Prejudice and Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Gender-Swapped Parody by Austen Jane & Strawberry Garden

Author:Austen, Jane & Strawberry, Garden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Garden Strawberry
Published: 2024-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Six

If Elias, when Mistress Darcy gave him the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of her offers, he had formed no expectation at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may well be supposed how eagerly he went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. His feelings as he read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did he first understand that she believed any apology to be in her power, and steadfastly was he persuaded, that she could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong prejudice against everything she might say, he began her account of what had happened at Netherfield. He read with an eagerness which hardly left his power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before his eyes. Her belief of his brother’s insensibility he instantly resolved to be false, and her account of the real, the worst objections to the match, made him too angry to have any wish of doing her justice. She expressed no regret for what she had done which satisfied him; her style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and insolence.

But when this subject was succeeded by her account of Mistress Wickham, when he read with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of her worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to her own history of herself, his feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror oppressed him. He wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, “This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!”—and when he had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing anything of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that he would not regard it, that he would never look in it again.

In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, he walked on, but it would not do; in half a minute the letter was unfolded again, and collecting himself as well as he could, he again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded himself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence. The account of her connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what she had related herself, and the kindness of the late Mistress Darcy, though he had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with her own words. So far, each recital confirmed the other, but when he came to the will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in his memory, and as he recalled her very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other, and, for a few moments, he flattered himself that his wishes did not err.

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