第136章

    “I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression.I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.”

    “I can easily believe it.You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling,I am sure you did.The turn of your countenance I shall never forget,as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.”

    “Oh! do not repeat what I then said.These recollections will not do at all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it.”

    Darcy mentioned his letter.“Did it,”said he,“did it soon make you think better of me?Did you,on reading it,give any credit to its contents?”

    She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.

    “I knew,”said he,“that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter.There was one part especially,the opening of it,which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me.”

    “The letter shall certainly be burnt,if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard;but,though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope,quite so easily changed as that implies.”

    “When I wrote that letter,”replied Darcy,“I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit.”

    “The letter,perhaps,began in bitterness,but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself.But think no more of the letter.The feelings of the person who wrote,and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then,that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten.You must learn some of my philosophy.Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

    “I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind.Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot,which ought not,to be repelled.I have been a selfish being all my life,in practice,though not in principle.As a child I was taught what was right,but I was not taught to correct my temper.I was given good principles,but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who,though good themselves(my father,particularly,all that was benevolent and amiable),allowed,encouraged,almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle;to think meanly of all the rest of the world;to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you,dearest,loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you!You taught me a lesson,hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception.You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

    “Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?”

    “Indeed I had.What will you think of my vanity?I believed you to be wishing,expecting my addresses.”

    “My manners must have been in fault,but not intentionally,I assure you.I never meant to deceive you,but my spirits might often lead me wrong.How you must have hated me after that evening?”

    “Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction.”