Curious...what did Austen mean

Good reply, Julie.

I love this passage in Chapter 41. The regiment is about to depart for Brighton, and the officers have been invited to dine at Longbourn. Elizabeth sees Wickham for the last time and decides to have a bit of fun with him at his expense. She tells him that she saw Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam at Rosings.

Wickham: "How long did you say that he was at Rosings?"

"Nearly three weeks."

"And you saw [Colonel Fitzwilliam] frequently?"

"Yes, almost every day."

"His manners are very different from his cousin's."

"Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves on acquaintance."

"Indeed!" cried Wickham with a look which did not escape her. "And pray may I ask -- ?! but checking himself, he added in a gayer tone, "Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add ought of civility to his ordinary style? for I dare not hope," he continued in a lower and more serious tone, "that he is improved in essentials."

"Oh, no!" said Elizabeth. "In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was."

While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention, while she added,

"When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that either his mind or manners were in a state of improvement, but that from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood."

Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look; for a few minutes he was silent; till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents,

"You, who so well know my feelings towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the sort of cautiousness, to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgment he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always operated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss De Bourgh, which I am certain he has very much at heart."

Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head.


That passage is such a giggle. Austen tells us that "there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in [Elizabeth's] manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody", and here we have Lizzie at her most sweetly arch (or archly sweet?). Could she be talking about Darcy, or about Wickham himself?! Wickham's discomfiture is a joy to read.







Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!