Act One, Pt.4

Elizabeth would not quit her sister at all. But late in the afternoon she thought she should go, and very unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley was quite disconsolate.

Miss Bingley: I’m so sorry you can’t stay longer. Would you like to take our carriage?

Jane: We must leave, I know. But I felt so much recovered with you here. Miss Bingley, I pray you forgive me.

Elizabeth: Jane, hush, you must lie quietly.

Miss Bingley: No, dear. It quite torments me to see you in such distress, dear friend. Perhaps you had better stay longer, Miss Eliza, for the present. And when you have made your sister more comfortable, I do hope you’ll join us in the drawing room.

(sound of shuffle)

Mr. Bingley: Will you play a faro, Miss Bennet?

Elizabeth: Uh…No, thank you. I should read if you don’t mind.

Miss Bingley: Miss Eliza Bennet despises cards. She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else.

Elizabeth: I deserve neither such praise nor such censure, I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.

Mr. Bingley: In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure, and I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well.

Miss Bingley: Mr. Darcy, Is your sister Georgiana grown since the spring? Will she be as tall as I am?

Mr. Darcy: I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height (clear his throat), or rather taller.

Miss Bingley: How I long to see her again! Such a countenance, such manners, and so extremely accomplished for some of her age!

Mr. Bingley: It is amazing to me, how young ladies can all be so very accomplished.

Miss Bingley: All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?

Mr. Bingley: Well they all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she is very accomplished.

Mr. Darcy: I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.

Miss Bingley: Nor I, I am sure.

Elizabeth: Then you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished women.

Mr. Darcy: I do.

Miss Bingley: Oh yes, a woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and all the modern languages, to deserve the word.

Mr. Darcy: And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.

Elizabeth: (laugh)I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.

Miss Bingley: By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield? I am much mistaken if there are not some among us now to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure.

Mr. Bingley: If you mean Darcy, he may go to bed, if he chooses -- but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing.

Miss Bingley: I should like balls infinitely better, if they were carried on in a different manner surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.

Mr. Bingley: Much more rational, my dear Caroline, but it would not be near so much like a ball.

Miss Bingley: My dear Miss Eliza Bennet, do let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. -- I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude.

Elizabeth: Thank you.

Miss Bingley: Mr. Darcy, will you join us?

Mr. Darcy: I could imagine only two motives for your choosing to walk together, and with either of those motives my joining you would interfere.

Miss Bingley: What can he mean? I’m dying to know his meaning, do you understand him?

Elizabeth: No, but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it.

Miss Bingley: Mr. Darcy, explain!

Miss Bingley was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in anything.

Mr. Darcy: You either choose this method of passing the evening because you have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking; -- if the first, I should be completely in your way; -- and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit here.

Miss Bingley: Oh, shocking! How shall we punish him for such a speech?

Elizabeth: Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination. Tease him -- laugh at him. -- Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done.

Miss Bingley: But upon my honor I do not. Tease calmness of temper and presence of mind! And as to laughter, one must not attempt to laugh without a subject.

Elizabeth: Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at! That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for I dearly love a laugh.

Mr. Darcy: Miss Bingley has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and the best of men may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.

Elizabeth: Why, I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. -- But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.

Mr. Darcy: Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule.

Elizabeth: Such as vanity and pride.

Mr. Darcy: Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride -- where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

Miss Bingley: Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume, and pray what is the result?

Elizabeth: I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself.

Mr. Darcy: No, I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough. My temper perhaps would be called resentful. -- My good opinion once lost is lost forever.

Elizabeth: That is a failing indeed! Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. -- I really cannot laugh at it; you are safe from me.

Mr. Darcy: Well there is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil which not even the best education can overcome.

Elizabeth: And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.

Mr. Darcy: And yours is willfully to misunderstand them.

Miss Bingley: Do let us have a little music!

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