Quiz No. 77
1)
‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Knightly; but have you ever done this sort of thing in your time?’
said Mr. Darcy.
‘You mean proposing?’ said Mr. Knightly.
‘Yes.’
‘Never,’ said Mr. Knightly, with great energy, ‘never.’
‘You have no idea, then, how it's best to begin?’ said Mr. Darcy.
‘Why,’ said Mr. Knightly, ‘I may have formed some ideas upon the subject, but, as
I have never submitted them to the test of experience, I should be sorry if you were induced to regulate your proceedings
by them.’
‘I should feel very much obliged to you, for any advice, Sir,’ said Mr. Darcy, taking
another look at the clock, the hand of which was verging on the five minutes past.
‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Knightly, with the profound solemnity with which that great man
could, when he pleased, render his remarks so deeply impressive. ‘I should commence, sir, with a tribute to the lady's
beauty and excellent qualities; from them, Sir, I should diverge to my own unworthiness.’
‘Very good,’ said Mr. Darcy.
‘Unworthiness for her only, mind, sir,’ resumed Mr. Knightly; ‘for to show
that I was not wholly unworthy, sir, I should take a brief review of my past life, and present condition. I should argue,
by analogy, that to anybody else, I must be a very desirable object. I should then expatiate on the warmth of my love, and
the depth of my devotion. Perhaps I might then be tempted to seize her hand.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Mr. Darcy; ‘that would be a very great point.’
‘I should then, Sir,’ continued Mr. Knightly, growing warmer as the subject presented
itself in more glowing colours before him - ‘I should then, Sir, come to the plain and simple question, “Will
you have me?" I think I am justified in assuming that upon this, she would turn away her head.’
‘You think that may be taken for granted?’ said Mr. Darcy; ‘because, if she did
not do that at the right place, it would be embarrassing.’
‘I think she would,’ said Mr. Knightly. ‘Upon this, sir, I should squeeze her hand,
and I think - I think, Mr. Darcy - that after I had done that, supposing there was no refusal, I should gently draw away the
handkerchief, which my slight knowledge of human nature leads me to suppose the lady would be applying to her eyes at the
moment, and steal a respectful kiss. I think I should kiss her, Mr. Darcy; and at this particular point, I am decidedly of
opinion that if the lady were going to take me at all, she would murmur into my ears a bashful acceptance.’
Mr. Darcy started; gazed on Mr. Knightly's intelligent face, for a short time in silence; and then
(the dial pointing to the ten minutes past) shook him warmly by the hand, and rushed desperately from the room.
Answer
2)
‘It is good here,’ said the old man, in his austere, far-away manner.
Darcy nodded; then, after a short silence:
‘You saw my schooner pass in not two hours ago? Do you know why I am here before, so to speak,
my anchor has fairly bitten into the ground of this port of Sulaco?’
‘You are welcome like a son,’ the old man declared, quietly, staring away upon the sea.
‘Ah! thy son. I know. I am what thy son would have been. It is well, viejo. It is a
very good welcome. Listen, I have come to ask you for - ’
A sudden dread came upon the fearless and incorruptible Darcy. He dared not utter the name in his
mind. The slight pause only imparted a marked weight and solemnity to the changed end of the phrase.
‘For my wife!’ .... His heart was beating fast. ‘It is time you - ’
The Garibaldino arrested him with an extended arm. ‘That was left for you to judge.’
He got up slowly. His beard, unclipped since Teresa's death, thick, snow-white, covered his powerful
chest. He turned his head to the door, and called out in his strong voice:
‘Linda.’
Her answer came sharp and faint from within; and the appalled Darcy stood up, too, but remained mute,
gazing at the door. He was afraid. He was not afraid of being refused the girl he loved - no mere refusal could stand between
him and a woman he desired - but the shining spectre of the treasure rose before him,
claiming his allegiance in a silence that could not be gainsaid. He was afraid, because, neither dead not alive, like the
gringos on Azuera, he belonged body and soul to the unlawfulness of his audacity. He was afraid of being forbidden
the island. He was afraid, and said nothing.
Seeing the two men standing up side by side to await her, Linda stopped in the doorway. Nothing could
alter the passionate dead whiteness of her face; but her black eyes seemed to catch and concentrate all the light of the low
sun in a flaming spark within the black depths, covered at once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.
‘Behold thy husband, master, and benefactor.’ Old Viola's voice resounded with a force
that seemed to fill the whole gulf.
She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a sleepwalker in a beatific dream.
Darcy made a superhuman effort. ‘It is time, Linda, we two were betrothed,’ he said, steadily,
in his level, careless, unbending tone.
She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her head, dark with bronze glints, upon which her
father's hand rested for a moment.
‘And so the soul of the dead is satisfied.’
Answer
3)
ELIZABETH: Didst thou not kill this king?
DARCY: I grant ye.
ELIZABETH: Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to
Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!
O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!
DARCY: The better for the King of Heaven, that hath him.
ELIZABETH: He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
DARCY: Let him thank me that holp to send him thither,
For he was fitter for that place than earth.
ELIZABETH: And thou unfit for any place but hell.
DARCY: Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
ELIZABETH: Some dungeon.
DARCY: Your bed-chamber.
ELIZABETH: Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
DARCY: So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
Answer
4(Translation.)
A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining
with a soft light. Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness.
“Ah! I've scribbled all over the table!” she said, and laying down the chalk, she made
a movement as though to get up.
“What! shall I be left alone - without her?” he thought with horror, and he took the chalk.
“Wait a minute,” he said, sitting down to the table. “I've long wanted to ask you one thing.”
He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes.
“Please, ask it.”
“Here,” he said; and he wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n,
o, t. These letters meant, “When you told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?” There seemed no
likelihood that she could make out this complicated sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her understanding
the words. She glanced at him seriously, then leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or twice she stole
a look at him, as though asking him, “Is it what I think?”
“I understand,” she said, flushing a little.
“What is this word?” he said, pointing to the n that stood for never.
“It means never,” she said; “but that's not true!”
He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk, and stood up. She wrote, t, i, c, n,
a, d.
Marianne was completely comforted in the depression caused by her conversation with Willoughby when
she caught sight of the two figures: Elizabeth with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and happy smile looking upwards at Darcy,
and his handsome figure bending over the table with glowing eyes fastened one
minute on the table and the next on her. He was suddenly radiant: he had understood. It meant, “Then I could not answer
differently.”
He glanced at her questioningly, timidly.
“Only then?”
“Yes,” her smile answered.
“And .... and now?” he asked.
“Well, read this. I'll tell you what I should like - should like so much!” She wrote the
initial letters, i, y, c, f, a, f, w, h. This meant, “If you could forget and forgive what happened.”
He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters
of the following phrase, “I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you.”
She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver.
“I understand,” she said in a whisper.
He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, “Is it this?”
took the chalk and at once answered.
For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He
was stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the word she had meant; but in her charming eyes, beaming with happiness,
he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing when she read them over her arm,
and herself finished and wrote the answer, “Yes.”
Answer
5)
He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine
spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined
him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him.
He would not despair: he would not desist. He had every well-grounded reason for solid attachment;
he knew her to have all the worth that could justify the warmest hopes of lasting happiness with her; her conduct at this
very time, by speaking the disinterestedness and delicacy of her character (qualities which he
believed most rare indeed), was of a sort to heighten all his wishes, and confirm all his resolutions. He knew not that he
had a pre-engaged heart to attack. Of that he had no suspicion.
He considered her rather as one who had never thought on the subject enough to be in danger; who had
been guarded by youth, a youth of mind as lovely as of person; whose modesty had prevented her from understanding his attentions,
and who was still overpowered by the suddenness of addresses so wholly
unexpected, and the novelty of a situation which her fancy had never taken into account.
Must it not follow of course, that, when he was understood, he should succeed? He believed it fully.
Love such as his, in a man like himself, must with perseverance secure a return, and at no great distance; and he had so much
delight in the idea of obliging her to love him in a very short time, that her not loving him now was scarcely regretted.
A little difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Fitzwilliam Darcy. He rather derived spirits from it. He had been apt to
gain hearts too easily. His situation was new and animating.
Answer
6)
“I say agin, I want you,” Darcy said, thumping the table. “I can't git on
without you. I didn't see what it was till you went away. The house all goes wrong. It's not the same place. All my accounts
has got muddled agin. You must come back. Do come back. Dear Lizzie, do come.”
“Come - as what, sir?” Elizabeth gasped out.
“Come as Mrs Darcy, if you like,” [he] said, grasping his crape hat. “There! will
that zatusfy you? Come back and be my wife. Your vit vor't. Birth be hanged. You're as good a lady as ever I see. You've got
more brains in your little vinger than any baronet's wife in the county. Will you come? Yes or no?”
“Oh, Mr Darcy!” Elizabeth said, very much moved.
“Say yes, Lizzie,” Darcy continued. “I'm an old man, but a good'n. I'm good for
twenty years. I'll make you happy, zee if I don't. You shall do what you like; spend what you like; and 'ave it all your own
way. I'll make you a zettlement. I'll do everything reglar. Look year!” and the old man fell down on his knees and leered
at her like a satyr.
Elizabeth started back a picture of consternation. In the course of this history we have never seen
her lose her presence of mind; but she did now, and wept some of the most genuine tears that ever fell from her eyes.
“Oh, Mr Darcy!” she said. “Oh, sir - I - I'm married already!”
Answer
7)
With a gesture which he himself thought of as characteristic he had offered her a large sum
of money saying: “Lest an inequality of fortune may make your decision difficult, I propose to make you a birthday present
which will enable you to think of yourself as a wholly independent person - simply as a woman, Elizabeth. This hateful stuff
which creeps into everyone's thoughts in the city, poisoning everything! Let us be free of it before deciding anything.”
But this had not answered; or rather had provoked only the insulting, incomprehending question: “Is
it that you really want to sleep with me? You may. Oh, I would do anything for you, Darcy.” This disgusted and angered
him. He had lost himself. There seemed no way forward along this line. Then suddenly, after a long moment of thought, he saw
the truth like a flashing light. He whispered to himself with surprise: “But that is why I am not understood; I am not
being really honest.” He recognized that though he might have initially been swayed by his passion, he could think of
no way to stake a claim on her attention, except, first, by the gift of money (ostensibly to ‘free’ her but in
fact only to try and bind her to him) - and then, as his desperation increased, he realized that there was nothing to be done
except to place himself entirely at her mercy. In one sense it was madness - but he could think of no other way to create
in her the sense of obligation on which every other tie could be built. In this way a child may sometimes endanger itself
in order to canvass a mother's love and attention which it feels is denied to it.
Answer
8)
I wonder if I committed a sort of crime in approaching you. In a way it's scandalous that
a person like me should make advances to a person like you, and yet I thought from your appearance that you were not only
lonely and unhappy, but also a person who lived chiefly through the intellect and might become interested in a man who was
much older and not much good physically. You asked me what attracted me to you in the first place. You are very beautiful,
as no doubt you well know, but that wasn't quite all. I do so want someone who will share what is left of my life, and my
work. It isn't so much a question of someone to sleep with, though of course I want that too, sometimes. You say you wouldn't
be likely to love me. I don't see how you could be expected to. You are young and fresh and you have had someone you really
loved and who would set up a standard I couldn't compete with. If you still feel you can start again and you want a handsome
young man who can give you a lot of children, then I am no good to you. What I am really asking you is whether you would like
to be the widow of a literary man.
Answer
9)
Tell you what you might do while you are alone at Kellynch. You might think about me a bit
& whether, if those wop priests ever come to a decent decision, you might bear the idea of marrying me. Of course you haven't
got to decide, but think about it. I can't advise you in my favour because I think it would be beastly for you, but think
how nice it would be for me. I am restless & moody & misanthropic & lazy & have no money except what I earn and if I got ill
you would starve. In fact its a lousy proposition. On the other hand I think I could do a Grant and reform & become quite
strict about not getting drunk and I am pretty sure I should be faithful. Also there is always a fair chance that there will
be another bigger economic crash in which case if you had married a nobleman with a great house you might find yourself starving,
while I am very clever and could probably earn a living of some sort somewhere. Also though you would be taking on an elderly
buffer, I am one without fixed habits. You wouldn't find yourself confined to any particular place or group. Also I have practically
no living relatives except one brother whom I scarcely know. You would not find yourself involved in a large family & all
their rows & you would not be patronized & interfered with by odious sisters in law & aunts as often happens. All these are
very small advantages compared with the awfulness of my character. I have always tried to be nice to you and you may have
got it into your head that I am nice really, but that is all rot. It is only to you & for you.
Answer
10)
I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution
it gave me, and the consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time.
But I read it through three times before I laid it down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It asked
me, would I be the mistress of Pemberley.
It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any
time have spoken to me. I saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind
protecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and
all the feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his having attained
a ripe age, while I was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing all this so well as to set it in full
before me for mature deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a
marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever
my decision was, he was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew since our late confidence and had
decided on taking it, if it only served to show me through one poor instance that the whole world would readily unite to falsify
the stern prediction of my childhood. I was the last to know what
happiness I could bestow upon him, but of that he said no more, for I was always to remember that I owed him nothing and that
he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often thought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and fearing
that it might come soon, when Lydia (now very nearly of age) would leave us, and when
our present mode of life must be broken up, had become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. If I felt
that I could ever give him the best right he could have to be my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly
become the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter chances and changes than death, even then he could
not have me bind myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even then I must have ample time for reconsideration.
In that case, or in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in the old name by which
I called him.
Answer
1)
Pickwick Papers, C. Dickens. How many times have you wished that a book would go on for ever? It's what I wish, every
time I read Pickwick. The great man is sharing his wisdom with Mr Peter Magnus. Little does Mr Magnus know that his
intended bride has passed part of the previous night in the same bedchamber as Mr Pickwick!
Back to Question 1
2)
Nostromo, J. Conrad. Giorgio Viola has two daughters, and it is naturally assumed - by everyone - that Nostromo will
marry the elder, Linda. But he finds, to his horror and exaltation, that it is the younger, Giselle, whom he is in love with.
The final tragedy is rapidly approaching.
Back to Question 2
3)
Richard III, W. Shake-Speare. A nice easy one! Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
Back to Question 3
4)
Anna Karenina, L. Tolstoy. Levin's proposal to Kitty, an exact transcription of Tolstoy's own proposal. This is the
translation by Constance Garnett rather than the one, by Louise and Aylmer Maude, which I prefer to all others. Why? Pure
laziness, I fear - the Garnett is on the Web, the Maude is not.
Back to Question 4
5)
Mansfield Park, J. Austen. I like to make sure that everyone scores at least one point .... Henry Crawford is
being just a little too sure of his eventual success with Fanny Price.
Back to Question 5
6)
Vanity Fair, W. Thackeray. Another easy one .... Sir Pitt Crawley has made one of the most sensible decisions of his
life, and can hardly be expected to know that he is proposing to his own daughter-in-law.
Back to Question 6
7)
Mountolive, L. Durrell. At last, the pieces are falling into place: we begin to understand (at least some of) the things
which have been baffling us for two-thirds of The Alexandria Quartet. Nessim reveals the conspiracy to Justine in order
to win her. He finds that he has indeed won her, but for the conspiracy more than for himself.
Back to Question 7
8)
Extract from letter to Anne Popham, March 1946, G. Orwell. You have to sympathise with Orwell: apart from his personal
loneliness, he was a widower, dangerously ill, with a young son who needed a mother. Small wonder that he proposed to almost
every suitable young woman of his acquaintance in those days.
Back to Question 8
9)
Extract from letter to Laura Herbert, Spring 1936, E. Waugh. Another easy one! Against many expectations, the ensuing
marriage was long, successful, happy, and productive. What would have happened to Waugh if he hadn't found a nice girl to
marry hardly bears thinking about.
Back to Question 9
10)
Bleak House, C. Dickens. John Jarndyce has asked Esther to become mistress of Bleak House in name as well as in fact.
She consents; she does not change her mind; the outcome desired by all occurs.
There! There wasn't anything inordinately difficult this time, was there!
Back to Question 10
Don't bottle up your contempt and fury.
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Updated: 20 January 2006
