Plot Summary
Chapter 34 of Pride and Prejudice is the dramatic turning point of the novel: Mr. Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. After Charlotte and the others leave the Parsonage, Elizabeth stays behind alone, rereading Jane's letters from Kent. She notices that every line lacks Jane's characteristic cheerfulness, and Darcy's "shameful boast" about separating Bingley from Jane deepens her resentment. She consoles herself that Darcy will leave Rosings the day after next and that she will soon rejoin Jane.
Darcy's Unexpected Declaration
Elizabeth is startled when the doorbell rings. She expects Colonel Fitzwilliam, but is astonished when Mr. Darcy enters the room. After a few agitated minutes of pacing, he declares: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." His proposal, however, dwells as much on the obstacles he has overcome -- her inferior social connections, the degradation of the match -- as on his love, making him "not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride."
Elizabeth's Decisive Rejection
Elizabeth refuses him firmly. She accuses him of separating Jane from Bingley and of cruel treatment toward Mr. Wickham, charges Darcy does not deny. When he asks why she rejects him with so little civility, she retorts that his insulting manner of proposing -- confessing that he loves her "against your will, against your reason, and even against your character" -- provides ample justification. Darcy defends himself by arguing that disguise is his abhorrence, and asks whether she could expect him to rejoice in the inferiority of her connections.
The Final Exchange
Elizabeth delivers her devastating final blow: "From the very beginning -- from the first moment, I may almost say -- of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and 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." Darcy leaves abruptly, and Elizabeth breaks down in tears, overwhelmed by the astonishing revelation that he has been in love with her for months.