Jane Austen proposal scenes, part 2: Pride and Prejudice

Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth Bennet) and Colin Firth (Fitzwilliam Darcy) in Pride and Prejudice (1995).

Pride and Prejudice

Background: Six months previously, Darcy had proposed to Elizabeth, despite his sense of "her inferiority — of its being a degradation — of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination." Not surprisingly, Elizabeth was insulted rather than flattered, and, having learned of Darcy's intervention to block the growing attachment between his friend Mr. Bingley and Elizabeth's sister Jane, as well as his supposed ill-treatment of Mr. Wickham, rejected him in the bluntest possible terms: "I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry." But later, news of Elizabeth's sister Lydia's elopement arrives. . .

Pride and Prejudice is unusual in that the heroine and the hero each has a separate moment of éclaircissement before the proposal scene. For Elizabeth it is brought about by Lydia's careless mention of Darcy's presence at her wedding ("'Mr. Darcy!' repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement"); this is the moment when Elizabeth's understanding of Darcy's role in bringing about Lydia's marriage to her seducer, and, perhaps, the reasons for his involvement, begin to dawn. And for Darcy it is when he learns from his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh of Elizabeth's refusal to promise that she will never become engaged to him.

On a fine day in early autumn, Darcy and Bingley pay a call on the Bennets. . .

The television adaptation: screenplay by Andrew Davies, directed by Simon Langton (1995)

https://youtu.be/Bm3QywZFBuA?t=706 [scene ends at 15:52]

The novel:

. . .Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking, Mary could never spare time, but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and, perhaps, he might be doing the same.

They walked towards the Lucases', because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed; and while her courage was high, she immediately said,—

"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature, and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family I should not have merely my own gratitude to express."

"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted."

"You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them."

"If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you."

Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever."

Up to the point of Darcy's declaration and proposal ("My affections and wishes are unchanged"), Davies' script follows the novel closely (although in the adaptation Elizabeth, Kitty and Darcy trail Bingley and Jane, rather than walking ahead of them—a change that works better for the screen). But once again, at a crucial moment Austen shifts to third-person narration and indirect speech:

Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eyes, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight diffused over his face became him: but though she could not look she could listen; and he told her of feelings which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.

As reflected in the television adaptation, once Elizabeth's acceptance is expressed there is further éclaircissement:

They walked on without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter, which, in her Ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her Ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise.

"The efforts of his aunt." Illustration by Hugh Thomson for Pride and Prejudice (George Allen, 1894). Picture source: Project Gutenberg

"It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine frankly and openly."

Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations."

"What did you say of me that I did not deserve? For though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence."

"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening," said Elizabeth. "The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then we have both, I hope, improved in civility."

"I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me; though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice."

"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."

". . .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. . .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."

. . .She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each to be dwelt on farther.

One reason that this is the most beloved of all Jane Austen adaptations is its screenwriter's trust in Austen's novel. While Davies does insert some scenes of his own invention—most notoriously, the wet-shirt encounter between Darcy and Elizabeth—ultimately it's the faithfulness to the book (which requires the 5-hour running time), along with the perfect casting and the attention to period detail, which sets this adaptation above all others.

For more on the novel: please see "Pride and Prejudice and the marriage market"

Next time: Mansfield Park

Last time: Sense and Sensibility