. The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the\r\nstained cloth. Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of\r\nstreet-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that\r\nwas left to him.\r\n\r\nAfter some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his\r\nhands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told\r\nto him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother\r\nwatched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered\r\nlace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six,\r\nhe got up and went to the door. Then he turned back and looked at her.\r\nTheir eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged\r\nhim.\r\n\r\n\"Mother, I have something to ask you,\" he said. Her eyes wandered\r\nvaguely about the room. She made no answer. \"Tell me the truth. I\r\nhave a right to know. Were you married to my father?\"\r\n\r\nShe heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment,\r\nthe moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded,\r\nhad come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure\r\nit was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question\r\ncalled for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led\r\nup to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.\r\n\r\n\"No,\" she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life.\r\n\r\n\"My father was a scoundrel then!\" cried the lad, clenching his fists.\r\n\r\nShe shook her head. \"I knew he was not free. We loved each other very\r\nmuch. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. Don't\r\nspeak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman.\r\nIndeed, he was highly connected.\"\r\n\r\nAn oath broke from his lips. \"I don't care for myself,\" he exclaimed,\r\n\"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love\r\nwith her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose.\"\r\n\r\nFor a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her\r\nhead drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. \"Sibyl has a\r\nmother,\" she murmured; \"I had none.\"\r\n\r\nThe lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed\r\nher. \"I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father,\" he\r\nsaid, \"but I could not help it. I must go now. Good-bye. Don't forget\r\nthat you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me\r\nthat if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him\r\ndown, and kill him like a dog. I swear it.\"\r\n\r\nThe exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that\r\naccompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid\r\nto her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more\r\nfreely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her\r\nson. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same\r\nemotional scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down\r\nand mufflers looked for. The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out.\r\nThere was the bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in\r\nvulgar details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that\r\nshe waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son\r\ndrove away. She was conscious that a great opportunity had been\r\nwasted. She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt\r\nher life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. She\r\nremembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat she said\r\nnothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. She felt that\r\nthey would all laugh at it some day.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 6\r\n\r\n\"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?\" said Lord Henry that\r\nevening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol\r\nwhere dinner had been laid for three.\r\n\r\n\"No, Harry,\" answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing\r\nwaiter. \"What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope! They don't\r\ninterest me. There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons\r\nworth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little\r\nwhitewashing.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married,\" said Lord Henry, watching him\r\nas he spoke.\r\n\r\nHallward started and then frowned. \"Dorian engaged to be married!\" he\r\ncried. \"Impossible!\"\r\n\r\n\"It is perfectly true.\"\r\n\r\n\"To whom?\"\r\n\r\n\"To some little actress or other.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear\r\nBasil.\"\r\n\r\n\"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Except in America,\" rejoined Lord Henry languidly. \"But I didn't say\r\nhe was married. I said he was engaged to be married. There is a great\r\ndifference. I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have\r\nno recollection at all of being engaged. I am inclined to think that I\r\nnever was engaged.\"\r\n\r\n\"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth. It would be\r\nabsurd for him to marry so much beneath him.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil. He is\r\nsure to do it, then. Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it\r\nis always from the noblest motives.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope the girl is good, Harry. I don't want to see Dorian tied to\r\nsome vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his\r\nintellect.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful,\" murmured Lord Henry,\r\nsipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. \"Dorian says she is\r\nbeautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind. Your\r\nportrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal\r\nappearance of other people. It has had that excellent effect, amongst\r\nothers. We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his\r\nappointment.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are you serious?\"\r\n\r\n\"Quite serious, Basil. I should be miserable if I thought I should\r\never be more serious than I am at the present moment.\"\r\n\r\n\"But do you approve of it, Harry?\" asked the painter, walking up and\r\ndown the room and biting his lip. \"You can't approve of it, possibly.\r\nIt is some silly infatuation.\"\r\n\r\n\"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd\r\nattitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air\r\nour moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people\r\nsay, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a\r\npersonality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality\r\nselects is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in love with\r\na beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her. Why not?\r\nIf he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting. You\r\nknow I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is\r\nthat it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless.\r\nThey lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that\r\nmarriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, and add to it\r\nmany other egos. They are forced to have more than one life. They\r\nbecome more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should\r\nfancy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of\r\nvalue, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an\r\nexperience. I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,\r\npassionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become\r\nfascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study.\"\r\n\r\n\"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.\r\nIf Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than\r\nyourself. You are much better than you pretend to be.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry laughed. \"The reason we all like to think so well of others\r\nis that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is\r\nsheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our\r\nneighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a\r\nbenefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,\r\nand find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare\r\nour pockets. I mean everything that I have said. I have the greatest\r\ncontempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but\r\none whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have\r\nmerely to reform it. As for marriage, of course that would be silly,\r\nbut there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.\r\nI will certainly encourage them. They have the charm of being\r\nfashionable. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I\r\ncan.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!\" said the\r\nlad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and\r\nshaking each of his friends by the hand in turn. \"I have never been so\r\nhappy. Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are. And\r\nyet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my\r\nlife.\" He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked\r\nextraordinarily handsome.\r\n\r\n\"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"but I\r\ndon't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.\r\nYou let Harry know.\"\r\n\r\n\"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner,\" broke in Lord\r\nHenry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.\r\n\"Come, let us sit down and try what the new chef here is like, and then\r\nyou will tell us how it all came about.\"\r\n\r\n\"There is really not much to tell,\" cried Dorian as they took their\r\nseats at the small round table. \"What happened was simply this. After\r\nI left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that\r\nlittle Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and\r\nwent down at eight o'clock to the theatre. Sibyl was playing Rosalind.\r\nOf course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl!\r\nYou should have seen her! When she came on in her boy's clothes, she\r\nwas perfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with\r\ncinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little\r\ngreen cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak\r\nlined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She\r\nhad all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in\r\nyour studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves\r\nround a pale rose. As for her acting--well, you shall see her\r\nto-night. She is simply a born artist. I sat in the dingy box\r\nabsolutely enthralled. I forgot that I was in London and in the\r\nnineteenth century. I was away with my love in a forest that no man\r\nhad ever seen. After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke\r\nto her. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes\r\na look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers.\r\nWe kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that\r\nmoment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one\r\nperfect point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over and shook\r\nlike a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed\r\nmy hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help\r\nit. Of course, our engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told\r\nher own mother. I don't know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley\r\nis sure to be furious. I don't care. I shall be of age in less than a\r\nyear, and then I can do what I like. I have been right, Basil, haven't\r\nI, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's\r\nplays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their\r\nsecret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and\r\nkissed Juliet on the mouth.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right,\" said Hallward slowly.\r\n\r\n\"Have you seen her to-day?\" asked Lord Henry.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray shook his head. \"I left her in the forest of Arden; I\r\nshall find her in an orchard in Verona.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner. \"At what\r\nparticular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian? And what\r\ndid she say in answer? Perhaps you forgot all about it.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did\r\nnot make any formal proposal. I told her that I loved her, and she\r\nsaid she was not worthy to be my wife. Not worthy! Why, the whole\r\nworld is nothing to me compared with her.\"\r\n\r\n\"Women are wonderfully practical,\" murmured Lord Henry, \"much more\r\npractical than we are. In situations of that kind we often forget to\r\nsay anything about marriage, and they always remind us.\"\r\n\r\nHallward laid his hand upon his arm. \"Don't, Harry. You have annoyed\r\nDorian. He is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon\r\nany one. His nature is too fine for that.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry looked across the table. \"Dorian is never annoyed with me,\"\r\nhe answered. \"I asked the question for the best reason possible, for\r\nthe only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any\r\nquestion--simple curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the\r\nwomen who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except,\r\nof course, in middle-class life. But then the middle classes are not\r\nmodern.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head. \"You are quite incorrigible,\r\nHarry; but I don't mind. It is impossible to be angry with you. When\r\nyou see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her\r\nwould be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how any\r\none can wish to shame the thing he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want\r\nto place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the\r\nwoman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at\r\nit for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to\r\ntake. Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I\r\nam with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different\r\nfrom what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of\r\nSibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,\r\npoisonous, delightful theories.\"\r\n\r\n\"And those are ...?\" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories\r\nabout pleasure. All your theories, in fact, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about,\" he answered\r\nin his slow melodious voice. \"But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory\r\nas my own. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Nature's\r\ntest, her sign of approval. When we are happy, we are always good, but\r\nwhen we are good, we are not always happy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! but what do you mean by good?\" cried Basil Hallward.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord\r\nHenry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the\r\ncentre of the table, \"what do you mean by good, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self,\" he replied, touching\r\nthe thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.\r\n\"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own\r\nlife--that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's\r\nneighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt\r\none's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides,\r\nindividualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in\r\naccepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of\r\nculture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest\r\nimmorality.\"\r\n\r\n\"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a\r\nterrible price for doing so?\" suggested the painter.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that\r\nthe real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but\r\nself-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege\r\nof the rich.\"\r\n\r\n\"One has to pay in other ways but money.\"\r\n\r\n\"What sort of ways, Basil?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the\r\nconsciousness of degradation.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders. \"My dear fellow, mediaeval art is\r\ncharming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One can use them in\r\nfiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in\r\nfiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me,\r\nno civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever\r\nknows what a pleasure is.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know what pleasure is,\" cried Dorian Gray. \"It is to adore some\r\none.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is certainly better than being adored,\" he answered, toying with\r\nsome fruits. \"Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as\r\nhumanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us\r\nto do something for them.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to\r\nus,\" murmured the lad gravely. \"They create love in our natures. They\r\nhave a right to demand it back.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is quite true, Dorian,\" cried Hallward.\r\n\r\n\"Nothing is ever quite true,\" said Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"This is,\" interrupted Dorian. \"You must admit, Harry, that women give\r\nto men the very gold of their lives.\"\r\n\r\n\"Possibly,\" he sighed, \"but they invariably want it back in such very\r\nsmall change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once\r\nput it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always\r\nprevent us from carrying them out.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much.\"\r\n\r\n\"You will always like me, Dorian,\" he replied. \"Will you have some\r\ncoffee, you fellows? Waiter, bring coffee, and fine-champagne, and\r\nsome cigarettes. No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some. Basil, I\r\ncan't allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A\r\ncigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite,\r\nand it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? Yes, Dorian,\r\nyou will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you\r\nhave never had the courage to commit.\"\r\n\r\n\"What nonsense you talk, Harry!\" cried the lad, taking a light from a\r\nfire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.\r\n\"Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will\r\nhave a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you\r\nhave never known.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have known everything,\" said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his\r\neyes, \"but I am always ready for a new emotion. I am afraid, however,\r\nthat, for me at any rate, there is no such thing. Still, your\r\nwonderful girl may thrill me. I love acting. It is so much more real\r\nthan life. Let us go. Dorian, you will come with me. I am so sorry,\r\nBasil, but there is only room for two in the brougham. You must follow\r\nus in a hansom.\"\r\n\r\nThey got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing. The\r\npainter was silent and preoccupied. There was a gloom over him. He\r\ncould not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better\r\nthan many other things that might have happened. After a few minutes,\r\nthey all passed downstairs. He drove off by himself, as had been\r\narranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in\r\nfront of him. A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that\r\nDorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the\r\npast. Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the\r\ncrowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes. When the cab drew\r\nup at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 7\r\n\r\nFor some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat\r\nJew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with\r\nan oily tremulous smile. He escorted them to their box with a sort of\r\npompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top\r\nof his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if\r\nhe had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. Lord\r\nHenry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he\r\ndid, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he\r\nwas proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone\r\nbankrupt over a poet. Hallward amused himself with watching the faces\r\nin the pit. The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight\r\nflamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire. The youths\r\nin the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them\r\nover the side. They talked to each other across the theatre and shared\r\ntheir oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women\r\nwere laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and\r\ndiscordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.\r\n\r\n\"What a place to find one's divinity in!\" said Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"Yes!\" answered Dorian Gray. \"It was here I found her, and she is\r\ndivine beyond all living things. When she acts, you will forget\r\neverything. These common rough people, with their coarse faces and\r\nbrutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage. They\r\nsit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to\r\ndo. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them,\r\nand one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self.\"\r\n\r\n\"The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not!\" exclaimed\r\nLord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his\r\nopera-glass.\r\n\r\n\"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian,\" said the painter. \"I\r\nunderstand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love\r\nmust be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must\r\nbe fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth\r\ndoing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without\r\none, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have\r\nbeen sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and\r\nlend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of\r\nall your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. This\r\nmarriage is quite right. I did not think so at first, but I admit it\r\nnow. The gods made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have\r\nbeen incomplete.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thanks, Basil,\" answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. \"I knew that\r\nyou would understand me. Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me. But\r\nhere is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for\r\nabout five minutes. Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl\r\nto whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything\r\nthat is good in me.\"\r\n\r\nA quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of\r\napplause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly\r\nlovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,\r\nthat he had ever seen. There was something of the fawn in her shy\r\ngrace and startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a\r\nmirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded\r\nenthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed\r\nto tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.\r\nMotionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.\r\nLord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, \"Charming! charming!\"\r\n\r\nThe scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's\r\ndress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, such\r\nas it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through\r\nthe crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a\r\ncreature from a finer world. Her body swayed, while she danced, as a\r\nplant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were the curves of\r\na white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.\r\n\r\nYet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her\r\neyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak--\r\n\r\n Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\r\n Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\r\n For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\r\n And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--\r\n\r\nwith the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly\r\nartificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view\r\nof tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away\r\nall the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious.\r\nNeither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to\r\nthem to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed.\r\n\r\nYet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of\r\nthe second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, there was\r\nnothing in her.\r\n\r\nShe looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. That could not\r\nbe denied. But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew\r\nworse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial. She\r\noveremphasized everything that she had to say. The beautiful passage--\r\n\r\n Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,\r\n Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\r\n For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--\r\n\r\nwas declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been\r\ntaught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she\r\nleaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--\r\n\r\n Although I joy in thee,\r\n I have no joy of this contract to-night:\r\n It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\r\n Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\r\n Ere one can say, \"It lightens.\" Sweet, good-night!\r\n This bud of love by summer's ripening breath\r\n May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet--\r\n\r\nshe spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was\r\nnot nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely\r\nself-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.\r\n\r\nEven the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their\r\ninterest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and\r\nto whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the\r\ndress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was\r\nthe girl herself.\r\n\r\nWhen the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord\r\nHenry got up from his chair and put on his coat. \"She is quite\r\nbeautiful, Dorian,\" he said, \"but she can't act. Let us go.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am going to see the play through,\" answered the lad, in a hard\r\nbitter voice. \"I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an\r\nevening, Harry. I apologize to you both.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill,\" interrupted\r\nHallward. \"We will come some other night.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish she were ill,\" he rejoined. \"But she seems to me to be simply\r\ncallous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a\r\ngreat artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre\r\nactress.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more\r\nwonderful thing than art.\"\r\n\r\n\"They are both simply forms of imitation,\" remarked Lord Henry. \"But\r\ndo let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not\r\ngood for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you\r\nwill want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet\r\nlike a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little\r\nabout life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful\r\nexperience. There are only two kinds of people who are really\r\nfascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know\r\nabsolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!\r\nThe secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is\r\nunbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke\r\ncigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful.\r\nWhat more can you want?\"\r\n\r\n\"Go away, Harry,\" cried the lad. \"I want to be alone. Basil, you must\r\ngo. Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?\" The hot tears came\r\nto his eyes. His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he\r\nleaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.\r\n\r\n\"Let us go, Basil,\" said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his\r\nvoice, and the two young men passed out together.\r\n\r\nA few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose\r\non the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale,\r\nand proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed\r\ninterminable. Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots\r\nand laughing. The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was played\r\nto almost empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some\r\ngroans.\r\n\r\nAs soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the\r\ngreenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph\r\non her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a\r\nradiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of\r\ntheir own.\r\n\r\nWhen he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy\r\ncame over her. \"How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!\" she cried.\r\n\r\n\"Horribly!\" he answered, gazing at her in amazement. \"Horribly! It\r\nwas dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. You have no\r\nidea what I suffered.\"\r\n\r\nThe girl smiled. \"Dorian,\" she answered, lingering over his name with\r\nlong-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to\r\nthe red petals of her mouth. \"Dorian, you should have understood. But\r\nyou understand now, don't you?\"\r\n\r\n\"Understand what?\" he asked, angrily.\r\n\r\n\"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall\r\nnever act well again.\"\r\n\r\nHe shrugged his shoulders. \"You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill\r\nyou shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were\r\nbored. I was bored.\"\r\n\r\nShe seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An\r\necstasy of happiness dominated her.\r\n\r\n\"Dorian, Dorian,\" she cried, \"before I knew you, acting was the one\r\nreality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I\r\nthought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the\r\nother. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia\r\nwere mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted\r\nwith me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world.\r\nI knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my\r\nbeautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what\r\nreality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw\r\nthrough the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in\r\nwhich I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became\r\nconscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the\r\nmoonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and\r\nthat the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not\r\nwhat I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something\r\nof which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what\r\nlove really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life!\r\nI have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever\r\nbe. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on\r\nto-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone\r\nfrom me. I thought that I was going to be wonderful. I found that I\r\ncould do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.\r\nThe knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled.\r\nWhat could they know of love such as ours? Take me away, Dorian--take\r\nme away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I\r\nmight mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that\r\nburns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it\r\nsignifies? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to\r\nplay at being in love. You have made me see that.\"\r\n\r\nHe flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face. \"You have\r\nkilled my love,\" he muttered.\r\n\r\nShe looked at him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. She came\r\nacross to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair. She knelt\r\ndown and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a\r\nshudder ran through him.\r\n\r\nThen he leaped up and went to the door. \"Yes,\" he cried, \"you have\r\nkilled my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even\r\nstir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because\r\nyou were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you\r\nrealized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the\r\nshadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and\r\nstupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been!\r\nYou are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never\r\nthink of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you\r\nwere to me, once. Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I\r\nwish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of\r\nmy life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!\r\nWithout your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous,\r\nsplendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you\r\nwould have borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with\r\na pretty face.\"\r\n\r\nThe girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together,\r\nand her voice seemed to catch in her throat. \"You are not serious,\r\nDorian?\" she murmured. \"You are acting.\"\r\n\r\n\"Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well,\" he answered\r\nbitterly.\r\n\r\nShe rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her\r\nface, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm and\r\nlooked into his eyes. He thrust her back. \"Don't touch me!\" he cried.\r\n\r\nA low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay\r\nthere like a trampled flower. \"Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!\" she\r\nwhispered. \"I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you\r\nall the time. But I will try--indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly\r\nacross me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if\r\nyou had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again,\r\nmy love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go\r\naway from me. My brother ... No; never mind. He didn't mean it. He\r\nwas in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will\r\nwork so hard and try to improve. Don't be cruel to me, because I love\r\nyou better than anything in the world. After all, it is only once that\r\nI have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian. I should\r\nhave shown myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me, and yet I\r\ncouldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me.\" A fit of\r\npassionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a\r\nwounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at\r\nher, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain. There is\r\nalways something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has\r\nceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.\r\nHer tears and sobs annoyed him.\r\n\r\n\"I am going,\" he said at last in his calm clear voice. \"I don't wish\r\nto be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me.\"\r\n\r\nShe wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. Her little\r\nhands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He\r\nturned on his heel and left the room. In a few moments he was out of\r\nthe theatre.\r\n\r\nWhere he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly\r\nlit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking\r\nhouses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after\r\nhim. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves\r\nlike monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon\r\ndoor-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.\r\n\r\nAs the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.\r\nThe darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed\r\nitself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies\r\nrumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with\r\nthe perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an\r\nanodyne for his pain. He followed into the market and watched the men\r\nunloading their waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some\r\ncherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money\r\nfor them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at\r\nmidnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long\r\nline of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red\r\nroses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,\r\njade-green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey,\r\nsun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,\r\nwaiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging\r\ndoors of the coffee-house in the piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped\r\nand stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.\r\nSome of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked\r\nand pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.\r\n\r\nAfter a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. For a few\r\nmoments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent\r\nsquare, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.\r\nThe sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like\r\nsilver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke\r\nwas rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.\r\n\r\nIn the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that\r\nhung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,\r\nlights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals\r\nof flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turned them out and,\r\nhaving thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library\r\ntowards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the\r\nground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had\r\ndecorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries\r\nthat had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As\r\nhe was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait\r\nBasil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise.\r\nThen he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he\r\nhad taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.\r\nFinally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In\r\nthe dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk\r\nblinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The\r\nexpression looked different. One would have said that there was a\r\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange.\r\n\r\nHe turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The\r\nbright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky\r\ncorners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he\r\nhad noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be\r\nmore intensified even. The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the\r\nlines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking\r\ninto a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.\r\n\r\nHe winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory\r\nCupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly\r\ninto its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What\r\ndid it mean?\r\n\r\nHe rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it\r\nagain. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the\r\nactual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression\r\nhad altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was\r\nhorribly apparent.\r\n\r\nHe threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there\r\nflashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the\r\nday the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly.\r\nHe had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the\r\nportrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the\r\nface on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that\r\nthe painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and\r\nthought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness\r\nof his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been\r\nfulfilled? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to\r\nthink of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the\r\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.\r\n\r\nCruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had\r\ndreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he\r\nhad thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been\r\nshallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over\r\nhim, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little\r\nchild. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why\r\nhad he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him?\r\nBut he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the\r\nplay had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of\r\ntorture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a\r\nmoment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better\r\nsuited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They\r\nonly thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely\r\nto have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told\r\nhim that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble\r\nabout Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now.\r\n\r\nBut the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of\r\nhis life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own\r\nbeauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look\r\nat it again?\r\n\r\nNo; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The\r\nhorrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.\r\nSuddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that\r\nmakes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so.\r\n\r\nYet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel\r\nsmile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes\r\nmet his own. A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the\r\npainted image of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and\r\nwould alter more. Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white\r\nroses would die. For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck\r\nand wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or\r\nunchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would\r\nresist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at\r\nany rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil\r\nHallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for\r\nimpossible things. He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,\r\nmarry her, try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She\r\nmust have suffered more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish\r\nand cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him\r\nwould return. They would be happy together. His life with her would\r\nbe beautiful and pure.\r\n\r\nHe got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the\r\nportrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. \"How horrible!\" he murmured\r\nto himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. When he\r\nstepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning\r\nair seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of\r\nSibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. He repeated her\r\nname over and over again. The birds that were singing in the\r\ndew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 8\r\n\r\nIt was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times\r\non tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered\r\nwhat made his young master sleep so late. Finally his bell sounded,\r\nand Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on\r\na small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin\r\ncurtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the\r\nthree tall windows.\r\n\r\n\"Monsieur has well slept this morning,\" he said, smiling.\r\n\r\n\"What o'clock is it, Victor?\" asked Dorian Gray drowsily.\r\n\r\n\"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur.\"\r\n\r\nHow late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over\r\nhis letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by\r\nhand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside.\r\nThe others he opened listlessly. They contained the usual collection\r\nof cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes\r\nof charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable\r\nyoung men every morning during the season. There was a rather heavy\r\nbill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet\r\nhad the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely\r\nold-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when\r\nunnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several\r\nvery courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders\r\noffering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the\r\nmost reasonable rates of interest.\r\n\r\nAfter about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate\r\ndressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the\r\nonyx-paved bathroom. The cool water refreshed him after his long\r\nsleep. He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through. A\r\ndim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once\r\nor twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it.\r\n\r\nAs soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a\r\nlight French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round\r\ntable close to the open window. It was an exquisite day. The warm air\r\nseemed laden with spices. A bee flew in and buzzed round the\r\nblue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before\r\nhim. He felt perfectly happy.\r\n\r\nSuddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the\r\nportrait, and he started.\r\n\r\n\"Too cold for Monsieur?\" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the\r\ntable. \"I shut the window?\"\r\n\r\nDorian shook his head. \"I am not cold,\" he murmured.\r\n\r\nWas it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it been\r\nsimply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where\r\nthere had been a look of joy? Surely a painted canvas could not alter?\r\nThe thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day.\r\nIt would make him smile.\r\n\r\nAnd, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! First in\r\nthe dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of\r\ncruelty round the warped lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the\r\nroom. He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the\r\nportrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes\r\nhad been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to\r\ntell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, he called him\r\nback. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian looked at him for\r\na moment. \"I am not at home to any one, Victor,\" he said with a sigh.\r\nThe man bowed and retired.\r\n\r\nThen he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on\r\na luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen. The screen\r\nwas an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a\r\nrather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He scanned it curiously,\r\nwondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life.\r\n\r\nShould he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What\r\nwas the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If it\r\nwas not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or\r\ndeadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible\r\nchange? What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at\r\nhis own picture? Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to\r\nbe examined, and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful\r\nstate of doubt.\r\n\r\nHe got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he\r\nlooked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and\r\nsaw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had\r\naltered.\r\n\r\nAs he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he\r\nfound himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost\r\nscientific interest. That such a change should have taken place was\r\nincredible to him. And yet it was a fact. Was there some subtle\r\naffinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form\r\nand colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him? Could it be\r\nthat what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they\r\nmade true? Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He\r\nshuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there,\r\ngazing at the picture in sickened horror.\r\n\r\nOne thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him\r\nconscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It was not\r\ntoo late to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife.\r\nHis unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would\r\nbe transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil\r\nHallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would\r\nbe to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the\r\nfear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that\r\ncould lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of\r\nthe degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men\r\nbrought upon their souls.\r\n\r\nThree o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double\r\nchime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the\r\nscarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his\r\nway through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was\r\nwandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he\r\nwent over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had\r\nloved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He\r\ncovered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of\r\npain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we\r\nfeel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession,\r\nnot the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the\r\nletter, he felt that he had been forgiven.\r\n\r\nSuddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's\r\nvoice outside. \"My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I\r\ncan't bear your shutting yourself up like this.\"\r\n\r\nHe made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking\r\nstill continued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry\r\nin, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel\r\nwith him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was\r\ninevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture,\r\nand unlocked the door.\r\n\r\n\"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry as he entered.\r\n\"But you must not think too much about it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?\" asked the lad.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, of course,\" answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly\r\npulling off his yellow gloves. \"It is dreadful, from one point of\r\nview, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see\r\nher, after the play was over?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\"\r\n\r\n\"I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?\"\r\n\r\n\"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am\r\nnot sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know\r\nmyself better.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I\r\nwould find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of\r\nyours.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have got through all that,\" said Dorian, shaking his head and\r\nsmiling. \"I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to\r\nbegin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest\r\nthing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before\r\nme. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being\r\nhideous.\"\r\n\r\n\"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you\r\non it. But how are you going to begin?\"\r\n\r\n\"By marrying Sibyl Vane.\"\r\n\r\n\"Marrying Sibyl Vane!\" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him\r\nin perplexed amazement. \"But, my dear Dorian--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful\r\nabout marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that kind to\r\nme again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to\r\nbreak my word to her. She is to be my wife.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your wife! Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter? I wrote to you this\r\nmorning, and sent the note down by my own man.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I\r\nwas afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like. You\r\ncut life to pieces with your epigrams.\"\r\n\r\n\"You know nothing then?\"\r\n\r\n\"What do you mean?\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,\r\ntook both his hands in his own and held them tightly. \"Dorian,\" he\r\nsaid, \"my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane\r\nis dead.\"\r\n\r\nA cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,\r\ntearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. \"Dead! Sibyl dead!\r\nIt is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?\"\r\n\r\n\"It is quite true, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, gravely. \"It is in all\r\nthe morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one\r\ntill I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must\r\nnot be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in\r\nParis. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never\r\nmake one's debut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an\r\ninterest to one's old age. I suppose they don't know your name at the\r\ntheatre? If they don't, it is all right. Did any one see you going\r\nround to her room? That is an important point.\"\r\n\r\nDorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror.\r\nFinally he stammered, in a stifled voice, \"Harry, did you say an\r\ninquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't\r\nbear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put\r\nin that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the\r\ntheatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had\r\nforgotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she\r\ndid not come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the\r\nfloor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,\r\nsome dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what it was,\r\nbut it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it\r\nwas prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!\" cried the lad.\r\n\r\n\"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed\r\nup in it. I see by The Standard that she was seventeen. I should have\r\nthought she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and\r\nseemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn't let this\r\nthing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and\r\nafterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and\r\neverybody will be there. You can come to my sister's box. She has got\r\nsome smart women with her.\"\r\n\r\n\"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,\" said Dorian Gray, half to himself,\r\n\"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.\r\nYet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as\r\nhappily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go\r\non to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How\r\nextraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book,\r\nHarry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has\r\nhappened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears.\r\nHere is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my\r\nlife. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been\r\naddressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent\r\npeople we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen?\r\nOh, Harry, how I loved her once! It seems years ago to me now. She\r\nwas everything to me. Then came that dreadful night--was it really\r\nonly last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke.\r\nShe explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not\r\nmoved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happened that\r\nmade me afraid. I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I\r\nsaid I would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is\r\ndead. My God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? You don't know the\r\ndanger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would\r\nhave done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was\r\nselfish of her.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case\r\nand producing a gold-latten matchbox, \"the only way a woman can ever\r\nreform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible\r\ninterest in life. If you had married this girl, you would have been\r\nwretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can\r\nalways be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would\r\nhave soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And\r\nwhen a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes\r\ndreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's\r\nhusband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which\r\nwould have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but\r\nI assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an\r\nabsolute failure.\"\r\n\r\n\"I suppose it would,\" muttered the lad, walking up and down the room\r\nand looking horribly pale. \"But I thought it was my duty. It is not\r\nmy fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was\r\nright. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good\r\nresolutions--that they are always made too late. Mine certainly were.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific\r\nlaws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil.\r\nThey give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions\r\nthat have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said\r\nfor them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they\r\nhave no account.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry,\" cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,\r\n\"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I\r\ndon't think I am heartless. Do you?\"\r\n\r\n\"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be\r\nentitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry with\r\nhis sweet melancholy smile.\r\n\r\nThe lad frowned. \"I don't like that explanation, Harry,\" he rejoined,\r\n\"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the\r\nkind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has\r\nhappened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply\r\nlike a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible\r\nbeauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but\r\nby which I have not been wounded.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is an interesting question,\" said Lord Henry, who found an\r\nexquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, \"an\r\nextremely interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is\r\nthis: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such\r\nan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their\r\nabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack\r\nof style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us\r\nan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.\r\nSometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of\r\nbeauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the\r\nwhole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly\r\nwe find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the\r\nplay. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder\r\nof the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that\r\nhas really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I\r\nwish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in\r\nlove with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored\r\nme--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have\r\nalways insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them,\r\nor they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I\r\nmeet them, they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of\r\nwoman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual\r\nstagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one\r\nshould never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.\"\r\n\r\n\"I must sow poppies in my garden,\" sighed Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"There is no necessity,\" rejoined his companion. \"Life has always\r\npoppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once\r\nwore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic\r\nmourning for a romance that would not die. Ultimately, however, it did\r\ndie. I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to\r\nsacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment.\r\nIt fills one with the terror of eternity. Well--would you believe\r\nit?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner\r\nnext the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole\r\nthing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had\r\nburied my romance in a bed of asphodel. She dragged it out again and\r\nassured me that I had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she\r\nate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety. But what a lack\r\nof taste she showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past.\r\nBut women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a\r\nsixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over,\r\nthey propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every\r\ncomedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in\r\na farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of\r\nart. You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not\r\none of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane\r\ndid for you. Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them\r\ndo it by going in for sentimental colours. Never trust a woman who\r\nwears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who\r\nis fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history.\r\nOthers find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good\r\nqualities of their husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicity in\r\none's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins. Religion\r\nconsoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a\r\nwoman once told me, and I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing\r\nmakes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes\r\negotists of us all. Yes; there is really no end to the consolations\r\nthat women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most\r\nimportant one.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is that, Harry?\" said the lad listlessly.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when one\r\nloses one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But\r\nreally, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the\r\nwomen one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her\r\ndeath. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.\r\nThey make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with,\r\nsuch as romance, passion, and love.\"\r\n\r\n\"I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more\r\nthan anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We\r\nhave emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their\r\nmasters, all the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were\r\nsplendid. I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can\r\nfancy how delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to\r\nme the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely\r\nfanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key\r\nto everything.\"\r\n\r\n\"What was that, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of\r\nromance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that\r\nif she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.\"\r\n\r\n\"She will never come to life again now,\" muttered the lad, burying his\r\nface in his hands.\r\n\r\n\"No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But\r\nyou must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply\r\nas a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful\r\nscene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really\r\nlived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was\r\nalways a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and\r\nleft them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's\r\nmusic sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched\r\nactual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away.\r\nMourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because\r\nCordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of\r\nBrabantio died. But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was\r\nless real than they are.\"\r\n\r\nThere was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly,\r\nand with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The\r\ncolours faded wearily out of things.\r\n\r\nAfter some time Dorian Gray looked up. \"You have explained me to\r\nmyself, Harry,\" he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. \"I\r\nfelt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I\r\ncould not express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will not\r\ntalk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience.\r\nThat is all. I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as\r\nmarvellous.\"\r\n\r\n\"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that\r\nyou, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.\"\r\n\r\n\"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What\r\nthen?\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, then,\" said Lord Henry, rising to go, \"then, my dear Dorian, you\r\nwould have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to\r\nyou. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads\r\ntoo much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We\r\ncannot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the\r\nclub. We are rather late, as it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat\r\nanything. What is the number of your sister's box?\"\r\n\r\n\"Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her\r\nname on the door. But I am sorry you won't come and dine.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't feel up to it,\" said Dorian listlessly. \"But I am awfully\r\nobliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my\r\nbest friend. No one has ever understood me as you have.\"\r\n\r\n\"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian,\" answered Lord\r\nHenry, shaking him by the hand. \"Good-bye. I shall see you before\r\nnine-thirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing.\"\r\n\r\nAs he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in\r\na few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.\r\nHe waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an\r\ninterminable time over everything.\r\n\r\nAs soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No;\r\nthere was no further change in the picture. It had received the news\r\nof Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. It was\r\nconscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty\r\nthat marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the\r\nvery moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or\r\nwas it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what\r\npassed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would\r\nsee the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he\r\nhoped it.\r\n\r\nPoor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked\r\ndeath on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken her\r\nwith him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? Had she cursed\r\nhim, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would\r\nalways be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the\r\nsacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of\r\nwhat she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the\r\ntheatre. When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic\r\nfigure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of\r\nlove. A wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he\r\nremembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy\r\ntremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the\r\npicture.\r\n\r\nHe felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had\r\nhis choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for\r\nhim--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth,\r\ninfinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder\r\nsins--he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the\r\nburden of his shame: that was all.\r\n\r\nA feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that\r\nwas in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery\r\nof Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips\r\nthat now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat\r\nbefore the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as\r\nit seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to\r\nwhich he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to\r\nbe hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that\r\nhad so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair?\r\nThe pity of it! the pity of it!\r\n\r\nFor a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that\r\nexisted between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in\r\nanswer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain\r\nunchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would\r\nsurrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that\r\nchance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?\r\nBesides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer\r\nthat had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious\r\nscientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence\r\nupon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon\r\ndead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire,\r\nmight not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods\r\nand passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?\r\nBut the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a\r\nprayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to\r\nalter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?\r\n\r\nFor there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to\r\nfollow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him\r\nthe most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body,\r\nso it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it,\r\nhe would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of\r\nsummer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid\r\nmask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.\r\nNot one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of\r\nhis life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be\r\nstrong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the\r\ncoloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything.\r\n\r\nHe drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,\r\nsmiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was\r\nalready waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord\r\nHenry was leaning over his chair.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 9\r\n\r\nAs he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown\r\ninto the room.\r\n\r\n\"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,\" he said gravely. \"I called\r\nlast night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew\r\nthat was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really\r\ngone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy\r\nmight be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for\r\nme when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late\r\nedition of The Globe that I picked up at the club. I came here at once\r\nand was miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how\r\nheart-broken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer.\r\nBut where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother? For a\r\nmoment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the\r\npaper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? But I was afraid of\r\nintruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a\r\nstate she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about\r\nit all?\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Basil, how do I know?\" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some\r\npale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass\r\nand looking dreadfully bored. \"I was at the opera. You should have\r\ncome on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first\r\ntime. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang\r\ndivinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about\r\na thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry\r\nsays, that gives reality to things. I may mention that she was not the\r\nwoman's only child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But\r\nhe is not on the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell\r\nme about yourself and what you are painting.\"\r\n\r\n\"You went to the opera?\" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a\r\nstrained touch of pain in his voice. \"You went to the opera while\r\nSibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me\r\nof other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before\r\nthe girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why,\r\nman, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!\" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.\r\n\"You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is\r\npast is past.\"\r\n\r\n\"You call yesterday the past?\"\r\n\r\n\"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only\r\nshallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who\r\nis master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a\r\npleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to\r\nuse them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You\r\nlook exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come\r\ndown to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple,\r\nnatural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature\r\nin the whole world. Now, I don't know what has come over you. You\r\ntalk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's\r\ninfluence. I see that.\"\r\n\r\nThe lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few\r\nmoments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. \"I owe a great\r\ndeal to Harry, Basil,\" he said at last, \"more than I owe to you. You\r\nonly taught me to be vain.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know what you mean, Basil,\" he exclaimed, turning round. \"I\r\ndon't know what you want. What do you want?\"\r\n\r\n\"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,\" said the artist sadly.\r\n\r\n\"Basil,\" said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his\r\nshoulder, \"you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl\r\nVane had killed herself--\"\r\n\r\n\"Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?\" cried\r\nHallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.\r\n\r\n\"My dear Basil! Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident? Of\r\ncourse she killed herself.\"\r\n\r\nThe elder man buried his face in his hands. \"How fearful,\" he\r\nmuttered, and a shudder ran through him.\r\n\r\n\"No,\" said Dorian Gray, \"there is nothing fearful about it. It is one\r\nof the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act\r\nlead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful\r\nwives, or something tedious. You know what I mean--middle-class virtue\r\nand all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her\r\nfinest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she\r\nplayed--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known\r\nthe reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet\r\nmight have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is\r\nsomething of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic\r\nuselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying,\r\nyou must not think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday\r\nat a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to\r\nsix--you would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who\r\nbrought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I\r\nsuffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion.\r\nNo one can, except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil.\r\nYou come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find\r\nme consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You\r\nremind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who\r\nspent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance\r\nredressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was.\r\nFinally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He\r\nhad absolutely nothing to do, almost died of ennui, and became a\r\nconfirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really\r\nwant to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to\r\nsee it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who\r\nused to write about la consolation des arts? I remember picking up a\r\nlittle vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that\r\ndelightful phrase. Well, I am not like that young man you told me of\r\nwhen we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say\r\nthat yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. I\r\nlove beautiful things that one can touch and handle. Old brocades,\r\ngreen bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings,\r\nluxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these. But the artistic\r\ntemperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to\r\nme. To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to\r\nescape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking\r\nto you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a\r\nschoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new\r\nthoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I\r\nam changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very\r\nfond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not\r\nstronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better. And how\r\nhappy we used to be together! Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel\r\nwith me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said.\"\r\n\r\nThe painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him,\r\nand his personality had been the great turning point in his art. He\r\ncould not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his\r\nindifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There\r\nwas so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.\r\n\r\n\"Well, Dorian,\" he said at length, with a sad smile, \"I won't speak to\r\nyou again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your\r\nname won't be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take\r\nplace this afternoon. Have they summoned you?\"\r\n\r\nDorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at\r\nthe mention of the word \"inquest.\" There was something so crude and\r\nvulgar about everything of the kind. \"They don't know my name,\" he\r\nanswered.\r\n\r\n\"But surely she did?\"\r\n\r\n\"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned\r\nto any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to\r\nlearn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince\r\nCharming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,\r\nBasil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of\r\na few kisses and some broken pathetic words.\"\r\n\r\n\"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you\r\nmust come and sit to me yourself again. I can't get on without you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!\" he exclaimed,\r\nstarting back.\r\n\r\nThe painter stared at him. \"My dear boy, what nonsense!\" he cried.\r\n\"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it?\r\nWhy have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It\r\nis the best thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian.\r\nIt is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I\r\nfelt the room looked different as I came in.\"\r\n\r\n\"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let\r\nhim arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me\r\nsometimes--that is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong\r\non the portrait.\"\r\n\r\n\"Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for\r\nit. Let me see it.\" And Hallward walked towards the corner of the\r\nroom.\r\n\r\nA cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between\r\nthe painter and the screen. \"Basil,\" he said, looking very pale, \"you\r\nmust not look at it. I don't wish you to.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look\r\nat it?\" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.\r\n\r\n\"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never\r\nspeak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't\r\noffer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember,\r\nif you touch this screen, everything is over between us.\"\r\n\r\nHallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute\r\namazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was\r\nactually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of\r\nhis eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.\r\n\r\n\"Dorian!\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't speak!\"\r\n\r\n\"But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't\r\nwant me to,\" he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over\r\ntowards the window. \"But, really, it seems rather absurd that I\r\nshouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in\r\nParis in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of\r\nvarnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?\"\r\n\r\n\"To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?\" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a\r\nstrange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be\r\nshown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?\r\nThat was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done\r\nat once.\r\n\r\n\"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going\r\nto collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de\r\nSeze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will\r\nonly be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for\r\nthat time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep\r\nit always behind a screen, you can't care much about it.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of\r\nperspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible\r\ndanger. \"You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,\" he\r\ncried. \"Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for\r\nbeing consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only\r\ndifference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have\r\nforgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world\r\nwould induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly\r\nthe same thing.\" He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into\r\nhis eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half\r\nseriously and half in jest, \"If you want to have a strange quarter of\r\nan hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture. He\r\ntold me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me.\" Yes, perhaps\r\nBasil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try.\r\n\r\n\"Basil,\" he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in\r\nthe face, \"we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall\r\ntell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my\r\npicture?\"\r\n\r\nThe painter shuddered in spite of himself. \"Dorian, if I told you, you\r\nmight like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I\r\ncould not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me\r\nnever to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you\r\nto look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden\r\nfrom the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than\r\nany fame or reputation.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, Basil, you must tell me,\" insisted Dorian Gray. \"I think I have a\r\nright to know.\" His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity\r\nhad taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's\r\nmystery.\r\n\r\n\"Let us sit down, Dorian,\" said the painter, looking troubled. \"Let us\r\nsit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the\r\npicture something curious?--something that probably at first did not\r\nstrike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?\"\r\n\r\n\"Basil!\" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling\r\nhands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.\r\n\r\n\"I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say.\r\nDorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most\r\nextraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and\r\npower, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen\r\nideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I\r\nworshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I\r\nwanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with\r\nyou. When you were away from me, you were still present in my art....\r\nOf course, I never let you know anything about this. It would have\r\nbeen impossible. You would not have understood it. I hardly\r\nunderstood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to\r\nface, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too\r\nwonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril\r\nof losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them.... Weeks and\r\nweeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you. Then came a\r\nnew development. I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as\r\nAdonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with\r\nheavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing\r\nacross the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of\r\nsome Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of\r\nyour own face. And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,\r\nideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I\r\ndetermined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,\r\nnot in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own\r\ntime. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of\r\nyour own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or\r\nveil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake\r\nand film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid\r\nthat others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told\r\ntoo much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that\r\nI resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a\r\nlittle annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.\r\nHarry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind\r\nthat. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt\r\nthat I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,\r\nand as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its\r\npresence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I\r\nhad seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking\r\nand that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a\r\nmistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really\r\nshown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we\r\nfancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It\r\noften seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than\r\nit ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I\r\ndetermined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.\r\nIt never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were\r\nright. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me,\r\nDorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are\r\nmade to be worshipped.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks,\r\nand a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe\r\nfor the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the\r\npainter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered\r\nif he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a\r\nfriend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that\r\nwas all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of.\r\nWould there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange\r\nidolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store?\r\n\r\n\"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"that you should\r\nhave seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?\"\r\n\r\n\"I saw something in it,\" he answered, \"something that seemed to me very\r\ncurious.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?\"\r\n\r\nDorian shook his head. \"You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not\r\npossibly let you stand in front of that picture.\"\r\n\r\n\"You will some day, surely?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been\r\nthe one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I\r\nhave done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost\r\nme to tell you all that I have told you.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Basil,\" said Dorian, \"what have you told me? Simply that you\r\nfelt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment.\"\r\n\r\n\"It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I\r\nhave made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one\r\nshould never put one's worship into words.\"\r\n\r\n\"It was a very disappointing confession.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the\r\npicture, did you? There was nothing else to see?\"\r\n\r\n\"No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't\r\ntalk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and\r\nwe must always remain so.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have got Harry,\" said the painter sadly.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Harry!\" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. \"Harry spends\r\nhis days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is\r\nimprobable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I\r\ndon't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner\r\ngo to you, Basil.\"\r\n\r\n\"You will sit to me again?\"\r\n\r\n\"Impossible!\"\r\n\r\n\"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes\r\nacross two ideal things. Few come across one.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.\r\nThere is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own.\r\nI will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,\" murmured Hallward regretfully. \"And\r\nnow good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once\r\nagain. But that can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel\r\nabout it.\"\r\n\r\nAs he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How\r\nlittle he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that,\r\ninstead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had\r\nsucceeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How\r\nmuch that strange confession explained to him! The painter's absurd\r\nfits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his\r\ncurious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.\r\nThere seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured\r\nby romance.\r\n\r\nHe sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at\r\nall costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had\r\nbeen mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour,\r\nin a room to which any of his friends had access.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 10\r\n\r\nWhen his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if\r\nhe had thought of peering behind the screen. The man was quite\r\nimpassive and waited for his orders. Dorian lit a cigarette and walked\r\nover to the glass and glanced into it. He could see the reflection of\r\nVictor's face perfectly. It was like a placid mask of servility.\r\nThere was nothing to be afraid of, there. Yet he thought it best to be\r\non his guard.\r\n\r\nSpeaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he\r\nwanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to\r\nsend two of his men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man\r\nleft the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen. Or was\r\nthat merely his own fancy?\r\n\r\nAfter a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread\r\nmittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library. He\r\nasked her for the key of the schoolroom.\r\n\r\n\"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?\" she exclaimed. \"Why, it is full of\r\ndust. I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it.\r\nIt is not fit for you to see, sir. It is not, indeed.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it\r\nhasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died.\"\r\n\r\nHe winced at the mention of his grandfather. He had hateful memories\r\nof him. \"That does not matter,\" he answered. \"I simply want to see\r\nthe place--that is all. Give me the key.\"\r\n\r\n\"And here is the key, sir,\" said the old lady, going over the contents\r\nof her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. \"Here is the key. I'll\r\nhave it off the bunch in a moment. But you don't think of living up\r\nthere, sir, and you so comfortable here?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, no,\" he cried petulantly. \"Thank you, Leaf. That will do.\"\r\n\r\nShe lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of\r\nthe household. He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought\r\nbest. She left the room, wreathed in smiles.\r\n\r\nAs the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round\r\nthe room. His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily\r\nembroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century\r\nVenetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.\r\nYes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps\r\nserved often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that\r\nhad a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death\r\nitself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die.\r\nWhat the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image\r\non the canvas. They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace. They\r\nwould defile it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still\r\nlive on. It would be always alive.\r\n\r\nHe shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil\r\nthe true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away. Basil\r\nwould have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still\r\nmore poisonous influences that came from his own temperament. The love\r\nthat he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was\r\nnot noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration\r\nof beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses\r\ntire. It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and\r\nWinckelmann, and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him.\r\nBut it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated.\r\nRegret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was\r\ninevitable. There were passions in him that would find their terrible\r\noutlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.\r\n\r\nHe took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that\r\ncovered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.\r\nWas the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him that it\r\nwas unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified. Gold hair,\r\nblue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there. It was simply the\r\nexpression that had altered. That was horrible in its cruelty.\r\nCompared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's\r\nreproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little\r\naccount! His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and\r\ncalling him to judgement. A look of pain came across him, and he flung\r\nthe rich pall over the picture. As he did so, a knock came to the\r\ndoor. He passed out as his servant entered.\r\n\r\n\"The persons are here, Monsieur.\"\r\n\r\nHe felt that the man must be got rid of at once. He must not be\r\nallowed to know where the picture was being taken to. There was\r\nsomething sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes.\r\nSitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry,\r\nasking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that\r\nthey were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening.\r\n\r\n\"Wait for an answer,\" he said, handing it to him, \"and show the men in\r\nhere.\"\r\n\r\nIn two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard\r\nhimself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in\r\nwith a somewhat rough-looking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a\r\nflorid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was\r\nconsiderably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the\r\nartists who dealt with him. As a rule, he never left his shop. He\r\nwaited for people to come to him. But he always made an exception in\r\nfavour of Dorian Gray. There was something about Dorian that charmed\r\neverybody. It was a pleasure even to see him.\r\n\r\n\"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?\" he said, rubbing his fat freckled\r\nhands. \"I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in\r\nperson. I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir. Picked it up at a\r\nsale. Old Florentine. Came from Fonthill, I believe. Admirably\r\nsuited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.\r\nHubbard. I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I\r\ndon't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a\r\npicture carried to the top of the house for me. It is rather heavy, so\r\nI thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men.\"\r\n\r\n\"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray. I am delighted to be of any service to\r\nyou. Which is the work of art, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"This,\" replied Dorian, moving the screen back. \"Can you move it,\r\ncovering and all, just as it is? I don't want it to get scratched\r\ngoing upstairs.\"\r\n\r\n\"There will be no difficulty, sir,\" said the genial frame-maker,\r\nbeginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from\r\nthe long brass chains by which it was suspended. \"And, now, where\r\nshall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?\"\r\n\r\n\"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me.\r\nOr perhaps you had better go in front. I am afraid it is right at the\r\ntop of the house. We will go up by the front staircase, as it is\r\nwider.\"\r\n\r\nHe held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and\r\nbegan the ascent. The elaborate character of the frame had made the\r\npicture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious\r\nprotests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike\r\nof seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it\r\nso as to help them.\r\n\r\n\"Something of a load to carry, sir,\" gasped the little man when they\r\nreached the top landing. And he wiped his shiny forehead.\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid it is rather heavy,\" murmured Dorian as he unlocked the\r\ndoor that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious\r\nsecret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.\r\n\r\nHe had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed,\r\nsince he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then\r\nas a study when he grew somewhat older. It was a large,\r\nwell-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord\r\nKelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness\r\nto his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and\r\ndesired to keep at a distance. It appeared to Dorian to have but\r\nlittle changed. There was the huge Italian cassone, with its\r\nfantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which\r\nhe had so often hidden himself as a boy. There the satinwood book-case\r\nfilled with his dog-eared schoolbooks. On the wall behind it was\r\nhanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen\r\nwere playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by,\r\ncarrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists. How well he\r\nremembered it all! Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to\r\nhim as he looked round. He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish\r\nlife, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait\r\nwas to be hidden away. How little he had thought, in those dead days,\r\nof all that was in store for him!\r\n\r\nBut there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as\r\nthis. He had the key, and no one else could enter it. Beneath its\r\npurple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,\r\nand unclean. What did it matter? No one could see it. He himself\r\nwould not see it. Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his\r\nsoul? He kept his youth--that was enough. And, besides, might not\r\nhis nature grow finer, after all? There was no reason that the future\r\nshould be so full of shame. Some love might come across his life, and\r\npurify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already\r\nstirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose\r\nvery mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm. Perhaps, some\r\nday, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive\r\nmouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece.\r\n\r\nNo; that was impossible. Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing\r\nupon the canvas was growing old. It might escape the hideousness of\r\nsin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it. The cheeks would\r\nbecome hollow or flaccid. Yellow crow's feet would creep round the\r\nfading eyes and make them horrible. The hair would lose its\r\nbrightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross,\r\nas the mouths of old men are. There would be the wrinkled throat, the\r\ncold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the\r\ngrandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood. The picture\r\nhad to be concealed. There was no help for it.\r\n\r\n\"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please,\" he said, wearily, turning round.\r\n\"I am sorry I kept you so long. I was thinking of something else.\"\r\n\r\n\"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray,\" answered the frame-maker, who\r\nwas still gasping for breath. \"Where shall we put it, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, anywhere. Here: this will do. I don't want to have it hung up.\r\nJust lean it against the wall. Thanks.\"\r\n\r\n\"Might one look at the work of art, sir?\"\r\n\r\nDorian started. \"It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard,\" he said,\r\nkeeping his eye on the man. He felt ready to leap upon him and fling\r\nhim to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that\r\nconcealed the secret of his life. \"I shan't trouble you any more now.\r\nI am much obliged for your kindness in coming round.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray. Ever ready to do anything for you,\r\nsir.\" And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,\r\nwho glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough\r\nuncomely face. He had never seen any one so marvellous.\r\n\r\nWhen the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door\r\nand put the key in his pocket. He felt safe now. No one would ever\r\nlook upon the horrible thing. No eye but his would ever see his shame.\r\n\r\nOn reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock\r\nand that the tea had been already brought up. On a little table of\r\ndark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady\r\nRadley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had\r\nspent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry,\r\nand beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn\r\nand the edges soiled. A copy of the third edition of The St. James's\r\nGazette had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had\r\nreturned. He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were\r\nleaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.\r\nHe would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already,\r\nwhile he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set\r\nback, and a blank space was visible on the wall. Perhaps some night he\r\nmight find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the\r\nroom. It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house. He had\r\nheard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some\r\nservant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked\r\nup a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower\r\nor a shred of crumpled lace.\r\n\r\nHe sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's\r\nnote. It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,\r\nand a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at\r\neight-fifteen. He opened The St. James's languidly, and looked through\r\nit. A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye. It drew\r\nattention to the following paragraph:\r\n\r\n\r\nINQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell\r\nTavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of\r\nSibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,\r\nHolborn. A verdict of death by misadventure was returned.\r\nConsiderable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who\r\nwas greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of\r\nDr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.\r\n\r\n\r\nHe frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and\r\nflung the pieces away. How ugly it all was! And how horribly real\r\nugliness made things! He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for\r\nhaving sent him the report. And it was certainly stupid of him to have\r\nmarked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it. The man knew\r\nmore than enough English for that.\r\n\r\nPerhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something. And, yet,\r\nwhat did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's\r\ndeath? There was nothing to fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her.\r\n\r\nHis eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was\r\nit, he wondered. He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal\r\nstand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange\r\nEgyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung\r\nhimself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves. After a\r\nfew minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had\r\never read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the\r\ndelicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb\r\nshow before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly\r\nmade real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually\r\nrevealed.\r\n\r\nIt was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,\r\nindeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who\r\nspent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the\r\npassions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his\r\nown, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through\r\nwhich the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere\r\nartificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,\r\nas much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. The\r\nstyle in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid\r\nand obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of technical\r\nexpressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work\r\nof some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes.\r\nThere were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in\r\ncolour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical\r\nphilosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the\r\nspiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions\r\nof a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of\r\nincense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The\r\nmere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so\r\nfull as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,\r\nproduced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,\r\na form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of\r\nthe falling day and creeping shadows.\r\n\r\nCloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed\r\nthrough the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no\r\nmore. Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the\r\nlateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed\r\nthe book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his\r\nbedside and began to dress for dinner.\r\n\r\nIt was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found\r\nLord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.\r\n\r\n\"I am so sorry, Harry,\" he cried, \"but really it is entirely your\r\nfault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the\r\ntime was going.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I thought you would like it,\" replied his host, rising from his\r\nchair.\r\n\r\n\"I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a\r\ngreat difference.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, you have discovered that?\" murmured Lord Henry. And they passed\r\ninto the dining-room.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 11\r\n\r\nFor years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of\r\nthis book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never\r\nsought to free himself from it. He procured from Paris no less than\r\nnine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in\r\ndifferent colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the\r\nchanging fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have\r\nalmost entirely lost control. The hero, the wonderful young Parisian\r\nin whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely\r\nblended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And,\r\nindeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own\r\nlife, written before he had lived it.\r\n\r\nIn one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero. He\r\nnever knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat\r\ngrotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still\r\nwater which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was\r\noccasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently,\r\nbeen so remarkable. It was with an almost cruel joy--and perhaps in\r\nnearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its\r\nplace--that he used to read the latter part of the book, with its\r\nreally tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and\r\ndespair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he\r\nhad most dearly valued.\r\n\r\nFor the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and\r\nmany others besides him, seemed never to leave him. Even those who had\r\nheard the most evil things against him--and from time to time strange\r\nrumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the\r\nchatter of the clubs--could not believe anything to his dishonour when\r\nthey saw him. He had always the look of one who had kept himself\r\nunspotted from the world. Men who talked grossly became silent when\r\nDorian Gray entered the room. There was something in the purity of his\r\nface that rebuked them. His mere presence seemed to recall to them the\r\nmemory of the innocence that they had tarnished. They wondered how one\r\nso charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an\r\nage that was at once sordid and sensual.\r\n\r\nOften, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged\r\nabsences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were\r\nhis friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep\r\nupstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left\r\nhim now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil\r\nHallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on\r\nthe canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him\r\nfrom the polished glass. The very sharpness of the contrast used to\r\nquicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his\r\nown beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.\r\nHe would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and\r\nterrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead\r\nor crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which\r\nwere the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would\r\nplace his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture,\r\nand smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.\r\n\r\nThere were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own\r\ndelicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little\r\nill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in\r\ndisguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he\r\nhad brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant\r\nbecause it was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare.\r\nThat curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as\r\nthey sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase\r\nwith gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He\r\nhad mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.\r\n\r\nYet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to\r\nsociety. Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each\r\nWednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the\r\nworld his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the\r\nday to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little\r\ndinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were\r\nnoted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited,\r\nas for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with\r\nits subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered\r\ncloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. Indeed, there were many,\r\nespecially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw,\r\nin Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often\r\ndreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of\r\nthe real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and\r\nperfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seemed to be of\r\nthe company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to \"make\r\nthemselves perfect by the worship of beauty.\" Like Gautier, he was one\r\nfor whom \"the visible world existed.\"\r\n\r\nAnd, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the\r\narts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation.\r\nFashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment\r\nuniversal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert\r\nthe absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for\r\nhim. His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to\r\ntime he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of\r\nthe Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in\r\neverything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of\r\nhis graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies.\r\n\r\nFor, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost\r\nimmediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a\r\nsubtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the\r\nLondon of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the\r\nSatyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be\r\nsomething more than a mere arbiter elegantiarum, to be consulted on the\r\nwearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a\r\ncane. He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have\r\nits reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the\r\nspiritualizing of the senses its highest realization.\r\n\r\nThe worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been\r\ndecried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and\r\nsensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are\r\nconscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence.\r\nBut it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had\r\nnever been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal\r\nmerely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or\r\nto kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a\r\nnew spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the\r\ndominant characteristic. As he looked back upon man moving through\r\nhistory, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been\r\nsurrendered! and to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful\r\nrejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose\r\norigin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more\r\nterrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance,\r\nthey had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out\r\nthe anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to\r\nthe hermit the beasts of the field as his companions.\r\n\r\nYes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism\r\nthat was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely\r\npuritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was\r\nto have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to\r\naccept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any\r\nmode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience\r\nitself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might\r\nbe. Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar\r\nprofligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to\r\nteach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is\r\nitself but a moment.\r\n\r\nThere are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either\r\nafter one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of\r\ndeath, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through\r\nthe chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality\r\nitself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques,\r\nand that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one\r\nmight fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled\r\nwith the malady of reverie. Gradually white fingers creep through the\r\ncurtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb\r\nshadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there. Outside,\r\nthere is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men\r\ngoing forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down\r\nfrom the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it\r\nfeared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from\r\nher purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by\r\ndegrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we\r\nwatch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan\r\nmirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand where we\r\nhad left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been\r\nstudying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the\r\nletter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often.\r\nNothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night\r\ncomes back the real life that we had known. We have to resume it where\r\nwe had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the\r\nnecessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of\r\nstereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids\r\nmight open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in\r\nthe darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh\r\nshapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in\r\nwhich the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate,\r\nin no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of\r\njoy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.\r\n\r\nIt was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray\r\nto be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; and in his\r\nsearch for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and\r\npossess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he\r\nwould often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really\r\nalien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and\r\nthen, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his\r\nintellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that\r\nis not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that,\r\nindeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition\r\nof it.\r\n\r\nIt was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman\r\nCatholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great\r\nattraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all\r\nthe sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb\r\nrejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity\r\nof its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it\r\nsought to symbolize. He loved to kneel down on the cold marble\r\npavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly\r\nand with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or\r\nraising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid\r\nwafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the \"panis\r\ncaelestis,\" the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the\r\nPassion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his\r\nbreast for his sins. The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their\r\nlace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their\r\nsubtle fascination for him. As he passed out, he used to look with\r\nwonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of\r\none of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn\r\ngrating the true story of their lives.\r\n\r\nBut he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual\r\ndevelopment by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of\r\nmistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable\r\nfor the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which\r\nthere are no stars and the moon is in travail. Mysticism, with its\r\nmarvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle\r\nantinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a\r\nseason; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of\r\nthe Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in\r\ntracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the\r\nbrain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of\r\nthe absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions,\r\nmorbid or healthy, normal or diseased. Yet, as has been said of him\r\nbefore, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance\r\ncompared with life itself. He felt keenly conscious of how barren all\r\nintellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment.\r\nHe knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual\r\nmysteries to reveal.\r\n\r\nAnd so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their\r\nmanufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums\r\nfrom the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not\r\nits counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their\r\ntrue relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one\r\nmystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets\r\nthat woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the\r\nbrain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often\r\nto elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several\r\ninfluences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers;\r\nof aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that\r\nsickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to\r\nbe able to expel melancholy from the soul.\r\n\r\nAt another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long\r\nlatticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of\r\nolive-green lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad\r\ngipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled\r\nTunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while\r\ngrinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching\r\nupon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of\r\nreed or brass and charmed--or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and\r\nhorrible horned adders. The harsh intervals and shrill discords of\r\nbarbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's\r\nbeautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell\r\nunheeded on his ear. He collected together from all parts of the world\r\nthe strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of\r\ndead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact\r\nwith Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them. He had\r\nthe mysterious juruparis of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not\r\nallowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been\r\nsubjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the\r\nPeruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human\r\nbones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green\r\njaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular\r\nsweetness. He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when\r\nthey were shaken; the long clarin of the Mexicans, into which the\r\nperformer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air; the\r\nharsh ture of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who\r\nsit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a\r\ndistance of three leagues; the teponaztli, that has two vibrating\r\ntongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an\r\nelastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the yotl-bells of\r\nthe Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge\r\ncylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the\r\none that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican\r\ntemple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a\r\ndescription. The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated\r\nhim, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like\r\nNature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous\r\nvoices. Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his\r\nbox at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt\r\npleasure to \"Tannhauser\" and seeing in the prelude to that great work\r\nof art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul.\r\n\r\nOn one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a\r\ncostume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered\r\nwith five hundred and sixty pearls. This taste enthralled him for\r\nyears, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him. He would often\r\nspend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various\r\nstones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that\r\nturns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver,\r\nthe pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes,\r\ncarbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red\r\ncinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their\r\nalternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the\r\nsunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow\r\nof the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of\r\nextraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise de la\r\nvieille roche that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.\r\n\r\nHe discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's\r\nClericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real\r\njacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of\r\nEmathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes \"with\r\ncollars of real emeralds growing on their backs.\" There was a gem in\r\nthe brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and \"by the exhibition\r\nof golden letters and a scarlet robe\" the monster could be thrown into\r\na magical sleep and slain. According to the great alchemist, Pierre de\r\nBoniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India\r\nmade him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth\r\nprovoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The\r\ngarnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her\r\ncolour. The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus,\r\nthat discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids.\r\nLeonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a\r\nnewly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The\r\nbezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm\r\nthat could cure the plague. In the nests of Arabian birds was the\r\naspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any\r\ndanger by fire.\r\n\r\nThe King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand,\r\nas the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John the\r\nPriest were \"made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake\r\ninwrought, so that no man might bring poison within.\" Over the gable\r\nwere \"two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles,\" so that the\r\ngold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night. In Lodge's\r\nstrange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the\r\nchamber of the queen one could behold \"all the chaste ladies of the\r\nworld, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of\r\nchrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults.\" Marco Polo\r\nhad seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the\r\nmouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that\r\nthe diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned\r\nfor seven moons over its loss. When the Huns lured the king into the\r\ngreat pit, he flung it away--Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever\r\nfound again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight\r\nof gold pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown to a certain\r\nVenetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god\r\nthat he worshipped.\r\n\r\nWhen the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of\r\nFrance, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome,\r\nand his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light.\r\nCharles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and\r\ntwenty-one diamonds. Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand\r\nmarks, which was covered with balas rubies. Hall described Henry VIII,\r\non his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing \"a\r\njacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other\r\nrich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses.\"\r\nThe favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold\r\nfiligrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour\r\nstudded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with\r\nturquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parseme with pearls. Henry II wore\r\njewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with\r\ntwelve rubies and fifty-two great orients. The ducal hat of Charles\r\nthe Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with\r\npear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.\r\n\r\nHow exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and\r\ndecoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.\r\n\r\nThen he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that\r\nperformed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern\r\nnations of Europe. As he investigated the subject--and he always had\r\nan extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment\r\nin whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the\r\nruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any\r\nrate, had escaped that. Summer followed summer, and the yellow\r\njonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the\r\nstory of their shame, but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face\r\nor stained his flowerlike bloom. How different it was with material\r\nthings! Where had they passed to? Where was the great crocus-coloured\r\nrobe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked\r\nby brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where the huge velarium\r\nthat Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail\r\nof purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a\r\nchariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the\r\ncurious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were\r\ndisplayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast;\r\nthe mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden\r\nbees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of\r\nPontus and were figured with \"lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests,\r\nrocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature\"; and\r\nthe coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which\r\nwere embroidered the verses of a song beginning \"Madame, je suis tout\r\njoyeux,\" the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold\r\nthread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four\r\npearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims\r\nfor the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with \"thirteen\r\nhundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the\r\nking's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings\r\nwere similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked\r\nin gold.\" Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of\r\nblack velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of\r\ndamask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver\r\nground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it\r\nstood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black\r\nvelvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides\r\nfifteen feet high in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of\r\nPoland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with\r\nverses from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully\r\nchased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. It\r\nhad been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of\r\nMohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy.\r\n\r\nAnd so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite\r\nspecimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting\r\nthe dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and\r\nstitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that\r\nfrom their transparency are known in the East as \"woven air,\" and\r\n\"running water,\" and \"evening dew\"; strange figured cloths from Java;\r\nelaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair\r\nblue silks and wrought with fleurs-de-lis, birds and images; veils of\r\nlacis worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish\r\nvelvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese Foukousas,\r\nwith their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds.\r\n\r\nHe had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed\r\nhe had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the\r\nlong cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had\r\nstored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the\r\nraiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and\r\nfine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by\r\nthe suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain.\r\nHe possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask,\r\nfigured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in\r\nsix-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the\r\npine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided\r\ninto panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the\r\ncoronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood.\r\nThis was Italian work of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of\r\ngreen velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves,\r\nfrom which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which\r\nwere picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. The morse\r\nbore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work. The orphreys were\r\nwoven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with\r\nmedallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian.\r\nHe had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold\r\nbrocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with\r\nrepresentations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and\r\nembroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of\r\nwhite satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins\r\nand fleurs-de-lis; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and\r\nmany corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to\r\nwhich such things were put, there was something that quickened his\r\nimagination.\r\n\r\nFor these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely\r\nhouse, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he\r\ncould escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times\r\nto be almost too great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely\r\nlocked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with\r\nhis own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him\r\nthe real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the\r\npurple-and-gold pall as a curtain. For weeks he would not go there,\r\nwould forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart,\r\nhis wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence.\r\nThen, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to\r\ndreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day,\r\nuntil he was driven away. On his return he would sit in front of the\r\npicture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other \r\ntimes, with that pride of individualism that is half the\r\nfascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen\r\nshadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own.\r\n\r\nAfter a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and\r\ngave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as\r\nwell as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more\r\nthan once spent the winter. He hated to be separated from the picture\r\nthat was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his\r\nabsence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the\r\nelaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door.\r\n\r\nHe was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true\r\nthat the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness\r\nof the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn\r\nfrom that? He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had\r\nnot painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it\r\nlooked? Even if he told them, would they believe it?\r\n\r\nYet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house in\r\nNottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank\r\nwho were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton\r\nluxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly\r\nleave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not\r\nbeen tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it\r\nshould be stolen? The mere thought made him cold with horror. Surely\r\nthe world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already\r\nsuspected it.\r\n\r\nFor, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.\r\nHe was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth\r\nand social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was\r\nsaid that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the\r\nsmoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another\r\ngentleman got up in a marked manner and went out. Curious stories\r\nbecame current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year. It\r\nwas rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a\r\nlow den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with\r\nthieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His\r\nextraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear\r\nagain in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass\r\nhim with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though\r\nthey were determined to discover his secret.\r\n\r\nOf such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice,\r\nand in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his\r\ncharming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth\r\nthat seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer\r\nto the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about\r\nhim. It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most\r\nintimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him. Women who had\r\nwildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and\r\nset convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or\r\nhorror if Dorian Gray entered the room.\r\n\r\nYet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his\r\nstrange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certain element of\r\nsecurity. Society--civilized society, at least--is never very ready to\r\nbelieve anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and\r\nfascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more\r\nimportance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability\r\nis of much less value than the possession of a good chef. And, after\r\nall, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has\r\ngiven one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private\r\nlife. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees, as\r\nLord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is\r\npossibly a good deal to be said for his view. For the canons of good\r\nsociety are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is\r\nabsolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony,\r\nas well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of\r\na romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful\r\nto us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is\r\nmerely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.\r\n\r\nSuch, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion. He used to wonder at the\r\nshallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing\r\nsimple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a\r\nbeing with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform\r\ncreature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and\r\npassion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies\r\nof the dead. He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery\r\nof his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose\r\nblood flowed in his veins. Here was Philip Herbert, described by\r\nFrancis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and\r\nKing James, as one who was \"caressed by the Court for his handsome\r\nface, which kept him not long company.\" Was it young Herbert's life\r\nthat he sometimes led? Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body\r\nto body till it had reached his own? Was it some dim sense of that\r\nruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause,\r\ngive utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had\r\nso changed his life? Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled\r\nsurcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard,\r\nwith his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet. What had this\r\nman's legacy been? Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him\r\nsome inheritance of sin and shame? Were his own actions merely the\r\ndreams that the dead man had not dared to realize? Here, from the\r\nfading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl\r\nstomacher, and pink slashed sleeves. A flower was in her right hand,\r\nand her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses. On\r\na table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple. There were large\r\ngreen rosettes upon her little pointed shoes. He knew her life, and\r\nthe strange stories that were told about her lovers. Had he something\r\nof her temperament in him? These oval, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to\r\nlook curiously at him. What of George Willoughby, with his powdered\r\nhair and fantastic patches? How evil he looked! The face was\r\nsaturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with\r\ndisdain. Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that\r\nwere so overladen with rings. He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth\r\ncentury, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars. What of the\r\nsecond Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his\r\nwildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs.\r\nFitzherbert? How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls\r\nand insolent pose! What passions had he bequeathed? The world had\r\nlooked upon him as infamous. He had led the orgies at Carlton House.\r\nThe star of the Garter glittered upon his breast. Beside him hung the\r\nportrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black. Her blood,\r\nalso, stirred within him. How curious it all seemed! And his mother\r\nwith her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, wine-dashed lips--he knew\r\nwhat he had got from her. He had got from her his beauty, and his\r\npassion for the beauty of others. She laughed at him in her loose\r\nBacchante dress. There were vine leaves in her hair. The purple\r\nspilled from the cup she was holding. The carnations of the painting\r\nhad withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and\r\nbrilliancy of colour. They seemed to follow him wherever he went.\r\n\r\nYet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race,\r\nnearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly\r\nwith an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious. There\r\nwere times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history\r\nwas merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act\r\nand circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it\r\nhad been in his brain and in his passions. He felt that he had known\r\nthem all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the\r\nstage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of\r\nsubtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had\r\nbeen his own.\r\n\r\nThe hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had\r\nhimself known this curious fancy. In the seventh chapter he tells how,\r\ncrowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as\r\nTiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of\r\nElephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the\r\nflute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had\r\ncaroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in\r\nan ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had\r\nwandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round\r\nwith haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his\r\ndays, and sick with that ennui, that terrible taedium vitae, that comes\r\non those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear\r\nemerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of\r\npearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the\r\nStreet of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero\r\nCaesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with\r\ncolours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon\r\nfrom Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun.\r\n\r\nOver and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the\r\ntwo chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious\r\ntapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and\r\nbeautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made\r\nmonstrous or mad: Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and\r\npainted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death\r\nfrom the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as\r\nPaul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of\r\nFormosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was\r\nbought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used\r\nhounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with\r\nroses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse,\r\nwith Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood\r\nof Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence,\r\nchild and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his\r\ndebauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white\r\nand crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy\r\nthat he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose\r\nmelancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a\r\npassion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the\r\nFiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when\r\ngambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery\r\ntook the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of\r\nthree lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the\r\nlover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome\r\nas the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and\r\ngave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a\r\nshameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles\r\nVI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned\r\nhim of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had\r\nsickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards\r\npainted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his\r\ntrimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto\r\nBaglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page,\r\nand whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow\r\npiazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep,\r\nand Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.\r\n\r\nThere was a horrible fascination in them all. He saw them at night,\r\nand they troubled his imagination in the day. The Renaissance knew of\r\nstrange manners of poisoning--poisoning by a helmet and a lighted\r\ntorch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander\r\nand by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There\r\nwere moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he\r\ncould realize his conception of the beautiful.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 12\r\n\r\nIt was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth\r\nbirthday, as he often remembered afterwards.\r\n\r\nHe was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he\r\nhad been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold\r\nand foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street,\r\na man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of\r\nhis grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. Dorian\r\nrecognized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for\r\nwhich he could not account, came over him. He made no sign of\r\nrecognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.\r\n\r\nBut Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping on the\r\npavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, his hand was\r\non his arm.\r\n\r\n\"Dorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for\r\nyou in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on\r\nyour tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am\r\noff to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see\r\nyou before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as\r\nyou passed me. But I wasn't quite sure. Didn't you recognize me?\"\r\n\r\n\"In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor\r\nSquare. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel\r\nat all certain about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not\r\nseen you for ages. But I suppose you will be back soon?\"\r\n\r\n\"No: I am going to be out of England for six months. I intend to take\r\na studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great\r\npicture I have in my head. However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to\r\ntalk. Here we are at your door. Let me come in for a moment. I have\r\nsomething to say to you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall be charmed. But won't you miss your train?\" said Dorian Gray\r\nlanguidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his\r\nlatch-key.\r\n\r\nThe lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his\r\nwatch. \"I have heaps of time,\" he answered. \"The train doesn't go\r\ntill twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my\r\nway to the club to look for you, when I met you. You see, I shan't\r\nhave any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I\r\nhave with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty\r\nminutes.\"\r\n\r\nDorian looked at him and smiled. \"What a way for a fashionable painter\r\nto travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! Come in, or the fog will\r\nget into the house. And mind you don't talk about anything serious.\r\nNothing is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be.\"\r\n\r\nHallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the\r\nlibrary. There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open\r\nhearth. The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case\r\nstood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on\r\na little marqueterie table.\r\n\r\n\"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me\r\neverything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes. He is\r\na most hospitable creature. I like him much better than the Frenchman\r\nyou used to have. What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?\"\r\n\r\nDorian shrugged his shoulders. \"I believe he married Lady Radley's\r\nmaid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker.\r\nAnglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly\r\nof the French, doesn't it? But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad\r\nservant. I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about. One\r\noften imagines things that are quite absurd. He was really very\r\ndevoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another\r\nbrandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take\r\nhock-and-seltzer myself. There is sure to be some in the next room.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thanks, I won't have anything more,\" said the painter, taking his cap\r\nand coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the\r\ncorner. \"And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.\r\nDon't frown like that. You make it so much more difficult for me.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is it all about?\" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging\r\nhimself down on the sofa. \"I hope it is not about myself. I am tired\r\nof myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is about yourself,\" answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, \"and\r\nI must say it to you. I shall only keep you half an hour.\"\r\n\r\nDorian sighed and lit a cigarette. \"Half an hour!\" he murmured.\r\n\r\n\"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own\r\nsake that I am speaking. I think it right that you should know that\r\nthe most dreadful things are being said against you in London.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't wish to know anything about them. I love scandals about other\r\npeople, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got\r\nthe charm of novelty.\"\r\n\r\n\"They must interest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is interested in his\r\ngood name. You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and\r\ndegraded. Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all\r\nthat kind of thing. But position and wealth are not everything. Mind\r\nyou, I don't believe these rumours at all. At least, I can't believe\r\nthem when I see you. Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's\r\nface. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices.\r\nThere are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows\r\nitself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the\r\nmoulding of his hands even. Somebody--I won't mention his name, but\r\nyou know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done. I had\r\nnever seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the\r\ntime, though I have heard a good deal since. He offered an extravagant\r\nprice. I refused him. There was something in the shape of his fingers\r\nthat I hated. I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied\r\nabout him. His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure,\r\nbright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't\r\nbelieve anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you\r\nnever come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I\r\nhear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I\r\ndon't know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of\r\nBerwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so\r\nmany gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to\r\ntheirs? You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley. I met him at dinner\r\nlast week. Your name happened to come up in conversation, in\r\nconnection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the\r\nDudley. Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most\r\nartistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl\r\nshould be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the\r\nsame room with. I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked\r\nhim what he meant. He told me. He told me right out before everybody.\r\nIt was horrible! Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? There\r\nwas that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide. You were\r\nhis great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England\r\nwith a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about Adrian\r\nSingleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kent's only son and\r\nhis career? I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street. He\r\nseemed broken with shame and sorrow. What about the young Duke of\r\nPerth? What sort of life has he got now? What gentleman would\r\nassociate with him?\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop, Basil. You are talking about things of which you know nothing,\"\r\nsaid Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt\r\nin his voice. \"You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it.\r\nIt is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows\r\nanything about mine. With such blood as he has in his veins, how could\r\nhis record be clean? You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth.\r\nDid I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery? If Kent's\r\nsilly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me? If\r\nAdrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his\r\nkeeper? I know how people chatter in England. The middle classes air\r\ntheir moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper\r\nabout what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try\r\nand pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with\r\nthe people they slander. In this country, it is enough for a man to\r\nhave distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him.\r\nAnd what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead\r\nthemselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land\r\nof the hypocrite.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dorian,\" cried Hallward, \"that is not the question. England is bad\r\nenough I know, and English society is all wrong. That is the reason\r\nwhy I want you to be fine. You have not been fine. One has a right to\r\njudge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to\r\nlose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity. You have filled them\r\nwith a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You\r\nled them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile, as\r\nyou are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry\r\nare inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should\r\nnot have made his sister's name a by-word.\"\r\n\r\n\"Take care, Basil. You go too far.\"\r\n\r\n\"I must speak, and you must listen. You shall listen. When you met\r\nLady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Is there\r\na single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the\r\npark? Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her. Then\r\nthere are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at\r\ndawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest\r\ndens in London. Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard\r\nthem, I laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. What\r\nabout your country-house and the life that is led there? Dorian, you\r\ndon't know what is said about you. I won't tell you that I don't want\r\nto preach to you. I remember Harry saying once that every man who\r\nturned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by\r\nsaying that, and then proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach\r\nto you. I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect\r\nyou. I want you to have a clean name and a fair record. I want you to\r\nget rid of the dreadful people you associate with. Don't shrug your\r\nshoulders like that. Don't be so indifferent. You have a wonderful\r\ninfluence. Let it be for good, not for evil. They say that you\r\ncorrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite\r\nsufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow\r\nafter. I don't know whether it is so or not. How should I know? But\r\nit is said of you. I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.\r\nLord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. He showed me\r\na letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in\r\nher villa at Mentone. Your name was implicated in the most terrible\r\nconfession I ever read. I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you\r\nthoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind. Know\r\nyou? I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should\r\nhave to see your soul.\"\r\n\r\n\"To see my soul!\" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and\r\nturning almost white from fear.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his\r\nvoice, \"to see your soul. But only God can do that.\"\r\n\r\nA bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. \"You\r\nshall see it yourself, to-night!\" he cried, seizing a lamp from the\r\ntable. \"Come: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at\r\nit? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.\r\nNobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me\r\nall the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you\r\nwill prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have\r\nchattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face to\r\nface.\"\r\n\r\nThere was the madness of pride in every word he uttered. He stamped\r\nhis foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner. He felt a\r\nterrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret,\r\nand that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of\r\nall his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the\r\nhideous memory of what he had done.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into\r\nhis stern eyes, \"I shall show you my soul. You shall see the thing\r\nthat you fancy only God can see.\"\r\n\r\nHallward started back. \"This is blasphemy, Dorian!\" he cried. \"You\r\nmust not say things like that. They are horrible, and they don't mean\r\nanything.\"\r\n\r\n\"You think so?\" He laughed again.\r\n\r\n\"I know so. As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your\r\ngood. You know I have been always a stanch friend to you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't touch me. Finish what you have to say.\"\r\n\r\nA twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face. He paused for\r\na moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what\r\nright had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a\r\ntithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered!\r\nThen he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and\r\nstood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and\r\ntheir throbbing cores of flame.\r\n\r\n\"I am waiting, Basil,\" said the young man in a hard clear voice.\r\n\r\nHe turned round. \"What I have to say is this,\" he cried. \"You must\r\ngive me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against\r\nyou. If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to\r\nend, I shall believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can't you see\r\nwhat I am going through? My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and\r\ncorrupt, and shameful.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of contempt in his lips. \"Come\r\nupstairs, Basil,\" he said quietly. \"I keep a diary of my life from day\r\nto day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. I shall\r\nshow it to you if you come with me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my\r\ntrain. That makes no matter. I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to\r\nread anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question.\"\r\n\r\n\"That shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You\r\nwill not have to read long.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 13\r\n\r\nHe passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward\r\nfollowing close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively at\r\nnight. The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase. A\r\nrising wind made some of the windows rattle.\r\n\r\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the\r\nfloor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock. \"You insist on\r\nknowing, Basil?\" he asked in a low voice.\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am delighted,\" he answered, smiling. Then he added, somewhat\r\nharshly, \"You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know\r\neverything about me. You have had more to do with my life than you\r\nthink\"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in. A\r\ncold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in\r\na flame of murky orange. He shuddered. \"Shut the door behind you,\" he\r\nwhispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.\r\n\r\nHallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression. The room looked\r\nas if it had not been lived in for years. A faded Flemish tapestry, a\r\ncurtained picture, an old Italian cassone, and an almost empty\r\nbook-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and\r\na table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was\r\nstanding on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered\r\nwith dust and that the carpet was in holes. A mouse ran scuffling\r\nbehind the wainscoting. There was a damp odour of mildew.\r\n\r\n\"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? Draw that\r\ncurtain back, and you will see mine.\"\r\n\r\nThe voice that spoke was cold and cruel. \"You are mad, Dorian, or\r\nplaying a part,\" muttered Hallward, frowning.\r\n\r\n\"You won't? Then I must do it myself,\" said the young man, and he tore\r\nthe curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.\r\n\r\nAn exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the\r\ndim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was\r\nsomething in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.\r\nGood heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at!\r\nThe horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that\r\nmarvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and\r\nsome scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something\r\nof the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet\r\ncompletely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat.\r\nYes, it was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to\r\nrecognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design. The\r\nidea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle,\r\nand held it to the picture. In the left-hand corner was his own name,\r\ntraced in long letters of bright vermilion.\r\n\r\nIt was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. He had never\r\ndone that. Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as\r\nif his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His\r\nown picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and\r\nlooked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched,\r\nand his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand\r\nacross his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat.\r\n\r\nThe young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with\r\nthat strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are\r\nabsorbed in a play when some great artist is acting. There was neither\r\nreal sorrow in it nor real joy. There was simply the passion of the\r\nspectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes. He had taken\r\nthe flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so.\r\n\r\n\"What does this mean?\" cried Hallward, at last. His own voice sounded\r\nshrill and curious in his ears.\r\n\r\n\"Years ago, when I was a boy,\" said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in\r\nhis hand, \"you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my\r\ngood looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who\r\nexplained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me\r\nthat revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment that, even\r\nnow, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you\r\nwould call it a prayer....\"\r\n\r\n\"I remember it! Oh, how well I remember it! No! the thing is\r\nimpossible. The room is damp. Mildew has got into the canvas. The\r\npaints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them. I tell you the\r\nthing is impossible.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, what is impossible?\" murmured the young man, going over to the\r\nwindow and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.\r\n\r\n\"You told me you had destroyed it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I was wrong. It has destroyed me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't believe it is my picture.\"\r\n\r\n\"Can't you see your ideal in it?\" said Dorian bitterly.\r\n\r\n\"My ideal, as you call it...\"\r\n\r\n\"As you called it.\"\r\n\r\n\"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such\r\nan ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is the face of my soul.\"\r\n\r\n\"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a\r\ndevil.\"\r\n\r\n\"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil,\" cried Dorian with a\r\nwild gesture of despair.\r\n\r\nHallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it. \"My God! If it\r\nis true,\" he exclaimed, \"and this is what you have done with your life,\r\nwhy, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you\r\nto be!\" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it. The\r\nsurface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it. It was\r\nfrom within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.\r\nThrough some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were\r\nslowly eating the thing away. The rotting of a corpse in a watery\r\ngrave was not so fearful.\r\n\r\nHis hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and\r\nlay there sputtering. He placed his foot on it and put it out. Then\r\nhe flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table\r\nand buried his face in his hands.\r\n\r\n\"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!\" There was no\r\nanswer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window. \"Pray,\r\nDorian, pray,\" he murmured. \"What is it that one was taught to say in\r\none's boyhood? 'Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins.\r\nWash away our iniquities.' Let us say that together. The prayer of\r\nyour pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be\r\nanswered also. I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You\r\nworshipped yourself too much. We are both punished.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed\r\neyes. \"It is too late, Basil,\" he faltered.\r\n\r\n\"It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we cannot\r\nremember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be\r\nas scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?\"\r\n\r\n\"Those words mean nothing to me now.\"\r\n\r\n\"Hush! Don't say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My\r\nGod! Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable\r\nfeeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had\r\nbeen suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his\r\near by those grinning lips. The mad passions of a hunted animal\r\nstirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table,\r\nmore than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything. He glanced\r\nwildly around. Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest\r\nthat faced him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a\r\nknife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord,\r\nand had forgotten to take away with him. He moved slowly towards it,\r\npassing Hallward as he did so. As soon as he got behind him, he seized\r\nit and turned round. Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going\r\nto rise. He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that\r\nis behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and\r\nstabbing again and again.\r\n\r\nThere was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking\r\nwith blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,\r\nwaving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him\r\ntwice more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on\r\nthe floor. He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then\r\nhe threw the knife on the table, and listened.\r\n\r\nHe could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. He\r\nopened the door and went out on the landing. The house was absolutely\r\nquiet. No one was about. For a few seconds he stood bending over the\r\nbalustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.\r\nThen he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in\r\nas he did so.\r\n\r\nThe thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with\r\nbowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been\r\nfor the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was\r\nslowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was\r\nsimply asleep.\r\n\r\nHow quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and walking\r\nover to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony. The wind\r\nhad blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's\r\ntail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and saw the\r\npoliceman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on\r\nthe doors of the silent houses. The crimson spot of a prowling hansom\r\ngleamed at the corner and then vanished. A woman in a fluttering shawl\r\nwas creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and\r\nthen she stopped and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse\r\nvoice. The policeman strolled over and said something to her. She\r\nstumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the square. The\r\ngas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their\r\nblack iron branches to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the\r\nwindow behind him.\r\n\r\nHaving reached the door, he turned the key and opened it. He did not\r\neven glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole\r\nthing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted the\r\nfatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his\r\nlife. That was enough.\r\n\r\nThen he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish\r\nworkmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished\r\nsteel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed\r\nby his servant, and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a\r\nmoment, then he turned back and took it from the table. He could not\r\nhelp seeing the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the\r\nlong hands looked! It was like a dreadful wax image.\r\n\r\nHaving locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs. The\r\nwoodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped\r\nseveral times and waited. No: everything was still. It was merely\r\nthe sound of his own footsteps.\r\n\r\nWhen he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.\r\nThey must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that\r\nwas in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious\r\ndisguises, and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards.\r\nThen he pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two.\r\n\r\nHe sat down and began to think. Every year--every month, almost--men\r\nwere strangled in England for what he had done. There had been a\r\nmadness of murder in the air. Some red star had come too close to the\r\nearth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him? Basil Hallward\r\nhad left the house at eleven. No one had seen him come in again. Most\r\nof the servants were at Selby Royal. His valet had gone to bed....\r\nParis! Yes. It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight\r\ntrain, as he had intended. With his curious reserved habits, it would\r\nbe months before any suspicions would be roused. Months! Everything\r\ncould be destroyed long before then.\r\n\r\nA sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat and went\r\nout into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of\r\nthe policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the\r\nbull's-eye reflected in the window. He waited and held his breath.\r\n\r\nAfter a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting\r\nthe door very gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. In\r\nabout five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very\r\ndrowsy.\r\n\r\n\"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis,\" he said, stepping in;\r\n\"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Ten minutes past two, sir,\" answered the man, looking at the clock and\r\nblinking.\r\n\r\n\"Ten minutes past two? How horribly late! You must wake me at nine\r\nto-morrow. I have some work to do.\"\r\n\r\n\"All right, sir.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did any one call this evening?\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Hallward, sir. He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away\r\nto catch his train.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! I am sorry I didn't see him. Did he leave any message?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not\r\nfind you at the club.\"\r\n\r\n\"That will do, Francis. Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, sir.\"\r\n\r\nThe man shambled down the passage in his slippers.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the\r\nlibrary. For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,\r\nbiting his lip and thinking. Then he took down the Blue Book from one\r\nof the shelves and began to turn over the leaves. \"Alan Campbell, 152,\r\nHertford Street, Mayfair.\" Yes; that was the man he wanted.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 14\r\n\r\nAt nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of\r\nchocolate on a tray and opened the shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite\r\npeacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his\r\ncheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.\r\n\r\nThe man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as\r\nhe opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he\r\nhad been lost in some delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at all.\r\nHis night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain.\r\nBut youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.\r\n\r\nHe turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his\r\nchocolate. The mellow November sun came streaming into the room. The\r\nsky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was\r\nalmost like a morning in May.\r\n\r\nGradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent,\r\nblood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there\r\nwith terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had\r\nsuffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for\r\nBasil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came\r\nback to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still\r\nsitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was!\r\nSuch hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.\r\n\r\nHe felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken\r\nor grow mad. There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory\r\nthan in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride\r\nmore than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of\r\njoy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the\r\nsenses. But this was not one of them. It was a thing to be driven out\r\nof the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might\r\nstrangle one itself.\r\n\r\nWhen the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and\r\nthen got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual\r\ncare, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and\r\nscarf-pin and changing his rings more than once. He spent a long time\r\nalso over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet\r\nabout some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the\r\nservants at Selby, and going through his correspondence. At some of\r\nthe letters, he smiled. Three of them bored him. One he read several\r\ntimes over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his\r\nface. \"That awful thing, a woman's memory!\" as Lord Henry had once\r\nsaid.\r\n\r\nAfter he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly\r\nwith a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the\r\ntable, sat down and wrote two letters. One he put in his pocket, the\r\nother he handed to the valet.\r\n\r\n\"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell\r\nis out of town, get his address.\"\r\n\r\nAs soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a\r\npiece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and\r\nthen human faces. Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew\r\nseemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward. He frowned, and\r\ngetting up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard.\r\nHe was determined that he would not think about what had happened until\r\nit became absolutely necessary that he should do so.\r\n\r\nWhen he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page\r\nof the book. It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's\r\nJapanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was\r\nof citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted\r\npomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton. As he\r\nturned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of\r\nLacenaire, the cold yellow hand \"du supplice encore mal lavee,\" with\r\nits downy red hairs and its \"doigts de faune.\" He glanced at his own\r\nwhite taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and\r\npassed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice:\r\n\r\n Sur une gamme chromatique,\r\n Le sein de peries ruisselant,\r\n La Venus de l'Adriatique\r\n Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.\r\n\r\n Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes\r\n Suivant la phrase au pur contour,\r\n S'enflent comme des gorges rondes\r\n Que souleve un soupir d'amour.\r\n\r\n L'esquif aborde et me depose,\r\n Jetant son amarre au pilier,\r\n Devant une facade rose,\r\n Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\r\n\r\n\r\nHow exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating\r\ndown the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black\r\ngondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked\r\nto him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as\r\none pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of colour reminded him\r\nof the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the\r\ntall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through\r\nthe dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he\r\nkept saying over and over to himself:\r\n\r\n \"Devant une facade rose,\r\n Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\"\r\n\r\nThe whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the autumn\r\nthat he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to\r\nmad delightful follies. There was romance in every place. But Venice,\r\nlike Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true\r\nromantic, background was everything, or almost everything. Basil had\r\nbeen with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor\r\nBasil! What a horrible way for a man to die!\r\n\r\nHe sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget. He read\r\nof the swallows that fly in and out of the little cafe at Smyrna where\r\nthe Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants\r\nsmoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he\r\nread of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of\r\ngranite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot,\r\nlotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and\r\nwhite vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes\r\nthat crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those\r\nverses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that\r\ncurious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the \"monstre\r\ncharmant\" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre. But after a\r\ntime the book fell from his hand. He grew nervous, and a horrible fit\r\nof terror came over him. What if Alan Campbell should be out of\r\nEngland? Days would elapse before he could come back. Perhaps he\r\nmight refuse to come. What could he do then? Every moment was of\r\nvital importance.\r\n\r\nThey had been great friends once, five years before--almost\r\ninseparable, indeed. Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end.\r\nWhen they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled: Alan\r\nCampbell never did.\r\n\r\nHe was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real\r\nappreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the\r\nbeauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian. His\r\ndominant intellectual passion was for science. At Cambridge he had\r\nspent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken\r\na good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year. Indeed, he was\r\nstill devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his\r\nown in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the\r\nannoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for\r\nParliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up\r\nprescriptions. He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and\r\nplayed both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs. In\r\nfact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray\r\ntogether--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to\r\nbe able to exercise whenever he wished--and, indeed, exercised often\r\nwithout being conscious of it. They had met at Lady Berkshire's the\r\nnight that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always\r\nseen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on. For\r\neighteen months their intimacy lasted. Campbell was always either at\r\nSelby Royal or in Grosvenor Square. To him, as to many others, Dorian\r\nGray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in\r\nlife. Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one\r\never knew. But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when\r\nthey met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any\r\nparty at which Dorian Gray was present. He had changed, too--was\r\nstrangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing\r\nmusic, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was\r\ncalled upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time\r\nleft in which to practise. And this was certainly true. Every day he\r\nseemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once\r\nor twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain\r\ncurious experiments.\r\n\r\nThis was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for. Every second he kept\r\nglancing at the clock. As the minutes went by he became horribly\r\nagitated. At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room,\r\nlooking like a beautiful caged thing. He took long stealthy strides.\r\nHis hands were curiously cold.\r\n\r\nThe suspense became unbearable. Time seemed to him to be crawling with\r\nfeet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the\r\njagged edge of some black cleft of precipice. He knew what was waiting\r\nfor him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands\r\nhis burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight\r\nand driven the eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. The\r\nbrain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made\r\ngrotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain,\r\ndanced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving\r\nmasks. Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes: that blind,\r\nslow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being\r\ndead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its\r\ngrave, and showed it to him. He stared at it. Its very horror made\r\nhim stone.\r\n\r\nAt last the door opened and his servant entered. He turned glazed eyes\r\nupon him.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Campbell, sir,\" said the man.\r\n\r\nA sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back\r\nto his cheeks.\r\n\r\n\"Ask him to come in at once, Francis.\" He felt that he was himself\r\nagain. His mood of cowardice had passed away.\r\n\r\nThe man bowed and retired. In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in,\r\nlooking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his\r\ncoal-black hair and dark eyebrows.\r\n\r\n\"Alan! This is kind of you. I thank you for coming.\"\r\n\r\n\"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray. But you said it\r\nwas a matter of life and death.\" His voice was hard and cold. He\r\nspoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of contempt in the\r\nsteady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian. He kept his hands in\r\nthe pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the\r\ngesture with which he had been greeted.\r\n\r\n\"Yes: it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one\r\nperson. Sit down.\"\r\n\r\nCampbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him.\r\nThe two men's eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite pity. He knew\r\nthat what he was going to do was dreadful.\r\n\r\nAfter a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very\r\nquietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he\r\nhad sent for, \"Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room\r\nto which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table.\r\nHe has been dead ten hours now. Don't stir, and don't look at me like\r\nthat. Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do\r\nnot concern you. What you have to do is this--\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop, Gray. I don't want to know anything further. Whether what you\r\nhave told me is true or not true doesn't concern me. I entirely\r\ndecline to be mixed up in your life. Keep your horrible secrets to\r\nyourself. They don't interest me any more.\"\r\n\r\n\"Alan, they will have to interest you. This one will have to interest\r\nyou. I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I can't help myself. You\r\nare the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to bring you into\r\nthe matter. I have no option. Alan, you are scientific. You know\r\nabout chemistry and things of that kind. You have made experiments.\r\nWhat you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--to\r\ndestroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left. Nobody saw this\r\nperson come into the house. Indeed, at the present moment he is\r\nsupposed to be in Paris. He will not be missed for months. When he is\r\nmissed, there must be no trace of him found here. You, Alan, you must\r\nchange him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes\r\nthat I may scatter in the air.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are mad, Dorian.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! I was waiting for you to call me Dorian.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger to\r\nhelp you, mad to make this monstrous confession. I will have nothing\r\nto do with this matter, whatever it is. Do you think I am going to\r\nperil my reputation for you? What is it to me what devil's work you\r\nare up to?\"\r\n\r\n\"It was suicide, Alan.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am glad of that. But who drove him to it? You, I should fancy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you still refuse to do this for me?\"\r\n\r\n\"Of course I refuse. I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. I\r\ndon't care what shame comes on you. You deserve it all. I should not\r\nbe sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced. How dare you ask\r\nme, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror? I should\r\nhave thought you knew more about people's characters. Your friend Lord\r\nHenry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else\r\nhe has taught you. Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you.\r\nYou have come to the wrong man. Go to some of your friends. Don't\r\ncome to me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don't know what he had made\r\nme suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or\r\nthe marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended\r\nit, the result was the same.\"\r\n\r\n\"Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? I shall not\r\ninform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without my stirring\r\nin the matter, you are certain to be arrested. Nobody ever commits a\r\ncrime without doing something stupid. But I will have nothing to do\r\nwith it.\"\r\n\r\n\"You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment; listen to\r\nme. Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform a certain\r\nscientific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the\r\nhorrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous\r\ndissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a\r\nleaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow\r\nthrough, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject. You\r\nwould not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing\r\nanything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were\r\nbenefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the\r\nworld, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind.\r\nWhat I want you to do is merely what you have often done before.\r\nIndeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are\r\naccustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence\r\nagainst me. If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be\r\ndiscovered unless you help me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply\r\nindifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you\r\ncame I almost fainted with terror. You may know terror yourself some\r\nday. No! don't think of that. Look at the matter purely from the\r\nscientific point of view. You don't inquire where the dead things on\r\nwhich you experiment come from. Don't inquire now. I have told you\r\ntoo much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once,\r\nAlan.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead.\"\r\n\r\n\"The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away. He is\r\nsitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan!\r\nAlan! If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined. Why, they will\r\nhang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang me for what I\r\nhave done.\"\r\n\r\n\"There is no good in prolonging this scene. I absolutely refuse to do\r\nanything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me.\"\r\n\r\n\"You refuse?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\"\r\n\r\n\"I entreat you, Alan.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is useless.\"\r\n\r\nThe same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes. Then he stretched\r\nout his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He\r\nread it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the\r\ntable. Having done this, he got up and went over to the window.\r\n\r\nCampbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and\r\nopened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell\r\nback in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He\r\nfelt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.\r\n\r\nAfter two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and\r\ncame and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.\r\n\r\n\"I am so sorry for you, Alan,\" he murmured, \"but you leave me no\r\nalternative. I have a letter written already. Here it is. You see\r\nthe address. If you don't help me, I must send it. If you don't help\r\nme, I will send it. You know what the result will be. But you are\r\ngoing to help me. It is impossible for you to refuse now. I tried to\r\nspare you. You will do me the justice to admit that. You were stern,\r\nharsh, offensive. You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat\r\nme--no living man, at any rate. I bore it all. Now it is for me to\r\ndictate terms.\"\r\n\r\nCampbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan. You know what they are.\r\nThe thing is quite simple. Come, don't work yourself into this fever.\r\nThe thing has to be done. Face it, and do it.\"\r\n\r\nA groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over. The\r\nticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing\r\ntime into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be\r\nborne. He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his\r\nforehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already\r\ncome upon him. The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead.\r\nIt was intolerable. It seemed to crush him.\r\n\r\n\"Come, Alan, you must decide at once.\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot do it,\" he said, mechanically, as though words could alter\r\nthings.\r\n\r\n\"You must. You have no choice. Don't delay.\"\r\n\r\nHe hesitated a moment. \"Is there a fire in the room upstairs?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, Alan, you must not leave the house. Write out on a sheet of\r\nnotepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the\r\nthings back to you.\"\r\n\r\nCampbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope\r\nto his assistant. Dorian took the note up and read it carefully. Then\r\nhe rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as\r\nsoon as possible and to bring the things with him.\r\n\r\nAs the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up\r\nfrom the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a\r\nkind of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke. A\r\nfly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was\r\nlike the beat of a hammer.\r\n\r\nAs the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian\r\nGray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was something in\r\nthe purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him.\r\n\"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!\" he muttered.\r\n\r\n\"Hush, Alan. You have saved my life,\" said Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from\r\ncorruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In\r\ndoing what I am going to do--what you force me to do--it is not of your\r\nlife that I am thinking.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, Alan,\" murmured Dorian with a sigh, \"I wish you had a thousandth\r\npart of the pity for me that I have for you.\" He turned away as he\r\nspoke and stood looking out at the garden. Campbell made no answer.\r\n\r\nAfter about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant\r\nentered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil\r\nof steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps.\r\n\r\n\"Shall I leave the things here, sir?\" he asked Campbell.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" said Dorian. \"And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another\r\nerrand for you. What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies\r\nSelby with orchids?\"\r\n\r\n\"Harden, sir.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes--Harden. You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden\r\npersonally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered,\r\nand to have as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don't want any\r\nwhite ones. It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty\r\nplace--otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it.\"\r\n\r\n\"No trouble, sir. At what time shall I be back?\"\r\n\r\nDorian looked at Campbell. \"How long will your experiment take, Alan?\"\r\nhe said in a calm indifferent voice. The presence of a third person in\r\nthe room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.\r\n\r\nCampbell frowned and bit his lip. \"It will take about five hours,\" he\r\nanswered.\r\n\r\n\"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven,\r\nFrancis. Or stay: just leave my things out for dressing. You can\r\nhave the evening to yourself. I am not dining at home, so I shall not\r\nwant you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said the man, leaving the room.\r\n\r\n\"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost. How heavy this chest is!\r\nI'll take it for you. You bring the other things.\" He spoke rapidly\r\nand in an authoritative manner. Campbell felt dominated by him. They\r\nleft the room together.\r\n\r\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned\r\nit in the lock. Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his\r\neyes. He shuddered. \"I don't think I can go in, Alan,\" he murmured.\r\n\r\n\"It is nothing to me. I don't require you,\" said Campbell coldly.\r\n\r\nDorian half opened the door. As he did so, he saw the face of his\r\nportrait leering in the sunlight. On the floor in front of it the torn\r\ncurtain was lying. He remembered that the night before he had\r\nforgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas,\r\nand was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder.\r\n\r\nWhat was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on\r\none of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How horrible\r\nit was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the\r\nsilent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing\r\nwhose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that\r\nit had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.\r\n\r\nHe heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with\r\nhalf-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that\r\nhe would not look even once upon the dead man. Then, stooping down and\r\ntaking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the\r\npicture.\r\n\r\nThere he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed\r\nthemselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. He heard\r\nCampbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other\r\nthings that he had required for his dreadful work. He began to wonder\r\nif he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had\r\nthought of each other.\r\n\r\n\"Leave me now,\" said a stern voice behind him.\r\n\r\nHe turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been\r\nthrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a\r\nglistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs, he heard the key\r\nbeing turned in the lock.\r\n\r\nIt was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library. He\r\nwas pale, but absolutely calm. \"I have done what you asked me to do,\"\r\nhe muttered \"And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that,\" said Dorian\r\nsimply.\r\n\r\nAs soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs. There was a horrible\r\nsmell of nitric acid in the room. But the thing that had been sitting\r\nat the table was gone.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 15\r\n\r\nThat evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large\r\nbutton-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady\r\nNarborough's drawing-room by bowing servants. His forehead was\r\nthrobbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his\r\nmanner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as\r\never. Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to\r\nplay a part. Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could\r\nhave believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any\r\ntragedy of our age. Those finely shaped fingers could never have\r\nclutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God\r\nand goodness. He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his\r\ndemeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a\r\ndouble life.\r\n\r\nIt was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who\r\nwas a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the\r\nremains of really remarkable ugliness. She had proved an excellent\r\nwife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her\r\nhusband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed,\r\nand married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she\r\ndevoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery,\r\nand French esprit when she could get it.\r\n\r\nDorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that\r\nshe was extremely glad she had not met him in early life. \"I know, my\r\ndear, I should have fallen madly in love with you,\" she used to say,\r\n\"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake. It is most\r\nfortunate that you were not thought of at the time. As it was, our\r\nbonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to\r\nraise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody.\r\nHowever, that was all Narborough's fault. He was dreadfully\r\nshort-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who\r\nnever sees anything.\"\r\n\r\nHer guests this evening were rather tedious. The fact was, as she\r\nexplained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married\r\ndaughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make\r\nmatters worse, had actually brought her husband with her. \"I think it\r\nis most unkind of her, my dear,\" she whispered. \"Of course I go and\r\nstay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old\r\nwoman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake\r\nthem up. You don't know what an existence they lead down there. It is\r\npure unadulterated country life. They get up early, because they have\r\nso much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to\r\nthink about. There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since\r\nthe time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep\r\nafter dinner. You shan't sit next either of them. You shall sit by me\r\nand amuse me.\"\r\n\r\nDorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room. Yes:\r\nit was certainly a tedious party. Two of the people he had never seen\r\nbefore, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those\r\nmiddle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies,\r\nbut are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an\r\noverdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always\r\ntrying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to\r\nher great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against\r\nher; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and\r\nVenetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy\r\ndull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once\r\nseen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked,\r\nwhite-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the\r\nimpression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of\r\nideas.\r\n\r\nHe was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the\r\ngreat ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the\r\nmauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed: \"How horrid of Henry Wotton to be\r\nso late! I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised\r\nfaithfully not to disappoint me.\"\r\n\r\nIt was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door\r\nopened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some\r\ninsincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.\r\n\r\nBut at dinner he could not eat anything. Plate after plate went away\r\nuntasted. Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called \"an\r\ninsult to poor Adolphe, who invented the menu specially for you,\" and\r\nnow and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence\r\nand abstracted manner. From time to time the butler filled his glass\r\nwith champagne. He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.\r\n\r\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry at last, as the chaud-froid was being handed\r\nround, \"what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of\r\nsorts.\"\r\n\r\n\"I believe he is in love,\" cried Lady Narborough, \"and that he is\r\nafraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. I\r\ncertainly should.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dear Lady Narborough,\" murmured Dorian, smiling, \"I have not been in\r\nlove for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town.\"\r\n\r\n\"How you men can fall in love with that woman!\" exclaimed the old lady.\r\n\"I really cannot understand it.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl,\r\nLady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry. \"She is the one link between us and\r\nyour short frocks.\"\r\n\r\n\"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry. But I\r\nremember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how decolletee\r\nshe was then.\"\r\n\r\n\"She is still decolletee,\" he answered, taking an olive in his long\r\nfingers; \"and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an\r\nedition de luxe of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and\r\nfull of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary.\r\nWhen her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief.\"\r\n\r\n\"How can you, Harry!\" cried Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"It is a most romantic explanation,\" laughed the hostess. \"But her\r\nthird husband, Lord Henry! You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly, Lady Narborough.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't believe a word of it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, ask Mr. Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is it true, Mr. Gray?\"\r\n\r\n\"She assures me so, Lady Narborough,\" said Dorian. \"I asked her\r\nwhether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and\r\nhung at her girdle. She told me she didn't, because none of them had\r\nhad any hearts at all.\"\r\n\r\n\"Four husbands! Upon my word that is trop de zele.\"\r\n\r\n\"Trop d'audace, I tell her,\" said Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol\r\nlike? I don't know him.\"\r\n\r\n\"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,\"\r\nsaid Lord Henry, sipping his wine.\r\n\r\nLady Narborough hit him with her fan. \"Lord Henry, I am not at all\r\nsurprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.\"\r\n\r\n\"But what world says that?\" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.\r\n\"It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent\r\nterms.\"\r\n\r\n\"Everybody I know says you are very wicked,\" cried the old lady,\r\nshaking her head.\r\n\r\nLord Henry looked serious for some moments. \"It is perfectly\r\nmonstrous,\" he said, at last, \"the way people go about nowadays saying\r\nthings against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely\r\ntrue.\"\r\n\r\n\"Isn't he incorrigible?\" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.\r\n\r\n\"I hope so,\" said his hostess, laughing. \"But really, if you all\r\nworship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry\r\nagain so as to be in the fashion.\"\r\n\r\n\"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,\" broke in Lord Henry.\r\n\"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she\r\ndetested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he\r\nadored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.\"\r\n\r\n\"Narborough wasn't perfect,\" cried the old lady.\r\n\r\n\"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,\" was the\r\nrejoinder. \"Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them,\r\nthey will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never\r\nask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough,\r\nbut it is quite true.\"\r\n\r\n\"Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for\r\nyour defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be\r\nmarried. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however,\r\nthat that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like\r\nbachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.\"\r\n\r\n\"Fin de siecle,\" murmured Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"Fin du globe,\" answered his hostess.\r\n\r\n\"I wish it were fin du globe,\" said Dorian with a sigh. \"Life is a\r\ngreat disappointment.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, my dear,\" cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, \"don't\r\ntell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows\r\nthat life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I\r\nsometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look\r\nso good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don't you think\r\nthat Mr. Gray should get married?\"\r\n\r\n\"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry with a\r\nbow.\r\n\r\n\"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go\r\nthrough Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the\r\neligible young ladies.\"\r\n\r\n\"With their ages, Lady Narborough?\" asked Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done\r\nin a hurry. I want it to be what The Morning Post calls a suitable\r\nalliance, and I want you both to be happy.\"\r\n\r\n\"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!\" exclaimed Lord\r\nHenry. \"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love\r\nher.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! what a cynic you are!\" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair\r\nand nodding to Lady Ruxton. \"You must come and dine with me soon\r\nagain. You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir\r\nAndrew prescribes for me. You must tell me what people you would like\r\nto meet, though. I want it to be a delightful gathering.\"\r\n\r\n\"I like men who have a future and women who have a past,\" he answered.\r\n\"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?\"\r\n\r\n\"I fear so,\" she said, laughing, as she stood up. \"A thousand pardons,\r\nmy dear Lady Ruxton,\" she added, \"I didn't see you hadn't finished your\r\ncigarette.\"\r\n\r\n\"Never mind, Lady Narborough. I smoke a great deal too much. I am\r\ngoing to limit myself, for the future.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton,\" said Lord Henry. \"Moderation is a fatal\r\nthing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a\r\nfeast.\"\r\n\r\nLady Ruxton glanced at him curiously. \"You must come and explain that\r\nto me some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fascinating theory,\" she\r\nmurmured, as she swept out of the room.\r\n\r\n\"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal,\"\r\ncried Lady Narborough from the door. \"If you do, we are sure to\r\nsquabble upstairs.\"\r\n\r\nThe men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the\r\ntable and came up to the top. Dorian Gray changed his seat and went\r\nand sat by Lord Henry. Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about\r\nthe situation in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries.\r\nThe word doctrinaire--word full of terror to the British\r\nmind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions. An\r\nalliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. He hoisted the\r\nUnion Jack on the pinnacles of thought. The inherited stupidity of the\r\nrace--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be\r\nthe proper bulwark for society.\r\n\r\nA smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at\r\nDorian.\r\n\r\n\"Are you better, my dear fellow?\" he asked. \"You seemed rather out of\r\nsorts at dinner.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am quite well, Harry. I am tired. That is all.\"\r\n\r\n\"You were charming last night. The little duchess is quite devoted to\r\nyou. She tells me she is going down to Selby.\"\r\n\r\n\"She has promised to come on the twentieth.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is Monmouth to be there, too?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her. She is very\r\nclever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of\r\nweakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image\r\nprecious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay.\r\nWhite porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through the fire,\r\nand what fire does not destroy, it hardens. She has had experiences.\"\r\n\r\n\"How long has she been married?\" asked Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"An eternity, she tells me. I believe, according to the peerage, it is\r\nten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity,\r\nwith time thrown in. Who else is coming?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey\r\nClouston, the usual set. I have asked Lord Grotrian.\"\r\n\r\n\"I like him,\" said Lord Henry. \"A great many people don't, but I find\r\nhim charming. He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by\r\nbeing always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry. He may have to go to\r\nMonte Carlo with his father.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are! Try and make him come. By\r\nthe way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. You left before\r\neleven. What did you do afterwards? Did you go straight home?\"\r\n\r\nDorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.\r\n\r\n\"No, Harry,\" he said at last, \"I did not get home till nearly three.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did you go to the club?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" he answered. Then he bit his lip. \"No, I don't mean that. I\r\ndidn't go to the club. I walked about. I forget what I did.... How\r\ninquisitive you are, Harry! You always want to know what one has been\r\ndoing. I always want to forget what I have been doing. I came in at\r\nhalf-past two, if you wish to know the exact time. I had left my\r\nlatch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in. If you want any\r\ncorroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders. \"My dear fellow, as if I cared!\r\nLet us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman.\r\nSomething has happened to you, Dorian. Tell me what it is. You are\r\nnot yourself to-night.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't mind me, Harry. I am irritable, and out of temper. I shall\r\ncome round and see you to-morrow, or next day. Make my excuses to Lady\r\nNarborough. I shan't go upstairs. I shall go home. I must go home.\"\r\n\r\n\"All right, Dorian. I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time.\r\nThe duchess is coming.\"\r\n\r\n\"I will try to be there, Harry,\" he said, leaving the room. As he\r\ndrove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror\r\nhe thought he had strangled had come back to him. Lord Henry's casual\r\nquestioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted\r\nhis nerve still. Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed. He\r\nwinced. He hated the idea of even touching them.\r\n\r\nYet it had to be done. He realized that, and when he had locked the\r\ndoor of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had\r\nthrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag. A huge fire was blazing. He\r\npiled another log on it. The smell of the singeing clothes and burning\r\nleather was horrible. It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume\r\neverything. At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some\r\nAlgerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and\r\nforehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.\r\n\r\nSuddenly he started. His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed\r\nnervously at his underlip. Between two of the windows stood a large\r\nFlorentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue\r\nlapis. He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate\r\nand make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet\r\nalmost loathed. His breath quickened. A mad craving came over him.\r\nHe lit a cigarette and then threw it away. His eyelids drooped till\r\nthe long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek. But he still watched\r\nthe cabinet. At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been\r\nlying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden\r\nspring. A triangular drawer passed slowly out. His fingers moved\r\ninstinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something. It was a\r\nsmall Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought,\r\nthe sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with\r\nround crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads. He opened it.\r\nInside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and\r\npersistent.\r\n\r\nHe hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his\r\nface. Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly\r\nhot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock. It was twenty\r\nminutes to twelve. He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as\r\nhe did so, and went into his bedroom.\r\n\r\nAs midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray,\r\ndressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept\r\nquietly out of his house. In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good\r\nhorse. He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address.\r\n\r\nThe man shook his head. \"It is too far for me,\" he muttered.\r\n\r\n\"Here is a sovereign for you,\" said Dorian. \"You shall have another if\r\nyou drive fast.\"\r\n\r\n\"All right, sir,\" answered the man, \"you will be there in an hour,\" and\r\nafter his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly\r\ntowards the river.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 16\r\n\r\nA cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly\r\nin the dripping mist. The public-houses were just closing, and dim men\r\nand women were clustering in broken groups round their doors. From\r\nsome of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter. In others,\r\ndrunkards brawled and screamed.\r\n\r\nLying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian\r\nGray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and\r\nnow and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said\r\nto him on the first day they had met, \"To cure the soul by means of the\r\nsenses, and the senses by means of the soul.\" Yes, that was the\r\nsecret. He had often tried it, and would try it again now. There were\r\nopium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the\r\nmemory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were\r\nnew.\r\n\r\nThe moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. From time to time a\r\nhuge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it. The\r\ngas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. Once the\r\nman lost his way and had to drive back half a mile. A steam rose from\r\nthe horse as it splashed up the puddles. The sidewindows of the hansom\r\nwere clogged with a grey-flannel mist.\r\n\r\n\"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of\r\nthe soul!\" How the words rang in his ears! His soul, certainly, was\r\nsick to death. Was it true that the senses could cure it? Innocent\r\nblood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there\r\nwas no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness\r\nwas possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing\r\nout, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.\r\nIndeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who\r\nhad made him a judge over others? He had said things that were\r\ndreadful, horrible, not to be endured.\r\n\r\nOn and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each\r\nstep. He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.\r\nThe hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned\r\nand his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the\r\nhorse madly with his stick. The driver laughed and whipped up. He\r\nlaughed in answer, and the man was silent.\r\n\r\nThe way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some\r\nsprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist\r\nthickened, he felt afraid.\r\n\r\nThen they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, and\r\nhe could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,\r\nfanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, and far away in\r\nthe darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed. The horse stumbled in a\r\nrut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.\r\n\r\nAfter some time they left the clay road and rattled again over\r\nrough-paven streets. Most of the windows were dark, but now and then\r\nfantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind. He\r\nwatched them curiously. They moved like monstrous marionettes and made\r\ngestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his\r\nheart. As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from\r\nan open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred\r\nyards. The driver beat at them with his whip.\r\n\r\nIt is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Certainly with\r\nhideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped\r\nthose subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in\r\nthem the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by\r\nintellectual approval, passions that without such justification would\r\nstill have dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept\r\nthe one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all\r\nman's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.\r\nUgliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,\r\nbecame dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one\r\nreality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of\r\ndisordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more\r\nvivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious\r\nshapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed\r\nfor forgetfulness. In three days he would be free.\r\n\r\nSuddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over\r\nthe low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black\r\nmasts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the\r\nyards.\r\n\r\n\"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?\" he asked huskily through the\r\ntrap.\r\n\r\nDorian started and peered round. \"This will do,\" he answered, and\r\nhaving got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had\r\npromised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and\r\nthere a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The\r\nlight shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an\r\noutward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like\r\na wet mackintosh.\r\n\r\nHe hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he\r\nwas being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small\r\nshabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of\r\nthe top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.\r\n\r\nAfter a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being\r\nunhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a\r\nword to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the\r\nshadow as he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green\r\ncurtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him\r\nin from the street. He dragged it aside and entered a long low room\r\nwhich looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill\r\nflaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that\r\nfaced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed\r\ntin backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was\r\ncovered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud,\r\nand stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. Some Malays were\r\ncrouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and\r\nshowing their white teeth as they chattered. In one corner, with his\r\nhead buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the\r\ntawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two\r\nhaggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his\r\ncoat with an expression of disgust. \"He thinks he's got red ants on\r\nhim,\" laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her\r\nin terror and began to whimper.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a\r\ndarkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the\r\nheavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his\r\nnostrils quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with\r\nsmooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin\r\npipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.\r\n\r\n\"You here, Adrian?\" muttered Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"Where else should I be?\" he answered, listlessly. \"None of the chaps\r\nwill speak to me now.\"\r\n\r\n\"I thought you had left England.\"\r\n\r\n\"Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at\r\nlast. George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care,\" he added\r\nwith a sigh. \"As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends.\r\nI think I have had too many friends.\"\r\n\r\nDorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such\r\nfantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the\r\ngaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in\r\nwhat strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were\r\nteaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he\r\nwas. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was\r\neating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of\r\nBasil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The\r\npresence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no\r\none would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.\r\n\r\n\"I am going on to the other place,\" he said after a pause.\r\n\r\n\"On the wharf?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\"\r\n\r\n\"That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place\r\nnow.\"\r\n\r\nDorian shrugged his shoulders. \"I am sick of women who love one.\r\nWomen who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is\r\nbetter.\"\r\n\r\n\"Much the same.\"\r\n\r\n\"I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have\r\nsomething.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't want anything,\" murmured the young man.\r\n\r\n\"Never mind.\"\r\n\r\nAdrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A\r\nhalf-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous\r\ngreeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of\r\nthem. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his\r\nback on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.\r\n\r\nA crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of\r\nthe women. \"We are very proud to-night,\" she sneered.\r\n\r\n\"For God's sake don't talk to me,\" cried Dorian, stamping his foot on\r\nthe ground. \"What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don't ever talk\r\nto me again.\"\r\n\r\nTwo red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then\r\nflickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and\r\nraked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion\r\nwatched her enviously.\r\n\r\n\"It's no use,\" sighed Adrian Singleton. \"I don't care to go back.\r\nWhat does it matter? I am quite happy here.\"\r\n\r\n\"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?\" said Dorian,\r\nafter a pause.\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good night, then.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good night,\" answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping\r\nhis parched mouth with a handkerchief.\r\n\r\nDorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew\r\nthe curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the\r\nwoman who had taken his money. \"There goes the devil's bargain!\" she\r\nhiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.\r\n\r\n\"Curse you!\" he answered, \"don't call me that.\"\r\n\r\nShe snapped her fingers. \"Prince Charming is what you like to be\r\ncalled, ain't it?\" she yelled after him.\r\n\r\nThe drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly\r\nround. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He\r\nrushed out as if in pursuit.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His\r\nmeeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered\r\nif the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as\r\nBasil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his\r\nlip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did\r\nit matter to him? One's days were too brief to take the burden of\r\nanother's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and\r\npaid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so\r\noften for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed.\r\nIn her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.\r\n\r\nThere are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or\r\nfor what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of\r\nthe body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful\r\nimpulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their\r\nwill. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is\r\ntaken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at\r\nall, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its\r\ncharm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are\r\nsins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of\r\nevil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.\r\n\r\nCallous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for\r\nrebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but\r\nas he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a\r\nshort cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself\r\nsuddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,\r\nhe was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his\r\nthroat.\r\n\r\nHe struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the\r\ntightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver,\r\nand saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,\r\nand the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.\r\n\r\n\"What do you want?\" he gasped.\r\n\r\n\"Keep quiet,\" said the man. \"If you stir, I shoot you.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are mad. What have I done to you?\"\r\n\r\n\"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane,\" was the answer, \"and Sibyl Vane\r\nwas my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your\r\ndoor. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought\r\nyou. I had no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described\r\nyou were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call\r\nyou. I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for\r\nto-night you are going to die.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray grew sick with fear. \"I never knew her,\" he stammered. \"I\r\nnever heard of her. You are mad.\"\r\n\r\n\"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you\r\nare going to die.\" There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know\r\nwhat to say or do. \"Down on your knees!\" growled the man. \"I give you\r\none minute to make your peace--no more. I go on board to-night for\r\nIndia, and I must do my job first. One minute. That's all.\"\r\n\r\nDorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not know\r\nwhat to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. \"Stop,\" he\r\ncried. \"How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me!\"\r\n\r\n\"Eighteen years,\" said the man. \"Why do you ask me? What do years\r\nmatter?\"\r\n\r\n\"Eighteen years,\" laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his\r\nvoice. \"Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!\"\r\n\r\nJames Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.\r\nThen he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.\r\n\r\nDim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him\r\nthe hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face\r\nof the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the\r\nunstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty\r\nsummers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been\r\nwhen they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was\r\nnot the man who had destroyed her life.\r\n\r\nHe loosened his hold and reeled back. \"My God! my God!\" he cried, \"and\r\nI would have murdered you!\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray drew a long breath. \"You have been on the brink of\r\ncommitting a terrible crime, my man,\" he said, looking at him sternly.\r\n\"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own\r\nhands.\"\r\n\r\n\"Forgive me, sir,\" muttered James Vane. \"I was deceived. A chance\r\nword I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track.\"\r\n\r\n\"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into\r\ntrouble,\" said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the\r\nstreet.\r\n\r\nJames Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head\r\nto foot. After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping\r\nalong the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him\r\nwith stealthy footsteps. He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked\r\nround with a start. It was one of the women who had been drinking at\r\nthe bar.\r\n\r\n\"Why didn't you kill him?\" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite\r\nclose to his. \"I knew you were following him when you rushed out from\r\nDaly's. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money,\r\nand he's as bad as bad.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is not the man I am looking for,\" he answered, \"and I want no man's\r\nmoney. I want a man's life. The man whose life I want must be nearly\r\nforty now. This one is little more than a boy. Thank God, I have not\r\ngot his blood upon my hands.\"\r\n\r\nThe woman gave a bitter laugh. \"Little more than a boy!\" she sneered.\r\n\"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me\r\nwhat I am.\"\r\n\r\n\"You lie!\" cried James Vane.\r\n\r\nShe raised her hand up to heaven. \"Before God I am telling the truth,\"\r\nshe cried.\r\n\r\n\"Before God?\"\r\n\r\n\"Strike me dumb if it ain't so. He is the worst one that comes here.\r\nThey say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It's nigh\r\non eighteen years since I met him. He hasn't changed much since then.\r\nI have, though,\" she added, with a sickly leer.\r\n\r\n\"You swear this?\"\r\n\r\n\"I swear it,\" came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. \"But don't give\r\nme away to him,\" she whined; \"I am afraid of him. Let me have some\r\nmoney for my night's lodging.\"\r\n\r\nHe broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,\r\nbut Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had\r\nvanished also.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 17\r\n\r\nA week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby\r\nRoyal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband,\r\na jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests. It was tea-time,\r\nand the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the\r\ntable lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at\r\nwhich the duchess was presiding. Her white hands were moving daintily\r\namong the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that\r\nDorian had whispered to her. Lord Henry was lying back in a\r\nsilk-draped wicker chair, looking at them. On a peach-coloured divan\r\nsat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of\r\nthe last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection. Three\r\nyoung men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of\r\nthe women. The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were\r\nmore expected to arrive on the next day.\r\n\r\n\"What are you two talking about?\" said Lord Henry, strolling over to\r\nthe table and putting his cup down. \"I hope Dorian has told you about\r\nmy plan for rechristening everything, Gladys. It is a delightful idea.\"\r\n\r\n\"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry,\" rejoined the duchess,\r\nlooking up at him with her wonderful eyes. \"I am quite satisfied with\r\nmy own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world. They are\r\nboth perfect. I was thinking chiefly of flowers. Yesterday I cut an\r\norchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as\r\neffective as the seven deadly sins. In a thoughtless moment I asked\r\none of the gardeners what it was called. He told me it was a fine\r\nspecimen of Robinsoniana, or something dreadful of that kind. It is a\r\nsad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to\r\nthings. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one\r\nquarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in\r\nliterature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled\r\nto use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then what should we call you, Harry?\" she asked.\r\n\r\n\"His name is Prince Paradox,\" said Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"I recognize him in a flash,\" exclaimed the duchess.\r\n\r\n\"I won't hear of it,\" laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair. \"From\r\na label there is no escape! I refuse the title.\"\r\n\r\n\"Royalties may not abdicate,\" fell as a warning from pretty lips.\r\n\r\n\"You wish me to defend my throne, then?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\"\r\n\r\n\"I give the truths of to-morrow.\"\r\n\r\n\"I prefer the mistakes of to-day,\" she answered.\r\n\r\n\"You disarm me, Gladys,\" he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood.\r\n\r\n\"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear.\"\r\n\r\n\"I never tilt against beauty,\" he said, with a wave of his hand.\r\n\r\n\"That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much.\"\r\n\r\n\"How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be\r\nbeautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready\r\nthan I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?\" cried the duchess.\r\n\"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?\"\r\n\r\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good\r\nTory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly\r\nvirtues have made our England what she is.\"\r\n\r\n\"You don't like your country, then?\" she asked.\r\n\r\n\"I live in it.\"\r\n\r\n\"That you may censure it the better.\"\r\n\r\n\"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?\" he inquired.\r\n\r\n\"What do they say of us?\"\r\n\r\n\"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is that yours, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"I give it to you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I could not use it. It is too true.\"\r\n\r\n\"You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description.\"\r\n\r\n\"They are practical.\"\r\n\r\n\"They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger,\r\nthey balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Still, we have done great things.\"\r\n\r\n\"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys.\"\r\n\r\n\"We have carried their burden.\"\r\n\r\n\"Only as far as the Stock Exchange.\"\r\n\r\nShe shook her head. \"I believe in the race,\" she cried.\r\n\r\n\"It represents the survival of the pushing.\"\r\n\r\n\"It has development.\"\r\n\r\n\"Decay fascinates me more.\"\r\n\r\n\"What of art?\" she asked.\r\n\r\n\"It is a malady.\"\r\n\r\n\"Love?\"\r\n\r\n\"An illusion.\"\r\n\r\n\"Religion?\"\r\n\r\n\"The fashionable substitute for belief.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are a sceptic.\"\r\n\r\n\"Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith.\"\r\n\r\n\"What are you?\"\r\n\r\n\"To define is to limit.\"\r\n\r\n\"Give me a clue.\"\r\n\r\n\"Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth.\"\r\n\r\n\"You bewilder me. Let us talk of some one else.\"\r\n\r\n\"Our host is a delightful topic. Years ago he was christened Prince\r\nCharming.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! don't remind me of that,\" cried Dorian Gray.\r\n\r\n\"Our host is rather horrid this evening,\" answered the duchess,\r\ncolouring. \"I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely\r\nscientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern\r\nbutterfly.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess,\" laughed Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?\"\r\n\r\n\"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you. Usually because\r\nI come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by\r\nhalf-past eight.\"\r\n\r\n\"How unreasonable of her! You should give her warning.\"\r\n\r\n\"I daren't, Mr. Gray. Why, she invents hats for me. You remember the\r\none I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party? You don't, but it is nice\r\nof you to pretend that you do. Well, she made it out of nothing. All\r\ngood hats are made out of nothing.\"\r\n\r\n\"Like all good reputations, Gladys,\" interrupted Lord Henry. \"Every\r\neffect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be\r\na mediocrity.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not with women,\" said the duchess, shaking her head; \"and women rule\r\nthe world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as some\r\none says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if\r\nyou ever love at all.\"\r\n\r\n\"It seems to me that we never do anything else,\" murmured Dorian.\r\n\r\n\"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray,\" answered the duchess with\r\nmock sadness.\r\n\r\n\"My dear Gladys!\" cried Lord Henry. \"How can you say that? Romance\r\nlives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art.\r\nBesides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.\r\nDifference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely\r\nintensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best,\r\nand the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as\r\npossible.\"\r\n\r\n\"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?\" asked the duchess after\r\na pause.\r\n\r\n\"Especially when one has been wounded by it,\" answered Lord Henry.\r\n\r\nThe duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression\r\nin her eyes. \"What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?\" she inquired.\r\n\r\nDorian hesitated for a moment. Then he threw his head back and\r\nlaughed. \"I always agree with Harry, Duchess.\"\r\n\r\n\"Even when he is wrong?\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry is never wrong, Duchess.\"\r\n\r\n\"And does his philosophy make you happy?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have\r\nsearched for pleasure.\"\r\n\r\n\"And found it, Mr. Gray?\"\r\n\r\n\"Often. Too often.\"\r\n\r\nThe duchess sighed. \"I am searching for peace,\" she said, \"and if I\r\ndon't go and dress, I shall have none this evening.\"\r\n\r\n\"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess,\" cried Dorian, starting to his\r\nfeet and walking down the conservatory.\r\n\r\n\"You are flirting disgracefully with him,\" said Lord Henry to his\r\ncousin. \"You had better take care. He is very fascinating.\"\r\n\r\n\"If he were not, there would be no battle.\"\r\n\r\n\"Greek meets Greek, then?\"\r\n\r\n\"I am on the side of the Trojans. They fought for a woman.\"\r\n\r\n\"They were defeated.\"\r\n\r\n\"There are worse things than capture,\" she answered.\r\n\r\n\"You gallop with a loose rein.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pace gives life,\" was the riposte.\r\n\r\n\"I shall write it in my diary to-night.\"\r\n\r\n\"What?\"\r\n\r\n\"That a burnt child loves the fire.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not even singed. My wings are untouched.\"\r\n\r\n\"You use them for everything, except flight.\"\r\n\r\n\"Courage has passed from men to women. It is a new experience for us.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have a rival.\"\r\n\r\n\"Who?\"\r\n\r\nHe laughed. \"Lady Narborough,\" he whispered. \"She perfectly adores\r\nhim.\"\r\n\r\n\"You fill me with apprehension. The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us\r\nwho are romanticists.\"\r\n\r\n\"Romanticists! You have all the methods of science.\"\r\n\r\n\"Men have educated us.\"\r\n\r\n\"But not explained you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Describe us as a sex,\" was her challenge.\r\n\r\n\"Sphinxes without secrets.\"\r\n\r\nShe looked at him, smiling. \"How long Mr. Gray is!\" she said. \"Let us\r\ngo and help him. I have not yet told him the colour of my frock.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys.\"\r\n\r\n\"That would be a premature surrender.\"\r\n\r\n\"Romantic art begins with its climax.\"\r\n\r\n\"I must keep an opportunity for retreat.\"\r\n\r\n\"In the Parthian manner?\"\r\n\r\n\"They found safety in the desert. I could not do that.\"\r\n\r\n\"Women are not always allowed a choice,\" he answered, but hardly had he\r\nfinished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came\r\na stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall. Everybody\r\nstarted up. The duchess stood motionless in horror. And with fear in\r\nhis eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian\r\nGray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.\r\n\r\nHe was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of\r\nthe sofas. After a short time, he came to himself and looked round\r\nwith a dazed expression.\r\n\r\n\"What has happened?\" he asked. \"Oh! I remember. Am I safe here,\r\nHarry?\" He began to tremble.\r\n\r\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, \"you merely fainted. That was\r\nall. You must have overtired yourself. You had better not come down\r\nto dinner. I will take your place.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, I will come down,\" he said, struggling to his feet. \"I would\r\nrather come down. I must not be alone.\"\r\n\r\nHe went to his room and dressed. There was a wild recklessness of\r\ngaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of\r\nterror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the\r\nwindow of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the\r\nface of James Vane watching him.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 18\r\n\r\nThe next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the\r\ntime in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet\r\nindifferent to life itself. The consciousness of being hunted, snared,\r\ntracked down, had begun to dominate him. If the tapestry did but\r\ntremble in the wind, he shook. The dead leaves that were blown against\r\nthe leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild\r\nregrets. When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face\r\npeering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to\r\nlay its hand upon his heart.\r\n\r\nBut perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of\r\nthe night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him. Actual\r\nlife was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the\r\nimagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet\r\nof sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen\r\nbrood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor\r\nthe good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust\r\nupon the weak. That was all. Besides, had any stranger been prowling\r\nround the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the\r\nkeepers. Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the\r\ngardeners would have reported it. Yes, it had been merely fancy.\r\nSibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him. He had sailed away\r\nin his ship to founder in some winter sea. From him, at any rate, he\r\nwas safe. Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he\r\nwas. The mask of youth had saved him.\r\n\r\nAnd yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think\r\nthat conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them\r\nvisible form, and make them move before one! What sort of life would\r\nhis be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from\r\nsilent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear\r\nas he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!\r\nAs the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and\r\nthe air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder. Oh! in what a\r\nwild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere\r\nmemory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came\r\nback to him with added horror. Out of the black cave of time, terrible\r\nand swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin. When Lord Henry\r\ncame in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will\r\nbreak.\r\n\r\nIt was not till the third day that he ventured to go out. There was\r\nsomething in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that\r\nseemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life. But\r\nit was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had\r\ncaused the change. His own nature had revolted against the excess of\r\nanguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm.\r\nWith subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so. Their\r\nstrong passions must either bruise or bend. They either slay the man,\r\nor themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The\r\nloves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.\r\nBesides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a\r\nterror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with\r\nsomething of pity and not a little of contempt.\r\n\r\nAfter breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden\r\nand then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp\r\nfrost lay like salt upon the grass. The sky was an inverted cup of\r\nblue metal. A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.\r\n\r\nAt the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey\r\nClouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of\r\nhis gun. He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take\r\nthe mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered\r\nbracken and rough undergrowth.\r\n\r\n\"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?\" he asked.\r\n\r\n\"Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have gone to the\r\nopen. I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new\r\nground.\"\r\n\r\nDorian strolled along by his side. The keen aromatic air, the brown\r\nand red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the\r\nbeaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns\r\nthat followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful\r\nfreedom. He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the\r\nhigh indifference of joy.\r\n\r\nSuddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front\r\nof them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it\r\nforward, started a hare. It bolted for a thicket of alders. Sir\r\nGeoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the\r\nanimal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he\r\ncried out at once, \"Don't shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live.\"\r\n\r\n\"What nonsense, Dorian!\" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded\r\ninto the thicket, he fired. There were two cries heard, the cry of a\r\nhare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is\r\nworse.\r\n\r\n\"Good heavens! I have hit a beater!\" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. \"What an\r\nass the man was to get in front of the guns! Stop shooting there!\" he\r\ncalled out at the top of his voice. \"A man is hurt.\"\r\n\r\nThe head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.\r\n\r\n\"Where, sir? Where is he?\" he shouted. At the same time, the firing\r\nceased along the line.\r\n\r\n\"Here,\" answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.\r\n\"Why on earth don't you keep your men back? Spoiled my shooting for\r\nthe day.\"\r\n\r\nDorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the\r\nlithe swinging branches aside. In a few moments they emerged, dragging\r\na body after them into the sunlight. He turned away in horror. It\r\nseemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went. He heard Sir\r\nGeoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of\r\nthe keeper. The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with\r\nfaces. There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of\r\nvoices. A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the\r\nboughs overhead.\r\n\r\nAfter a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like\r\nendless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He started\r\nand looked round.\r\n\r\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, \"I had better tell them that the shooting is\r\nstopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry,\" he answered bitterly. \"The\r\nwhole thing is hideous and cruel. Is the man ...?\"\r\n\r\nHe could not finish the sentence.\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid so,\" rejoined Lord Henry. \"He got the whole charge of\r\nshot in his chest. He must have died almost instantaneously. Come;\r\nlet us go home.\"\r\n\r\nThey walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly\r\nfifty yards without speaking. Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and\r\nsaid, with a heavy sigh, \"It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is?\" asked Lord Henry. \"Oh! this accident, I suppose. My dear\r\nfellow, it can't be helped. It was the man's own fault. Why did he\r\nget in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather\r\nawkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It\r\nmakes people think that one is a wild shot. And Geoffrey is not; he\r\nshoots very straight. But there is no use talking about the matter.\"\r\n\r\nDorian shook his head. \"It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if\r\nsomething horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself,\r\nperhaps,\" he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of\r\npain.\r\n\r\nThe elder man laughed. \"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui,\r\nDorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. But we\r\nare not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering\r\nabout this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the subject is to be\r\ntabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny\r\ndoes not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.\r\nBesides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have\r\neverything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would\r\nnot be delighted to change places with you.\"\r\n\r\n\"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. Don't\r\nlaugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched peasant who\r\nhas just died is better off than I am. I have no terror of death. It\r\nis the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to\r\nwheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don't you see a man\r\nmoving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand\r\nwas pointing. \"Yes,\" he said, smiling, \"I see the gardener waiting for\r\nyou. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on\r\nthe table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You\r\nmust come and see my doctor, when we get back to town.\"\r\n\r\nDorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching. The\r\nman touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating\r\nmanner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master.\r\n\"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer,\" he murmured.\r\n\r\nDorian put the letter into his pocket. \"Tell her Grace that I am\r\ncoming in,\" he said, coldly. The man turned round and went rapidly in\r\nthe direction of the house.\r\n\r\n\"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!\" laughed Lord Henry.\r\n\"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman will\r\nflirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.\"\r\n\r\n\"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry! In the present\r\ninstance, you are quite astray. I like the duchess very much, but I\r\ndon't love her.\"\r\n\r\n\"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you\r\nare excellently matched.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for\r\nscandal.\"\r\n\r\n\"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty,\" said Lord Henry,\r\nlighting a cigarette.\r\n\r\n\"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram.\"\r\n\r\n\"The world goes to the altar of its own accord,\" was the answer.\r\n\r\n\"I wish I could love,\" cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in\r\nhis voice. \"But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the\r\ndesire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has\r\nbecome a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget. It\r\nwas silly of me to come down here at all. I think I shall send a wire\r\nto Harvey to have the yacht got ready. On a yacht one is safe.\"\r\n\r\n\"Safe from what, Dorian? You are in some trouble. Why not tell me\r\nwhat it is? You know I would help you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't tell you, Harry,\" he answered sadly. \"And I dare say it is\r\nonly a fancy of mine. This unfortunate accident has upset me. I have\r\na horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.\"\r\n\r\n\"What nonsense!\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it. Ah! here is the duchess,\r\nlooking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown. You see we have come back,\r\nDuchess.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray,\" she answered. \"Poor Geoffrey is\r\nterribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.\r\nHow curious!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, it was very curious. I don't know what made me say it. Some\r\nwhim, I suppose. It looked the loveliest of little live things. But I\r\nam sorry they told you about the man. It is a hideous subject.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is an annoying subject,\" broke in Lord Henry. \"It has no\r\npsychological value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on\r\npurpose, how interesting he would be! I should like to know some one\r\nwho had committed a real murder.\"\r\n\r\n\"How horrid of you, Harry!\" cried the duchess. \"Isn't it, Mr. Gray?\r\nHarry, Mr. Gray is ill again. He is going to faint.\"\r\n\r\nDorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled. \"It is nothing,\r\nDuchess,\" he murmured; \"my nerves are dreadfully out of order. That is\r\nall. I am afraid I walked too far this morning. I didn't hear what\r\nHarry said. Was it very bad? You must tell me some other time. I\r\nthink I must go and lie down. You will excuse me, won't you?\"\r\n\r\nThey had reached the great flight of steps that led from the\r\nconservatory on to the terrace. As the glass door closed behind\r\nDorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous\r\neyes. \"Are you very much in love with him?\" he asked.\r\n\r\nShe did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.\r\n\"I wish I knew,\" she said at last.\r\n\r\nHe shook his head. \"Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty\r\nthat charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.\"\r\n\r\n\"One may lose one's way.\"\r\n\r\n\"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is that?\"\r\n\r\n\"Disillusion.\"\r\n\r\n\"It was my debut in life,\" she sighed.\r\n\r\n\"It came to you crowned.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am tired of strawberry leaves.\"\r\n\r\n\"They become you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Only in public.\"\r\n\r\n\"You would miss them,\" said Lord Henry.\r\n\r\n\"I will not part with a petal.\"\r\n\r\n\"Monmouth has ears.\"\r\n\r\n\"Old age is dull of hearing.\"\r\n\r\n\"Has he never been jealous?\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish he had been.\"\r\n\r\nHe glanced about as if in search of something. \"What are you looking\r\nfor?\" she inquired.\r\n\r\n\"The button from your foil,\" he answered. \"You have dropped it.\"\r\n\r\nShe laughed. \"I have still the mask.\"\r\n\r\n\"It makes your eyes lovelier,\" was his reply.\r\n\r\nShe laughed again. Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet\r\nfruit.\r\n\r\nUpstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror\r\nin every tingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly become too\r\nhideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death of the unlucky\r\nbeater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to\r\npre-figure death for himself also. He had nearly swooned at what Lord\r\nHenry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.\r\n\r\nAt five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to\r\npack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham\r\nat the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another\r\nnight at Selby Royal. It was an ill-omened place. Death walked there\r\nin the sunlight. The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.\r\n\r\nThen he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to\r\ntown to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in\r\nhis absence. As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to\r\nthe door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see\r\nhim. He frowned and bit his lip. \"Send him in,\" he muttered, after\r\nsome moments' hesitation.\r\n\r\nAs soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a\r\ndrawer and spread it out before him.\r\n\r\n\"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this\r\nmorning, Thornton?\" he said, taking up a pen.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir,\" answered the gamekeeper.\r\n\r\n\"Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people dependent on him?\"\r\nasked Dorian, looking bored. \"If so, I should not like them to be left\r\nin want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary.\"\r\n\r\n\"We don't know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty of\r\ncoming to you about.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't know who he is?\" said Dorian, listlessly. \"What do you mean?\r\nWasn't he one of your men?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir.\"\r\n\r\nThe pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart\r\nhad suddenly stopped beating. \"A sailor?\" he cried out. \"Did you say\r\na sailor?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir. He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on\r\nboth arms, and that kind of thing.\"\r\n\r\n\"Was there anything found on him?\" said Dorian, leaning forward and\r\nlooking at the man with startled eyes. \"Anything that would tell his\r\nname?\"\r\n\r\n\"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any\r\nkind. A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we\r\nthink.\"\r\n\r\nDorian started to his feet. A terrible hope fluttered past him. He\r\nclutched at it madly. \"Where is the body?\" he exclaimed. \"Quick! I\r\nmust see it at once.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk don't like\r\nto have that sort of thing in their houses. They say a corpse brings\r\nbad luck.\"\r\n\r\n\"The Home Farm! Go there at once and meet me. Tell one of the grooms\r\nto bring my horse round. No. Never mind. I'll go to the stables\r\nmyself. It will save time.\"\r\n\r\nIn less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the\r\nlong avenue as hard as he could go. The trees seemed to sweep past him\r\nin spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his\r\npath. Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.\r\nHe lashed her across the neck with his crop. She cleft the dusky air\r\nlike an arrow. The stones flew from her hoofs.\r\n\r\nAt last he reached the Home Farm. Two men were loitering in the yard.\r\nHe leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them. In the\r\nfarthest stable a light was glimmering. Something seemed to tell him\r\nthat the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand\r\nupon the latch.\r\n\r\nThere he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a\r\ndiscovery that would either make or mar his life. Then he thrust the\r\ndoor open and entered.\r\n\r\nOn a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man\r\ndressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers. A spotted\r\nhandkerchief had been placed over the face. A coarse candle, stuck in\r\na bottle, sputtered beside it.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray shuddered. He felt that his could not be the hand to take\r\nthe handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to\r\ncome to him.\r\n\r\n\"Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it,\" he said, clutching\r\nat the door-post for support.\r\n\r\nWhen the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward. A cry of joy\r\nbroke from his lips. The man who had been shot in the thicket was\r\nJames Vane.\r\n\r\nHe stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body. As he rode\r\nhome, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 19\r\n\r\n\"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good,\" cried\r\nLord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled\r\nwith rose-water. \"You are quite perfect. Pray, don't change.\"\r\n\r\nDorian Gray shook his head. \"No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful\r\nthings in my life. I am not going to do any more. I began my good\r\nactions yesterday.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where were you yesterday?\"\r\n\r\n\"In the country, Harry. I was staying at a little inn by myself.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear boy,\" said Lord Henry, smiling, \"anybody can be good in the\r\ncountry. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why\r\npeople who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized.\r\nCivilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are\r\nonly two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the\r\nother by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being\r\neither, so they stagnate.\"\r\n\r\n\"Culture and corruption,\" echoed Dorian. \"I have known something of\r\nboth. It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found\r\ntogether. For I have a new ideal, Harry. I am going to alter. I\r\nthink I have altered.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have not yet told me what your good action was. Or did you say\r\nyou had done more than one?\" asked his companion as he spilled into his\r\nplate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a\r\nperforated, shell-shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them.\r\n\r\n\"I can tell you, Harry. It is not a story I could tell to any one\r\nelse. I spared somebody. It sounds vain, but you understand what I\r\nmean. She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane. I\r\nthink it was that which first attracted me to her. You remember Sibyl,\r\ndon't you? How long ago that seems! Well, Hetty was not one of our\r\nown class, of course. She was simply a girl in a village. But I\r\nreally loved her. I am quite sure that I loved her. All during this\r\nwonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her\r\ntwo or three times a week. Yesterday she met me in a little orchard.\r\nThe apple-blossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was\r\nlaughing. We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn.\r\nSuddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill\r\nof real pleasure, Dorian,\" interrupted Lord Henry. \"But I can finish\r\nyour idyll for you. You gave her good advice and broke her heart.\r\nThat was the beginning of your reformation.\"\r\n\r\n\"Harry, you are horrible! You mustn't say these dreadful things.\r\nHetty's heart is not broken. Of course, she cried and all that. But\r\nthere is no disgrace upon her. She can live, like Perdita, in her\r\ngarden of mint and marigold.\"\r\n\r\n\"And weep over a faithless Florizel,\" said Lord Henry, laughing, as he\r\nleaned back in his chair. \"My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously\r\nboyish moods. Do you think this girl will ever be really content now\r\nwith any one of her own rank? I suppose she will be married some day\r\nto a rough carter or a grinning ploughman. Well, the fact of having\r\nmet you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she\r\nwill be wretched. From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I\r\nthink much of your great renunciation. Even as a beginning, it is\r\npoor. Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the\r\npresent moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies\r\nround her, like Ophelia?\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then suggest\r\nthe most serious tragedies. I am sorry I told you now. I don't care\r\nwhat you say to me. I know I was right in acting as I did. Poor\r\nHetty! As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at\r\nthe window, like a spray of jasmine. Don't let us talk about it any\r\nmore, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have\r\ndone for years, the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever\r\nknown, is really a sort of sin. I want to be better. I am going to be\r\nbetter. Tell me something about yourself. What is going on in town?\r\nI have not been to the club for days.\"\r\n\r\n\"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time,\" said\r\nDorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly.\r\n\r\n\"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and\r\nthe British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having\r\nmore than one topic every three months. They have been very fortunate\r\nlately, however. They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's\r\nsuicide. Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist.\r\nScotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left\r\nfor Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor\r\nBasil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris\r\nat all. I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has\r\nbeen seen in San Francisco. It is an odd thing, but every one who\r\ndisappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a\r\ndelightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.\"\r\n\r\n\"What do you think has happened to Basil?\" asked Dorian, holding up his\r\nBurgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could\r\ndiscuss the matter so calmly.\r\n\r\n\"I have not the slightest idea. If Basil chooses to hide himself, it\r\nis no business of mine. If he is dead, I don't want to think about\r\nhim. Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me. I hate it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\" said the younger man wearily.\r\n\r\n\"Because,\" said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt\r\ntrellis of an open vinaigrette box, \"one can survive everything\r\nnowadays except that. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in\r\nthe nineteenth century that one cannot explain away. Let us have our\r\ncoffee in the music-room, Dorian. You must play Chopin to me. The man\r\nwith whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely. Poor Victoria!\r\nI was very fond of her. The house is rather lonely without her. Of\r\ncourse, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one\r\nregrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them\r\nthe most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.\"\r\n\r\nDorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next\r\nroom, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white\r\nand black ivory of the keys. After the coffee had been brought in, he\r\nstopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, \"Harry, did it ever\r\noccur to you that Basil was murdered?\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry yawned. \"Basil was very popular, and always wore a\r\nWaterbury watch. Why should he have been murdered? He was not clever\r\nenough to have enemies. Of course, he had a wonderful genius for\r\npainting. But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as\r\npossible. Basil was really rather dull. He only interested me once,\r\nand that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration\r\nfor you and that you were the dominant motive of his art.\"\r\n\r\n\"I was very fond of Basil,\" said Dorian with a note of sadness in his\r\nvoice. \"But don't people say that he was murdered?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, some of the papers do. It does not seem to me to be at all\r\nprobable. I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not\r\nthe sort of man to have gone to them. He had no curiosity. It was his\r\nchief defect.\"\r\n\r\n\"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?\"\r\nsaid the younger man. He watched him intently after he had spoken.\r\n\r\n\"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that\r\ndoesn't suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.\r\nIt is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. I am sorry if I hurt\r\nyour vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true. Crime belongs\r\nexclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest\r\ndegree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us,\r\nsimply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.\"\r\n\r\n\"A method of procuring sensations? Do you think, then, that a man who\r\nhas once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again?\r\nDon't tell me that.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often,\" cried Lord\r\nHenry, laughing. \"That is one of the most important secrets of life.\r\nI should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should\r\nnever do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner. But let us\r\npass from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had come to such\r\na really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell\r\ninto the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the\r\nscandal. Yes: I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now\r\non his back under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges\r\nfloating over him and long weeds catching in his hair. Do you know, I\r\ndon't think he would have done much more good work. During the last\r\nten years his painting had gone off very much.\"\r\n\r\nDorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began\r\nto stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged\r\nbird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo\r\nperch. As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf\r\nof crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards\r\nand forwards.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of\r\nhis pocket; \"his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have\r\nlost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be\r\ngreat friends, he ceased to be a great artist. What was it separated\r\nyou? I suppose he bored you. If so, he never forgave you. It's a\r\nhabit bores have. By the way, what has become of that wonderful\r\nportrait he did of you? I don't think I have ever seen it since he\r\nfinished it. Oh! I remember your telling me years ago that you had\r\nsent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the\r\nway. You never got it back? What a pity! it was really a\r\nmasterpiece. I remember I wanted to buy it. I wish I had now. It\r\nbelonged to Basil's best period. Since then, his work was that curious\r\nmixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man\r\nto be called a representative British artist. Did you advertise for\r\nit? You should.\"\r\n\r\n\"I forget,\" said Dorian. \"I suppose I did. But I never really liked\r\nit. I am sorry I sat for it. The memory of the thing is hateful to\r\nme. Why do you talk of it? It used to remind me of those curious\r\nlines in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?--\r\n\r\n \"Like the painting of a sorrow,\r\n A face without a heart.\"\r\n\r\nYes: that is what it was like.\"\r\n\r\nLord Henry laughed. \"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is\r\nhis heart,\" he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.\r\n\r\nDorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano.\r\n\"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'\" he repeated, \"'a face without a\r\nheart.'\"\r\n\r\nThe elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes. \"By\r\nthe way, Dorian,\" he said after a pause, \"'what does it profit a man if\r\nhe gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?--his own\r\nsoul'?\"\r\n\r\nThe music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend.\r\n\"Why do you ask me that, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,\r\n\"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.\r\nThat is all. I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by\r\nthe Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people\r\nlistening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the\r\nman yelling out that question to his audience. It struck me as being\r\nrather dramatic. London is very rich in curious effects of that kind.\r\nA wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly\r\nwhite faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful\r\nphrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very\r\ngood in its way, quite a suggestion. I thought of telling the prophet\r\nthat art had a soul, but that man had not. I am afraid, however, he\r\nwould not have understood me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and\r\nsold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There\r\nis a soul in each one of us. I know it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?\"\r\n\r\n\"Quite sure.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely\r\ncertain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the\r\nlesson of romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have\r\nyou or I to do with the superstitions of our age? No: we have given\r\nup our belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a nocturne,\r\nDorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept\r\nyour youth. You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than\r\nyou are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really\r\nwonderful, Dorian. You have never looked more charming than you do\r\nto-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first. You were rather\r\ncheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary. You have changed, of\r\ncourse, but not in appearance. I wish you would tell me your secret.\r\nTo get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take\r\nexercise, get up early, or be respectable. Youth! There is nothing\r\nlike it. It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. The only\r\npeople to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much\r\nyounger than myself. They seem in front of me. Life has revealed to\r\nthem her latest wonder. As for the aged, I always contradict the aged.\r\nI do it on principle. If you ask them their opinion on something that\r\nhappened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in\r\n1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew\r\nabsolutely nothing. How lovely that thing you are playing is! I\r\nwonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the\r\nvilla and the salt spray dashing against the panes? It is marvellously\r\nromantic. What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that\r\nis not imitative! Don't stop. I want music to-night. It seems to me\r\nthat you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you.\r\nI have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of. The\r\ntragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. I am\r\namazed sometimes at my own sincerity. Ah, Dorian, how happy you are!\r\nWhat an exquisite life you have had! You have drunk deeply of\r\neverything. You have crushed the grapes against your palate. Nothing\r\nhas been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than the\r\nsound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not the same, Harry.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be.\r\nDon't spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type.\r\nDon't make yourself incomplete. You are quite flawless now. You need\r\nnot shake your head: you know you are. Besides, Dorian, don't deceive\r\nyourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a\r\nquestion of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which\r\nthought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy\r\nyourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour\r\nin a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once\r\nloved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten\r\npoem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music\r\nthat you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things\r\nlike these that our lives depend. Browning writes about that\r\nsomewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us. There are\r\nmoments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I\r\nhave to live the strangest month of my life over again. I wish I could\r\nchange places with you, Dorian. The world has cried out against us\r\nboth, but it has always worshipped you. It always will worship you.\r\nYou are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is\r\nafraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything,\r\nnever carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything\r\noutside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to\r\nmusic. Your days are your sonnets.\"\r\n\r\nDorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.\r\n\"Yes, life has been exquisite,\" he murmured, \"but I am not going to\r\nhave the same life, Harry. And you must not say these extravagant\r\nthings to me. You don't know everything about me. I think that if you\r\ndid, even you would turn from me. You laugh. Don't laugh.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me the\r\nnocturne over again. Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that\r\nhangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, and if\r\nyou play she will come closer to the earth. You won't? Let us go to\r\nthe club, then. It has been a charming evening, and we must end it\r\ncharmingly. There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know\r\nyou--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son. He has already copied\r\nyour neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you. He is quite\r\ndelightful and rather reminds me of you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope not,\" said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes. \"But I am tired\r\nto-night, Harry. I shan't go to the club. It is nearly eleven, and I\r\nwant to go to bed early.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do stay. You have never played so well as to-night. There was\r\nsomething in your touch that was wonderful. It had more expression\r\nthan I had ever heard from it before.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is because I am going to be good,\" he answered, smiling. \"I am a\r\nlittle changed already.\"\r\n\r\n\"You cannot change to me, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry. \"You and I will\r\nalways be friends.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that.\r\nHarry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It\r\ndoes harm.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be\r\ngoing about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people\r\nagainst all the sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too\r\ndelightful to do that. Besides, it is no use. You and I are what we\r\nare, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book,\r\nthere is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It\r\nannihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that\r\nthe world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.\r\nThat is all. But we won't discuss literature. Come round to-morrow. I\r\nam going to ride at eleven. We might go together, and I will take you\r\nto lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome. She is a charming woman, and\r\nwants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying.\r\nMind you come. Or shall we lunch with our little duchess? She says\r\nshe never sees you now. Perhaps you are tired of Gladys? I thought\r\nyou would be. Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves. Well, in any\r\ncase, be here at eleven.\"\r\n\r\n\"Must I really come, Harry?\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly. The park is quite lovely now. I don't think there have\r\nbeen such lilacs since the year I met you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very well. I shall be here at eleven,\" said Dorian. \"Good night,\r\nHarry.\" As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he\r\nhad something more to say. Then he sighed and went out.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 20\r\n\r\nIt was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and\r\ndid not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home,\r\nsmoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. He\r\nheard one of them whisper to the other, \"That is Dorian Gray.\" He\r\nremembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared\r\nat, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now. Half\r\nthe charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was\r\nthat no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had\r\nlured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him. He had\r\ntold her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and\r\nanswered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a\r\nlaugh she had!--just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had\r\nbeen in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but\r\nshe had everything that he had lost.\r\n\r\nWhen he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He sent\r\nhim to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and\r\nbegan to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.\r\n\r\nWas it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing\r\nfor the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as\r\nLord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had tarnished himself,\r\nfilled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he\r\nhad been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible\r\njoy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had\r\nbeen the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to\r\nshame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him?\r\n\r\nAh! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that\r\nthe portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the\r\nunsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to\r\nthat. Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure\r\nswift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment.\r\nNot \"Forgive us our sins\" but \"Smite us for our iniquities\" should be\r\nthe prayer of man to a most just God.\r\n\r\nThe curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many\r\nyears ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids\r\nlaughed round it as of old. He took it up, as he had done on that\r\nnight of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal\r\npicture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished\r\nshield. Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a\r\nmad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: \"The world is changed\r\nbecause you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips\r\nrewrite history.\" The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated\r\nthem over and over to himself. Then he loathed his own beauty, and\r\nflinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters\r\nbeneath his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty\r\nand the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his\r\nlife might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a\r\nmask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an\r\nunripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he\r\nworn its livery? Youth had spoiled him.\r\n\r\nIt was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. It\r\nwas of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think. James\r\nVane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell\r\nhad shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the\r\nsecret that he had been forced to know. The excitement, such as it\r\nwas, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away. It was\r\nalready waning. He was perfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the\r\ndeath of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the\r\nliving death of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had painted the\r\nportrait that had marred his life. He could not forgive him that. It\r\nwas the portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to\r\nhim that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience. The\r\nmurder had been simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell,\r\nhis suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was\r\nnothing to him.\r\n\r\nA new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting\r\nfor. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent\r\nthing, at any rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be\r\ngood.\r\n\r\nAs he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in\r\nthe locked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it\r\nhad been? Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel\r\nevery sign of evil passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil\r\nhad already gone away. He would go and look.\r\n\r\nHe took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the\r\ndoor, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face\r\nand lingered for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and\r\nthe hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror\r\nto him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.\r\n\r\nHe went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and\r\ndragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and\r\nindignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the\r\neyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of\r\nthe hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if\r\npossible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed\r\nbrighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it\r\nbeen merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the\r\ndesire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking\r\nlaugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things\r\nfiner than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the\r\nred stain larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a\r\nhorrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the\r\npainted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand\r\nthat had not held the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to\r\nconfess? To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt\r\nthat the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did confess, who\r\nwould believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere.\r\nEverything belonging to him had been destroyed. He himself had burned\r\nwhat had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad.\r\nThey would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was\r\nhis duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public\r\natonement. There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to\r\nearth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would cleanse him\r\ntill he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders.\r\nThe death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him. He was thinking\r\nof Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul\r\nthat he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there\r\nbeen nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been\r\nsomething more. At least he thought so. But who could tell? ... No.\r\nThere had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In\r\nhypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity's sake he\r\nhad tried the denial of self. He recognized that now.\r\n\r\nBut this murder--was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be\r\nburdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was\r\nonly one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself--that\r\nwas evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? Once\r\nit had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. Of\r\nlate he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night.\r\nWhen he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes\r\nshould look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions.\r\nIts mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like\r\nconscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it.\r\n\r\nHe looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. He\r\nhad cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It\r\nwas bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would\r\nkill the painter's work, and all that that meant. It would kill the\r\npast, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this\r\nmonstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at\r\npeace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.\r\n\r\nThere was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so horrible in its\r\nagony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms.\r\nTwo gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked\r\nup at the great house. They walked on till they met a policeman and\r\nbrought him back. The man rang the bell several times, but there was\r\nno answer. Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was\r\nall dark. After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico\r\nand watched.\r\n\r\n\"Whose house is that, Constable?\" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir,\" answered the policeman.\r\n\r\nThey looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of\r\nthem was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.\r\n\r\nInside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics\r\nwere talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Leaf was crying\r\nand wringing her hands. Francis was as pale as death.\r\n\r\nAfter about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the\r\nfootmen and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply.\r\nThey called out. Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying\r\nto force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the\r\nbalcony. The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.\r\n\r\nWhen they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait\r\nof their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his\r\nexquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in\r\nevening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled,\r\nand loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings\r\nthat they recognized who it was.\r\n" }, { "path": "training_data/metamorphosis.txt", "content": "Copyright (C) 2002 David Wyllie.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Metamorphosis\r\n Franz Kafka\r\n\r\nTranslated by David Wyllie\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI\r\n\r\n\r\nOne morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found\r\nhimself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on\r\nhis armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could\r\nsee his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff\r\nsections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready\r\nto slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared\r\nwith the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he\r\nlooked.\r\n\r\n\"What's happened to me?\" he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room,\r\na proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully\r\nbetween its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples\r\nlay spread out on the table - Samsa was a travelling salesman - and\r\nabove it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an\r\nillustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed\r\na lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright,\r\nraising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm\r\ntowards the viewer.\r\n\r\nGregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather.\r\nDrops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel\r\nquite sad. \"How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all\r\nthis nonsense\", he thought, but that was something he was unable to\r\ndo because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present\r\nstate couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw\r\nhimself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He\r\nmust have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he\r\nwouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when\r\nhe began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt\r\nbefore.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, God\", he thought, \"what a strenuous career it is that I've\r\nchosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this\r\ntakes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on\r\ntop of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making\r\ntrain connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different\r\npeople all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or\r\nbecome friendly with them. It can all go to Hell!\" He felt a\r\nslight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back\r\ntowards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found\r\nwhere the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little\r\nwhite spots which he didn't know what to make of; and when he tried\r\nto feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back\r\nbecause as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder.\r\n\r\nHe slid back into his former position. \"Getting up early all the\r\ntime\", he thought, \"it makes you stupid. You've got to get enough\r\nsleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For\r\ninstance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning\r\nto copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting\r\nthere eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my\r\nboss; I'd get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that\r\nwould be the best thing for me. If I didn't have my parents to\r\nthink about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have\r\ngone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him\r\neverything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right\r\noff his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up\r\nthere at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there,\r\nespecially when you have to go right up close because the boss is\r\nhard of hearing. Well, there's still some hope; once I've got the\r\nmoney together to pay off my parents' debt to him - another five or\r\nsix years I suppose - that's definitely what I'll do. That's when\r\nI'll make the big change. First of all though, I've got to get up,\r\nmy train leaves at five.\"\r\n\r\nAnd he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of\r\ndrawers. \"God in Heaven!\" he thought. It was half past six and the\r\nhands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half\r\npast, more like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He\r\ncould see from the bed that it had been set for four o'clock as it\r\nshould have been; it certainly must have rung. Yes, but was it\r\npossible to quietly sleep through that furniture-rattling noise?\r\nTrue, he had not slept peacefully, but probably all the more deeply\r\nbecause of that. What should he do now? The next train went at\r\nseven; if he were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and\r\nthe collection of samples was still not packed, and he did not at\r\nall feel particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch\r\nthe train he would not avoid his boss's anger as the office\r\nassistant would have been there to see the five o'clock train go, he\r\nwould have put in his report about Gregor's not being there a long\r\ntime ago. The office assistant was the boss's man, spineless, and\r\nwith no understanding. What about if he reported sick? But that\r\nwould be extremely strained and suspicious as in fifteen years of\r\nservice Gregor had never once yet been ill. His boss would\r\ncertainly come round with the doctor from the medical insurance\r\ncompany, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the\r\ndoctor's recommendation not to make any claim as the doctor believed\r\nthat no-one was ever ill but that many were workshy. And what's\r\nmore, would he have been entirely wrong in this case? Gregor did in\r\nfact, apart from excessive sleepiness after sleeping for so long,\r\nfeel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual.\r\n\r\nHe was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide\r\nto get out of the bed, when the clock struck quarter to seven.\r\nThere was a cautious knock at the door near his head. \"Gregor\",\r\nsomebody called - it was his mother - \"it's quarter to seven.\r\nDidn't you want to go somewhere?\" That gentle voice! Gregor was\r\nshocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be\r\nrecognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside\r\nhim, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with\r\nit, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort\r\nof echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether\r\nhe had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full\r\nanswer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented\r\nhimself with saying: \"Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I'm getting up\r\nnow.\" The change in Gregor's voice probably could not be noticed\r\noutside through the wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with\r\nthis explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation\r\nmade the other members of the family aware that Gregor, against\r\ntheir expectations was still at home, and soon his father came\r\nknocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist.\r\n\"Gregor, Gregor\", he called, \"what's wrong?\" And after a short\r\nwhile he called again with a warning deepness in his voice: \"Gregor!\r\nGregor!\" At the other side door his sister came plaintively:\r\n\"Gregor? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?\" Gregor answered to\r\nboth sides: \"I'm ready, now\", making an effort to remove all the\r\nstrangeness from his voice by enunciating very carefully and putting\r\nlong pauses between each, individual word. His father went back to\r\nhis breakfast, but his sister whispered: \"Gregor, open the door, I\r\nbeg of you.\" Gregor, however, had no thought of opening the door,\r\nand instead congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired\r\nfrom his travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was\r\nat home.\r\n\r\nThe first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being\r\ndisturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast.\r\nOnly then would he consider what to do next, as he was well aware\r\nthat he would not bring his thoughts to any sensible conclusions by\r\nlying in bed. He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in\r\nbed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned\r\nout to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would\r\nslowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest\r\ndoubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first\r\nsign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for\r\ntravelling salesmen.\r\n\r\nIt was a simple matter to throw off the covers; he only had to blow\r\nhimself up a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became\r\ndifficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad.\r\nHe would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up; but\r\ninstead of them he only had all those little legs continuously\r\nmoving in different directions, and which he was moreover unable to\r\ncontrol. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first\r\none that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do\r\nwhat he wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free\r\nand would move about painfully. \"This is something that can't be\r\ndone in bed\", Gregor said to himself, \"so don't keep trying to do\r\nit\".\r\n\r\nThe first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body\r\nout of the bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not\r\nimagine what it looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move;\r\nit went so slowly; and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he\r\ncarelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could\r\ngather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower\r\nbedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower\r\npart of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.\r\n\r\nSo then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed\r\nfirst, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed\r\nquite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of\r\nhis body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head.\r\nBut when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the\r\nfresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be\r\na miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry\r\non pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock\r\nhimself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose\r\nconsciousness.\r\n\r\nIt took just as much effort to get back to where he had been\r\nearlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching\r\nhis legs as they struggled against each other even harder than\r\nbefore, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing\r\npeace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it\r\nwas not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible\r\nthing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at\r\nwhatever sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to\r\nremind himself that calm consideration was much better than rushing\r\nto desperate conclusions. At times like this he would direct his\r\neyes to the window and look out as clearly as he could, but\r\nunfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was\r\nenveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer\r\nto offer him. \"Seven o'clock, already\", he said to himself when the\r\nclock struck again, \"seven o'clock, and there's still a fog like\r\nthis.\" And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly\r\nas if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back\r\nto their real and natural state.\r\n\r\nBut then he said to himself: \"Before it strikes quarter past seven\r\nI'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then\r\nsomebody will have come round from work to ask what's happened to me\r\nas well, as they open up at work before seven o'clock.\" And so he\r\nset himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body\r\nout of the bed all at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out\r\nof bed in this way and kept his head raised as he did so he could\r\nprobably avoid injuring it. His back seemed to be quite hard, and\r\nprobably nothing would happen to it falling onto the carpet. His\r\nmain concern was for the loud noise he was bound to make, and which\r\neven through all the doors would probably raise concern if not\r\nalarm. But it was something that had to be risked.\r\n\r\nWhen Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bed - the new\r\nmethod was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock\r\nback and forth - it occurred to him how simple everything would be\r\nif somebody came to help him. Two strong people - he had his father\r\nand the maid in mind - would have been more than enough; they would\r\nonly have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him\r\naway from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and\r\ncareful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the\r\nlittle legs would find a use. Should he really call for help\r\nthough, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked?\r\nDespite all the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile\r\nat this thought.\r\n\r\nAfter a while he had already moved so far across that it would have\r\nbeen hard for him to keep his balance if he rocked too hard. The\r\ntime was now ten past seven and he would have to make a final\r\ndecision very soon. Then there was a ring at the door of the flat.\r\n\"That'll be someone from work\", he said to himself, and froze very\r\nstill, although his little legs only became all the more lively as\r\nthey danced around. For a moment everything remained quiet.\r\n\"They're not opening the door\", Gregor said to himself, caught in\r\nsome nonsensical hope. But then of course, the maid's firm steps\r\nwent to the door as ever and opened it. Gregor only needed to hear\r\nthe visitor's first words of greeting and he knew who it was - the\r\nchief clerk himself. Why did Gregor have to be the only one\r\ncondemned to work for a company where they immediately became highly\r\nsuspicious at the slightest shortcoming? Were all employees, every\r\none of them, louts, was there not one of them who was faithful and\r\ndevoted who would go so mad with pangs of conscience that he\r\ncouldn't get out of bed if he didn't spend at least a couple of\r\nhours in the morning on company business? Was it really not enough\r\nto let one of the trainees make enquiries - assuming enquiries were\r\neven necessary - did the chief clerk have to come himself, and did\r\nthey have to show the whole, innocent family that this was so\r\nsuspicious that only the chief clerk could be trusted to have the\r\nwisdom to investigate it? And more because these thoughts had made\r\nhim upset than through any proper decision, he swang himself with\r\nall his force out of the bed. There was a loud thump, but it wasn't\r\nreally a loud noise. His fall was softened a little by the carpet,\r\nand Gregor's back was also more elastic than he had thought, which\r\nmade the sound muffled and not too noticeable. He had not held his\r\nhead carefully enough, though, and hit it as he fell; annoyed and in\r\npain, he turned it and rubbed it against the carpet.\r\n\r\n\"Something's fallen down in there\", said the chief clerk in the room\r\non the left. Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort\r\nthat had happened to him today could ever happen to the chief clerk\r\ntoo; you had to concede that it was possible. But as if in gruff\r\nreply to this question, the chief clerk's firm footsteps in his\r\nhighly polished boots could now be heard in the adjoining room.\r\nFrom the room on his right, Gregor's sister whispered to him to let\r\nhim know: \"Gregor, the chief clerk is here.\" \"Yes, I know\", said\r\nGregor to himself; but without daring to raise his voice loud enough\r\nfor his sister to hear him.\r\n\r\n\"Gregor\", said his father now from the room to his left, \"the chief\r\nclerk has come round and wants to know why you didn't leave on the\r\nearly train. We don't know what to say to him. And anyway, he\r\nwants to speak to you personally. So please open up this door. I'm\r\nsure he'll be good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room.\"\r\nThen the chief clerk called \"Good morning, Mr. Samsa\". \"He isn't\r\nwell\", said his mother to the chief clerk, while his father\r\ncontinued to speak through the door. \"He isn't well, please believe\r\nme. Why else would Gregor have missed a train! The lad only ever\r\nthinks about the business. It nearly makes me cross the way he\r\nnever goes out in the evenings; he's been in town for a week now but\r\nstayed home every evening. He sits with us in the kitchen and just\r\nreads the paper or studies train timetables. His idea of relaxation\r\nis working with his fretsaw. He's made a little frame, for\r\ninstance, it only took him two or three evenings, you'll be amazed\r\nhow nice it is; it's hanging up in his room; you'll see it as soon\r\nas Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I'm glad you're here; we wouldn't\r\nhave been able to get Gregor to open the door by ourselves; he's so\r\nstubborn; and I'm sure he isn't well, he said this morning that he\r\nis, but he isn't.\" \"I'll be there in a moment\", said Gregor slowly\r\nand thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any\r\nword of the conversation. \"Well I can't think of any other way of\r\nexplaining it, Mrs. Samsa\", said the chief clerk, \"I hope it's\r\nnothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we\r\npeople in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or\r\nunfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of\r\nbusiness considerations.\" \"Can the chief clerk come in to see you\r\nnow then?\", asked his father impatiently, knocking at the door\r\nagain. \"No\", said Gregor. In the room on his right there followed\r\na painful silence; in the room on his left his sister began to cry.\r\n\r\nSo why did his sister not go and join the others? She had probably\r\nonly just got up and had not even begun to get dressed. And why was\r\nshe crying? Was it because he had not got up, and had not let the\r\nchief clerk in, because he was in danger of losing his job and if\r\nthat happened his boss would once more pursue their parents with the\r\nsame demands as before? There was no need to worry about things like\r\nthat yet. Gregor was still there and had not the slightest\r\nintention of abandoning his family. For the time being he just lay\r\nthere on the carpet, and no-one who knew the condition he was in\r\nwould seriously have expected him to let the chief clerk in. It was\r\nonly a minor discourtesy, and a suitable excuse could easily be\r\nfound for it later on, it was not something for which Gregor could\r\nbe sacked on the spot. And it seemed to Gregor much more sensible\r\nto leave him now in peace instead of disturbing him with talking at\r\nhim and crying. But the others didn't know what was happening, they\r\nwere worried, that would excuse their behaviour.\r\n\r\nThe chief clerk now raised his voice, \"Mr. Samsa\", he called to him,\r\n\"what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room, give us no more\r\nthan yes or no for an answer, you are causing serious and\r\nunnecessary concern to your parents and you fail - and I mention\r\nthis just by the way - you fail to carry out your business duties in\r\na way that is quite unheard of. I'm speaking here on behalf of your\r\nparents and of your employer, and really must request a clear and\r\nimmediate explanation. I am astonished, quite astonished. I\r\nthought I knew you as a calm and sensible person, and now you\r\nsuddenly seem to be showing off with peculiar whims. This morning,\r\nyour employer did suggest a possible reason for your failure to\r\nappear, it's true - it had to do with the money that was recently\r\nentrusted to you - but I came near to giving him my word of honour\r\nthat that could not be the right explanation. But now that I see\r\nyour incomprehensible stubbornness I no longer feel any wish\r\nwhatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And nor is your position\r\nall that secure. I had originally intended to say all this to you\r\nin private, but since you cause me to waste my time here for no good\r\nreason I don't see why your parents should not also learn of it.\r\nYour turnover has been very unsatisfactory of late; I grant you that\r\nit's not the time of year to do especially good business, we\r\nrecognise that; but there simply is no time of year to do no\r\nbusiness at all, Mr. Samsa, we cannot allow there to be.\"\r\n\r\n\"But Sir\", called Gregor, beside himself and forgetting all else in\r\nthe excitement, \"I'll open up immediately, just a moment. I'm\r\nslightly unwell, an attack of dizziness, I haven't been able to get\r\nup. I'm still in bed now. I'm quite fresh again now, though. I'm\r\njust getting out of bed. Just a moment. Be patient! It's not quite\r\nas easy as I'd thought. I'm quite alright now, though. It's\r\nshocking, what can suddenly happen to a person! I was quite alright\r\nlast night, my parents know about it, perhaps better than me, I had\r\na small symptom of it last night already. They must have noticed\r\nit. I don't know why I didn't let you know at work! But you always\r\nthink you can get over an illness without staying at home. Please,\r\ndon't make my parents suffer! There's no basis for any of the\r\naccusations you're making; nobody's ever said a word to me about any\r\nof these things. Maybe you haven't read the latest contracts I sent\r\nin. I'll set off with the eight o'clock train, as well, these few\r\nhours of rest have given me strength. You don't need to wait, sir;\r\nI'll be in the office soon after you, and please be so good as to\r\ntell that to the boss and recommend me to him!\"\r\n\r\nAnd while Gregor gushed out these words, hardly knowing what he was\r\nsaying, he made his way over to the chest of drawers - this was\r\neasily done, probably because of the practise he had already had in\r\nbed - where he now tried to get himself upright. He really did want\r\nto open the door, really did want to let them see him and to speak\r\nwith the chief clerk; the others were being so insistent, and he was\r\ncurious to learn what they would say when they caught sight of him.\r\nIf they were shocked then it would no longer be Gregor's\r\nresponsibility and he could rest. If, however, they took everything\r\ncalmly he would still have no reason to be upset, and if he hurried\r\nhe really could be at the station for eight o'clock. The first few\r\ntimes he tried to climb up on the smooth chest of drawers he just\r\nslid down again, but he finally gave himself one last swing and\r\nstood there upright; the lower part of his body was in serious pain\r\nbut he no longer gave any attention to it. Now he let himself fall\r\nagainst the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of\r\nit with his little legs. By now he had also calmed down, and kept\r\nquiet so that he could listen to what the chief clerk was saying.\r\n\r\n\"Did you understand a word of all that?\" the chief clerk asked his\r\nparents, \"surely he's not trying to make fools of us\". \"Oh, God!\"\r\ncalled his mother, who was already in tears, \"he could be seriously\r\nill and we're making him suffer. Grete! Grete!\" she then cried.\r\n\"Mother?\" his sister called from the other side. They communicated\r\nacross Gregor's room. \"You'll have to go for the doctor straight\r\naway. Gregor is ill. Quick, get the doctor. Did you hear the way\r\nGregor spoke just now?\" \"That was the voice of an animal\", said the\r\nchief clerk, with a calmness that was in contrast with his mother's\r\nscreams. \"Anna! Anna!\" his father called into the kitchen through\r\nthe entrance hall, clapping his hands, \"get a locksmith here, now!\"\r\nAnd the two girls, their skirts swishing, immediately ran out\r\nthrough the hall, wrenching open the front door of the flat as they\r\nwent. How had his sister managed to get dressed so quickly? There\r\nwas no sound of the door banging shut again; they must have left it\r\nopen; people often do in homes where something awful has happened.\r\n\r\nGregor, in contrast, had become much calmer. So they couldn't\r\nunderstand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to\r\nhim, clearer than before - perhaps his ears had become used to the\r\nsound. They had realised, though, that there was something wrong\r\nwith him, and were ready to help. The first response to his\r\nsituation had been confident and wise, and that made him feel\r\nbetter. He felt that he had been drawn back in among people, and\r\nfrom the doctor and the locksmith he expected great and surprising\r\nachievements - although he did not really distinguish one from the\r\nother. Whatever was said next would be crucial, so, in order to\r\nmake his voice as clear as possible, he coughed a little, but taking\r\ncare to do this not too loudly as even this might well sound\r\ndifferent from the way that a human coughs and he was no longer sure\r\nhe could judge this for himself. Meanwhile, it had become very\r\nquiet in the next room. Perhaps his parents were sat at the table\r\nwhispering with the chief clerk, or perhaps they were all pressed\r\nagainst the door and listening.\r\n\r\nGregor slowly pushed his way over to the door with the chair. Once\r\nthere he let go of it and threw himself onto the door, holding\r\nhimself upright against it using the adhesive on the tips of his\r\nlegs. He rested there a little while to recover from the effort\r\ninvolved and then set himself to the task of turning the key in the\r\nlock with his mouth. He seemed, unfortunately, to have no proper\r\nteeth - how was he, then, to grasp the key? - but the lack of teeth\r\nwas, of course, made up for with a very strong jaw; using the jaw,\r\nhe really was able to start the key turning, ignoring the fact that\r\nhe must have been causing some kind of damage as a brown fluid came\r\nfrom his mouth, flowed over the key and dripped onto the floor.\r\n\"Listen\", said the chief clerk in the next room, \"he's turning the\r\nkey.\" Gregor was greatly encouraged by this; but they all should\r\nhave been calling to him, his father and his mother too: \"Well done,\r\nGregor\", they should have cried, \"keep at it, keep hold of the\r\nlock!\" And with the idea that they were all excitedly following his\r\nefforts, he bit on the key with all his strength, paying no\r\nattention to the pain he was causing himself. As the key turned\r\nround he turned around the lock with it, only holding himself\r\nupright with his mouth, and hung onto the key or pushed it down\r\nagain with the whole weight of his body as needed. The clear sound\r\nof the lock as it snapped back was Gregor's sign that he could break\r\nhis concentration, and as he regained his breath he said to himself:\r\n\"So, I didn't need the locksmith after all\". Then he lay his head on\r\nthe handle of the door to open it completely.\r\n\r\nBecause he had to open the door in this way, it was already wide\r\nopen before he could be seen. He had first to slowly turn himself\r\naround one of the double doors, and he had to do it very carefully\r\nif he did not want to fall flat on his back before entering the\r\nroom. He was still occupied with this difficult movement, unable to\r\npay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief clerk\r\nexclaim a loud \"Oh!\", which sounded like the soughing of the wind.\r\nNow he also saw him - he was the nearest to the door - his hand\r\npressed against his open mouth and slowly retreating as if driven by\r\na steady and invisible force. Gregor's mother, her hair still\r\ndishevelled from bed despite the chief clerk's being there, looked\r\nat his father. Then she unfolded her arms, took two steps forward\r\ntowards Gregor and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that\r\nspread themselves out around her as her head disappeared down onto\r\nher breast. His father looked hostile, and clenched his fists as if\r\nwanting to knock Gregor back into his room. Then he looked\r\nuncertainly round the living room, covered his eyes with his hands\r\nand wept so that his powerful chest shook.\r\n\r\nSo Gregor did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of\r\nthe other door which was still held bolted in place. In this way\r\nonly half of his body could be seen, along with his head above it\r\nwhich he leant over to one side as he peered out at the others.\r\nMeanwhile the day had become much lighter; part of the endless,\r\ngrey-black building on the other side of the street - which was a\r\nhospital - could be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular\r\nline of windows piercing its facade; the rain was still\r\nfalling, now throwing down large, individual droplets which hit the\r\nground one at a time. The washing up from breakfast lay on the\r\ntable; there was so much of it because, for Gregor's father,\r\nbreakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would\r\nstretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of\r\ndifferent newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was\r\nphotograph of Gregor when he was a lieutenant in the army, his sword\r\nin his hand and a carefree smile on his face as he called forth\r\nrespect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the entrance hall\r\nwas open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could\r\nsee onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down\r\nbelow.\r\n\r\n\"Now, then\", said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one to\r\nhave kept calm, \"I'll get dressed straight away now, pack up my\r\nsamples and set off. Will you please just let me leave? You can\r\nsee\", he said to the chief clerk, \"that I'm not stubborn and I\r\nlike to do my job; being a commercial traveller is arduous but\r\nwithout travelling I couldn't earn my living. So where are you\r\ngoing, in to the office? Yes? Will you report everything accurately,\r\nthen? It's quite possible for someone to be temporarily unable to\r\nwork, but that's just the right time to remember what's been\r\nachieved in the past and consider that later on, once the difficulty\r\nhas been removed, he will certainly work with all the more diligence\r\nand concentration. You're well aware that I'm seriously in debt to\r\nour employer as well as having to look after my parents and my\r\nsister, so that I'm trapped in a difficult situation, but I will\r\nwork my way out of it again. Please don't make things any harder\r\nfor me than they are already, and don't take sides against me at the\r\noffice. I know that nobody likes the travellers. They think we\r\nearn an enormous wage as well as having a soft time of it. That's\r\njust prejudice but they have no particular reason to think better of\r\nit. But you, sir, you have a better overview than the rest of the\r\nstaff, in fact, if I can say this in confidence, a better overview\r\nthan the boss himself - it's very easy for a businessman like him to\r\nmake mistakes about his employees and judge them more harshly than\r\nhe should. And you're also well aware that we travellers spend\r\nalmost the whole year away from the office, so that we can very\r\neasily fall victim to gossip and chance and groundless complaints,\r\nand it's almost impossible to defend yourself from that sort of\r\nthing, we don't usually even hear about them, or if at all it's when\r\nwe arrive back home exhausted from a trip, and that's when we feel\r\nthe harmful effects of what's been going on without even knowing\r\nwhat caused them. Please, don't go away, at least first say\r\nsomething to show that you grant that I'm at least partly right!\"\r\n\r\nBut the chief clerk had turned away as soon as Gregor had started to\r\nspeak, and, with protruding lips, only stared back at him over his\r\ntrembling shoulders as he left. He did not keep still for a moment\r\nwhile Gregor was speaking, but moved steadily towards the door\r\nwithout taking his eyes off him. He moved very gradually, as if\r\nthere had been some secret prohibition on leaving the room. It was\r\nonly when he had reached the entrance hall that he made a sudden\r\nmovement, drew his foot from the living room, and rushed forward in\r\na panic. In the hall, he stretched his right hand far out towards\r\nthe stairway as if out there, there were some supernatural force\r\nwaiting to save him.\r\n\r\nGregor realised that it was out of the question to let the chief\r\nclerk go away in this mood if his position in the firm was not to be\r\nput into extreme danger. That was something his parents did not\r\nunderstand very well; over the years, they had become convinced that\r\nthis job would provide for Gregor for his entire life, and besides,\r\nthey had so much to worry about at present that they had lost sight\r\nof any thought for the future. Gregor, though, did think about the\r\nfuture. The chief clerk had to be held back, calmed down, convinced\r\nand finally won over; the future of Gregor and his family depended\r\non it! If only his sister were here! She was clever; she was already\r\nin tears while Gregor was still lying peacefully on his back. And\r\nthe chief clerk was a lover of women, surely she could persuade him;\r\nshe would close the front door in the entrance hall and talk him out\r\nof his shocked state. But his sister was not there, Gregor would\r\nhave to do the job himself. And without considering that he still\r\nwas not familiar with how well he could move about in his present\r\nstate, or that his speech still might not - or probably would not -\r\nbe understood, he let go of the door; pushed himself through the\r\nopening; tried to reach the chief clerk on the landing who,\r\nridiculously, was holding on to the banister with both hands; but\r\nGregor fell immediately over and, with a little scream as he sought\r\nsomething to hold onto, landed on his numerous little legs. Hardly\r\nhad that happened than, for the first time that day, he began to\r\nfeel alright with his body; the little legs had the solid ground\r\nunder them; to his pleasure, they did exactly as he told them; they\r\nwere even making the effort to carry him where he wanted to go; and\r\nhe was soon believing that all his sorrows would soon be finally at\r\nan end. He held back the urge to move but swayed from side to side\r\nas he crouched there on the floor. His mother was not far away in\r\nfront of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but\r\nthen she suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her\r\nfingers spread shouting: \"Help, for pity's sake, Help!\" The way she\r\nheld her head suggested she wanted to see Gregor better, but the\r\nunthinking way she was hurrying backwards showed that she did not;\r\nshe had forgotten that the table was behind her with all the\r\nbreakfast things on it; when she reached the table she sat quickly\r\ndown on it without knowing what she was doing; without even seeming\r\nto notice that the coffee pot had been knocked over and a gush of\r\ncoffee was pouring down onto the carpet.\r\n\r\n\"Mother, mother\", said Gregor gently, looking up at her. He had\r\ncompletely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not\r\nhelp himself snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the\r\nflow of coffee. That set his mother screaming anew, she fled from\r\nthe table and into the arms of his father as he rushed towards her.\r\nGregor, though, had no time to spare for his parents now; the chief\r\nclerk had already reached the stairs; with his chin on the banister,\r\nhe looked back for the last time. Gregor made a run for him; he\r\nwanted to be sure of reaching him; the chief clerk must have\r\nexpected something, as he leapt down several steps at once and\r\ndisappeared; his shouts resounding all around the staircase. The\r\nflight of the chief clerk seemed, unfortunately, to put Gregor's\r\nfather into a panic as well. Until then he had been relatively self\r\ncontrolled, but now, instead of running after the chief clerk\r\nhimself, or at least not impeding Gregor as he ran after him,\r\nGregor's father seized the chief clerk's stick in his right hand\r\n(the chief clerk had left it behind on a chair, along with his hat\r\nand overcoat), picked up a large newspaper from the table with his\r\nleft, and used them to drive Gregor back into his room, stamping his\r\nfoot at him as he went. Gregor's appeals to his father were of no\r\nhelp, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly\r\nturned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the harder.\r\nAcross the room, despite the chilly weather, Gregor's mother had\r\npulled open a window, leant far out of it and pressed her hands to\r\nher face. A strong draught of air flew in from the street towards\r\nthe stairway, the curtains flew up, the newspapers on the table\r\nfluttered and some of them were blown onto the floor. Nothing would\r\nstop Gregor's father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at\r\nhim like a wild man. Gregor had never had any practice in moving\r\nbackwards and was only able to go very slowly. If Gregor had only\r\nbeen allowed to turn round he would have been back in his room\r\nstraight away, but he was afraid that if he took the time to do that\r\nhis father would become impatient, and there was the threat of a\r\nlethal blow to his back or head from the stick in his father's hand\r\nany moment. Eventually, though, Gregor realised that he had no\r\nchoice as he saw, to his disgust, that he was quite incapable of\r\ngoing backwards in a straight line; so he began, as quickly as\r\npossible and with frequent anxious glances at his father, to turn\r\nhimself round. It went very slowly, but perhaps his father was able\r\nto see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact\r\nnow and then he used the tip of his stick to give directions from a\r\ndistance as to which way to turn. If only his father would stop\r\nthat unbearable hissing! It was making Gregor quite confused. When\r\nhe had nearly finished turning round, still listening to that\r\nhissing, he made a mistake and turned himself back a little the way\r\nhe had just come. He was pleased when he finally had his head in\r\nfront of the doorway, but then saw that it was too narrow, and his\r\nbody was too broad to get through it without further difficulty. In\r\nhis present mood, it obviously did not occur to his father to open\r\nthe other of the double doors so that Gregor would have enough space\r\nto get through. He was merely fixed on the idea that Gregor should\r\nbe got back into his room as quickly as possible. Nor would he ever\r\nhave allowed Gregor the time to get himself upright as preparation\r\nfor getting through the doorway. What he did, making more noise\r\nthan ever, was to drive Gregor forwards all the harder as if there\r\nhad been nothing in the way; it sounded to Gregor as if there was\r\nnow more than one father behind him; it was not a pleasant\r\nexperience, and Gregor pushed himself into the doorway without\r\nregard for what might happen. One side of his body lifted itself,\r\nhe lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the white\r\ndoor and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it,\r\nsoon he was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all\r\nby himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air\r\nwhile those on the other side were pressed painfully against the\r\nground. Then his father gave him a hefty shove from behind which\r\nreleased him from where he was held and sent him flying, and heavily\r\nbleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut with the\r\nstick, then, finally, all was quiet.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nII\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was not until it was getting dark that evening that Gregor awoke\r\nfrom his deep and coma-like sleep. He would have woken soon\r\nafterwards anyway even if he hadn't been disturbed, as he had had\r\nenough sleep and felt fully rested. But he had the impression that\r\nsome hurried steps and the sound of the door leading into the front\r\nroom being carefully shut had woken him. The light from the\r\nelectric street lamps shone palely here and there onto the ceiling\r\nand tops of the furniture, but down below, where Gregor was, it was\r\ndark. He pushed himself over to the door, feeling his way clumsily\r\nwith his antennae - of which he was now beginning to learn the value\r\n- in order to see what had been happening there. The whole of his\r\nleft side seemed like one, painfully stretched scar, and he limped\r\nbadly on his two rows of legs. One of the legs had been badly\r\ninjured in the events of that morning - it was nearly a miracle that\r\nonly one of them had been - and dragged along lifelessly.\r\n\r\nIt was only when he had reached the door that he realised what it\r\nactually was that had drawn him over to it; it was the smell of\r\nsomething to eat. By the door there was a dish filled with\r\nsweetened milk with little pieces of white bread floating in it. He\r\nwas so pleased he almost laughed, as he was even hungrier than he\r\nhad been that morning, and immediately dipped his head into the\r\nmilk, nearly covering his eyes with it. But he soon drew his head\r\nback again in disappointment; not only did the pain in his tender\r\nleft side make it difficult to eat the food - he was only able to\r\neat if his whole body worked together as a snuffling whole - but the\r\nmilk did not taste at all nice. Milk like this was normally his\r\nfavourite drink, and his sister had certainly left it there for him\r\nbecause of that, but he turned, almost against his own will, away\r\nfrom the dish and crawled back into the centre of the room.\r\n\r\nThrough the crack in the door, Gregor could see that the gas had\r\nbeen lit in the living room. His father at this time would normally\r\nbe sat with his evening paper, reading it out in a loud voice to\r\nGregor's mother, and sometimes to his sister, but there was now not\r\na sound to be heard. Gregor's sister would often write and tell him\r\nabout this reading, but maybe his father had lost the habit in\r\nrecent times. It was so quiet all around too, even though there\r\nmust have been somebody in the flat. \"What a quiet life it is the\r\nfamily lead\", said Gregor to himself, and, gazing into the darkness,\r\nfelt a great pride that he was able to provide a life like that in\r\nsuch a nice home for his sister and parents. But what now, if all\r\nthis peace and wealth and comfort should come to a horrible and\r\nfrightening end? That was something that Gregor did not want to\r\nthink about too much, so he started to move about, crawling up and\r\ndown the room.\r\n\r\nOnce during that long evening, the door on one side of the room was\r\nopened very slightly and hurriedly closed again; later on the door\r\non the other side did the same; it seemed that someone needed to\r\nenter the room but thought better of it. Gregor went and waited\r\nimmediately by the door, resolved either to bring the timorous\r\nvisitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it\r\nwas; but the door was opened no more that night and Gregor waited in\r\nvain. The previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had\r\nwanted to get in there to him, but now, now that he had opened up\r\none of the doors and the other had clearly been unlocked some time\r\nduring the day, no-one came, and the keys were in the other sides.\r\n\r\nIt was not until late at night that the gaslight in the living room\r\nwas put out, and now it was easy to see that his parents and sister had\r\nstayed awake all that time, as they all could be distinctly heard as\r\nthey went away together on tip-toe. It was clear that no-one would\r\ncome into Gregor's room any more until morning; that gave him plenty\r\nof time to think undisturbed about how he would have to re-arrange\r\nhis life. For some reason, the tall, empty room where he was forced\r\nto remain made him feel uneasy as he lay there flat on the floor,\r\neven though he had been living in it for five years. Hardly aware\r\nof what he was doing other than a slight feeling of shame, he\r\nhurried under the couch. It pressed down on his back a little, and\r\nhe was no longer able to lift his head, but he nonetheless felt\r\nimmediately at ease and his only regret was that his body was too\r\nbroad to get it all underneath.\r\n\r\nHe spent the whole night there. Some of the time he passed in a\r\nlight sleep, although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of\r\nhis hunger, and some of the time was spent in worries and vague\r\nhopes which, however, always led to the same conclusion: for the\r\ntime being he must remain calm, he must show patience and the\r\ngreatest consideration so that his family could bear the\r\nunpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to\r\nimpose on them.\r\n\r\nGregor soon had the opportunity to test the strength of his\r\ndecisions, as early the next morning, almost before the night had\r\nended, his sister, nearly fully dressed, opened the door from the\r\nfront room and looked anxiously in. She did not see him straight\r\naway, but when she did notice him under the couch - he had to be\r\nsomewhere, for God's sake, he couldn't have flown away - she was so\r\nshocked that she lost control of herself and slammed the door shut\r\nagain from outside. But she seemed to regret her behaviour, as she\r\nopened the door again straight away and came in on tip-toe as if\r\nentering the room of someone seriously ill or even of a stranger.\r\nGregor had pushed his head forward, right to the edge of the couch,\r\nand watched her. Would she notice that he had left the milk as it\r\nwas, realise that it was not from any lack of hunger and bring him\r\nin some other food that was more suitable? If she didn't do it\r\nherself he would rather go hungry than draw her attention to it,\r\nalthough he did feel a terrible urge to rush forward from under the\r\ncouch, throw himself at his sister's feet and beg her for something\r\ngood to eat. However, his sister noticed the full dish immediately\r\nand looked at it and the few drops of milk splashed around it with\r\nsome surprise. She immediately picked it up - using a rag,\r\nnot her bare hands - and carried it out. Gregor was extremely\r\ncurious as to what she would bring in its place, imagining the\r\nwildest possibilities, but he never could have guessed what his\r\nsister, in her goodness, actually did bring. In order to test his\r\ntaste, she brought him a whole selection of things, all spread out\r\non an old newspaper. There were old, half-rotten vegetables; bones\r\nfrom the evening meal, covered in white sauce that had gone hard; a\r\nfew raisins and almonds; some cheese that Gregor had declared\r\ninedible two days before; a dry roll and some bread spread with\r\nbutter and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water into\r\nthe dish, which had probably been permanently set aside for Gregor's\r\nuse, and placed it beside them. Then, out of consideration for\r\nGregor's feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of\r\nher, she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so\r\nthat Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for\r\nhimself as he liked. Gregor's little legs whirred, at last he could\r\neat. What's more, his injuries must already have completely healed\r\nas he found no difficulty in moving. This amazed him, as more than\r\na month earlier he had cut his finger slightly with a knife, he\r\nthought of how his finger had still hurt the day before yesterday.\r\n\"Am I less sensitive than I used to be, then?\", he thought, and was\r\nalready sucking greedily at the cheese which had immediately, almost\r\ncompellingly, attracted him much more than the other foods on the\r\nnewspaper. Quickly one after another, his eyes watering with\r\npleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables and the sauce; the\r\nfresh foods, on the other hand, he didn't like at all, and even\r\ndragged the things he did want to eat a little way away from them\r\nbecause he couldn't stand the smell. Long after he had finished\r\neating and lay lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly turned\r\nthe key in the lock as a sign to him that he should withdraw. He\r\nwas immediately startled, although he had been half asleep, and he\r\nhurried back under the couch. But he needed great self-control to\r\nstay there even for the short time that his sister was in the room,\r\nas eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he\r\ncould hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he\r\nwatched with bulging eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a\r\nbroom and swept up the left-overs, mixing them in with the food he\r\nhad not even touched at all as if it could not be used any more.\r\nShe quickly dropped it all into a bin, closed it with its wooden\r\nlid, and carried everything out. She had hardly turned her back\r\nbefore Gregor came out again from under the couch and stretched\r\nhimself.\r\n\r\nThis was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the\r\nmorning while his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the\r\nsecond time after everyone had eaten their meal at midday as his\r\nparents would sleep for a little while then as well, and Gregor's\r\nsister would send the maid away on some errand. Gregor's father and\r\nmother certainly did not want him to starve either, but perhaps it\r\nwould have been more than they could stand to have any more\r\nexperience of his feeding than being told about it, and perhaps his\r\nsister wanted to spare them what distress she could as they were\r\nindeed suffering enough.\r\n\r\nIt was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the\r\ndoctor and the locksmith that first morning to get them out of the\r\nflat. As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister,\r\nthought that he could understand them, so he had to be content to\r\nhear his sister's sighs and appeals to the saints as she moved about\r\nhis room. It was only later, when she had become a little more used\r\nto everything - there was, of course, no question of her ever\r\nbecoming fully used to the situation - that Gregor would sometimes\r\ncatch a friendly comment, or at least a comment that could be\r\nconstrued as friendly. \"He's enjoyed his dinner today\", she might\r\nsay when he had diligently cleared away all the food left for him,\r\nor if he left most of it, which slowly became more and more\r\nfrequent, she would often say, sadly, \"now everything's just been\r\nleft there again\".\r\n\r\nAlthough Gregor wasn't able to hear any news directly he did listen\r\nto much of what was said in the next rooms, and whenever he heard\r\nanyone speaking he would scurry straight to the appropriate door and\r\npress his whole body against it. There was seldom any conversation,\r\nespecially at first, that was not about him in some way, even if\r\nonly in secret. For two whole days, all the talk at every mealtime\r\nwas about what they should do now; but even between meals they spoke\r\nabout the same subject as there were always at least two members of\r\nthe family at home - nobody wanted to be at home by themselves and\r\nit was out of the question to leave the flat entirely empty. And on\r\nthe very first day the maid had fallen to her knees and begged\r\nGregor's mother to let her go without delay. It was not very clear\r\nhow much she knew of what had happened but she left within a quarter\r\nof an hour, tearfully thanking Gregor's mother for her dismissal as\r\nif she had done her an enormous service. She even swore\r\nemphatically not to tell anyone the slightest about what had\r\nhappened, even though no-one had asked that of her.\r\n\r\nNow Gregor's sister also had to help his mother with the cooking;\r\nalthough that was not so much bother as no-one ate very much.\r\nGregor often heard how one of them would unsuccessfully urge another\r\nto eat, and receive no more answer than \"no thanks, I've had enough\"\r\nor something similar. No-one drank very much either. His sister\r\nwould sometimes ask his father whether he would like a beer, hoping\r\nfor the chance to go and fetch it herself. When his father then\r\nsaid nothing she would add, so that he would not feel selfish, that\r\nshe could send the housekeeper for it, but then his father would\r\nclose the matter with a big, loud \"No\", and no more would be said.\r\n\r\nEven before the first day had come to an end, his father had\r\nexplained to Gregor's mother and sister what their finances and\r\nprospects were. Now and then he stood up from the table and took\r\nsome receipt or document from the little cash box he had saved from\r\nhis business when it had collapsed five years earlier. Gregor heard\r\nhow he opened the complicated lock and then closed it again after he\r\nhad taken the item he wanted. What he heard his father say was some\r\nof the first good news that Gregor heard since he had first been\r\nincarcerated in his room. He had thought that nothing at all\r\nremained from his father's business, at least he had never told him\r\nanything different, and Gregor had never asked him about it anyway.\r\nTheir business misfortune had reduced the family to a state of total\r\ndespair, and Gregor's only concern at that time had been to arrange\r\nthings so that they could all forget about it as quickly as\r\npossible. So then he started working especially hard, with a fiery\r\nvigour that raised him from a junior salesman to a travelling\r\nrepresentative almost overnight, bringing with it the chance to earn\r\nmoney in quite different ways. Gregor converted his success at work\r\nstraight into cash that he could lay on the table at home for the\r\nbenefit of his astonished and delighted family. They had been good\r\ntimes and they had never come again, at least not with the same\r\nsplendour, even though Gregor had later earned so much that he was\r\nin a position to bear the costs of the whole family, and did bear\r\nthem. They had even got used to it, both Gregor and the family,\r\nthey took the money with gratitude and he was glad to provide it,\r\nalthough there was no longer much warm affection given in return.\r\nGregor only remained close to his sister now. Unlike him, she was\r\nvery fond of music and a gifted and expressive violinist, it was his\r\nsecret plan to send her to the conservatory next year even though it\r\nwould cause great expense that would have to be made up for in some\r\nother way. During Gregor's short periods in town, conversation with\r\nhis sister would often turn to the conservatory but it was only ever\r\nmentioned as a lovely dream that could never be realised. Their\r\nparents did not like to hear this innocent talk, but Gregor thought\r\nabout it quite hard and decided he would let them know what he\r\nplanned with a grand announcement of it on Christmas day.\r\n\r\nThat was the sort of totally pointless thing that went through his\r\nmind in his present state, pressed upright against the door and\r\nlistening. There were times when he simply became too tired to\r\ncontinue listening, when his head would fall wearily against the\r\ndoor and he would pull it up again with a start, as even the\r\nslightest noise he caused would be heard next door and they would\r\nall go silent. \"What's that he's doing now\", his father would say\r\nafter a while, clearly having gone over to the door, and only then\r\nwould the interrupted conversation slowly be taken up again.\r\n\r\nWhen explaining things, his father repeated himself several times,\r\npartly because it was a long time since he had been occupied with\r\nthese matters himself and partly because Gregor's mother did not\r\nunderstand everything the first time. From these repeated explanations\r\nGregor learned, to his pleasure, that despite all their misfortunes\r\nthere was still some money available from the old days. It was not\r\na lot, but it had not been touched in the meantime and some interest\r\nhad accumulated. Besides that, they had not been using up all the\r\nmoney that Gregor had been bringing home every month, keeping only a\r\nlittle for himself, so that that, too, had been accumulating.\r\nBehind the door, Gregor nodded with enthusiasm in his pleasure at\r\nthis unexpected thrift and caution. He could actually have used\r\nthis surplus money to reduce his father's debt to his boss, and the\r\nday when he could have freed himself from that job would have come\r\nmuch closer, but now it was certainly better the way his father had\r\ndone things.\r\n\r\nThis money, however, was certainly not enough to enable the family\r\nto live off the interest; it was enough to maintain them for,\r\nperhaps, one or two years, no more. That's to say, it was money\r\nthat should not really be touched but set aside for emergencies;\r\nmoney to live on had to be earned. His father was healthy but old,\r\nand lacking in self confidence. During the five years that he had\r\nnot been working - the first holiday in a life that had been full of\r\nstrain and no success - he had put on a lot of weight and become\r\nvery slow and clumsy. Would Gregor's elderly mother now have to go\r\nand earn money? She suffered from asthma and it was a strain for her\r\njust to move about the home, every other day would be spent\r\nstruggling for breath on the sofa by the open window. Would his\r\nsister have to go and earn money? She was still a child of\r\nseventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable, consisting\r\nof wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the business,\r\njoining in with a few modest pleasures and most of all playing the\r\nviolin. Whenever they began to talk of the need to earn money,\r\nGregor would always first let go of the door and then throw himself\r\nonto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he became quite hot with\r\nshame and regret.\r\n\r\nHe would often lie there the whole night through, not sleeping a\r\nwink but scratching at the leather for hours on end. Or he might go\r\nto all the effort of pushing a chair to the window, climbing up onto\r\nthe sill and, propped up in the chair, leaning on the window to\r\nstare out of it. He had used to feel a great sense of freedom from\r\ndoing this, but doing it now was obviously something more remembered\r\nthan experienced, as what he actually saw in this way was becoming\r\nless distinct every day, even things that were quite near; he had\r\nused to curse the ever-present view of the hospital across the\r\nstreet, but now he could not see it at all, and if he had not known\r\nthat he lived in Charlottenstrasse, which was a quiet street despite\r\nbeing in the middle of the city, he could have thought that he was\r\nlooking out the window at a barren waste where the grey sky and the\r\ngrey earth mingled inseparably. His observant sister only needed to\r\nnotice the chair twice before she would always push it back to its\r\nexact position by the window after she had tidied up the room, and\r\neven left the inner pane of the window open from then on.\r\n\r\nIf Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her\r\nfor all that she had to do for him it would have been easier for him\r\nto bear it; but as it was it caused him pain. His sister,\r\nnaturally, tried as far as possible to pretend there was nothing\r\nburdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of course, the\r\nbetter she was able to do so, but as time went by Gregor was also\r\nable to see through it all so much better. It had even become very\r\nunpleasant for him, now, whenever she entered the room. No sooner\r\nhad she come in than she would quickly close the door as a\r\nprecaution so that no-one would have to suffer the view into\r\nGregor's room, then she would go straight to the window and pull it\r\nhurriedly open almost as if she were suffocating. Even if it was\r\ncold, she would stay at the window breathing deeply for a little\r\nwhile. She would alarm Gregor twice a day with this running about\r\nand noise making; he would stay under the couch shivering the whole\r\nwhile, knowing full well that she would certainly have liked to\r\nspare him this ordeal, but it was impossible for her to be in the\r\nsame room with him with the windows closed.\r\n\r\nOne day, about a month after Gregor's transformation when his sister\r\nno longer had any particular reason to be shocked at his appearance,\r\nshe came into the room a little earlier than usual and found him\r\nstill staring out the window, motionless, and just where he would be\r\nmost horrible. In itself, his sister's not coming into the room\r\nwould have been no surprise for Gregor as it would have been\r\ndifficult for her to immediately open the window while he was still\r\nthere, but not only did she not come in, she went straight back and\r\nclosed the door behind her, a stranger would have thought he had\r\nthreatened her and tried to bite her. Gregor went straight to hide\r\nhimself under the couch, of course, but he had to wait until midday\r\nbefore his sister came back and she seemed much more uneasy than\r\nusual. It made him realise that she still found his appearance\r\nunbearable and would continue to do so, she probably even had to\r\novercome the urge to flee when she saw the little bit of him that\r\nprotruded from under the couch. One day, in order to spare her even\r\nthis sight, he spent four hours carrying the bedsheet over to the\r\ncouch on his back and arranged it so that he was completely covered\r\nand his sister would not be able to see him even if she bent down.\r\nIf she did not think this sheet was necessary then all she had to do\r\nwas take it off again, as it was clear enough that it was no\r\npleasure for Gregor to cut himself off so completely. She left the\r\nsheet where it was. Gregor even thought he glimpsed a look of\r\ngratitude one time when he carefully looked out from under the sheet\r\nto see how his sister liked the new arrangement.\r\n\r\nFor the first fourteen days, Gregor's parents could not bring\r\nthemselves to come into the room to see him. He would often hear\r\nthem say how they appreciated all the new work his sister was doing\r\neven though, before, they had seen her as a girl who was somewhat\r\nuseless and frequently been annoyed with her. But now the two of\r\nthem, father and mother, would often both wait outside the door of\r\nGregor's room while his sister tidied up in there, and as soon as\r\nshe went out again she would have to tell them exactly how\r\neverything looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this\r\ntime and whether, perhaps, any slight improvement could be seen.\r\nHis mother also wanted to go in and visit Gregor relatively soon but\r\nhis father and sister at first persuaded her against it. Gregor\r\nlistened very closely to all this, and approved fully. Later,\r\nthough, she had to be held back by force, which made her call out:\r\n\"Let me go and see Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can't you\r\nunderstand I have to see him?\", and Gregor would think to himself\r\nthat maybe it would be better if his mother came in, not every day\r\nof course, but one day a week, perhaps; she could understand\r\neverything much better than his sister who, for all her courage, was\r\nstill just a child after all, and really might not have had an\r\nadult's appreciation of the burdensome job she had taken on.\r\n\r\nGregor's wish to see his mother was soon realised. Out of\r\nconsideration for his parents, Gregor wanted to avoid being seen at\r\nthe window during the day, the few square meters of the floor did\r\nnot give him much room to crawl about, it was hard to just lie\r\nquietly through the night, his food soon stopped giving him any\r\npleasure at all, and so, to entertain himself, he got into the habit\r\nof crawling up and down the walls and ceiling. He was especially\r\nfond of hanging from the ceiling; it was quite different from lying\r\non the floor; he could breathe more freely; his body had a light\r\nswing to it; and up there, relaxed and almost happy, it might happen\r\nthat he would surprise even himself by letting go of the ceiling and\r\nlanding on the floor with a crash. But now, of course, he had far\r\nbetter control of his body than before and, even with a fall as\r\ngreat as that, caused himself no damage. Very soon his sister\r\nnoticed Gregor's new way of entertaining himself - he had, after\r\nall, left traces of the adhesive from his feet as he crawled about -\r\nand got it into her head to make it as easy as possible for him by\r\nremoving the furniture that got in his way, especially the chest of\r\ndrawers and the desk. Now, this was not something that she would be\r\nable to do by herself; she did not dare to ask for help from her\r\nfather; the sixteen year old maid had carried on bravely since the\r\ncook had left but she certainly would not have helped in this, she\r\nhad even asked to be allowed to keep the kitchen locked at all times\r\nand never to have to open the door unless it was especially\r\nimportant; so his sister had no choice but to choose some time when\r\nGregor's father was not there and fetch his mother to help her. As\r\nshe approached the room, Gregor could hear his mother express her\r\njoy, but once at the door she went silent. First, of course, his\r\nsister came in and looked round to see that everything in the room\r\nwas alright; and only then did she let her mother enter. Gregor had\r\nhurriedly pulled the sheet down lower over the couch and put more\r\nfolds into it so that everything really looked as if it had just\r\nbeen thrown down by chance. Gregor also refrained, this time, from\r\nspying out from under the sheet; he gave up the chance to see his\r\nmother until later and was simply glad that she had come. \"You can\r\ncome in, he can't be seen\", said his sister, obviously leading her\r\nin by the hand. The old chest of drawers was too heavy for a pair\r\nof feeble women to be heaving about, but Gregor listened as they\r\npushed it from its place, his sister always taking on the heaviest\r\npart of the work for herself and ignoring her mother's warnings that\r\nshe would strain herself. This lasted a very long time. After\r\nlabouring at it for fifteen minutes or more his mother said it would\r\nbe better to leave the chest where it was, for one thing it was too\r\nheavy for them to get the job finished before Gregor's father got\r\nhome and leaving it in the middle of the room it would be in his way\r\neven more, and for another thing it wasn't even sure that taking the\r\nfurniture away would really be any help to him. She thought just\r\nthe opposite; the sight of the bare walls saddened her right to her\r\nheart; and why wouldn't Gregor feel the same way about it, he'd been\r\nused to this furniture in his room for a long time and it would make\r\nhim feel abandoned to be in an empty room like that. Then, quietly,\r\nalmost whispering as if wanting Gregor (whose whereabouts she did\r\nnot know) to hear not even the tone of her voice, as she was\r\nconvinced that he did not understand her words, she added \"and by\r\ntaking the furniture away, won't it seem like we're showing that\r\nwe've given up all hope of improvement and we're abandoning him to\r\ncope for himself? I think it'd be best to leave the room exactly the\r\nway it was before so that when Gregor comes back to us again he'll\r\nfind everything unchanged and he'll be able to forget the time in\r\nbetween all the easier\".\r\n\r\nHearing these words from his mother made Gregor realise that the\r\nlack of any direct human communication, along with the monotonous\r\nlife led by the family during these two months, must have made him\r\nconfused - he could think of no other way of explaining to himself\r\nwhy he had seriously wanted his room emptied out. Had he really\r\nwanted to transform his room into a cave, a warm room fitted out\r\nwith the nice furniture he had inherited? That would have let him\r\ncrawl around unimpeded in any direction, but it would also have let\r\nhim quickly forget his past when he had still been human. He had\r\ncome very close to forgetting, and it had only been the voice of his\r\nmother, unheard for so long, that had shaken him out of it. Nothing\r\nshould be removed; everything had to stay; he could not do without\r\nthe good influence the furniture had on his condition; and if the\r\nfurniture made it difficult for him to crawl about mindlessly that\r\nwas not a loss but a great advantage.\r\n\r\nHis sister, unfortunately, did not agree; she had become used to the\r\nidea, not without reason, that she was Gregor's spokesman to his\r\nparents about the things that concerned him. This meant that his\r\nmother's advice now was sufficient reason for her to insist on\r\nremoving not only the chest of drawers and the desk, as she had\r\nthought at first, but all the furniture apart from the all-important\r\ncouch. It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the\r\nunexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her\r\ninsist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to\r\ncrawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see,\r\nwas of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become\r\nenthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever\r\nthey can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor's\r\nsituation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do\r\neven more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would\r\ndare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls\r\nby himself.\r\n\r\nSo she refused to let her mother dissuade her. Gregor's mother\r\nalready looked uneasy in his room, she soon stopped speaking and\r\nhelped Gregor's sister to get the chest of drawers out with what\r\nstrength she had. The chest of drawers was something that Gregor\r\ncould do without if he had to, but the writing desk had to stay.\r\nHardly had the two women pushed the chest of drawers, groaning, out\r\nof the room than Gregor poked his head out from under the couch to\r\nsee what he could do about it. He meant to be as careful and\r\nconsiderate as he could, but, unfortunately, it was his mother who\r\ncame back first while Grete in the next room had her arms round the\r\nchest, pushing and pulling at it from side to side by herself\r\nwithout, of course, moving it an inch. His mother was not used to\r\nthe sight of Gregor, he might have made her ill, so Gregor hurried\r\nbackwards to the far end of the couch. In his startlement, though,\r\nhe was not able to prevent the sheet at its front from moving a\r\nlittle. It was enough to attract his mother's attention. She stood\r\nvery still, remained there a moment, and then went back out to\r\nGrete.\r\n\r\nGregor kept trying to assure himself that nothing unusual was\r\nhappening, it was just a few pieces of furniture being moved after\r\nall, but he soon had to admit that the women going to and fro, their\r\nlittle calls to each other, the scraping of the furniture on the\r\nfloor, all these things made him feel as if he were being assailed\r\nfrom all sides. With his head and legs pulled in against him and\r\nhis body pressed to the floor, he was forced to admit to himself\r\nthat he could not stand all of this much longer. They were emptying\r\nhis room out; taking away everything that was dear to him; they had\r\nalready taken out the chest containing his fretsaw and other tools;\r\nnow they threatened to remove the writing desk with its place\r\nclearly worn into the floor, the desk where he had done his homework\r\nas a business trainee, at high school, even while he had been at\r\ninfant school--he really could not wait any longer to see whether\r\nthe two women's intentions were good. He had nearly forgotten they\r\nwere there anyway, as they were now too tired to say anything while\r\nthey worked and he could only hear their feet as they stepped\r\nheavily on the floor.\r\n\r\nSo, while the women were leant against the desk in the other room\r\ncatching their breath, he sallied out, changed direction four times\r\nnot knowing what he should save first before his attention was\r\nsuddenly caught by the picture on the wall - which was already\r\ndenuded of everything else that had been on it - of the lady dressed\r\nin copious fur. He hurried up onto the picture and pressed himself\r\nagainst its glass, it held him firmly and felt good on his hot\r\nbelly. This picture at least, now totally covered by Gregor, would\r\ncertainly be taken away by no-one. He turned his head to face the\r\ndoor into the living room so that he could watch the women when they\r\ncame back.\r\n\r\nThey had not allowed themselves a long rest and came back quite\r\nsoon; Grete had put her arm around her mother and was nearly\r\ncarrying her. \"What shall we take now, then?\", said Grete and\r\nlooked around. Her eyes met those of Gregor on the wall. Perhaps\r\nonly because her mother was there, she remained calm, bent her face\r\nto her so that she would not look round and said, albeit hurriedly\r\nand with a tremor in her voice: \"Come on, let's go back in the\r\nliving room for a while?\" Gregor could see what Grete had in mind,\r\nshe wanted to take her mother somewhere safe and then chase him down\r\nfrom the wall. Well, she could certainly try it! He sat unyielding\r\non his picture. He would rather jump at Grete's face.\r\n\r\nBut Grete's words had made her mother quite worried, she stepped to\r\none side, saw the enormous brown patch against the flowers of the\r\nwallpaper, and before she even realised it was Gregor that she saw\r\nscreamed: \"Oh God, oh God!\" Arms outstretched, she fell onto the\r\ncouch as if she had given up everything and stayed there immobile.\r\n\"Gregor!\" shouted his sister, glowering at him and shaking her fist.\r\n That was the first word she had spoken to him directly since his\r\ntransformation. She ran into the other room to fetch some kind of\r\nsmelling salts to bring her mother out of her faint; Gregor wanted\r\nto help too - he could save his picture later, although he stuck\r\nfast to the glass and had to pull himself off by force; then he,\r\ntoo, ran into the next room as if he could advise his sister like in\r\nthe old days; but he had to just stand behind her doing nothing; she\r\nwas looking into various bottles, he startled her when she turned\r\nround; a bottle fell to the ground and broke; a splinter cut\r\nGregor's face, some kind of caustic medicine splashed all over him;\r\nnow, without delaying any longer, Grete took hold of all the bottles\r\nshe could and ran with them in to her mother; she slammed the door\r\nshut with her foot. So now Gregor was shut out from his mother,\r\nwho, because of him, might be near to death; he could not open the\r\ndoor if he did not want to chase his sister away, and she had to\r\nstay with his mother; there was nothing for him to do but wait; and,\r\noppressed with anxiety and self-reproach, he began to crawl about,\r\nhe crawled over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and finally\r\nin his confusion as the whole room began to spin around him he fell\r\ndown into the middle of the dinner table.\r\n\r\nHe lay there for a while, numb and immobile, all around him it was\r\nquiet, maybe that was a good sign. Then there was someone at the\r\ndoor. The maid, of course, had locked herself in her kitchen so\r\nthat Grete would have to go and answer it. His father had arrived\r\nhome. \"What's happened?\" were his first words; Grete's appearance\r\nmust have made everything clear to him. She answered him with\r\nsubdued voice, and openly pressed her face into his chest: \"Mother's\r\nfainted, but she's better now. Gregor got out.\" \"Just as I\r\nexpected\", said his father, \"just as I always said, but you women\r\nwouldn't listen, would you.\" It was clear to Gregor that Grete had\r\nnot said enough and that his father took it to mean that something\r\nbad had happened, that he was responsible for some act of violence.\r\nThat meant Gregor would now have to try to calm his father, as he\r\ndid not have the time to explain things to him even if that had been\r\npossible. So he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself\r\nagainst it so that his father, when he came in from the hall, could\r\nsee straight away that Gregor had the best intentions and would go\r\nback into his room without delay, that it would not be necessary to\r\ndrive him back but that they had only to open the door and he would\r\ndisappear.\r\n\r\nHis father, though, was not in the mood to notice subtleties like\r\nthat; \"Ah!\", he shouted as he came in, sounding as if he were both\r\nangry and glad at the same time. Gregor drew his head back from the\r\ndoor and lifted it towards his father. He really had not imagined\r\nhis father the way he stood there now; of late, with his new habit\r\nof crawling about, he had neglected to pay attention to what was\r\ngoing on the rest of the flat the way he had done before. He really\r\nought to have expected things to have changed, but still, still, was\r\nthat really his father? The same tired man as used to be laying\r\nthere entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business\r\ntrips, who would receive him sitting in the armchair in his\r\nnightgown when he came back in the evenings; who was hardly even\r\nable to stand up but, as a sign of his pleasure, would just raise\r\nhis arms and who, on the couple of times a year when they went for a\r\nwalk together on a Sunday or public holiday wrapped up tightly in\r\nhis overcoat between Gregor and his mother, would always labour his\r\nway forward a little more slowly than them, who were already walking\r\nslowly for his sake; who would place his stick down carefully and,\r\nif he wanted to say something would invariably stop and gather his\r\ncompanions around him. He was standing up straight enough now;\r\ndressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, the sort worn by\r\nthe employees at the banking institute; above the high, stiff collar\r\nof the coat his strong double-chin emerged; under the bushy\r\neyebrows, his piercing, dark eyes looked out fresh and alert; his\r\nnormally unkempt white hair was combed down painfully close to his\r\nscalp. He took his cap, with its gold monogram from, probably, some\r\nbank, and threw it in an arc right across the room onto the sofa,\r\nput his hands in his trouser pockets, pushing back the bottom of his\r\nlong uniform coat, and, with look of determination, walked towards\r\nGregor. He probably did not even know himself what he had in mind,\r\nbut nonetheless lifted his feet unusually high. Gregor was amazed\r\nat the enormous size of the soles of his boots, but wasted no time\r\nwith that - he knew full well, right from the first day of his new\r\nlife, that his father thought it necessary to always be extremely\r\nstrict with him. And so he ran up to his father, stopped when his\r\nfather stopped, scurried forwards again when he moved, even\r\nslightly. In this way they went round the room several times\r\nwithout anything decisive happening, without even giving the\r\nimpression of a chase as everything went so slowly. Gregor remained\r\nall this time on the floor, largely because he feared his father\r\nmight see it as especially provoking if he fled onto the wall or\r\nceiling. Whatever he did, Gregor had to admit that he certainly\r\nwould not be able to keep up this running about for long, as for\r\neach step his father took he had to carry out countless movements.\r\nHe became noticeably short of breath, even in his earlier life his\r\nlungs had not been very reliable. Now, as he lurched about in his\r\nefforts to muster all the strength he could for running he could\r\nhardly keep his eyes open; his thoughts became too slow for him to\r\nthink of any other way of saving himself than running; he almost\r\nforgot that the walls were there for him to use although, here, they\r\nwere concealed behind carefully carved furniture full of notches and\r\nprotrusions - then, right beside him, lightly tossed, something flew\r\ndown and rolled in front of him. It was an apple; then another one\r\nimmediately flew at him; Gregor froze in shock; there was no longer\r\nany point in running as his father had decided to bombard him. He\r\nhad filled his pockets with fruit from the bowl on the sideboard and\r\nnow, without even taking the time for careful aim, threw one apple\r\nafter another. These little, red apples rolled about on the floor,\r\nknocking into each other as if they had electric motors. An apple\r\nthrown without much force glanced against Gregor's back and slid off\r\nwithout doing any harm. Another one however, immediately following\r\nit, hit squarely and lodged in his back; Gregor wanted to drag\r\nhimself away, as if he could remove the surprising, the incredible\r\npain by changing his position; but he felt as if nailed to the spot\r\nand spread himself out, all his senses in confusion. The last thing\r\nhe saw was the door of his room being pulled open, his sister was\r\nscreaming, his mother ran out in front of her in her blouse (as his\r\nsister had taken off some of her clothes after she had fainted to\r\nmake it easier for her to breathe), she ran to his father, her\r\nskirts unfastened and sliding one after another to the ground,\r\nstumbling over the skirts she pushed herself to his father, her arms\r\naround him, uniting herself with him totally - now Gregor lost his\r\nability to see anything - her hands behind his father's head begging\r\nhim to spare Gregor's life.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIII\r\n\r\n\r\nNo-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor's flesh, so it\r\nremained there as a visible reminder of his injury. He had suffered\r\nit there for more than a month, and his condition seemed serious\r\nenough to remind even his father that Gregor, despite his current\r\nsad and revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated\r\nas an enemy. On the contrary, as a family there was a duty to\r\nswallow any revulsion for him and to be patient, just to be patient.\r\n\r\nBecause of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility -\r\nprobably permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an\r\nancient invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across\r\nhis room - crawling over the ceiling was out of the question - but\r\nthis deterioration in his condition was fully (in his opinion) made\r\nup for by the door to the living room being left open every evening.\r\n He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours\r\nbefore it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room\r\nwhere he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the\r\nfamily in the light of the dinner table and listen to their\r\nconversation - with everyone's permission, in a way, and thus quite\r\ndifferently from before.\r\n\r\nThey no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of\r\ncourse, the ones that Gregor always thought about with longing when\r\nhe was tired and getting into the damp bed in some small hotel room.\r\n All of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner,\r\nhis father would go to sleep in his chair; his mother and sister\r\nwould urge each other to be quiet; his mother, bent deeply under the\r\nlamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his sister, who\r\nhad taken a sales job, learned shorthand and French in the evenings\r\nso that she might be able to get a better position later on.\r\nSometimes his father would wake up and say to Gregor's mother\r\n\"you're doing so much sewing again today!\", as if he did not know\r\nthat he had been dozing - and then he would go back to sleep again\r\nwhile mother and sister would exchange a tired grin.\r\n\r\nWith a kind of stubbornness, Gregor's father refused to take his\r\nuniform off even at home; while his nightgown hung unused on its peg\r\nGregor's father would slumber where he was, fully dressed, as if\r\nalways ready to serve and expecting to hear the voice of his\r\nsuperior even here. The uniform had not been new to start with, but\r\nas a result of this it slowly became even shabbier despite the\r\nefforts of Gregor's mother and sister to look after it. Gregor\r\nwould often spend the whole evening looking at all the stains on\r\nthis coat, with its gold buttons always kept polished and shiny,\r\nwhile the old man in it would sleep, highly uncomfortable but\r\npeaceful.\r\n\r\nAs soon as it struck ten, Gregor's mother would speak gently to his\r\nfather to wake him and try to persuade him to go to bed, as he\r\ncouldn't sleep properly where he was and he really had to get his\r\nsleep if he was to be up at six to get to work. But since he had\r\nbeen in work he had become more obstinate and would always insist on\r\nstaying longer at the table, even though he regularly fell asleep\r\nand it was then harder than ever to persuade him to exchange the\r\nchair for his bed. Then, however much mother and sister would\r\nimportune him with little reproaches and warnings he would keep\r\nslowly shaking his head for a quarter of an hour with his eyes\r\nclosed and refusing to get up. Gregor's mother would tug at his\r\nsleeve, whisper endearments into his ear, Gregor's sister would\r\nleave her work to help her mother, but nothing would have any effect\r\non him. He would just sink deeper into his chair. Only when the\r\ntwo women took him under the arms he would abruptly open his eyes,\r\nlook at them one after the other and say: \"What a life! This is what\r\npeace I get in my old age!\" And supported by the two women he would\r\nlift himself up carefully as if he were carrying the greatest load\r\nhimself, let the women take him to the door, send them off and carry\r\non by himself while Gregor's mother would throw down her needle and\r\nhis sister her pen so that they could run after his father and\r\ncontinue being of help to him.\r\n\r\nWho, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to\r\ngive more attention to Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The\r\nhousehold budget became even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed;\r\nan enormous, thick-boned charwoman with white hair that flapped\r\naround her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest\r\nwork; everything else was looked after by Gregor's mother on top of\r\nthe large amount of sewing work she did. Gregor even learned,\r\nlistening to the evening conversation about what price they had\r\nhoped for, that several items of jewellery belonging to the family\r\nhad been sold, even though both mother and sister had been very fond\r\nof wearing them at functions and celebrations. But the loudest\r\ncomplaint was that although the flat was much too big for their\r\npresent circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was no\r\nimaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new address. He could\r\nsee quite well, though, that there were more reasons than\r\nconsideration for him that made it difficult for them to move, it\r\nwould have been quite easy to transport him in any suitable crate\r\nwith a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the family back\r\nfrom their decision to move was much more to do with their total\r\ndespair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune\r\nunlike anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related\r\nto. They carried out absolutely everything that the world expects\r\nfrom poor people, Gregor's father brought bank employees their\r\nbreakfast, his mother sacrificed herself by washing clothes for\r\nstrangers, his sister ran back and forth behind her desk at the\r\nbehest of the customers, but they just did not have the strength to\r\ndo any more. And the injury in Gregor's back began to hurt as much\r\nas when it was new. After they had come back from taking his father\r\nto bed Gregor's mother and sister would now leave their work where\r\nit was and sit close together, cheek to cheek; his mother would\r\npoint to Gregor's room and say \"Close that door, Grete\", and then,\r\nwhen he was in the dark again, they would sit in the next room and\r\ntheir tears would mingle, or they would simply sit there staring\r\ndry-eyed at the table.\r\n\r\nGregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would\r\nthink of taking over the family's affairs, just like before, the\r\nnext time the door was opened; he had long forgotten about his boss\r\nand the chief clerk, but they would appear again in his thoughts,\r\nthe salesmen and the apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three\r\nfriends from other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a\r\nprovincial hotel, a tender memory that appeared and disappeared\r\nagain, a cashier from a hat shop for whom his attention had been\r\nserious but too slow, - all of them appeared to him, mixed together\r\nwith strangers and others he had forgotten, but instead of helping\r\nhim and his family they were all of them inaccessible, and he was\r\nglad when they disappeared. Other times he was not at all in the\r\nmood to look after his family, he was filled with simple rage about\r\nthe lack of attention he was shown, and although he could think of\r\nnothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he could get into\r\nthe pantry where he could take all the things he was entitled to,\r\neven if he was not hungry. Gregor's sister no longer thought about\r\nhow she could please him but would hurriedly push some food or other\r\ninto his room with her foot before she rushed out to work in the\r\nmorning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away\r\nagain with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten or\r\n- more often than not - had been left totally untouched. She still\r\ncleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been\r\nany quicker about it. Smears of dirt were left on the walls, here\r\nand there were little balls of dust and filth. At first, Gregor\r\nwent into one of the worst of these places when his sister arrived\r\nas a reproach to her, but he could have stayed there for weeks\r\nwithout his sister doing anything about it; she could see the dirt\r\nas well as he could but she had simply decided to leave him to it.\r\nAt the same time she became touchy in a way that was quite new for\r\nher and which everyone in the family understood - cleaning up\r\nGregor's room was for her and her alone. Gregor's mother did once\r\nthoroughly clean his room, and needed to use several bucketfuls of\r\nwater to do it - although that much dampness also made Gregor ill\r\nand he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But his mother\r\nwas to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly had\r\nhis sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the change\r\nin Gregor's room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living\r\nroom where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she\r\nbroke into convulsive tears. Her father, of course, was startled\r\nout of his chair and the two parents looked on astonished and\r\nhelpless; then they, too, became agitated; Gregor's father, standing\r\nto the right of his mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning\r\nof Gregor's room to his sister; from her left, Gregor's sister\r\nscreamed at her that she was never to clean Gregor's room again;\r\nwhile his mother tried to draw his father, who was beside himself\r\nwith anger, into the bedroom; his sister, quaking with tears,\r\nthumped on the table with her small fists; and Gregor hissed in\r\nanger that no-one had even thought of closing the door to save him\r\nthe sight of this and all its noise.\r\n\r\nGregor's sister was exhausted from going out to work, and looking\r\nafter Gregor as she had done before was even more work for her, but\r\neven so his mother ought certainly not to have taken her place.\r\nGregor, on the other hand, ought not to be neglected. Now, though,\r\nthe charwoman was here. This elderly widow, with a robust bone\r\nstructure that made her able to withstand the hardest of things in\r\nher long life, wasn't really repelled by Gregor. Just by chance one\r\nday, rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to Gregor's\r\nroom and found herself face to face with him. He was taken totally\r\nby surprise, no-one was chasing him but he began to rush to and fro\r\nwhile she just stood there in amazement with her hands crossed in\r\nfront of her. From then on she never failed to open the door\r\nslightly every evening and morning and look briefly in on him. At\r\nfirst she would call to him as she did so with words that she\r\nprobably considered friendly, such as \"come on then, you old\r\ndung-beetle!\", or \"look at the old dung-beetle there!\" Gregor never\r\nresponded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where he\r\nwas without moving as if the door had never even been opened. If\r\nonly they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every day\r\ninstead of letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt\r\nlike it! One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the\r\nwindowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she began to\r\nspeak to him in that way once again. Gregor was so resentful of it\r\nthat he started to move toward her, he was slow and infirm, but it\r\nwas like a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the charwoman\r\njust lifted up one of the chairs from near the door and stood there\r\nwith her mouth open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until\r\nthe chair in her hand had been slammed down into Gregor's back.\r\n\"Aren't you coming any closer, then?\", she asked when Gregor turned\r\nround again, and she calmly put the chair back in the corner.\r\n\r\nGregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to\r\nfind himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he\r\nmight take some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there\r\na few hours and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At\r\nfirst he thought it was distress at the state of his room that\r\nstopped him eating, but he had soon got used to the changes made\r\nthere. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room\r\nthat they had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many\r\nsuch things as one of the rooms in the flat had been rented out to\r\nthree gentlemen. These earnest gentlemen - all three of them had\r\nfull beards, as Gregor learned peering through the crack in the door\r\none day - were painfully insistent on things' being tidy. This\r\nmeant not only in their own room but, since they had taken a room in\r\nthis establishment, in the entire flat and especially in the\r\nkitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate,\r\nespecially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their\r\nown furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many\r\nthings had become superfluous which, although they could not be\r\nsold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found\r\ntheir way into Gregor's room. The dustbins from the kitchen found\r\ntheir way in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and\r\nanything she couldn't use for the time being she would just chuck in\r\nthere. He, fortunately, would usually see no more than the object\r\nand the hand that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the\r\nthings back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to\r\nthrow everything out in one go, but what actually happened was that\r\nthey were left where they landed when they had first been thrown\r\nunless Gregor made his way through the junk and moved it somewhere\r\nelse. At first he moved it because, with no other room free where\r\nhe could crawl about, he was forced to, but later on he came to\r\nenjoy it although moving about in that way left him sad and tired to\r\ndeath and he would remain immobile for hours afterwards.\r\n\r\nThe gentlemen who rented the room would sometimes take their evening\r\nmeal at home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so\r\nthe door to this room was often kept closed in the evening. But\r\nGregor found it easy to give up having the door open, he had, after\r\nall, often failed to make use of it when it was open and, without\r\nthe family having noticed it, lain in his room in its darkest\r\ncorner. One time, though, the charwoman left the door to the living\r\nroom slightly open, and it remained open when the gentlemen who\r\nrented the room came in in the evening and the light was put on.\r\nThey sat up at the table where, formerly, Gregor had taken his meals\r\nwith his father and mother, they unfolded the serviettes and picked\r\nup their knives and forks. Gregor's mother immediately appeared in\r\nthe doorway with a dish of meat and soon behind her came his sister\r\nwith a dish piled high with potatoes. The food was steaming, and\r\nfilled the room with its smell. The gentlemen bent over the dishes\r\nset in front of them as if they wanted to test the food before\r\neating it, and the gentleman in the middle, who seemed to count as\r\nan authority for the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of meat\r\nwhile it was still in its dish, clearly wishing to establish whether\r\nit was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to the\r\nkitchen. It was to his satisfaction, and Gregor's mother and\r\nsister, who had been looking on anxiously, began to breathe again\r\nand smiled.\r\n\r\nThe family themselves ate in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor's\r\nfather came into the living room before he went into the kitchen,\r\nbowed once with his cap in his hand and did his round of the table.\r\nThe gentlemen stood as one, and mumbled something into their beards.\r\n Then, once they were alone, they ate in near perfect silence. It\r\nseemed remarkable to Gregor that above all the various noises of\r\neating their chewing teeth could still be heard, as if they had\r\nwanted to show Gregor that you need teeth in order to eat and it was\r\nnot possible to perform anything with jaws that are toothless\r\nhowever nice they might be. \"I'd like to eat something\", said\r\nGregor anxiously, \"but not anything like they're eating. They do\r\nfeed themselves. And here I am, dying!\"\r\n\r\nThroughout all this time, Gregor could not remember having heard the\r\nviolin being played, but this evening it began to be heard from the\r\nkitchen. The three gentlemen had already finished their meal, the\r\none in the middle had produced a newspaper, given a page to each of\r\nthe others, and now they leant back in their chairs reading them and\r\nsmoking. When the violin began playing they became attentive, stood\r\nup and went on tip-toe over to the door of the hallway where they\r\nstood pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in\r\nthe kitchen, as Gregor's father called out: \"Is the playing perhaps\r\nunpleasant for the gentlemen? We can stop it straight away.\" \"On\r\nthe contrary\", said the middle gentleman, \"would the young lady not\r\nlike to come in and play for us here in the room, where it is, after\r\nall, much more cosy and comfortable?\" \"Oh yes, we'd love to\",\r\ncalled back Gregor's father as if he had been the violin player\r\nhimself. The gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited.\r\nGregor's father soon appeared with the music stand, his mother with\r\nthe music and his sister with the violin. She calmly prepared\r\neverything for her to begin playing; his parents, who had never\r\nrented a room out before and therefore showed an exaggerated\r\ncourtesy towards the three gentlemen, did not even dare to sit on\r\ntheir own chairs; his father leant against the door with his right\r\nhand pushed in between two buttons on his uniform coat; his mother,\r\nthough, was offered a seat by one of the gentlemen and sat - leaving\r\nthe chair where the gentleman happened to have placed it - out of\r\nthe way in a corner.\r\n\r\nHis sister began to play; father and mother paid close attention,\r\none on each side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the\r\nplaying, Gregor had dared to come forward a little and already had\r\nhis head in the living room. Before, he had taken great pride in\r\nhow considerate he was but now it hardly occurred to him that he had\r\nbecome so thoughtless about the others. What's more, there was now\r\nall the more reason to keep himself hidden as he was covered in the\r\ndust that lay everywhere in his room and flew up at the slightest\r\nmovement; he carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on\r\nhis back and sides; he was much too indifferent to everything now to\r\nlay on his back and wipe himself on the carpet like he had used to\r\ndo several times a day. And despite this condition, he was not too\r\nshy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living\r\nroom.\r\n\r\nNo-one noticed him, though. The family was totally preoccupied with\r\nthe violin playing; at first, the three gentlemen had put their\r\nhands in their pockets and come up far too close behind the music\r\nstand to look at all the notes being played, and they must have\r\ndisturbed Gregor's sister, but soon, in contrast with the family,\r\nthey withdrew back to the window with their heads sunk and talking\r\nto each other at half volume, and they stayed by the window while\r\nGregor's father observed them anxiously. It really now seemed very\r\nobvious that they had expected to hear some beautiful or\r\nentertaining violin playing but had been disappointed, that they had\r\nhad enough of the whole performance and it was only now out of\r\npoliteness that they allowed their peace to be disturbed. It was\r\nespecially unnerving, the way they all blew the smoke from their\r\ncigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses. Yet Gregor's sister\r\nwas playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side,\r\nfollowing the lines of music with a careful and melancholy\r\nexpression. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his\r\nhead close to the ground so that he could meet her eyes if the\r\nchance came. Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? It\r\nseemed to him that he was being shown the way to the unknown\r\nnourishment he had been yearning for. He was determined to make his\r\nway forward to his sister and tug at her skirt to show her she might\r\ncome into his room with her violin, as no-one appreciated her\r\nplaying here as much as he would. He never wanted to let her out of\r\nhis room, not while he lived, anyway; his shocking appearance\r\nshould, for once, be of some use to him; he wanted to be at every\r\ndoor of his room at once to hiss and spit at the attackers; his\r\nsister should not be forced to stay with him, though, but stay of\r\nher own free will; she would sit beside him on the couch with her\r\near bent down to him while he told her how he had always intended to\r\nsend her to the conservatory, how he would have told everyone about\r\nit last Christmas - had Christmas really come and gone already? - if\r\nthis misfortune hadn't got in the way, and refuse to let anyone\r\ndissuade him from it. On hearing all this, his sister would break\r\nout in tears of emotion, and Gregor would climb up to her shoulder\r\nand kiss her neck, which, since she had been going out to work, she\r\nhad kept free without any necklace or collar.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Samsa!\", shouted the middle gentleman to Gregor's father,\r\npointing, without wasting any more words, with his forefinger at\r\nGregor as he slowly moved forward. The violin went silent, the\r\nmiddle of the three gentlemen first smiled at his two friends,\r\nshaking his head, and then looked back at Gregor. His father seemed\r\nto think it more important to calm the three gentlemen before\r\ndriving Gregor out, even though they were not at all upset and\r\nseemed to think Gregor was more entertaining than the violin playing\r\nhad been. He rushed up to them with his arms spread out and\r\nattempted to drive them back into their room at the same time as\r\ntrying to block their view of Gregor with his body. Now they did\r\nbecome a little annoyed, and it was not clear whether it was his\r\nfather's behaviour that annoyed them or the dawning realisation that\r\nthey had had a neighbour like Gregor in the next room without\r\nknowing it. They asked Gregor's father for explanations, raised\r\ntheir arms like he had, tugged excitedly at their beards and moved\r\nback towards their room only very slowly. Meanwhile Gregor's sister\r\nhad overcome the despair she had fallen into when her playing was\r\nsuddenly interrupted. She had let her hands drop and let violin and\r\nbow hang limply for a while but continued to look at the music as if\r\nstill playing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together, lay\r\nthe instrument on her mother's lap who still sat laboriously\r\nstruggling for breath where she was, and ran into the next room\r\nwhich, under pressure from her father, the three gentlemen were more\r\nquickly moving toward. Under his sister's experienced hand, the\r\npillows and covers on the beds flew up and were put into order and\r\nshe had already finished making the beds and slipped out again\r\nbefore the three gentlemen had reached the room. Gregor's father\r\nseemed so obsessed with what he was doing that he forgot all the\r\nrespect he owed to his tenants. He urged them and pressed them\r\nuntil, when he was already at the door of the room, the middle of\r\nthe three gentlemen shouted like thunder and stamped his foot and\r\nthereby brought Gregor's father to a halt. \"I declare here and\r\nnow\", he said, raising his hand and glancing at Gregor's mother and\r\nsister to gain their attention too, \"that with regard to the\r\nrepugnant conditions that prevail in this flat and with this family\"\r\n- here he looked briefly but decisively at the floor - \"I give\r\nimmediate notice on my room. For the days that I have been living\r\nhere I will, of course, pay nothing at all, on the contrary I will\r\nconsider whether to proceed with some kind of action for damages\r\nfrom you, and believe me it would be very easy to set out the\r\ngrounds for such an action.\" He was silent and looked straight\r\nahead as if waiting for something. And indeed, his two friends\r\njoined in with the words: \"And we also give immediate notice.\" With\r\nthat, he took hold of the door handle and slammed the door.\r\n\r\nGregor's father staggered back to his seat, feeling his way with his\r\nhands, and fell into it; it looked as if he was stretching himself\r\nout for his usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way his head\r\nkept nodding it could be seen that he was not sleeping at all.\r\nThroughout all this, Gregor had lain still where the three gentlemen\r\nhad first seen him. His disappointment at the failure of his plan,\r\nand perhaps also because he was weak from hunger, made it impossible\r\nfor him to move. He was sure that everyone would turn on him any\r\nmoment, and he waited. He was not even startled out of this state\r\nwhen the violin on his mother's lap fell from her trembling fingers\r\nand landed loudly on the floor.\r\n\r\n\"Father, Mother\", said his sister, hitting the table with her hand\r\nas introduction, \"we can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see\r\nit, but I can. I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I\r\ncan say is: we have to try and get rid of it. We've done all that's\r\nhumanly possible to look after it and be patient, I don't think\r\nanyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong.\"\r\n\r\n\"She's absolutely right\", said Gregor's father to himself. His\r\nmother, who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to\r\ncough dully, her hand held out in front of her and a deranged\r\nexpression in her eyes.\r\n\r\nGregor's sister rushed to his mother and put her hand on her\r\nforehead. Her words seemed to give Gregor's father some more\r\ndefinite ideas. He sat upright, played with his uniform cap between\r\nthe plates left by the three gentlemen after their meal, and\r\noccasionally looked down at Gregor as he lay there immobile.\r\n\r\n\"We have to try and get rid of it\", said Gregor's sister, now\r\nspeaking only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with\r\ncoughing to listen, \"it'll be the death of both of you, I can see it\r\ncoming. We can't all work as hard as we have to and then come home\r\nto be tortured like this, we can't endure it. I can't endure it any\r\nmore.\" And she broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down\r\nthe face of her mother, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand\r\nmovements.\r\n\r\n\"My child\", said her father with sympathy and obvious understanding,\r\n\"what are we to do?\"\r\n\r\nHis sister just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness\r\nand tears that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier\r\ncertainty.\r\n\r\n\"If he could just understand us\", said his father almost as a\r\nquestion; his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as\r\na sign that of that there was no question.\r\n\r\n\"If he could just understand us\", repeated Gregor's father, closing\r\nhis eyes in acceptance of his sister's certainty that that was quite\r\nimpossible, \"then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement\r\nwith him. But as it is ...\"\r\n\r\n\"It's got to go\", shouted his sister, \"that's the only way, Father.\r\nYou've got to get rid of the idea that that's Gregor. We've only\r\nharmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be\r\nGregor? If it were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it's not\r\npossible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he\r\nwould have gone of his own free will. We wouldn't have a brother\r\nany more, then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember\r\nhim with respect. As it is this animal is persecuting us, it's\r\ndriven out our tenants, it obviously wants to take over the whole\r\nflat and force us to sleep on the streets. Father, look, just\r\nlook\", she suddenly screamed, \"he's starting again!\" In her alarm,\r\nwhich was totally beyond Gregor's comprehension, his sister even\r\nabandoned his mother as she pushed herself vigorously out of her\r\nchair as if more willing to sacrifice her own mother than stay\r\nanywhere near Gregor. She rushed over to behind her father, who had\r\nbecome excited merely because she was and stood up half raising his\r\nhands in front of Gregor's sister as if to protect her.\r\n\r\nBut Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all\r\nhis sister. All he had done was begin to turn round so that he\r\ncould go back into his room, although that was in itself quite\r\nstartling as his pain-wracked condition meant that turning round\r\nrequired a great deal of effort and he was using his head to help\r\nhimself do it, repeatedly raising it and striking it against the\r\nfloor. He stopped and looked round. They seemed to have realised\r\nhis good intention and had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all\r\nlooked at him in unhappy silence. His mother lay in her chair with\r\nher legs stretched out and pressed against each other, her eyes\r\nnearly closed with exhaustion; his sister sat next to his father\r\nwith her arms around his neck.\r\n\r\n\"Maybe now they'll let me turn round\", thought Gregor and went back\r\nto work. He could not help panting loudly with the effort and had\r\nsometimes to stop and take a rest. No-one was making him rush any\r\nmore, everything was left up to him. As soon as he had finally\r\nfinished turning round he began to move straight ahead. He was\r\namazed at the great distance that separated him from his room, and\r\ncould not understand how he had covered that distance in his weak\r\nstate a little while before and almost without noticing it. He\r\nconcentrated on crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that\r\nthere was not a word, not any cry, from his family to distract him.\r\nHe did not turn his head until he had reached the doorway. He did\r\nnot turn it all the way round as he felt his neck becoming stiff,\r\nbut it was nonetheless enough to see that nothing behind him had\r\nchanged, only his sister had stood up. With his last glance he saw\r\nthat his mother had now fallen completely asleep.\r\n\r\nHe was hardly inside his room before the door was hurriedly shut,\r\nbolted and locked. The sudden noise behind Gregor so startled him\r\nthat his little legs collapsed under him. It was his sister who had\r\nbeen in so much of a rush. She had been standing there waiting and\r\nsprung forward lightly, Gregor had not heard her coming at all, and\r\nas she turned the key in the lock she said loudly to her parents \"At\r\nlast!\".\r\n\r\n\"What now, then?\", Gregor asked himself as he looked round in the\r\ndarkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move\r\nat all. This was no surprise to him, it seemed rather that being\r\nable to actually move around on those spindly little legs until then\r\nwas unnatural. He also felt relatively comfortable. It is true\r\nthat his entire body was aching, but the pain seemed to be slowly\r\ngetting weaker and weaker and would finally disappear altogether.\r\nHe could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the\r\ninflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust.\r\nHe thought back of his family with emotion and love. If it was\r\npossible, he felt that he must go away even more strongly than his\r\nsister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination\r\nuntil he heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. He\r\nwatched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the\r\nwindow too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down\r\ncompletely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils.\r\n\r\nWhen the cleaner came in early in the morning - they'd often asked\r\nher not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her\r\nhurry she still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she'd\r\narrived and from then on it was impossible to sleep in peace - she\r\nmade her usual brief look in on Gregor and at first found nothing\r\nspecial. She thought he was laying there so still on purpose,\r\nplaying the martyr; she attributed all possible understanding to\r\nhim. She happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, so she\r\ntried to tickle Gregor with it from the doorway. When she had no\r\nsuccess with that she tried to make a nuisance of herself and poked\r\nat him a little, and only when she found she could shove him across\r\nthe floor with no resistance at all did she start to pay attention.\r\nShe soon realised what had really happened, opened her eyes wide,\r\nwhistled to herself, but did not waste time to yank open the bedroom\r\ndoors and shout loudly into the darkness of the bedrooms: \"Come and\r\n'ave a look at this, it's dead, just lying there, stone dead!\"\r\n\r\nMr. and Mrs. Samsa sat upright there in their marriage bed and had\r\nto make an effort to get over the shock caused by the cleaner before\r\nthey could grasp what she was saying. But then, each from his own\r\nside, they hurried out of bed. Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his\r\nshoulders, Mrs. Samsa just came out in her nightdress; and that is\r\nhow they went into Gregor's room. On the way they opened the door\r\nto the living room where Grete had been sleeping since the three\r\ngentlemen had moved in; she was fully dressed as if she had never\r\nbeen asleep, and the paleness of her face seemed to confirm this.\r\n\"Dead?\", asked Mrs. Samsa, looking at the charwoman enquiringly,\r\neven though she could have checked for herself and could have known\r\nit even without checking. \"That's what I said\", replied the\r\ncleaner, and to prove it she gave Gregor's body another shove with\r\nthe broom, sending it sideways across the floor. Mrs. Samsa made a\r\nmovement as if she wanted to hold back the broom, but did not\r\ncomplete it. \"Now then\", said Mr. Samsa, \"let's give thanks to God\r\nfor that\". He crossed himself, and the three women followed his\r\nexample. Grete, who had not taken her eyes from the corpse, said:\r\n\"Just look how thin he was. He didn't eat anything for so long.\r\nThe food came out again just the same as when it went in\". Gregor's\r\nbody was indeed completely dried up and flat, they had not seen it\r\nuntil then, but now he was not lifted up on his little legs, nor did\r\nhe do anything to make them look away.\r\n\r\n\"Grete, come with us in here for a little while\", said Mrs. Samsa\r\nwith a pained smile, and Grete followed her parents into the bedroom\r\nbut not without looking back at the body. The cleaner shut the door\r\nand opened the window wide. Although it was still early in the\r\nmorning the fresh air had something of warmth mixed in with it. It\r\nwas already the end of March, after all.\r\n\r\nThe three gentlemen stepped out of their room and looked round in\r\namazement for their breakfasts; they had been forgotten about.\r\n\"Where is our breakfast?\", the middle gentleman asked the cleaner\r\nirritably. She just put her finger on her lips and made a quick and\r\nsilent sign to the men that they might like to come into Gregor's\r\nroom. They did so, and stood around Gregor's corpse with their\r\nhands in the pockets of their well-worn coats. It was now quite\r\nlight in the room.\r\n\r\nThen the door of the bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his\r\nuniform with his wife on one arm and his daughter on the other. All\r\nof them had been crying a little; Grete now and then pressed her\r\nface against her father's arm.\r\n\r\n\"Leave my home. Now!\", said Mr. Samsa, indicating the door and\r\nwithout letting the women from him. \"What do you mean?\", asked the\r\nmiddle of the three gentlemen somewhat disconcerted, and he smiled\r\nsweetly. The other two held their hands behind their backs and\r\ncontinually rubbed them together in gleeful anticipation of a loud\r\nquarrel which could only end in their favour. \"I mean just what I\r\nsaid\", answered Mr. Samsa, and, with his two companions, went in a\r\nstraight line towards the man. At first, he stood there still,\r\nlooking at the ground as if the contents of his head were\r\nrearranging themselves into new positions. \"Alright, we'll go\r\nthen\", he said, and looked up at Mr. Samsa as if he had been\r\nsuddenly overcome with humility and wanted permission again from\r\nMr. Samsa for his decision. Mr. Samsa merely opened his eyes wide\r\nand briefly nodded to him several times. At that, and without\r\ndelay, the man actually did take long strides into the front\r\nhallway; his two friends had stopped rubbing their hands some time\r\nbefore and had been listening to what was being said. Now they\r\njumped off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that\r\nMr. Samsa might go into the hallway in front of them and break the\r\nconnection with their leader. Once there, all three took their hats\r\nfrom the stand, took their sticks from the holder, bowed without a\r\nword and left the premises. Mr. Samsa and the two women followed\r\nthem out onto the landing; but they had had no reason to mistrust\r\nthe men's intentions and as they leaned over the landing they saw how\r\nthe three gentlemen made slow but steady progress down the many\r\nsteps. As they turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and\r\nwould reappear a few moments later; the further down they went, the\r\nmore that the Samsa family lost interest in them; when a butcher's\r\nboy, proud of posture with his tray on his head, passed them on his\r\nway up and came nearer than they were, Mr. Samsa and the women came\r\naway from the landing and went, as if relieved, back into the flat.\r\n\r\nThey decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation\r\nand to go for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but\r\nthey were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote\r\nthree letters of excusal, Mr. Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa\r\nto her contractor and Grete to her principal. The cleaner came in\r\nwhile they were writing to tell them she was going, she'd finished\r\nher work for that morning. The three of them at first just nodded\r\nwithout looking up from what they were writing, and it was only when\r\nthe cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up\r\nin irritation. \"Well?\", asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in\r\nthe doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous\r\ngood news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked\r\nto. The almost vertical little ostrich feather on her hat, which\r\nhad been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa all the time she had\r\nbeen working for them, swayed gently in all directions. \"What is it\r\nyou want then?\", asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaner had the most\r\nrespect for. \"Yes\", she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh\r\nthat made her unable to speak straight away, \"well then, that thing\r\nin there, you needn't worry about how you're going to get rid of it.\r\n That's all been sorted out.\" Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down over\r\ntheir letters as if intent on continuing with what they were\r\nwriting; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing\r\neverything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite\r\nclear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling\r\nthem all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in\r\nand, clearly peeved, called out \"Cheerio then, everyone\", turned\r\nround sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went.\r\n\r\n\"Tonight she gets sacked\", said Mr. Samsa, but he received no reply\r\nfrom either his wife or his daughter as the charwoman seemed to have\r\ndestroyed the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went\r\nover to the window where they remained with their arms around each\r\nother. Mr. Samsa twisted round in his chair to look at them and sat\r\nthere watching for a while. Then he called out: \"Come here, then.\r\nLet's forget about all that old stuff, shall we. Come and give me a\r\nbit of attention\". The two women immediately did as he said,\r\nhurrying over to him where they kissed him and hugged him and then\r\nthey quickly finished their letters.\r\n\r\nAfter that, the three of them left the flat together, which was\r\nsomething they had not done for months, and took the tram out to the\r\nopen country outside the town. They had the tram, filled with warm\r\nsunshine, all to themselves. Leant back comfortably on their seats,\r\nthey discussed their prospects and found that on closer examination\r\nthey were not at all bad - until then they had never asked each\r\nother about their work but all three had jobs which were very good\r\nand held particularly good promise for the future. The greatest\r\nimprovement for the time being, of course, would be achieved quite\r\neasily by moving house; what they needed now was a flat that was\r\nsmaller and cheaper than the current one which had been chosen by\r\nGregor, one that was in a better location and, most of all, more\r\npractical. All the time, Grete was becoming livelier. With all the\r\nworry they had been having of late her cheeks had become pale, but,\r\nwhile they were talking, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa were struck, almost\r\nsimultaneously, with the thought of how their daughter was\r\nblossoming into a well built and beautiful young lady. They became\r\nquieter. Just from each other's glance and almost without knowing\r\nit they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man for\r\nher. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good\r\nintentions, as soon as they reached their destination Grete was the\r\nfirst to get up and stretch out her young body.\r\n" }, { "path": "training_data/pride_and_prejudice.txt", "content": "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE\r\n\r\nBy Jane Austen\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 1\r\n\r\n\r\nIt is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession\r\nof a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.\r\n\r\nHowever little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his\r\nfirst entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds\r\nof the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property\r\nof some one or other of their daughters.\r\n\r\n\"My dear Mr. Bennet,\" said his lady to him one day, \"have you heard that\r\nNetherfield Park is let at last?\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet replied that he had not.\r\n\r\n\"But it is,\" returned she; \"for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she\r\ntold me all about it.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet made no answer.\r\n\r\n\"Do you not want to know who has taken it?\" cried his wife impatiently.\r\n\r\n\"_You_ want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.\"\r\n\r\nThis was invitation enough.\r\n\r\n\"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken\r\nby a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came\r\ndown on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much\r\ndelighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he\r\nis to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to\r\nbe in the house by the end of next week.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is his name?\"\r\n\r\n\"Bingley.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is he married or single?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or\r\nfive thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!\"\r\n\r\n\"How so? How can it affect them?\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Mr. Bennet,\" replied his wife, \"how can you be so tiresome! You\r\nmust know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is that his design in settling here?\"\r\n\r\n\"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he\r\n_may_ fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as\r\nsoon as he comes.\"\r\n\r\n\"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send\r\nthem by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are\r\nas handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the\r\nparty.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly _have_ had my share of beauty, but\r\nI do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five\r\ngrown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.\"\r\n\r\n\"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.\"\r\n\r\n\"But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into\r\nthe neighbourhood.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is more than I engage for, I assure you.\"\r\n\r\n\"But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would\r\nbe for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to\r\ngo, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no\r\nnewcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for _us_ to\r\nvisit him if you do not.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very\r\nglad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my\r\nhearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though\r\nI must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.\"\r\n\r\n\"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the\r\nothers; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so\r\ngood-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving _her_ the preference.\"\r\n\r\n\"They have none of them much to recommend them,\" replied he; \"they are\r\nall silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of\r\nquickness than her sisters.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Bennet, how _can_ you abuse your own children in such a way? You\r\ntake delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves.\"\r\n\r\n\"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They\r\nare my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration\r\nthese last twenty years at least.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, you do not know what I suffer.\"\r\n\r\n\"But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four\r\nthousand a year come into the neighbourhood.\"\r\n\r\n\"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not\r\nvisit them.\"\r\n\r\n\"Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them\r\nall.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,\r\nreserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had\r\nbeen insufficient to make his wife understand his character. _Her_ mind\r\nwas less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding,\r\nlittle information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented,\r\nshe fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her\r\ndaughters married; its solace was visiting and news.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 2\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He\r\nhad always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring\r\nhis wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was\r\npaid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following\r\nmanner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he\r\nsuddenly addressed her with:\r\n\r\n\"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy.\"\r\n\r\n\"We are not in a way to know _what_ Mr. Bingley likes,\" said her mother\r\nresentfully, \"since we are not to visit.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you forget, mamma,\" said Elizabeth, \"that we shall meet him at the\r\nassemblies, and that Mrs. Long promised to introduce him.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces\r\nof her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion\r\nof her.\"\r\n\r\n\"No more have I,\" said Mr. Bennet; \"and I am glad to find that you do\r\nnot depend on her serving you.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, but, unable to contain\r\nherself, began scolding one of her daughters.\r\n\r\n\"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's sake! Have a little\r\ncompassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.\"\r\n\r\n\"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs,\" said her father; \"she times\r\nthem ill.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not cough for my own amusement,\" replied Kitty fretfully. \"When is\r\nyour next ball to be, Lizzy?\"\r\n\r\n\"To-morrow fortnight.\"\r\n\r\n\"Aye, so it is,\" cried her mother, \"and Mrs. Long does not come back\r\ntill the day before; so it will be impossible for her to introduce him,\r\nfor she will not know him herself.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce\r\nMr. Bingley to _her_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him\r\nmyself; how can you be so teasing?\"\r\n\r\n\"I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly\r\nvery little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a\r\nfortnight. But if _we_ do not venture somebody else will; and after all,\r\nMrs. Long and her neices must stand their chance; and, therefore, as\r\nshe will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will\r\ntake it on myself.\"\r\n\r\nThe girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only, \"Nonsense,\r\nnonsense!\"\r\n\r\n\"What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?\" cried he. \"Do\r\nyou consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on\r\nthem, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you _there_. What say you,\r\nMary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read\r\ngreat books and make extracts.\"\r\n\r\nMary wished to say something sensible, but knew not how.\r\n\r\n\"While Mary is adjusting her ideas,\" he continued, \"let us return to Mr.\r\nBingley.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am sick of Mr. Bingley,\" cried his wife.\r\n\r\n\"I am sorry to hear _that_; but why did not you tell me that before? If\r\nI had known as much this morning I certainly would not have called\r\non him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we\r\ncannot escape the acquaintance now.\"\r\n\r\nThe astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished; that of Mrs.\r\nBennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though, when the first tumult of joy\r\nwas over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the\r\nwhile.\r\n\r\n\"How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should\r\npersuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to\r\nneglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a\r\ngood joke, too, that you should have gone this morning and never said a\r\nword about it till now.\"\r\n\r\n\"Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose,\" said Mr. Bennet; and,\r\nas he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife.\r\n\r\n\"What an excellent father you have, girls!\" said she, when the door was\r\nshut. \"I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness;\r\nor me, either, for that matter. At our time of life it is not so\r\npleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintances every day; but\r\nfor your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my love, though you _are_\r\nthe youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next\r\nball.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh!\" said Lydia stoutly, \"I am not afraid; for though I _am_ the\r\nyoungest, I'm the tallest.\"\r\n\r\nThe rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would\r\nreturn Mr. Bennet's visit, and determining when they should ask him to\r\ndinner.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 3\r\n\r\n\r\nNot all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five\r\ndaughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her\r\nhusband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him\r\nin various ways--with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and\r\ndistant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all, and they were at\r\nlast obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour,\r\nLady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been\r\ndelighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely\r\nagreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly\r\nwith a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of\r\ndancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively\r\nhopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained.\r\n\r\n\"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,\"\r\nsaid Mrs. Bennet to her husband, \"and all the others equally well\r\nmarried, I shall have nothing to wish for.\"\r\n\r\nIn a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit, and sat about\r\nten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being\r\nadmitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had\r\nheard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more\r\nfortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining from an upper\r\nwindow that he wore a blue coat, and rode a black horse.\r\n\r\nAn invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched; and already\r\nhad Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her\r\nhousekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley\r\nwas obliged to be in town the following day, and, consequently, unable\r\nto accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite\r\ndisconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town\r\nso soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that\r\nhe might be always flying about from one place to another, and never\r\nsettled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears\r\na little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get\r\na large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley\r\nwas to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly.\r\nThe girls grieved over such a number of ladies, but were comforted the\r\nday before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve he brought only\r\nsix with him from London--his five sisters and a cousin. And when\r\nthe party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five\r\naltogether--Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and\r\nanother young man.\r\n\r\nMr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant\r\ncountenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women,\r\nwith an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely\r\nlooked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention\r\nof the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and\r\nthe report which was in general circulation within five minutes\r\nafter his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen\r\npronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he\r\nwas much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great\r\nadmiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust\r\nwhich turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be\r\nproud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all\r\nhis large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most\r\nforbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared\r\nwith his friend.\r\n\r\nMr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal\r\npeople in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance,\r\nwas angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving\r\none himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for\r\nthemselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced\r\nonly once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being\r\nintroduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in\r\nwalking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party.\r\nHis character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man\r\nin the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again.\r\nAmongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of\r\nhis general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his\r\nhaving slighted one of her daughters.\r\n\r\nElizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit\r\ndown for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been\r\nstanding near enough for her to hear a conversation between him and Mr.\r\nBingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend\r\nto join it.\r\n\r\n\"Come, Darcy,\" said he, \"I must have you dance. I hate to see you\r\nstanding about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better\r\ndance.\"\r\n\r\n\"I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am\r\nparticularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this\r\nit would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not\r\nanother woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to\r\nstand up with.\"\r\n\r\n\"I would not be so fastidious as you are,\" cried Mr. Bingley, \"for a\r\nkingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in\r\nmy life as I have this evening; and there are several of them you see\r\nuncommonly pretty.\"\r\n\r\n\"_You_ are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,\" said Mr.\r\nDarcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one\r\nof her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I\r\ndare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Which do you mean?\" and turning round he looked for a moment at\r\nElizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said:\r\n\"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt _me_; I am in no\r\nhumour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted\r\nby other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her\r\nsmiles, for you are wasting your time with me.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth\r\nremained with no very cordial feelings toward him. She told the story,\r\nhowever, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively,\r\nplayful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.\r\n\r\nThe evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs.\r\nBennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield\r\nparty. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been\r\ndistinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as\r\nher mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's\r\npleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most\r\naccomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been\r\nfortunate enough never to be without partners, which was all that they\r\nhad yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, in good\r\nspirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they\r\nwere the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With\r\na book he was regardless of time; and on the present occasion he had a\r\ngood deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised\r\nsuch splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that his wife's views on\r\nthe stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found out that he had a\r\ndifferent story to hear.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet,\" as she entered the room, \"we have had a most\r\ndelightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there.\r\nJane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well\r\nshe looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with\r\nher twice! Only think of _that_, my dear; he actually danced with her\r\ntwice! and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second\r\ntime. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand\r\nup with her! But, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody\r\ncan, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going\r\ndown the dance. So he inquired who she was, and got introduced, and\r\nasked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King,\r\nand the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again,\r\nand the two sixth with Lizzy, and the _Boulanger_--\"\r\n\r\n\"If he had had any compassion for _me_,\" cried her husband impatiently,\r\n\"he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of\r\nhis partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my dear, I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively\r\nhandsome! And his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw\r\nanything more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs.\r\nHurst's gown--\"\r\n\r\nHere she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any\r\ndescription of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch\r\nof the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some\r\nexaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy.\r\n\r\n\"But I can assure you,\" she added, \"that Lizzy does not lose much by not\r\nsuiting _his_ fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at\r\nall worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring\r\nhim! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very\r\ngreat! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my\r\ndear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 4\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in\r\nher praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister just how very\r\nmuch she admired him.\r\n\r\n\"He is just what a young man ought to be,\" said she, \"sensible,\r\ngood-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!--so much\r\nease, with such perfect good breeding!\"\r\n\r\n\"He is also handsome,\" replied Elizabeth, \"which a young man ought\r\nlikewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.\"\r\n\r\n\"I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I\r\ndid not expect such a compliment.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between\r\nus. Compliments always take _you_ by surprise, and _me_ never. What\r\ncould be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help\r\nseeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman\r\nin the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is\r\nvery agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a\r\nstupider person.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dear Lizzy!\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general.\r\nYou never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable\r\nin your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in your\r\nlife.\"\r\n\r\n\"I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone; but I always speak\r\nwhat I think.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know you do; and it is _that_ which makes the wonder. With _your_\r\ngood sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of\r\nothers! Affectation of candour is common enough--one meets with it\r\neverywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design--to take the\r\ngood of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing\r\nof the bad--belongs to you alone. And so you like this man's sisters,\r\ntoo, do you? Their manners are not equal to his.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly not--at first. But they are very pleasing women when you\r\nconverse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep\r\nhis house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming\r\nneighbour in her.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced; their behaviour at\r\nthe assembly had not been calculated to please in general; and with more\r\nquickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister,\r\nand with a judgement too unassailed by any attention to herself, she\r\nwas very little disposed to approve them. They were in fact very fine\r\nladies; not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the\r\npower of making themselves agreeable when they chose it, but proud and\r\nconceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the\r\nfirst private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand\r\npounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of\r\nassociating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect\r\nentitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of\r\na respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply\r\nimpressed on their memories than that their brother's fortune and their\r\nown had been acquired by trade.\r\n\r\nMr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred\r\nthousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an\r\nestate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and\r\nsometimes made choice of his county; but as he was now provided with a\r\ngood house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those\r\nwho best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the\r\nremainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to\r\npurchase.\r\n\r\nHis sisters were anxious for his having an estate of his own; but,\r\nthough he was now only established as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no\r\nmeans unwilling to preside at his table--nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had\r\nmarried a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider\r\nhis house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of\r\nage two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation\r\nto look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for\r\nhalf-an-hour--was pleased with the situation and the principal\r\nrooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it\r\nimmediately.\r\n\r\nBetween him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of\r\ngreat opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the\r\neasiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition\r\ncould offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he\r\nnever appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy's regard, Bingley\r\nhad the firmest reliance, and of his judgement the highest opinion.\r\nIn understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means\r\ndeficient, but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty,\r\nreserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not\r\ninviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage. Bingley\r\nwas sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually\r\ngiving offense.\r\n\r\nThe manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently\r\ncharacteristic. Bingley had never met with more pleasant people or\r\nprettier girls in his life; everybody had been most kind and attentive\r\nto him; there had been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon felt\r\nacquainted with all the room; and, as to Miss Bennet, he could not\r\nconceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a\r\ncollection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for\r\nnone of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and from none received\r\neither attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty,\r\nbut she smiled too much.\r\n\r\nMrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so--but still they admired\r\nher and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one\r\nwhom they would not object to know more of. Miss Bennet was therefore\r\nestablished as a sweet girl, and their brother felt authorized by such\r\ncommendation to think of her as he chose.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 5\r\n\r\n\r\nWithin a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets\r\nwere particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade\r\nin Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the\r\nhonour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty.\r\nThe distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a\r\ndisgust to his business, and to his residence in a small market town;\r\nand, in quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house\r\nabout a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge,\r\nwhere he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and,\r\nunshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all\r\nthe world. For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him\r\nsupercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By\r\nnature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St.\r\nJames's had made him courteous.\r\n\r\nLady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a\r\nvaluable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest\r\nof them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was\r\nElizabeth's intimate friend.\r\n\r\nThat the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over\r\na ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly\r\nbrought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate.\r\n\r\n\"_You_ began the evening well, Charlotte,\" said Mrs. Bennet with civil\r\nself-command to Miss Lucas. \"_You_ were Mr. Bingley's first choice.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; but he seemed to like his second better.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be\r\nsure that _did_ seem as if he admired her--indeed I rather believe he\r\n_did_--I heard something about it--but I hardly know what--something\r\nabout Mr. Robinson.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson; did not\r\nI mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton\r\nassemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many\r\npretty women in the room, and _which_ he thought the prettiest? and his\r\nanswering immediately to the last question: 'Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet,\r\nbeyond a doubt; there cannot be two opinions on that point.'\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word! Well, that is very decided indeed--that does seem as\r\nif--but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.\"\r\n\r\n\"_My_ overhearings were more to the purpose than _yours_, Eliza,\" said\r\nCharlotte. \"Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend,\r\nis he?--poor Eliza!--to be only just _tolerable_.\"\r\n\r\n\"I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his\r\nill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite\r\na misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he\r\nsat close to her for half-an-hour without once opening his lips.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are you quite sure, ma'am?--is not there a little mistake?\" said Jane.\r\n\"I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her.\"\r\n\r\n\"Aye--because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he\r\ncould not help answering her; but she said he seemed quite angry at\r\nbeing spoke to.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bingley told me,\" said Jane, \"that he never speaks much,\r\nunless among his intimate acquaintances. With _them_ he is remarkably\r\nagreeable.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very\r\nagreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it\r\nwas; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had\r\nheard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to\r\nthe ball in a hack chaise.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,\" said Miss Lucas, \"but I\r\nwish he had danced with Eliza.\"\r\n\r\n\"Another time, Lizzy,\" said her mother, \"I would not dance with _him_,\r\nif I were you.\"\r\n\r\n\"I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you _never_ to dance with him.\"\r\n\r\n\"His pride,\" said Miss Lucas, \"does not offend _me_ so much as pride\r\noften does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so\r\nvery fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour,\r\nshould think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a _right_\r\nto be proud.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is very true,\" replied Elizabeth, \"and I could easily forgive\r\n_his_ pride, if he had not mortified _mine_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pride,\" observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her\r\nreflections, \"is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have\r\never read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human\r\nnature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us\r\nwho do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some\r\nquality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different\r\nthings, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may\r\nbe proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of\r\nourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.\"\r\n\r\n\"If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy,\" cried a young Lucas, who came with\r\nhis sisters, \"I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of\r\nfoxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a day.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought,\" said Mrs.\r\nBennet; \"and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle\r\ndirectly.\"\r\n\r\nThe boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she\r\nwould, and the argument ended only with the visit.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 6\r\n\r\n\r\nThe ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit\r\nwas soon returned in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners grew on\r\nthe goodwill of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was\r\nfound to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to,\r\na wish of being better acquainted with _them_ was expressed towards\r\nthe two eldest. By Jane, this attention was received with the greatest\r\npleasure, but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment\r\nof everybody, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them;\r\nthough their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value as arising in\r\nall probability from the influence of their brother's admiration. It\r\nwas generally evident whenever they met, that he _did_ admire her and\r\nto _her_ it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference\r\nwhich she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a\r\nway to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it\r\nwas not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane\r\nunited, with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a\r\nuniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions\r\nof the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas.\r\n\r\n\"It may perhaps be pleasant,\" replied Charlotte, \"to be able to impose\r\non the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be\r\nso very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill\r\nfrom the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and\r\nit will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in\r\nthe dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every\r\nattachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all\r\n_begin_ freely--a slight preference is natural enough; but there are\r\nvery few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without\r\nencouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show _more_\r\naffection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he\r\nmay never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.\"\r\n\r\n\"But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If I can\r\nperceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not to\r\ndiscover it too.\"\r\n\r\n\"Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane's disposition as you do.\"\r\n\r\n\"But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal\r\nit, he must find it out.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But, though Bingley and Jane\r\nmeet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together; and, as they\r\nalways see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that\r\nevery moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should\r\ntherefore make the most of every half-hour in which she can command his\r\nattention. When she is secure of him, there will be more leisure for\r\nfalling in love as much as she chooses.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your plan is a good one,\" replied Elizabeth, \"where nothing is in\r\nquestion but the desire of being well married, and if I were determined\r\nto get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But\r\nthese are not Jane's feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet,\r\nshe cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard nor of its\r\nreasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four\r\ndances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house,\r\nand has since dined with him in company four times. This is not quite\r\nenough to make her understand his character.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not as you represent it. Had she merely _dined_ with him, she might\r\nonly have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must\r\nremember that four evenings have also been spent together--and four\r\nevenings may do a great deal.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they\r\nboth like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other\r\nleading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" said Charlotte, \"I wish Jane success with all my heart; and\r\nif she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a\r\nchance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a\r\ntwelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If\r\nthe dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or\r\never so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the\r\nleast. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to\r\nhave their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as\r\npossible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your\r\nlife.\"\r\n\r\n\"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not\r\nsound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.\"\r\n\r\nOccupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth\r\nwas far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some\r\ninterest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely\r\nallowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the\r\nball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no\r\nsooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly\r\nhad a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered\r\nuncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To\r\nthis discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had\r\ndetected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry\r\nin her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and\r\npleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those\r\nof the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of\r\nthis she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made\r\nhimself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough\r\nto dance with.\r\n\r\nHe began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing\r\nwith her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so\r\ndrew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas's, where a large party were\r\nassembled.\r\n\r\n\"What does Mr. Darcy mean,\" said she to Charlotte, \"by listening to my\r\nconversation with Colonel Forster?\"\r\n\r\n\"That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer.\"\r\n\r\n\"But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see\r\nwhat he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by\r\nbeing impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.\"\r\n\r\nOn his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have\r\nany intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such\r\na subject to him; which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she\r\nturned to him and said:\r\n\r\n\"Did you not think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly\r\nwell just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at\r\nMeryton?\"\r\n\r\n\"With great energy; but it is always a subject which makes a lady\r\nenergetic.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are severe on us.\"\r\n\r\n\"It will be _her_ turn soon to be teased,\" said Miss Lucas. \"I am going\r\nto open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!--always wanting me\r\nto play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken\r\na musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would\r\nreally rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of\r\nhearing the very best performers.\" On Miss Lucas's persevering, however,\r\nshe added, \"Very well, if it must be so, it must.\" And gravely glancing\r\nat Mr. Darcy, \"There is a fine old saying, which everybody here is of\r\ncourse familiar with: 'Keep your breath to cool your porridge'; and I\r\nshall keep mine to swell my song.\"\r\n\r\nHer performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song\r\nor two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that\r\nshe would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her\r\nsister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in\r\nthe family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always\r\nimpatient for display.\r\n\r\nMary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her\r\napplication, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited\r\nmanner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she\r\nhad reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with\r\nmuch more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the\r\nend of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by\r\nScotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who,\r\nwith some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in\r\ndancing at one end of the room.\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of\r\npassing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too\r\nmuch engrossed by his thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was\r\nhis neighbour, till Sir William thus began:\r\n\r\n\"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There\r\nis nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first\r\nrefinements of polished society.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst\r\nthe less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance.\"\r\n\r\nSir William only smiled. \"Your friend performs delightfully,\" he\r\ncontinued after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; \"and I doubt\r\nnot that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy.\"\r\n\r\n\"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do\r\nyou often dance at St. James's?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never, sir.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?\"\r\n\r\n\"It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have a house in town, I conclude?\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy bowed.\r\n\r\n\"I had once had some thought of fixing in town myself--for I am fond\r\nof superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the air of\r\nLondon would agree with Lady Lucas.\"\r\n\r\nHe paused in hopes of an answer; but his companion was not disposed\r\nto make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was\r\nstruck with the action of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to\r\nher:\r\n\r\n\"My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow\r\nme to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You\r\ncannot refuse to dance, I am sure when so much beauty is before you.\"\r\nAnd, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy who, though\r\nextremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly\r\ndrew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William:\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you\r\nnot to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of\r\nher hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at\r\nall shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion.\r\n\r\n\"You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny\r\nme the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the\r\namusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us\r\nfor one half-hour.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy is all politeness,\" said Elizabeth, smiling.\r\n\r\n\"He is, indeed; but, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza,\r\nwe cannot wonder at his complaisance--for who would object to such a\r\npartner?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not\r\ninjured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some\r\ncomplacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley:\r\n\r\n\"I can guess the subject of your reverie.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should imagine not.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings\r\nin this manner--in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion.\r\nI was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise--the\r\nnothingness, and yet the self-importance of all those people! What would\r\nI give to hear your strictures on them!\"\r\n\r\n\"Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more\r\nagreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure\r\nwhich a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he\r\nwould tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections.\r\nMr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity:\r\n\r\n\"Miss Elizabeth Bennet.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Elizabeth Bennet!\" repeated Miss Bingley. \"I am all astonishment.\r\nHow long has she been such a favourite?--and pray, when am I to wish you\r\njoy?\"\r\n\r\n\"That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady's\r\nimagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love\r\nto matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Nay, if you are serious about it, I shall consider the matter is\r\nabsolutely settled. You will be having a charming mother-in-law, indeed;\r\nand, of course, she will always be at Pemberley with you.\"\r\n\r\nHe listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to\r\nentertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her\r\nthat all was safe, her wit flowed long.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 7\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two\r\nthousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed,\r\nin default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's\r\nfortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply\r\nthe deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and\r\nhad left her four thousand pounds.\r\n\r\nShe had a sister married to a Mr. Phillips, who had been a clerk to\r\ntheir father and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in\r\nLondon in a respectable line of trade.\r\n\r\nThe village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most\r\nconvenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted\r\nthither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt and\r\nto a milliner's shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family,\r\nCatherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions;\r\ntheir minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing\r\nbetter offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning\r\nhours and furnish conversation for the evening; and however bare of news\r\nthe country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some\r\nfrom their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with\r\nnews and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the\r\nneighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the\r\nheadquarters.\r\n\r\nTheir visits to Mrs. Phillips were now productive of the most\r\ninteresting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge\r\nof the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a\r\nsecret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr.\r\nPhillips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a store of\r\nfelicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and\r\nMr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation\r\nto their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the\r\nregimentals of an ensign.\r\n\r\nAfter listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr.\r\nBennet coolly observed:\r\n\r\n\"From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two\r\nof the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but\r\nI am now convinced.\"\r\n\r\nCatherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect\r\nindifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter,\r\nand her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the\r\nnext morning to London.\r\n\r\n\"I am astonished, my dear,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"that you should be so\r\nready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly\r\nof anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however.\"\r\n\r\n\"If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes--but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I\r\nhad hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must\r\nso far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly\r\nfoolish.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of\r\ntheir father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will\r\nnot think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when\r\nI liked a red coat myself very well--and, indeed, so I do still at my\r\nheart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year,\r\nshould want one of my girls I shall not say nay to him; and I thought\r\nColonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in\r\nhis regimentals.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mamma,\" cried Lydia, \"my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain\r\nCarter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first\r\ncame; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with\r\na note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited\r\nfor an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was\r\neagerly calling out, while her daughter read,\r\n\r\n\"Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well,\r\nJane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is from Miss Bingley,\" said Jane, and then read it aloud.\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAR FRIEND,--\r\n\r\n\"If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me,\r\nwe shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives,\r\nfor a whole day's tete-a-tete between two women can never end without a\r\nquarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this. My brother and the\r\ngentlemen are to dine with the officers.--Yours ever,\r\n\r\n\"CAROLINE BINGLEY\"\r\n\r\n\"With the officers!\" cried Lydia. \"I wonder my aunt did not tell us of\r\n_that_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dining out,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"that is very unlucky.\"\r\n\r\n\"Can I have the carriage?\" said Jane.\r\n\r\n\"No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to\r\nrain; and then you must stay all night.\"\r\n\r\n\"That would be a good scheme,\" said Elizabeth, \"if you were sure that\r\nthey would not offer to send her home.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton,\r\nand the Hursts have no horses to theirs.\"\r\n\r\n\"I had much rather go in the coach.\"\r\n\r\n\"But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are\r\nwanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are they not?\"\r\n\r\n\"They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them.\"\r\n\r\n\"But if you have got them to-day,\" said Elizabeth, \"my mother's purpose\r\nwill be answered.\"\r\n\r\nShe did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses\r\nwere engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her\r\nmother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a\r\nbad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before\r\nit rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was\r\ndelighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission;\r\nJane certainly could not come back.\r\n\r\n\"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!\" said Mrs. Bennet more than\r\nonce, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the\r\nnext morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her\r\ncontrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield\r\nbrought the following note for Elizabeth:\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAREST LIZZY,--\r\n\r\n\"I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be\r\nimputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not\r\nhear of my returning till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr.\r\nJones--therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been\r\nto me--and, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the\r\nmatter with me.--Yours, etc.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, my dear,\" said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note\r\naloud, \"if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness--if she\r\nshould die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of\r\nMr. Bingley, and under your orders.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! I am not afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling\r\ncolds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is\r\nall very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though\r\nthe carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking\r\nwas her only alternative. She declared her resolution.\r\n\r\n\"How can you be so silly,\" cried her mother, \"as to think of such a\r\nthing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get\r\nthere.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall be very fit to see Jane--which is all I want.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is this a hint to me, Lizzy,\" said her father, \"to send for the\r\nhorses?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, indeed, I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing\r\nwhen one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner.\"\r\n\r\n\"I admire the activity of your benevolence,\" observed Mary, \"but every\r\nimpulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion,\r\nexertion should always be in proportion to what is required.\"\r\n\r\n\"We will go as far as Meryton with you,\" said Catherine and Lydia.\r\nElizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off\r\ntogether.\r\n\r\n\"If we make haste,\" said Lydia, as they walked along, \"perhaps we may\r\nsee something of Captain Carter before he goes.\"\r\n\r\nIn Meryton they parted; the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one\r\nof the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing\r\nfield after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing\r\nover puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last\r\nwithin view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face\r\nglowing with the warmth of exercise.\r\n\r\nShe was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were\r\nassembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise.\r\nThat she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such\r\ndirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and\r\nMiss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt\r\nfor it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their\r\nbrother's manners there was something better than politeness; there\r\nwas good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr.\r\nHurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the\r\nbrilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as\r\nto the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was\r\nthinking only of his breakfast.\r\n\r\nHer inquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss\r\nBennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not\r\nwell enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her\r\nimmediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving\r\nalarm or inconvenience from expressing in her note how much she longed\r\nfor such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal,\r\nhowever, to much conversation, and when Miss Bingley left them\r\ntogether, could attempt little besides expressions of gratitude for the\r\nextraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended\r\nher.\r\n\r\nWhen breakfast was over they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth\r\nbegan to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and\r\nsolicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecary came, and having\r\nexamined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught\r\na violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it;\r\nadvised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice\r\nwas followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head\r\nached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment; nor were\r\nthe other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had, in\r\nfact, nothing to do elsewhere.\r\n\r\nWhen the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go, and very\r\nunwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only\r\nwanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern\r\nin parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer\r\nof the chaise to an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present.\r\nElizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was dispatched to\r\nLongbourn to acquaint the family with her stay and bring back a supply\r\nof clothes.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 8\r\n\r\n\r\nAt five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half-past six\r\nElizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil inquiries which then\r\npoured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the\r\nmuch superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very\r\nfavourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing\r\nthis, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how\r\nshocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked\r\nbeing ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their\r\nindifference towards Jane when not immediately before them restored\r\nElizabeth to the enjoyment of all her former dislike.\r\n\r\nTheir brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could\r\nregard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his\r\nattentions to herself most pleasing, and they prevented her feeling\r\nherself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the\r\nothers. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was\r\nengrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr.\r\nHurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to\r\neat, drink, and play at cards; who, when he found her to prefer a plain\r\ndish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her.\r\n\r\nWhen dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley\r\nbegan abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were\r\npronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence;\r\nshe had no conversation, no style, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the\r\nsame, and added:\r\n\r\n\"She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent\r\nwalker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really\r\nlooked almost wild.\"\r\n\r\n\"She did, indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very\r\nnonsensical to come at all! Why must _she_ be scampering about the\r\ncountry, because her sister had a cold? Her hair, so untidy, so blowsy!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep\r\nin mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to\r\nhide it not doing its office.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,\" said Bingley; \"but this was\r\nall lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably\r\nwell when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite\r\nescaped my notice.\"\r\n\r\n\"_You_ observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,\" said Miss Bingley; \"and I am\r\ninclined to think that you would not wish to see _your_ sister make such\r\nan exhibition.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly not.\"\r\n\r\n\"To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is,\r\nabove her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! What could she mean by\r\nit? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence,\r\na most country-town indifference to decorum.\"\r\n\r\n\"It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing,\" said\r\nBingley.\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,\" observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, \"that\r\nthis adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not at all,\" he replied; \"they were brightened by the exercise.\" A\r\nshort pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again:\r\n\r\n\"I have an excessive regard for Miss Jane Bennet, she is really a very\r\nsweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with\r\nsuch a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is\r\nno chance of it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in\r\nMeryton.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is capital,\" added her sister, and they both laughed heartily.\r\n\r\n\"If they had uncles enough to fill _all_ Cheapside,\" cried Bingley, \"it\r\nwould not make them one jot less agreeable.\"\r\n\r\n\"But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any\r\nconsideration in the world,\" replied Darcy.\r\n\r\nTo this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their\r\nhearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of\r\ntheir dear friend's vulgar relations.\r\n\r\nWith a renewal of tenderness, however, they returned to her room on\r\nleaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee.\r\nShe was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till\r\nlate in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her sleep, and\r\nwhen it seemed to her rather right than pleasant that she should go\r\ndownstairs herself. On entering the drawing-room she found the whole\r\nparty at loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting\r\nthem to be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the\r\nexcuse, said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay\r\nbelow, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment.\r\n\r\n\"Do you prefer reading to cards?\" said he; \"that is rather singular.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Eliza Bennet,\" said Miss Bingley, \"despises cards. She is a great\r\nreader, and has no pleasure in anything else.\"\r\n\r\n\"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,\" cried Elizabeth; \"I am\r\n_not_ a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.\"\r\n\r\n\"In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure,\" said Bingley; \"and\r\nI hope it will be soon increased by seeing her quite well.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards the\r\ntable where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her\r\nothers--all that his library afforded.\r\n\r\n\"And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own\r\ncredit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more\r\nthan I ever looked into.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those\r\nin the room.\r\n\r\n\"I am astonished,\" said Miss Bingley, \"that my father should have left\r\nso small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at\r\nPemberley, Mr. Darcy!\"\r\n\r\n\"It ought to be good,\" he replied, \"it has been the work of many\r\ngenerations.\"\r\n\r\n\"And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying\r\nbooks.\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as\r\nthese.\"\r\n\r\n\"Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of\r\nthat noble place. Charles, when you build _your_ house, I wish it may be\r\nhalf as delightful as Pemberley.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish it may.\"\r\n\r\n\"But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that\r\nneighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a\r\nfiner county in England than Derbyshire.\"\r\n\r\n\"With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am talking of possibilities, Charles.\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get\r\nPemberley by purchase than by imitation.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was so much caught with what passed, as to leave her very\r\nlittle attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew\r\nnear the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his\r\neldest sister, to observe the game.\r\n\r\n\"Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?\" said Miss Bingley; \"will\r\nshe be as tall as I am?\"\r\n\r\n\"I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or\r\nrather taller.\"\r\n\r\n\"How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me\r\nso much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished\r\nfor her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is amazing to me,\" said Bingley, \"how young ladies can have patience\r\nto be so very accomplished as they all are.\"\r\n\r\n\"All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and\r\nnet purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure\r\nI never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being\r\ninformed that she was very accomplished.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,\" said Darcy, \"has\r\ntoo much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no\r\notherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very\r\nfar from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I\r\ncannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my\r\nacquaintance, that are really accomplished.\"\r\n\r\n\"Nor I, I am sure,\" said Miss Bingley.\r\n\r\n\"Then,\" observed Elizabeth, \"you must comprehend a great deal in your\r\nidea of an accomplished woman.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! certainly,\" cried his faithful assistant, \"no one can be really\r\nesteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met\r\nwith. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing,\r\ndancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides\r\nall this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of\r\nwalking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word\r\nwill be but half-deserved.\"\r\n\r\n\"All this she must possess,\" added Darcy, \"and to all this she must\r\nyet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by\r\nextensive reading.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am no longer surprised at your knowing _only_ six accomplished women.\r\nI rather wonder now at your knowing _any_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all\r\nthis?\"\r\n\r\n\"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and\r\napplication, and elegance, as you describe united.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her\r\nimplied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who\r\nanswered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with\r\nbitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all\r\nconversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the\r\nroom.\r\n\r\n\"Elizabeth Bennet,\" said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her,\r\n\"is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the\r\nother sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it\r\nsucceeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.\"\r\n\r\n\"Undoubtedly,\" replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed,\r\n\"there is a meanness in _all_ the arts which ladies sometimes condescend\r\nto employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is\r\ndespicable.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to\r\ncontinue the subject.\r\n\r\nElizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and\r\nthat she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones being sent for\r\nimmediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could\r\nbe of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most\r\neminent physicians. This she would not hear of; but she was not so\r\nunwilling to comply with their brother's proposal; and it was settled\r\nthat Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet\r\nwere not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable; his sisters\r\ndeclared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness,\r\nhowever, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief\r\nto his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every\r\nattention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 9\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room, and in the\r\nmorning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the\r\ninquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid,\r\nand some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his\r\nsisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a\r\nnote sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her\r\nown judgement of her situation. The note was immediately dispatched, and\r\nits contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her\r\ntwo youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast.\r\n\r\nHad she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been\r\nvery miserable; but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was\r\nnot alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her\r\nrestoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She\r\nwould not listen, therefore, to her daughter's proposal of being carried\r\nhome; neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think\r\nit at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss\r\nBingley's appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all\r\nattended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes\r\nthat Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected.\r\n\r\n\"Indeed I have, sir,\" was her answer. \"She is a great deal too ill to be\r\nmoved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass\r\na little longer on your kindness.\"\r\n\r\n\"Removed!\" cried Bingley. \"It must not be thought of. My sister, I am\r\nsure, will not hear of her removal.\"\r\n\r\n\"You may depend upon it, Madam,\" said Miss Bingley, with cold civility,\r\n\"that Miss Bennet will receive every possible attention while she\r\nremains with us.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments.\r\n\r\n\"I am sure,\" she added, \"if it was not for such good friends I do not\r\nknow what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers\r\na vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is\r\nalways the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest\r\ntemper I have ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are\r\nnothing to _her_. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a\r\ncharming prospect over the gravel walk. I do not know a place in the\r\ncountry that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it\r\nin a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease.\"\r\n\r\n\"Whatever I do is done in a hurry,\" replied he; \"and therefore if I\r\nshould resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five\r\nminutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is exactly what I should have supposed of you,\" said Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"You begin to comprehend me, do you?\" cried he, turning towards her.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! yes--I understand you perfectly.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen\r\nthrough I am afraid is pitiful.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is as it happens. It does not follow that a deep, intricate\r\ncharacter is more or less estimable than such a one as yours.\"\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy,\" cried her mother, \"remember where you are, and do not run on in\r\nthe wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.\"\r\n\r\n\"I did not know before,\" continued Bingley immediately, \"that you were a\r\nstudier of character. It must be an amusing study.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, but intricate characters are the _most_ amusing. They have at\r\nleast that advantage.\"\r\n\r\n\"The country,\" said Darcy, \"can in general supply but a few subjects for\r\nsuch a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and\r\nunvarying society.\"\r\n\r\n\"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be\r\nobserved in them for ever.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, indeed,\" cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning\r\na country neighbourhood. \"I assure you there is quite as much of _that_\r\ngoing on in the country as in town.\"\r\n\r\nEverybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment,\r\nturned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete\r\nvictory over him, continued her triumph.\r\n\r\n\"I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for\r\nmy part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal\r\npleasanter, is it not, Mr. Bingley?\"\r\n\r\n\"When I am in the country,\" he replied, \"I never wish to leave it;\r\nand when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their\r\nadvantages, and I can be equally happy in either.\"\r\n\r\n\"Aye--that is because you have the right disposition. But that\r\ngentleman,\" looking at Darcy, \"seemed to think the country was nothing\r\nat all.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, Mamma, you are mistaken,\" said Elizabeth, blushing for her\r\nmother. \"You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not\r\nsuch a variety of people to be met with in the country as in the town,\r\nwhich you must acknowledge to be true.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting\r\nwith many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few\r\nneighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families.\"\r\n\r\nNothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his\r\ncountenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eyes towards\r\nMr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of\r\nsaying something that might turn her mother's thoughts, now asked her if\r\nCharlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since _her_ coming away.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir\r\nWilliam is, Mr. Bingley, is not he? So much the man of fashion! So\r\ngenteel and easy! He has always something to say to everybody. _That_\r\nis my idea of good breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very\r\nimportant, and never open their mouths, quite mistake the matter.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did Charlotte dine with you?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mince-pies. For\r\nmy part, Mr. Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work;\r\n_my_ daughters are brought up very differently. But everybody is to\r\njudge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls,\r\nI assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think\r\nCharlotte so _very_ plain--but then she is our particular friend.\"\r\n\r\n\"She seems a very pleasant young woman.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself\r\nhas often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast\r\nof my own child, but to be sure, Jane--one does not often see anybody\r\nbetter looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own\r\npartiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a man at my brother\r\nGardiner's in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was\r\nsure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he\r\ndid not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses\r\non her, and very pretty they were.\"\r\n\r\n\"And so ended his affection,\" said Elizabeth impatiently. \"There has\r\nbeen many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first\r\ndiscovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!\"\r\n\r\n\"I have been used to consider poetry as the _food_ of love,\" said Darcy.\r\n\r\n\"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is\r\nstrong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I\r\nam convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.\"\r\n\r\nDarcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth\r\ntremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to\r\nspeak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs.\r\nBennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to\r\nJane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was\r\nunaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be\r\ncivil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part\r\nindeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and\r\nsoon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of\r\nher daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to\r\neach other during the whole visit, and the result of it was, that the\r\nyoungest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming\r\ninto the country to give a ball at Netherfield.\r\n\r\nLydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion\r\nand good-humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose\r\naffection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high\r\nanimal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the\r\nattention of the officers, to whom her uncle's good dinners, and her own\r\neasy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very\r\nequal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and\r\nabruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most\r\nshameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this\r\nsudden attack was delightful to their mother's ear:\r\n\r\n\"I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when\r\nyour sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of\r\nthe ball. But you would not wish to be dancing when she is ill.\"\r\n\r\nLydia declared herself satisfied. \"Oh! yes--it would be much better to\r\nwait till Jane was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter\r\nwould be at Meryton again. And when you have given _your_ ball,\" she\r\nadded, \"I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel\r\nForster it will be quite a shame if he does not.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned\r\ninstantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations' behaviour to the\r\nremarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy; the latter of whom, however,\r\ncould not be prevailed on to join in their censure of _her_, in spite of\r\nall Miss Bingley's witticisms on _fine eyes_.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 10\r\n\r\n\r\nThe day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss\r\nBingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who\r\ncontinued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizabeth joined\r\ntheir party in the drawing-room. The loo-table, however, did not appear.\r\nMr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching\r\nthe progress of his letter and repeatedly calling off his attention by\r\nmessages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and\r\nMrs. Hurst was observing their game.\r\n\r\nElizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in\r\nattending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual\r\ncommendations of the lady, either on his handwriting, or on the evenness\r\nof his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern\r\nwith which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was\r\nexactly in union with her opinion of each.\r\n\r\n\"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!\"\r\n\r\nHe made no answer.\r\n\r\n\"You write uncommonly fast.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.\"\r\n\r\n\"How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a\r\nyear! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!\"\r\n\r\n\"It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have already told her so once, by your desire.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend\r\npens remarkably well.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thank you--but I always mend my own.\"\r\n\r\n\"How can you contrive to write so even?\"\r\n\r\nHe was silent.\r\n\r\n\"Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp;\r\nand pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful\r\nlittle design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss\r\nGrantley's.\"\r\n\r\n\"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At\r\npresent I have not room to do them justice.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you\r\nalways write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?\"\r\n\r\n\"They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me\r\nto determine.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with\r\nease, cannot write ill.\"\r\n\r\n\"That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,\" cried her\r\nbrother, \"because he does _not_ write with ease. He studies too much for\r\nwords of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?\"\r\n\r\n\"My style of writing is very different from yours.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh!\" cried Miss Bingley, \"Charles writes in the most careless way\r\nimaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.\"\r\n\r\n\"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them--by which\r\nmeans my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your humility, Mr. Bingley,\" said Elizabeth, \"must disarm reproof.\"\r\n\r\n\"Nothing is more deceitful,\" said Darcy, \"than the appearance of\r\nhumility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an\r\nindirect boast.\"\r\n\r\n\"And which of the two do you call _my_ little recent piece of modesty?\"\r\n\r\n\"The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in\r\nwriting, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of\r\nthought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you\r\nthink at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with\r\nquickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any\r\nattention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs.\r\nBennet this morning that if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield\r\nyou should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of\r\npanegyric, of compliment to yourself--and yet what is there so very\r\nlaudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business\r\nundone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?\"\r\n\r\n\"Nay,\" cried Bingley, \"this is too much, to remember at night all the\r\nfoolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour,\r\nI believe what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this\r\nmoment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless\r\nprecipitance merely to show off before the ladies.\"\r\n\r\n\"I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that\r\nyou would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as\r\ndependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were\r\nmounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better\r\nstay till next week,' you would probably do it, you would probably not\r\ngo--and at another word, might stay a month.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have only proved by this,\" cried Elizabeth, \"that Mr. Bingley did\r\nnot do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much\r\nmore than he did himself.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am exceedingly gratified,\" said Bingley, \"by your converting what my\r\nfriend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am\r\nafraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means\r\nintend; for he would certainly think better of me, if under such a\r\ncircumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I\r\ncould.\"\r\n\r\n\"Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intentions\r\nas atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter; Darcy must speak for\r\nhimself.\"\r\n\r\n\"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine,\r\nbut which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to\r\nstand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet,\r\nthat the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and\r\nthe delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering\r\none argument in favour of its propriety.\"\r\n\r\n\"To yield readily--easily--to the _persuasion_ of a friend is no merit\r\nwith you.\"\r\n\r\n\"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of\r\neither.\"\r\n\r\n\"You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of\r\nfriendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make\r\none readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason\r\none into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have\r\nsupposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the\r\ncircumstance occurs before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour\r\nthereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend,\r\nwhere one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no\r\nvery great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying\r\nwith the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to\r\narrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to\r\nappertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting\r\nbetween the parties?\"\r\n\r\n\"By all means,\" cried Bingley; \"let us hear all the particulars, not\r\nforgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more\r\nweight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure\r\nyou, that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with\r\nmyself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not\r\nknow a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in\r\nparticular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening,\r\nwhen he has nothing to do.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was\r\nrather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly\r\nresented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her\r\nbrother for talking such nonsense.\r\n\r\n\"I see your design, Bingley,\" said his friend. \"You dislike an argument,\r\nand want to silence this.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss\r\nBennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very\r\nthankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me.\"\r\n\r\n\"What you ask,\" said Elizabeth, \"is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr.\r\nDarcy had much better finish his letter.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter.\r\n\r\nWhen that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth\r\nfor an indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with some alacrity\r\nto the pianoforte; and, after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead\r\nthe way which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she\r\nseated herself.\r\n\r\nMrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed,\r\nElizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music-books\r\nthat lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed\r\non her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of\r\nadmiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her\r\nbecause he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine,\r\nhowever, at last that she drew his notice because there was something\r\nmore wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in\r\nany other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked\r\nhim too little to care for his approbation.\r\n\r\nAfter playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by\r\na lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near\r\nElizabeth, said to her:\r\n\r\n\"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an\r\nopportunity of dancing a reel?\"\r\n\r\nShe smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some\r\nsurprise at her silence.\r\n\r\n\"Oh!\" said she, \"I heard you before, but I could not immediately\r\ndetermine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,'\r\nthat you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always\r\ndelight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of\r\ntheir premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell\r\nyou, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if\r\nyou dare.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed I do not dare.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his\r\ngallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her\r\nmanner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy\r\nhad never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really\r\nbelieved, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he\r\nshould be in some danger.\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great\r\nanxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some\r\nassistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.\r\n\r\nShe often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of\r\ntheir supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance.\r\n\r\n\"I hope,\" said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery\r\nthe next day, \"you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this\r\ndesirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue;\r\nand if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after\r\nofficers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to\r\ncheck that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence,\r\nwhich your lady possesses.\"\r\n\r\n\"Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Phillips be placed\r\nin the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great-uncle the\r\njudge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different\r\nlines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not have it taken, for\r\nwhat painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?\"\r\n\r\n\"It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their\r\ncolour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be\r\ncopied.\"\r\n\r\nAt that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and\r\nElizabeth herself.\r\n\r\n\"I did not know that you intended to walk,\" said Miss Bingley, in some\r\nconfusion, lest they had been overheard.\r\n\r\n\"You used us abominably ill,\" answered Mrs. Hurst, \"running away without\r\ntelling us that you were coming out.\"\r\n\r\nThen taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk\r\nby herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness,\r\nand immediately said:\r\n\r\n\"This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the\r\navenue.\"\r\n\r\nBut Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them,\r\nlaughingly answered:\r\n\r\n\"No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear\r\nto uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a\r\nfourth. Good-bye.\"\r\n\r\nShe then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of\r\nbeing at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered\r\nas to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 11\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her\r\nsister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the\r\ndrawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many\r\nprofessions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable\r\nas they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared.\r\nTheir powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an\r\nentertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh\r\nat their acquaintance with spirit.\r\n\r\nBut when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object;\r\nMiss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy, and she had\r\nsomething to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed\r\nhimself to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst also\r\nmade her a slight bow, and said he was \"very glad;\" but diffuseness\r\nand warmth remained for Bingley's salutation. He was full of joy and\r\nattention. The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she\r\nshould suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire\r\nto the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from\r\nthe door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone\r\nelse. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great\r\ndelight.\r\n\r\nWhen tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the\r\ncard-table--but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr.\r\nDarcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open\r\npetition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and\r\nthe silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr.\r\nHurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the\r\nsofas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book; Miss Bingley did the same;\r\nand Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets\r\nand rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss\r\nBennet.\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr.\r\nDarcy's progress through _his_ book, as in reading her own; and she\r\nwas perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She\r\ncould not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her\r\nquestion, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be\r\namused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the\r\nsecond volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, \"How pleasant\r\nit is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no\r\nenjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a\r\nbook! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not\r\nan excellent library.\"\r\n\r\nNo one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and\r\ncast her eyes round the room in quest for some amusement; when hearing\r\nher brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly\r\ntowards him and said:\r\n\r\n\"By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at\r\nNetherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult\r\nthe wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are\r\nnot some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a\r\npleasure.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you mean Darcy,\" cried her brother, \"he may go to bed, if he\r\nchooses, before it begins--but as for the ball, it is quite a settled\r\nthing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send\r\nround my cards.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should like balls infinitely better,\" she replied, \"if they were\r\ncarried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably\r\ntedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much\r\nmore rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of\r\nthe day.\"\r\n\r\n\"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be\r\nnear so much like a ball.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked\r\nabout the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but\r\nDarcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In\r\nthe desperation of her feelings, she resolved on one effort more, and,\r\nturning to Elizabeth, said:\r\n\r\n\"Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a\r\nturn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so\r\nlong in one attitude.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley\r\nsucceeded no less in the real object of her civility; Mr. Darcy looked\r\nup. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as\r\nElizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was\r\ndirectly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that\r\nhe could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down\r\nthe room together, with either of which motives his joining them would\r\ninterfere. \"What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his\r\nmeaning?\"--and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?\r\n\r\n\"Not at all,\" was her answer; \"but depend upon it, he means to be severe\r\non us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing\r\nabout it.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in\r\nanything, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his\r\ntwo motives.\r\n\r\n\"I have not the smallest objection to explaining them,\" said he, as soon\r\nas she allowed him to speak. \"You either choose this method of passing\r\nthe evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret\r\naffairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures\r\nappear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be\r\ncompletely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better\r\nas I sit by the fire.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! shocking!\" cried Miss Bingley. \"I never heard anything so\r\nabominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?\"\r\n\r\n\"Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination,\" said Elizabeth. \"We\r\ncan all plague and punish one another. Tease him--laugh at him. Intimate\r\nas you are, you must know how it is to be done.\"\r\n\r\n\"But upon my honour, I do _not_. I do assure you that my intimacy has\r\nnot yet taught me _that_. Tease calmness of manner and presence of\r\nmind! No, no; I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will\r\nnot expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a\r\nsubject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!\" cried Elizabeth. \"That is an\r\nuncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would\r\nbe a great loss to _me_ to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a\r\nlaugh.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bingley,\" said he, \"has given me more credit than can be.\r\nThe wisest and the best of men--nay, the wisest and best of their\r\nactions--may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in\r\nlife is a joke.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly,\" replied Elizabeth--\"there are such people, but I hope I\r\nam not one of _them_. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good.\r\nFollies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, _do_ divert me, I own,\r\nand I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely\r\nwhat you are without.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study\r\nof my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong\r\nunderstanding to ridicule.\"\r\n\r\n\"Such as vanity and pride.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride--where there is a real\r\nsuperiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth turned away to hide a smile.\r\n\r\n\"Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume,\" said Miss Bingley;\r\n\"and pray what is the result?\"\r\n\r\n\"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it\r\nhimself without disguise.\"\r\n\r\n\"No,\" said Darcy, \"I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough,\r\nbut they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch\r\nfor. It is, I believe, too little yielding--certainly too little for the\r\nconvenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others\r\nso soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings\r\nare not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper\r\nwould perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost\r\nforever.\"\r\n\r\n\"_That_ is a failing indeed!\" cried Elizabeth. \"Implacable resentment\r\n_is_ a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I\r\nreally cannot _laugh_ at it. You are safe from me.\"\r\n\r\n\"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular\r\nevil--a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.\"\r\n\r\n\"And _your_ defect is to hate everybody.\"\r\n\r\n\"And yours,\" he replied with a smile, \"is willfully to misunderstand\r\nthem.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do let us have a little music,\" cried Miss Bingley, tired of a\r\nconversation in which she had no share. \"Louisa, you will not mind my\r\nwaking Mr. Hurst?\"\r\n\r\nHer sister had not the smallest objection, and the pianoforte was\r\nopened; and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for\r\nit. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 12\r\n\r\n\r\nIn consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the\r\nnext morning to their mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for\r\nthem in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on\r\nher daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which\r\nwould exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive\r\nthem with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at\r\nleast not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs.\r\nBennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage\r\nbefore Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley\r\nand his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them\r\nvery well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively\r\nresolved--nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the\r\ncontrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long,\r\nshe urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at\r\nlength it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield\r\nthat morning should be mentioned, and the request made.\r\n\r\nThe communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was\r\nsaid of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work\r\non Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was\r\nthen sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her jealousy and dislike\r\nof one sister much exceeded her affection for the other.\r\n\r\nThe master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so\r\nsoon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be\r\nsafe for her--that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where\r\nshe felt herself to be right.\r\n\r\nTo Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence--Elizabeth had been at\r\nNetherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked--and Miss\r\nBingley was uncivil to _her_, and more teasing than usual to himself.\r\nHe wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration\r\nshould _now_ escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope\r\nof influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been\r\nsuggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight\r\nin confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke\r\nten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were\r\nat one time left by themselves for half-an-hour, he adhered most\r\nconscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her.\r\n\r\nOn Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost\r\nall, took place. Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last\r\nvery rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted,\r\nafter assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her\r\nto see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most\r\ntenderly, she even shook hands with the former. Elizabeth took leave of\r\nthe whole party in the liveliest of spirits.\r\n\r\nThey were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet\r\nwondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much\r\ntrouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their\r\nfather, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really\r\nglad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The\r\nevening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of\r\nits animation, and almost all its sense by the absence of Jane and\r\nElizabeth.\r\n\r\nThey found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough-bass and human\r\nnature; and had some extracts to admire, and some new observations of\r\nthreadbare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information\r\nfor them of a different sort. Much had been done and much had been said\r\nin the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers\r\nhad dined lately with their uncle, a private had been flogged, and it\r\nhad actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 13\r\n\r\n\r\n\"I hope, my dear,\" said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at\r\nbreakfast the next morning, \"that you have ordered a good dinner to-day,\r\nbecause I have reason to expect an addition to our family party.\"\r\n\r\n\"Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure,\r\nunless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in--and I hope _my_ dinners\r\nare good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home.\"\r\n\r\n\"The person of whom I speak is a gentleman, and a stranger.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. \"A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr.\r\nBingley, I am sure! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr.\r\nBingley. But--good Lord! how unlucky! There is not a bit of fish to be\r\ngot to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell--I must speak to Hill this\r\nmoment.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is _not_ Mr. Bingley,\" said her husband; \"it is a person whom I\r\nnever saw in the whole course of my life.\"\r\n\r\nThis roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being\r\neagerly questioned by his wife and his five daughters at once.\r\n\r\nAfter amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained:\r\n\r\n\"About a month ago I received this letter; and about a fortnight ago\r\nI answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring\r\nearly attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead,\r\nmay turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my dear,\" cried his wife, \"I cannot bear to hear that mentioned.\r\nPray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing\r\nin the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own\r\nchildren; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago\r\nto do something or other about it.\"\r\n\r\nJane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They\r\nhad often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which\r\nMrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail\r\nbitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of\r\nfive daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about.\r\n\r\n\"It certainly is a most iniquitous affair,\" said Mr. Bennet, \"and\r\nnothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn.\r\nBut if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little\r\nsoftened by his manner of expressing himself.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it is very impertinent of\r\nhim to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false\r\nfriends. Why could he not keep on quarreling with you, as his father did\r\nbefore him?\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, indeed; he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that\r\nhead, as you will hear.\"\r\n\r\n\"Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, 15th October.\r\n\r\n\"Dear Sir,--\r\n\r\n\"The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured\r\nfather always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the\r\nmisfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but\r\nfor some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might\r\nseem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone\r\nwith whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.--'There, Mrs.\r\nBennet.'--My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having\r\nreceived ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be\r\ndistinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de\r\nBourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has\r\npreferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be\r\nmy earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her\r\nladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which\r\nare instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I\r\nfeel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in\r\nall families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I\r\nflatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and\r\nthat the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate\r\nwill be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the\r\noffered olive-branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the\r\nmeans of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for\r\nit, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible\r\namends--but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to\r\nreceive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting\r\non you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and\r\nshall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'ennight\r\nfollowing, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine\r\nis far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided\r\nthat some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.--I\r\nremain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and\r\ndaughters, your well-wisher and friend,\r\n\r\n\"WILLIAM COLLINS\"\r\n\r\n\"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peace-making gentleman,\"\r\nsaid Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. \"He seems to be a most\r\nconscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will\r\nprove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so\r\nindulgent as to let him come to us again.\"\r\n\r\n\"There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however, and if\r\nhe is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to\r\ndiscourage him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Though it is difficult,\" said Jane, \"to guess in what way he can mean\r\nto make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his\r\ncredit.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was chiefly struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady\r\nCatherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying\r\nhis parishioners whenever it were required.\r\n\r\n\"He must be an oddity, I think,\" said she. \"I cannot make him\r\nout.--There is something very pompous in his style.--And what can he\r\nmean by apologising for being next in the entail?--We cannot suppose he\r\nwould help it if he could.--Could he be a sensible man, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, my dear, I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the\r\nreverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his\r\nletter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him.\"\r\n\r\n\"In point of composition,\" said Mary, \"the letter does not seem\r\ndefective. The idea of the olive-branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I\r\nthink it is well expressed.\"\r\n\r\nTo Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any\r\ndegree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should\r\ncome in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had\r\nreceived pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for\r\ntheir mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her ill-will,\r\nand she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which\r\nastonished her husband and daughters.\r\n\r\nMr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great\r\npoliteness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the\r\nladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in\r\nneed of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a\r\ntall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and\r\nstately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated\r\nbefore he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of\r\ndaughters; said he had heard much of their beauty, but that in this\r\ninstance fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did\r\nnot doubt her seeing them all in due time disposed of in marriage. This\r\ngallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs.\r\nBennet, who quarreled with no compliments, answered most readily.\r\n\r\n\"You are very kind, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may\r\nprove so, for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so\r\noddly.\"\r\n\r\n\"You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you\r\nmust confess. Not that I mean to find fault with _you_, for such things\r\nI know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates\r\nwill go when once they come to be entailed.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and\r\ncould say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing\r\nforward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come\r\nprepared to admire them. At present I will not say more; but, perhaps,\r\nwhen we are better acquainted--\"\r\n\r\nHe was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each\r\nother. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The\r\nhall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised;\r\nand his commendation of everything would have touched Mrs. Bennet's\r\nheart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his\r\nown future property. The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and\r\nhe begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its\r\ncooking was owing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who\r\nassured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a\r\ngood cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He\r\nbegged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared\r\nherself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a\r\nquarter of an hour.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 14\r\n\r\n\r\nDuring dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants\r\nwere withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his\r\nguest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to\r\nshine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady\r\nCatherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for\r\nhis comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen\r\nbetter. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him\r\nto more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect\r\nhe protested that \"he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in\r\na person of rank--such affability and condescension, as he had himself\r\nexperienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to\r\napprove of both of the discourses which he had already had the honour of\r\npreaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings,\r\nand had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of\r\nquadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many\r\npeople he knew, but _he_ had never seen anything but affability in her.\r\nShe had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she\r\nmade not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the\r\nneighbourhood nor to his leaving the parish occasionally for a week or\r\ntwo, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to\r\nmarry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had\r\nonce paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly\r\napproved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed\r\nto suggest some herself--some shelves in the closet up stairs.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is all very proper and civil, I am sure,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"and\r\nI dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies\r\nin general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane\r\nfrom Rosings Park, her ladyship's residence.\"\r\n\r\n\"I think you said she was a widow, sir? Has she any family?\"\r\n\r\n\"She has only one daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very\r\nextensive property.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah!\" said Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, \"then she is better off than\r\nmany girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome?\"\r\n\r\n\"She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says\r\nthat, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the\r\nhandsomest of her sex, because there is that in her features which marks\r\nthe young lady of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly\r\nconstitution, which has prevented her from making that progress in many\r\naccomplishments which she could not have otherwise failed of, as I am\r\ninformed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still\r\nresides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends\r\nto drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies.\"\r\n\r\n\"Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at\r\ncourt.\"\r\n\r\n\"Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town;\r\nand by that means, as I told Lady Catherine one day, has deprived the\r\nBritish court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased\r\nwith the idea; and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to\r\noffer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable\r\nto ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that\r\nher charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most\r\nelevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by\r\nher. These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and\r\nit is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to\r\npay.\"\r\n\r\n\"You judge very properly,\" said Mr. Bennet, \"and it is happy for you\r\nthat you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask\r\nwhether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the\r\nmoment, or are the result of previous study?\"\r\n\r\n\"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I\r\nsometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant\r\ncompliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to\r\ngive them as unstudied an air as possible.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd\r\nas he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment,\r\nmaintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance,\r\nand, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner\r\nin his pleasure.\r\n\r\nBy tea-time, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad\r\nto take his guest into the drawing-room again, and, when tea was over,\r\nglad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily\r\nassented, and a book was produced; but, on beholding it (for everything\r\nannounced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and\r\nbegging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at\r\nhim, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some\r\ndeliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the\r\nvolume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three\r\npages, she interrupted him with:\r\n\r\n\"Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away\r\nRichard; and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me\r\nso herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more\r\nabout it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town.\"\r\n\r\nLydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr.\r\nCollins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said:\r\n\r\n\"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books\r\nof a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes\r\nme, I confess; for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to\r\nthem as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin.\"\r\n\r\nThen turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at\r\nbackgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted\r\nvery wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements.\r\nMrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's\r\ninterruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would\r\nresume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his\r\nyoung cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any\r\naffront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared\r\nfor backgammon.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 15\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had\r\nbeen but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part\r\nof his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and\r\nmiserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he\r\nhad merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful\r\nacquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had\r\ngiven him originally great humility of manner; but it was now a\r\ngood deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in\r\nretirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected\r\nprosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de\r\nBourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which\r\nhe felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness,\r\nmingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a\r\nclergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of\r\npride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.\r\n\r\nHaving now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to\r\nmarry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had\r\na wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found\r\nthem as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report.\r\nThis was his plan of amends--of atonement--for inheriting their father's\r\nestate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and\r\nsuitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own\r\npart.\r\n\r\nHis plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face\r\nconfirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what\r\nwas due to seniority; and for the first evening _she_ was his settled\r\nchoice. The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a\r\nquarter of an hour's tete-a-tete with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a\r\nconversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally\r\nto the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at\r\nLongbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general\r\nencouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. \"As to\r\nher _younger_ daughters, she could not take upon her to say--she could\r\nnot positively answer--but she did not _know_ of any prepossession; her\r\n_eldest_ daughter, she must just mention--she felt it incumbent on her\r\nto hint, was likely to be very soon engaged.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth--and it was soon\r\ndone--done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally\r\nnext to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have\r\ntwo daughters married; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of\r\nthe day before was now high in her good graces.\r\n\r\nLydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten; every sister\r\nexcept Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them,\r\nat the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him,\r\nand have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed\r\nhim after breakfast; and there he would continue, nominally engaged with\r\none of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr.\r\nBennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such\r\ndoings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been\r\nalways sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told\r\nElizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the\r\nhouse, he was used to be free from them there; his civility, therefore,\r\nwas most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their\r\nwalk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker\r\nthan a reader, was extremely pleased to close his large book, and go.\r\n\r\nIn pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his\r\ncousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of\r\nthe younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were\r\nimmediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and\r\nnothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in\r\na shop window, could recall them.\r\n\r\nBut the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom\r\nthey had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking\r\nwith another officer on the other side of the way. The officer was\r\nthe very Mr. Denny concerning whose return from London Lydia came\r\nto inquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the\r\nstranger's air, all wondered who he could be; and Kitty and Lydia,\r\ndetermined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under\r\npretense of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately\r\nhad just gained the pavement when the two gentlemen, turning back, had\r\nreached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated\r\npermission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with\r\nhim the day before from town, and he was happy to say had accepted a\r\ncommission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be; for the\r\nyoung man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming.\r\nHis appearance was greatly in his favour; he had all the best part of\r\nbeauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address.\r\nThe introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness\r\nof conversation--a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and\r\nunassuming; and the whole party were still standing and talking together\r\nvery agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy\r\nand Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the\r\nladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and\r\nbegan the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and\r\nMiss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to\r\nLongbourn on purpose to inquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated\r\nit with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes\r\non Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the\r\nstranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they\r\nlooked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting.\r\nBoth changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham,\r\nafter a few moments, touched his hat--a salutation which Mr. Darcy just\r\ndeigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to\r\nimagine; it was impossible not to long to know.\r\n\r\nIn another minute, Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what\r\npassed, took leave and rode on with his friend.\r\n\r\nMr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of\r\nMr. Phillip's house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia's\r\npressing entreaties that they should come in, and even in spite of\r\nMrs. Phillips's throwing up the parlour window and loudly seconding the\r\ninvitation.\r\n\r\nMrs. Phillips was always glad to see her nieces; and the two eldest,\r\nfrom their recent absence, were particularly welcome, and she was\r\neagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as\r\ntheir own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing\r\nabout, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones's shop-boy in the\r\nstreet, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to\r\nNetherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility\r\nwas claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane's introduction of him. She\r\nreceived him with her very best politeness, which he returned with\r\nas much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous\r\nacquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself,\r\nhowever, might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who\r\nintroduced him to her notice. Mrs. Phillips was quite awed by such an\r\nexcess of good breeding; but her contemplation of one stranger was soon\r\nput to an end by exclamations and inquiries about the other; of whom,\r\nhowever, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that\r\nMr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a\r\nlieutenant's commission in the ----shire. She had been watching him the\r\nlast hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr.\r\nWickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the\r\noccupation, but unluckily no one passed windows now except a few of the\r\nofficers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become \"stupid,\r\ndisagreeable fellows.\" Some of them were to dine with the Phillipses\r\nthe next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr.\r\nWickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn\r\nwould come in the evening. This was agreed to, and Mrs. Phillips\r\nprotested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery\r\ntickets, and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such\r\ndelights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr.\r\nCollins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured\r\nwith unwearying civility that they were perfectly needless.\r\n\r\nAs they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass\r\nbetween the two gentlemen; but though Jane would have defended either\r\nor both, had they appeared to be in the wrong, she could no more explain\r\nsuch behaviour than her sister.\r\n\r\nMr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring\r\nMrs. Phillips's manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady\r\nCatherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman;\r\nfor she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but even\r\npointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although\r\nutterly unknown to her before. Something, he supposed, might be\r\nattributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so\r\nmuch attention in the whole course of his life.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 16\r\n\r\n\r\nAs no objection was made to the young people's engagement with their\r\naunt, and all Mr. Collins's scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for\r\na single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach\r\nconveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton; and\r\nthe girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawing-room,\r\nthat Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle's invitation, and was then in\r\nthe house.\r\n\r\nWhen this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr.\r\nCollins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much\r\nstruck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he\r\nmight almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast\r\nparlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much\r\ngratification; but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what\r\nRosings was, and who was its proprietor--when she had listened to the\r\ndescription of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found\r\nthat the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all\r\nthe force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison\r\nwith the housekeeper's room.\r\n\r\nIn describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion,\r\nwith occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and\r\nthe improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the\r\ngentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Phillips a very attentive\r\nlistener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she\r\nheard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as\r\nsoon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin,\r\nand who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine\r\ntheir own indifferent imitations of china on the mantelpiece, the\r\ninterval of waiting appeared very long. It was over at last, however.\r\nThe gentlemen did approach, and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room,\r\nElizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking\r\nof him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration.\r\nThe officers of the ----shire were in general a very creditable,\r\ngentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but\r\nMr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and\r\nwalk, as _they_ were superior to the broad-faced, stuffy uncle Phillips,\r\nbreathing port wine, who followed them into the room.\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was\r\nturned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated\r\nhimself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into\r\nconversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, made her feel\r\nthat the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered\r\ninteresting by the skill of the speaker.\r\n\r\nWith such rivals for the notice of the fair as Mr. Wickham and the\r\nofficers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance; to the young\r\nladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind\r\nlistener in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watchfulness, most abundantly\r\nsupplied with coffee and muffin. When the card-tables were placed, he\r\nhad the opportunity of obliging her in turn, by sitting down to whist.\r\n\r\n\"I know little of the game at present,\" said he, \"but I shall be glad\r\nto improve myself, for in my situation in life--\" Mrs. Phillips was very\r\nglad for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason.\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he\r\nreceived at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there\r\nseemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely, for she was a most\r\ndetermined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets,\r\nshe soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets\r\nand exclaiming after prizes to have attention for anyone in particular.\r\nAllowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore\r\nat leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear\r\nhim, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be\r\ntold--the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not\r\neven mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly\r\nrelieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He inquired how far\r\nNetherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in\r\na hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there.\r\n\r\n\"About a month,\" said Elizabeth; and then, unwilling to let the subject\r\ndrop, added, \"He is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I\r\nunderstand.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" replied Mr. Wickham; \"his estate there is a noble one. A clear\r\nten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more\r\ncapable of giving you certain information on that head than myself, for\r\nI have been connected with his family in a particular manner from my\r\ninfancy.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not but look surprised.\r\n\r\n\"You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after\r\nseeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting\r\nyesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy?\"\r\n\r\n\"As much as I ever wish to be,\" cried Elizabeth very warmly. \"I have\r\nspent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very\r\ndisagreeable.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have no right to give _my_ opinion,\" said Wickham, \"as to his being\r\nagreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him\r\ntoo long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for _me_\r\nto be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general\r\nastonish--and perhaps you would not express it quite so strongly\r\nanywhere else. Here you are in your own family.\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word, I say no more _here_ than I might say in any house in\r\nthe neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in\r\nHertfordshire. Everybody is disgusted with his pride. You will not find\r\nhim more favourably spoken of by anyone.\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot pretend to be sorry,\" said Wickham, after a short\r\ninterruption, \"that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond\r\ntheir deserts; but with _him_ I believe it does not often happen. The\r\nworld is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his\r\nhigh and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should take him, even on _my_ slight acquaintance, to be an\r\nill-tempered man.\" Wickham only shook his head.\r\n\r\n\"I wonder,\" said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, \"whether he is\r\nlikely to be in this country much longer.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not at all know; but I _heard_ nothing of his going away when I\r\nwas at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the ----shire will\r\nnot be affected by his being in the neighbourhood.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! no--it is not for _me_ to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If _he_\r\nwishes to avoid seeing _me_, he must go. We are not on friendly terms,\r\nand it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for\r\navoiding _him_ but what I might proclaim before all the world, a sense\r\nof very great ill-usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he\r\nis. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men\r\nthat ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never\r\nbe in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by\r\na thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been\r\nscandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and\r\neverything, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the\r\nmemory of his father.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with\r\nall her heart; but the delicacy of it prevented further inquiry.\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the\r\nneighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that\r\nhe had yet seen, and speaking of the latter with gentle but very\r\nintelligible gallantry.\r\n\r\n\"It was the prospect of constant society, and good society,\" he added,\r\n\"which was my chief inducement to enter the ----shire. I knew it to be\r\na most respectable, agreeable corps, and my friend Denny tempted me\r\nfurther by his account of their present quarters, and the very great\r\nattentions and excellent acquaintances Meryton had procured them.\r\nSociety, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and\r\nmy spirits will not bear solitude. I _must_ have employment and society.\r\nA military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have\r\nnow made it eligible. The church _ought_ to have been my profession--I\r\nwas brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in\r\npossession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we\r\nwere speaking of just now.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes--the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best\r\nliving in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me.\r\nI cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply,\r\nand thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given\r\nelsewhere.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good heavens!\" cried Elizabeth; \"but how could _that_ be? How could his\r\nwill be disregarded? Why did you not seek legal redress?\"\r\n\r\n\"There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to\r\ngive me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the\r\nintention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it--or to treat it as a merely\r\nconditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim\r\nto it by extravagance, imprudence--in short anything or nothing. Certain\r\nit is, that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was\r\nof an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no\r\nless certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done\r\nanything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and\r\nI may have spoken my opinion _of_ him, and _to_ him, too freely. I can\r\nrecall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort\r\nof men, and that he hates me.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced.\"\r\n\r\n\"Some time or other he _will_ be--but it shall not be by _me_. Till I\r\ncan forget his father, I can never defy or expose _him_.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than\r\never as he expressed them.\r\n\r\n\"But what,\" said she, after a pause, \"can have been his motive? What can\r\nhave induced him to behave so cruelly?\"\r\n\r\n\"A thorough, determined dislike of me--a dislike which I cannot but\r\nattribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me\r\nless, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon\r\nattachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had\r\nnot a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood--the sort\r\nof preference which was often given me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this--though I have never liked\r\nhim. I had not thought so very ill of him. I had supposed him to be\r\ndespising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of\r\ndescending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as\r\nthis.\"\r\n\r\nAfter a few minutes' reflection, however, she continued, \"I _do_\r\nremember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of\r\nhis resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition\r\nmust be dreadful.\"\r\n\r\n\"I will not trust myself on the subject,\" replied Wickham; \"I can hardly\r\nbe just to him.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, \"To\r\ntreat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his\r\nfather!\" She could have added, \"A young man, too, like _you_, whose very\r\ncountenance may vouch for your being amiable\"--but she contented herself\r\nwith, \"and one, too, who had probably been his companion from childhood,\r\nconnected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner!\"\r\n\r\n\"We were born in the same parish, within the same park; the greatest\r\npart of our youth was passed together; inmates of the same house,\r\nsharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. _My_\r\nfather began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Phillips,\r\nappears to do so much credit to--but he gave up everything to be of\r\nuse to the late Mr. Darcy and devoted all his time to the care of the\r\nPemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most\r\nintimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to\r\nbe under the greatest obligations to my father's active superintendence,\r\nand when, immediately before my father's death, Mr. Darcy gave him a\r\nvoluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to\r\nbe as much a debt of gratitude to _him_, as of his affection to myself.\"\r\n\r\n\"How strange!\" cried Elizabeth. \"How abominable! I wonder that the very\r\npride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you! If from no better\r\nmotive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest--for\r\ndishonesty I must call it.\"\r\n\r\n\"It _is_ wonderful,\" replied Wickham, \"for almost all his actions may\r\nbe traced to pride; and pride had often been his best friend. It has\r\nconnected him nearer with virtue than with any other feeling. But we are\r\nnone of us consistent, and in his behaviour to me there were stronger\r\nimpulses even than pride.\"\r\n\r\n\"Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes. It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money\r\nfreely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the\r\npoor. Family pride, and _filial_ pride--for he is very proud of what\r\nhis father was--have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family,\r\nto degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the\r\nPemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also _brotherly_ pride,\r\nwhich, with _some_ brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and\r\ncareful guardian of his sister, and you will hear him generally cried up\r\nas the most attentive and best of brothers.\"\r\n\r\n\"What sort of girl is Miss Darcy?\"\r\n\r\nHe shook his head. \"I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to\r\nspeak ill of a Darcy. But she is too much like her brother--very, very\r\nproud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond\r\nof me; and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is\r\nnothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen,\r\nand, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father's death, her\r\nhome has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her\r\neducation.\"\r\n\r\nAfter many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not\r\nhelp reverting once more to the first, and saying:\r\n\r\n\"I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley,\r\nwho seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable,\r\nbe in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you\r\nknow Mr. Bingley?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not at all.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr.\r\nDarcy is.\"\r\n\r\n\"Probably not; but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not\r\nwant abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth\r\nhis while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is\r\na very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His\r\npride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just,\r\nsincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable--allowing something\r\nfor fortune and figure.\"\r\n\r\nThe whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round\r\nthe other table and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin\r\nElizabeth and Mrs. Phillips. The usual inquiries as to his success was\r\nmade by the latter. It had not been very great; he had lost every\r\npoint; but when Mrs. Phillips began to express her concern thereupon,\r\nhe assured her with much earnest gravity that it was not of the least\r\nimportance, that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged\r\nthat she would not make herself uneasy.\r\n\r\n\"I know very well, madam,\" said he, \"that when persons sit down to a\r\ncard-table, they must take their chances of these things, and happily I\r\nam not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There\r\nare undoubtedly many who could not say the same, but thanks to Lady\r\nCatherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding\r\nlittle matters.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham's attention was caught; and after observing Mr. Collins for\r\na few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation\r\nwas very intimately acquainted with the family of de Bourgh.\r\n\r\n\"Lady Catherine de Bourgh,\" she replied, \"has very lately given him\r\na living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her\r\nnotice, but he certainly has not known her long.\"\r\n\r\n\"You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy\r\nwere sisters; consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine's\r\nconnections. I never heard of her existence till the day before\r\nyesterday.\"\r\n\r\n\"Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is\r\nbelieved that she and her cousin will unite the two estates.\"\r\n\r\nThis information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss\r\nBingley. Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her\r\naffection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already\r\nself-destined for another.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Collins,\" said she, \"speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her\r\ndaughter; but from some particulars that he has related of her ladyship,\r\nI suspect his gratitude misleads him, and that in spite of her being his\r\npatroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman.\"\r\n\r\n\"I believe her to be both in a great degree,\" replied Wickham; \"I have\r\nnot seen her for many years, but I very well remember that I never liked\r\nher, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the\r\nreputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe\r\nshe derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from\r\nher authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride for her\r\nnephew, who chooses that everyone connected with him should have an\r\nunderstanding of the first class.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and\r\nthey continued talking together, with mutual satisfaction till supper\r\nput an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr.\r\nWickham's attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise\r\nof Mrs. Phillips's supper party, but his manners recommended him to\r\neverybody. Whatever he said, was said well; and whatever he did, done\r\ngracefully. Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could\r\nthink of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all\r\nthe way home; but there was not time for her even to mention his name\r\nas they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia\r\ntalked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the\r\nfish she had won; and Mr. Collins in describing the civility of Mr. and\r\nMrs. Phillips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses\r\nat whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing\r\nthat he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage\r\nbefore the carriage stopped at Longbourn House.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 17\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth related to Jane the next day what had passed between Mr.\r\nWickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; she\r\nknew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr.\r\nBingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the\r\nveracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The\r\npossibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to\r\ninterest all her tender feelings; and nothing remained therefore to be\r\ndone, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each,\r\nand throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be\r\notherwise explained.\r\n\r\n\"They have both,\" said she, \"been deceived, I dare say, in some way\r\nor other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps\r\nmisrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to\r\nconjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them,\r\nwithout actual blame on either side.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very true, indeed; and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say on\r\nbehalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the\r\nbusiness? Do clear _them_ too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of\r\nsomebody.\"\r\n\r\n\"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my\r\nopinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light\r\nit places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favourite in such\r\na manner, one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is\r\nimpossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his\r\ncharacter, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so\r\nexcessively deceived in him? Oh! no.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than\r\nthat Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me\r\nlast night; names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it\r\nbe not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his\r\nlooks.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is difficult indeed--it is distressing. One does not know what to\r\nthink.\"\r\n\r\n\"I beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think.\"\r\n\r\nBut Jane could think with certainty on only one point--that Mr. Bingley,\r\nif he _had_ been imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair\r\nbecame public.\r\n\r\nThe two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this\r\nconversation passed, by the arrival of the very persons of whom they had\r\nbeen speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal\r\ninvitation for the long-expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed\r\nfor the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their\r\ndear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly\r\nasked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To\r\nthe rest of the family they paid little attention; avoiding Mrs. Bennet\r\nas much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to\r\nthe others. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an\r\nactivity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if\r\neager to escape from Mrs. Bennet's civilities.\r\n\r\nThe prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every\r\nfemale of the family. Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in\r\ncompliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered\r\nby receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a\r\nceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the\r\nsociety of her two friends, and the attentions of her brother; and\r\nElizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr.\r\nWickham, and of seeing a confirmation of everything in Mr. Darcy's look\r\nand behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended\r\nless on any single event, or any particular person, for though they\r\neach, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham,\r\nhe was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball\r\nwas, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she\r\nhad no disinclination for it.\r\n\r\n\"While I can have my mornings to myself,\" said she, \"it is enough--I\r\nthink it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements.\r\nSociety has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those\r\nwho consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for\r\neverybody.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth's spirits were so high on this occasion, that though she did\r\nnot often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking\r\nhim whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and if\r\nhe did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's\r\namusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no\r\nscruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke\r\neither from the Archbishop, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to\r\ndance.\r\n\r\n\"I am by no means of the opinion, I assure you,\" said he, \"that a ball\r\nof this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people,\r\ncan have any evil tendency; and I am so far from objecting to dancing\r\nmyself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair\r\ncousins in the course of the evening; and I take this opportunity of\r\nsoliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially,\r\na preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right\r\ncause, and not to any disrespect for her.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being\r\nengaged by Mr. Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins\r\ninstead! her liveliness had never been worse timed. There was no help\r\nfor it, however. Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own were perforce\r\ndelayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as\r\ngood a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his\r\ngallantry from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first\r\nstruck her, that _she_ was selected from among her sisters as worthy\r\nof being mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a\r\nquadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors.\r\nThe idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing\r\ncivilities toward herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a\r\ncompliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than\r\ngratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before\r\nher mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage\r\nwas extremely agreeable to _her_. Elizabeth, however, did not choose\r\nto take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the\r\nconsequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and\r\ntill he did, it was useless to quarrel about him.\r\n\r\nIf there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the\r\nyounger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state at this\r\ntime, for from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there\r\nwas such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton\r\nonce. No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought after--the very\r\nshoe-roses for Netherfield were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have\r\nfound some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the\r\nimprovement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham; and nothing less than\r\na dance on Tuesday, could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and\r\nMonday endurable to Kitty and Lydia.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 18\r\n\r\n\r\nTill Elizabeth entered the drawing-room at Netherfield, and looked in\r\nvain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a\r\ndoubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty\r\nof meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that\r\nmight not unreasonably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than\r\nusual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all\r\nthat remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than\r\nmight be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose\r\nthe dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted for Mr. Darcy's\r\npleasure in the Bingleys' invitation to the officers; and though\r\nthis was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was\r\npronounced by his friend Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who\r\ntold them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the\r\nday before, and was not yet returned; adding, with a significant smile,\r\n\"I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if\r\nhe had not wanted to avoid a certain gentleman here.\"\r\n\r\nThis part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by\r\nElizabeth, and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for\r\nWickham's absence than if her first surmise had been just, every\r\nfeeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate\r\ndisappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to\r\nthe polite inquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make.\r\nAttendance, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham. She\r\nwas resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away\r\nwith a degree of ill-humour which she could not wholly surmount even in\r\nspeaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her.\r\n\r\nBut Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect\r\nof her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her\r\nspirits; and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had\r\nnot seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition\r\nto the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular\r\nnotice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress;\r\nthey were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn,\r\napologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being\r\naware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable\r\npartner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from\r\nhim was ecstasy.\r\n\r\nShe danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of\r\nWickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked. When those dances\r\nwere over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with\r\nher, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy who took\r\nher so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that,\r\nwithout knowing what she did, she accepted him. He walked away again\r\nimmediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of\r\nmind; Charlotte tried to console her:\r\n\r\n\"I dare say you will find him very agreeable.\"\r\n\r\n\"Heaven forbid! _That_ would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find\r\na man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an\r\nevil.\"\r\n\r\nWhen the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her\r\nhand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a\r\nsimpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant\r\nin the eyes of a man ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no\r\nanswer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which\r\nshe was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and\r\nreading in her neighbours' looks, their equal amazement in beholding\r\nit. They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to\r\nimagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and at\r\nfirst was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would\r\nbe the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made\r\nsome slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again\r\nsilent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time\r\nwith:--\"It is _your_ turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked\r\nabout the dance, and _you_ ought to make some sort of remark on the size\r\nof the room, or the number of couples.\"\r\n\r\nHe smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be\r\nsaid.\r\n\r\n\"Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may\r\nobserve that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But\r\n_now_ we may be silent.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?\"\r\n\r\n\"Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be\r\nentirely silent for half an hour together; and yet for the advantage of\r\n_some_, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the\r\ntrouble of saying as little as possible.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you\r\nimagine that you are gratifying mine?\"\r\n\r\n\"Both,\" replied Elizabeth archly; \"for I have always seen a great\r\nsimilarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial,\r\ntaciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say\r\nsomething that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to\r\nposterity with all the eclat of a proverb.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,\"\r\nsaid he. \"How near it may be to _mine_, I cannot pretend to say. _You_\r\nthink it a faithful portrait undoubtedly.\"\r\n\r\n\"I must not decide on my own performance.\"\r\n\r\nHe made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down\r\nthe dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often\r\nwalk to Meryton. She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist\r\nthe temptation, added, \"When you met us there the other day, we had just\r\nbeen forming a new acquaintance.\"\r\n\r\nThe effect was immediate. A deeper shade of _hauteur_ overspread his\r\nfeatures, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself\r\nfor her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a\r\nconstrained manner said, \"Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners\r\nas may ensure his _making_ friends--whether he may be equally capable of\r\n_retaining_ them, is less certain.\"\r\n\r\n\"He has been so unlucky as to lose _your_ friendship,\" replied Elizabeth\r\nwith emphasis, \"and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all\r\nhis life.\"\r\n\r\nDarcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject. At\r\nthat moment, Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass\r\nthrough the set to the other side of the room; but on perceiving Mr.\r\nDarcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on\r\nhis dancing and his partner.\r\n\r\n\"I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very\r\nsuperior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the\r\nfirst circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not\r\ndisgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated,\r\nespecially when a certain desirable event, my dear Eliza (glancing at\r\nher sister and Bingley) shall take place. What congratulations will then\r\nflow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcy:--but let me not interrupt you, sir. You\r\nwill not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that\r\nyoung lady, whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me.\"\r\n\r\nThe latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy; but Sir\r\nWilliam's allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his\r\neyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and\r\nJane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly,\r\nhe turned to his partner, and said, \"Sir William's interruption has made\r\nme forget what we were talking of.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have\r\ninterrupted two people in the room who had less to say for themselves.\r\nWe have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we\r\nare to talk of next I cannot imagine.\"\r\n\r\n\"What think you of books?\" said he, smiling.\r\n\r\n\"Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same\r\nfeelings.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be\r\nno want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.\"\r\n\r\n\"No--I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of\r\nsomething else.\"\r\n\r\n\"The _present_ always occupies you in such scenes--does it?\" said he,\r\nwith a look of doubt.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, always,\" she replied, without knowing what she said, for her\r\nthoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared\r\nby her suddenly exclaiming, \"I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy,\r\nthat you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was\r\nunappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its _being\r\ncreated_.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am,\" said he, with a firm voice.\r\n\r\n\"And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope not.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion,\r\nto be secure of judging properly at first.\"\r\n\r\n\"May I ask to what these questions tend?\"\r\n\r\n\"Merely to the illustration of _your_ character,\" said she, endeavouring\r\nto shake off her gravity. \"I am trying to make it out.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what is your success?\"\r\n\r\nShe shook her head. \"I do not get on at all. I hear such different\r\naccounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can readily believe,\" answered he gravely, \"that reports may vary\r\ngreatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were\r\nnot to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to\r\nfear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.\"\r\n\r\n\"But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another\r\nopportunity.\"\r\n\r\n\"I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours,\" he coldly replied.\r\nShe said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in\r\nsilence; and on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree,\r\nfor in Darcy's breast there was a tolerable powerful feeling towards\r\nher, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against\r\nanother.\r\n\r\nThey had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and\r\nwith an expression of civil disdain accosted her:\r\n\r\n\"So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham!\r\nYour sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand\r\nquestions; and I find that the young man quite forgot to tell you, among\r\nhis other communication, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late\r\nMr. Darcy's steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to\r\ngive implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr. Darcy's\r\nusing him ill, it is perfectly false; for, on the contrary, he has\r\nalways been remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated\r\nMr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but\r\nI know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he\r\ncannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother\r\nthought that he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to\r\nthe officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself\r\nout of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent\r\nthing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you,\r\nMiss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite's guilt; but really,\r\nconsidering his descent, one could not expect much better.\"\r\n\r\n\"His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same,\" said\r\nElizabeth angrily; \"for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse\r\nthan of being the son of Mr. Darcy's steward, and of _that_, I can\r\nassure you, he informed me himself.\"\r\n\r\n\"I beg your pardon,\" replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer.\r\n\"Excuse my interference--it was kindly meant.\"\r\n\r\n\"Insolent girl!\" said Elizabeth to herself. \"You are much mistaken\r\nif you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see\r\nnothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr.\r\nDarcy.\" She then sought her eldest sister, who has undertaken to make\r\ninquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of\r\nsuch sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently\r\nmarked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening.\r\nElizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for\r\nWickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way\r\nbefore the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness.\r\n\r\n\"I want to know,\" said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her\r\nsister's, \"what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have\r\nbeen too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person; in which case\r\nyou may be sure of my pardon.\"\r\n\r\n\"No,\" replied Jane, \"I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing\r\nsatisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of\r\nhis history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have\r\nprincipally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct,\r\nthe probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that\r\nMr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has\r\nreceived; and I am sorry to say by his account as well as his sister's,\r\nMr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has\r\nbeen very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?\"\r\n\r\n\"No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton.\"\r\n\r\n\"This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am\r\nsatisfied. But what does he say of the living?\"\r\n\r\n\"He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard\r\nthem from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to\r\nhim _conditionally_ only.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity,\" said Elizabeth warmly;\r\n\"but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr.\r\nBingley's defense of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but\r\nsince he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt\r\nthe rest from that friend himself, I shall venture to still think of\r\nboth gentlemen as I did before.\"\r\n\r\nShe then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on\r\nwhich there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with\r\ndelight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Mr.\r\nBingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence\r\nin it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew\r\nto Miss Lucas; to whose inquiry after the pleasantness of her last\r\npartner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them,\r\nand told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as\r\nto make a most important discovery.\r\n\r\n\"I have found out,\" said he, \"by a singular accident, that there is now\r\nin the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the\r\ngentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of\r\nthe house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady\r\nCatherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have\r\nthought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de\r\nBourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made\r\nin time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to\r\ndo, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total\r\nignorance of the connection must plead my apology.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier.\r\nI believe him to be Lady Catherine's _nephew_. It will be in my power to\r\nassure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se'nnight.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him\r\nthat Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction\r\nas an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt; that\r\nit was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either\r\nside; and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in\r\nconsequence, to begin the acquaintance. Mr. Collins listened to her\r\nwith the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she\r\nceased speaking, replied thus:\r\n\r\n\"My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world in\r\nyour excellent judgement in all matters within the scope of your\r\nunderstanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide\r\ndifference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity,\r\nand those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that\r\nI consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with\r\nthe highest rank in the kingdom--provided that a proper humility of\r\nbehaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to\r\nfollow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to\r\nperform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to\r\nprofit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant\r\nguide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by\r\neducation and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young\r\nlady like yourself.\" And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr.\r\nDarcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose\r\nastonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced\r\nhis speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of\r\nit, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the\r\nwords \"apology,\" \"Hunsford,\" and \"Lady Catherine de Bourgh.\" It vexed\r\nher to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him\r\nwith unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time\r\nto speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however,\r\nwas not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed\r\nabundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the\r\nend of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr.\r\nCollins then returned to Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"I have no reason, I assure you,\" said he, \"to be dissatisfied with my\r\nreception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered\r\nme with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying\r\nthat he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be\r\ncertain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very\r\nhandsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him.\"\r\n\r\nAs Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned\r\nher attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley; and the\r\ntrain of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to,\r\nmade her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her in idea settled in\r\nthat very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection\r\ncould bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of\r\nendeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts\r\nshe plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to\r\nventure near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to\r\nsupper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which\r\nplaced them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find\r\nthat her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely,\r\nopenly, and of nothing else but her expectation that Jane would soon\r\nbe married to Mr. Bingley. It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet\r\nseemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the\r\nmatch. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but\r\nthree miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and\r\nthen it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of\r\nJane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as\r\nshe could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger\r\ndaughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of\r\nother rich men; and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be\r\nable to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that\r\nshe might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked. It was\r\nnecessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on\r\nsuch occasions it is the etiquette; but no one was less likely than Mrs.\r\nBennet to find comfort in staying home at any period of her life. She\r\nconcluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally\r\nfortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no\r\nchance of it.\r\n\r\nIn vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother's\r\nwords, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible\r\nwhisper; for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the\r\nchief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them. Her\r\nmother only scolded her for being nonsensical.\r\n\r\n\"What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am\r\nsure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say\r\nnothing _he_ may not like to hear.\"\r\n\r\n\"For heaven's sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be for you\r\nto offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by\r\nso doing!\"\r\n\r\nNothing that she could say, however, had any influence. Her mother would\r\ntalk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and\r\nblushed again with shame and vexation. She could not help frequently\r\nglancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what\r\nshe dreaded; for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was\r\nconvinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression\r\nof his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and\r\nsteady gravity.\r\n\r\nAt length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say; and Lady Lucas, who\r\nhad been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no\r\nlikelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and\r\nchicken. Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of\r\ntranquillity; for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and\r\nshe had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty,\r\npreparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent\r\nentreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance,\r\nbut in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of\r\nexhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth's\r\neyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her\r\nprogress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very\r\nill rewarded at their close; for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks\r\nof the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to\r\nfavour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another.\r\nMary's powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was\r\nweak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies. She looked at\r\nJane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to\r\nBingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs\r\nof derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however,\r\nimperturbably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his\r\ninterference, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint,\r\nand when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, \"That will do\r\nextremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other\r\nyoung ladies have time to exhibit.\"\r\n\r\nMary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted; and\r\nElizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father's speech, was afraid\r\nher anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to.\r\n\r\n\"If I,\" said Mr. Collins, \"were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I\r\nshould have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an\r\nair; for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly\r\ncompatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however,\r\nto assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time\r\nto music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The\r\nrector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make\r\nsuch an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not\r\noffensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time\r\nthat remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care\r\nand improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making\r\nas comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance\r\nthat he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody,\r\nespecially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit\r\nhim of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an\r\noccasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the\r\nfamily.\" And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had\r\nbeen spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many stared--many\r\nsmiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his\r\nwife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly,\r\nand observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably\r\nclever, good kind of young man.\r\n\r\nTo Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to\r\nexpose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would\r\nhave been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or\r\nfiner success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister\r\nthat some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his\r\nfeelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he\r\nmust have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should\r\nhave such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough,\r\nand she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the\r\ngentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable.\r\n\r\nThe rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teased by\r\nMr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though\r\nhe could not prevail on her to dance with him again, put it out of her\r\npower to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with\r\nsomebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room.\r\nHe assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it;\r\nthat his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to\r\nher and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her\r\nthe whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed\r\nher greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and\r\ngood-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself.\r\n\r\nShe was at least free from the offense of Mr. Darcy's further notice;\r\nthough often standing within a very short distance of her, quite\r\ndisengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the\r\nprobable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in\r\nit.\r\n\r\nThe Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by\r\na manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of\r\nan hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how\r\nheartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her\r\nsister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and\r\nwere evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed\r\nevery attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a\r\nlanguor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the\r\nlong speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his\r\nsisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and\r\npoliteness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said\r\nnothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene.\r\nMr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the\r\nrest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a\r\nsilence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too\r\nmuch fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of \"Lord,\r\nhow tired I am!\" accompanied by a violent yawn.\r\n\r\nWhen at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly\r\ncivil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and\r\naddressed herself especially to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he\r\nwould make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without\r\nthe ceremony of a formal invitation. Bingley was all grateful pleasure,\r\nand he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on\r\nher, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next\r\nday for a short time.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the\r\ndelightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of\r\nsettlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly\r\nsee her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four\r\nmonths. Of having another daughter married to Mr. Collins, she thought\r\nwith equal certainty, and with considerable, though not equal, pleasure.\r\nElizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children; and though the\r\nman and the match were quite good enough for _her_, the worth of each\r\nwas eclipsed by Mr. Bingley and Netherfield.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 19\r\n\r\n\r\nThe next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his\r\ndeclaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as\r\nhis leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having\r\nno feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at\r\nthe moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the\r\nobservances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On\r\nfinding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together,\r\nsoon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words:\r\n\r\n\"May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth,\r\nwhen I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the\r\ncourse of this morning?\"\r\n\r\nBefore Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs.\r\nBennet answered instantly, \"Oh dear!--yes--certainly. I am sure Lizzy\r\nwill be very happy--I am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I\r\nwant you up stairs.\" And, gathering her work together, she was hastening\r\naway, when Elizabeth called out:\r\n\r\n\"Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse\r\nme. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am\r\ngoing away myself.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you to stay where you are.\" And upon\r\nElizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to\r\nescape, she added: \"Lizzy, I _insist_ upon your staying and hearing Mr.\r\nCollins.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth would not oppose such an injunction--and a moment's\r\nconsideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it\r\nover as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to\r\nconceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between\r\ndistress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as\r\nthey were gone, Mr. Collins began.\r\n\r\n\"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from\r\ndoing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You\r\nwould have been less amiable in my eyes had there _not_ been this little\r\nunwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected\r\nmother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the\r\npurport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to\r\ndissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as\r\nsoon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of\r\nmy future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this\r\nsubject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for\r\nmarrying--and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design\r\nof selecting a wife, as I certainly did.\"\r\n\r\nThe idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away\r\nwith by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could\r\nnot use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him further,\r\nand he continued:\r\n\r\n\"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for\r\nevery clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example\r\nof matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced that it will\r\nadd very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly--which perhaps I ought\r\nto have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and\r\nrecommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling\r\npatroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked\r\ntoo!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I\r\nleft Hunsford--between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was\r\narranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool, that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you\r\nmust marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose\r\na gentlewoman for _my_ sake; and for your _own_, let her be an active,\r\nuseful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small\r\nincome go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as\r\nyou can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' Allow me, by the\r\nway, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice\r\nand kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the\r\nadvantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond\r\nanything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be\r\nacceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and\r\nrespect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general\r\nintention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views\r\nwere directed towards Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I\r\ncan assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that\r\nbeing, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured\r\nfather (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy\r\nmyself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that\r\nthe loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy\r\nevent takes place--which, however, as I have already said, may not\r\nbe for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and\r\nI flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing\r\nremains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the\r\nviolence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and\r\nshall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well\r\naware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds\r\nin the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's\r\ndecease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head,\r\ntherefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that\r\nno ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married.\"\r\n\r\nIt was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.\r\n\r\n\"You are too hasty, sir,\" she cried. \"You forget that I have made no\r\nanswer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for\r\nthe compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of\r\nyour proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to\r\ndecline them.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not now to learn,\" replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the\r\nhand, \"that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the\r\nman whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their\r\nfavour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a\r\nthird time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just\r\nsaid, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word, sir,\" cried Elizabeth, \"your hope is a rather\r\nextraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not\r\none of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so\r\ndaring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second\r\ntime. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make _me_\r\nhappy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who\r\ncould make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I\r\nam persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the\r\nsituation.\"\r\n\r\n\"Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so,\" said Mr. Collins\r\nvery gravely--\"but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all\r\ndisapprove of you. And you may be certain when I have the honour of\r\nseeing her again, I shall speak in the very highest terms of your\r\nmodesty, economy, and other amiable qualification.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You\r\nmust give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment\r\nof believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by\r\nrefusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise.\r\nIn making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your\r\nfeelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn\r\nestate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may\r\nbe considered, therefore, as finally settled.\" And rising as she\r\nthus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had Mr. Collins not thus\r\naddressed her:\r\n\r\n\"When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I\r\nshall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given\r\nme; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I\r\nknow it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on\r\nthe first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to\r\nencourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the\r\nfemale character.\"\r\n\r\n\"Really, Mr. Collins,\" cried Elizabeth with some warmth, \"you puzzle me\r\nexceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form\r\nof encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as\r\nto convince you of its being one.\"\r\n\r\n\"You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your\r\nrefusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for\r\nbelieving it are briefly these: It does not appear to me that my hand is\r\nunworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would\r\nbe any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections\r\nwith the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are\r\ncircumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further\r\nconsideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no\r\nmeans certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your\r\nportion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo\r\nthe effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must\r\ntherefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me,\r\nI shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by\r\nsuspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind\r\nof elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would\r\nrather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you\r\nagain and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but\r\nto accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect\r\nforbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant\r\nfemale, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking\r\nthe truth from her heart.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are uniformly charming!\" cried he, with an air of awkward\r\ngallantry; \"and I am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express\r\nauthority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of\r\nbeing acceptable.\"\r\n\r\nTo such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make\r\nno reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, if\r\nhe persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering\r\nencouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered\r\nin such a manner as to be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could\r\nnot be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 20\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his\r\nsuccessful love; for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule\r\nto watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open\r\nthe door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she\r\nentered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in\r\nwarm terms on the happy prospect or their nearer connection. Mr. Collins\r\nreceived and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then\r\nproceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result\r\nof which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the\r\nrefusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow\r\nfrom her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character.\r\n\r\nThis information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet; she would have been\r\nglad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage\r\nhim by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not believe it,\r\nand could not help saying so.\r\n\r\n\"But, depend upon it, Mr. Collins,\" she added, \"that Lizzy shall be\r\nbrought to reason. I will speak to her about it directly. She is a very\r\nheadstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest but I will\r\n_make_ her know it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pardon me for interrupting you, madam,\" cried Mr. Collins; \"but if\r\nshe is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would\r\naltogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who\r\nnaturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she\r\nactually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it were better not\r\nto force her into accepting me, because if liable to such defects of\r\ntemper, she could not contribute much to my felicity.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir, you quite misunderstand me,\" said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. \"Lizzy is\r\nonly headstrong in such matters as these. In everything else she is as\r\ngood-natured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and\r\nwe shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure.\"\r\n\r\nShe would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her\r\nhusband, called out as she entered the library, \"Oh! Mr. Bennet, you\r\nare wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make\r\nLizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you\r\ndo not make haste he will change his mind and not have _her_.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them\r\non her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by\r\nher communication.\r\n\r\n\"I have not the pleasure of understanding you,\" said he, when she had\r\nfinished her speech. \"Of what are you talking?\"\r\n\r\n\"Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins,\r\nand Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems an hopeless business.\"\r\n\r\n\"Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her\r\nmarrying him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the\r\nlibrary.\r\n\r\n\"Come here, child,\" cried her father as she appeared. \"I have sent for\r\nyou on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made\r\nyou an offer of marriage. Is it true?\" Elizabeth replied that it was.\r\n\"Very well--and this offer of marriage you have refused?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have, sir.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your\r\naccepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, or I will never see her again.\"\r\n\r\n\"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must\r\nbe a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you\r\nagain if you do _not_ marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again\r\nif you _do_.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning,\r\nbut Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the\r\naffair as she wished, was excessively disappointed.\r\n\r\n\"What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, in talking this way? You promised me to\r\n_insist_ upon her marrying him.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear,\" replied her husband, \"I have two small favours to request.\r\nFirst, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the\r\npresent occasion; and secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the\r\nlibrary to myself as soon as may be.\"\r\n\r\nNot yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did\r\nMrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again;\r\ncoaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane\r\nin her interest; but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined\r\ninterfering; and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and\r\nsometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner\r\nvaried, however, her determination never did.\r\n\r\nMr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed.\r\nHe thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motives his cousin\r\ncould refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other\r\nway. His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her\r\ndeserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret.\r\n\r\nWhile the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend\r\nthe day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to\r\nher, cried in a half whisper, \"I am glad you are come, for there is such\r\nfun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has\r\nmade an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him.\"\r\n\r\nCharlotte hardly had time to answer, before they were joined by Kitty,\r\nwho came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the\r\nbreakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on\r\nthe subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating\r\nher to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her\r\nfamily. \"Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas,\" she added in a melancholy tone,\r\n\"for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used,\r\nnobody feels for my poor nerves.\"\r\n\r\nCharlotte's reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"Aye, there she comes,\" continued Mrs. Bennet, \"looking as unconcerned\r\nas may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided\r\nshe can have her own way. But I tell you, Miss Lizzy--if you take it\r\ninto your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way,\r\nyou will never get a husband at all--and I am sure I do not know who is\r\nto maintain you when your father is dead. I shall not be able to keep\r\nyou--and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told\r\nyou in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again,\r\nand you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking\r\nto undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure, indeed, in talking\r\nto anybody. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have\r\nno great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it\r\nis always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.\"\r\n\r\nHer daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that\r\nany attempt to reason with her or soothe her would only increase the\r\nirritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of\r\nthem, till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered the room with\r\nan air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to\r\nthe girls, \"Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold\r\nyour tongues, and let me and Mr. Collins have a little conversation\r\ntogether.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but\r\nLydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could; and Charlotte,\r\ndetained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose inquiries after\r\nherself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little\r\ncuriosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending\r\nnot to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected\r\nconversation: \"Oh! Mr. Collins!\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear madam,\" replied he, \"let us be for ever silent on this point.\r\nFar be it from me,\" he presently continued, in a voice that marked his\r\ndispleasure, \"to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation\r\nto inevitable evils is the duty of us all; the peculiar duty of a\r\nyoung man who has been so fortunate as I have been in early preferment;\r\nand I trust I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt\r\nof my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand;\r\nfor I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as\r\nwhen the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our\r\nestimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect\r\nto your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to\r\nyour daughter's favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the\r\ncompliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my\r\nbehalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my\r\ndismission from your daughter's lips instead of your own. But we are all\r\nliable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair.\r\nMy object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due\r\nconsideration for the advantage of all your family, and if my _manner_\r\nhas been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 21\r\n\r\n\r\nThe discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and\r\nElizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily\r\nattending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her\r\nmother. As for the gentleman himself, _his_ feelings were chiefly\r\nexpressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her,\r\nbut by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke\r\nto her, and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of\r\nhimself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose\r\ncivility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and\r\nespecially to her friend.\r\n\r\nThe morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet's ill-humour or ill\r\nhealth. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth\r\nhad hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did\r\nnot appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on\r\nSaturday, and to Saturday he meant to stay.\r\n\r\nAfter breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton to inquire if Mr. Wickham\r\nwere returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball.\r\nHe joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their\r\naunt's where his regret and vexation, and the concern of everybody, was\r\nwell talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged\r\nthat the necessity of his absence _had_ been self-imposed.\r\n\r\n\"I found,\" said he, \"as the time drew near that I had better not meet\r\nMr. Darcy; that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so\r\nmany hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes\r\nmight arise unpleasant to more than myself.\"\r\n\r\nShe highly approved his forbearance, and they had leisure for a full\r\ndiscussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly\r\nbestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with\r\nthem to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to\r\nher. His accompanying them was a double advantage; she felt all the\r\ncompliment it offered to herself, and it was most acceptable as an\r\noccasion of introducing him to her father and mother.\r\n\r\nSoon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet; it came\r\nfrom Netherfield. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little,\r\nhot-pressed paper, well covered with a lady's fair, flowing hand; and\r\nElizabeth saw her sister's countenance change as she read it, and saw\r\nher dwelling intently on some particular passages. Jane recollected\r\nherself soon, and putting the letter away, tried to join with her usual\r\ncheerfulness in the general conversation; but Elizabeth felt an anxiety\r\non the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham; and no\r\nsooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane\r\ninvited her to follow her up stairs. When they had gained their own room,\r\nJane, taking out the letter, said:\r\n\r\n\"This is from Caroline Bingley; what it contains has surprised me a good\r\ndeal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on\r\ntheir way to town--and without any intention of coming back again. You\r\nshall hear what she says.\"\r\n\r\nShe then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information\r\nof their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly,\r\nand of their meaning to dine in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a\r\nhouse. The next was in these words: \"I do not pretend to regret anything\r\nI shall leave in Hertfordshire, except your society, my dearest friend;\r\nbut we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that\r\ndelightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may\r\nlessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved\r\ncorrespondence. I depend on you for that.\" To these highflown\r\nexpressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust;\r\nand though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw\r\nnothing in it really to lament; it was not to be supposed that their\r\nabsence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley's being there; and as\r\nto the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must cease to\r\nregard it, in the enjoyment of his.\r\n\r\n\"It is unlucky,\" said she, after a short pause, \"that you should not be\r\nable to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not\r\nhope that the period of future happiness to which Miss Bingley looks\r\nforward may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful\r\nintercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater\r\nsatisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by\r\nthem.\"\r\n\r\n\"Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into\r\nHertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you:\"\r\n\r\n\"When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which\r\ntook him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we\r\nare certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when\r\nCharles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have\r\ndetermined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend\r\nhis vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are\r\nalready there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my\r\ndearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd--but of\r\nthat I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may\r\nabound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your\r\nbeaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the\r\nthree of whom we shall deprive you.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is evident by this,\" added Jane, \"that he comes back no more this\r\nwinter.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean that he _should_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why will you think so? It must be his own doing. He is his own\r\nmaster. But you do not know _all_. I _will_ read you the passage which\r\nparticularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from _you_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth,\r\n_we_ are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think\r\nGeorgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments;\r\nand the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into\r\nsomething still more interesting, from the hope we dare entertain of\r\nher being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before\r\nmentioned to you my feelings on this subject; but I will not leave the\r\ncountry without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them\r\nunreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have\r\nfrequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing;\r\nher relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister's\r\npartiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most\r\ncapable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to\r\nfavour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest\r\nJane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness\r\nof so many?\"\r\n\r\n\"What do you think of _this_ sentence, my dear Lizzy?\" said Jane as she\r\nfinished it. \"Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare that\r\nCaroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister; that she is\r\nperfectly convinced of her brother's indifference; and that if she\r\nsuspects the nature of my feelings for him, she means (most kindly!) to\r\nput me on my guard? Can there be any other opinion on the subject?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Most willingly.\"\r\n\r\n\"You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is\r\nin love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him\r\nto town in hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he\r\ndoes not care about you.\"\r\n\r\nJane shook her head.\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you\r\ntogether can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She\r\nis not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr.\r\nDarcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the\r\ncase is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she\r\nis the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion\r\nthat when there has been _one_ intermarriage, she may have less trouble\r\nin achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and\r\nI dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But,\r\nmy dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley\r\ntells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest\r\ndegree less sensible of _your_ merit than when he took leave of you on\r\nTuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead\r\nof being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend.\"\r\n\r\n\"If we thought alike of Miss Bingley,\" replied Jane, \"your\r\nrepresentation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the\r\nfoundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving\r\nanyone; and all that I can hope in this case is that she is deceiving\r\nherself.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you\r\nwill not take comfort in mine. Believe her to be deceived, by all means.\r\nYou have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer.\"\r\n\r\n\"But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in\r\naccepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry\r\nelsewhere?\"\r\n\r\n\"You must decide for yourself,\" said Elizabeth; \"and if, upon mature\r\ndeliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is\r\nmore than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you by\r\nall means to refuse him.\"\r\n\r\n\"How can you talk so?\" said Jane, faintly smiling. \"You must know that\r\nthough I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could\r\nnot hesitate.\"\r\n\r\n\"I did not think you would; and that being the case, I cannot consider\r\nyour situation with much compassion.\"\r\n\r\n\"But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be\r\nrequired. A thousand things may arise in six months!\"\r\n\r\nThe idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost\r\ncontempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's\r\ninterested wishes, and she could not for a moment suppose that those\r\nwishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man\r\nso totally independent of everyone.\r\n\r\nShe represented to her sister as forcibly as possible what she felt\r\non the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect.\r\nJane's temper was not desponding, and she was gradually led to hope,\r\nthough the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that\r\nBingley would return to Netherfield and answer every wish of her heart.\r\n\r\nThey agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the\r\nfamily, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct;\r\nbut even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern,\r\nand she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen\r\nto go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After\r\nlamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation that Mr.\r\nBingley would be soon down again and soon dining at Longbourn, and the\r\nconclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that though he had\r\nbeen invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two\r\nfull courses.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 22\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases and again during the\r\nchief of the day was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins.\r\nElizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. \"It keeps him in good\r\nhumour,\" said she, \"and I am more obliged to you than I can express.\"\r\nCharlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and\r\nthat it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was\r\nvery amiable, but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth\r\nhad any conception of; its object was nothing else than to secure her\r\nfrom any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards\r\nherself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme; and appearances were so\r\nfavourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost\r\nsecure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very\r\nsoon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his\r\ncharacter, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next\r\nmorning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw\r\nhimself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins,\r\nfrom a conviction that if they saw him depart, they could not fail to\r\nconjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known\r\ntill its success might be known likewise; for though feeling almost\r\nsecure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging,\r\nhe was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday.\r\nHis reception, however, was of the most flattering kind. Miss Lucas\r\nperceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and\r\ninstantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had\r\nshe dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there.\r\n\r\nIn as short a time as Mr. Collins's long speeches would allow,\r\neverything was settled between them to the satisfaction of both; and as\r\nthey entered the house he earnestly entreated her to name the day that\r\nwas to make him the happiest of men; and though such a solicitation must\r\nbe waived for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with\r\nhis happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must\r\nguard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its\r\ncontinuance; and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure\r\nand disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that\r\nestablishment were gained.\r\n\r\nSir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent;\r\nand it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins's present\r\ncircumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom\r\nthey could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were\r\nexceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more\r\ninterest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer\r\nMr. Bennet was likely to live; and Sir William gave it as his decided\r\nopinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the\r\nLongbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife\r\nshould make their appearance at St. James's. The whole family, in short,\r\nwere properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes\r\nof _coming out_ a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have\r\ndone; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's\r\ndying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had\r\ngained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were\r\nin general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible\r\nnor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must\r\nbe imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly\r\neither of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was\r\nthe only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune,\r\nand however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest\r\npreservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at\r\nthe age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all\r\nthe good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business\r\nwas the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship\r\nshe valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder,\r\nand probably would blame her; and though her resolution was not to be\r\nshaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation. She resolved\r\nto give her the information herself, and therefore charged Mr. Collins,\r\nwhen he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had\r\npassed before any of the family. A promise of secrecy was of course very\r\ndutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty; for the\r\ncuriosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct\r\nquestions on his return as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was\r\nat the same time exercising great self-denial, for he was longing to\r\npublish his prosperous love.\r\n\r\nAs he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the\r\nfamily, the ceremony of leave-taking was performed when the ladies moved\r\nfor the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality,\r\nsaid how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever\r\nhis engagements might allow him to visit them.\r\n\r\n\"My dear madam,\" he replied, \"this invitation is particularly\r\ngratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive; and\r\nyou may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as\r\npossible.\"\r\n\r\nThey were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for\r\nso speedy a return, immediately said:\r\n\r\n\"But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my\r\ngood sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of\r\noffending your patroness.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear sir,\" replied Mr. Collins, \"I am particularly obliged to you\r\nfor this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so\r\nmaterial a step without her ladyship's concurrence.\"\r\n\r\n\"You cannot be too much upon your guard. Risk anything rather than her\r\ndispleasure; and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us\r\nagain, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home,\r\nand be satisfied that _we_ shall take no offence.\"\r\n\r\n\"Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such\r\naffectionate attention; and depend upon it, you will speedily receive\r\nfrom me a letter of thanks for this, and for every other mark of your\r\nregard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though\r\nmy absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now\r\ntake the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my\r\ncousin Elizabeth.\"\r\n\r\nWith proper civilities the ladies then withdrew; all of them equally\r\nsurprised that he meditated a quick return. Mrs. Bennet wished to\r\nunderstand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her\r\nyounger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him.\r\nShe rated his abilities much higher than any of the others; there was\r\na solidity in his reflections which often struck her, and though by no\r\nmeans so clever as herself, she thought that if encouraged to read\r\nand improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very\r\nagreeable companion. But on the following morning, every hope of this\r\nkind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a\r\nprivate conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before.\r\n\r\nThe possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her\r\nfriend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two; but\r\nthat Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from\r\npossibility as she could encourage him herself, and her astonishment was\r\nconsequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and\r\nshe could not help crying out:\r\n\r\n\"Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte--impossible!\"\r\n\r\nThe steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her\r\nstory, gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a\r\nreproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained\r\nher composure, and calmly replied:\r\n\r\n\"Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible\r\nthat Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion,\r\nbecause he was not so happy as to succeed with you?\"\r\n\r\nBut Elizabeth had now recollected herself, and making a strong effort\r\nfor it, was able to assure with tolerable firmness that the prospect of\r\ntheir relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her\r\nall imaginable happiness.\r\n\r\n\"I see what you are feeling,\" replied Charlotte. \"You must be surprised,\r\nvery much surprised--so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry\r\nyou. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be\r\nsatisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know; I never\r\nwas. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins's\r\ncharacter, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my\r\nchance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on\r\nentering the marriage state.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth quietly answered \"Undoubtedly;\" and after an awkward pause,\r\nthey returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much\r\nlonger, and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard.\r\nIt was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so\r\nunsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers\r\nof marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now\r\naccepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was\r\nnot exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible\r\nthat, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better\r\nfeeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a\r\nmost humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself\r\nand sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it\r\nwas impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had\r\nchosen.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 23\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what\r\nshe had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention\r\nit, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter, to\r\nannounce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them,\r\nand much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the\r\nhouses, he unfolded the matter--to an audience not merely wondering, but\r\nincredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness,\r\nprotested he must be entirely mistaken; and Lydia, always unguarded and\r\noften uncivil, boisterously exclaimed:\r\n\r\n\"Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know\r\nthat Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?\"\r\n\r\nNothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne\r\nwithout anger such treatment; but Sir William's good breeding carried\r\nhim through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the\r\ntruth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the\r\nmost forbearing courtesy.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant\r\na situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by\r\nmentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and\r\nendeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters\r\nby the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she\r\nwas readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the\r\nhappiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character\r\nof Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while\r\nSir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings\r\nfound a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving\r\nthe whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins\r\nhad been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be\r\nhappy together; and fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two\r\ninferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that\r\nElizabeth was the real cause of the mischief; and the other that she\r\nherself had been barbarously misused by them all; and on these two\r\npoints she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could\r\nconsole and nothing could appease her. Nor did that day wear out her\r\nresentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without\r\nscolding her, a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William\r\nor Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she\r\ncould at all forgive their daughter.\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such\r\nas he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for\r\nit gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had\r\nbeen used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and\r\nmore foolish than his daughter!\r\n\r\nJane confessed herself a little surprised at the match; but she said\r\nless of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness;\r\nnor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty\r\nand Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a\r\nclergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news\r\nto spread at Meryton.\r\n\r\nLady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort\r\non Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she\r\ncalled at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was,\r\nthough Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been\r\nenough to drive happiness away.\r\n\r\nBetween Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them\r\nmutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that\r\nno real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her\r\ndisappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her\r\nsister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could\r\nnever be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious,\r\nas Bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his\r\nreturn.\r\n\r\nJane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting\r\nthe days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised\r\nletter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to\r\ntheir father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a\r\ntwelvemonth's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging\r\nhis conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many\r\nrapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection\r\nof their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was\r\nmerely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready\r\nto close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither\r\nhe hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine,\r\nhe added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take\r\nplace as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable\r\nargument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him\r\nthe happiest of men.\r\n\r\nMr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of\r\npleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to\r\ncomplain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come\r\nto Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient\r\nand exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house\r\nwhile her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the\r\nmost disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and\r\nthey gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued\r\nabsence.\r\n\r\nNeither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after\r\nday passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the\r\nreport which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to\r\nNetherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs.\r\nBennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous\r\nfalsehood.\r\n\r\nEven Elizabeth began to fear--not that Bingley was indifferent--but that\r\nhis sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as\r\nshe was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so\r\ndishonorable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its\r\nfrequently occurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters\r\nand of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss\r\nDarcy and the amusements of London might be too much, she feared, for\r\nthe strength of his attachment.\r\n\r\nAs for Jane, _her_ anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more\r\npainful than Elizabeth's, but whatever she felt she was desirous of\r\nconcealing, and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject\r\nwas never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother,\r\nan hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her\r\nimpatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he\r\ndid not come back she would think herself very ill used. It needed\r\nall Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable\r\ntranquillity.\r\n\r\nMr. Collins returned most punctually on Monday fortnight, but his\r\nreception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his\r\nfirst introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention;\r\nand luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them\r\nfrom a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by\r\nhim at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time\r\nto make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of\r\nanything concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill-humour,\r\nand wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight\r\nof Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she\r\nregarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see\r\nthem, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and\r\nwhenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that\r\nthey were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself\r\nand her daughters out of the house, as soon as Mr. Bennet were dead. She\r\ncomplained bitterly of all this to her husband.\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, Mr. Bennet,\" said she, \"it is very hard to think that Charlotte\r\nLucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to\r\nmake way for _her_, and live to see her take her place in it!\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for\r\nbetter things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor.\"\r\n\r\nThis was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet, and therefore, instead of\r\nmaking any answer, she went on as before.\r\n\r\n\"I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was\r\nnot for the entail, I should not mind it.\"\r\n\r\n\"What should not you mind?\"\r\n\r\n\"I should not mind anything at all.\"\r\n\r\n\"Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such\r\ninsensibility.\"\r\n\r\n\"I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for anything about the entail. How\r\nanyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own\r\ndaughters, I cannot understand; and all for the sake of Mr. Collins too!\r\nWhy should _he_ have it more than anybody else?\"\r\n\r\n\"I leave it to yourself to determine,\" said Mr. Bennet.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 24\r\n\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very first\r\nsentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for\r\nthe winter, and concluded with her brother's regret at not having had\r\ntime to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left\r\nthe country.\r\n\r\nHope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest\r\nof the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the\r\nwriter, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy's praise occupied\r\nthe chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on, and Caroline\r\nboasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict\r\nthe accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former\r\nletter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an\r\ninmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of\r\nthe latter with regard to new furniture.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this,\r\nheard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern\r\nfor her sister, and resentment against all others. To Caroline's\r\nassertion of her brother's being partial to Miss Darcy she paid no\r\ncredit. That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she\r\nhad ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she\r\ncould not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness\r\nof temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave\r\nof his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice of his own happiness\r\nto the caprice of their inclination. Had his own happiness, however,\r\nbeen the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in\r\nwhatever manner he thought best, but her sister's was involved in it, as\r\nshe thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short,\r\non which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She\r\ncould think of nothing else; and yet whether Bingley's regard had really\r\ndied away, or were suppressed by his friends' interference; whether\r\nhe had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his\r\nobservation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be\r\nmaterially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained\r\nthe same, her peace equally wounded.\r\n\r\nA day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to\r\nElizabeth; but at last, on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a\r\nlonger irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could\r\nnot help saying:\r\n\r\n\"Oh, that my dear mother had more command over herself! She can have no\r\nidea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But\r\nI will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall\r\nall be as we were before.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said\r\nnothing.\r\n\r\n\"You doubt me,\" cried Jane, slightly colouring; \"indeed, you have\r\nno reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my\r\nacquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear,\r\nand nothing to reproach him with. Thank God! I have not _that_ pain. A\r\nlittle time, therefore--I shall certainly try to get the better.\"\r\n\r\nWith a stronger voice she soon added, \"I have this comfort immediately,\r\nthat it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it\r\nhas done no harm to anyone but myself.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Jane!\" exclaimed Elizabeth, \"you are too good. Your sweetness\r\nand disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say\r\nto you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you\r\ndeserve.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back\r\nthe praise on her sister's warm affection.\r\n\r\n\"Nay,\" said Elizabeth, \"this is not fair. _You_ wish to think all the\r\nworld respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. I only want\r\nto think _you_ perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not\r\nbe afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your\r\nprivilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people\r\nwhom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see\r\nof the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms\r\nmy belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the\r\nlittle dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or\r\nsense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not mention; the\r\nother is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! In every view it is\r\nunaccountable!\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will\r\nruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference\r\nof situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and\r\nCharlotte's steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a\r\nlarge family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be\r\nready to believe, for everybody's sake, that she may feel something like\r\nregard and esteem for our cousin.\"\r\n\r\n\"To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else\r\ncould be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that\r\nCharlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her\r\nunderstanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a\r\nconceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as\r\nI do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him\r\ncannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though\r\nit is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual,\r\nchange the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade\r\nyourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of\r\ndanger security for happiness.\"\r\n\r\n\"I must think your language too strong in speaking of both,\" replied\r\nJane; \"and I hope you will be convinced of it by seeing them happy\r\ntogether. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You\r\nmentioned _two_ instances. I cannot misunderstand you, but I entreat\r\nyou, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking _that person_ to blame, and\r\nsaying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy\r\nourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man\r\nto be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but\r\nour own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than\r\nit does.\"\r\n\r\n\"And men take care that they should.\"\r\n\r\n\"If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified; but I have no idea\r\nof there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley's conduct to design,\"\r\nsaid Elizabeth; \"but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others\r\nunhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness,\r\nwant of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution,\r\nwill do the business.\"\r\n\r\n\"And do you impute it to either of those?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what\r\nI think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can.\"\r\n\r\n\"You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, in conjunction with his friend.\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can\r\nonly wish his happiness; and if he is attached to me, no other woman can\r\nsecure it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his\r\nhappiness; they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they\r\nmay wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great\r\nconnections, and pride.\"\r\n\r\n\"Beyond a doubt, they _do_ wish him to choose Miss Darcy,\" replied Jane;\r\n\"but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have\r\nknown her much longer than they have known me; no wonder if they love\r\nher better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely\r\nthey should have opposed their brother's. What sister would think\r\nherself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very\r\nobjectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try\r\nto part us; if he were so, they could not succeed. By supposing such an\r\naffection, you make everybody acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most\r\nunhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been\r\nmistaken--or, at least, it is light, it is nothing in comparison of what\r\nI should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in\r\nthe best light, in the light in which it may be understood.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not oppose such a wish; and from this time Mr. Bingley's\r\nname was scarcely ever mentioned between them.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no\r\nmore, and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account\r\nfor it clearly, there was little chance of her ever considering it with\r\nless perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she\r\ndid not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the\r\neffect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her\r\nno more; but though the probability of the statement was admitted at\r\nthe time, she had the same story to repeat every day. Mrs. Bennet's best\r\ncomfort was that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer.\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet treated the matter differently. \"So, Lizzy,\" said he one day,\r\n\"your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to\r\nbeing married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then.\r\nIt is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction\r\namong her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to\r\nbe long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough in\r\nMeryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham\r\nbe _your_ man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not\r\nall expect Jane's good fortune.\"\r\n\r\n\"True,\" said Mr. Bennet, \"but it is a comfort to think that whatever of\r\nthat kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will make\r\nthe most of it.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom\r\nwhich the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn\r\nfamily. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now\r\nadded that of general unreserve. The whole of what Elizabeth had already\r\nheard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him,\r\nwas now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and everybody was\r\npleased to know how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they\r\nhad known anything of the matter.\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be\r\nany extenuating circumstances in the case, unknown to the society\r\nof Hertfordshire; her mild and steady candour always pleaded for\r\nallowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes--but by everybody else\r\nMr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 25\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity,\r\nMr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of\r\nSaturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his\r\nside, by preparations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason\r\nto hope, that shortly after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would\r\nbe fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his\r\nrelations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair\r\ncousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another\r\nletter of thanks.\r\n\r\nOn the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving\r\nher brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas\r\nat Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly\r\nsuperior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield\r\nladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived\r\nby trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so\r\nwell-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger\r\nthan Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant\r\nwoman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the\r\ntwo eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a particular regard.\r\nThey had frequently been staying with her in town.\r\n\r\nThe first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to\r\ndistribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was\r\ndone she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen.\r\nMrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They\r\nhad all been very ill-used since she last saw her sister. Two of her\r\ngirls had been upon the point of marriage, and after all there was\r\nnothing in it.\r\n\r\n\"I do not blame Jane,\" she continued, \"for Jane would have got Mr.\r\nBingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think\r\nthat she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had it not\r\nbeen for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room,\r\nand she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have\r\na daughter married before I have, and that the Longbourn estate is just\r\nas much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed,\r\nsister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of\r\nthem, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted\r\nso in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves\r\nbefore anybody else. However, your coming just at this time is the\r\ngreatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us, of\r\nlong sleeves.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before,\r\nin the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her\r\nsister a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces, turned the\r\nconversation.\r\n\r\nWhen alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. \"It\r\nseems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane,\" said she. \"I am\r\nsorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such\r\nas you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl\r\nfor a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets\r\nher, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent.\"\r\n\r\n\"An excellent consolation in its way,\" said Elizabeth, \"but it will not\r\ndo for _us_. We do not suffer by _accident_. It does not often\r\nhappen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of\r\nindependent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in\r\nlove with only a few days before.\"\r\n\r\n\"But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so\r\ndoubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as\r\noften applied to feelings which arise from a half-hour's acquaintance,\r\nas to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how _violent was_ Mr. Bingley's\r\nlove?\"\r\n\r\n\"I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite\r\ninattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time\r\nthey met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he\r\noffended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I\r\nspoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be\r\nfiner symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes!--of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor\r\nJane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get\r\nover it immediately. It had better have happened to _you_, Lizzy; you\r\nwould have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she\r\nwould be prevailed upon to go back with us? Change of scene might be\r\nof service--and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as\r\nanything.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded\r\nof her sister's ready acquiescence.\r\n\r\n\"I hope,\" added Mrs. Gardiner, \"that no consideration with regard to\r\nthis young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of\r\ntown, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go\r\nout so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all,\r\nunless he really comes to see her.\"\r\n\r\n\"And _that_ is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his\r\nfriend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such\r\na part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may\r\nperhaps have _heard_ of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he\r\nwould hardly think a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its\r\nimpurities, were he once to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley\r\nnever stirs without him.\"\r\n\r\n\"So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane\r\ncorrespond with his sister? _She_ will not be able to help calling.\"\r\n\r\n\"She will drop the acquaintance entirely.\"\r\n\r\nBut in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this\r\npoint, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being\r\nwithheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which\r\nconvinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely\r\nhopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that\r\nhis affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends\r\nsuccessfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's\r\nattractions.\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure; and the\r\nBingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time, than as she\r\nhoped by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother,\r\nshe might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of\r\nseeing him.\r\n\r\nThe Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn; and what with the Phillipses,\r\nthe Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its\r\nengagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment\r\nof her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family\r\ndinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always\r\nmade part of it--of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and\r\non these occasions, Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's\r\nwarm commendation, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them,\r\nfrom what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference\r\nof each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and\r\nshe resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left\r\nHertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such\r\nan attachment.\r\n\r\nTo Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure,\r\nunconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago,\r\nbefore her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very\r\npart of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many\r\nacquaintances in common; and though Wickham had been little there since\r\nthe death of Darcy's father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher\r\nintelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of\r\nprocuring.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by\r\ncharacter perfectly well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject\r\nof discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute\r\ndescription which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of\r\npraise on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both\r\nhim and herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's\r\ntreatment of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman's\r\nreputed disposition when quite a lad which might agree with it, and\r\nwas confident at last that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam\r\nDarcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 26\r\n\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner's caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given\r\non the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone; after\r\nhonestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on:\r\n\r\n\"You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because\r\nyou are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking\r\nopenly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve\r\nyourself or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want\r\nof fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against\r\n_him_; he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he\r\nought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you\r\nmust not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all\r\nexpect you to use it. Your father would depend on _your_ resolution and\r\ngood conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of\r\nmyself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I\r\ncan prevent it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Elizabeth, you are not serious now.\"\r\n\r\n\"I beg your pardon, I will try again. At present I am not in love with\r\nMr. Wickham; no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison,\r\nthe most agreeable man I ever saw--and if he becomes really attached to\r\nme--I believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence\r\nof it. Oh! _that_ abominable Mr. Darcy! My father's opinion of me does\r\nme the greatest honour, and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My\r\nfather, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I\r\nshould be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but\r\nsince we see every day that where there is affection, young people\r\nare seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into\r\nengagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many\r\nof my fellow-creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it\r\nwould be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not\r\nto be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first\r\nobject. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short,\r\nI will do my best.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very\r\noften. At least, you should not _remind_ your mother of inviting him.\"\r\n\r\n\"As I did the other day,\" said Elizabeth with a conscious smile: \"very\r\ntrue, it will be wise in me to refrain from _that_. But do not imagine\r\nthat he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been\r\nso frequently invited this week. You know my mother's ideas as to the\r\nnecessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my\r\nhonour, I will try to do what I think to be the wisest; and now I hope\r\nyou are satisfied.\"\r\n\r\nHer aunt assured her that she was, and Elizabeth having thanked her for\r\nthe kindness of her hints, they parted; a wonderful instance of advice\r\nbeing given on such a point, without being resented.\r\n\r\nMr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted\r\nby the Gardiners and Jane; but as he took up his abode with the Lucases,\r\nhis arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was\r\nnow fast approaching, and she was at length so far resigned as to think\r\nit inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an ill-natured tone, that\r\nshe \"_wished_ they might be happy.\" Thursday was to be the wedding day,\r\nand on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit; and when she\r\nrose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother's ungracious and\r\nreluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her\r\nout of the room. As they went downstairs together, Charlotte said:\r\n\r\n\"I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza.\"\r\n\r\n\"_That_ you certainly shall.\"\r\n\r\n\"And I have another favour to ask you. Will you come and see me?\"\r\n\r\n\"We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to\r\ncome to Hunsford.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the\r\nvisit.\r\n\r\n\"My father and Maria are coming to me in March,\" added Charlotte, \"and I\r\nhope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as\r\nwelcome as either of them.\"\r\n\r\nThe wedding took place; the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from\r\nthe church door, and everybody had as much to say, or to hear, on\r\nthe subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend; and their\r\ncorrespondence was as regular and frequent as it had ever been; that\r\nit should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never\r\naddress her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over,\r\nand though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the\r\nsake of what had been, rather than what was. Charlotte's first letters\r\nwere received with a good deal of eagerness; there could not but be\r\ncuriosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would\r\nlike Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to\r\nbe; though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte\r\nexpressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She\r\nwrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing\r\nwhich she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and\r\nroads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most\r\nfriendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins's picture of Hunsford and\r\nRosings rationally softened; and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait\r\nfor her own visit there to know the rest.\r\n\r\nJane had already written a few lines to her sister to announce their\r\nsafe arrival in London; and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it\r\nwould be in her power to say something of the Bingleys.\r\n\r\nHer impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience\r\ngenerally is. Jane had been a week in town without either seeing or\r\nhearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that\r\nher last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been\r\nlost.\r\n\r\n\"My aunt,\" she continued, \"is going to-morrow into that part of the\r\ntown, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street.\"\r\n\r\nShe wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley.\r\n\"I did not think Caroline in spirits,\" were her words, \"but she was very\r\nglad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming\r\nto London. I was right, therefore, my last letter had never reached\r\nher. I inquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much\r\nengaged with Mr. Darcy that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that\r\nMiss Darcy was expected to dinner. I wish I could see her. My visit was\r\nnot long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall\r\nsee them soon here.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that\r\naccident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister's being in town.\r\n\r\nFour weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to\r\npersuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be\r\nblind to Miss Bingley's inattention. After waiting at home every morning\r\nfor a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the\r\nvisitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and yet more,\r\nthe alteration of her manner would allow Jane to deceive herself no\r\nlonger. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will\r\nprove what she felt.\r\n\r\n\"My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her\r\nbetter judgement, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been\r\nentirely deceived in Miss Bingley's regard for me. But, my dear sister,\r\nthough the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I\r\nstill assert that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was\r\nas natural as your suspicion. I do not at all comprehend her reason for\r\nwishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to\r\nhappen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not\r\nreturn my visit till yesterday; and not a note, not a line, did I\r\nreceive in the meantime. When she did come, it was very evident that\r\nshe had no pleasure in it; she made a slight, formal apology, for not\r\ncalling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was\r\nin every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was\r\nperfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity,\r\nthough I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out\r\nas she did; I can safely say that every advance to intimacy began on\r\nher side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting\r\nwrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the\r\ncause of it. I need not explain myself farther; and though _we_ know\r\nthis anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily\r\naccount for her behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to\r\nhis sister, whatever anxiety she must feel on his behalf is natural and\r\namiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now,\r\nbecause, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met, long ago.\r\nHe knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said\r\nherself; and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she\r\nwanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I\r\ncannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should\r\nbe almost tempted to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity\r\nin all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought,\r\nand think only of what will make me happy--your affection, and the\r\ninvariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very\r\nsoon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield\r\nagain, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better\r\nnot mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts\r\nfrom our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and\r\nMaria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there.--Yours, etc.\"\r\n\r\nThis letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she\r\nconsidered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least.\r\nAll expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not\r\neven wish for a renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on\r\nevery review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible\r\nadvantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr.\r\nDarcy's sister, as by Wickham's account, she would make him abundantly\r\nregret what he had thrown away.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise\r\nconcerning that gentleman, and required information; and Elizabeth\r\nhad such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to\r\nherself. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over,\r\nhe was the admirer of some one else. Elizabeth was watchful enough to\r\nsee it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain.\r\nHer heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied\r\nwith believing that _she_ would have been his only choice, had fortune\r\npermitted it. The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most\r\nremarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself\r\nagreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than\r\nin Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence.\r\nNothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and while able to\r\nsuppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was\r\nready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very\r\nsincerely wish him happy.\r\n\r\nAll this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and after relating the\r\ncircumstances, she thus went on: \"I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that\r\nI have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure\r\nand elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and\r\nwish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial\r\ntowards _him_; they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find\r\nout that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to\r\nthink her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My\r\nwatchfulness has been effectual; and though I certainly should be a more\r\ninteresting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love\r\nwith him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance.\r\nImportance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take\r\nhis defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the\r\nways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that\r\nhandsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 27\r\n\r\n\r\nWith no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise\r\ndiversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and\r\nsometimes cold, did January and February pass away. March was to take\r\nElizabeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very seriously of\r\ngoing thither; but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan\r\nand she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure\r\nas well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing\r\nCharlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There\r\nwas novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such\r\nuncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change\r\nwas not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would moreover give her\r\na peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have\r\nbeen very sorry for any delay. Everything, however, went on smoothly,\r\nand was finally settled according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was\r\nto accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement\r\nof spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became\r\nperfect as plan could be.\r\n\r\nThe only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her,\r\nand who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he\r\ntold her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter.\r\n\r\nThe farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly; on\r\nhis side even more. His present pursuit could not make him forget that\r\nElizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the\r\nfirst to listen and to pity, the first to be admired; and in his manner\r\nof bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of\r\nwhat she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their\r\nopinion of her--their opinion of everybody--would always coincide, there\r\nwas a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to\r\nhim with a most sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced that,\r\nwhether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable\r\nand pleasing.\r\n\r\nHer fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind to make her\r\nthink him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a\r\ngood-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say\r\nthat could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much\r\ndelight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but\r\nshe had known Sir William's too long. He could tell her nothing new of\r\nthe wonders of his presentation and knighthood; and his civilities were\r\nworn out, like his information.\r\n\r\nIt was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early\r\nas to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's\r\ndoor, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival; when\r\nthey entered the passage she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth,\r\nlooking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and\r\nlovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls,\r\nwhose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to\r\nwait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen\r\nher for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and\r\nkindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and\r\nshopping, and the evening at one of the theatres.\r\n\r\nElizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first object was her\r\nsister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to\r\nher minute inquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her\r\nspirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however,\r\nto hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the\r\nparticulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and\r\nrepeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and\r\nherself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the\r\nacquaintance.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and\r\ncomplimented her on bearing it so well.\r\n\r\n\"But my dear Elizabeth,\" she added, \"what sort of girl is Miss King? I\r\nshould be sorry to think our friend mercenary.\"\r\n\r\n\"Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs,\r\nbetween the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end,\r\nand avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me,\r\nbecause it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get\r\na girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is\r\nmercenary.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know\r\nwhat to think.\"\r\n\r\n\"She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her.\"\r\n\r\n\"But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death\r\nmade her mistress of this fortune.\"\r\n\r\n\"No--why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain _my_\r\naffections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for\r\nmaking love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally\r\npoor?\"\r\n\r\n\"But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her\r\nso soon after this event.\"\r\n\r\n\"A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant\r\ndecorums which other people may observe. If _she_ does not object to it,\r\nwhy should _we_?\"\r\n\r\n\"_Her_ not objecting does not justify _him_. It only shows her being\r\ndeficient in something herself--sense or feeling.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" cried Elizabeth, \"have it as you choose. _He_ shall be\r\nmercenary, and _she_ shall be foolish.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, Lizzy, that is what I do _not_ choose. I should be sorry, you know,\r\nto think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in\r\nDerbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not\r\nmuch better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow\r\nwhere I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has\r\nneither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones\r\nworth knowing, after all.\"\r\n\r\n\"Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment.\"\r\n\r\nBefore they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the\r\nunexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in\r\na tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer.\r\n\r\n\"We have not determined how far it shall carry us,\" said Mrs. Gardiner,\r\n\"but, perhaps, to the Lakes.\"\r\n\r\nNo scheme could have been more agreeable to Elizabeth, and her\r\nacceptance of the invitation was most ready and grateful. \"Oh, my dear,\r\ndear aunt,\" she rapturously cried, \"what delight! what felicity! You\r\ngive me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What\r\nare young men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport\r\nwe shall spend! And when we _do_ return, it shall not be like other\r\ntravellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We\r\n_will_ know where we have gone--we _will_ recollect what we have seen.\r\nLakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our\r\nimaginations; nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene,\r\nwill we begin quarreling about its relative situation. Let _our_\r\nfirst effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of\r\ntravellers.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 28\r\n\r\n\r\nEvery object in the next day's journey was new and interesting to\r\nElizabeth; and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment; for she had\r\nseen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health,\r\nand the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight.\r\n\r\nWhen they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in\r\nsearch of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view.\r\nThe palings of Rosings Park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth\r\nsmiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants.\r\n\r\nAt length the Parsonage was discernible. The garden sloping to the\r\nroad, the house standing in it, the green pales, and the laurel hedge,\r\neverything declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte\r\nappeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate which\r\nled by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of\r\nthe whole party. In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing\r\nat the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the\r\nliveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with\r\ncoming when she found herself so affectionately received. She saw\r\ninstantly that her cousin's manners were not altered by his marriage;\r\nhis formal civility was just what it had been, and he detained her some\r\nminutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his inquiries after all her\r\nfamily. They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the\r\nneatness of the entrance, taken into the house; and as soon as they\r\nwere in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious\r\nformality to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife's\r\noffers of refreshment.\r\n\r\nElizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory; and she could not help\r\nin fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its\r\naspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her,\r\nas if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But\r\nthough everything seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to\r\ngratify him by any sigh of repentance, and rather looked with wonder at\r\nher friend that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion.\r\nWhen Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be\r\nashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her\r\neye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but\r\nin general Charlotte wisely did not hear. After sitting long enough to\r\nadmire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to\r\nthe fender, to give an account of their journey, and of all that had\r\nhappened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the\r\ngarden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of\r\nwhich he attended himself. To work in this garden was one of his most\r\nrespectable pleasures; and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance\r\nwith which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and\r\nowned she encouraged it as much as possible. Here, leading the way\r\nthrough every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an\r\ninterval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out\r\nwith a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind. He could number the\r\nfields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in\r\nthe most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which\r\nthe country or kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the\r\nprospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered\r\nthe park nearly opposite the front of his house. It was a handsome\r\nmodern building, well situated on rising ground.\r\n\r\nFrom his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows;\r\nbut the ladies, not having shoes to encounter the remains of a white\r\nfrost, turned back; and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte\r\ntook her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased,\r\nprobably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's\r\nhelp. It was rather small, but well built and convenient; and everything\r\nwas fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency of which\r\nElizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be\r\nforgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout, and by\r\nCharlotte's evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often\r\nforgotten.\r\n\r\nShe had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It\r\nwas spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining\r\nin, observed:\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine\r\nde Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will\r\nbe delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I\r\ndoubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice\r\nwhen service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying she\r\nwill include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she\r\nhonours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is\r\ncharming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed\r\nto walk home. Her ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us. I\r\n_should_ say, one of her ladyship's carriages, for she has several.\"\r\n\r\n\"Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman indeed,\" added\r\nCharlotte, \"and a most attentive neighbour.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of\r\nwoman whom one cannot regard with too much deference.\"\r\n\r\nThe evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news,\r\nand telling again what had already been written; and when it closed,\r\nElizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon\r\nCharlotte's degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding,\r\nand composure in bearing with, her husband, and to acknowledge that it\r\nwas all done very well. She had also to anticipate how her visit\r\nwould pass, the quiet tenor of their usual employments, the vexatious\r\ninterruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with\r\nRosings. A lively imagination soon settled it all.\r\n\r\nAbout the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready\r\nfor a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in\r\nconfusion; and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running\r\nup stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her. She opened\r\nthe door and met Maria in the landing place, who, breathless with\r\nagitation, cried out--\r\n\r\n\"Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the dining-room, for\r\nthere is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make\r\nhaste, and come down this moment.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth asked questions in vain; Maria would tell her nothing more,\r\nand down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in\r\nquest of this wonder; It was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the\r\ngarden gate.\r\n\r\n\"And is this all?\" cried Elizabeth. \"I expected at least that the pigs\r\nwere got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her\r\ndaughter.\"\r\n\r\n\"La! my dear,\" said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, \"it is not\r\nLady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them;\r\nthe other is Miss de Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little\r\ncreature. Who would have thought that she could be so thin and small?\"\r\n\r\n\"She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind.\r\nWhy does she not come in?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours\r\nwhen Miss de Bourgh comes in.\"\r\n\r\n\"I like her appearance,\" said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. \"She\r\nlooks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will\r\nmake him a very proper wife.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation\r\nwith the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth's high diversion, was\r\nstationed in the doorway, in earnest contemplation of the greatness\r\nbefore him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss de Bourgh looked that\r\nway.\r\n\r\nAt length there was nothing more to be said; the ladies drove on, and\r\nthe others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two\r\ngirls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which\r\nCharlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked\r\nto dine at Rosings the next day.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 29\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Collins's triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete.\r\nThe power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering\r\nvisitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his\r\nwife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity\r\nof doing it should be given so soon, was such an instance of Lady\r\nCatherine's condescension, as he knew not how to admire enough.\r\n\r\n\"I confess,\" said he, \"that I should not have been at all surprised by\r\nher ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at\r\nRosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it\r\nwould happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who\r\ncould have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there\r\n(an invitation, moreover, including the whole party) so immediately\r\nafter your arrival!\"\r\n\r\n\"I am the less surprised at what has happened,\" replied Sir William,\r\n\"from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which\r\nmy situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such\r\ninstances of elegant breeding are not uncommon.\"\r\n\r\nScarcely anything was talked of the whole day or next morning but their\r\nvisit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what\r\nthey were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and\r\nso splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them.\r\n\r\nWhen the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth--\r\n\r\n\"Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady\r\nCatherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which\r\nbecomes herself and her daughter. I would advise you merely to put on\r\nwhatever of your clothes is superior to the rest--there is no occasion\r\nfor anything more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you\r\nfor being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank\r\npreserved.\"\r\n\r\nWhile they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different\r\ndoors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much\r\nobjected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of\r\nher ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas\r\nwho had been little used to company, and she looked forward to her\r\nintroduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done\r\nto his presentation at St. James's.\r\n\r\nAs the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a\r\nmile across the park. Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and\r\nElizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such\r\nraptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but\r\nslightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the\r\nhouse, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally\r\ncost Sir Lewis de Bourgh.\r\n\r\nWhen they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every\r\nmoment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm.\r\nElizabeth's courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady\r\nCatherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or\r\nmiraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money or rank she thought\r\nshe could witness without trepidation.\r\n\r\nFrom the entrance-hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a\r\nrapturous air, the fine proportion and the finished ornaments, they\r\nfollowed the servants through an ante-chamber, to the room where Lady\r\nCatherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her ladyship,\r\nwith great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had\r\nsettled it with her husband that the office of introduction should\r\nbe hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those\r\napologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary.\r\n\r\nIn spite of having been at St. James's Sir William was so completely\r\nawed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage\r\nenough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word;\r\nand his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge\r\nof her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself\r\nquite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her\r\ncomposedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked\r\nfeatures, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not\r\nconciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her\r\nvisitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by\r\nsilence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone,\r\nas marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to\r\nElizabeth's mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she\r\nbelieved Lady Catherine to be exactly what he represented.\r\n\r\nWhen, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment\r\nshe soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the\r\ndaughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment at her\r\nbeing so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any\r\nlikeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly; her\r\nfeatures, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very\r\nlittle, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance\r\nthere was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening\r\nto what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before\r\nher eyes.\r\n\r\nAfter sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to\r\nadmire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties,\r\nand Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth\r\nlooking at in the summer.\r\n\r\nThe dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants and\r\nall the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had\r\nlikewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her\r\nladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish\r\nnothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted\r\nalacrity; and every dish was commended, first by him and then by Sir\r\nWilliam, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son-in-law\r\nsaid, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear.\r\nBut Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and\r\ngave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved\r\na novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth\r\nwas ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated\r\nbetween Charlotte and Miss de Bourgh--the former of whom was engaged in\r\nlistening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all\r\ndinner-time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little\r\nMiss de Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing\r\nshe was indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the\r\ngentlemen did nothing but eat and admire.\r\n\r\nWhen the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to\r\nbe done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any\r\nintermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every\r\nsubject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to\r\nhave her judgement controverted. She inquired into Charlotte's domestic\r\nconcerns familiarly and minutely, gave her a great deal of advice as\r\nto the management of them all; told her how everything ought to be\r\nregulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the\r\ncare of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was\r\nbeneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an\r\noccasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse\r\nwith Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and\r\nElizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew\r\nthe least, and who she observed to Mrs. Collins was a very genteel,\r\npretty kind of girl. She asked her, at different times, how many sisters\r\nshe had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of\r\nthem were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they\r\nhad been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been\r\nher mother's maiden name? Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of\r\nher questions but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then\r\nobserved,\r\n\r\n\"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your\r\nsake,\" turning to Charlotte, \"I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no\r\noccasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought\r\nnecessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss\r\nBennet?\"\r\n\r\n\"A little.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! then--some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our\r\ninstrument is a capital one, probably superior to----You shall try it\r\nsome day. Do your sisters play and sing?\"\r\n\r\n\"One of them does.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss\r\nWebbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do\r\nyou draw?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, not at all.\"\r\n\r\n\"What, none of you?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not one.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother\r\nshould have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters.\"\r\n\r\n\"My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London.\"\r\n\r\n\"Has your governess left you?\"\r\n\r\n\"We never had any governess.\"\r\n\r\n\"No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home\r\nwithout a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must\r\nhave been quite a slave to your education.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been\r\nthe case.\r\n\r\n\"Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you\r\nmust have been neglected.\"\r\n\r\n\"Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as\r\nwished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to\r\nread, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be\r\nidle, certainly might.\"\r\n\r\n\"Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had\r\nknown your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage\r\none. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady\r\nand regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is\r\nwonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that\r\nway. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces\r\nof Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and\r\nit was but the other day that I recommended another young person,\r\nwho was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite\r\ndelighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalf's\r\ncalling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady\r\nCatherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your\r\nyounger sisters out, Miss Bennet?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, ma'am, all.\"\r\n\r\n\"All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The\r\nyounger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters\r\nmust be very young?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps _she_ is full young to be\r\nmuch in company. But really, ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon\r\nyounger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and\r\namusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to\r\nmarry early. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth\r\nat the first. And to be kept back on _such_ a motive! I think it would\r\nnot be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.\"\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word,\" said her ladyship, \"you give your opinion very decidedly\r\nfor so young a person. Pray, what is your age?\"\r\n\r\n\"With three younger sisters grown up,\" replied Elizabeth, smiling, \"your\r\nladyship can hardly expect me to own it.\"\r\n\r\nLady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer;\r\nand Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever\r\ndared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.\r\n\r\n\"You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not\r\nconceal your age.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not one-and-twenty.\"\r\n\r\nWhen the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card-tables\r\nwere placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat\r\ndown to quadrille; and as Miss de Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the\r\ntwo girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her\r\nparty. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was\r\nuttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson\r\nexpressed her fears of Miss de Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or\r\nhaving too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the\r\nother table. Lady Catherine was generally speaking--stating the mistakes\r\nof the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins\r\nwas employed in agreeing to everything her ladyship said, thanking her\r\nfor every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many.\r\nSir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes\r\nand noble names.\r\n\r\nWhen Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose,\r\nthe tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins,\r\ngratefully accepted and immediately ordered. The party then gathered\r\nround the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were\r\nto have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by\r\nthe arrival of the coach; and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr.\r\nCollins's side and as many bows on Sir William's they departed. As soon\r\nas they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin\r\nto give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for\r\nCharlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her\r\ncommendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy\r\nMr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her ladyship's praise\r\ninto his own hands.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 30\r\n\r\n\r\nSir William stayed only a week at Hunsford, but his visit was long\r\nenough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled,\r\nand of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not\r\noften met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his\r\nmorning to driving him out in his gig, and showing him the country; but\r\nwhen he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments,\r\nand Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her\r\ncousin by the alteration, for the chief of the time between breakfast\r\nand dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden or in\r\nreading and writing, and looking out of the window in his own book-room,\r\nwhich fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards.\r\nElizabeth had at first rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer\r\nthe dining-parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a\r\nmore pleasant aspect; but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent\r\nreason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been\r\nmuch less in his own apartment, had they sat in one equally lively; and\r\nshe gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement.\r\n\r\nFrom the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and\r\nwere indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went\r\nalong, and how often especially Miss de Bourgh drove by in her phaeton,\r\nwhich he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened\r\nalmost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and\r\nhad a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever\r\nprevailed upon to get out.\r\n\r\nVery few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and\r\nnot many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise;\r\nand till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings\r\nto be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many\r\nhours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her ladyship,\r\nand nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during\r\nthese visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work,\r\nand advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement\r\nof the furniture; or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she\r\naccepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding\r\nout that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family.\r\n\r\nElizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in\r\ncommission of the peace of the county, she was a most active magistrate\r\nin her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her\r\nby Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to\r\nbe quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the\r\nvillage to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold\r\nthem into harmony and plenty.\r\n\r\nThe entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week;\r\nand, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one\r\ncard-table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart\r\nof the first. Their other engagements were few, as the style of living\r\nin the neighbourhood in general was beyond Mr. Collins's reach. This,\r\nhowever, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time\r\ncomfortably enough; there were half-hours of pleasant conversation with\r\nCharlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year that she had\r\noften great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she\r\nfrequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was\r\nalong the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was\r\na nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and\r\nwhere she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity.\r\n\r\nIn this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away.\r\nEaster was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an\r\naddition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be\r\nimportant. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival that Mr. Darcy was\r\nexpected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not\r\nmany of her acquaintances whom she did not prefer, his coming would\r\nfurnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and\r\nshe might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him\r\nwere, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently\r\ndestined by Lady Catherine, who talked of his coming with the greatest\r\nsatisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and\r\nseemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by\r\nMiss Lucas and herself.\r\n\r\nHis arrival was soon known at the Parsonage; for Mr. Collins was walking\r\nthe whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane,\r\nin order to have the earliest assurance of it, and after making his\r\nbow as the carriage turned into the Park, hurried home with the great\r\nintelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his\r\nrespects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for\r\nMr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of\r\nhis uncle Lord ----, and, to the great surprise of all the party, when\r\nMr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen\r\nthem from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running\r\ninto the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding:\r\n\r\n\"I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would\r\nnever have come so soon to wait upon me.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment,\r\nbefore their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly\r\nafterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam,\r\nwho led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and\r\naddress most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been\r\nused to look in Hertfordshire--paid his compliments, with his usual\r\nreserve, to Mrs. Collins, and whatever might be his feelings toward her\r\nfriend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely\r\ncurtseyed to him without saying a word.\r\n\r\nColonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly with the\r\nreadiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but\r\nhis cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and\r\ngarden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to anybody.\r\nAt length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to inquire of\r\nElizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual\r\nway, and after a moment's pause, added:\r\n\r\n\"My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never\r\nhappened to see her there?\"\r\n\r\nShe was perfectly sensible that he never had; but she wished to see\r\nwhether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between\r\nthe Bingleys and Jane, and she thought he looked a little confused as he\r\nanswered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The\r\nsubject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went\r\naway.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 31\r\n\r\n\r\nColonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the Parsonage,\r\nand the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasures\r\nof their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they\r\nreceived any invitation thither--for while there were visitors in the\r\nhouse, they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day,\r\nalmost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by\r\nsuch an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to\r\ncome there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little\r\nof Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the\r\nParsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had seen\r\nonly at church.\r\n\r\nThe invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined\r\nthe party in Lady Catherine's drawing-room. Her ladyship received\r\nthem civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so\r\nacceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact,\r\nalmost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy,\r\nmuch more than to any other person in the room.\r\n\r\nColonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them; anything was a\r\nwelcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had\r\nmoreover caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and\r\ntalked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying\r\nat home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so\r\nwell entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much\r\nspirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself,\r\nas well as of Mr. Darcy. _His_ eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned\r\ntowards them with a look of curiosity; and that her ladyship, after a\r\nwhile, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not\r\nscruple to call out:\r\n\r\n\"What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking\r\nof? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.\"\r\n\r\n\"We are speaking of music, madam,\" said he, when no longer able to avoid\r\na reply.\r\n\r\n\"Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I\r\nmust have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music.\r\nThere are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment\r\nof music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt,\r\nI should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health\r\nhad allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed\r\ndelightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency.\r\n\r\n\"I am very glad to hear such a good account of her,\" said Lady\r\nCatherine; \"and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel\r\nif she does not practice a good deal.\"\r\n\r\n\"I assure you, madam,\" he replied, \"that she does not need such advice.\r\nShe practises very constantly.\"\r\n\r\n\"So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write\r\nto her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often\r\ntell young ladies that no excellence in music is to be acquired without\r\nconstant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she\r\nwill never play really well unless she practises more; and though Mrs.\r\nCollins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told\r\nher, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs.\r\nJenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part\r\nof the house.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's ill-breeding, and made\r\nno answer.\r\n\r\nWhen coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having\r\npromised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He\r\ndrew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then\r\ntalked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away\r\nfrom her, and making with his usual deliberation towards the pianoforte\r\nstationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's\r\ncountenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first\r\nconvenient pause, turned to him with an arch smile, and said:\r\n\r\n\"You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear\r\nme? I will not be alarmed though your sister _does_ play so well. There\r\nis a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the\r\nwill of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate\r\nme.\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall not say you are mistaken,\" he replied, \"because you could not\r\nreally believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have\r\nhad the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find\r\ngreat enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are\r\nnot your own.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to\r\nColonel Fitzwilliam, \"Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of\r\nme, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky\r\nin meeting with a person so able to expose my real character, in a part\r\nof the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of\r\ncredit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all\r\nthat you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire--and, give me leave to\r\nsay, very impolitic too--for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such\r\nthings may come out as will shock your relations to hear.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not afraid of you,\" said he, smilingly.\r\n\r\n\"Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of,\" cried Colonel\r\nFitzwilliam. \"I should like to know how he behaves among strangers.\"\r\n\r\n\"You shall hear then--but prepare yourself for something very dreadful.\r\nThe first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know,\r\nwas at a ball--and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced\r\nonly four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain\r\nknowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a\r\npartner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.\"\r\n\r\n\"I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly\r\nbeyond my own party.\"\r\n\r\n\"True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room. Well, Colonel\r\nFitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps,\" said Darcy, \"I should have judged better, had I sought an\r\nintroduction; but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers.\"\r\n\r\n\"Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?\" said Elizabeth, still\r\naddressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. \"Shall we ask him why a man of sense and\r\neducation, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend\r\nhimself to strangers?\"\r\n\r\n\"I can answer your question,\" said Fitzwilliam, \"without applying to\r\nhim. It is because he will not give himself the trouble.\"\r\n\r\n\"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,\" said Darcy,\r\n\"of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot\r\ncatch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their\r\nconcerns, as I often see done.\"\r\n\r\n\"My fingers,\" said Elizabeth, \"do not move over this instrument in the\r\nmasterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same\r\nforce or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I\r\nhave always supposed it to be my own fault--because I will not take the\r\ntrouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe _my_ fingers as\r\ncapable as any other woman's of superior execution.\"\r\n\r\nDarcy smiled and said, \"You are perfectly right. You have employed your\r\ntime much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can\r\nthink anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.\"\r\n\r\nHere they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know\r\nwhat they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again.\r\nLady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said\r\nto Darcy:\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and\r\ncould have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion\r\nof fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have\r\nbeen a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his\r\ncousin's praise; but neither at that moment nor at any other could she\r\ndiscern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss\r\nde Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have\r\nbeen just as likely to marry _her_, had she been his relation.\r\n\r\nLady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing\r\nwith them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received\r\nthem with all the forbearance of civility, and, at the request of the\r\ngentlemen, remained at the instrument till her ladyship's carriage was\r\nready to take them all home.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 32\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane\r\nwhile Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village,\r\nwhen she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a\r\nvisitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to\r\nbe Lady Catherine, and under that apprehension was putting away her\r\nhalf-finished letter that she might escape all impertinent questions,\r\nwhen the door opened, and, to her very great surprise, Mr. Darcy, and\r\nMr. Darcy only, entered the room.\r\n\r\nHe seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his\r\nintrusion by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies were\r\nto be within.\r\n\r\nThey then sat down, and when her inquiries after Rosings were made,\r\nseemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely\r\nnecessary, therefore, to think of something, and in this emergence\r\nrecollecting _when_ she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and\r\nfeeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty\r\ndeparture, she observed:\r\n\r\n\"How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy!\r\nIt must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you\r\nall after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day\r\nbefore. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?\"\r\n\r\n\"Perfectly so, I thank you.\"\r\n\r\nShe found that she was to receive no other answer, and, after a short\r\npause added:\r\n\r\n\"I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever\r\nreturning to Netherfield again?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend\r\nvery little of his time there in the future. He has many friends, and\r\nis at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually\r\nincreasing.\"\r\n\r\n\"If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for\r\nthe neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we\r\nmight possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did\r\nnot take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as\r\nfor his own, and we must expect him to keep it or quit it on the same\r\nprinciple.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should not be surprised,\" said Darcy, \"if he were to give it up as\r\nsoon as any eligible purchase offers.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his\r\nfriend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the\r\ntrouble of finding a subject to him.\r\n\r\nHe took the hint, and soon began with, \"This seems a very comfortable\r\nhouse. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr.\r\nCollins first came to Hunsford.\"\r\n\r\n\"I believe she did--and I am sure she could not have bestowed her\r\nkindness on a more grateful object.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one\r\nof the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made\r\nhim happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding--though\r\nI am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the\r\nwisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a\r\nprudential light it is certainly a very good match for her.\"\r\n\r\n\"It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a\r\ndistance of her own family and friends.\"\r\n\r\n\"An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's\r\njourney. Yes, I call it a _very_ easy distance.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should never have considered the distance as one of the _advantages_\r\nof the match,\" cried Elizabeth. \"I should never have said Mrs. Collins\r\nwas settled _near_ her family.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond\r\nthe very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.\"\r\n\r\nAs he spoke there was a sort of smile which Elizabeth fancied she\r\nunderstood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and\r\nNetherfield, and she blushed as she answered:\r\n\r\n\"I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her\r\nfamily. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many\r\nvarying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of\r\ntravelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the\r\ncase _here_. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not\r\nsuch a one as will allow of frequent journeys--and I am persuaded my\r\nfriend would not call herself _near_ her family under less than _half_\r\nthe present distance.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, \"_You_ cannot\r\nhave a right to such very strong local attachment. _You_ cannot have\r\nbeen always at Longbourn.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of\r\nfeeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and\r\nglancing over it, said, in a colder voice:\r\n\r\n\"Are you pleased with Kent?\"\r\n\r\nA short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side\r\ncalm and concise--and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte\r\nand her sister, just returned from her walk. The tete-a-tete surprised\r\nthem. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding\r\non Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying\r\nmuch to anybody, went away.\r\n\r\n\"What can be the meaning of this?\" said Charlotte, as soon as he was\r\ngone. \"My dear, Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never\r\nhave called us in this familiar way.\"\r\n\r\nBut when Elizabeth told of his silence; it did not seem very likely,\r\neven to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case; and after various\r\nconjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from\r\nthe difficulty of finding anything to do, which was the more probable\r\nfrom the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there\r\nwas Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard-table, but gentlemen cannot\r\nalways be within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the\r\npleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the\r\ntwo cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither\r\nalmost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes\r\nseparately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their\r\naunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he\r\nhad pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended\r\nhim still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in\r\nbeing with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her\r\nformer favourite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them, she saw\r\nthere was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners,\r\nshe believed he might have the best informed mind.\r\n\r\nBut why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult\r\nto understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there\r\nten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak,\r\nit seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice--a sacrifice\r\nto propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really\r\nanimated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel\r\nFitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was\r\ngenerally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told\r\nher; and as she would liked to have believed this change the effect\r\nof love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself\r\nseriously to work to find it out. She watched him whenever they were at\r\nRosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He\r\ncertainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that\r\nlook was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often\r\ndoubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it\r\nseemed nothing but absence of mind.\r\n\r\nShe had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his\r\nbeing partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs.\r\nCollins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of\r\nraising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her\r\nopinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would\r\nvanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power.\r\n\r\n\r\nIn her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying\r\nColonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the most pleasant man; he\r\ncertainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but,\r\nto counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage\r\nin the church, and his cousin could have none at all.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 33\r\n\r\n\r\nMore than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park,\r\nunexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the\r\nmischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to\r\nprevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that\r\nit was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time,\r\ntherefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like\r\nwilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was\r\nnot merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away,\r\nbut he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He\r\nnever said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking\r\nor of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third\r\nrencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions--about\r\nher pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her\r\nopinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of\r\nRosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to\r\nexpect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying\r\n_there_ too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel\r\nFitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant anything, he must\r\nmean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed\r\nher a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the\r\npales opposite the Parsonage.\r\n\r\nShe was engaged one day as she walked, in perusing Jane's last letter,\r\nand dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in\r\nspirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw\r\non looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the\r\nletter immediately and forcing a smile, she said:\r\n\r\n\"I did not know before that you ever walked this way.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have been making the tour of the park,\" he replied, \"as I generally\r\ndo every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are\r\nyou going much farther?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, I should have turned in a moment.\"\r\n\r\nAnd accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage\r\ntogether.\r\n\r\n\"Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?\" said she.\r\n\r\n\"Yes--if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He\r\narranges the business just as he pleases.\"\r\n\r\n\"And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least\r\npleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems\r\nmore to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy.\"\r\n\r\n\"He likes to have his own way very well,\" replied Colonel Fitzwilliam.\r\n\"But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it\r\nthan many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak\r\nfeelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and\r\ndependence.\"\r\n\r\n\"In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of\r\neither. Now seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and\r\ndependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going\r\nwherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for?\"\r\n\r\n\"These are home questions--and perhaps I cannot say that I have\r\nexperienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater\r\nweight, I may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where\r\nthey like.\"\r\n\r\n\"Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often\r\ndo.\"\r\n\r\n\"Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many\r\nin my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to\r\nmoney.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is this,\" thought Elizabeth, \"meant for me?\" and she coloured at the\r\nidea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, \"And pray, what\r\nis the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is\r\nvery sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds.\"\r\n\r\nHe answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt\r\na silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed,\r\nshe soon afterwards said:\r\n\r\n\"I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of\r\nhaving someone at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a\r\nlasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well\r\nfor the present, and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he\r\nlikes with her.\"\r\n\r\n\"No,\" said Colonel Fitzwilliam, \"that is an advantage which he must\r\ndivide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are you indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your\r\ncharge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a\r\nlittle difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she\r\nmay like to have her own way.\"\r\n\r\nAs she spoke she observed him looking at her earnestly; and the manner\r\nin which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to\r\ngive them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other\r\ngot pretty near the truth. She directly replied:\r\n\r\n\"You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare\r\nsay she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a\r\nvery great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and\r\nMiss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike man--he\r\nis a great friend of Darcy's.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! yes,\" said Elizabeth drily; \"Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr.\r\nBingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy _does_ take care of him in\r\nthose points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in\r\nour journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to\r\nhim. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that\r\nBingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is it you mean?\"\r\n\r\n\"It is a circumstance which Darcy could not wish to be generally known,\r\nbecause if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an\r\nunpleasant thing.\"\r\n\r\n\"You may depend upon my not mentioning it.\"\r\n\r\n\"And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be\r\nBingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself\r\non having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most\r\nimprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other\r\nparticulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing\r\nhim the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from\r\nknowing them to have been together the whole of last summer.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did Mr. Darcy give you reasons for this interference?\"\r\n\r\n\"I understood that there were some very strong objections against the\r\nlady.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what arts did he use to separate them?\"\r\n\r\n\"He did not talk to me of his own arts,\" said Fitzwilliam, smiling. \"He\r\nonly told me what I have now told you.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with\r\nindignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she\r\nwas so thoughtful.\r\n\r\n\"I am thinking of what you have been telling me,\" said she. \"Your\r\ncousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?\"\r\n\r\n\"You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his\r\nfriend's inclination, or why, upon his own judgement alone, he was to\r\ndetermine and direct in what manner his friend was to be happy.\r\nBut,\" she continued, recollecting herself, \"as we know none of the\r\nparticulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed\r\nthat there was much affection in the case.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is not an unnatural surmise,\" said Fitzwilliam, \"but it is a\r\nlessening of the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly.\"\r\n\r\nThis was spoken jestingly; but it appeared to her so just a picture\r\nof Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer, and\r\ntherefore, abruptly changing the conversation talked on indifferent\r\nmatters until they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room,\r\nas soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption\r\nof all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other\r\npeople could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There\r\ncould not exist in the world _two_ men over whom Mr. Darcy could have\r\nsuch boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures\r\ntaken to separate Bingley and Jane she had never doubted; but she had\r\nalways attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement\r\nof them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, _he_ was\r\nthe cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had\r\nsuffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while\r\nevery hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the\r\nworld; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted.\r\n\r\n\"There were some very strong objections against the lady,\" were Colonel\r\nFitzwilliam's words; and those strong objections probably were, her\r\nhaving one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in\r\nbusiness in London.\r\n\r\n\"To Jane herself,\" she exclaimed, \"there could be no possibility of\r\nobjection; all loveliness and goodness as she is!--her understanding\r\nexcellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither\r\ncould anything be urged against my father, who, though with some\r\npeculiarities, has abilities Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and\r\nrespectability which he will probably never reach.\" When she thought of\r\nher mother, her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow\r\nthat any objections _there_ had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose\r\npride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of\r\nimportance in his friend's connections, than from their want of sense;\r\nand she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed\r\nby this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr.\r\nBingley for his sister.\r\n\r\nThe agitation and tears which the subject occasioned, brought on a\r\nheadache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening, that, added to\r\nher unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her\r\ncousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins,\r\nseeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go and as much\r\nas possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins\r\ncould not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather\r\ndispleased by her staying at home.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 34\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself\r\nas much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the\r\nexamination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her\r\nbeing in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any\r\nrevival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering.\r\nBut in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that\r\ncheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which,\r\nproceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly\r\ndisposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth\r\nnoticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an\r\nattention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's\r\nshameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her\r\na keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation\r\nto think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the\r\nnext--and, a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should\r\nherself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of\r\nher spirits, by all that affection could do.\r\n\r\nShe could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that\r\nhis cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear\r\nthat he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not\r\nmean to be unhappy about him.\r\n\r\nWhile settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the\r\ndoor-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its\r\nbeing Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in\r\nthe evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her.\r\nBut this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently\r\naffected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the\r\nroom. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her\r\nhealth, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better.\r\nShe answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and\r\nthen getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but\r\nsaid not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her\r\nin an agitated manner, and thus began:\r\n\r\n\"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be\r\nrepressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love\r\nyou.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured,\r\ndoubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement;\r\nand the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her,\r\nimmediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides\r\nthose of the heart to be detailed; and he was not more eloquent on the\r\nsubject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority--of\r\nits being a degradation--of the family obstacles which had always\r\nopposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to\r\nthe consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his\r\nsuit.\r\n\r\nIn spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to\r\nthe compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did\r\nnot vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to\r\nreceive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she\r\nlost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to\r\nanswer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with\r\nrepresenting to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite\r\nof all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with\r\nexpressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of\r\nhis hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt\r\nof a favourable answer. He _spoke_ of apprehension and anxiety, but\r\nhis countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could\r\nonly exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, the colour rose into her\r\ncheeks, and she said:\r\n\r\n\"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to\r\nexpress a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however\r\nunequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should\r\nbe felt, and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you. But I\r\ncannot--I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly\r\nbestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to\r\nanyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be\r\nof short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented\r\nthe acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in\r\novercoming it after this explanation.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed\r\non her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than\r\nsurprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance\r\nof his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the\r\nappearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed\r\nhimself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings\r\ndreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said:\r\n\r\n\"And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!\r\nI might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavour_ at\r\ncivility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.\"\r\n\r\n\"I might as well inquire,\" replied she, \"why with so evident a desire\r\nof offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me\r\nagainst your will, against your reason, and even against your character?\r\nWas not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil? But I have\r\nother provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against\r\nyou--had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you\r\nthink that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has\r\nbeen the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most\r\nbeloved sister?\"\r\n\r\nAs she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion\r\nwas short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she\r\ncontinued:\r\n\r\n\"I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can\r\nexcuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not,\r\nyou cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means\r\nof dividing them from each other--of exposing one to the censure of the\r\nworld for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for\r\ndisappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest\r\nkind.\"\r\n\r\nShe paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening\r\nwith an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse.\r\nHe even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.\r\n\r\n\"Can you deny that you have done it?\" she repeated.\r\n\r\nWith assumed tranquillity he then replied: \"I have no wish of denying\r\nthat I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your\r\nsister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been\r\nkinder than towards myself.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection,\r\nbut its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her.\r\n\r\n\"But it is not merely this affair,\" she continued, \"on which my dislike\r\nis founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion of you was\r\ndecided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received\r\nmany months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to\r\nsay? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself?\r\nor under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?\"\r\n\r\n\"You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns,\" said Darcy,\r\nin a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.\r\n\r\n\"Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an\r\ninterest in him?\"\r\n\r\n\"His misfortunes!\" repeated Darcy contemptuously; \"yes, his misfortunes\r\nhave been great indeed.\"\r\n\r\n\"And of your infliction,\" cried Elizabeth with energy. \"You have reduced\r\nhim to his present state of poverty--comparative poverty. You have\r\nwithheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for\r\nhim. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence\r\nwhich was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this!\r\nand yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and\r\nridicule.\"\r\n\r\n\"And this,\" cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room,\r\n\"is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me!\r\nI thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this\r\ncalculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps,\" added he, stopping in\r\nhis walk, and turning towards her, \"these offenses might have been\r\noverlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the\r\nscruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These\r\nbitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater\r\npolicy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of\r\nmy being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by\r\nreflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.\r\nNor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and\r\njust. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your\r\nconnections?--to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose\r\ncondition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to\r\nthe utmost to speak with composure when she said:\r\n\r\n\"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your\r\ndeclaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern\r\nwhich I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more\r\ngentlemanlike manner.\"\r\n\r\nShe saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued:\r\n\r\n\"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that\r\nwould have tempted me to accept it.\"\r\n\r\nAgain his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an\r\nexpression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on:\r\n\r\n\"From the very beginning--from the first moment, I may almost say--of\r\nmy acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest\r\nbelief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of\r\nthe feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of\r\ndisapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a\r\ndislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the\r\nlast man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your\r\nfeelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been.\r\nForgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best\r\nwishes for your health and happiness.\"\r\n\r\nAnd with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him\r\nthe next moment open the front door and quit the house.\r\n\r\nThe tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not how\r\nto support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for\r\nhalf-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed,\r\nwas increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of\r\nmarriage from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in love with her for\r\nso many months! So much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of\r\nall the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying\r\nher sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his\r\nown case--was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired\r\nunconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable\r\npride--his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to\r\nJane--his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could\r\nnot justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr.\r\nWickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon\r\novercame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for\r\na moment excited. She continued in very agitated reflections till the\r\nsound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to\r\nencounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 35\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations\r\nwhich had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the\r\nsurprise of what had happened; it was impossible to think of anything\r\nelse; and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved, soon after\r\nbreakfast, to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding\r\ndirectly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's\r\nsometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park,\r\nshe turned up the lane, which led farther from the turnpike-road. The\r\npark paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one\r\nof the gates into the ground.\r\n\r\nAfter walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was\r\ntempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and\r\nlook into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had\r\nmade a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the\r\nverdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk,\r\nwhen she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which\r\nedged the park; he was moving that way; and, fearful of its being Mr.\r\nDarcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now\r\nnear enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced\r\nher name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though\r\nin a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the\r\ngate. He had by that time reached it also, and, holding out a letter,\r\nwhich she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure,\r\n\"I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you.\r\nWill you do me the honour of reading that letter?\" And then, with a\r\nslight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight.\r\n\r\nWith no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity,\r\nElizabeth opened the letter, and, to her still increasing wonder,\r\nperceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter-paper, written\r\nquite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise\r\nfull. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated\r\nfrom Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\"Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension\r\nof its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those\r\noffers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any\r\nintention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes\r\nwhich, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the\r\neffort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion,\r\nshould have been spared, had not my character required it to be written\r\nand read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand\r\nyour attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I\r\ndemand it of your justice.\r\n\r\n\"Two offenses of a very different nature, and by no means of equal\r\nmagnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was,\r\nthat, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley\r\nfrom your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various\r\nclaims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate\r\nprosperity and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and\r\nwantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged\r\nfavourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other\r\ndependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect\r\nits exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young\r\npersons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could\r\nbear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last\r\nnight so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope\r\nto be in the future secured, when the following account of my actions\r\nand their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them, which\r\nis due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which\r\nmay be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity\r\nmust be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd.\r\n\r\n\"I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with\r\nothers, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young\r\nwoman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance\r\nat Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious\r\nattachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I\r\nhad the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir\r\nWilliam Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to\r\nyour sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage.\r\nHe spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could\r\nbe undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour\r\nattentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss\r\nBennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also\r\nwatched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever,\r\nbut without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced\r\nfrom the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions\r\nwith pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of\r\nsentiment. If _you_ have not been mistaken here, _I_ must have been\r\nin error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter\r\nprobable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict\r\npain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not\r\nscruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and\r\nair was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction\r\nthat, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be\r\neasily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is\r\ncertain--but I will venture to say that my investigation and decisions\r\nare not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe\r\nher to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial\r\nconviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. My objections to the\r\nmarriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have\r\nthe utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of\r\nconnection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But\r\nthere were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still\r\nexisting, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had\r\nmyself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before\r\nme. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your\r\nmother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison to that\r\ntotal want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by\r\nherself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your\r\nfather. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern\r\nfor the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this\r\nrepresentation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to\r\nhave conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure,\r\nis praise no less generally bestowed on you and your elder sister, than\r\nit is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say\r\nfarther that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties\r\nwas confirmed, and every inducement heightened which could have led\r\nme before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy\r\nconnection. He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as\r\nyou, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning.\r\n\r\n\"The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness\r\nhad been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was\r\nsoon discovered, and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in\r\ndetaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in\r\nLondon. We accordingly went--and there I readily engaged in the office\r\nof pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I\r\ndescribed, and enforced them earnestly. But, however this remonstrance\r\nmight have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose\r\nthat it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been\r\nseconded by the assurance that I hesitated not in giving, of your\r\nsister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his\r\naffection with sincere, if not with equal regard. But Bingley has great\r\nnatural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgement than on his\r\nown. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was\r\nno very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into\r\nHertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the\r\nwork of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There\r\nis but one part of my conduct in the whole affair on which I do not\r\nreflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the\r\nmeasures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in\r\ntown. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her\r\nbrother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without\r\nill consequence is perhaps probable; but his regard did not appear to me\r\nenough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this\r\nconcealment, this disguise was beneath me; it is done, however, and it\r\nwas done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no\r\nother apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it\r\nwas unknowingly done and though the motives which governed me may to\r\nyou very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn\r\nthem.\r\n\r\n\"With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured\r\nMr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his\r\nconnection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me I\r\nam ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more\r\nthan one witness of undoubted veracity.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many\r\nyears the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good\r\nconduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to\r\nbe of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his\r\nkindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at\r\nschool, and afterwards at Cambridge--most important assistance, as his\r\nown father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have\r\nbeen unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only\r\nfond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging; he\r\nhad also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be\r\nhis profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is\r\nmany, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different\r\nmanner. The vicious propensities--the want of principle, which he was\r\ncareful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape\r\nthe observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself,\r\nand who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr.\r\nDarcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain--to what degree\r\nyou only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham\r\nhas created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from\r\nunfolding his real character--it adds even another motive.\r\n\r\n\"My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to\r\nMr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly\r\nrecommended it to me, to promote his advancement in the best manner\r\nthat his profession might allow--and if he took orders, desired that a\r\nvaluable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There\r\nwas also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long\r\nsurvive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham\r\nwrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders,\r\nhe hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more\r\nimmediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he\r\ncould not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying\r\nlaw, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would\r\nbe a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed\r\nhim to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to\r\nhis proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman; the\r\nbusiness was therefore soon settled--he resigned all claim to assistance\r\nin the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to\r\nreceive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection\r\nbetween us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him\r\nto Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I believe he chiefly\r\nlived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free\r\nfrom all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation.\r\nFor about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the\r\nincumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to\r\nme again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured\r\nme, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He\r\nhad found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely\r\nresolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in\r\nquestion--of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was\r\nwell assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not\r\nhave forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame\r\nme for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every\r\nrepetition to it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of\r\nhis circumstances--and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me\r\nto others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period every\r\nappearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But\r\nlast summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice.\r\n\r\n\"I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself,\r\nand which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold\r\nto any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your\r\nsecrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to\r\nthe guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself.\r\nAbout a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed\r\nfor her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided\r\nover it, to Ramsgate; and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by\r\ndesign; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him\r\nand Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and\r\nby her connivance and aid, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana,\r\nwhose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to\r\nher as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and\r\nto consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her\r\nexcuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed\r\nthe knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two\r\nbefore the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the\r\nidea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as\r\na father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and\r\nhow I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented\r\nany public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place\r\nimmediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr.\r\nWickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which\r\nis thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of\r\nrevenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have\r\nbeen complete indeed.\r\n\r\n\"This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have\r\nbeen concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as\r\nfalse, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr.\r\nWickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he\r\nhad imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered\r\nat. Ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either,\r\ndetection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in\r\nyour inclination.\r\n\r\n\"You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night; but\r\nI was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to\r\nbe revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more\r\nparticularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our\r\nnear relationship and constant intimacy, and, still more, as one of\r\nthe executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted\r\nwith every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of _me_\r\nshould make _my_ assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by\r\nthe same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be\r\nthe possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some\r\nopportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the\r\nmorning. I will only add, God bless you.\r\n\r\n\"FITZWILLIAM DARCY\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 36\r\n\r\n\r\nIf Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to\r\ncontain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of\r\nits contents. But such as they were, it may well be supposed how eagerly\r\nshe went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited.\r\nHer feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did\r\nshe first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power;\r\nand steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation\r\nto give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong\r\nprejudice against everything he might say, she began his account of what\r\nhad happened at Netherfield. She read with an eagerness which hardly\r\nleft her power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the\r\nnext sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of\r\nthe one before her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she\r\ninstantly resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst\r\nobjections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing\r\nhim justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied\r\nher; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and\r\ninsolence.\r\n\r\nBut when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham--when\r\nshe read with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which,\r\nif true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which\r\nbore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself--her\r\nfeelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition.\r\nAstonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished\r\nto discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, \"This must be false!\r\nThis cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!\"--and when she had\r\ngone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing anything of the\r\nlast page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not\r\nregard it, that she would never look in it again.\r\n\r\nIn this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on\r\nnothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the letter\r\nwas unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she\r\nagain began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and\r\ncommanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence.\r\nThe account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what\r\nhe had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though\r\nshe had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own\r\nwords. So far each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the\r\nwill, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living\r\nwas fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was\r\nimpossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the\r\nother; and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did\r\nnot err. But when she read and re-read with the closest attention, the\r\nparticulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions\r\nto the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three\r\nthousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down\r\nthe letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be\r\nimpartiality--deliberated on the probability of each statement--but with\r\nlittle success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read\r\non; but every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had\r\nbelieved it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to\r\nrender Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a\r\nturn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole.\r\n\r\nThe extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at\r\nMr. Wickham's charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could\r\nbring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his\r\nentrance into the ----shire Militia, in which he had engaged at the\r\npersuasion of the young man who, on meeting him accidentally in town,\r\nhad there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life\r\nnothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As\r\nto his real character, had information been in her power, she had\r\nnever felt a wish of inquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner had\r\nestablished him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried\r\nto recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of\r\nintegrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of\r\nMr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those\r\ncasual errors under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy\r\nhad described as the idleness and vice of many years' continuance. But\r\nno such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before\r\nher, in every charm of air and address; but she could remember no more\r\nsubstantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and\r\nthe regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After\r\npausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to\r\nread. But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss\r\nDarcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel\r\nFitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was\r\nreferred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam\r\nhimself--from whom she had previously received the information of his\r\nnear concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no\r\nreason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to\r\nhim, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and\r\nat length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never\r\nhave hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his\r\ncousin's corroboration.\r\n\r\nShe perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation\r\nbetween Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips's.\r\nMany of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was _now_\r\nstruck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and\r\nwondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting\r\nhimself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions\r\nwith his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear\r\nof seeing Mr. Darcy--that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that\r\n_he_ should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball\r\nthe very next week. She remembered also that, till the Netherfield\r\nfamily had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but\r\nherself; but that after their removal it had been everywhere discussed;\r\nthat he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's\r\ncharacter, though he had assured her that respect for the father would\r\nalways prevent his exposing the son.\r\n\r\nHow differently did everything now appear in which he was concerned!\r\nHis attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and\r\nhatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer\r\nthe moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at anything.\r\nHis behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive; he had\r\neither been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying\r\nhis vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most\r\nincautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter\r\nand fainter; and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not\r\nbut allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago\r\nasserted his blamelessness in the affair; that proud and repulsive as\r\nwere his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their\r\nacquaintance--an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much\r\ntogether, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways--seen anything\r\nthat betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust--anything that spoke him\r\nof irreligious or immoral habits; that among his own connections he was\r\nesteemed and valued--that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a\r\nbrother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his\r\nsister as to prove him capable of _some_ amiable feeling; that had his\r\nactions been what Mr. Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of\r\neverything right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and\r\nthat friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man\r\nas Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible.\r\n\r\nShe grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham\r\ncould she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced,\r\nabsurd.\r\n\r\n\"How despicably I have acted!\" she cried; \"I, who have prided myself\r\non my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have\r\noften disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified\r\nmy vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this\r\ndiscovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could\r\nnot have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my\r\nfolly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect\r\nof the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted\r\nprepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were\r\nconcerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.\"\r\n\r\nFrom herself to Jane--from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line\r\nwhich soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation\r\n_there_ had appeared very insufficient, and she read it again. Widely\r\ndifferent was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that\r\ncredit to his assertions in one instance, which she had been obliged to\r\ngive in the other? He declared himself to be totally unsuspicious of her\r\nsister's attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's\r\nopinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his\r\ndescription of Jane. She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were\r\nlittle displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air\r\nand manner not often united with great sensibility.\r\n\r\nWhen she came to that part of the letter in which her family were\r\nmentioned in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense\r\nof shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly\r\nfor denial, and the circumstances to which he particularly alluded as\r\nhaving passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first\r\ndisapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind\r\nthan on hers.\r\n\r\nThe compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed,\r\nbut it could not console her for the contempt which had thus been\r\nself-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered\r\nthat Jane's disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest\r\nrelations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt\r\nby such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond anything she\r\nhad ever known before.\r\n\r\nAfter wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every\r\nvariety of thought--re-considering events, determining probabilities,\r\nand reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and\r\nso important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made\r\nher at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish\r\nof appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such\r\nreflections as must make her unfit for conversation.\r\n\r\nShe was immediately told that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each\r\ncalled during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take\r\nleave--but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least\r\nan hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her\r\ntill she could be found. Elizabeth could but just _affect_ concern\r\nin missing him; she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no\r\nlonger an object; she could think only of her letter.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 37\r\n\r\n\r\nThe two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning, and Mr. Collins having\r\nbeen in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was\r\nable to bring home the pleasing intelligence, of their appearing in very\r\ngood health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the\r\nmelancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then\r\nhastened, to console Lady Catherine and her daughter; and on his return\r\nbrought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her ladyship,\r\nimporting that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of\r\nhaving them all to dine with her.\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had\r\nshe chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as\r\nher future niece; nor could she think, without a smile, of what her\r\nladyship's indignation would have been. \"What would she have said? how\r\nwould she have behaved?\" were questions with which she amused herself.\r\n\r\nTheir first subject was the diminution of the Rosings party. \"I assure\r\nyou, I feel it exceedingly,\" said Lady Catherine; \"I believe no one\r\nfeels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly\r\nattached to these young men, and know them to be so much attached to\r\nme! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The\r\ndear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last; but Darcy\r\nseemed to feel it most acutely, more, I think, than last year. His\r\nattachment to Rosings certainly increases.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Collins had a compliment, and an allusion to throw in here, which\r\nwere kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter.\r\n\r\nLady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of\r\nspirits, and immediately accounting for it by herself, by supposing that\r\nshe did not like to go home again so soon, she added:\r\n\r\n\"But if that is the case, you must write to your mother and beg that\r\nyou may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your\r\ncompany, I am sure.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am much obliged to your ladyship for your kind invitation,\" replied\r\nElizabeth, \"but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town\r\nnext Saturday.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected\r\nyou to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There\r\ncan be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly\r\nspare you for another fortnight.\"\r\n\r\n\"But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! your father of course may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters\r\nare never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay\r\nanother _month_ complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as\r\nfar as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week; and as\r\nDawson does not object to the barouche-box, there will be very good room\r\nfor one of you--and indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I\r\nshould not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are all kindness, madam; but I believe we must abide by our\r\noriginal plan.\"\r\n\r\nLady Catherine seemed resigned. \"Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant\r\nwith them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea\r\nof two young women travelling post by themselves. It is highly improper.\r\nYou must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in\r\nthe world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly\r\nguarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my\r\nniece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her\r\nhaving two men-servants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of\r\nMr. Darcy, of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with\r\npropriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those\r\nthings. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I\r\nam glad it occurred to me to mention it; for it would really be\r\ndiscreditable to _you_ to let them go alone.\"\r\n\r\n\"My uncle is to send a servant for us.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a man-servant, does he? I am very glad you\r\nhave somebody who thinks of these things. Where shall you change horses?\r\nOh! Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be\r\nattended to.\"\r\n\r\nLady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey,\r\nand as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary,\r\nwhich Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so\r\noccupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be\r\nreserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it\r\nas the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary\r\nwalk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant\r\nrecollections.\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She\r\nstudied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at\r\ntimes widely different. When she remembered the style of his address,\r\nshe was still full of indignation; but when she considered how unjustly\r\nshe had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against\r\nherself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion.\r\nHis attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect; but she\r\ncould not approve him; nor could she for a moment repent her refusal,\r\nor feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again. In her own past\r\nbehaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in\r\nthe unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin.\r\nThey were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at\r\nthem, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his\r\nyoungest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right\r\nherself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently\r\nunited with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine\r\nand Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother's indulgence,\r\nwhat chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weak-spirited,\r\nirritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always\r\naffronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would\r\nscarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While\r\nthere was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while\r\nMeryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there\r\nforever.\r\n\r\nAnxiety on Jane's behalf was another prevailing concern; and Mr. Darcy's\r\nexplanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion,\r\nheightened the sense of what Jane had lost. His affection was proved\r\nto have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any\r\ncould attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend. How\r\ngrievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every\r\nrespect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had\r\nbeen deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family!\r\n\r\nWhen to these recollections was added the development of Wickham's\r\ncharacter, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had\r\nseldom been depressed before, were now so much affected as to make it\r\nalmost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful.\r\n\r\nTheir engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of\r\nher stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent\r\nthere; and her ladyship again inquired minutely into the particulars of\r\ntheir journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing,\r\nand was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right\r\nway, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the\r\nwork of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh.\r\n\r\nWhen they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them\r\na good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year;\r\nand Miss de Bourgh exerted herself so far as to curtsey and hold out her\r\nhand to both.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 38\r\n\r\n\r\nOn Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few\r\nminutes before the others appeared; and he took the opportunity of\r\npaying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary.\r\n\r\n\"I know not, Miss Elizabeth,\" said he, \"whether Mrs. Collins has yet\r\nexpressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us; but I am very\r\ncertain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for\r\nit. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We\r\nknow how little there is to tempt anyone to our humble abode. Our plain\r\nmanner of living, our small rooms and few domestics, and the little we\r\nsee of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like\r\nyourself; but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension,\r\nand that we have done everything in our power to prevent your spending\r\nyour time unpleasantly.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She\r\nhad spent six weeks with great enjoyment; and the pleasure of being with\r\nCharlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make _her_\r\nfeel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified, and with a more smiling\r\nsolemnity replied:\r\n\r\n\"It gives me great pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not\r\ndisagreeably. We have certainly done our best; and most fortunately\r\nhaving it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and,\r\nfrom our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the\r\nhumble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford\r\nvisit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to\r\nLady Catherine's family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage\r\nand blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You\r\nsee how continually we are engaged there. In truth I must acknowledge\r\nthat, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should\r\nnot think anyone abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are\r\nsharers of our intimacy at Rosings.\"\r\n\r\nWords were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings; and he was\r\nobliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility\r\nand truth in a few short sentences.\r\n\r\n\"You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into\r\nHertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself at least that you will\r\nbe able to do so. Lady Catherine's great attentions to Mrs. Collins you\r\nhave been a daily witness of; and altogether I trust it does not appear\r\nthat your friend has drawn an unfortunate--but on this point it will be\r\nas well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth,\r\nthat I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in\r\nmarriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of\r\nthinking. There is in everything a most remarkable resemblance of\r\ncharacter and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each\r\nother.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was\r\nthe case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed\r\nand rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to\r\nhave the recital of them interrupted by the lady from whom they sprang.\r\nPoor Charlotte! it was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she\r\nhad chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that\r\nher visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her\r\nhome and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their\r\ndependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.\r\n\r\nAt length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels\r\nplaced within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate\r\nparting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by\r\nMr. Collins, and as they walked down the garden he was commissioning her\r\nwith his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks\r\nfor the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his\r\ncompliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her\r\nin, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed,\r\nwhen he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had\r\nhitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings.\r\n\r\n\"But,\" he added, \"you will of course wish to have your humble respects\r\ndelivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you\r\nwhile you have been here.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth made no objection; the door was then allowed to be shut, and\r\nthe carriage drove off.\r\n\r\n\"Good gracious!\" cried Maria, after a few minutes' silence, \"it seems\r\nbut a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have\r\nhappened!\"\r\n\r\n\"A great many indeed,\" said her companion with a sigh.\r\n\r\n\"We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice!\r\nHow much I shall have to tell!\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth added privately, \"And how much I shall have to conceal!\"\r\n\r\nTheir journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm; and\r\nwithin four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner's\r\nhouse, where they were to remain a few days.\r\n\r\nJane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her\r\nspirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her\r\naunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at\r\nLongbourn there would be leisure enough for observation.\r\n\r\nIt was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for\r\nLongbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals. To know\r\nthat she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish\r\nJane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own\r\nvanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation\r\nto openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision\r\nin which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate;\r\nand her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried\r\ninto repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister\r\nfurther.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 39\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out\r\ntogether from Gracechurch Street for the town of ----, in Hertfordshire;\r\nand, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage\r\nwas to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's\r\npunctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs.\r\nThese two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed\r\nin visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and\r\ndressing a salad and cucumber.\r\n\r\nAfter welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set\r\nout with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming,\r\n\"Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise?\"\r\n\r\n\"And we mean to treat you all,\" added Lydia, \"but you must lend us the\r\nmoney, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.\" Then, showing\r\nher purchases--\"Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think\r\nit is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall\r\npull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any\r\nbetter.\"\r\n\r\nAnd when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect\r\nunconcern, \"Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and\r\nwhen I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I\r\nthink it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what\r\none wears this summer, after the ----shire have left Meryton, and they\r\nare going in a fortnight.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are they indeed!\" cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction.\r\n\r\n\"They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to\r\ntake us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme;\r\nand I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to\r\ngo too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall\r\nhave!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" thought Elizabeth, \"_that_ would be a delightful scheme indeed,\r\nand completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole\r\ncampful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor\r\nregiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!\"\r\n\r\n\"Now I have got some news for you,\" said Lydia, as they sat down at\r\ntable. \"What do you think? It is excellent news--capital news--and about\r\na certain person we all like!\"\r\n\r\nJane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need\r\nnot stay. Lydia laughed, and said:\r\n\r\n\"Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the\r\nwaiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse\r\nthings said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad\r\nhe is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for\r\nmy news; it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is it not?\r\nThere is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She\r\nis gone down to her uncle at Liverpool: gone to stay. Wickham is safe.\"\r\n\r\n\"And Mary King is safe!\" added Elizabeth; \"safe from a connection\r\nimprudent as to fortune.\"\r\n\r\n\"She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him.\"\r\n\r\n\"But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side,\" said Jane.\r\n\r\n\"I am sure there is not on _his_. I will answer for it, he never cared\r\nthree straws about her--who could about such a nasty little freckled\r\nthing?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such\r\ncoarseness of _expression_ herself, the coarseness of the _sentiment_\r\nwas little other than her own breast had harboured and fancied liberal!\r\n\r\nAs soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was\r\nordered; and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their\r\nboxes, work-bags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and\r\nLydia's purchases, were seated in it.\r\n\r\n\"How nicely we are all crammed in,\" cried Lydia. \"I am glad I bought my\r\nbonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now\r\nlet us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way\r\nhome. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all\r\nsince you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any\r\nflirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband\r\nbefore you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare.\r\nShe is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not\r\nbeing married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Phillips wants you so to\r\nget husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr.\r\nCollins; but _I_ do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord!\r\nhow I should like to be married before any of you; and then I would\r\nchaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece\r\nof fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend\r\nthe day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the\r\nevening; (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are _such_ friends!) and so\r\nshe asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen\r\nwas forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We\r\ndressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes on purpose to pass for a\r\nlady, only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs.\r\nForster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow\r\none of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny,\r\nand Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they\r\ndid not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs.\r\nForster. I thought I should have died. And _that_ made the men suspect\r\nsomething, and then they soon found out what was the matter.\"\r\n\r\nWith such kinds of histories of their parties and good jokes, did\r\nLydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her\r\ncompanions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she\r\ncould, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name.\r\n\r\nTheir reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane\r\nin undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet\r\nsay voluntarily to Elizabeth:\r\n\r\n\"I am glad you are come back, Lizzy.\"\r\n\r\nTheir party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases\r\ncame to meet Maria and hear the news; and various were the subjects that\r\noccupied them: Lady Lucas was inquiring of Maria, after the welfare and\r\npoultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one\r\nhand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat\r\nsome way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger\r\nLucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's,\r\nwas enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who\r\nwould hear her.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! Mary,\" said she, \"I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun!\r\nAs we went along, Kitty and I drew up the blinds, and pretended there\r\nwas nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty\r\nhad not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved\r\nvery handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold\r\nluncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated\r\nyou too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never\r\nshould have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then\r\nwe were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that\r\nanybody might have heard us ten miles off!\"\r\n\r\nTo this Mary very gravely replied, \"Far be it from me, my dear sister,\r\nto depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the\r\ngenerality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for\r\n_me_--I should infinitely prefer a book.\"\r\n\r\nBut of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to\r\nanybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all.\r\n\r\nIn the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk\r\nto Meryton, and to see how everybody went on; but Elizabeth steadily\r\nopposed the scheme. It should not be said that the Miss Bennets could\r\nnot be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers.\r\nThere was another reason too for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Mr.\r\nWickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The\r\ncomfort to _her_ of the regiment's approaching removal was indeed beyond\r\nexpression. In a fortnight they were to go--and once gone, she hoped\r\nthere could be nothing more to plague her on his account.\r\n\r\nShe had not been many hours at home before she found that the Brighton\r\nscheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under\r\nfrequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her\r\nfather had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were\r\nat the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often\r\ndisheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 40\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could\r\nno longer be overcome; and at length, resolving to suppress every\r\nparticular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be\r\nsurprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene\r\nbetween Mr. Darcy and herself.\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly\r\npartiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly\r\nnatural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was\r\nsorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so\r\nlittle suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the\r\nunhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him.\r\n\r\n\"His being so sure of succeeding was wrong,\" said she, \"and certainly\r\nought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his\r\ndisappointment!\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed,\" replied Elizabeth, \"I am heartily sorry for him; but he has\r\nother feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for me.\r\nYou do not blame me, however, for refusing him?\"\r\n\r\n\"Blame you! Oh, no.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?\"\r\n\r\n\"No--I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you _will_ know it, when I tell you what happened the very next\r\nday.\"\r\n\r\nShe then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far\r\nas they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane!\r\nwho would willingly have gone through the world without believing that\r\nso much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here\r\ncollected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though\r\ngrateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery.\r\nMost earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and\r\nseek to clear the one without involving the other.\r\n\r\n\"This will not do,\" said Elizabeth; \"you never will be able to make both\r\nof them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied\r\nwith only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just\r\nenough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting\r\nabout pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Darcy's;\r\nbut you shall do as you choose.\"\r\n\r\nIt was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane.\r\n\r\n\"I do not know when I have been more shocked,\" said she. \"Wickham so\r\nvery bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only\r\nconsider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the\r\nknowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing\r\nof his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it\r\nso.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so\r\nfull of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am\r\ngrowing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion\r\nmakes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will\r\nbe as light as a feather.\"\r\n\r\n\"Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his\r\ncountenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner!\"\r\n\r\n\"There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those\r\ntwo young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the\r\nappearance of it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the _appearance_ of it as you\r\nused to do.\"\r\n\r\n\"And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike\r\nto him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an\r\nopening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually\r\nabusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing\r\nat a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.\"\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat\r\nthe matter as you do now.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough, I may say unhappy. And\r\nwith no one to speak to about what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say\r\nthat I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I\r\nhad! Oh! how I wanted you!\"\r\n\r\n\"How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions\r\nin speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they _do_ appear wholly\r\nundeserved.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most\r\nnatural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There\r\nis one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I\r\nought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand\r\nWickham's character.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, \"Surely there can be no\r\noccasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your opinion?\"\r\n\r\n\"That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me\r\nto make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular\r\nrelative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to\r\nmyself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his\r\nconduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy\r\nis so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in\r\nMeryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal\r\nto it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to\r\nanyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out,\r\nand then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At\r\npresent I will say nothing about it.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for\r\never. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to\r\nre-establish a character. We must not make him desperate.\"\r\n\r\nThe tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had\r\ngot rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight,\r\nand was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish\r\nto talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind,\r\nof which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other\r\nhalf of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she\r\nhad been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one\r\ncould partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect\r\nunderstanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off\r\nthis last encumbrance of mystery. \"And then,\" said she, \"if that very\r\nimprobable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to\r\ntell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The\r\nliberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!\"\r\n\r\nShe was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real\r\nstate of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a\r\nvery tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself\r\nin love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment,\r\nand, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than most first\r\nattachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance,\r\nand prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her\r\nattention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the\r\nindulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own\r\nhealth and their tranquillity.\r\n\r\n\"Well, Lizzy,\" said Mrs. Bennet one day, \"what is your opinion _now_ of\r\nthis sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak\r\nof it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day. But\r\nI cannot find out that Jane saw anything of him in London. Well, he is\r\na very undeserving young man--and I do not suppose there's the least\r\nchance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of\r\nhis coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have inquired of\r\neverybody, too, who is likely to know.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield any more.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I\r\nshall always say he used my daughter extremely ill; and if I was her, I\r\nwould not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will\r\ndie of a broken heart; and then he will be sorry for what he has done.\"\r\n\r\nBut as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation,\r\nshe made no answer.\r\n\r\n\"Well, Lizzy,\" continued her mother, soon afterwards, \"and so the\r\nCollinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope\r\nit will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an\r\nexcellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her\r\nmother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in _their_\r\nhousekeeping, I dare say.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, nothing at all.\"\r\n\r\n\"A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. _they_ will\r\ntake care not to outrun their income. _They_ will never be distressed\r\nfor money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often\r\ntalk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it as\r\nquite their own, I dare say, whenever that happens.\"\r\n\r\n\"It was a subject which they could not mention before me.\"\r\n\r\n\"No; it would have been strange if they had; but I make no doubt they\r\noften talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an\r\nestate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be\r\nashamed of having one that was only entailed on me.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 41\r\n\r\n\r\nThe first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was\r\nthe last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies\r\nin the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost\r\nuniversal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink,\r\nand sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very\r\nfrequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and\r\nLydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such\r\nhard-heartedness in any of the family.\r\n\r\n\"Good Heaven! what is to become of us? What are we to do?\" would they\r\noften exclaim in the bitterness of woe. \"How can you be smiling so,\r\nLizzy?\"\r\n\r\nTheir affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what\r\nshe had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years\r\nago.\r\n\r\n\"I am sure,\" said she, \"I cried for two days together when Colonel\r\nMiller's regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am sure I shall break _mine_,\" said Lydia.\r\n\r\n\"If one could but go to Brighton!\" observed Mrs. Bennet.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes!--if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so\r\ndisagreeable.\"\r\n\r\n\"A little sea-bathing would set me up forever.\"\r\n\r\n\"And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do _me_ a great deal of good,\"\r\nadded Kitty.\r\n\r\nSuch were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through\r\nLongbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense\r\nof pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's\r\nobjections; and never had she been so much disposed to pardon his\r\ninterference in the views of his friend.\r\n\r\nBut the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away; for she\r\nreceived an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of\r\nthe regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a\r\nvery young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour\r\nand good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of\r\ntheir _three_ months' acquaintance they had been intimate _two_.\r\n\r\nThe rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster,\r\nthe delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely\r\nto be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia\r\nflew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone's\r\ncongratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever;\r\nwhilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repined at her fate\r\nin terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.\r\n\r\n\"I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask _me_ as well as Lydia,\"\r\nsaid she, \"Though I am _not_ her particular friend. I have just as much\r\nright to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older.\"\r\n\r\nIn vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make\r\nher resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from\r\nexciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she\r\nconsidered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense\r\nfor the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it\r\nknown, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her\r\ngo. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general\r\nbehaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of\r\nsuch a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more\r\nimprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must\r\nbe greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said:\r\n\r\n\"Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public\r\nplace or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so\r\nlittle expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present\r\ncircumstances.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you were aware,\" said Elizabeth, \"of the very great disadvantage to\r\nus all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and\r\nimprudent manner--nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you\r\nwould judge differently in the affair.\"\r\n\r\n\"Already arisen?\" repeated Mr. Bennet. \"What, has she frightened away\r\nsome of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such\r\nsqueamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity\r\nare not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who\r\nhave been kept aloof by Lydia's folly.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not\r\nof particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our\r\nimportance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the\r\nwild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark\r\nLydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear\r\nfather, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and\r\nof teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of\r\nher life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character\r\nwill be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt\r\nthat ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the\r\nworst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond\r\nyouth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness\r\nof her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal\r\ncontempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger\r\nKitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain,\r\nignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you\r\nsuppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever\r\nthey are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the\r\ndisgrace?\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and\r\naffectionately taking her hand said in reply:\r\n\r\n\"Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known\r\nyou must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less\r\nadvantage for having a couple of--or I may say, three--very silly\r\nsisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to\r\nBrighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will\r\nkeep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an\r\nobject of prey to anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance\r\neven as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find\r\nwomen better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being\r\nthere may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow\r\nmany degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest\r\nof her life.\"\r\n\r\nWith this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion\r\ncontinued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not\r\nin her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on\r\nthem. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret\r\nover unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her\r\ndisposition.\r\n\r\nHad Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her\r\nfather, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their\r\nunited volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised\r\nevery possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye\r\nof fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers.\r\nShe saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them\r\nat present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp--its tents\r\nstretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young\r\nand the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she\r\nsaw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six\r\nofficers at once.\r\n\r\nHad she known her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such\r\nrealities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have\r\nbeen understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same.\r\nLydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy\r\nconviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself.\r\n\r\nBut they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures\r\ncontinued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia's leaving\r\nhome.\r\n\r\nElizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been\r\nfrequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty\r\nwell over; the agitations of formal partiality entirely so. She had even\r\nlearnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted\r\nher, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present\r\nbehaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure,\r\nfor the inclination he soon testified of renewing those intentions which\r\nhad marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after\r\nwhat had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in\r\nfinding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous\r\ngallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the\r\nreproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever\r\ncause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified,\r\nand her preference secured at any time by their renewal.\r\n\r\nOn the very last day of the regiment's remaining at Meryton, he dined,\r\nwith other of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth\r\ndisposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some\r\ninquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she\r\nmentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three\r\nweeks at Rosings, and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former.\r\n\r\nHe looked surprised, displeased, alarmed; but with a moment's\r\nrecollection and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen\r\nhim often; and, after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man,\r\nasked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour.\r\nWith an air of indifference he soon afterwards added:\r\n\r\n\"How long did you say he was at Rosings?\"\r\n\r\n\"Nearly three weeks.\"\r\n\r\n\"And you saw him frequently?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, almost every day.\"\r\n\r\n\"His manners are very different from his cousin's.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed!\" cried Mr. Wickham with a look which did not escape her. \"And\r\npray, may I ask?--\" But checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone, \"Is\r\nit in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of civility\r\nto his ordinary style?--for I dare not hope,\" he continued in a lower\r\nand more serious tone, \"that he is improved in essentials.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, no!\" said Elizabeth. \"In essentials, I believe, he is very much\r\nwhat he ever was.\"\r\n\r\nWhile she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to\r\nrejoice over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a\r\nsomething in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive\r\nand anxious attention, while she added:\r\n\r\n\"When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that\r\nhis mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from\r\nknowing him better, his disposition was better understood.\"\r\n\r\nWickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated\r\nlook; for a few minutes he was silent, till, shaking off his\r\nembarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of\r\naccents:\r\n\r\n\"You, who so well know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily\r\ncomprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume\r\neven the _appearance_ of what is right. His pride, in that direction,\r\nmay be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only\r\ndeter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only\r\nfear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been\r\nalluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good\r\nopinion and judgement he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always\r\noperated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be\r\nimputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss de Bourgh, which I\r\nam certain he has very much at heart.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a\r\nslight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on\r\nthe old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge\r\nhim. The rest of the evening passed with the _appearance_, on his\r\nside, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish\r\nElizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a\r\nmutual desire of never meeting again.\r\n\r\nWhen the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton,\r\nfrom whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation\r\nbetween her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the\r\nonly one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs.\r\nBennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter,\r\nand impressive in her injunctions that she should not miss the\r\nopportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible--advice which\r\nthere was every reason to believe would be well attended to; and in\r\nthe clamorous happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more\r\ngentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 42\r\n\r\n\r\nHad Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could\r\nnot have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic\r\ncomfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance\r\nof good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a\r\nwoman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in\r\ntheir marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect,\r\nesteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views\r\nof domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of\r\na disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own\r\nimprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often\r\nconsole the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of\r\nthe country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal\r\nenjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as\r\nher ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not\r\nthe sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his\r\nwife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true\r\nphilosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her\r\nfather's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but\r\nrespecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of\r\nherself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to\r\nbanish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation\r\nand decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own\r\nchildren, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so\r\nstrongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so\r\nunsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising\r\nfrom so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used,\r\nmight at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even\r\nif incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.\r\n\r\nWhen Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure she found little\r\nother cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties\r\nabroad were less varied than before, and at home she had a mother and\r\nsister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around\r\nthem threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty\r\nmight in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers\r\nof her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition\r\ngreater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all\r\nher folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a\r\nwatering-place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what\r\nhas been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had been\r\nlooking with impatient desire did not, in taking place, bring all the\r\nsatisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to\r\nname some other period for the commencement of actual felicity--to have\r\nsome other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by\r\nagain enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the\r\npresent, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes\r\nwas now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation\r\nfor all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother\r\nand Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the\r\nscheme, every part of it would have been perfect.\r\n\r\n\"But it is fortunate,\" thought she, \"that I have something to wish for.\r\nWere the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain.\r\nBut here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my\r\nsister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of\r\npleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can\r\nnever be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by\r\nthe defence of some little peculiar vexation.\"\r\n\r\nWhen Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely\r\nto her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and\r\nalways very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that\r\nthey were just returned from the library, where such and such officers\r\nhad attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as\r\nmade her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which\r\nshe would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a\r\nviolent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going off to\r\nthe camp; and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still\r\nless to be learnt--for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were\r\nmuch too full of lines under the words to be made public.\r\n\r\nAfter the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good\r\nhumour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything wore\r\na happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came\r\nback again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet\r\nwas restored to her usual querulous serenity; and, by the middle of\r\nJune, Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without\r\ntears; an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by\r\nthe following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to\r\nmention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious\r\narrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in\r\nMeryton.\r\n\r\nThe time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast\r\napproaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter\r\narrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and\r\ncurtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from\r\nsetting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again\r\nwithin a month, and as that left too short a period for them to go so\r\nfar, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with\r\nthe leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up\r\nthe Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour, and, according to the\r\npresent plan, were to go no farther northwards than Derbyshire. In that\r\ncounty there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three\r\nweeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The\r\ntown where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where\r\nthey were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of\r\nher curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth,\r\nDovedale, or the Peak.\r\n\r\nElizabeth was excessively disappointed; she had set her heart on seeing\r\nthe Lakes, and still thought there might have been time enough. But it\r\nwas her business to be satisfied--and certainly her temper to be happy;\r\nand all was soon right again.\r\n\r\nWith the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was\r\nimpossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its\r\nowner. \"But surely,\" said she, \"I may enter his county with impunity,\r\nand rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me.\"\r\n\r\nThe period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away\r\nbefore her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr.\r\nand Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at\r\nLongbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two\r\nyounger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their\r\ncousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and\r\nsweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every\r\nway--teaching them, playing with them, and loving them.\r\n\r\nThe Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the\r\nnext morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement.\r\nOne enjoyment was certain--that of suitableness of companions;\r\na suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear\r\ninconveniences--cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure--and affection\r\nand intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were\r\ndisappointments abroad.\r\n\r\nIt is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire,\r\nnor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither\r\nlay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, etc. are\r\nsufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present\r\nconcern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's\r\nformer residence, and where she had lately learned some acquaintance\r\nstill remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the\r\nprincipal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton,\r\nElizabeth found from her aunt that Pemberley was situated. It was not\r\nin their direct road, nor more than a mile or two out of it. In\r\ntalking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed\r\nan inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his\r\nwillingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation.\r\n\r\n\"My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard\r\nso much?\" said her aunt; \"a place, too, with which so many of your\r\nacquaintances are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you\r\nknow.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at\r\nPemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. She\r\nmust own that she was tired of seeing great houses; after going over so\r\nmany, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. \"If it were merely a fine house\r\nrichly furnished,\" said she, \"I should not care about it myself; but\r\nthe grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the\r\ncountry.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth said no more--but her mind could not acquiesce. The\r\npossibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly\r\noccurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea, and\r\nthought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt than to run such\r\na risk. But against this there were objections; and she finally resolved\r\nthat it could be the last resource, if her private inquiries to the\r\nabsence of the family were unfavourably answered.\r\n\r\nAccordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid\r\nwhether Pemberley were not a very fine place? what was the name of its\r\nproprietor? and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for\r\nthe summer? A most welcome negative followed the last question--and her\r\nalarms now being removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of\r\ncuriosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the\r\nnext morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and\r\nwith a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike\r\nto the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 43\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of\r\nPemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned\r\nin at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter.\r\n\r\nThe park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They\r\nentered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through\r\na beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent.\r\n\r\nElizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired\r\nevery remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for\r\nhalf-a-mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable\r\neminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by\r\nPemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which\r\nthe road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone\r\nbuilding, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of\r\nhigh woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was\r\nswelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks\r\nwere neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She\r\nhad never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural\r\nbeauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were\r\nall of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that\r\nto be mistress of Pemberley might be something!\r\n\r\nThey descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and,\r\nwhile examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of\r\nmeeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been\r\nmistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the\r\nhall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to\r\nwonder at her being where she was.\r\n\r\nThe housekeeper came; a respectable-looking elderly woman, much less\r\nfine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They\r\nfollowed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well proportioned\r\nroom, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went\r\nto a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which\r\nthey had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance,\r\nwas a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and\r\nshe looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its\r\nbanks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it,\r\nwith delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking\r\ndifferent positions; but from every window there were beauties to be\r\nseen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to\r\nthe fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of\r\nhis taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of\r\nsplendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.\r\n\r\n\"And of this place,\" thought she, \"I might have been mistress! With\r\nthese rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of\r\nviewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and\r\nwelcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no,\"--recollecting\r\nherself--\"that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to\r\nme; I should not have been allowed to invite them.\"\r\n\r\nThis was a lucky recollection--it saved her from something very like\r\nregret.\r\n\r\nShe longed to inquire of the housekeeper whether her master was really\r\nabsent, but had not the courage for it. At length however, the question\r\nwas asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs.\r\nReynolds replied that he was, adding, \"But we expect him to-morrow, with\r\na large party of friends.\" How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own\r\njourney had not by any circumstance been delayed a day!\r\n\r\nHer aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached and saw the\r\nlikeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures,\r\nover the mantelpiece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it.\r\nThe housekeeper came forward, and told them it was a picture of a young\r\ngentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought\r\nup by him at his own expense. \"He is now gone into the army,\" she added;\r\n\"but I am afraid he has turned out very wild.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not\r\nreturn it.\r\n\r\n\"And that,\" said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures,\r\n\"is my master--and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the\r\nother--about eight years ago.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have heard much of your master's fine person,\" said Mrs. Gardiner,\r\nlooking at the picture; \"it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell\r\nus whether it is like or not.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Reynolds respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this\r\nintimation of her knowing her master.\r\n\r\n\"Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth coloured, and said: \"A little.\"\r\n\r\n\"And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma'am?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, very handsome.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am sure I know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you\r\nwill see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late\r\nmaster's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to\r\nbe then. He was very fond of them.\"\r\n\r\nThis accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them.\r\n\r\nMrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn\r\nwhen she was only eight years old.\r\n\r\n\"And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?\" said Mrs. Gardiner.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! yes--the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so\r\naccomplished!--She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is\r\na new instrument just come down for her--a present from my master; she\r\ncomes here to-morrow with him.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Gardiner, whose manners were very easy and pleasant, encouraged her\r\ncommunicativeness by his questions and remarks; Mrs. Reynolds, either\r\nby pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her\r\nmaster and his sister.\r\n\r\n\"Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not so much as I could wish, sir; but I dare say he may spend half his\r\ntime here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months.\"\r\n\r\n\"Except,\" thought Elizabeth, \"when she goes to Ramsgate.\"\r\n\r\n\"If your master would marry, you might see more of him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir; but I do not know when _that_ will be. I do not know who is\r\ngood enough for him.\"\r\n\r\nMr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, \"It is\r\nvery much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so.\"\r\n\r\n\"I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him,\"\r\nreplied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she\r\nlistened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, \"I have\r\nnever known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever\r\nsince he was four years old.\"\r\n\r\nThis was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her\r\nideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion.\r\nHer keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was\r\ngrateful to her uncle for saying:\r\n\r\n\"There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in\r\nhaving such a master.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could\r\nnot meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are\r\ngood-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and\r\nhe was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the\r\nworld.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth almost stared at her. \"Can this be Mr. Darcy?\" thought she.\r\n\r\n\"His father was an excellent man,\" said Mrs. Gardiner.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him--just\r\nas affable to the poor.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs.\r\nReynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects\r\nof the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the\r\nfurniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family\r\nprejudice to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her\r\nmaster, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his\r\nmany merits as they proceeded together up the great staircase.\r\n\r\n\"He is the best landlord, and the best master,\" said she, \"that ever\r\nlived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but\r\nthemselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but will give\r\nhim a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw\r\nanything of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away\r\nlike other young men.\"\r\n\r\n\"In what an amiable light does this place him!\" thought Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"This fine account of him,\" whispered her aunt as they walked, \"is not\r\nquite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps we might be deceived.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is not very likely; our authority was too good.\"\r\n\r\nOn reaching the spacious lobby above they were shown into a very pretty\r\nsitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than\r\nthe apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to\r\ngive pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room when\r\nlast at Pemberley.\r\n\r\n\"He is certainly a good brother,\" said Elizabeth, as she walked towards\r\none of the windows.\r\n\r\nMrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter\r\nthe room. \"And this is always the way with him,\" she added. \"Whatever\r\ncan give his sister any pleasure is sure to be done in a moment. There\r\nis nothing he would not do for her.\"\r\n\r\nThe picture-gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were\r\nall that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings;\r\nbut Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already\r\nvisible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss\r\nDarcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and\r\nalso more intelligible.\r\n\r\nIn the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have\r\nlittle to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of\r\nthe only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested\r\nher--and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a\r\nsmile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he\r\nlooked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest\r\ncontemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery.\r\nMrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father's\r\nlifetime.\r\n\r\nThere was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle\r\nsensation towards the original than she had ever felt at the height of\r\ntheir acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds\r\nwas of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise\r\nof an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she\r\nconsidered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship!--how\r\nmuch of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!--how much of\r\ngood or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought\r\nforward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she\r\nstood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his\r\neyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of\r\ngratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and\r\nsoftened its impropriety of expression.\r\n\r\nWhen all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen,\r\nthey returned downstairs, and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were\r\nconsigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall-door.\r\n\r\nAs they walked across the hall towards the river, Elizabeth turned back\r\nto look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former\r\nwas conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself\r\nsuddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables.\r\n\r\nThey were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his\r\nappearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes\r\ninstantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest\r\nblush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from\r\nsurprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party,\r\nand spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least\r\nof perfect civility.\r\n\r\nShe had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach,\r\nreceived his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be\r\novercome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture\r\nthey had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two\r\nthat they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on\r\nbeholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little\r\naloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused,\r\nscarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer\r\nshe returned to his civil inquiries after her family. Amazed at the\r\nalteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that\r\nhe uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the\r\nimpropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few\r\nminutes in which they continued were some of the most uncomfortable in\r\nher life. Nor did he seem much more at ease; when he spoke, his accent\r\nhad none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his inquiries as\r\nto the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her having stayed in\r\nDerbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the\r\ndistraction of his thoughts.\r\n\r\nAt length every idea seemed to fail him; and, after standing a few\r\nmoments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took\r\nleave.\r\n\r\nThe others then joined her, and expressed admiration of his figure; but\r\nElizabeth heard not a word, and wholly engrossed by her own feelings,\r\nfollowed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her\r\ncoming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the\r\nworld! How strange it must appear to him! In what a disgraceful light\r\nmight it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely\r\nthrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? Or, why did he\r\nthus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes\r\nsooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination;\r\nfor it was plain that he was that moment arrived--that moment alighted\r\nfrom his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over\r\nthe perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly\r\naltered--what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was\r\namazing!--but to speak with such civility, to inquire after her family!\r\nNever in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never\r\nhad he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What\r\na contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings Park, when he put\r\nhis letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account\r\nfor it.\r\n\r\nThey had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and\r\nevery step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer\r\nreach of the woods to which they were approaching; but it was some time\r\nbefore Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered\r\nmechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and\r\nseemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she\r\ndistinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that\r\none spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then\r\nwas. She longed to know what at the moment was passing in his mind--in\r\nwhat manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of everything,\r\nshe was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he\r\nfelt himself at ease; yet there had been _that_ in his voice which was\r\nnot like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in\r\nseeing her she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with\r\ncomposure.\r\n\r\nAt length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind\r\naroused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself.\r\n\r\nThey entered the woods, and bidding adieu to the river for a while,\r\nascended some of the higher grounds; when, in spots where the opening of\r\nthe trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the\r\nvalley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading\r\nmany, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish\r\nof going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk.\r\nWith a triumphant smile they were told that it was ten miles round.\r\nIt settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which\r\nbrought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods,\r\nto the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed\r\nit by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene;\r\nit was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the\r\nvalley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream,\r\nand a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it.\r\nElizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the\r\nbridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner,\r\nwho was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only\r\nof returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was,\r\ntherefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house\r\non the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their\r\nprogress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the\r\ntaste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the\r\noccasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the\r\nman about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this\r\nslow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment\r\nwas quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy\r\napproaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here\r\nless sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before\r\nthey met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared\r\nfor an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with\r\ncalmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed,\r\nshe felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea\r\nlasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the\r\nturning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance, she saw\r\nthat he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his\r\npoliteness, she began, as they met, to admire the beauty of the place;\r\nbut she had not got beyond the words \"delightful,\" and \"charming,\" when\r\nsome unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of\r\nPemberley from her might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed,\r\nand she said no more.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked\r\nher if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends.\r\nThis was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared;\r\nand she could hardly suppress a smile at his being now seeking the\r\nacquaintance of some of those very people against whom his pride had\r\nrevolted in his offer to herself. \"What will be his surprise,\" thought\r\nshe, \"when he knows who they are? He takes them now for people of\r\nfashion.\"\r\n\r\nThe introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their\r\nrelationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore\r\nit, and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he\r\ncould from such disgraceful companions. That he was _surprised_ by the\r\nconnection was evident; he sustained it, however, with fortitude, and\r\nso far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into\r\nconversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased,\r\ncould not but triumph. It was consoling that he should know she had\r\nsome relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most\r\nattentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every\r\nexpression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence,\r\nhis taste, or his good manners.\r\n\r\nThe conversation soon turned upon fishing; and she heard Mr. Darcy\r\ninvite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he\r\nchose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time\r\nto supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of\r\nthe stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was\r\nwalking arm-in-arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of wonder.\r\nElizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment\r\nmust be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and\r\ncontinually was she repeating, \"Why is he so altered? From what can\r\nit proceed? It cannot be for _me_--it cannot be for _my_ sake that his\r\nmanners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a\r\nchange as this. It is impossible that he should still love me.\"\r\n\r\nAfter walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two\r\ngentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to\r\nthe brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious\r\nwater-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated\r\nin Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found\r\nElizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred\r\nher husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on\r\ntogether. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him\r\nto know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the\r\nplace, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been\r\nvery unexpected--\"for your housekeeper,\" she added, \"informed us that\r\nyou would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and indeed, before we\r\nleft Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected\r\nin the country.\" He acknowledged the truth of it all, and said that\r\nbusiness with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours\r\nbefore the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. \"They\r\nwill join me early to-morrow,\" he continued, \"and among them are some\r\nwho will claim an acquaintance with you--Mr. Bingley and his sisters.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly\r\ndriven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been the last\r\nmentioned between them; and, if she might judge by his complexion, _his_\r\nmind was not very differently engaged.\r\n\r\n\"There is also one other person in the party,\" he continued after a\r\npause, \"who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow\r\nme, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance\r\nduring your stay at Lambton?\"\r\n\r\nThe surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great\r\nfor her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt\r\nthat whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her\r\nmust be the work of her brother, and, without looking farther, it was\r\nsatisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made\r\nhim think really ill of her.\r\n\r\nThey now walked on in silence, each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth\r\nwas not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and\r\npleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of\r\nthe highest kind. They soon outstripped the others, and when they had\r\nreached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a\r\nmile behind.\r\n\r\nHe then asked her to walk into the house--but she declared herself not\r\ntired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time much might\r\nhave been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but\r\nthere seemed to be an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected\r\nthat she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale\r\nwith great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly--and her\r\npatience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tete-a-tete was\r\nover. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up they were all pressed to go\r\ninto the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and\r\nthey parted on each side with utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the\r\nladies into the carriage; and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him\r\nwalking slowly towards the house.\r\n\r\nThe observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them\r\npronounced him to be infinitely superior to anything they had expected.\r\n\"He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming,\" said her uncle.\r\n\r\n\"There _is_ something a little stately in him, to be sure,\" replied her\r\naunt, \"but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now\r\nsay with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, I\r\nhave seen nothing of it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more\r\nthan civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such\r\nattention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling.\"\r\n\r\n\"To be sure, Lizzy,\" said her aunt, \"he is not so handsome as Wickham;\r\nor, rather, he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features\r\nare perfectly good. But how came you to tell me that he was so\r\ndisagreeable?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked\r\nhim better when they had met in Kent than before, and that she had never\r\nseen him so pleasant as this morning.\r\n\r\n\"But perhaps he may be a little whimsical in his civilities,\" replied\r\nher uncle. \"Your great men often are; and therefore I shall not take him\r\nat his word, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off\r\nhis grounds.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth felt that they had entirely misunderstood his character, but\r\nsaid nothing.\r\n\r\n\"From what we have seen of him,\" continued Mrs. Gardiner, \"I really\r\nshould not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by\r\nanybody as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look.\r\nOn the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he\r\nspeaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance that would\r\nnot give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the\r\ngood lady who showed us his house did give him a most flaming character!\r\nI could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal\r\nmaster, I suppose, and _that_ in the eye of a servant comprehends every\r\nvirtue.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of\r\nhis behaviour to Wickham; and therefore gave them to understand, in\r\nas guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from\r\nhis relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different\r\nconstruction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor\r\nWickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In\r\nconfirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary\r\ntransactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming\r\nher authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned; but as they were now\r\napproaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to\r\nthe charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out\r\nto her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of\r\nanything else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk they\r\nhad no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former\r\nacquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of a\r\nintercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance.\r\n\r\nThe occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth\r\nmuch attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing\r\nbut think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and, above\r\nall, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 44\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit\r\nher the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was consequently\r\nresolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning.\r\nBut her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their\r\narrival at Lambton, these visitors came. They had been walking about the\r\nplace with some of their new friends, and were just returning to the inn\r\nto dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a\r\ncarriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and a lady in\r\na curricle driving up the street. Elizabeth immediately recognizing\r\nthe livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of her\r\nsurprise to her relations by acquainting them with the honour which she\r\nexpected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment\r\nof her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many\r\nof the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on\r\nthe business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they felt that\r\nthere was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a\r\nquarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these\r\nnewly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of\r\nElizabeth's feelings was at every moment increasing. She was quite\r\namazed at her own discomposure; but amongst other causes of disquiet,\r\nshe dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much\r\nin her favour; and, more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally\r\nsuspected that every power of pleasing would fail her.\r\n\r\nShe retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she walked\r\nup and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of\r\ninquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made everything worse.\r\n\r\nMiss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction\r\ntook place. With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new\r\nacquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her\r\nbeing at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud;\r\nbut the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was\r\nonly exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from\r\nher beyond a monosyllable.\r\n\r\nMiss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though\r\nlittle more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance\r\nwomanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother; but there\r\nwas sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly\r\nunassuming and gentle. Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as\r\nacute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much\r\nrelieved by discerning such different feelings.\r\n\r\nThey had not long been together before Mr. Darcy told her that Bingley\r\nwas also coming to wait on her; and she had barely time to express her\r\nsatisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley's quick\r\nstep was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room. All\r\nElizabeth's anger against him had been long done away; but had she still\r\nfelt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected\r\ncordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again. He\r\ninquired in a friendly, though general way, after her family, and looked\r\nand spoke with the same good-humoured ease that he had ever done.\r\n\r\nTo Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage\r\nthan to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before\r\nthem, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just\r\narisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece directed their observation towards\r\neach with an earnest though guarded inquiry; and they soon drew from\r\nthose inquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew\r\nwhat it was to love. Of the lady's sensations they remained a little\r\nin doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was\r\nevident enough.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the\r\nfeelings of each of her visitors; she wanted to compose her own, and\r\nto make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she\r\nfeared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she\r\nendeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley\r\nwas ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased.\r\n\r\nIn seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister; and, oh!\r\nhow ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in\r\na like manner. Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on\r\nformer occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion\r\nthat, as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance. But,\r\nthough this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his\r\nbehaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane. No look\r\nappeared on either side that spoke particular regard. Nothing occurred\r\nbetween them that could justify the hopes of his sister. On this point\r\nshe was soon satisfied; and two or three little circumstances occurred\r\nere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a\r\nrecollection of Jane not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying\r\nmore that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared. He observed\r\nto her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone\r\nwhich had something of real regret, that it \"was a very long time since\r\nhe had had the pleasure of seeing her;\" and, before she could reply,\r\nhe added, \"It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of\r\nNovember, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact; and he afterwards\r\ntook occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether\r\n_all_ her sisters were at Longbourn. There was not much in the question,\r\nnor in the preceding remark; but there was a look and a manner which\r\ngave them meaning.\r\n\r\nIt was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself;\r\nbut, whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general\r\ncomplaisance, and in all that he said she heard an accent so removed\r\nfrom _hauteur_ or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that\r\nthe improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed however\r\ntemporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day. When\r\nshe saw him thus seeking the acquaintance and courting the good opinion\r\nof people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a\r\ndisgrace--when she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the\r\nvery relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last\r\nlively scene in Hunsford Parsonage--the difference, the change was\r\nso great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly\r\nrestrain her astonishment from being visible. Never, even in the company\r\nof his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations\r\nat Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from\r\nself-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance\r\ncould result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the\r\nacquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed would draw\r\ndown the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and\r\nRosings.\r\n\r\nTheir visitors stayed with them above half-an-hour; and when they arose\r\nto depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing\r\ntheir wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner\r\nat Pemberley, before they left the country. Miss Darcy, though with a\r\ndiffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations,\r\nreadily obeyed. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing\r\nhow _she_, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its\r\nacceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head. Presuming however,\r\nthat this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than\r\nany dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of\r\nsociety, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for\r\nher attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on.\r\n\r\nBingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth\r\nagain, having still a great deal to say to her, and many inquiries to\r\nmake after all their Hertfordshire friends. Elizabeth, construing all\r\nthis into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased, and on\r\nthis account, as well as some others, found herself, when their\r\nvisitors left them, capable of considering the last half-hour with some\r\nsatisfaction, though while it was passing, the enjoyment of it had been\r\nlittle. Eager to be alone, and fearful of inquiries or hints from her\r\nuncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their\r\nfavourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress.\r\n\r\nBut she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's curiosity; it was\r\nnot their wish to force her communication. It was evident that she was\r\nmuch better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of;\r\nit was evident that he was very much in love with her. They saw much to\r\ninterest, but nothing to justify inquiry.\r\n\r\nOf Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well; and, as far\r\nas their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could\r\nnot be untouched by his politeness; and had they drawn his character\r\nfrom their own feelings and his servant's report, without any reference\r\nto any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known\r\nwould not have recognized it for Mr. Darcy. There was now an interest,\r\nhowever, in believing the housekeeper; and they soon became sensible\r\nthat the authority of a servant who had known him since he was four\r\nyears old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be\r\nhastily rejected. Neither had anything occurred in the intelligence of\r\ntheir Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight. They had\r\nnothing to accuse him of but pride; pride he probably had, and if not,\r\nit would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small market-town\r\nwhere the family did not visit. It was acknowledged, however, that he\r\nwas a liberal man, and did much good among the poor.\r\n\r\nWith respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held\r\nthere in much estimation; for though the chief of his concerns with the\r\nson of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a well-known\r\nfact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind\r\nhim, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged.\r\n\r\nAs for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than\r\nthe last; and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not\r\nlong enough to determine her feelings towards _one_ in that mansion;\r\nand she lay awake two whole hours endeavouring to make them out. She\r\ncertainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she\r\nhad almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him,\r\nthat could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his\r\nvaluable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some\r\ntime ceased to be repugnant to her feeling; and it was now heightened\r\ninto somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in\r\nhis favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light,\r\nwhich yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem,\r\nthere was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked.\r\nIt was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her,\r\nbut for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and\r\nacrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations\r\naccompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid\r\nher as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most\r\neager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display\r\nof regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only\r\nwere concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent\r\non making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much\r\npride exciting not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent\r\nlove, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a\r\nsort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be\r\nexactly defined. She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him,\r\nshe felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how\r\nfar she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would\r\nbe for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her\r\nfancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on her the renewal of\r\nhis addresses.\r\n\r\nIt had been settled in the evening between the aunt and the niece, that\r\nsuch a striking civility as Miss Darcy's in coming to see them on the\r\nvery day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a\r\nlate breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled,\r\nby some exertion of politeness on their side; and, consequently, that\r\nit would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following\r\nmorning. They were, therefore, to go. Elizabeth was pleased; though when\r\nshe asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply.\r\n\r\nMr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been\r\nrenewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting\r\nsome of the gentlemen at Pemberley before noon.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 45\r\n\r\n\r\nConvinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley's dislike of her had\r\noriginated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how unwelcome her\r\nappearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how\r\nmuch civility on that lady's side the acquaintance would now be renewed.\r\n\r\nOn reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon,\r\nwhose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows\r\nopening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody\r\nhills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts\r\nwhich were scattered over the intermediate lawn.\r\n\r\nIn this house they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there\r\nwith Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in\r\nLondon. Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with\r\nall the embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear\r\nof doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior\r\nthe belief of her being proud and reserved. Mrs. Gardiner and her niece,\r\nhowever, did her justice, and pitied her.\r\n\r\nBy Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a curtsey; and,\r\non their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be,\r\nsucceeded for a few moments. It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a\r\ngenteel, agreeable-looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind\r\nof discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either of the\r\nothers; and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from\r\nElizabeth, the conversation was carried on. Miss Darcy looked as if she\r\nwished for courage enough to join in it; and sometimes did venture a\r\nshort sentence when there was least danger of its being heard.\r\n\r\nElizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley,\r\nand that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without\r\ncalling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her\r\nfrom trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an\r\ninconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity\r\nof saying much. Her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every\r\nmoment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room. She wished, she\r\nfeared that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether\r\nshe wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After\r\nsitting in this manner a quarter of an hour without hearing Miss\r\nBingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold\r\ninquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal\r\nindifference and brevity, and the other said no more.\r\n\r\nThe next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the\r\nentrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the\r\nfinest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many\r\na significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been\r\ngiven, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole\r\nparty--for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the\r\nbeautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected\r\nthem round the table.\r\n\r\nWhile thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether\r\nshe most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the\r\nfeelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but\r\na moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to\r\nregret that he came.\r\n\r\nHe had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other\r\ngentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him\r\nonly on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to\r\nGeorgiana that morning. No sooner did he appear than Elizabeth wisely\r\nresolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed; a resolution the more\r\nnecessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she\r\nsaw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them,\r\nand that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour\r\nwhen he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive\r\ncuriosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's, in spite of the\r\nsmiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its\r\nobjects; for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions\r\nto Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother's\r\nentrance, exerted herself much more to talk, and Elizabeth saw that he\r\nwas anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded\r\nas much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side. Miss\r\nBingley saw all this likewise; and, in the imprudence of anger, took the\r\nfirst opportunity of saying, with sneering civility:\r\n\r\n\"Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the ----shire Militia removed from Meryton?\r\nThey must be a great loss to _your_ family.\"\r\n\r\nIn Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name; but Elizabeth\r\ninstantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts; and the\r\nvarious recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress;\r\nbut exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill-natured attack, she\r\npresently answered the question in a tolerably detached tone. While\r\nshe spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy, with a heightened\r\ncomplexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with\r\nconfusion, and unable to lift up her eyes. Had Miss Bingley known what\r\npain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would\r\nhave refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose\r\nElizabeth by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed\r\nher partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in\r\nDarcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies\r\nand absurdities by which some part of her family were connected\r\nwith that corps. Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's\r\nmeditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy\r\nwas possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley's connections\r\nher brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from the very\r\nwish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming\r\nhereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan, and without\r\nmeaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss\r\nBennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern\r\nfor the welfare of his friend.\r\n\r\nElizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion; and\r\nas Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to\r\nWickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able\r\nto speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely\r\nrecollected her interest in the affair, and the very circumstance which\r\nhad been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth seemed to have\r\nfixed them on her more and more cheerfully.\r\n\r\nTheir visit did not continue long after the question and answer above\r\nmentioned; and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage Miss\r\nBingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person,\r\nbehaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother's\r\nrecommendation was enough to ensure her favour; his judgement could not\r\nerr. And he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana\r\nwithout the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When\r\nDarcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to\r\nhim some part of what she had been saying to his sister.\r\n\r\n\"How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy,\" she\r\ncried; \"I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since\r\nthe winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing\r\nthat we should not have known her again.\"\r\n\r\nHowever little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented\r\nhimself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than\r\nher being rather tanned, no miraculous consequence of travelling in the\r\nsummer.\r\n\r\n\"For my own part,\" she rejoined, \"I must confess that I never could\r\nsee any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no\r\nbrilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose\r\nwants character--there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are\r\ntolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes,\r\nwhich have sometimes been called so fine, I could never see anything\r\nextraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do\r\nnot like at all; and in her air altogether there is a self-sufficiency\r\nwithout fashion, which is intolerable.\"\r\n\r\nPersuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not\r\nthe best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always\r\nwise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the\r\nsuccess she expected. He was resolutely silent, however, and, from a\r\ndetermination of making him speak, she continued:\r\n\r\n\"I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all\r\nwere to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect\r\nyour saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, '_She_\r\na beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she\r\nseemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at\r\none time.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, \"but _that_\r\nwas only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have\r\nconsidered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.\"\r\n\r\nHe then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of\r\nhaving forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their\r\nvisit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them\r\nboth. The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed,\r\nexcept of the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked\r\nof his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit--of everything but\r\nhimself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of\r\nhim, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's\r\nbeginning the subject.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 46\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from\r\nJane on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been\r\nrenewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but\r\non the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the\r\nreceipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that\r\nit had been missent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as\r\nJane had written the direction remarkably ill.\r\n\r\nThey had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and\r\nher uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by\r\nthemselves. The one missent must first be attended to; it had been\r\nwritten five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their\r\nlittle parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded;\r\nbut the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident\r\nagitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect:\r\n\r\n\"Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a\r\nmost unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you--be\r\nassured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia.\r\nAn express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed,\r\nfrom Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland\r\nwith one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our\r\nsurprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am\r\nvery, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing\r\nto hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood.\r\nThoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step\r\n(and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is\r\ndisinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing.\r\nOur poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How\r\nthankful am I that we never let them know what has been said against\r\nhim; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about\r\ntwelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at\r\neight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have\r\npassed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect\r\nhim here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of\r\ntheir intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor\r\nmother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly\r\nknow what I have written.\"\r\n\r\nWithout allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing\r\nwhat she felt, Elizabeth on finishing this letter instantly seized the\r\nother, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it\r\nhad been written a day later than the conclusion of the first.\r\n\r\n\"By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I\r\nwish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my\r\nhead is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest\r\nLizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you,\r\nand it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as the marriage between Mr. Wickham\r\nand our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has\r\ntaken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone\r\nto Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the\r\nday before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short\r\nletter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna\r\nGreen, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W.\r\nnever intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was\r\nrepeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B.\r\nintending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham,\r\nbut no further; for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney\r\ncoach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that\r\nis known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road.\r\nI know not what to think. After making every possible inquiry on that\r\nside London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing\r\nthem at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but\r\nwithout any success--no such people had been seen to pass through. With\r\nthe kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions\r\nto us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved\r\nfor him and Mrs. F., but no one can throw any blame on them. Our\r\ndistress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the\r\nworst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make\r\nit more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue\r\ntheir first plan; and even if _he_ could form such a design against a\r\nyoung woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose\r\nher so lost to everything? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that\r\nColonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage; he shook his\r\nhead when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to\r\nbe trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she\r\nexert herself, it would be better; but this is not to be expected. And\r\nas to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has\r\nanger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of\r\nconfidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you\r\nhave been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the\r\nfirst shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not\r\nso selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I\r\ntake up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not; but\r\ncircumstances are such that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to\r\ncome here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well,\r\nthat I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something\r\nmore to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel\r\nForster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do I am sure\r\nI know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any\r\nmeasure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to\r\nbe at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence, my\r\nuncle's advice and assistance would be everything in the world; he will\r\nimmediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! where, where is my uncle?\" cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat\r\nas she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing\r\na moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door it was\r\nopened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous\r\nmanner made him start, and before he could recover himself to speak,\r\nshe, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation,\r\nhastily exclaimed, \"I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find\r\nMr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not\r\nan instant to lose.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good God! what is the matter?\" cried he, with more feeling than\r\npoliteness; then recollecting himself, \"I will not detain you a minute;\r\nbut let me, or let the servant go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are\r\nnot well enough; you cannot go yourself.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her and she felt how\r\nlittle would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back\r\nthe servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless\r\nan accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and\r\nmistress home instantly.\r\n\r\nOn his quitting the room she sat down, unable to support herself, and\r\nlooking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her,\r\nor to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration,\r\n\"Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you\r\npresent relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, I thank you,\" she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. \"There\r\nis nothing the matter with me. I am quite well; I am only distressed by\r\nsome dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn.\"\r\n\r\nShe burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could\r\nnot speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say\r\nsomething indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate\r\nsilence. At length she spoke again. \"I have just had a letter from Jane,\r\nwith such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from anyone. My younger\r\nsister has left all her friends--has eloped; has thrown herself into\r\nthe power of--of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton.\r\n_You_ know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no\r\nconnections, nothing that can tempt him to--she is lost for ever.\"\r\n\r\nDarcy was fixed in astonishment. \"When I consider,\" she added in a yet\r\nmore agitated voice, \"that I might have prevented it! I, who knew what\r\nhe was. Had I but explained some part of it only--some part of what I\r\nlearnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not\r\nhave happened. But it is all--all too late now.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am grieved indeed,\" cried Darcy; \"grieved--shocked. But is it\r\ncertain--absolutely certain?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced\r\nalmost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to\r\nScotland.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?\"\r\n\r\n\"My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's\r\nimmediate assistance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half-an-hour. But\r\nnothing can be done--I know very well that nothing can be done. How is\r\nsuch a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have\r\nnot the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!\"\r\n\r\nDarcy shook his head in silent acquiescence.\r\n\r\n\"When _my_ eyes were opened to his real character--Oh! had I known what\r\nI ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not--I was afraid of doing too\r\nmuch. Wretched, wretched mistake!\"\r\n\r\nDarcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking\r\nup and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air\r\ngloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her\r\npower was sinking; everything _must_ sink under such a proof of family\r\nweakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither\r\nwonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing\r\nconsolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It\r\nwas, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own\r\nwishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved\r\nhim, as now, when all love must be vain.\r\n\r\nBut self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia--the\r\nhumiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all, soon swallowed\r\nup every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief,\r\nElizabeth was soon lost to everything else; and, after a pause of\r\nseveral minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by\r\nthe voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke\r\ncompassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, \"I am afraid you have been\r\nlong desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my\r\nstay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that anything\r\ncould be either said or done on my part that might offer consolation to\r\nsuch distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may\r\nseem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I\r\nfear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley\r\nto-day.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that\r\nurgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as\r\nlong as it is possible, I know it cannot be long.\"\r\n\r\nHe readily assured her of his secrecy; again expressed his sorrow for\r\nher distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present\r\nreason to hope, and leaving his compliments for her relations, with only\r\none serious, parting look, went away.\r\n\r\nAs he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they\r\nshould ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as\r\nhad marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a\r\nretrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full\r\nof contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those\r\nfeelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would\r\nformerly have rejoiced in its termination.\r\n\r\nIf gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's\r\nchange of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if\r\notherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or\r\nunnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on\r\na first interview with its object, and even before two words have been\r\nexchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given\r\nsomewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham,\r\nand that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other\r\nless interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him\r\ngo with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must\r\nproduce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched\r\nbusiness. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained\r\na hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought,\r\ncould flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least\r\nof her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first\r\nletter remained in her mind, she was all surprise--all astonishment that\r\nWickham should marry a girl whom it was impossible he could marry\r\nfor money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared\r\nincomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment\r\nas this she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose\r\nLydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement without the intention\r\nof marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue\r\nnor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey.\r\n\r\nShe had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that\r\nLydia had any partiality for him; but she was convinced that Lydia\r\nwanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one\r\nofficer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions\r\nraised them in her opinion. Her affections had continually been\r\nfluctuating but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and\r\nmistaken indulgence towards such a girl--oh! how acutely did she now\r\nfeel it!\r\n\r\nShe was wild to be at home--to hear, to see, to be upon the spot to\r\nshare with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a\r\nfamily so deranged, a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and\r\nrequiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing\r\ncould be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost\r\nimportance, and till he entered the room her impatience was severe. Mr.\r\nand Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing by the servant's\r\naccount that their niece was taken suddenly ill; but satisfying them\r\ninstantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their\r\nsummons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript\r\nof the last with trembling energy, though Lydia had never been a\r\nfavourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply\r\nafflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the\r\nfirst exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner promised every\r\nassistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked\r\nhim with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit,\r\neverything relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to\r\nbe off as soon as possible. \"But what is to be done about Pemberley?\"\r\ncried Mrs. Gardiner. \"John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for\r\nus; was it so?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement.\r\n_That_ is all settled.\"\r\n\r\n\"What is all settled?\" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to\r\nprepare. \"And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real\r\ntruth? Oh, that I knew how it was!\"\r\n\r\nBut wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the\r\nhurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure\r\nto be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was\r\nimpossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of\r\nbusiness as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to\r\nbe written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their\r\nsudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr.\r\nGardiner meanwhile having settled his account at the inn, nothing\r\nremained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of\r\nthe morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could\r\nhave supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 47\r\n\r\n\r\n\"I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth,\" said her uncle, as they\r\ndrove from the town; \"and really, upon serious consideration, I am much\r\nmore inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does on the\r\nmatter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should\r\nform such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or\r\nfriendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel's family, that I\r\nam strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends\r\nwould not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the\r\nregiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is\r\nnot adequate to the risk!\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you really think so?\" cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment.\r\n\r\n\"Upon my word,\" said Mrs. Gardiner, \"I begin to be of your uncle's\r\nopinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and\r\ninterest, for him to be guilty of. I cannot think so very ill of\r\nWickham. Can you yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe\r\nhim capable of it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not, perhaps, of neglecting his own interest; but of every other\r\nneglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I\r\ndare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland if that had been\r\nthe case?\"\r\n\r\n\"In the first place,\" replied Mr. Gardiner, \"there is no absolute proof\r\nthat they are not gone to Scotland.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such\r\na presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the\r\nBarnet road.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, then--supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though\r\nfor the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptional purpose. It is\r\nnot likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it\r\nmight strike them that they could be more economically, though less\r\nexpeditiously, married in London than in Scotland.\"\r\n\r\n\"But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their\r\nmarriage be private? Oh, no, no--this is not likely. His most particular\r\nfriend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending\r\nto marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He\r\ncannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia--what attraction has she\r\nbeyond youth, health, and good humour that could make him, for her sake,\r\nforego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what\r\nrestraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a\r\ndishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know\r\nnothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your\r\nother objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has\r\nno brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's\r\nbehaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever\r\nseemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that _he_ would\r\ndo as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in\r\nsuch a matter.\"\r\n\r\n\"But can you think that Lydia is so lost to everything but love of him\r\nas to consent to live with him on any terms other than marriage?\"\r\n\r\n\"It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed,\" replied Elizabeth, with\r\ntears in her eyes, \"that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such\r\na point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say.\r\nPerhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never\r\nbeen taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half-year,\r\nnay, for a twelvemonth--she has been given up to nothing but amusement\r\nand vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle\r\nand frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way.\r\nSince the ----shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love,\r\nflirtation, and officers have been in her head. She has been doing\r\neverything in her power by thinking and talking on the subject, to give\r\ngreater--what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are\r\nnaturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of\r\nperson and address that can captivate a woman.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you see that Jane,\" said her aunt, \"does not think so very ill of\r\nWickham as to believe him capable of the attempt.\"\r\n\r\n\"Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be\r\ntheir former conduct, that she would think capable of such an attempt,\r\ntill it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what\r\nWickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every\r\nsense of the word; that he has neither integrity nor honour; that he is\r\nas false and deceitful as he is insinuating.\"\r\n\r\n\"And do you really know all this?\" cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity\r\nas to the mode of her intelligence was all alive.\r\n\r\n\"I do indeed,\" replied Elizabeth, colouring. \"I told you, the other day,\r\nof his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you yourself, when last at\r\nLongbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved\r\nwith such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other\r\ncircumstances which I am not at liberty--which it is not worth while to\r\nrelate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From\r\nwhat he said of Miss Darcy I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud,\r\nreserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He\r\nmust know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found\r\nher.\"\r\n\r\n\"But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you\r\nand Jane seem so well to understand?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes!--that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw\r\nso much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was\r\nignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home, the ----shire\r\nwas to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the\r\ncase, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it\r\nnecessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could\r\nit apparently be to any one, that the good opinion which all the\r\nneighbourhood had of him should then be overthrown? And even when it was\r\nsettled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening\r\nher eyes to his character never occurred to me. That _she_ could be\r\nin any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a\r\nconsequence as _this_ could ensue, you may easily believe, was far\r\nenough from my thoughts.\"\r\n\r\n\"When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I\r\nsuppose, to believe them fond of each other?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either\r\nside; and had anything of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware\r\nthat ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first\r\nhe entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all\r\nwere. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for\r\nthe first two months; but he never distinguished _her_ by any particular\r\nattention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and\r\nwild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment,\r\nwho treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites.\"\r\n\r\n * * * * *\r\n\r\nIt may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added\r\nto their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by\r\nits repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during\r\nthe whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent.\r\nFixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find\r\nno interval of ease or forgetfulness.\r\n\r\nThey travelled as expeditiously as possible, and, sleeping one night\r\non the road, reached Longbourn by dinner time the next day. It was a\r\ncomfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied\r\nby long expectations.\r\n\r\nThe little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing\r\non the steps of the house as they entered the paddock; and, when the\r\ncarriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their\r\nfaces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of\r\ncapers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome.\r\n\r\nElizabeth jumped out; and, after giving each of them a hasty kiss,\r\nhurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down from her\r\nmother's apartment, immediately met her.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the\r\neyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether anything had been\r\nheard of the fugitives.\r\n\r\n\"Not yet,\" replied Jane. \"But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope\r\neverything will be well.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is my father in town?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word.\"\r\n\r\n\"And have you heard from him often?\"\r\n\r\n\"We have heard only twice. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday to say\r\nthat he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I\r\nparticularly begged him to do. He merely added that he should not write\r\nagain till he had something of importance to mention.\"\r\n\r\n\"And my mother--how is she? How are you all?\"\r\n\r\n\"My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly\r\nshaken. She is up stairs and will have great satisfaction in seeing you\r\nall. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank\r\nHeaven, are quite well.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you--how are you?\" cried Elizabeth. \"You look pale. How much you\r\nmust have gone through!\"\r\n\r\nHer sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well; and their\r\nconversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were\r\nengaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach\r\nof the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and\r\nthanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears.\r\n\r\nWhen they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth\r\nhad already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon\r\nfound that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of\r\ngood, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested had not yet\r\ndeserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that\r\nevery morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father,\r\nto explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce their marriage.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes'\r\nconversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with\r\ntears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villainous\r\nconduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill-usage;\r\nblaming everybody but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the\r\nerrors of her daughter must principally be owing.\r\n\r\n\"If I had been able,\" said she, \"to carry my point in going to Brighton,\r\nwith all my family, _this_ would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia\r\nhad nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out\r\nof their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their\r\nside, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing if she had been\r\nwell looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the\r\ncharge of her; but I was overruled, as I always am. Poor dear child!\r\nAnd now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham,\r\nwherever he meets him and then he will be killed, and what is to become\r\nof us all? The Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his\r\ngrave, and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we\r\nshall do.\"\r\n\r\nThey all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after\r\ngeneral assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her\r\nthat he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr.\r\nBennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia.\r\n\r\n\"Do not give way to useless alarm,\" added he; \"though it is right to be\r\nprepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.\r\nIt is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more we\r\nmay gain some news of them; and till we know that they are not married,\r\nand have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as\r\nlost. As soon as I get to town I shall go to my brother, and make\r\nhim come home with me to Gracechurch Street; and then we may consult\r\ntogether as to what is to be done.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my dear brother,\" replied Mrs. Bennet, \"that is exactly what I\r\ncould most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out,\r\nwherever they may be; and if they are not married already, _make_ them\r\nmarry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but\r\ntell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them,\r\nafter they are married. And, above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting.\r\nTell him what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my\r\nwits--and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me--such\r\nspasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that\r\nI can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to\r\ngive any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does\r\nnot know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I\r\nknow you will contrive it all.\"\r\n\r\nBut Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours\r\nin the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well\r\nin her hopes as her fear; and after talking with her in this manner till\r\ndinner was on the table, they all left her to vent all her feelings on\r\nthe housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters.\r\n\r\nThough her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real\r\noccasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to\r\noppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her\r\ntongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it\r\nbetter that _one_ only of the household, and the one whom they could\r\nmost trust should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the\r\nsubject.\r\n\r\nIn the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been\r\ntoo busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance\r\nbefore. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The\r\nfaces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible\r\nin either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger\r\nwhich she had herself incurred in this business, had given more of\r\nfretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was\r\nmistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance\r\nof grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table:\r\n\r\n\"This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of.\r\nBut we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of\r\neach other the balm of sisterly consolation.\"\r\n\r\nThen, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added,\r\n\"Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful\r\nlesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one\r\nfalse step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less\r\nbrittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in\r\nher behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed\r\nto make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such\r\nkind of moral extractions from the evil before them.\r\n\r\nIn the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for\r\nhalf-an-hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of\r\nthe opportunity of making any inquiries, which Jane was equally eager to\r\nsatisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel\r\nof this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss\r\nBennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued\r\nthe subject, by saying, \"But tell me all and everything about it which\r\nI have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel\r\nForster say? Had they no apprehension of anything before the elopement\r\ntook place? They must have seen them together for ever.\"\r\n\r\n\"Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality,\r\nespecially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so\r\ngrieved for him! His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He\r\n_was_ coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had\r\nany idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension\r\nfirst got abroad, it hastened his journey.\"\r\n\r\n\"And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of\r\ntheir intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; but, when questioned by _him_, Denny denied knowing anything of\r\ntheir plans, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not\r\nrepeat his persuasion of their not marrying--and from _that_, I am\r\ninclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before.\"\r\n\r\n\"And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a\r\ndoubt, I suppose, of their being really married?\"\r\n\r\n\"How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt\r\na little uneasy--a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him\r\nin marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite\r\nright. My father and mother knew nothing of that; they only felt how\r\nimprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural\r\ntriumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter\r\nshe had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their\r\nbeing in love with each other, many weeks.\"\r\n\r\n\"But not before they went to Brighton?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, I believe not.\"\r\n\r\n\"And did Colonel Forster appear to think well of Wickham himself? Does\r\nhe know his real character?\"\r\n\r\n\"I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly\r\ndid. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad\r\naffair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt;\r\nbut I hope this may be false.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him,\r\nthis could not have happened!\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps it would have been better,\" replied her sister. \"But to expose\r\nthe former faults of any person without knowing what their present\r\nfeelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions.\"\r\n\r\n\"Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his\r\nwife?\"\r\n\r\n\"He brought it with him for us to see.\"\r\n\r\nJane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These\r\nwere the contents:\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAR HARRIET,\r\n\r\n\"You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help\r\nlaughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am\r\nmissed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who,\r\nI shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I\r\nlove, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think\r\nit no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my\r\ngoing, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater,\r\nwhen I write to them and sign my name 'Lydia Wickham.' What a good joke\r\nit will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to\r\nPratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night.\r\nTell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all; and tell him I will\r\ndance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall\r\nsend for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell\r\nSally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are\r\npacked up. Good-bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will\r\ndrink to our good journey.\r\n\r\n\"Your affectionate friend,\r\n\r\n\"LYDIA BENNET.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!\" cried Elizabeth when she had\r\nfinished it. \"What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment!\r\nBut at least it shows that _she_ was serious on the subject of their\r\njourney. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her\r\nside a _scheme_ of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!\"\r\n\r\n\"I never saw anyone so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten\r\nminutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in\r\nsuch confusion!\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! Jane,\" cried Elizabeth, \"was there a servant belonging to it who\r\ndid not know the whole story before the end of the day?\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not know. I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is\r\nvery difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to\r\ngive her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so\r\nmuch as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen\r\nalmost took from me my faculties.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look\r\nwell. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety\r\nupon yourself alone.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every\r\nfatigue, I am sure; but I did not think it right for either of them.\r\nKitty is slight and delicate; and Mary studies so much, that her hours\r\nof repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Phillips came to Longbourn\r\non Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till\r\nThursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all. And\r\nLady Lucas has been very kind; she walked here on Wednesday morning to\r\ncondole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters', if\r\nthey should be of use to us.\"\r\n\r\n\"She had better have stayed at home,\" cried Elizabeth; \"perhaps she\r\n_meant_ well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see\r\ntoo little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence\r\ninsufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.\"\r\n\r\nShe then proceeded to inquire into the measures which her father had\r\nintended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter.\r\n\r\n\"He meant I believe,\" replied Jane, \"to go to Epsom, the place where\r\nthey last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anything could\r\nbe made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the\r\nnumber of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come\r\nwith a fare from London; and as he thought that the circumstance of a\r\ngentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another might\r\nbe remarked he meant to make inquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow\r\ndiscover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he\r\ndetermined to make inquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible\r\nto find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any\r\nother designs that he had formed; but he was in such a hurry to be gone,\r\nand his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding\r\nout even so much as this.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 48\r\n\r\n\r\nThe whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next\r\nmorning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him.\r\nHis family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and\r\ndilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion.\r\nThey were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to\r\nsend; but even of _that_ they would have been glad to be certain. Mr.\r\nGardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off.\r\n\r\nWhen he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant\r\ninformation of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting,\r\nto prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could,\r\nto the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only\r\nsecurity for her husband's not being killed in a duel.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few\r\ndays longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable\r\nto her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a\r\ngreat comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also\r\nvisited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of\r\ncheering and heartening them up--though, as she never came without\r\nreporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity,\r\nshe seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found\r\nthem.\r\n\r\nAll Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months\r\nbefore, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt\r\nto every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with\r\nthe title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family.\r\nEverybody declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world;\r\nand everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted the\r\nappearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above\r\nhalf of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of\r\nher sister's ruin more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less\r\nof it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come\r\nwhen, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely\r\ndespaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of\r\nthem.\r\n\r\nMr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday his wife received a\r\nletter from him; it told them that, on his arrival, he had immediately\r\nfound out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street;\r\nthat Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival,\r\nbut without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now\r\ndetermined to inquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet\r\nthought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first\r\ncoming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself\r\ndid not expect any success from this measure, but as his brother was\r\neager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added that Mr.\r\nBennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London and promised\r\nto write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect:\r\n\r\n\"I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if\r\npossible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment,\r\nwhether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to\r\nknow in what part of town he has now concealed himself. If there were\r\nanyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a\r\nclue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have\r\nnothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in\r\nhis power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps,\r\nLizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, better than any\r\nother person.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference to her\r\nauthority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information\r\nof so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved. She had never\r\nheard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both\r\nof whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of\r\nhis companions in the ----shire might be able to give more information;\r\nand though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application\r\nwas a something to look forward to.\r\n\r\nEvery day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious\r\npart of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters\r\nwas the grand object of every morning's impatience. Through letters,\r\nwhatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every\r\nsucceeding day was expected to bring some news of importance.\r\n\r\nBut before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for\r\ntheir father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane\r\nhad received directions to open all that came for him in his absence,\r\nshe accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his\r\nletters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as\r\nfollows:\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAR SIR,\r\n\r\n\"I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation\r\nin life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now\r\nsuffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from\r\nHertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself\r\nsincerely sympathise with you and all your respectable family, in\r\nyour present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because\r\nproceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be\r\nwanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortune--or that\r\nmay comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others the\r\nmost afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would\r\nhave been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to\r\nbe lamented, because there is reason to suppose as my dear Charlotte\r\ninforms me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has\r\nproceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time,\r\nfor the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think\r\nthat her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be\r\nguilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be,\r\nyou are grievously to be pitied; in which opinion I am not only joined\r\nby Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to\r\nwhom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that\r\nthis false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of\r\nall the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says,\r\nwill connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads\r\nme moreover to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event\r\nof last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved\r\nin all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, dear sir, to\r\nconsole yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child\r\nfrom your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her\r\nown heinous offense.\r\n\r\n\"I am, dear sir, etc., etc.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Gardiner did not write again till he had received an answer from\r\nColonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send.\r\nIt was not known that Wickham had a single relationship with whom he\r\nkept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one\r\nliving. His former acquaintances had been numerous; but since he\r\nhad been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of\r\nparticular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore,\r\nwho could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the\r\nwretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for\r\nsecrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations, for\r\nit had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a\r\nvery considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a\r\nthousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton.\r\nHe owed a good deal in town, but his debts of honour were still more\r\nformidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars\r\nfrom the Longbourn family. Jane heard them with horror. \"A gamester!\"\r\nshe cried. \"This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Gardiner added in his letter, that they might expect to see their\r\nfather at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered\r\nspiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded\r\nto his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and\r\nleave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable\r\nfor continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did\r\nnot express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering\r\nwhat her anxiety for his life had been before.\r\n\r\n\"What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?\" she cried. \"Sure he\r\nwill not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham,\r\nand make him marry her, if he comes away?\"\r\n\r\nAs Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she\r\nand the children should go to London, at the same time that Mr. Bennet\r\ncame from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their\r\njourney, and brought its master back to Longbourn.\r\n\r\nMrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her\r\nDerbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His\r\nname had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and\r\nthe kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their\r\nbeing followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had\r\nreceived none since her return that could come from Pemberley.\r\n\r\nThe present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for\r\nthe lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be\r\nfairly conjectured from _that_, though Elizabeth, who was by this time\r\ntolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware\r\nthat, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of\r\nLydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought,\r\none sleepless night out of two.\r\n\r\nWhen Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual\r\nphilosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the\r\nhabit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him\r\naway, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of\r\nit.\r\n\r\nIt was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that\r\nElizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly\r\nexpressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, \"Say\r\nnothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing,\r\nand I ought to feel it.\"\r\n\r\n\"You must not be too severe upon yourself,\" replied Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone\r\nto fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have\r\nbeen to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression.\r\nIt will pass away soon enough.\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you suppose them to be in London?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?\"\r\n\r\n\"And Lydia used to want to go to London,\" added Kitty.\r\n\r\n\"She is happy then,\" said her father drily; \"and her residence there\r\nwill probably be of some duration.\"\r\n\r\nThen after a short silence he continued:\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me\r\nlast May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind.\"\r\n\r\nThey were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's\r\ntea.\r\n\r\n\"This is a parade,\" he cried, \"which does one good; it gives such an\r\nelegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my\r\nlibrary, in my nightcap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as\r\nI can; or, perhaps, I may defer it till Kitty runs away.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am not going to run away, papa,\" said Kitty fretfully. \"If I should\r\never go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia.\"\r\n\r\n\"_You_ go to Brighton. I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne\r\nfor fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and\r\nyou will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter into\r\nmy house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be\r\nabsolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters.\r\nAnd you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have\r\nspent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.\"\r\n\r\nKitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry.\r\n\r\n\"Well, well,\" said he, \"do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good\r\ngirl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of\r\nthem.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 49\r\n\r\n\r\nTwo days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking\r\ntogether in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper\r\ncoming towards them, and, concluding that she came to call them to their\r\nmother, went forward to meet her; but, instead of the expected summons,\r\nwhen they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, \"I beg your pardon,\r\nmadam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some\r\ngood news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask.\"\r\n\r\n\"What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dear madam,\" cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, \"don't you know\r\nthere is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here\r\nthis half-hour, and master has had a letter.\"\r\n\r\nAway ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They\r\nran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the\r\nlibrary; their father was in neither; and they were on the point of\r\nseeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the\r\nbutler, who said:\r\n\r\n\"If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the\r\nlittle copse.\"\r\n\r\nUpon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once\r\nmore, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately\r\npursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock.\r\n\r\nJane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as\r\nElizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath,\r\ncame up with him, and eagerly cried out:\r\n\r\n\"Oh, papa, what news--what news? Have you heard from my uncle?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes I have had a letter from him by express.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, and what news does it bring--good or bad?\"\r\n\r\n\"What is there of good to be expected?\" said he, taking the letter from\r\nhis pocket. \"But perhaps you would like to read it.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up.\r\n\r\n\"Read it aloud,\" said their father, \"for I hardly know myself what it is\r\nabout.\"\r\n\r\n\"Gracechurch Street, Monday, August 2.\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAR BROTHER,\r\n\r\n\"At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as,\r\nupon the whole, I hope it will give you satisfaction. Soon after you\r\nleft me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of\r\nLondon they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet; it is enough\r\nto know they are discovered. I have seen them both--\"\r\n\r\n\"Then it is as I always hoped,\" cried Jane; \"they are married!\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth read on:\r\n\r\n\"I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there\r\nwas any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the\r\nengagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will\r\nnot be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure\r\nto your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand\r\npounds secured among your children after the decease of yourself and\r\nmy sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her,\r\nduring your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions\r\nwhich, considering everything, I had no hesitation in complying with,\r\nas far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by\r\nexpress, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You\r\nwill easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's\r\ncircumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be.\r\nThe world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say there\r\nwill be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to\r\nsettle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude\r\nwill be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout\r\nthe whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to\r\nHaggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the\r\nsmallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quiet at\r\nLongbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as\r\nfast as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it\r\nbest that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope\r\nyou will approve. She comes to us to-day. I shall write again as soon as\r\nanything more is determined on. Yours, etc.,\r\n\r\n\"EDW. GARDINER.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is it possible?\" cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. \"Can it be\r\npossible that he will marry her?\"\r\n\r\n\"Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we thought him,\" said her\r\nsister. \"My dear father, I congratulate you.\"\r\n\r\n\"And have you answered the letter?\" cried Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"No; but it must be done soon.\"\r\n\r\nMost earnestly did she then entreaty him to lose no more time before he\r\nwrote.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my dear father,\" she cried, \"come back and write immediately.\r\nConsider how important every moment is in such a case.\"\r\n\r\n\"Let me write for you,\" said Jane, \"if you dislike the trouble\r\nyourself.\"\r\n\r\n\"I dislike it very much,\" he replied; \"but it must be done.\"\r\n\r\nAnd so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house.\r\n\r\n\"And may I ask--\" said Elizabeth; \"but the terms, I suppose, must be\r\ncomplied with.\"\r\n\r\n\"Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little.\"\r\n\r\n\"And they _must_ marry! Yet he is _such_ a man!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there\r\nare two things that I want very much to know; one is, how much money\r\nyour uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how am I ever\r\nto pay him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Money! My uncle!\" cried Jane, \"what do you mean, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"I mean, that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a\r\ntemptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am\r\ngone.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is very true,\" said Elizabeth; \"though it had not occurred to me\r\nbefore. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh!\r\nit must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has\r\ndistressed himself. A small sum could not do all this.\"\r\n\r\n\"No,\" said her father; \"Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing\r\nless than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him,\r\nin the very beginning of our relationship.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be\r\nrepaid?\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet made no answer, and each of them, deep in thought, continued\r\nsilent till they reached the house. Their father then went on to the\r\nlibrary to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room.\r\n\r\n\"And they are really to be married!\" cried Elizabeth, as soon as they\r\nwere by themselves. \"How strange this is! And for _this_ we are to be\r\nthankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness,\r\nand wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice. Oh, Lydia!\"\r\n\r\n\"I comfort myself with thinking,\" replied Jane, \"that he certainly would\r\nnot marry Lydia if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind\r\nuncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten\r\nthousand pounds, or anything like it, has been advanced. He has children\r\nof his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand\r\npounds?\"\r\n\r\n\"If he were ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been,\" said\r\nElizabeth, \"and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall\r\nexactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has\r\nnot sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never\r\nbe requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal\r\nprotection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as\r\nyears of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is\r\nactually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now,\r\nshe will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she\r\nfirst sees my aunt!\"\r\n\r\n\"We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side,\" said\r\nJane: \"I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to\r\nmarry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of\r\nthinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself\r\nthey will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in\r\ntime make their past imprudence forgotten.\"\r\n\r\n\"Their conduct has been such,\" replied Elizabeth, \"as neither you, nor\r\nI, nor anybody can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it.\"\r\n\r\nIt now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood\r\nperfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library,\r\ntherefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make\r\nit known to her. He was writing and, without raising his head, coolly\r\nreplied:\r\n\r\n\"Just as you please.\"\r\n\r\n\"May we take my uncle's letter to read to her?\"\r\n\r\n\"Take whatever you like, and get away.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth took the letter from his writing-table, and they went up stairs\r\ntogether. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication\r\nwould, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news,\r\nthe letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As\r\nsoon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon\r\nmarried, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its\r\nexuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she\r\nhad ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter\r\nwould be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her\r\nfelicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.\r\n\r\n\"My dear, dear Lydia!\" she cried. \"This is delightful indeed! She will\r\nbe married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen!\r\nMy good, kind brother! I knew how it would be. I knew he would manage\r\neverything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the\r\nclothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about\r\nthem directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him\r\nhow much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell,\r\nKitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear\r\nLydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet!\"\r\n\r\nHer eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of\r\nthese transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr.\r\nGardiner's behaviour laid them all under.\r\n\r\n\"For we must attribute this happy conclusion,\" she added, \"in a great\r\nmeasure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to\r\nassist Mr. Wickham with money.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" cried her mother, \"it is all very right; who should do it but\r\nher own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children\r\nmust have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have\r\never had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy!\r\nIn a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well\r\nit sounds! And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in\r\nsuch a flutter, that I am sure I can't write; so I will dictate, and\r\nyou write for me. We will settle with your father about the money\r\nafterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately.\"\r\n\r\nShe was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and\r\ncambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had\r\nnot Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her\r\nfather was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay, she observed,\r\nwould be of small importance; and her mother was too happy to be quite\r\nso obstinate as usual. Other schemes, too, came into her head.\r\n\r\n\"I will go to Meryton,\" said she, \"as soon as I am dressed, and tell the\r\ngood, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call\r\non Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage.\r\nAn airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do\r\nanything for you in Meryton? Oh! Here comes Hill! My dear Hill, have you\r\nheard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall\r\nall have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her\r\ncongratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took\r\nrefuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom.\r\n\r\nPoor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was\r\nno worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in\r\nlooking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could\r\nbe justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had\r\nfeared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had\r\ngained.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 50\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that,\r\ninstead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for\r\nthe better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived\r\nhim. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that\r\nrespect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever\r\nof honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of\r\nprevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be\r\nher husband might then have rested in its proper place.\r\n\r\nHe was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to anyone\r\nshould be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother-in-law, and he\r\nwas determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance,\r\nand to discharge the obligation as soon as he could.\r\n\r\nWhen first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly\r\nuseless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join\r\nin cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow\r\nand younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters\r\nsuccessively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs.\r\nBennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he\r\nwould. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then\r\ntoo late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her\r\nhusband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their\r\nincome.\r\n\r\nFive thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and\r\nthe children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the\r\nlatter depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with\r\nregard to Lydia, at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet\r\ncould have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In\r\nterms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother,\r\nthough expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect\r\napprobation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the\r\nengagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed\r\nthat, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would\r\nbe done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present\r\narrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser by the\r\nhundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket\r\nallowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her\r\nthrough her mother's hands, Lydia's expenses had been very little within\r\nthat sum.\r\n\r\nThat it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was\r\nanother very welcome surprise; for his wish at present was to have as\r\nlittle trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports\r\nof rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he\r\nnaturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon\r\ndispatched; for, though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick\r\nin its execution. He begged to know further particulars of what he\r\nwas indebted to his brother, but was too angry with Lydia to send any\r\nmessage to her.\r\n\r\nThe good news spread quickly through the house, and with proportionate\r\nspeed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent\r\nphilosophy. To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage\r\nof conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the\r\nhappiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant\r\nfarmhouse. But there was much to be talked of in marrying her; and the\r\ngood-natured wishes for her well-doing which had proceeded before from\r\nall the spiteful old ladies in Meryton lost but a little of their spirit\r\nin this change of circumstances, because with such an husband her misery\r\nwas considered certain.\r\n\r\nIt was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been downstairs; but on this\r\nhappy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in\r\nspirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her\r\ntriumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object\r\nof her wishes since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of\r\naccomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those\r\nattendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and\r\nservants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a\r\nproper situation for her daughter, and, without knowing or considering\r\nwhat their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and\r\nimportance.\r\n\r\n\"Haye Park might do,\" said she, \"if the Gouldings could quit it--or the\r\ngreat house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is\r\ntoo far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for\r\nPulvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful.\"\r\n\r\nHer husband allowed her to talk on without interruption while the\r\nservants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her: \"Mrs.\r\nBennet, before you take any or all of these houses for your son and\r\ndaughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in this\r\nneighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the\r\nimpudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn.\"\r\n\r\nA long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm. It\r\nsoon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror,\r\nthat her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his\r\ndaughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of\r\naffection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend\r\nit. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable\r\nresentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege without which her\r\nmarriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all she could believe\r\npossible. She was more alive to the disgrace which her want of new\r\nclothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of\r\nshame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they\r\ntook place.\r\n\r\nElizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of\r\nthe moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for\r\nher sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the\r\nproper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its\r\nunfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the\r\nspot.\r\n\r\nShe had no fear of its spreading farther through his means. There were\r\nfew people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended;\r\nbut, at the same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's\r\nfrailty would have mortified her so much--not, however, from any fear\r\nof disadvantage from it individually to herself, for, at any rate,\r\nthere seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been\r\nconcluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that\r\nMr. Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other\r\nobjection, would now be added an alliance and relationship of the\r\nnearest kind with a man whom he so justly scorned.\r\n\r\nFrom such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The\r\nwish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his\r\nfeeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a\r\nblow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she\r\nhardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no\r\nlonger hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there\r\nseemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that\r\nshe could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they\r\nshould meet.\r\n\r\nWhat a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the\r\nproposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now\r\nhave been most gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she\r\ndoubted not, as the most generous of his sex; but while he was mortal,\r\nthere must be a triumph.\r\n\r\nShe began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in\r\ndisposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and\r\ntemper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It\r\nwas an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease\r\nand liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved;\r\nand from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she\r\nmust have received benefit of greater importance.\r\n\r\nBut no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what\r\nconnubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and\r\nprecluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their\r\nfamily.\r\n\r\nHow Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence,\r\nshe could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could\r\nbelong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions\r\nwere stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.\r\n\r\n * * * * *\r\n\r\nMr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet's\r\nacknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurance of his eagerness to\r\npromote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with entreaties\r\nthat the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal\r\npurport of his letter was to inform them that Mr. Wickham had resolved\r\non quitting the militia.\r\n\r\n\"It was greatly my wish that he should do so,\" he added, \"as soon as\r\nhis marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in\r\nconsidering the removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on\r\nhis account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into\r\nthe regulars; and among his former friends, there are still some who\r\nare able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an\r\nensigncy in General ----'s regiment, now quartered in the North. It\r\nis an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He\r\npromises fairly; and I hope among different people, where they may each\r\nhave a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have\r\nwritten to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements,\r\nand to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham\r\nin and near Brighton, with assurances of speedy payment, for which I\r\nhave pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying\r\nsimilar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin\r\na list according to his information? He has given in all his debts; I\r\nhope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions,\r\nand all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment,\r\nunless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs.\r\nGardiner, that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she\r\nleaves the South. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to\r\nyou and your mother.--Yours, etc.,\r\n\r\n\"E. GARDINER.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal\r\nfrom the ----shire as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet\r\nwas not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the North,\r\njust when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company,\r\nfor she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in\r\nHertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and, besides, it was such a\r\npity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted\r\nwith everybody, and had so many favourites.\r\n\r\n\"She is so fond of Mrs. Forster,\" said she, \"it will be quite shocking\r\nto send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she\r\nlikes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General ----'s\r\nregiment.\"\r\n\r\nHis daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being\r\nadmitted into her family again before she set off for the North,\r\nreceived at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth,\r\nwho agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and\r\nconsequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents,\r\nurged him so earnestly yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her\r\nand her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was\r\nprevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their\r\nmother had the satisfaction of knowing that she would be able to show\r\nher married daughter in the neighbourhood before she was banished to the\r\nNorth. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent\r\nhis permission for them to come; and it was settled, that as soon as\r\nthe ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was\r\nsurprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme, and\r\nhad she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would\r\nhave been the last object of her wishes.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 51\r\n\r\n\r\nTheir sister's wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her\r\nprobably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to\r\nmeet them at ----, and they were to return in it by dinner-time. Their\r\narrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets, and Jane more especially,\r\nwho gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had she\r\nbeen the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister\r\nmust endure.\r\n\r\nThey came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room to receive\r\nthem. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet as the carriage drove up to\r\nthe door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed,\r\nanxious, uneasy.\r\n\r\nLydia's voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and\r\nshe ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and\r\nwelcomed her with rapture; gave her hand, with an affectionate smile,\r\nto Wickham, who followed his lady; and wished them both joy with an\r\nalacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness.\r\n\r\nTheir reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite\r\nso cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely\r\nopened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was\r\nenough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet\r\nwas shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy,\r\nand fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their\r\ncongratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly\r\nround the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and\r\nobserved, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been\r\nthere.\r\n\r\nWickham was not at all more distressed than herself, but his manners\r\nwere always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been\r\nexactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he\r\nclaimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had\r\nnot before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down,\r\nresolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence\r\nof an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the\r\ntwo who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour.\r\n\r\nThere was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither\r\nof them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near\r\nElizabeth, began inquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood,\r\nwith a good humoured ease which she felt very unable to equal in her\r\nreplies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the\r\nworld. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led\r\nvoluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for\r\nthe world.\r\n\r\n\"Only think of its being three months,\" she cried, \"since I went away;\r\nit seems but a fortnight I declare; and yet there have been things\r\nenough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure\r\nI had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I\r\nthought it would be very good fun if I was.\"\r\n\r\nHer father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked\r\nexpressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of\r\nwhich she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, \"Oh! mamma, do the\r\npeople hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not;\r\nand we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he\r\nshould know it, and so I let down the side-glass next to him, and took\r\noff my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that\r\nhe might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room;\r\nand returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to\r\nthe dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with\r\nanxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say\r\nto her eldest sister, \"Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go\r\nlower, because I am a married woman.\"\r\n\r\nIt was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment\r\nfrom which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good\r\nspirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Phillips, the Lucases, and\r\nall their other neighbours, and to hear herself called \"Mrs. Wickham\"\r\nby each of them; and in the mean time, she went after dinner to show her\r\nring, and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids.\r\n\r\n\"Well, mamma,\" said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast\r\nroom, \"and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I\r\nam sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half\r\nmy good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get\r\nhusbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don't\r\nat all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, lord! yes;--there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all\r\nthings. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We\r\nshall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some\r\nballs, and I will take care to get good partners for them all.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should like it beyond anything!\" said her mother.\r\n\r\n\"And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters\r\nbehind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the\r\nwinter is over.\"\r\n\r\n\"I thank you for my share of the favour,\" said Elizabeth; \"but I do not\r\nparticularly like your way of getting husbands.\"\r\n\r\nTheir visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham\r\nhad received his commission before he left London, and he was to join\r\nhis regiment at the end of a fortnight.\r\n\r\nNo one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short; and\r\nshe made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and\r\nhaving very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to\r\nall; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did\r\nthink, than such as did not.\r\n\r\nWickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected\r\nto find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her\r\npresent observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that\r\ntheir elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather\r\nthan by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring\r\nfor her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain\r\nthat his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and\r\nif that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity\r\nof having a companion.\r\n\r\nLydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every\r\noccasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every\r\nthing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on\r\nthe first of September, than any body else in the country.\r\n\r\nOne morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two\r\nelder sisters, she said to Elizabeth:\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You\r\nwere not by, when I told mamma and the others all about it. Are not you\r\ncurious to hear how it was managed?\"\r\n\r\n\"No really,\" replied Elizabeth; \"I think there cannot be too little said\r\non the subject.\"\r\n\r\n\"La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were\r\nmarried, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in\r\nthat parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven\r\no'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others\r\nwere to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in\r\nsuch a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to\r\nput it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was\r\nmy aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as\r\nif she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in\r\nten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed\r\nto know whether he would be married in his blue coat.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never\r\nbe over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt\r\nwere horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe\r\nme, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a\r\nfortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or anything. To be sure London was\r\nrather thin, but, however, the Little Theatre was open. Well, and so\r\njust as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon\r\nbusiness to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once\r\nthey get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I\r\ndid not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we\r\nwere beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he\r\ncame back again in ten minutes' time, and then we all set out. However,\r\nI recollected afterwards that if he had been prevented going, the\r\nwedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well.\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy!\" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement.\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious\r\nme! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised\r\nthem so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!\"\r\n\r\n\"If it was to be secret,\" said Jane, \"say not another word on the\r\nsubject. You may depend upon my seeking no further.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! certainly,\" said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; \"we will\r\nask you no questions.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thank you,\" said Lydia, \"for if you did, I should certainly tell you\r\nall, and then Wickham would be angry.\"\r\n\r\nOn such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her\r\npower, by running away.\r\n\r\nBut to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least\r\nit was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at\r\nher sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people,\r\nwhere he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go.\r\nConjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her\r\nbrain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as\r\nplacing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She\r\ncould not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper,\r\nwrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what\r\nLydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been\r\nintended.\r\n\r\n\"You may readily comprehend,\" she added, \"what my curiosity must be\r\nto know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively\r\nspeaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such\r\na time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it--unless it is,\r\nfor very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems\r\nto think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with\r\nignorance.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not that I _shall_, though,\" she added to herself, as she finished\r\nthe letter; \"and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable\r\nmanner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it\r\nout.\"\r\n\r\nJane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to\r\nElizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad\r\nof it;--till it appeared whether her inquiries would receive any\r\nsatisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 52\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as\r\nsoon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it\r\nthan, hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to\r\nbe interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to\r\nbe happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not\r\ncontain a denial.\r\n\r\n\"Gracechurch street, Sept. 6.\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAR NIECE,\r\n\r\n\"I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning\r\nto answering it, as I foresee that a _little_ writing will not comprise\r\nwhat I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your\r\napplication; I did not expect it from _you_. Don't think me angry,\r\nhowever, for I only mean to let you know that I had not imagined such\r\ninquiries to be necessary on _your_ side. If you do not choose to\r\nunderstand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised\r\nas I am--and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned\r\nwould have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really\r\ninnocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit.\r\n\r\n\"On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most\r\nunexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several\r\nhours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so\r\ndreadfully racked as _yours_ seems to have been. He came to tell Mr.\r\nGardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were,\r\nand that he had seen and talked with them both; Wickham repeatedly,\r\nLydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day\r\nafter ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for\r\nthem. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to\r\nhimself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known as to\r\nmake it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide\r\nin him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and\r\nconfessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private\r\nactions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He\r\ncalled it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy\r\nan evil which had been brought on by himself. If he _had another_\r\nmotive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days\r\nin town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to\r\ndirect his search, which was more than _we_ had; and the consciousness\r\nof this was another reason for his resolving to follow us.\r\n\r\n\"There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago\r\ngoverness to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause\r\nof disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large\r\nhouse in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting\r\nlodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with\r\nWickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to\r\ntown. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he\r\nwanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and\r\ncorruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found.\r\nWickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had\r\nshe been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up\r\ntheir abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the\r\nwished-for direction. They were in ---- street. He saw Wickham, and\r\nafterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he\r\nacknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful\r\nsituation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed\r\non to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But\r\nhe found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared\r\nfor none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear\r\nof leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or\r\nother, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings,\r\nit only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which,\r\nin his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never\r\nbeen _his_ design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment,\r\non account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing; and\r\nscrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia's flight on her\r\nown folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as\r\nto his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He\r\nmust go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have\r\nnothing to live on.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once. Though\r\nMr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able\r\nto do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by\r\nmarriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still\r\ncherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage in\r\nsome other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely\r\nto be proof against the temptation of immediate relief.\r\n\r\n\"They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham of\r\ncourse wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be\r\nreasonable.\r\n\r\n\"Every thing being settled between _them_, Mr. Darcy's next step was to\r\nmake your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch\r\nstreet the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be\r\nseen, and Mr. Darcy found, on further inquiry, that your father was\r\nstill with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge\r\nyour father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your\r\nuncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the\r\ndeparture of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next\r\nday it was only known that a gentleman had called on business.\r\n\r\n\"On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home,\r\nand, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together.\r\n\r\n\"They met again on Sunday, and then _I_ saw him too. It was not all\r\nsettled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to\r\nLongbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that\r\nobstinacy is the real defect of his character, after all. He has been\r\naccused of many faults at different times, but _this_ is the true one.\r\nNothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and\r\nI do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it), your\r\nuncle would most readily have settled the whole.\r\n\r\n\"They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either\r\nthe gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle\r\nwas forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his\r\nniece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it,\r\nwhich went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter\r\nthis morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation\r\nthat would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where\r\nit was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no farther than yourself, or Jane\r\nat most.\r\n\r\n\"You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young\r\npeople. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably\r\nmore than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own\r\nsettled upon _her_, and his commission purchased. The reason why all\r\nthis was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It\r\nwas owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that\r\nWickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he\r\nhad been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth\r\nin _this_; though I doubt whether _his_ reserve, or _anybody's_ reserve,\r\ncan be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking,\r\nmy dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would\r\nnever have yielded, if we had not given him credit for _another\r\ninterest_ in the affair.\r\n\r\n\"When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who\r\nwere still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in\r\nLondon once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were\r\nthen to receive the last finish.\r\n\r\n\"I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which\r\nyou tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not\r\nafford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us; and Wickham had constant\r\nadmission to the house. _He_ was exactly what he had been, when I\r\nknew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was\r\nsatisfied with her behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not\r\nperceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming\r\nhome was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell\r\nyou can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most\r\nserious manner, representing to her all the wickedness of what she had\r\ndone, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she\r\nheard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was\r\nsometimes quite provoked, but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and\r\nJane, and for their sakes had patience with her.\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and as Lydia informed you,\r\nattended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave\r\ntown again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my\r\ndear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold\r\nenough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has,\r\nin every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His\r\nunderstanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little\r\nmore liveliness, and _that_, if he marry _prudently_, his wife may teach\r\nhim. I thought him very sly;--he hardly ever mentioned your name. But\r\nslyness seems the fashion.\r\n\r\n\"Pray forgive me if I have been very presuming, or at least do not\r\npunish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy\r\ntill I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little\r\npair of ponies, would be the very thing.\r\n\r\n\"But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half\r\nhour.\r\n\r\n\"Yours, very sincerely,\r\n\r\n\"M. GARDINER.\"\r\n\r\nThe contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits,\r\nin which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the\r\ngreatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had\r\nproduced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's\r\nmatch, which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too\r\ngreat to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the\r\npain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true!\r\nHe had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all\r\nthe trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which\r\nsupplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and\r\ndespise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason\r\nwith, persuade, and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to\r\navoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had\r\ndone all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her\r\nheart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly\r\nchecked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity\r\nwas insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her--for\r\na woman who had already refused him--as able to overcome a sentiment so\r\nnatural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law\r\nof Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had,\r\nto be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had\r\ngiven a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary\r\nstretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been\r\nwrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and\r\nthough she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she\r\ncould, perhaps, believe that remaining partiality for her might assist\r\nhis endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially\r\nconcerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were\r\nunder obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They\r\nowed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing, to him. Oh!\r\nhow heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever\r\nencouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For\r\nherself she was humbled; but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause\r\nof compassion and honour, he had been able to get the better of himself.\r\nShe read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It\r\nwas hardly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some\r\npleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she\r\nand her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted\r\nbetween Mr. Darcy and herself.\r\n\r\nShe was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by some one's\r\napproach; and before she could strike into another path, she was\r\novertaken by Wickham.\r\n\r\n\"I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?\" said he,\r\nas he joined her.\r\n\r\n\"You certainly do,\" she replied with a smile; \"but it does not follow\r\nthat the interruption must be unwelcome.\"\r\n\r\n\"I should be sorry indeed, if it were. We were always good friends; and\r\nnow we are better.\"\r\n\r\n\"True. Are the others coming out?\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to\r\nMeryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that\r\nyou have actually seen Pemberley.\"\r\n\r\nShe replied in the affirmative.\r\n\r\n\"I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much\r\nfor me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the\r\nold housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of\r\nme. But of course she did not mention my name to you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, she did.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what did she say?\"\r\n\r\n\"That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had--not turned\r\nout well. At such a distance as _that_, you know, things are strangely\r\nmisrepresented.\"\r\n\r\n\"Certainly,\" he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had\r\nsilenced him; but he soon afterwards said:\r\n\r\n\"I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other\r\nseveral times. I wonder what he can be doing there.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh,\" said\r\nElizabeth. \"It must be something particular, to take him there at this\r\ntime of year.\"\r\n\r\n\"Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I\r\nunderstood from the Gardiners that you had.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; he introduced us to his sister.\"\r\n\r\n\"And do you like her?\"\r\n\r\n\"Very much.\"\r\n\r\n\"I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year\r\nor two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad\r\nyou liked her. I hope she will turn out well.\"\r\n\r\n\"I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did you go by the village of Kympton?\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not recollect that we did.\"\r\n\r\n\"I mention it, because it is the living which I ought to have had. A\r\nmost delightful place!--Excellent Parsonage House! It would have suited\r\nme in every respect.\"\r\n\r\n\"How should you have liked making sermons?\"\r\n\r\n\"Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty,\r\nand the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to\r\nrepine;--but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The\r\nquiet, the retirement of such a life would have answered all my ideas\r\nof happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the\r\ncircumstance, when you were in Kent?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have heard from authority, which I thought _as good_, that it was\r\nleft you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have. Yes, there was something in _that_; I told you so from the\r\nfirst, you may remember.\"\r\n\r\n\"I _did_ hear, too, that there was a time, when sermon-making was not\r\nso palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually\r\ndeclared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business\r\nhad been compromised accordingly.\"\r\n\r\n\"You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember\r\nwhat I told you on that point, when first we talked of it.\"\r\n\r\nThey were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast\r\nto get rid of him; and unwilling, for her sister's sake, to provoke him,\r\nshe only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile:\r\n\r\n\"Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let\r\nus quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one\r\nmind.\"\r\n\r\nShe held out her hand; he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though\r\nhe hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 53\r\n\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he\r\nnever again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth,\r\nby introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she\r\nhad said enough to keep him quiet.\r\n\r\nThe day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was\r\nforced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means\r\nentered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to\r\ncontinue at least a twelvemonth.\r\n\r\n\"Oh! my dear Lydia,\" she cried, \"when shall we meet again?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps.\"\r\n\r\n\"Write to me very often, my dear.\"\r\n\r\n\"As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for\r\nwriting. My sisters may write to _me_. They will have nothing else to\r\ndo.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He\r\nsmiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things.\r\n\r\n\"He is as fine a fellow,\" said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of\r\nthe house, \"as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to\r\nus all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas\r\nhimself to produce a more valuable son-in-law.\"\r\n\r\nThe loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days.\r\n\r\n\"I often think,\" said she, \"that there is nothing so bad as parting with\r\none's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter,\" said\r\nElizabeth. \"It must make you better satisfied that your other four are\r\nsingle.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married,\r\nbut only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If\r\nthat had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon.\"\r\n\r\nBut the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly\r\nrelieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an\r\narticle of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper\r\nat Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her\r\nmaster, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several\r\nweeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and\r\nsmiled and shook her head by turns.\r\n\r\n\"Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister,\" (for Mrs.\r\nPhillips first brought her the news). \"Well, so much the better. Not\r\nthat I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am\r\nsure _I_ never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome\r\nto come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what _may_ happen?\r\nBut that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to\r\nmention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?\"\r\n\r\n\"You may depend on it,\" replied the other, \"for Mrs. Nicholls was in\r\nMeryton last night; I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose\r\nto know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certain true. He\r\ncomes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was\r\ngoing to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on\r\nWednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing\r\ncolour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to\r\nElizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said:\r\n\r\n\"I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present\r\nreport; and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from\r\nany silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that\r\nI _should_ be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect\r\nme either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes\r\nalone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of\r\n_myself_, but I dread other people's remarks.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in\r\nDerbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no\r\nother view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial\r\nto Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming\r\nthere _with_ his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come\r\nwithout it.\r\n\r\n\"Yet it is hard,\" she sometimes thought, \"that this poor man cannot\r\ncome to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this\r\nspeculation! I _will_ leave him to himself.\"\r\n\r\nIn spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her\r\nfeelings in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily\r\nperceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed,\r\nmore unequal, than she had often seen them.\r\n\r\nThe subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents,\r\nabout a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again.\r\n\r\n\"As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"you\r\nwill wait on him of course.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I\r\nwent to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in\r\nnothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again.\"\r\n\r\nHis wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention\r\nwould be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to\r\nNetherfield.\r\n\r\n\"'Tis an etiquette I despise,\" said he. \"If he wants our society,\r\nlet him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours\r\nin running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back\r\nagain.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait\r\non him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I\r\nam determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will\r\nmake thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for\r\nhim.\"\r\n\r\nConsoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her\r\nhusband's incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her\r\nneighbours might all see Mr. Bingley, in consequence of it, before\r\n_they_ did. As the day of his arrival drew near,--\r\n\r\n\"I begin to be sorry that he comes at all,\" said Jane to her sister. \"It\r\nwould be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can\r\nhardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well;\r\nbut she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she\r\nsays. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!\"\r\n\r\n\"I wish I could say anything to comfort you,\" replied Elizabeth; \"but it\r\nis wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction\r\nof preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have\r\nalways so much.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants,\r\ncontrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety\r\nand fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted\r\nthe days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent;\r\nhopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his\r\narrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him, from her dressing-room window,\r\nenter the paddock and ride towards the house.\r\n\r\nHer daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely\r\nkept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went\r\nto the window--she looked,--she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down\r\nagain by her sister.\r\n\r\n\"There is a gentleman with him, mamma,\" said Kitty; \"who can it be?\"\r\n\r\n\"Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not\r\nknow.\"\r\n\r\n\"La!\" replied Kitty, \"it looks just like that man that used to be with\r\nhim before. Mr. what's-his-name. That tall, proud man.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!--and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of\r\nMr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must\r\nsay that I hate the very sight of him.\"\r\n\r\nJane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little\r\nof their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness\r\nwhich must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time\r\nafter receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable\r\nenough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their\r\nmother talked on, of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be\r\ncivil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either\r\nof them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be\r\nsuspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs.\r\nGardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him.\r\nTo Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused,\r\nand whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive\r\ninformation, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted\r\nfor the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an\r\ninterest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as\r\nwhat Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming--at his\r\ncoming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again,\r\nwas almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered\r\nbehaviour in Derbyshire.\r\n\r\nThe colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a\r\nminute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to\r\nher eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and\r\nwishes must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure.\r\n\r\n\"Let me first see how he behaves,\" said she; \"it will then be early\r\nenough for expectation.\"\r\n\r\nShe sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to\r\nlift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of\r\nher sister as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little\r\npaler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the\r\ngentlemen's appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with\r\ntolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any\r\nsymptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance.\r\n\r\nElizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down\r\nagain to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She\r\nhad ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as usual; and,\r\nshe thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as\r\nshe had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother's\r\npresence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but\r\nnot an improbable, conjecture.\r\n\r\nBingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period\r\nsaw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs.\r\nBennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed,\r\nespecially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of\r\nher curtsey and address to his friend.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter\r\nthe preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy,\r\nwas hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill\r\napplied.\r\n\r\nDarcy, after inquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question\r\nwhich she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely anything. He\r\nwas not seated by her; perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but\r\nit had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends,\r\nwhen he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed without\r\nbringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist\r\nthe impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often\r\nfound him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but\r\nthe ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when\r\nthey last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry\r\nwith herself for being so.\r\n\r\n\"Could I expect it to be otherwise!\" said she. \"Yet why did he come?\"\r\n\r\nShe was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself; and to\r\nhim she had hardly courage to speak.\r\n\r\nShe inquired after his sister, but could do no more.\r\n\r\n\"It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away,\" said Mrs. Bennet.\r\n\r\nHe readily agreed to it.\r\n\r\n\"I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People _did_ say\r\nyou meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope\r\nit is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood,\r\nsince you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my\r\nown daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have\r\nseen it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know;\r\nthough it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately,\r\nGeorge Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a\r\nsyllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or anything.\r\nIt was my brother Gardiner's drawing up too, and I wonder how he came to\r\nmake such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?\"\r\n\r\nBingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth\r\ndared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could\r\nnot tell.\r\n\r\n\"It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married,\"\r\ncontinued her mother, \"but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very\r\nhard to have her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to\r\nNewcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay\r\nI do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have\r\nheard of his leaving the ----shire, and of his being gone into the\r\nregulars. Thank Heaven! he has _some_ friends, though perhaps not so\r\nmany as he deserves.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such\r\nmisery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her,\r\nhowever, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually\r\ndone before; and she asked Bingley whether he meant to make any stay in\r\nthe country at present. A few weeks, he believed.\r\n\r\n\"When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley,\" said her mother,\r\n\"I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr.\r\nBennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and\r\nwill save all the best of the covies for you.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious\r\nattention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present as had\r\nflattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be\r\nhastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant, she felt\r\nthat years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for\r\nmoments of such painful confusion.\r\n\r\n\"The first wish of my heart,\" said she to herself, \"is never more to\r\nbe in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure\r\nthat will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either\r\none or the other again!\"\r\n\r\nYet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no\r\ncompensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing\r\nhow much the beauty of her sister re-kindled the admiration of her\r\nformer lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little;\r\nbut every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He\r\nfound her as handsome as she had been last year; as good natured, and\r\nas unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no\r\ndifference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded\r\nthat she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busily engaged,\r\nthat she did not always know when she was silent.\r\n\r\nWhen the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her\r\nintended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at\r\nLongbourn in a few days time.\r\n\r\n\"You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley,\" she added, \"for when\r\nyou went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with\r\nus, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure\r\nyou, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep\r\nyour engagement.\"\r\n\r\nBingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of\r\nhis concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine\r\nthere that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did\r\nnot think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man\r\non whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride\r\nof one who had ten thousand a year.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 54\r\n\r\n\r\nAs soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits;\r\nor in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that\r\nmust deaden them more. Mr. Darcy's behaviour astonished and vexed her.\r\n\r\n\"Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent,\" said she,\r\n\"did he come at all?\"\r\n\r\nShe could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure.\r\n\r\n\"He could be still amiable, still pleasing, to my uncle and aunt, when\r\nhe was in town; and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If\r\nhe no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing, man! I will\r\nthink no more about him.\"\r\n\r\nHer resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach\r\nof her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look, which showed her\r\nbetter satisfied with their visitors, than Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"Now,\" said she, \"that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly\r\neasy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by\r\nhis coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly\r\nseen that, on both sides, we meet only as common and indifferent\r\nacquaintance.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, very indifferent indeed,\" said Elizabeth, laughingly. \"Oh, Jane,\r\ntake care.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak, as to be in danger now?\"\r\n\r\n\"I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with\r\nyou as ever.\"\r\n\r\n * * * * *\r\n\r\nThey did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in\r\nthe meanwhile, was giving way to all the happy schemes, which the good\r\nhumour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour's visit, had\r\nrevived.\r\n\r\nOn Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two\r\nwho were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality\r\nas sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the\r\ndining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take\r\nthe place, which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by\r\nher sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore\r\nto invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to\r\nhesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was\r\ndecided. He placed himself by her.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend.\r\nHe bore it with noble indifference, and she would have imagined that\r\nBingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes\r\nlikewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of half-laughing\r\nalarm.\r\n\r\nHis behaviour to her sister was such, during dinner time, as showed an\r\nadmiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded\r\nElizabeth, that if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his\r\nown, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the\r\nconsequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It\r\ngave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in\r\nno cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table\r\ncould divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little\r\nsuch a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to\r\nadvantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse, but\r\nshe could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and\r\ncold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother's ungraciousness,\r\nmade the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth's mind;\r\nand she would, at times, have given anything to be privileged to tell\r\nhim that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the\r\nfamily.\r\n\r\nShe was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of\r\nbringing them together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away\r\nwithout enabling them to enter into something more of conversation than\r\nthe mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance. Anxious\r\nand uneasy, the period which passed in the drawing-room, before the\r\ngentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her\r\nuncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all\r\nher chance of pleasure for the evening must depend.\r\n\r\n\"If he does not come to me, _then_,\" said she, \"I shall give him up for\r\never.\"\r\n\r\nThe gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if he would have\r\nanswered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table,\r\nwhere Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee,\r\nin so close a confederacy that there was not a single vacancy near her\r\nwhich would admit of a chair. And on the gentlemen's approaching, one of\r\nthe girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper:\r\n\r\n\"The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them;\r\ndo we?\"\r\n\r\nDarcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with\r\nher eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough\r\nto help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for\r\nbeing so silly!\r\n\r\n\"A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to\r\nexpect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex, who would not\r\nprotest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman?\r\nThere is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!\"\r\n\r\nShe was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup\r\nhimself; and she seized the opportunity of saying:\r\n\r\n\"Is your sister at Pemberley still?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, she will remain there till Christmas.\"\r\n\r\n\"And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?\"\r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarborough,\r\nthese three weeks.\"\r\n\r\nShe could think of nothing more to say; but if he wished to converse\r\nwith her, he might have better success. He stood by her, however, for\r\nsome minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the young lady's whispering\r\nto Elizabeth again, he walked away.\r\n\r\nWhen the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed, the ladies\r\nall rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him,\r\nwhen all her views were overthrown by seeing him fall a victim to her\r\nmother's rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated\r\nwith the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure.\r\nThey were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had\r\nnothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side\r\nof the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to\r\nsupper; but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the\r\nothers, and she had no opportunity of detaining them.\r\n\r\n\"Well girls,\" said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, \"What\r\nsay you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well,\r\nI assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The\r\nvenison was roasted to a turn--and everybody said they never saw so\r\nfat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the\r\nLucases' last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges\r\nwere remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French\r\ncooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater\r\nbeauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And\r\nwhat do you think she said besides? 'Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her\r\nat Netherfield at last.' She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good\r\na creature as ever lived--and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls,\r\nand not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits; she had seen enough of\r\nBingley's behaviour to Jane, to be convinced that she would get him at\r\nlast; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy\r\nhumour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at\r\nnot seeing him there again the next day, to make his proposals.\r\n\r\n\"It has been a very agreeable day,\" said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth. \"The\r\nparty seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we\r\nmay often meet again.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth smiled.\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me.\r\nI assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an\r\nagreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am\r\nperfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had\r\nany design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed\r\nwith greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally\r\npleasing, than any other man.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are very cruel,\" said her sister, \"you will not let me smile, and\r\nare provoking me to it every moment.\"\r\n\r\n\"How hard it is in some cases to be believed!\"\r\n\r\n\"And how impossible in others!\"\r\n\r\n\"But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I\r\nacknowledge?\"\r\n\r\n\"That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to\r\ninstruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive\r\nme; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 55\r\n\r\n\r\nA few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone. His\r\nfriend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in\r\nten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably\r\ngood spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many\r\nexpressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere.\r\n\r\n\"Next time you call,\" said she, \"I hope we shall be more lucky.\"\r\n\r\nHe should be particularly happy at any time, etc. etc.; and if she would\r\ngive him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them.\r\n\r\n\"Can you come to-morrow?\"\r\n\r\nYes, he had no engagement at all for to-morrow; and her invitation was\r\naccepted with alacrity.\r\n\r\nHe came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them\r\ndressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing\r\ngown, and with her hair half finished, crying out:\r\n\r\n\"My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come--Mr. Bingley is\r\ncome. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss\r\nBennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss\r\nLizzy's hair.\"\r\n\r\n\"We will be down as soon as we can,\" said Jane; \"but I dare say Kitty is\r\nforwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick!\r\nWhere is your sash, my dear?\"\r\n\r\nBut when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down\r\nwithout one of her sisters.\r\n\r\nThe same anxiety to get them by themselves was visible again in the\r\nevening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his\r\ncustom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of\r\nthe five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at\r\nElizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any\r\nimpression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last\r\nKitty did, she very innocently said, \"What is the matter mamma? What do\r\nyou keep winking at me for? What am I to do?\"\r\n\r\n\"Nothing child, nothing. I did not wink at you.\" She then sat still\r\nfive minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she\r\nsuddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, \"Come here, my love, I want to\r\nspeak to you,\" took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look\r\nat Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her\r\nentreaty that _she_ would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs.\r\nBennet half-opened the door and called out:\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was forced to go.\r\n\r\n\"We may as well leave them by themselves you know;\" said her mother, as\r\nsoon as she was in the hall. \"Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in\r\nmy dressing-room.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained\r\nquietly in the hall, till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned\r\ninto the drawing-room.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet's schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was every\r\nthing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His\r\nease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their\r\nevening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the\r\nmother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command\r\nof countenance particularly grateful to the daughter.\r\n\r\nHe scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper; and before he went\r\naway, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs.\r\nBennet's means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband.\r\n\r\nAfter this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed\r\nbetween the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in\r\nthe happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy\r\nreturned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably\r\npersuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman's\r\nconcurrence.\r\n\r\nBingley was punctual to his appointment; and he and Mr. Bennet spent\r\nthe morning together, as had been agreed on. The latter was much more\r\nagreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption\r\nor folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into\r\nsilence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the\r\nother had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner;\r\nand in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get\r\nevery body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter\r\nto write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea;\r\nfor as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be\r\nwanted to counteract her mother's schemes.\r\n\r\nBut on returning to the drawing-room, when her letter was finished, she\r\nsaw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother\r\nhad been too ingenious for her. On opening the door, she perceived her\r\nsister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in\r\nearnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of\r\nboth, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would\r\nhave told it all. Their situation was awkward enough; but _hers_ she\r\nthought was still worse. Not a syllable was uttered by either; and\r\nElizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as\r\nwell as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and whispering a few\r\nwords to her sister, ran out of the room.\r\n\r\nJane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give\r\npleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest\r\nemotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world.\r\n\r\n\"'Tis too much!\" she added, \"by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh!\r\nwhy is not everybody as happy?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth,\r\na delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of\r\nkindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not\r\nallow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be\r\nsaid for the present.\r\n\r\n\"I must go instantly to my mother;\" she cried. \"I would not on any\r\naccount trifle with her affectionate solicitude; or allow her to hear it\r\nfrom anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to\r\nknow that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear\r\nfamily! how shall I bear so much happiness!\"\r\n\r\nShe then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the\r\ncard party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty.\r\n\r\nElizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease\r\nwith which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many\r\nprevious months of suspense and vexation.\r\n\r\n\"And this,\" said she, \"is the end of all his friend's anxious\r\ncircumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the\r\nhappiest, wisest, most reasonable end!\"\r\n\r\nIn a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her\r\nfather had been short and to the purpose.\r\n\r\n\"Where is your sister?\" said he hastily, as he opened the door.\r\n\r\n\"With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say.\"\r\n\r\nHe then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes\r\nand affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed\r\nher delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with\r\ngreat cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen\r\nto all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections;\r\nand in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his\r\nexpectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for\r\nbasis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of\r\nJane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and\r\nhimself.\r\n\r\nIt was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of\r\nMiss Bennet's mind gave a glow of such sweet animation to her face, as\r\nmade her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped\r\nher turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent or\r\nspeak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings,\r\nthough she talked to Bingley of nothing else for half an hour; and when\r\nMr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed\r\nhow really happy he was.\r\n\r\nNot a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their\r\nvisitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he\r\nturned to his daughter, and said:\r\n\r\n\"Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman.\"\r\n\r\nJane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his\r\ngoodness.\r\n\r\n\"You are a good girl;\" he replied, \"and I have great pleasure in\r\nthinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your\r\ndoing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are\r\neach of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so\r\neasy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will\r\nalways exceed your income.\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be\r\nunpardonable in me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet,\" cried his wife, \"what are you\r\ntalking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely\r\nmore.\" Then addressing her daughter, \"Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so\r\nhappy! I am sure I shan't get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it\r\nwould be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not\r\nbe so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when\r\nhe first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was\r\nthat you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that\r\never was seen!\"\r\n\r\nWickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her\r\nfavourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger\r\nsisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness\r\nwhich she might in future be able to dispense.\r\n\r\nMary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty\r\nbegged very hard for a few balls there every winter.\r\n\r\nBingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn;\r\ncoming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after\r\nsupper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough\r\ndetested, had given him an invitation to dinner which he thought himself\r\nobliged to accept.\r\n\r\nElizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for\r\nwhile he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on anyone else;\r\nbut she found herself considerably useful to both of them in those hours\r\nof separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he\r\nalways attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of\r\nher; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of\r\nrelief.\r\n\r\n\"He has made me so happy,\" said she, one evening, \"by telling me that he\r\nwas totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed\r\nit possible.\"\r\n\r\n\"I suspected as much,\" replied Elizabeth. \"But how did he account for\r\nit?\"\r\n\r\n\"It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to\r\nhis acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have\r\nchosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see,\r\nas I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will\r\nlearn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we\r\ncan never be what we once were to each other.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is the most unforgiving speech,\" said Elizabeth, \"that I ever\r\nheard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again\r\nthe dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard.\"\r\n\r\n\"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November,\r\nhe really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being\r\nindifferent would have prevented his coming down again!\"\r\n\r\n\"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his\r\nmodesty.\"\r\n\r\nThis naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and\r\nthe little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased\r\nto find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for,\r\nthough Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she\r\nknew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him.\r\n\r\n\"I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!\" cried\r\nJane. \"Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed\r\nabove them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but\r\nsuch another man for you!\"\r\n\r\n\"If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as\r\nyou. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your\r\nhappiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very\r\ngood luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.\"\r\n\r\nThe situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a\r\nsecret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Phillips,\r\nand she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her\r\nneighbours in Meryton.\r\n\r\nThe Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the\r\nworld, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away,\r\nthey had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 56\r\n\r\n\r\nOne morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been\r\nformed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the\r\ndining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the\r\nsound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up\r\nthe lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the\r\nequipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses\r\nwere post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who\r\npreceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that\r\nsomebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid\r\nthe confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the\r\nshrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three\r\ncontinued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown\r\nopen and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh.\r\n\r\nThey were of course all intending to be surprised; but their\r\nastonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs.\r\nBennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even\r\ninferior to what Elizabeth felt.\r\n\r\nShe entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no\r\nother reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the\r\nhead, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her\r\nname to her mother on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of\r\nintroduction had been made.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such\r\nhigh importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting\r\nfor a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth,\r\n\r\n\"I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your\r\nmother.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth replied very concisely that she was.\r\n\r\n\"And _that_ I suppose is one of your sisters.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, madam,\" said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to Lady Catherine.\r\n\"She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married,\r\nand my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man\r\nwho, I believe, will soon become a part of the family.\"\r\n\r\n\"You have a very small park here,\" returned Lady Catherine after a short\r\nsilence.\r\n\r\n\"It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I\r\nassure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's.\"\r\n\r\n\"This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in\r\nsummer; the windows are full west.\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then\r\nadded:\r\n\r\n\"May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and\r\nMrs. Collins well.\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from\r\nCharlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no\r\nletter appeared, and she was completely puzzled.\r\n\r\nMrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some\r\nrefreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely,\r\ndeclined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth,\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness\r\non one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you\r\nwill favour me with your company.\"\r\n\r\n\"Go, my dear,\" cried her mother, \"and show her ladyship about the\r\ndifferent walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol,\r\nattended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the\r\nhall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and\r\ndrawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent\r\nlooking rooms, walked on.\r\n\r\nHer carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her\r\nwaiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk\r\nthat led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for\r\nconversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and\r\ndisagreeable.\r\n\r\n\"How could I ever think her like her nephew?\" said she, as she looked in\r\nher face.\r\n\r\nAs soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following\r\nmanner:--\r\n\r\n\"You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my\r\njourney hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I\r\ncome.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment.\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account\r\nfor the honour of seeing you here.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bennet,\" replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, \"you ought to\r\nknow, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere _you_ may\r\nchoose to be, you shall not find _me_ so. My character has ever been\r\ncelebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such\r\nmoment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most\r\nalarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your\r\nsister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that\r\nyou, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon\r\nafterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I\r\n_know_ it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him\r\nso much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved\r\non setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to\r\nyou.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you believed it impossible to be true,\" said Elizabeth, colouring\r\nwith astonishment and disdain, \"I wonder you took the trouble of coming\r\nso far. What could your ladyship propose by it?\"\r\n\r\n\"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,\" said Elizabeth\r\ncoolly, \"will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report\r\nis in existence.\"\r\n\r\n\"If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been\r\nindustriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a\r\nreport is spread abroad?\"\r\n\r\n\"I never heard that it was.\"\r\n\r\n\"And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may\r\nask questions which I shall not choose to answer.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has\r\nhe, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?\"\r\n\r\n\"Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.\"\r\n\r\n\"It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his\r\nreason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation,\r\nhave made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You\r\nmay have drawn him in.\"\r\n\r\n\"If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such\r\nlanguage as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world,\r\nand am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this,\r\never induce me to be explicit.\"\r\n\r\n\"Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the\r\npresumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is\r\nengaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?\"\r\n\r\n\"Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will\r\nmake an offer to me.\"\r\n\r\nLady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied:\r\n\r\n\"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy,\r\nthey have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of\r\n_his_ mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned\r\nthe union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would\r\nbe accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of\r\ninferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to\r\nthe family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his\r\ntacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of\r\npropriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest\r\nhours he was destined for his cousin?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is\r\nno other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not\r\nbe kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to\r\nmarry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the\r\nmarriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither\r\nby honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make\r\nanother choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes,\r\nMiss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or\r\nfriends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will\r\nbe censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him.\r\nYour alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned\r\nby any of us.\"\r\n\r\n\"These are heavy misfortunes,\" replied Elizabeth. \"But the wife of Mr.\r\nDarcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily\r\nattached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause\r\nto repine.\"\r\n\r\n\"Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude\r\nfor my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that\r\nscore? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came\r\nhere with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will\r\nI be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's\r\nwhims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.\"\r\n\r\n\"_That_ will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable;\r\nbut it will have no effect on me.\"\r\n\r\n\"I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my\r\nnephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal\r\nside, from the same noble line; and, on the father's, from respectable,\r\nhonourable, and ancient--though untitled--families. Their fortune on\r\nboth sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of\r\nevery member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them?\r\nThe upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections,\r\nor fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you\r\nwere sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in\r\nwhich you have been brought up.\"\r\n\r\n\"In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that\r\nsphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are\r\nequal.\"\r\n\r\n\"True. You _are_ a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother?\r\nWho are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their\r\ncondition.\"\r\n\r\n\"Whatever my connections may be,\" said Elizabeth, \"if your nephew does\r\nnot object to them, they can be nothing to _you_.\"\r\n\r\n\"Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?\"\r\n\r\nThough Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady\r\nCatherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a\r\nmoment's deliberation:\r\n\r\n\"I am not.\"\r\n\r\nLady Catherine seemed pleased.\r\n\r\n\"And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?\"\r\n\r\n\"I will make no promise of the kind.\"\r\n\r\n\"Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more\r\nreasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that\r\nI will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the\r\nassurance I require.\"\r\n\r\n\"And I certainly _never_ shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into\r\nanything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry\r\nyour daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their\r\nmarriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would\r\nmy refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin?\r\nAllow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have\r\nsupported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the\r\napplication was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if\r\nyou think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your\r\nnephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell;\r\nbut you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg,\r\ntherefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the\r\nobjections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am\r\nno stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous\r\nelopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a\r\npatched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is\r\nsuch a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, is the son of his\r\nlate father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!--of what are\r\nyou thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?\"\r\n\r\n\"You can now have nothing further to say,\" she resentfully answered.\r\n\"You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to\r\nthe house.\"\r\n\r\nAnd she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned\r\nback. Her ladyship was highly incensed.\r\n\r\n\"You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew!\r\nUnfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you\r\nmust disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?\"\r\n\r\n\"Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.\"\r\n\r\n\"You are then resolved to have him?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner,\r\nwhich will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without\r\nreference to _you_, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the\r\nclaims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in\r\nthe opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.\"\r\n\r\n\"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude,\" replied Elizabeth, \"have any\r\npossible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either\r\nwould be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the\r\nresentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former\r\n_were_ excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's\r\nconcern--and the world in general would have too much sense to join in\r\nthe scorn.\"\r\n\r\n\"And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well.\r\nI shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your\r\nambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you\r\nreasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point.\"\r\n\r\nIn this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of\r\nthe carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added, \"I take no leave\r\nof you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve\r\nno such attention. I am most seriously displeased.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her\r\nladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She\r\nheard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother\r\nimpatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady\r\nCatherine would not come in again and rest herself.\r\n\r\n\"She did not choose it,\" said her daughter, \"she would go.\"\r\n\r\n\"She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously\r\ncivil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were\r\nwell. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through\r\nMeryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had\r\nnothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to\r\nacknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 57\r\n\r\n\r\nThe discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw\r\nElizabeth into, could not be easily overcome; nor could she, for many\r\nhours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine, it\r\nappeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings,\r\nfor the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr.\r\nDarcy. It was a rational scheme, to be sure! but from what the report\r\nof their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine;\r\ntill she recollected that _his_ being the intimate friend of Bingley,\r\nand _her_ being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the\r\nexpectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply\r\nthe idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her\r\nsister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours\r\nat Lucas Lodge, therefore (for through their communication with the\r\nCollinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine), had\r\nonly set that down as almost certain and immediate, which she had looked\r\nforward to as possible at some future time.\r\n\r\nIn revolving Lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help\r\nfeeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting\r\nin this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to\r\nprevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate\r\nan application to her nephew; and how _he_ might take a similar\r\nrepresentation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared\r\nnot pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his\r\naunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose\r\nthat he thought much higher of her ladyship than _she_ could do; and it\r\nwas certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with _one_,\r\nwhose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would\r\naddress him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would\r\nprobably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak\r\nand ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning.\r\n\r\nIf he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often\r\nseemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might\r\nsettle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity\r\nunblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady\r\nCatherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to\r\nBingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way.\r\n\r\n\"If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his\r\nfriend within a few days,\" she added, \"I shall know how to understand\r\nit. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his\r\nconstancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might\r\nhave obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him\r\nat all.\"\r\n\r\n * * * * *\r\n\r\nThe surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had\r\nbeen, was very great; but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same\r\nkind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity; and\r\nElizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject.\r\n\r\nThe next morning, as she was going downstairs, she was met by her\r\nfather, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand.\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy,\" said he, \"I was going to look for you; come into my room.\"\r\n\r\nShe followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to\r\ntell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner\r\nconnected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it\r\nmight be from Lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the\r\nconsequent explanations.\r\n\r\nShe followed her father to the fire place, and they both sat down. He\r\nthen said,\r\n\r\n\"I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me\r\nexceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its\r\ncontents. I did not know before, that I had two daughters on the brink\r\nof matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest.\"\r\n\r\nThe colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous\r\nconviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt;\r\nand she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained\r\nhimself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to\r\nherself; when her father continued:\r\n\r\n\"You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters\r\nas these; but I think I may defy even _your_ sagacity, to discover the\r\nname of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins.\"\r\n\r\n\"From Mr. Collins! and what can _he_ have to say?\"\r\n\r\n\"Something very much to the purpose of course. He begins with\r\ncongratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of\r\nwhich, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping\r\nLucases. I shall not sport with your impatience, by reading what he says\r\non that point. What relates to yourself, is as follows: 'Having thus\r\noffered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on\r\nthis happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another;\r\nof which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter\r\nElizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after\r\nher elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may\r\nbe reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in\r\nthis land.'\r\n\r\n\"Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this?\" 'This young\r\ngentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of\r\nmortal can most desire,--splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive\r\npatronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin\r\nElizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate\r\nclosure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be\r\ninclined to take immediate advantage of.'\r\n\r\n\"Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out:\r\n\r\n\"'My motive for cautioning you is as follows. We have reason to imagine\r\nthat his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with\r\na friendly eye.'\r\n\r\n\"_Mr. Darcy_, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I _have_\r\nsurprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within\r\nthe circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie\r\nmore effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any\r\nwoman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his\r\nlife! It is admirable!\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force\r\none most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so\r\nlittle agreeable to her.\r\n\r\n\"Are you not diverted?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! yes. Pray read on.\"\r\n\r\n\"'After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last\r\nnight, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she\r\nfelt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some\r\nfamily objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her\r\nconsent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty\r\nto give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and\r\nher noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run\r\nhastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.' Mr.\r\nCollins moreover adds, 'I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad\r\nbusiness has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their\r\nliving together before the marriage took place should be so generally\r\nknown. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain\r\nfrom declaring my amazement at hearing that you received the young\r\ncouple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an\r\nencouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should\r\nvery strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them,\r\nas a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their\r\nnames to be mentioned in your hearing.' That is his notion of Christian\r\nforgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's\r\nsituation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you\r\nlook as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be _missish_,\r\nI hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we\r\nlive, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our\r\nturn?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh!\" cried Elizabeth, \"I am excessively diverted. But it is so\r\nstrange!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes--_that_ is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man\r\nit would have been nothing; but _his_ perfect indifference, and _your_\r\npointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate\r\nwriting, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any\r\nconsideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving\r\nhim the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and\r\nhypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine\r\nabout this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?\"\r\n\r\nTo this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had\r\nbeen asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by\r\nhis repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her\r\nfeelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she\r\nwould rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by\r\nwhat he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference, and she could do nothing but\r\nwonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of\r\nhis seeing too little, she might have fancied too much.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 58\r\n\r\n\r\nInstead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as\r\nElizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy\r\nwith him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's\r\nvisit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time\r\nto tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat\r\nin momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed\r\ntheir all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the\r\nhabit of walking; Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five\r\nset off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others\r\nto outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy\r\nwere to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty\r\nwas too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a\r\ndesperate resolution; and perhaps he might be doing the same.\r\n\r\nThey walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon\r\nMaria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern,\r\nwhen Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the\r\nmoment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was\r\nhigh, she immediately said:\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving\r\nrelief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I\r\ncan no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my\r\npoor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to\r\nacknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest\r\nof my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry,\" replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise\r\nand emotion, \"that you have ever been informed of what may, in a\r\nmistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner\r\nwas so little to be trusted.\"\r\n\r\n\"You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to\r\nme that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could\r\nnot rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again,\r\nin the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced\r\nyou to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the\r\nsake of discovering them.\"\r\n\r\n\"If you _will_ thank me,\" he replied, \"let it be for yourself alone.\r\nThat the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other\r\ninducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your\r\n_family_ owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought\r\nonly of _you_.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause,\r\nher companion added, \"You are too generous to trifle with me. If your\r\nfeelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. _My_\r\naffections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence\r\nme on this subject for ever.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of\r\nhis situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not\r\nvery fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone\r\nso material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make\r\nher receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The\r\nhappiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never\r\nfelt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as\r\nwarmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth\r\nbeen able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the\r\nexpression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him;\r\nbut, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of\r\nfeelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his\r\naffection every moment more valuable.\r\n\r\nThey walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to\r\nbe thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She\r\nsoon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding\r\nto the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through\r\nLondon, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the\r\nsubstance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on\r\nevery expression of the latter which, in her ladyship's apprehension,\r\npeculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance; in the belief that\r\nsuch a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise\r\nfrom her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her\r\nladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise.\r\n\r\n\"It taught me to hope,\" said he, \"as I had scarcely ever allowed myself\r\nto hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that,\r\nhad you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have\r\nacknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, \"Yes, you know enough\r\nof my frankness to believe me capable of _that_. After abusing you so\r\nabominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all\r\nyour relations.\"\r\n\r\n\"What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your\r\naccusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my\r\nbehaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was\r\nunpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.\"\r\n\r\n\"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that\r\nevening,\" said Elizabeth. \"The conduct of neither, if strictly examined,\r\nwill be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved\r\nin civility.\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I\r\nthen said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of\r\nit, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your\r\nreproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'had you behaved in a\r\nmore gentlemanlike manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can\r\nscarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;--though it was some time,\r\nI confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.\"\r\n\r\n\"I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an\r\nimpression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such\r\na way.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper\r\nfeeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never\r\nforget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible\r\nway that would induce you to accept me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at\r\nall. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it.\"\r\n\r\nDarcy mentioned his letter. \"Did it,\" said he, \"did it soon make you\r\nthink better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its\r\ncontents?\"\r\n\r\nShe explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her\r\nformer prejudices had been removed.\r\n\r\n\"I knew,\" said he, \"that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was\r\nnecessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part\r\nespecially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the\r\npower of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might\r\njustly make you hate me.\"\r\n\r\n\"The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the\r\npreservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my\r\nopinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily\r\nchanged as that implies.\"\r\n\r\n\"When I wrote that letter,\" replied Darcy, \"I believed myself perfectly\r\ncalm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a\r\ndreadful bitterness of spirit.\"\r\n\r\n\"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The\r\nadieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings\r\nof the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now\r\nso widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant\r\ncircumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some\r\nof my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you\r\npleasure.\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your\r\nretrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment\r\narising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of\r\ninnocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude\r\nwhich cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish\r\nbeing all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I\r\nwas taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I\r\nwas given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.\r\nUnfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt\r\nby my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all\r\nthat was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught\r\nme to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family\r\ncircle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least\r\nto think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I\r\nwas, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been\r\nbut for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You\r\ntaught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you,\r\nI was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception.\r\nYou showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman\r\nworthy of being pleased.\"\r\n\r\n\"Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be\r\nwishing, expecting my addresses.\"\r\n\r\n\"My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure\r\nyou. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me\r\nwrong. How you must have hated me after _that_ evening?\"\r\n\r\n\"Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take\r\na proper direction.\"\r\n\r\n\"I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at\r\nPemberley. You blamed me for coming?\"\r\n\r\n\"No indeed; I felt nothing but surprise.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your surprise could not be greater than _mine_ in being noticed by you.\r\nMy conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I\r\nconfess that I did not expect to receive _more_ than my due.\"\r\n\r\n\"My object then,\" replied Darcy, \"was to show you, by every civility in\r\nmy power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to\r\nobtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you\r\nsee that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes\r\nintroduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an\r\nhour after I had seen you.\"\r\n\r\nHe then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her\r\ndisappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to\r\nthe cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of\r\nfollowing her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed\r\nbefore he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness\r\nthere had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must\r\ncomprehend.\r\n\r\nShe expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to\r\neach, to be dwelt on farther.\r\n\r\nAfter walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know\r\nanything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that\r\nit was time to be at home.\r\n\r\n\"What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!\" was a wonder which\r\nintroduced the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with\r\ntheir engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of\r\nit.\r\n\r\n\"I must ask whether you were surprised?\" said Elizabeth.\r\n\r\n\"Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.\"\r\n\r\n\"That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.\" And\r\nthough he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much\r\nthe case.\r\n\r\n\"On the evening before my going to London,\" said he, \"I made a\r\nconfession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I\r\ntold him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his\r\naffairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had\r\nthe slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself\r\nmistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent\r\nto him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was\r\nunabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his\r\nfriend.\r\n\r\n\"Did you speak from your own observation,\" said she, \"when you told him\r\nthat my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?\"\r\n\r\n\"From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits\r\nwhich I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection.\"\r\n\r\n\"And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to\r\nhim.\"\r\n\r\n\"It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had\r\nprevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but\r\nhis reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess\r\none thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not\r\nallow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months\r\nlast winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was\r\nangry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained\r\nin any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me\r\nnow.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful\r\nfriend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked\r\nherself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at,\r\nand it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness\r\nof Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he\r\ncontinued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they\r\nparted.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 59\r\n\r\n\r\n\"My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?\" was a question\r\nwhich Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,\r\nand from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to\r\nsay in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own\r\nknowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything\r\nelse, awakened a suspicion of the truth.\r\n\r\nThe evening passed quietly, unmarked by anything extraordinary. The\r\nacknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent.\r\nDarcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth;\r\nand Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather _knew_ that she was happy\r\nthan _felt_ herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment,\r\nthere were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt\r\nin the family when her situation became known; she was aware that no\r\none liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a\r\ndislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away.\r\n\r\nAt night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far\r\nfrom Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here.\r\n\r\n\"You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be!--engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no,\r\nyou shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible.\"\r\n\r\n\"This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and\r\nI am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am\r\nin earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are\r\nengaged.\"\r\n\r\nJane looked at her doubtingly. \"Oh, Lizzy! it cannot be. I know how much\r\nyou dislike him.\"\r\n\r\n\"You know nothing of the matter. _That_ is all to be forgot. Perhaps I\r\ndid not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as\r\nthese, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever\r\nremember it myself.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more\r\nseriously assured her of its truth.\r\n\r\n\"Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you,\" cried\r\nJane. \"My dear, dear Lizzy, I would--I do congratulate you--but are you\r\ncertain? forgive the question--are you quite certain that you can be\r\nhappy with him?\"\r\n\r\n\"There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that\r\nwe are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased,\r\nJane? Shall you like to have such a brother?\"\r\n\r\n\"Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more\r\ndelight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you\r\nreally love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than\r\nmarry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought\r\nto do?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, yes! You will only think I feel _more_ than I ought to do, when I\r\ntell you all.\"\r\n\r\n\"What do you mean?\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am\r\nafraid you will be angry.\"\r\n\r\n\"My dearest sister, now _be_ serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let\r\nme know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me\r\nhow long you have loved him?\"\r\n\r\n\"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began.\r\nBut I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds\r\nat Pemberley.\"\r\n\r\nAnother entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the\r\ndesired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances\r\nof attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing\r\nfurther to wish.\r\n\r\n\"Now I am quite happy,\" said she, \"for you will be as happy as myself.\r\nI always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you,\r\nI must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your\r\nhusband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But\r\nLizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you\r\ntell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know\r\nof it to another, not to you.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling\r\nto mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made\r\nher equally avoid the name of his friend. But now she would no longer\r\nconceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged,\r\nand half the night spent in conversation.\r\n\r\n * * * * *\r\n\r\n\"Good gracious!\" cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next\r\nmorning, \"if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with\r\nour dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always\r\ncoming here? I had no notion but he would go a-shooting, or something or\r\nother, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him?\r\nLizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's\r\nway.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet\r\nwas really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an\r\nepithet.\r\n\r\nAs soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and\r\nshook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information;\r\nand he soon afterwards said aloud, \"Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes\r\nhereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?\"\r\n\r\n\"I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"to walk\r\nto Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has\r\nnever seen the view.\"\r\n\r\n\"It may do very well for the others,\" replied Mr. Bingley; \"but I am\r\nsure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty?\" Kitty owned that\r\nshe had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see\r\nthe view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went\r\nup stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying:\r\n\r\n\"I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that\r\ndisagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is\r\nall for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking\r\nto him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to\r\ninconvenience.\"\r\n\r\nDuring their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be\r\nasked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the\r\napplication for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother\r\nwould take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur\r\nwould be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she\r\nwere violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it\r\nwas certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit\r\nto her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear\r\nthe first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her\r\ndisapprobation.\r\n\r\n * * * * *\r\n\r\nIn the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw\r\nMr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was\r\nextreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to\r\nbe made unhappy; and that it should be through her means--that _she_,\r\nhis favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be\r\nfilling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her--was a wretched\r\nreflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when,\r\nlooking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes\r\nhe approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while\r\npretending to admire her work said in a whisper, \"Go to your father, he\r\nwants you in the library.\" She was gone directly.\r\n\r\nHer father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious.\r\n\"Lizzy,\" said he, \"what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be\r\naccepting this man? Have not you always hated him?\"\r\n\r\nHow earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more\r\nreasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from\r\nexplanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give;\r\nbut they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion,\r\nof her attachment to Mr. Darcy.\r\n\r\n\"Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be\r\nsure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane.\r\nBut will they make you happy?\"\r\n\r\n\"Have you any other objection,\" said Elizabeth, \"than your belief of my\r\nindifference?\"\r\n\r\n\"None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but\r\nthis would be nothing if you really liked him.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do, I do like him,\" she replied, with tears in her eyes, \"I love him.\r\nIndeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not\r\nknow what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in\r\nsuch terms.\"\r\n\r\n\"Lizzy,\" said her father, \"I have given him my consent. He is the kind\r\nof man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse anything, which he\r\ncondescended to ask. I now give it to _you_, if you are resolved on\r\nhaving him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know\r\nyour disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor\r\nrespectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked\r\nup to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the\r\ngreatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape\r\ndiscredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing\r\n_you_ unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are\r\nabout.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and\r\nat length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object\r\nof her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of\r\nhim had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection\r\nwas not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months'\r\nsuspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did\r\nconquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match.\r\n\r\n\"Well, my dear,\" said he, when she ceased speaking, \"I have no more to\r\nsay. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with\r\nyou, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy.\"\r\n\r\nTo complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy\r\nhad voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment.\r\n\r\n\"This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing;\r\nmade up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him\r\nhis commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble\r\nand economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and _would_ have\r\npaid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own\r\nway. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about\r\nhis love for you, and there will be an end of the matter.\"\r\n\r\nHe then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading\r\nMr. Collins's letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her\r\nat last to go--saying, as she quitted the room, \"If any young men come\r\nfor Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure.\"\r\n\r\nElizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after\r\nhalf an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join\r\nthe others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for\r\ngaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer\r\nanything material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity\r\nwould come in time.\r\n\r\nWhen her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her,\r\nand made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary;\r\nfor on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to\r\nutter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes that she could\r\ncomprehend what she heard; though not in general backward to credit\r\nwhat was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a\r\nlover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in\r\nher chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself.\r\n\r\n\"Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would\r\nhave thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich\r\nand how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages\r\nyou will have! Jane's is nothing to it--nothing at all. I am so\r\npleased--so happy. Such a charming man!--so handsome! so tall!--Oh, my\r\ndear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I\r\nhope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing\r\nthat is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh,\r\nLord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted.\"\r\n\r\nThis was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted: and\r\nElizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself,\r\nsoon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room,\r\nher mother followed her.\r\n\r\n\"My dearest child,\" she cried, \"I can think of nothing else! Ten\r\nthousand a year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a Lord! And a\r\nspecial licence. You must and shall be married by a special licence. But\r\nmy dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of,\r\nthat I may have it to-morrow.\"\r\n\r\nThis was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman\r\nhimself might be; and Elizabeth found that, though in the certain\r\npossession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations'\r\nconsent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow\r\npassed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood\r\nin such awe of her intended son-in-law that she ventured not to speak to\r\nhim, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her\r\ndeference for his opinion.\r\n\r\nElizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get\r\nacquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising\r\nevery hour in his esteem.\r\n\r\n\"I admire all my three sons-in-law highly,\" said he. \"Wickham, perhaps,\r\nis my favourite; but I think I shall like _your_ husband quite as well\r\nas Jane's.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 60\r\n\r\n\r\nElizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr.\r\nDarcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. \"How could\r\nyou begin?\" said she. \"I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when\r\nyou had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first\r\nplace?\"\r\n\r\n\"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which\r\nlaid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I\r\nknew that I _had_ begun.\"\r\n\r\n\"My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners--my behaviour\r\nto _you_ was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke\r\nto you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere;\r\ndid you admire me for my impertinence?\"\r\n\r\n\"For the liveliness of your mind, I did.\"\r\n\r\n\"You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less.\r\nThe fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious\r\nattention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking,\r\nand looking, and thinking for _your_ approbation alone. I roused, and\r\ninterested you, because I was so unlike _them_. Had you not been really\r\namiable, you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you\r\ntook to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and\r\nin your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously\r\ncourted you. There--I have saved you the trouble of accounting for\r\nit; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly\r\nreasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me--but nobody thinks\r\nof _that_ when they fall in love.\"\r\n\r\n\"Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane while she was\r\nill at Netherfield?\"\r\n\r\n\"Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it\r\nby all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are\r\nto exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me\r\nto find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may\r\nbe; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling\r\nto come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first\r\ncalled, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did\r\nyou look as if you did not care about me?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement.\"\r\n\r\n\"But I was embarrassed.\"\r\n\r\n\"And so was I.\"\r\n\r\n\"You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner.\"\r\n\r\n\"A man who had felt less, might.\"\r\n\r\n\"How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that\r\nI should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you\r\n_would_ have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when\r\nyou _would_ have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of\r\nthanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect.\r\n_Too much_, I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort\r\nsprings from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the\r\nsubject. This will never do.\"\r\n\r\n\"You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady\r\nCatherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of\r\nremoving all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to\r\nyour eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour\r\nto wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me\r\nhope, and I was determined at once to know every thing.\"\r\n\r\n\"Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy,\r\nfor she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to\r\nNetherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed?\r\nor had you intended any more serious consequence?\"\r\n\r\n\"My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could, whether I\r\nmight ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to\r\nmyself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley,\r\nand if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made.\"\r\n\r\n\"Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to\r\nbefall her?\"\r\n\r\n\"I am more likely to want more time than courage, Elizabeth. But it\r\nought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be\r\ndone directly.\"\r\n\r\n\"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and\r\nadmire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But\r\nI have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected.\"\r\n\r\nFrom an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy\r\nhad been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's\r\nlong letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would\r\nbe most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and\r\naunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as\r\nfollows:\r\n\r\n\"I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done,\r\nfor your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the\r\ntruth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed.\r\nBut _now_ suppose as much as you choose; give a loose rein to your\r\nfancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the\r\nsubject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you\r\ncannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a\r\ngreat deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again,\r\nfor not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your\r\nidea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I\r\nam the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so\r\nbefore, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she\r\nonly smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that\r\nhe can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas.\r\nYours, etc.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Darcy's letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style; and still\r\ndifferent from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in reply\r\nto his last.\r\n\r\n\"DEAR SIR,\r\n\r\n\"I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon\r\nbe the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can.\r\nBut, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give.\r\n\r\n\"Yours sincerely, etc.\"\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching\r\nmarriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even\r\nto Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her\r\nformer professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was\r\naffected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing\r\nher a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved.\r\n\r\nThe joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information,\r\nwas as sincere as her brother's in sending it. Four sides of paper were\r\ninsufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of\r\nbeing loved by her sister.\r\n\r\nBefore any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations\r\nto Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the\r\nCollinses were come themselves to Lucas Lodge. The reason of this\r\nsudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered\r\nso exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew's letter, that\r\nCharlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till\r\nthe storm was blown over. At such a moment, the arrival of her friend\r\nwas a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their\r\nmeetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she\r\nsaw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of\r\nher husband. He bore it, however, with admirable calmness. He could even\r\nlisten to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away\r\nthe brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all\r\nmeeting frequently at St. James's, with very decent composure. If he did\r\nshrug his shoulders, it was not till Sir William was out of sight.\r\n\r\nMrs. Phillips's vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his\r\nforbearance; and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister, stood in\r\ntoo much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good\r\nhumour encouraged, yet, whenever she _did_ speak, she must be vulgar.\r\nNor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all\r\nlikely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield\r\nhim from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep\r\nhim to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse\r\nwithout mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising\r\nfrom all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it\r\nadded to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to\r\nthe time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing\r\nto either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at\r\nPemberley.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nChapter 61\r\n\r\n\r\nHappy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got\r\nrid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride\r\nshe afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may\r\nbe guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the\r\naccomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many\r\nof her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible,\r\namiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it\r\nwas lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity\r\nin so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and\r\ninvariably silly.\r\n\r\nMr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her\r\ndrew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in\r\ngoing to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.\r\n\r\nMr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near\r\na vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to\r\n_his_ easy temper, or _her_ affectionate heart. The darling wish of his\r\nsisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county\r\nto Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source\r\nof happiness, were within thirty miles of each other.\r\n\r\nKitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with\r\nher two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally\r\nknown, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a\r\ntemper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example,\r\nshe became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less\r\nignorant, and less insipid. From the further disadvantage of Lydia's\r\nsociety she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham\r\nfrequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of\r\nballs and young men, her father would never consent to her going.\r\n\r\nMary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily\r\ndrawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite\r\nunable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but\r\nshe could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no\r\nlonger mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own,\r\nit was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without\r\nmuch reluctance.\r\n\r\nAs for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from\r\nthe marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that\r\nElizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude\r\nand falsehood had before been unknown to her; and in spite of every\r\nthing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on\r\nto make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received\r\nfrom Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least,\r\nif not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this\r\neffect:\r\n\r\n\"MY DEAR LIZZY,\r\n\r\n\"I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear\r\nWickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so\r\nrich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us.\r\nI am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not\r\nthink we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help.\r\nAny place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however,\r\ndo not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not.\r\n\r\n\"Yours, etc.\"\r\n\r\nAs it happened that Elizabeth had _much_ rather not, she endeavoured in\r\nher answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind.\r\nSuch relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice\r\nof what might be called economy in her own private expences, she\r\nfrequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an\r\nincome as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in\r\ntheir wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to\r\ntheir support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or\r\nherself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance\r\ntowards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the\r\nrestoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the\r\nextreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap\r\nsituation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for\r\nher soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer; and\r\nin spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to\r\nreputation which her marriage had given her.\r\n\r\nThough Darcy could never receive _him_ at Pemberley, yet, for\r\nElizabeth's sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was\r\noccasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself\r\nin London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently\r\nstaid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he\r\nproceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.\r\n\r\nMiss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she\r\nthought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she\r\ndropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as\r\nattentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility\r\nto Elizabeth.\r\n\r\nPemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters\r\nwas exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each\r\nother even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion\r\nin the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with\r\nan astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive, manner of\r\ntalking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect\r\nwhich almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open\r\npleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen\r\nin her way. By Elizabeth's instructions, she began to comprehend that\r\na woman may take liberties with her husband which a brother will not\r\nalways allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself.\r\n\r\nLady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew;\r\nand as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character in\r\nher reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him\r\nlanguage so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time\r\nall intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion,\r\nhe was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation;\r\nand, after a little further resistance on the part of his aunt, her\r\nresentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity\r\nto see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait\r\non them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had\r\nreceived, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the\r\nvisits of her uncle and aunt from the city.\r\n\r\nWith the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms.\r\nDarcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever\r\nsensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing\r\nher into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.\r\n" } ]