diff --git a/cppy/cp_util.py b/cppy/cp_util.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76defb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/cppy/cp_util.py @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ + +import site +import os,re +import string,operator + +################################################################################ +# 变量 +################################################################################ +testfilename = 'test.txt' +testfilename = 'pride-and-prejudice.txt' +testfilename = 'Prey.txt' + +site_packages = site.getsitepackages() +for package in site_packages: + if 'package' in package: + basePath = package +stopwordfilepath = os.path.join(basePath, 'cppy','data','stop_words.txt') +testfilepath = os.path.join(basePath, 'cppy','data',testfilename ) + + +################################################################################ +# 函数 +################################################################################ +def read_file(path_to_file): + with open(path_to_file,encoding='utf-8') as f: + data = f.read() + return data + +def re_split( data ): + pattern = re.compile('[\W_]+') + data = pattern.sub(' ', data).lower() + return data.split() + +def get_stopwords( path_to_file = stopwordfilepath ): + with open(path_to_file,encoding='utf-8') as f: + data = f.read().split(',') + data.extend(list(string.ascii_lowercase)) + return data + +def extract_file_words(path_to_file): + word_list = re_split( read_file(path_to_file) ) + stop_words = get_stopwords() + return [ w for w in word_list if ( not w in stop_words ) and len(w) >= 3 ] + +def extract_str_words(data_str): + word_list = re_split( data_str ) + stop_words = get_stopwords() + return [ w for w in word_list if ( not w in stop_words ) and len(w) >= 3 ] + +def count_word(word, word_freqs, stopwords): + if word not in stopwords: + word_freqs[word] = word_freqs.get(word, 0) + 1 + +def get_frequencies(word_list): + word_freqs = {} + for word in word_list: + word_freqs[word] = word_freqs.get(word, 0) + 1 + return word_freqs + +def sort_dict (word_freq): + return sorted(word_freq.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1), reverse=True) + # return sorted( word_freq, key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True ) + +def print_word_freqs( word_freqs, n = 10): + for (w, c) in word_freqs[ :n ]: + print( w, '-', c ) + + +def test(): + print( 'cppy welcome' ) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/cppy/data/Prey.txt b/cppy/data/Prey.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..203f2a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/cppy/data/Prey.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4369 @@ +Introduction +Artificial Evolution in the Twenty-first Century + +The notion that the world around us is continuously evolving is a platitude; we rarely grasp its full implications. We do not ordinarily think, for example, of an epidemic disease changing its character as the epidemic spreads. Nor do we think of evolution in plants and animals as occurring in a matter of days or weeks, though it does. And we do not ordinarily imagine the green world around us as a scene of constant, sophisticated chemical warfare, with plants producing pesticides in response to attack, and insects developing resistance. But that is what happens, too. +If we were to grasp the true nature of nature—if we could comprehend the real meaning of evolution—then we would envision a world in which every living plant, insect, and animal species is changing at every instant, in response to every other living plant, insect, and animal. Whole populations of organisms are rising and falling, shifting and changing. This restless and perpetual change, as inexorable and unstoppable as the waves and tides, implies a world in which all human actions necessarily have uncertain effects. The total system we call the biosphere is so complicated that we cannot know in advance the consequences of anything that we do.[1] That is why even our most enlightened past efforts have had undesirable outcomes—either because we did not understand enough, or because the ever-changing world responded to our actions in unexpected ways. From this standpoint, the history of environmental protection is as discouraging as the history of environmental pollution. Anyone who is willing to argue, for example, that the industrial policy of clear-cutting forests is more damaging than the ecological policy of fire suppression ignores the fact that both policies have been carried out with utter conviction, and both have altered the virgin forest irrevocably. Both provide ample evidence of the obstinate egotism that is a hallmark of human interaction with the environment. The fact that the biosphere responds unpredictably to our actions is not an argument for inaction. It is, however, a powerful argument for caution, and for adopting a tentative attitude toward all we believe, and all we do. Unfortunately, our species has demonstrated a striking lack of caution in the past. It is hard to imagine that we will behave differently in the future. We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so. We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds—and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. +We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware,[2] yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind. Sometime in the twenty-first century, our self-deluded recklessness will collide with our growing technological power. One area where this will occur is in the meeting point of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computer technology. What all three have in common is the ability to release self-replicating entities into the environment. +We have lived for some years with the first of these self-replicating entities, computer viruses. And we are beginning to have some practical experience with the problems of biotechnology. The recent report that modified maize genes now appear in native maize in Mexico—despite laws against it, and efforts to prevent it—is just the start of what we may expect to be a long and difficult journey to control our technology. At the same time, long-standing beliefs about the fundamental safety of biotechnology—views promoted by the great majority of biologists since the 1970s—now appear less secure. The unintended creation of a devastatingly lethal virus by Australian researchers in 2001 has caused many to rethink old assumptions.[3] Clearly we will not be as casual about this technology in the future as we have been in the past. Nanotechnology is the newest of these three technologies, and in some ways the most radical. It is the quest to build man-made machinery of extremely small size, on the order of 100 nanometers, or a hundred billionths of a meter. Such machines would be about 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Pundits predict these tiny machines will provide everything from miniaturized computer components to new cancer treatments to new weapons of war. +As a concept, nanotechnology dates back to a 1959 speech by Richard Feynman called “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.”[4] Forty years later, the field is still very much in its infancy, despite relentless media hype. Yet practical advances are now being made, and funding has increased dramatically. Major corporations such as IBM, Fujitsu, and Intel are pouring money into research. The U.S. government has spent $1 billion on nanotechnology in the last two years. +Meanwhile, nanotechniques are already being used to make sunscreens, stain-resistant fabrics, and composite materials in cars. Soon they will be used to make computers and storage devices of extremely small size. +And some of the long-anticipated “miracle” products have started to appear as well. In 2002 one company was manufacturing self-cleaning window glass; another made a nanocrystal wound dressing with antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties. At the moment nanotechnology is primarily a materials technology, but its potential goes far beyond that. For decades there has been speculation about self-reproducing machines. In 1980 a NASA paper discussed several methods by which such machines could be made. Ten years ago, two knowledgeable scientists took the matter seriously: + +Within fifty to a hundred years, a new class of organisms is likely to emerge. These organisms will be artificial in the sense that they will originally be designed by humans. However, they will reproduce, and will “evolve” into something other than their original form; they will be “alive” under any reasonable definition of the word. ... The pace of evolutionary change will be extremely rapid. ... The impact on humanity and the biosphere could be enormous, larger than the industrial revolution, nuclear weapons, or environmental pollution. We must take steps now to shape the emergence of artificial organisms. ... + +And the chief proponent of nanotechnology, K. Eric Drexler, expressed related concerns: + +There are many people, including myself, who are quite queasy about the consequences of this technology for the future. We are talking about changing so many things that the risk of society handling it poorly through lack of preparation is very large. + +Even by the most optimistic (or dire) predictions, such organisms are probably decades into our future. We may hope that by the time they emerge, we will have settled upon international controls for self-reproducing technologies. We can expect such controls to be stringently enforced; already we have learned to treat computer virus-makers with a severity unthinkable twenty years ago. We’ve learned to put hackers in jail. Errant biotechnologists will soon join them. +But of course, it is always possible that we will not establish controls. Or that someone will manage to create artificial, self-reproducing organisms far sooner than anyone expected. If so, it is difficult to anticipate what the consequences might be. That is the subject of the present novel. + +Michael Crichton +LOS ANGELES, 2002 + It’s midnight now. The house is dark. I am not sure how this will turn out. The kids are all desperately sick, throwing up. I can hear my son and daughter retching in separate bathrooms. I went in to check on them a few minutes ago, to see what was coming up. I’m worried about the baby, but I had to make her sick, too. It was her only hope. I think I’m okay, at least for the moment. But of course the odds aren’t good: most of the people involved in this business are already dead. And there are so many things I can’t know for sure. +The facility is destroyed, but I don’t know if we did it in time. I’m waiting for Mae. She went to the lab in Palo Alto twelve hours ago. I hope she succeeded. I hope she made them understand how desperate the situation is. I expected to hear from the lab but so far there has been no word. +I have ringing in my ears, which is a bad sign. And I feel a vibrating in my chest and abdomen. The baby is spitting up, not really vomiting. I am feeling dizzy. I hope I don’t lose consciousness. The kids need me, especially the little one. They’re frightened. I don’t blame them. +I am, too. +Sitting here in the dark, it’s hard to believe that a week ago my biggest problem was finding a job. It seems almost laughable now. +But then, things never turn out the way you think they will. + +HOME +Chapter 1 +DAY 1 10:04 A.M. +Things never turn out the way you think they will. +I never intended to become a househusband. Stay-at-home husband. Full-time dad, whatever you want to call it—there is no good term for it. But that’s what I had become in the last six months. Now I was in Crate & Barrel in downtown San Jose, picking up some extra glasses, and while I was there I noticed they had a good selection of placemats. We needed more placemats; the woven oval ones that Julia had bought a year ago were getting pretty worn, and the weave was crusted with baby food. The trouble was, they were woven, so you couldn’t wash them. So I stopped at the display to see if they had any placemats that might be good, and I found some pale blue ones that were nice, and I got some white napkins. And then some yellow placemats caught my eye, because they looked really bright and appealing, so I got those, too. They didn’t have six on the shelf, and I thought we’d better have six, so I asked the salesgirl to look in the back and see if they had more. While she was gone I put the placemat on the table, and put a white dish on it, and then I put a yellow napkin next to it. The setting looked very cheerful, and I began to think maybe I should get eight instead of six. That was when my cell phone rang. +It was Julia. “Hi, hon.” +“Hi, Julia. How’s it going?” I said. I could hear machinery in the background, a steady chugging. Probably the vacuum pump for the electron microscope. They had several scanning electron microscopes at her laboratory. +She said, “What’re you doing?” +“Buying placemats, actually.” +“Where?” +“Crate and Barrel.” +She laughed. “You the only guy there?” +“No ...” +“Oh, well, that’s good,” she said. I could tell Julia was completely uninterested in this conversation. Something else was on her mind. “Listen, I wanted to tell you, Jack, I’m really sorry, but it’s going to be a late night again.” +“Uh-huh ...” The salesgirl came back, carrying more yellow mats. Still holding the phone to my ear, I beckoned her over. I held up three fingers, and she put down three more mats. To Julia, I said, “Is everything all right?” +“Yeah, it’s just crazy like normal. We’re broadcasting a demo by satellite today to the VCs in Asia and Europe, and we’re having trouble with the satellite hookup at this end because the video truck they sent—oh, you don’t want to know ... anyway, we’re going to be delayed two hours, hon. Maybe more. I won’t get back until eight at the earliest. Can you feed the kids and put them to bed?” +“No problem,” I said. And it wasn’t. I was used to it. Lately, Julia had been working very long hours. Most nights she didn’t get home until the children were asleep. Xymos Technology, the company she worked for, was trying to raise another round of venture capital—twenty million dollars—and there was a lot of pressure. Especially since Xymos was developing technology in what the company called “molecular manufacturing,” but which most people called nanotechnology. Nano wasn’t popular with the VCs—the venture capitalists—these days. Too many VCs had been burned in the last ten years with products that were supposedly just around the corner, but then never made it out of the lab. The VCs considered nano to be all promise, no products. +Not that Julia needed to be told that; she’d worked for two VC firms herself. Originally trained as a child psychologist, she ended up as someone who specialized in “technology incubation,” helping fledgling technology companies get started. (She used to joke she was still doing child psychology.) Eventually, she’d stopped advising firms and joined one of them full-time. She was now a vice president at Xymos. +Julia said Xymos had made several breakthroughs, and was far ahead of others in the field. She said they were just days away from a prototype commercial product. But I took what she said with a grain of salt. +“Listen, Jack, I want to warn you,” she said, in a guilty voice, “that Eric is going to be upset.” +“Why?” +“Well ... I told him I would come to the game.” +“Julia, why? We talked about making promises like this. There’s no way you can make that game. It’s at three o’clock. Why’d you tell him you would?” +“I thought I could make it.” +I sighed. It was, I told myself, a sign of her caring. “Okay. Don’t worry, honey. I’ll handle it.” +“Thanks. Oh, and Jack? The placemats? Whatever you do, just don’t get yellow, okay?” +And she hung up. +I made spaghetti for dinner because there was never an argument about spaghetti. By eight o’clock, the two little ones were asleep, and Nicole was finishing her homework. She was twelve, and had to be in bed by ten o’clock, though she didn’t like any of her friends to know that. +The littlest one, Amanda, was just nine months. She was starting to crawl everywhere, and to stand up holding on to things. Eric was eight; he was a soccer kid, and liked to play all the time, when he wasn’t dressing up as a knight and chasing his older sister around the house with his plastic sword. +Nicole was in a modest phase of her life; Eric liked nothing better than to grab her bra and go running around the house, shouting, “Nicky wears a bra-a! Nicky wears a bra-a!” while Nicole, too dignified to pursue him, gritted her teeth and yelled, “Dad? He’s doing it again! Dad!” And I would have to go chase Eric and tell him not to touch his sister’s things. This was what my life had become. At first, after I lost the job at MediaTronics, it was interesting to deal with sibling rivalry. And often, it seemed, not that different from what my job had been. +At MediaTronics I had run a program division, riding herd over a group of talented young computer programmers. At forty, I was too old to work as a programmer myself anymore; writing code is a young person’s job. So I managed the team, and it was a full-time job; like most Silicon Valley programmers, my team seemed to live in a perpetual crisis of crashed Porsches, infidelities, bad love affairs, parental hassles, and drug reactions, all superimposed on a forced-march work schedule with all-night marathons fueled by cases of Diet Coke and Sun chips. +But the work was exciting, in a cutting-edge field. We wrote what are called distributed parallel processing or agent-based programs. These programs model biological processes by creating virtual agents inside the computer and then letting the agents interact to solve real-world problems. It sounds strange, but it works fine. For example, one of our programs imitated ant foraging—how ants find the shortest path to food—to route traffic through a big telephone network. Other programs mimicked the behavior of termites, swarming bees, and stalking lions. It was fun, and I would probably still be there if I hadn’t taken on some additional responsibilities. In my last few months there, I’d been put in charge of security, replacing an outside tech consultant who’d had the job for two years but had failed to detect the theft of company source code, until it turned up in a program being marketed out of Taiwan. Actually, it was my division’s source code—software for distributed processing. That was the code that had been stolen. +We knew it was the same code, because the Easter eggs hadn’t been touched. Programmers always insert Easter eggs into their code, little nuggets that don’t serve any useful purpose and are just put there for fun. The Taiwanese company hadn’t changed any of them; they used our code wholesale. So the keystrokes Alt-Shift-M-9 would open up a window giving the date of one of our programmers’ marriage. Clear theft. +Of course we sued, but Don Gross, the head of the company, wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. So he put me in charge of security, and I was angry enough about the theft to take the job. It was only part-time; I still ran the division. The first thing I did as security officer was to monitor workstation use. It was pretty straightforward; these days, eighty percent of companies monitor what their workers do at terminals. They do it by video, or they do it by recording keystrokes, or by scanning email for certain keywords ... all sorts of procedures out there. +Don Gross was a tough guy, an ex-Marine who had never lost his military manner. When I told him about the new system, he said, “But you’re not monitoring my terminal, right?” Of course not, I said. In fact, I’d set up the programs to monitor every computer in the company, his included. And that was how I discovered, two weeks later, that Don was having an affair with a girl in accounting, and had authorized her to have a company car. I went to him and said that based on emails relating to Jean in accounting, it appeared that someone unknown was having an affair with her, and that she might be getting perks she wasn’t entitled to. I said I didn’t know who the person was, but if they kept using email, I’d soon find out. I figured Don would take the hint, and he did. But now he just sent incriminating email from his home, never realizing that everything went through the company server and I was getting it all. That’s how I learned he was “discounting” software to foreign distributors, and taking large “consultant fees” into an account in the Cayman Islands. This was clearly illegal, and I couldn’t overlook it. I consulted my attorney, Gary Marder, who advised me to quit. +“Quit?” I said. +“Yeah. Of course.” +“Why?” +“Who cares why? You got a better offer elsewhere. You’ve got some health problems. Or some family issues. Trouble at home. Just get out of there. Quit.” +“Wait a minute,” I said. “You think I should quit because he’s breaking the law? Is that your advice to me?” +“No,” Gary said. “As your attorney, my advice is that if you are aware of any illegal activity you have a duty to report it. But as your friend, my advice is to keep your mouth shut and get out of there fast.” +“Seems kind of cowardly. I think I have to notify the investors.” Gary sighed. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Jack,” he said, “the investors can look out for themselves. You get the fuck out of there.” +I didn’t think that was right. I had been annoyed when my code had been stolen. Now I found myself wondering if it actually had been stolen. Maybe it had been sold. We were a privately held company, and I told one of the board members. +It turned out he was in on it. I was fired the next day for gross negligence and misconduct. Litigation was threatened; I had to sign a raft of NDAs in order to get my severance package. My attorney handled the paperwork for me, sighing with every new document. +At the end, we went outside into the milky sunshine. I said, “Well, at least that’s over.” +He turned and looked at me. “Why do you say that?” he said. +Because of course it wasn’t over. In some mysterious way, I had become a marked man. My qualifications were excellent and I worked in a hot field. But when I went on job interviews I could tell they weren’t interested. Worse, they were uncomfortable. Silicon Valley covers a big area, but it’s a small place. Word gets out. Eventually I found myself talking to an interviewer I knew slightly, Ted Landow. I’d coached his kid in Little League baseball the year before. When the interview was over, I said to him, “What have you heard about me?” He shook his head. “Nothing, Jack.” +I said, “Ted, I’ve been on ten interviews in ten days. Tell me.” +“There’s nothing to tell.” +“Ted.” +He shuffled through his papers, looking down at them, not at me. He sighed. “Jack Forman. Troublemaker. Not cooperative. Belligerent. Hot-headed. Not a team player.” He hesitated, then said, “And supposedly you were involved in some kind of dealings. They won’t say what, but some kind of shady dealings. You were on the take.” +“I was on the take?” I said. I felt a flood of anger, and started to say more, until I realized I was probably looking hotheaded and belligerent. So I shut up, and thanked him. As I was leaving, he said, “Jack, do yourself a favor. Give it a while. Things change fast in the Valley. Your résumé is strong and your skill set is outstanding. Wait until ...” He shrugged. +“A couple of months?” +“I’d say four. Maybe five.” +Somehow I knew he was right. After that, I stopped trying so hard. I began to hear rumors that MediaTronics was going belly up, and there might be indictments. I smelled vindication ahead, but in the meantime there was nothing to do but wait. +The strangeness of not going to work in the morning slowly faded. Julia was working longer hours at her job, and the kids were demanding; if I was in the house they turned to me, instead of our housekeeper, Maria. I started taking them to school, picking them up, driving them to the doctor, the orthodontist, soccer practice. The first few dinners I cooked were disastrous, but I got better. +And before I knew it, I was buying placemats and looking at table settings in Crate & Barrel. And it all seemed perfectly normal. +Julia got home around nine-thirty. I was watching the Giants game on TV, not really paying attention. She came in and kissed me on the back of my neck. She said, “They all asleep?” +“Except Nicole. She’s still doing homework.” +“Jeez, isn’t it late for her to be up?” +“No, hon,” I said. “We agreed. This year she gets to stay up until ten, remember?” Julia shrugged, as if she didn’t remember. And maybe she didn’t. We had undergone a sort of inversion of roles; she had always been more knowledgeable about the kids, but now I was. Sometimes Julia felt uncomfortable with that, experiencing it somehow as a loss of power. +“How’s the little one?” +“Her cold is better. Just sniffles. She’s eating more.” +I walked with Julia to the bedrooms. She went into the baby’s room, bent over the crib, and kissed the sleeping child tenderly. Watching her, I thought there was something about a mother’s caring that a father could never match. Julia had some connection to the kids that I never would. Or at least a different connection. She listened to the baby’s soft breathing, and said, “Yes, she’s better.” +Then she went into Eric’s room, took the Game Boy off the bed covers, gave me a frown. I shrugged, faintly irritated; I knew Eric played with his Game Boy when he was supposed to be going to sleep, but I was busy getting the baby down at that time, and I overlooked it. I thought Julia should be more understanding. +Then she went into Nicole’s room. Nicole was on her laptop, but shut the lid when her mother walked in. “Hi, Mom.” +“You’re up late.” +“No, Mom ...” +“You’re supposed to be doing homework.” +“I did it.” +“Then why aren’t you in bed?” +“Because—” +“I don’t want you spending all night talking to your friends on the computer.” +“Mom ...” she said, in a pained voice. +“You see them every day at school, that should be enough.” +“Mom ...” +“Don’t look at your father. We already know he’ll do whatever you want. I’m talking to you, now.” +She sighed. “I know, Mom.” +This kind of interaction was increasingly common between Nicole and Julia. I guess it was normal at this age, but I thought I’d step in. Julia was tired, and when she was tired she got rigid and controlling. I put my arm around her shoulder and said, “It’s late for everybody. Want a cup of tea?” +“Jack, don’t interfere.” +“I’m not, I just—” +“Yes, you are. I’m talking to Nicole and you’re interfering, the way you always do.” +“Honey, we all agreed she could stay up until ten, I don’t know what this—” +“But if she’s finished her homework, she should go to bed.” +“That wasn’t the deal.” +“I don’t want her spending all day and night on the computer.” +“She’s not, Julia.” +At that point, Nicole burst into tears, and jumped to her feet crying, “You always criticize me! I hate you!” She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. That woke the baby, who started to cry. +Julia turned to me and said, “If you would please just let me handle this myself, Jack.” +And I said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. You’re right.” +In truth, that wasn’t what I thought at all. More and more, I regarded this as my house, and my kids. She was barging into my house, late at night, when I’d gotten everything quiet, the way I liked it, the way it should be. And she was raising a fuss. +I didn’t think she was right at all. I thought she was wrong. And in the last few weeks I’d noticed that incidents like this had become more frequent. At first, I thought Julia felt guilty about being away so much. Then I thought she was reasserting her authority, trying to regain control of a household that had fallen into my hands. Then I thought it was because she was tired, or under so much pressure at work. But lately I felt I was making excuses for her behavior. I started to have the feeling Julia had changed. She was different, somehow, tenser, tougher. +The baby was howling. I picked her up from the crib, hugged her, cooed at her, and simultaneously stuck a finger down the back of the diaper to see if it was wet. It was. I put her down on her back on top of the dresser, and she howled again until I shook her favorite rattle, and put it in her hand. She was silent then, allowing me to change her without much kicking. “I’ll do that,” Julia said, coming in. +“It’s okay.” +“I woke her up, it’s only right I do it.” +“Really honey, it’s fine.” +Julia put her hand on my shoulder, kissed the back of my neck. “I’m sorry I’m such a jerk. I’m really tired. I don’t know what came over me. Let me change the baby, I never get to see her.” +“Okay,” I said. I stepped aside, and she moved in. +“Hi, Poopsie-doopsie,” she said, chucking the baby under the chin. “How’s my little Winkie-dinkie?” All this attention made the baby drop the rattle, and then she started to cry, and to twist away on the table. Julia didn’t notice the missing rattle caused the crying; instead she made soothing sounds and struggled to put on the new diaper, but the baby’s twisting and kicking made it hard. “Amanda, stop it!” +I said, “She does that now.” And it was true, Amanda was in the stage where she actively resisted a diaper change. And she could kick pretty hard. +“Well, she should stop. Stop!” +The baby cried louder, tried to turn away. One of the adhesive tabs pulled off. The diaper slid down. Amanda was now rolling toward the edge of the dresser. Julia pulled her back roughly. Amanda never stopped kicking. +“God damn it, I said stop!” Julia said, and smacked the baby on the leg. The baby just cried harder, kicked harder. “Amanda! Stop it! Stop it!” She slapped her again. “Stop it! Stop it!” For a moment I didn’t react. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do. The baby’s legs were bright red. Julia was still hitting her. “Honey ...” I said, leaning in, “let’s not—” Julia exploded. “Why do you always fucking interfere?” she yelled, slamming her hand down on the dresser. “What is your fucking problem?” +And she stomped off, leaving the room. +I let out a long breath, and picked the baby up. Amanda howled inconsolably, as much in confusion as in pain. I figured I would need to give her a bottle to get her to sleep again. I stroked her back until she settled down a little. Then I got her diaper on, and brought her into the kitchen while I heated a bottle. The lights were low, just the fluorescents over the counter. Julia was sitting at the table, drinking beer out of a bottle, staring into space. “When are you going to get a job?” she said. +“I’m trying.” +“Really? I don’t think you’re trying at all. When was your last interview?” +“Last week,” I said. +She grunted. “I wish you’d hurry up and get one,” she said, “because this is driving me crazy.” I swallowed anger. “I know. It’s hard for everybody,” I said. It was late at night, and I didn’t want to argue anymore. But I was watching her out of the corner of my eye. At thirty-six, Julia was a strikingly pretty woman, petite, with dark hair and dark eyes, upturned nose, and the kind of personality that people called bubbly or sparkling. Unlike many tech executives, she was attractive and approachable. She made friends easily, and had a good sense of humor. Years back, when we first had Nicole, Julia would come home with hilarious accounts of the foibles of her VC partners. We used to sit at this same kitchen table and laugh until I felt physically sick, while little Nicole would tug at her arm and say, “What’s the funny, Mom? What’s the funny?” because she wanted to be in on the joke. Of course we could never explain it to her, but Julia always seemed to have a new “Knock knock” joke for Nicole, so she could join in the laughter, too. Julia had a real gift for seeing the humorous side of life. She was famous for her equanimity; she almost never lost her temper. Right now, of course, she was furious. Not even willing to look at me. Sitting in the dark at the round kitchen table, one leg crossed over the other, kicking impatiently while she stared into space. As I looked at her, I had the feeling that her appearance had changed, somehow. Of course she had lost weight recently, part of the strain of the job. A certain softness in her face was gone; her cheekbones protruded more; her chin seemed sharper. It made her look harder, but in a way more glamorous. +Her clothes were different, too. Julia was wearing a dark skirt and a white blouse, sort of standard business attire. But the skirt was tighter than usual. And her kicking foot made me notice she was wearing slingback high heels. What she used to call fuck-me shoes. The kind of shoes she would never wear to work. +And then I realized that everything about her was different—her manner, her appearance, her mood, everything—and in a flash of insight I knew why: my wife was having an affair. The water on the stove began to steam, and I pulled out the bottle, tested it on my forearm. It had gotten too hot, and I would have to wait a minute for it to cool. The baby started to cry, and I bounced her a little on my shoulder, while I walked her around the room. Julia never looked at me. She just kept swinging her foot, and staring into space. I had read somewhere that this was a syndrome. The husband’s out of work, his masculine appeal declines, his wife no longer respects him, and she wanders. I had read that in Glamour or Redbook or one of those magazines around the house that I glanced through while waiting for the washing machine to finish its cycle, or the microwave to thaw the hamburger. But now I was flooded with confused feelings. Was it really true? Was I just tired, making up bad stories in my mind? After all, what difference did it make if she was wearing tighter skirts and different shoes? Fashions changed. People felt different on different days. And just because she was sometimes angry, did that really mean she was having an affair? Of course it didn’t. I was probably just feeling inadequate, unattractive. These were probably my insecurities coming out. My thoughts went on in this vein for a while. +But for some reason, I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I was sure it was true. I had lived with this woman for more than twelve years. I knew she was different, and I knew why. I could sense the presence of someone else, an outside person, some intruder in our relationship. I felt it with a conviction that surprised me. I felt it in my bones, like an ache. I had to turn away. +* * * +The baby took the bottle, gurgling happily. In the darkened kitchen, she stared up at my face with that peculiar fixed stare that babies have. It was sort of soothing, watching her. After a while she closed her eyes, and then her mouth went slack. I put her on my shoulder and burped her as I carried her back into her bedroom. Most parents pat their babies too hard, trying to get a burp. It’s better to just rub the flat of your hand up their back, and sometimes just along the spine with two fingers. She gave a soft belch, and relaxed. +I set her down in the crib, and I turned out the night-light. Now the only light in the room came from the aquarium, bubbling green-blue in the corner. A plastic diver trudged along the bottom, trailing bubbles. +As I turned to go, I saw Julia silhouetted in the doorway, dark hair backlit. She had been watching me. I couldn’t read her expression. She stalked forward. I tensed. She put her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. +“Please forgive me,” she said. “I’m a real jerk. You’re doing a wonderful job. I’m just jealous, that’s all.” My shoulder was wet with her tears. +“I understand,” I said, holding her. “It’s okay.” +I waited to see if my body relaxed, but it didn’t. I was suspicious and alert. I had a bad feeling about her, and it wasn’t going away. +She came out of the shower into the bedroom, toweling her short hair dry. I was sitting on the bed, trying to watch the rest of the game. It occurred to me that she never used to take showers at night. Julia always took a shower in the morning before work. Now, I realized, she often came home and went straight to the shower before coming out to say hello to the kids. My body was still tense. I flicked the TV off. I said, “How was the demo?” +“The what?” +“The demo. Didn’t you have a demo today?” +“Oh,” she said. “Oh, yes. We did. It went fine, when we finally got it going. The VCs in Germany couldn’t stay for all of it because of the time change, but—listen, do you want to see it?” +“What do you mean?” +“I have a dub of it. Want to see it?” +I was surprised. I shrugged. “Okay, sure.” +“I’d really like to know what you think, Jack.” I detected a patronizing tone. My wife was including me in her work. Making me feel a part of her life. I watched as she opened her briefcase and took out a DVD. She stuck it in the player, and came back to sit with me on the bed. +“What were you demoing?” I said. +“The new medical imaging technology,” she said. “It’s really slick, if I say so myself.” She snuggled up, tucking herself into my shoulder. All very cozy, just like old times. I still felt uneasy, but I put my arm around her. +“By the way,” I said, “how come you take showers at night now, instead of in the morning?” +“I don’t know,” she said. “Do I? I guess I do. It just seems easier, honey. Mornings are so rushed, and I’ve been getting those conference calls from Europe, they take so much time—okay, here we go,” she said, pointing to the screen. I saw black-and-white scramble, and then the image resolved. +The tape showed Julia in a large laboratory that was fitted out like an operating room. A man lay on his back on the gurney, an IV in his arm, an anesthesiologist standing by. Above the table was a round flat metal plate about six feet in diameter, which could be raised and lowered, but was now raised. There were video monitors all around. And in the foreground, peering at a monitor, was Julia. There was a video technician by her side. “This is terrible,” she was saying, pointing to the monitor. “What’s all the interference?” +“We think it’s the air purifiers. They’re causing it.” +“Well, this is unacceptable.” +“Really?” +“Yes, really.” +“What do you want us to do?” +“I want you to fix it,” Julia said. +“Then we have to boost power, and you have—” +“I don’t care,” she said. “I can’t show the VCs an image of this quality. They’ve seen better pictures from Mars. Fix it.” +Beside me on the bed, Julia said, “I didn’t know they recorded all this. This is before the demo. You can fast forward.” +I pushed the remote. The picture scrambled. I waited a few seconds, and played it again. +Same scene. Julia still in the foreground. Carol, her assistant, whispering to her. +“Okay, but then what do I tell him?” +“Tell him no.” +“But he wants to get started.” +“I understand. But the transmission isn’t for an hour. Tell him no.” +On the bed, Julia said to me, “Mad Dog was our experimental subject. He was very restless. Impatient to get started.” +On the screen, the assistant lowered her voice. “I think he’s nervous, Julia. I would be, too, with a couple of million of those things crawling around inside my body—” +“It’s not a couple of million, and they’re not crawling,” Julia said. “Anyway, they’re his invention.” +“Even so.” +“Isn’t that an anesthesiologist over there?” +“No, just a cardiologist.” +“Well, maybe the cardiologist can give him something for his nervousness.” +“They already did. An injection.” +On the bed beside me, Julia said, “Fast forward, Jack.” I did. The picture jumped ahead. +“Okay, here.” +I saw Julia standing at the monitor again, with the technician beside her. “That’s acceptable,” onscreen Julia was saying, pointing to the image. “Not great, but acceptable. Now, show me the STM.” +“The what?” +“The STM. The electron microscope. Show me the image from that.” +The technician looked confused. “Uh ... Nobody told us about any electron microscope.” +“For God’s sake, read the damn storyboards!” +The technician blinked. “It’s on the storyboards?” +“Did you look at the storyboards?” +“I’m sorry, I guess I must have missed it.” +“There’s no time now to be sorry. Fix it!” +“You don’t have to shout.” +“Yes I do! I have to shout, because I’m surrounded by idiots!” She waved her hands in the air. “I’m about to go online and talk to eleven billion dollars of venture capital in five countries and show them submicroscopic technology, except I don’t have a microscope feed, so they can’t see the technology!” +On the bed, Julia said, “I kind of lost it with this guy. It was so frustrating. We had a clock counting down to the satellite time, which was booked and locked. We couldn’t change it. We had to make the time, and this guy was a dimbus. But eventually we got it working. Fast forward.” +The screen showed a static card, which read: + +A Private Demonstration of Advanced Medical Imaging by Xymos Technology +Mountain View, CA +World Leader in Molecular Manufacturing + +Then, on the screen, Julia appeared, standing in front of the gurney and the medical apparatus. She’d brushed her hair and tucked in her blouse. +“Hello to all of you,” she said, smiling at the camera. “I’m Julia Forman of Xymos Technology, and we’re about to demonstrate a revolutionary medical imaging procedure just developed here. Our subject, Peter Morris, is lying behind me on the table. In a few moments, we’re going to look inside his heart and blood vessels with an ease and accuracy never before possible.” She began walking around the table, talking as she went. +“Unlike cardiac catheterization, our procedure is one hundred percent safe. And unlike catheterization, we can look everywhere in the body, at every sort of vessel, no matter how large or small. We’ll see inside his aorta, the largest artery of the body. But we’ll also look inside the alveoli of his lungs, and the tiny capillaries of his fingertips. We can do all this because the camera we put inside his vessels is smaller than a red blood cell. Quite a bit smaller, actually. “Xymos microfabrication technology can now produce these miniaturized cameras, and produce them in quantity—cheaply, quickly. It would take a thousand of them just to make a dot the size of a pencil point. We can fabricate a kilogram of these cameras in an hour. “I’m sure you are all skeptical. We’re well aware that nanotechnology has made promises it couldn’t deliver. As you know, the problem has been that scientists could design molecular-scale devices, but they couldn’t manufacture them. But Xymos has solved that problem.” +It suddenly hit me, what she was saying. “What?” I said, sitting up in bed. “Are you kidding?” If it was true, it was an extraordinary development, a genuine technological breakthrough, and it meant— +“It’s true,” Julia said quietly. “We’re manufacturing in Nevada.” She smiled, enjoying my astonishment. +Onscreen, Julia was saying, “I have one of our Xymos cameras under the electron microscope, here”—she pointed to the screen—“so you can see it in comparison to the red blood cell alongside it.” +The image changed to black-and-white. I saw a fine probe push what looked like a tiny squid into position on a titanium field. It was a bullet-nosed lump with streaming filaments at the rear. It was a tenth of the size of the red blood cell, which in the vacuum of the scanning electron microscope was a wrinkled oval, like a gray raisin. +“Our camera is one ten-billionth of an inch in length. As you see, it is shaped like a squid,” Julia said. “Imaging takes place in the nose. Microtubules in the tail provide stabilization, like the tail of a kite. But they can also lash actively, and provide locomotion. Jerry, if we can turn the camera to see the nose ... Okay, there. Thank you. Now, from the front, you see that indentation in the center? That is the miniature gallium arsenide photon detector, acting as a retina, and the surrounding banded area—sort of like a radial tire—is bioluminescent, and lights the area ahead. Within the nose itself you may be able to just make out a rather complex series of twisted molecules. That is our patented ATP cascade. You can think of it as a primitive brain, which controls the behavior of the camera—very limited behavior, true, but enough for our purposes.” +I heard a hiss of static, and a cough. The screen image opened a small window in the corner, and now showed Fritz Leidermeyer, in Germany. The investor shifted his enormous bulk. “I’m sorry, Ms. Forman. Tell me please where is the lens?” +“There is no lens.” +“How can you have a camera with no lens?” +“I’ll explain that as we go,” she said. +Watching, I said, “It must be a camera obscura.” +“Right,” she said, nodding. +Camera obscura—Latin for “dark room”—was the oldest imaging device known. The Romans had found that if you made a small hole in the wall of a dark room, an upside-down image of the exterior appeared on the opposite wall. That was because light coming through any small aperture was focused, as if by a lens. It was the same principle as a kid’s pinhole camera. It was why ever since Roman times, image-recording devices were called cameras. But in this case— +“What makes the aperture?” I said. “Is there a pinhole?” +“I thought you knew,” she said. “You’re responsible for that part.” +“Me?” +“Yes. Xymos licensed some agent-based algorithms that your team wrote.” +“No, I didn’t know. Which algorithms?” +“To control a particle network.” +“Your cameras are networked? All those little cameras communicate with each other?” +“Yes,” she said. “They’re a swarm, actually.” She was still smiling, amused by my reactions. +“A swarm.” I was thinking it over, trying to understand what she was telling me. Certainly my team had written a number of programs to control swarms of agents. Those programs were modeled on behavior of bees. The programs had many useful characteristics. Because swarms were composed of many agents, the swarm could respond to the environment in a robust way. Faced with new and unexpected conditions, the swarm programs didn’t crash; they just sort of flowed around the obstacles, and kept going. +But our programs worked by creating virtual agents inside the computer. Julia had created real agents in the real world. At first I didn’t see how our programs could be adapted to what she was doing. +“We use them for structure,” she said. “The program makes the swarm structure.” Of course. It was obvious that a single molecular camera was inadequate to register any sort of image. Therefore, the image must be a composite of millions of cameras, operating simultaneously. But the cameras would also have to be arranged in space in some orderly structure, probably a sphere. That was where the programming came in. But that in turn meant that Xymos must be generating the equivalent of— +“You’re making an eye.” +“Kind of. Yes.” +“But where’s the light source?” +“The bioluminescent perimeter.” +“That’s not enough light.” +“It is. Watch.” +Meanwhile, the onscreen Julia was turning smoothly, pointing to the intravenous line behind her. She lifted a syringe out of a nearby ice bucket. The barrel appeared to be filled with water. “This syringe,” she said, “contains approximately twenty million cameras in isotonic saline suspension. At the moment they exist as particles. But once they are injected into the bloodstream, their temperature will increase, and they will soon flock together, and form a meta-shape. Just like a flock of birds forms a V-shape.” +“What kind of a shape?” one of the VCs asked. +“A sphere,” she said. “With a small opening at one end. You might think of it as the equivalent of a blastula in embryology. But in effect the particles form an eye. And the image from that eye will be a composite of millions of photon detectors. Just as the human eye creates an image from its rods and cone cells.” +She turned to a monitor that showed an animation loop, repeated over and over again. The cameras entered the bloodstream as an untidy, disorganized mass, a kind of buzzing cloud within the blood. Immediately the blood flow flattened the cloud into an elongated streak. But within seconds, the streak began to coalesce into a spherical shape. That shape became more defined, until eventually it appeared almost solid. +“If this reminds you of an actual eye, there’s a reason. Here at Xymos we are explicitly imitating organic morphology,” Julia said. “Because we are designing with organic molecules, we are aware that courtesy of millions of years of evolution, the world around us has a stockpile of molecular arrangements that work. So we use them.” +“You don’t want to reinvent the wheel?” someone said. +“Exactly. Or the eyeball.” +She gave a signal, and the flat antenna was lowered until it was just inches above the waiting subject. +“This antenna will power the camera, and pick up the transmitted image,” she said. “The image can of course be digitally stored, intensified, manipulated, or anything else that you might do with digital data. Now, if there are no other questions, we can begin.” She fitted the syringe with a needle, and stuck it into a rubber stopper in the IV line. +“Mark time.” +“Zero point zero.” +“Here we go.” +She pushed the plunger down quickly. “As you see, I’m doing it fast,” she said. “There’s nothing delicate about our procedure. You can’t hurt anything. If the microturbulence generated by the flow through the needle rips the tubules from a few thousand cameras, it doesn’t matter. We have millions more. Plenty to do the job.” She withdrew the needle. “Okay? Generally we have to wait about ten seconds for the shape to form, and then we should begin getting an image ... Ah, looks like something is coming now ... And here it is.” The scene showed the camera moving forward at considerable speed through what looked like an asteroid field. Except the asteroids were red cells, bouncy purplish bags moving in a clear, slightly yellowish liquid. An occasional much larger white cell shot forward, filled the screen for a moment, then was gone. What I was seeing looked more like a video game than a medical image. +“Julia,” I said, “this is pretty amazing.” +Beside me, Julia snuggled closer and smiled. “I thought you might be impressed.” Onscreen, Julia was saying, “We’ve entered a vein, so the red cells are not oxygenated. Right now our camera is moving toward the heart. You’ll see the vessels enlarging as we move up the venous system ... Yes, now we are approaching the heart ... You can see the pulsations in the bloodstream that result from the ventricular contractions ...” It was true, I could see the camera pause, then move forward, then pause. She had an audio feed of the beating heart. On the table, the subject lay motionless, with the flat antenna just over his body. +“We’re coming to the right atrium, and we should see the mitral valve. We activate the flagella to slow the camera. There the valve is now. We are in the heart.” I saw the red flaps, like a mouth opening and closing, and then the camera shot through, into the ventricle, and out again. “Now we are going to the lungs, where you will see what no one has ever witnessed before. The oxygenation of the cells.” +As I watched, the blood vessel narrowed swiftly, and then the cells plumped up, and popped brilliantly red, one after another. It was extremely quick; in less than a second, they were all red. “The red cells have now been oxygenated,” Julia said, “and we are on our way back to the heart.” +I turned to Julia in the bed. “This is really fantastic stuff,” I said. +But her eyes were closed, and she was breathing gently. +“Julia?” +She was asleep. +Julia had always tended to fall asleep while watching TV. Falling asleep during your own presentation was reasonable enough; after all, she’d already seen it. And it was pretty late. I was tired myself. I decided I could watch the rest of the demo another time. It seemed pretty lengthy for a demo, anyhow. How long had I been watching so far? When I turned to switch off the TV, I looked down at the time code running at the bottom of the image. Numbers were spinning, ticking off hundredths of a second. Other numbers to the left, not spinning. I frowned. One of them was the date. I hadn’t noticed it before, because it was in international format, with the year first, the day, and the month. It read 02.21.09. +September 21. +Yesterday. +She’d recorded this demo yesterday, not today. +I turned off the TV, and turned off the bedside light. I lay down on the pillow and tried to sleep. +Chapter 2 +DAY 2 9:02 A.M. +We needed skim milk, Toastie-Os, Pop-Tarts, Jell-O, dishwasher detergent—and something else, but I couldn’t read my own writing. I stood in the supermarket aisle at nine o’clock in the morning, puzzling over my notes. A voice said, “Hey, Jack. How’s it hanging?” I looked up to see Ricky Morse, one of the division heads at Xymos. “Hey, Ricky. How are you?” I shook his hand, genuinely glad to see him. I was always glad to see Ricky. Tanned, with blond crewcut hair and a big grin, he could easily be taken for a surfer were it not for his SourceForge 3.1 T-shirt. Ricky was only a few years younger than I was, but he had an air of perpetual youthfulness. I’d given him his first job, right out of college, and he’d rapidly moved into management. With his cheerful personality and upbeat manner, Ricky made an ideal project manager, even though he tended to underplay problems, and give management unrealistic expectations about when a project would be finished. According to Julia, that had sometimes caused trouble at Xymos; Ricky tended to make promises he couldn’t keep. And sometimes he didn’t quite tell the truth. But he was so cheerful and appealing that everyone always forgave him. At least, I always did, when he worked for me. I had become quite fond of him, and thought of him almost as a younger brother. I’d recommended him for his job at Xymos. +Ricky was pushing a shopping cart filled with disposable diapers in big plastic bundles; he had a young baby at home, too. I asked him why he was shopping and not at the office. “Mary’s got the flu, and the maid’s in Guatemala. So I told her I’d pick up some things.” +“I see you’ve got Huggies,” I said. “I always get Pampers, myself.” +“I find Huggies absorb more,” he said. “And Pampers are too tight. They pinch the baby’s leg.” +“But Pampers have a layer that takes moisture away, and keeps the bottom dry,” I said. “I have fewer rashes with Pampers.” +“Whenever I use them, the adhesive tabs tend to pull off. And with a big load, it tends to leak out the leg, which makes extra work for me. I don’t know, I just find Huggies are higher quality.” +A woman glanced at us as she pushed past with her shopping cart. We started to laugh, thinking we must sound like we were in a commercial. +Ricky said loudly, “So hey, how about those Giants?” to the woman’s back as she continued down the aisle. +“Fuckin’ A, are they great or what?” I said, scratching myself. We laughed, then pushed our carts down the aisle together. Ricky said, “Want to know the truth? Mary likes Huggies, and that’s the end of the conversation.” +“I know that one,” I said. +Ricky looked at my cart, and said, “I see you buy organic skim milk ...” +“Stop it,” I said. “How are things at the office?” +“You know, they’re pretty damn good,” he said. “The technology’s coming along nicely, if I say so myself. We demoed for the money guys the other day, and it went well.” +“Julia’s doing okay?” I said, as casually as I could. +“Yeah, she’s doing great. Far as I know,” Ricky said. +I glanced at him. Was he suddenly reserved? Was his face set, the muscles controlled? Was he concealing something? I couldn’t tell. +“Actually, I rarely see her,” Ricky said. “She’s not around much these days.” +“I don’t see much of her either,” I said. +“Yeah, she’s spending a lot of time out at the fab complex. That’s where the action is now.” Ricky glanced quickly at me. “You know, because of the new fabrication processes.” +The Xymos fab building had been completed in record time, considering how complex it was. The fabrication building was where they assembled molecules from individual atoms. Sticking the molecule fragments together like Lego blocks. Much of this work was carried out in a vacuum, and required extremely strong magnetic fields. So the fab building had tremendous pump assemblies, and powerful chillers to cool the magnets. But according to Julia, a lot of the technology was specific to that building; nothing like it had ever been built before. I said, “It’s amazing they got the building up so fast.” +“Well, we kept the pressure on. Molecular Dynamics is breathing down our necks. We’ve got our fab up and running, and we’ve got patent applications by the truckload. But those guys at MolDyne and NanoTech can’t be far behind us. A few months. Maybe six months, if we’re lucky.” +“So you’re doing molecular assembly at the plant now?” I said. +“You got it, Jack. Full-bore molecular assembly. We have been for a few weeks now.” +“I didn’t know Julia was interested in that stuff.” With her background in psychology, I’d always regarded Julia as a people person. +“She’s taken a real interest in the technology, I can tell you. Also, they’re doing a lot of programming up there, too,” he said. “You know. Iterative cycles as they refine the manufacturing.” +I nodded. “What kind of programming?” I said. +“Distributed processing. Multi-agent nets. That’s how we keep the individual units coordinated, working together.” +“This is all to make the medical camera?” +“Yes.” He paused. “Among other things.” He glanced at me uneasily, as if he might be breaking his confidentiality agreement. +“You don’t have to say,” I said. +“No, no,” he said quickly. “Jeez, you and I go way back, Jack.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “And you got a spouse in management. I mean, what the hell.” But he still looked uneasy. His face didn’t match his words. And his eyes slid away from me when he said the word “spouse.” +The conversation was coming to an end, and I felt filled with tension, the kind of awkward tension when you think another guy knows something and isn’t telling you—because he’s embarrassed, because he doesn’t know how to put it, because he doesn’t want to get involved, because it’s too dangerous even to mention, because he thinks it’s your job to figure it out for yourself. Especially when it’s something about your wife. Like she’s screwing around. He’s looking at you like you’re the walking wounded, it’s night of the living dead, but he won’t tell you. In my experience, guys never tell other guys when they know something about their wives. But women always tell other women, if they know of a husband’s infidelity. +That’s just how it is. +But I was feeling so tense I wanted to— +“Hey, look at the time,” Ricky said, giving me a big grin. “I’m late, Mary’ll kill me, I’ve got to run. She’s already annoyed because I have to spend the next few days at the fab facility. So I’ll be out of town while the maid’s gone ...” He shrugged. “You know how it is.” +“Yeah, I do. Good luck.” +“Hey, man. Take care.” +We shook hands. Murmured another good-bye. Ricky rolled his cart around the corner of the aisle, and was gone. +Sometimes you can’t think about painful things, you can’t make your mind focus on them. Your brain just slips away, no thank you, let’s change the subject. That was happening to me now. I couldn’t think about Julia, so I started thinking about what Ricky had told me about their fabrication plant. And I decided it probably made sense, even though it went against the conventional wisdom about nanotechnology. +There was a long-standing fantasy among nanotechnologists that once somebody figured out how to manufacture at the atomic level, it would be like running the four-minute mile. Everybody would do it, unleashing a flood of wonderful molecular creations rolling off assembly lines all around the world. In a matter of days, human life would be changed by this marvelous new technology. As soon as somebody figured out how to do it. +But of course that would never happen. The very idea was absurd. Because in essence, molecular manufacturing wasn’t so different from computer manufacturing or flow-valve manufacturing or automobile manufacturing or any other kind of manufacturing. It took a while to get it right. In fact, assembling atoms to make a new molecule was closely analogous to compiling a computer program from individual lines of code. And computer code never compiled, the first time out. The programmers always had to go back and fix the lines. And even after it was compiled, a computer program never ever worked right the first time. Or the second time. Or the hundredth time. It had to be debugged, and debugged again, and again. And again. +I always believed it would be the same with these manufactured molecules—they’d have to be debugged again and again before they worked right. And if Xymos wanted “flocks” of molecules working together, they’d also have to debug the way the molecules communicated with each other, however limited that communication was. Because once the molecules communicated, you had a primitive network. To organize it, you’d probably program a distributed net. Of the kind I had been developing at MediaTronics. So I could perfectly well imagine them doing programming along with the manufacturing. But I couldn’t see Julia hanging around while they did it. The fab facility was far from the Xymos headquarters. It was literally in the middle of nowhere—out in the desert near Tonopah, Nevada. And Julia didn’t like to be in the middle of nowhere. I was sitting in the pediatrician’s waiting room because the baby was due for her next round of immunizations. There were four mothers in the room, bouncing sick kids on their laps while the older children played on the floor. The mothers all talked to each other and studiously ignored me. +I was getting used to this. A guy at home, a guy in a setting like the pediatrician’s office, was an unusual thing. But it also meant that something was wrong. There was probably something wrong with the guy, he couldn’t get a job, maybe he was fired for alcoholism or drugs, maybe he was a bum. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t normal for a man to be in the pediatrician’s office in the middle of the day. So the other mothers pretended I wasn’t there. Except they shot me the occasional worried glance, as if I might be sneaking up on them to rape them while their backs were turned. Even the nurse, Gloria, seemed suspicious. She glanced at the baby in my arms—who wasn’t crying, and was hardly sniffling. “What seems to be the problem?” +I said we were here for immunizations. +“She’s been here before?” +Yes, she had been coming to the doctor since she was born. +“Are you related?” +Yes, I was the father. +Eventually we were ushered in. The doctor shook hands with me, was very friendly, never asked why I was there instead of my wife or the housekeeper. He gave two injections. Amanda howled. I bounced her on my shoulder, comforted her. +“She may have a little swelling, a little local redness. Call me if it’s not gone in forty-eight hours.” Then I was back in the waiting room, trying to get out my credit card to pay the bill while the baby cried. And that was when Julia called. +“Hi. What’re you doing?” She must have heard the baby screaming. +“Paying the pediatrician.” +“Bad time?” +“Kind of ...” +“Okay, listen, I just wanted to say I have an early night—finally!—so I’ll be home for dinner. What do you say I pick up on my way home?” +“That’d be great,” I said. +Eric’s soccer practice ran late. It was getting dark on the field. The coach always ran practice late. I paced the sidelines, trying to decide whether to complain. It was so hard to know when you were coddling your kid, and when you were legitimately protecting them. Nicole called on her cell to say that her play rehearsal was over, and why hadn’t I picked her up? Where was I? I said I was still with Eric and asked if she could catch a ride with anybody. +“Dad ...” she said, exasperated. You’d think I had asked her to crawl home. +“Hey, I’m stuck.” +Very sarcastic: “Whatever.” +“Watch that tone, young lady.” +But a few minutes later, soccer was abruptly canceled. A big green maintenance truck pulled onto the field, and two men came out wearing masks and big rubber gloves, with spray cans on their backs. They were going to spray weed killer or something, and everybody had to stay off the field overnight. +I called Nicole back and said we would pick her up. +“When?” +“We’re on our way now.” +“From the little creep’s practice?” +“Come on, Nic.” +“Why does he always come first?” +“He doesn’t always come first.” +“Yes he does. He’s a little creep.” +“Nicole ...” +“Sor-ry.” +“See you in a few minutes.” I clicked off. Kids are more advanced these days. The teenage years now start at eleven. +By five-thirty the kids were home, raiding the fridge. Nicole was eating a big chunk of string cheese. I told her to stop; it would ruin her dinner. Then I went back to setting the table. “When is dinner?” +“Soon. Mom’s bringing it home.” +“Uh-huh.” She disappeared for a few minutes, and then she came back. “She says she’s sorry she didn’t call, but she’s going to be late.” +“What?” I was pouring water into the glasses on the table. +“She’s sorry she didn’t call but she’s going to be late. I just talked to her.” +“Jesus.” It was irritating. I tried never to show my irritation around the kids, but sometimes it slipped out. I sighed. “Okay.” +“I’m really hungry now, Dad.” +“Get your brother and get into the car,” I said. “We’re going to the drive-in.” Later that night, as I was carrying the baby to bed, my elbow brushed against a photograph on the living-room bookshelf. It clattered to the floor; I stooped to pick it up. It was a picture of Julia and Eric in Sun Valley when he was four. They were both in snowsuits; Julia was helping him learn to ski, and smiling radiantly. Next to it was a photo of Julia and me on our eleventh wedding anniversary in Kona; I was in a loud Hawaiian shirt and she had colorful leis around her neck, and we were kissing at sunset. That was a great trip; in fact, we were pretty sure Amanda was conceived there. I remember Julia came home from work one day and said, “Honey, remember how you said mai-tais were dangerous?” I said, “Yes ...” And she said, “Well, let me put it this way. It’s a girl,” and I was so startled the soda I was drinking went up my nose, and we both started to laugh. +Then a picture of Julia making cupcakes with Nicole, who was so young she sat on the kitchen counter and her legs didn’t reach the edge. She couldn’t have been more than a year and a half old. Nicole was frowning with concentration as she wielded a huge spoon of dough, making a fine mess while Julia tried not to laugh. +And a photo of us hiking in Colorado, Julia holding the hand of six-year-old Nicole while I carried Eric on my shoulders, my shirt collar dark with sweat—or worse, if I remembered that day right. Eric must have been about two; he was still in diapers. I remember he thought it was fun to cover my eyes while I carried him on the trail. +The hiking photo had slipped inside its frame so it stood at an angle. I tapped the frame to try and straighten it, but it didn’t move. I noticed that several of the other pictures were faded, or the emulsion was sticking to the glass. No one had bothered to take care of these pictures. The baby snuffled in my arms, rubbing her eyes with her fists. It was time for bed. I put the pictures back on the shelf. They were old images from another, happier time. From another life. They seemed to have nothing to do with me, anymore. Everything was different now. The world was different now. +I left the table set for dinner that night, a silent rebuke. Julia saw it when she got home around ten. “I’m sorry, hon.” +“I know you were busy,” I said. +“I was. Please forgive me?” +“I do,” I said. +“You’re the best.” She blew me a kiss, from across the room. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said. And she headed off down the hallway. I watched her go. On the way down the hall, she looked into the baby’s room, and then darted in. A moment later, I heard her cooing and the baby gurgling. I got out of my chair, and walked down the hall after her. +In the darkened nursery, she was holding the baby up, nuzzling her nose. +I said, “Julia ... you woke her up.” +“No I didn’t, she was awake. Weren’t you, little honey-bunny? You were awake, weren’t you, Poopsie-doopsie?” +The baby rubbed her eyes with tiny fists, and yawned. She certainly appeared to have been awakened. +Julia turned to me in the darkness. “I didn’t. Really. I didn’t wake her up. Why are you looking at me that way?” +“What way?” +“You know what way. That accusing way.” +“I’m not accusing you of anything.” +The baby started to whimper and then to cry. Julia touched her diaper. “I think she’s wet,” she said, and handed her to me as she walked out of the room. “You do it, Mr. Perfect.” +* * * +Now there was tension between us. After I changed the baby and put her back to bed, I heard Julia come out of the shower, banging a door. Whenever Julia started banging doors, it was a sign for me to come and mollify her. But I didn’t feel like it tonight. I was annoyed she’d awakened the baby, and I was annoyed by her unreliability, saying she’d be home early and never calling to say she wouldn’t. I was scared that she had become so unreliable because she was distracted by a new love. Or she just didn’t care about her family anymore. I didn’t know what to do about all this, but I didn’t feel like smoothing the tension between us. I just let her bang the doors. She slammed her sliding closet-door so hard the wood cracked. She swore. That was another sign I was supposed to come running. I went back to the living room, and sat down. I picked up the book I was reading, and stared at the page. I tried to concentrate but of course I couldn’t. I was angry and I listened to her bang around in the bedroom. If she kept it up, she’d wake Eric and then I would have to deal with her. I hoped it wouldn’t go that far. +Eventually the noise stopped. She had probably gotten into bed. If so, she would soon be asleep. Julia could go to sleep when we were fighting. I never could; I stayed up, pacing and angry, trying to settle myself down. +When I finally came to bed, Julia was fast asleep. I slipped between the covers, and rolled over on my side, away from her. +It was one o’clock in the morning when the baby began to scream. I groped for the light, knocked over the alarm clock, which turned the clock radio on, blaring rock and roll. I swore, fumbled in the dark, finally got the bedside light on, turned the radio off. The baby was still screaming. +“What’s the matter with her?” Julia said sleepily. +“I don’t know.” I got out of bed, shaking my head, trying to wake up. I went into the nursery and flicked on the light. The room seemed very bright, the clown wallpaper very yellow and burning. Out of nowhere, I thought: why doesn’t she want yellow placemats when she painted the whole nursery yellow? +The baby was standing up in her crib, holding on to the rails and howling, her mouth wide open, her breath coming in jagged gasps. Tears were running down her cheeks. I held my arms out to her and she reached for me, and I comforted her. I thought it must be a nightmare. I comforted her, rocked her gently. +She continued to scream, unrelenting. Maybe something was hurting her, maybe something in her diaper. I checked her body. That was when I saw an angry red rash on her belly, extending in welts around to her back, and up toward her neck. +Julia came in. “Can’t you stop it?” she said. +I said, “There’s something wrong,” and I showed her the rash. +“Has she got a fever?” +I touched Amanda’s head. She was sweaty and hot, but that could be from the crying. The rest of her body felt cool. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” +I could see the rash on her thighs now. Was it on her thighs a moment before? I almost thought I was seeing it spread before my eyes. If it was possible, the baby screamed even louder. “Jesus,” Julia said. “I’ll call the doctor.” +“Yeah, do.” By now I had the baby on her back—she screamed more—and I was looking carefully at her entire body. The rash was spreading, there was no doubt about it. And she seemed to be in terrible pain, screaming bloody murder. +“I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry ...” I said. +Definitely spreading. +Julia came back and said she left word for the doctor. I said, “I’m not going to wait. I’m taking her to the emergency room.” +“Do you really think that’s necessary?” she said. +I didn’t answer her, I just went into the bedroom to put on my clothes. +Julia said, “Do you want me to come with you?” +“No, stay with the kids,” I said. +“You sure?” +“Yes.” +“Okay,” she said. She wandered back to the bedroom. I reached for my car keys. +The baby continued to scream. + +“I realize it’s uncomfortable,” the intern was saying. “But I don’t think it’s safe to sedate her.” We were in a curtained cubicle in the emergency room. The intern was bent over my screaming daughter, looking in her ears with his instrument. By now Amanda’s entire body was bright, angry red. She looked as if she had been parboiled. +I felt scared. I’d never heard of anything like this before, a baby turning bright red and screaming constantly. I didn’t trust this intern, who seemed far too young to be competent. He couldn’t be experienced; he didn’t even look as if he shaved yet. I was jittery, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I was beginning to feel slightly crazy, because my daughter had never stopped screaming once in the last hour. It was wearing me down. The intern ignored it. I didn’t know how he could. +“She has no fever,” he said, making notes in a chart, “but in a child this age that doesn’t mean anything. Under a year, they may not run fevers at all, even with severe infections.” +“Is that what this is?” I said. “An infection?” +“I don’t know. I’m presuming a virus because of that rash. But we should have the preliminary blood work back in—ah, good.” A passing nurse handed him a slip of paper. “Uhh ... hmmm ...” He paused. “Well ...” +“Well what?” I said, shifting my weight anxiously. +He was shaking his head as he stared at the paper. He didn’t answer. +“Well what?” +“It’s not an infection,” he said. “White cells counts all normal, protein fractions normal. She’s got no immune mobilization at all.” +“What does that mean?” +He was very calm, standing there, frowning and thinking. I wondered if perhaps he was just dumb. The best people weren’t going into medicine anymore, not with the HMOs running everything. This kid might be one of the new breed of dumb doctor. “We have to widen the diagnostic net,” he said. “I’m going to order a surgical consult, a neurological consult, we have a dermo coming, we have infectious coming. That’ll mean a lot of people to talk to you about your daughter, asking the same questions over again, but—” +“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind. Just ... what do you think is wrong with her?” +“I don’t know, Mr. Forman. If it’s not infectious, we look for other reasons for this skin response. She hasn’t traveled out of the country?” +“No.” I shook my head. +“No recent exposures to heavy metals or toxins?” +“Like what?” +“Dump sites, industrial plants, chemical exposure ...” +“No, no.” +“Can you think of anything at all that might have caused this reaction?” +“No, nothing ... wait, she had vaccinations yesterday.” +“What vaccinations?” +“I don’t know, whatever she gets for her age ...” +“You don’t know what vaccinations?” he said. His notebook was open, his pen poised over the page. +“No, for Christ’s sake,” I said irritably, “I don’t know what vaccinations. Every time she goes there, she gets another shot. You’re the goddamned doctor—” +“That’s okay, Mr. Forman,” he said soothingly. “I know it’s stressful. If you just tell me the name of your pediatrician, I’ll call him, how is that?” +I nodded. I wiped my hand across my forehead. I was sweating. I spelled the pediatrician’s name for him while he wrote it down in his notebook. I tried to calm down. I tried to think clearly. +And all the time, my baby just screamed. +* * * +Half an hour later, she went into convulsions. +They started while one of the white-coated consultants was bent over her, examining her. Her little body wrenched and twisted. She made retching sounds as if she was trying to vomit. Her legs jerked spastically. She began to wheeze. Her eyes rolled up into her head. I don’t remember what I said or did then, but a big orderly the size of a football player came in and pushed me to one side of the cubicle and held my arms. I looked past his huge shoulder as six people clustered around my daughter; a nurse wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt was sticking a needle into her forehead. I began to shout and struggle. The orderly was yelling, “Scowvane, scowvane, scowvane,” over and over. Finally I realized he was saying “Scalp vein.” He explained it was just to start an IV, that the baby had become dehydrated. That was why she was convulsing. I heard talk of electrolytes, magnesium, potassium. Anyway, the convulsions stopped in a few seconds. But she continued to scream. +I called Julia. She was awake. “How is she?” +“The same.” +“Still crying? Is that her?” +“Yes.” She could hear Amanda in the background. +“Oh God.” She groaned. “What are they saying it is?” +“They don’t know yet.” +“Oh, the poor baby.” +“There have been about fifty doctors in here to look at her.” +“Is there anything I can do?” +“I don’t think so.” +“Okay. Let me know.” +“Okay.” +“I’m not sleeping.” +“Okay.” +* * * +Shortly before dawn the huddled consultants announced that she either had an intestinal obstruction or a brain tumor, they couldn’t decide which, and they ordered an MRI. The sky was beginning to lighten when she was finally wheeled to the imaging room. The big white machine stood in the center of the room. The nurse told me it would calm the baby if I helped her prepare her, and she took the needle out of her scalp because there couldn’t be any metal during the MRI reading. Blood squirted down Amanda’s face, into her eye. The nurse wiped it away. +Now Amanda was strapped onto the white board that rolled into the depths of the machine. My daughter was staring up at the MRI in terror, still screaming. The nurse told me I could wait in the next room with the technician. I went into a room with a glass window that looked in on the MRI machine. +The technician was foreign, dark. “How old is she? Is it a she?” +“Yes, she. Nine months.” +“Quite a set of lungs on her.” +“Yes.” +“Here we go.” He was fiddling at his knobs and dials, hardly looking at my daughter. Amanda was completely inside the machine. Her sobs sounded tinny over the microphone. The technician flicked a switch and the pump began to chatter; it made a lot of noise. But I could still hear my daughter screaming. +And then, abruptly, she stopped. +She was completely silent. +“Uh-oh,” I said. I looked at the technician and the nurse. Their faces registered shock. We all thought the same thing, that something terrible had happened. My heart began to pound. The technician hastily shut down the pumps and we hurried back into the room. My daughter was lying there, still strapped down, breathing heavily, but apparently fine. She blinked her eyes slowly, as if dazed. Already her skin was noticeably a lighter shade of pink, with patches of normal color. The rash was fading right before our eyes. “I’ll be damned,” the technician said. +* * * +Back in the emergency room, they wouldn’t let Amanda go home. The surgeons still thought she had a tumor or a bowel emergency, and they wanted to keep her in the hospital for observation. But the rash continued to clear steadily. Over the next hour, the pink color faded, and vanished. No one could understand what had happened, and the doctors were uneasy. The scalp vein IV was back in on the other side of her forehead. But Amanda took a bottle of formula, guzzling it down hungrily while I held her. She was staring up at me with her usual hypnotic feeding stare. She really seemed to be fine. She fell asleep in my arms. +I sat there for another hour, then began to make noises about how I had to get back to my kids, I had to get them to school. And not long afterward, the doctors announced another victory for modern medicine and sent me home with her. Amanda slept soundly all the way, and didn’t wake when I got her out of her car seat. The night sky was turning gray when I carried her up the driveway and into the house. +Chapter 3 +DAY 3 6:07 A.M. +The house was silent. The kids were still asleep. I found Julia standing in the dining room, looking out the window at the backyard. The sprinklers were on, hissing and clicking. Julia held a cup of coffee and stared out the window, unmoving. +I said, “We’re back.” +She turned. “She’s okay?” +I held out the baby to her. “Seems to be.” +“Thank God,” she said, “I was so worried, Jack.” But she didn’t approach Amanda, and didn’t touch her. “I was so worried.” +Her voice was strange, distant. She didn’t really sound worried, she sounded formal, like someone reciting the rituals of another culture that they didn’t really understand. She took a sip from her coffee mug. +“I couldn’t sleep all night,” she said. “I was so worried. I felt awful. God.” Her eyes flicked to my face, then away. She looked guilty. +“Want to hold her?” +“I, uh ...” Julia shook her head, and nodded to the coffee cup in her hand. “Not right now,” she said. “I have to check the sprinklers. They’re overwatering my roses.” And she walked into the backyard. +I watched her go out in the back and stand looking at the sprinklers. She glanced back at me, then made a show of checking the timer box on the wall. She opened the lid and looked inside. I didn’t get it. The gardeners had adjusted the sprinkler timers just last week. Maybe they hadn’t done it right. +Amanda snuffled in my arms. I took her into the nursery to change her, and put her back in bed. When I returned, I saw Julia in the kitchen, talking on her cell phone. This was another new habit of hers. She didn’t use the house phone much anymore; she used her cell. When I had asked her about it, she’d said it was just easier because she was calling long distance a lot, and the company paid her cellular bills. +I slowed my approach, and walked on the carpet. I heard her say, “Yes, damn it, of course I do, but we have to be careful now ...” +She looked up and saw me coming. Her tone immediately changed. “Okay, uh ... look, Carol, I think we can handle that with a phone call to Frankfurt. Follow up with a fax, and let me know how he responds, all right?” And she snapped the phone shut. I came into the kitchen. “Jack, I hate to leave before the kids are up, but ...” +“You’ve got to go?” +“I’m afraid so. Something’s come up at work.” +I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter after six. “Okay.” +She said, “So, will you, uh ... the kids ...” +“Sure, I’ll handle everything.” +“Thanks. I’ll call you later.” +And she was gone. +I was so tired I wasn’t thinking clearly. The baby was still asleep, and with luck she’d sleep several hours more. My housekeeper, Maria, came in at six-thirty and put out the breakfast bowls. The kids ate and I drove them to school. I was trying hard to stay awake. I yawned. Eric was sitting on the front seat next to me. He yawned, too. +“Sleepy today?” +He nodded. “Those men kept waking me up,” he said. +“What men?” +“The men that came in the house last night.” +“What men?” I said. +“The vacuum men,” he said. “They vacuumed everything. And they vacuumed up the ghost.” +From the backseat, Nicole snickered. “The ghost ...” +I said, “I think you were dreaming, son.” Lately Eric had been having vivid nightmares that often woke him in the night. I was pretty sure it was because Nicole let him watch horror movies with her, knowing they would upset him. Nicole was at the age where her favorite movies featured masked killers who murdered teenagers after they had had sex. It was the old formula: you have sex, you die. But it wasn’t appropriate for Eric. I’d spoken to her many times about letting him see them. +“No, Dad, it wasn’t a dream,” Eric said, yawning again. “The men were there. A whole bunch of them.” +“Uh-huh. And what was the ghost?” +“He was a ghost. All silver and shimmery, except he didn’t have a face.” +“Uh-huh.” By now we were pulling up at the school, and Nicole was saying I had to pick her up at 4:15 instead of 3:45 because she had a chorus rehearsal after class, and Eric was saying he wasn’t going to his pediatrician appointment if he had to get a shot. I repeated the timeless mantra of all parents: “We’ll see.” +The two kids piled out of the car, dragging their backpacks behind them. They both had backpacks that weighed about twenty pounds. I never got used to this. Kids didn’t have huge backpacks when I was their age. We didn’t have backpacks at all. Now it seemed all the kids had them. You saw little second-graders bent over like sherpas, dragging themselves through the school doors under the weight of their packs. Some of the kids had their packs on rollers, hauling them like luggage at the airport. I didn’t understand any of this. The world was becoming digital; everything was smaller and lighter. But kids at school lugged more weight than ever. A couple of months ago, at a parents’ meeting, I’d asked about it. And the principal said, “Yes, it’s a big problem. We’re all concerned.” And then changed the subject. I didn’t get that, either. If they were all concerned, why didn’t they do something about it? But of course that’s human nature. Nobody does anything until it’s too late. We put the stoplight at the intersection after the kid is killed. +I drove home again, through sluggish morning traffic. I was thinking I might get a couple of hours of sleep. It was the only thing on my mind. +Maria woke me up around eleven, shaking my shoulder insistently. “Mr. Forman. Mr. Forman.” +I was groggy. “What is it?” +“The baby.” +I was immediately awake. “What about her?” +“You see the baby, Mr. Forman. She all ...” She made a gesture, rubbing her shoulder and arm. +“She’s all what?” +“You see the baby, Mr. Forman.” +I staggered out of bed, and went into the nursery. Amanda was standing up in her crib, holding on to the railing. She was bouncing and smiling happily. Everything seemed normal, except for the fact that her entire body was a uniform purple-blue color. Like a big bruise. “Oh, Jesus,” I said. +I couldn’t take another episode at the hospital, I couldn’t take more white-coated doctors who didn’t tell you anything, I couldn’t take being scared all over again. I was still drained from the night before. The thought that there was something wrong with my daughter wrenched my stomach. I went over to Amanda, who gurgled with pleasure, smiling up at me. She stretched one hand toward me, grasping air, her signal for me to pick her up. So I picked her up. She seemed fine, immediately grabbing my hair and trying to pull off my glasses, the way she always did. I felt relieved, even though I could now see her skin better. It looked bruised—it was the color of a bruise—except it was absolutely uniform everywhere on her body. Amanda looked like she’d been dipped in dye. The evenness of the color was alarming. +I decided I had to call the doctor in the emergency room, after all. I fished in my pocket for his card, while Amanda tried to grab my glasses. I dialed one-handed. I could do pretty much everything one-handed. I got right through; he sounded surprised. “Oh,” he said. “I was just about to call you. How is your daughter feeling?” +“Well, she seems to feel fine,” I said, jerking my head back so Amanda couldn’t get my glasses. She was giggling; it was a game, now. “She’s fine,” I said, “but the thing is—” +“Has she by any chance had bruising?” +“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, she has. That’s why I was calling you.” +“The bruising is all over her body? Uniformly?” +“Yes,” I said. “Pretty much. Why do you ask?” +“Well,” the doctor said, “all her lab work has come back, and it’s all normal. Completely normal. Healthy child. The only thing we’re still waiting on is the MRI report, but the MRI’s broken down. They say it’ll be a few days.” +I couldn’t keep ducking and weaving; I put Amanda back in her crib while I talked. She didn’t like that, of course, and scrunched up her face, preparing to cry. I gave her her Cookie Monster toy, and she sat down and played with that. I knew Cookie Monster was good for about five minutes. +“Anyway,” the doctor was saying, “I’m glad to hear she’s doing well.” +I said that I was glad, too. +There was a pause. The doctor coughed. +“Mr. Forman, I noticed on your hospital admissions form you said your occupation was software engineer.” +“That’s right.” +“Does that mean you are involved with manufacturing?” +“No. I do program development.” +“And where do you do that work?” +“In the Valley.” +“You don’t work in a factory, for example?” +“No. I work in an office.” +“I see.” A pause. “May I ask where?” +“Actually, at the moment, I’m unemployed.” +“I see. All right. How long has that been?” +“Six months.” +“I see.” A short pause. “Well, okay, I just wanted to clear that up.” +I said, “Why?” +“I’m sorry?” +“Why are you asking me those questions?” +“Oh. They’re on the form.” +“What form?” I said. “I filled out all the forms at the hospital.” +“This is another form,” he said. “It’s an OHS inquiry. Office of Health and Safety.” +I said, “What’s this all about?” +“There’s been another case reported,” he said, “that’s very similar to your daughter’s.” +“Where?” +“Sacramento General.” +“When?” +“Five days ago. But it’s a completely different situation. This case involved a forty-two-year-old naturalist sleeping out in the Sierras, some wildflower expert. There was a particular kind of flower or something. Anyway, he was hospitalized in Sacramento. And he had the same clinical course as your daughter—sudden unexplained onset, no fever, painful erythematous reaction.” +“And an MRI stopped it?” +“I don’t know if he had an MRI,” he said. “But apparently this syndrome—whatever it is—is self-limited. Very sudden onset, and very abrupt termination.” +“He’s okay now? The naturalist?” +“He’s fine. A couple of days of bruising, and nothing more.” +“Good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.” +“I thought you’d want to know,” he said. Then he said he might be calling me again, with some more questions, and would that be all right? I said he could call whenever he wanted. He asked me to call if there was any change in Amanda, and I said I would, and I hung up. +* * * +Amanda had abandoned Cookie Monster, and was standing in the crib, holding on to the railing with one hand and reaching for me with the other, her little fingers clutching air. I picked her up—and in an instant she had my glasses off. I grabbed for them as she squealed with pleasure. “Amanda ...” But too late; she threw them on the floor. I blinked. +I don’t see well without my glasses. These were wire-frames, hard to see now. I got down on my hands and knees, still holding the baby, and swept my hand across the floor in circles, hoping to touch glass. I didn’t. I squinted, edged forward, swept my hand again. Still nothing. Then I saw a glint of light underneath the crib. I set the baby down and crawled under the crib, retrieved the glasses, and put them on. In the process I banged my head on the crib, dropped down low again. +And I found myself staring at the electrical outlet on the wall underneath the crib. A small plastic box was plugged into the outlet. I pulled it out and looked at it. It was a two-inch cube, a surge suppressor by the look of it, an ordinary commercial product, made in Thailand. The input/output voltages were molded into the plastic. A white label ran across the bottom, reading PROP. SSVT, with a bar code. It was one of those stickers that companies put on their inventory. I turned the cube over in my hand. Where had this come from? I’d been in charge of the house for the last six months. I knew what was where. And certainly Amanda didn’t need a surge suppressor in her room. You only needed that for sensitive electronic equipment, like computers. +I got to my feet, and looked around the room to see what else was different. To my surprise, I realized that everything was different—but just slightly different. Amanda’s night-light had Winnie-the-Pooh characters printed on the shade. I always kept Tigger facing toward her crib, because Tigger was her favorite. Now, Eeyore faced the crib. Amanda’s changing pad was stained in one corner; I always kept the stain bottom left. Now it was top right. I kept her diaper-rash ointments on the counter to the left, just out of her reach. Now they were too close; she could grab them. And there was more— +The maid came in behind me. “Maria,” I said, “did you clean this room?” +“No, Mr. Forman.” +“But the room is different,” I said. +She looked around, and shrugged. “No, Mr. Forman. The same.” +“No, no,” I insisted. “It’s different. Look.” I pointed to the lampshade, the changing cloth. “Different.” +She shrugged again. “Okay, Mr. Forman.” I read confusion in her face. Either she didn’t follow what I was saying, or she thought I was crazy. And I probably did look a little crazy, a grown man obsessing about a Winnie-the-Pooh lampshade. +I showed her the cube in my hand. “Have you seen this before?” +She shook her head. “No.” +“It was under the crib.” +“I don’t know, Mr. Forman.” She inspected it, turning it in her hand. She shrugged, and gave it back to me. She acted casual, but her eyes were watchful. I began to feel uncomfortable. “Okay, Maria,” I said. “Never mind.” +She bent over to scoop up the baby. “I feed her now.” +“Yes, okay.” +I left the room, feeling odd. +Just for the hell of it, I looked up “SSVT” on the Net. I got links to the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple, the Waffen-SS Training School at Konitz, Nazi Regalia for sale, Subsystems Sample Display Technology, South Shore Vocational-Technical School, Optical VariTemp Cryostat Systems, Solid Surfacing Veneer Tiles for home floors, a band called SlingshotVenus, the Swiss Shooting Federation—and it went downhill from there. +I turned away from the computer. +I stared out the window. +Maria had given me a shopping list, the items scrawled in her difficult hand. I really should get the shopping done before I picked up the kids. But I didn’t move. There were times when the relentless pace of life at home seemed to defeat me, to leave me feeling washed out and hollow. At those times I just had to sit for a few hours. +I didn’t want to move. Not right now. +I wondered if Julia was going to call me tonight, and I wondered if she would have a different excuse. I wondered what I would do if she walked in one of these days, and announced she was in love with someone else. I wondered what I would do if I still didn’t have a job by then. I wondered when I would get a job again. I turned the little surge suppressor over in my hand idly, as my mind drifted. +Right outside my window was a large coral tree, with thick leaves and a green trunk. We had planted it as a much smaller tree not long after we moved into the house. Of course the tree guys did it, but we were all out there. Nicole had her plastic shovel and bucket. Eric was crawling around on the lawn in his diapers. Julia had charmed the workmen into staying late to finish the job. After they had all gone I kissed her, and brushed dirt from her nose. She said, “One day it’ll cover our whole house.” +But as it turned out, it didn’t. One of the branches had broken off in a storm, so it grew a little lopsided. Coral is soft wood; the branches break easily. It never grew to cover the house. But my memory was vivid; staring out the window, I saw all of us again, out on the lawn. But it was just a memory. And I was very afraid it didn’t fit anymore. After working for years with multi-agent systems, you begin to see life in terms of those programs. +Basically, you can think of a multi-agent environment as something like a chessboard, and the agents like chess pieces. The agents interact on the board to attain a goal, just the way the chess pieces move to win a game. The difference is that nobody is moving the agents. They interact on their own to produce the outcome. +If you design the agents to have memory, they can know things about their environment. They remember where they’ve been on the board, and what happened there. They can go back to certain places, with certain expectations. Eventually, programmers say the agents have beliefs about their environment, and that they are acting on those beliefs. That’s not literally true, of course, but it might as well be true. It looks that way. +But what’s interesting is that over time, some agents develop mistaken beliefs. Whether from a motivation conflict, or some other reason, they start acting inappropriately. The environment has changed but they don’t seem to know it. They repeat outmoded patterns. Their behavior no longer reflects the reality of the chessboard. It’s as if they’re stuck in the past. In evolutionary programs, those agents get killed off. They have no children. In other multi-agent programs, they just get bypassed, pushed to the periphery while the main thrust of agents moves on. Some programs have a “grim reaper” module that sifts them out from time to time, and pulls them off the board. +But the point is, they’re stuck in their own past. Sometimes they pull themselves together, and get back on track. Sometimes they don’t. +Thoughts like these made me very uneasy. I shifted in my chair, glanced at the clock. With a sense of relief, I saw it was time to go pick up the kids. +Eric did his homework in the car while we waited for Nicole to finish her play rehearsal. She came out in a bad mood; she had thought she was in line for a lead role, but instead the drama teacher had cast her in the chorus. “Only two lines!” she said, slamming the car door. “You want to know what I say? I say, ‘Look, here comes John now.’ And in the second act, I say, ‘That sounds pretty serious.’ Two lines!” She sat back and closed her eyes. “I don’t understand what Mr. Blakey’s problem is!” +“Maybe he thinks you suck,” Eric said. +“Rat turd!” She smacked him on the head. “Monkey butt!” +“That’s enough,” I said, as I started the car. “Seat belts.” +“Little stink-brain dimrod, he doesn’t know anything,” Nicole said, buckling her belt. +“I said, that’s enough.” +“I know that you stink,” Eric said. “Pee-yew.” +“That’s enough, Eric.” +“Yeah, Eric, listen to your father, and shut up.” +“Nicole ...” I shot her a glance in the rearview mirror. +“Sor-ry.” +She looked on the verge of tears. I said to her, “Honey, I’m really sorry you didn’t get the part you wanted. I know you wanted it badly, and it must be very disappointing.” +“No. I don’t care.” +“Well, I’m sorry.” +“Really, Dad, I don’t care. It’s in the past. I’m moving on.” And then a moment later, “You know who got it? That little suckup Katie Richards! Mr. Blakey is just a dick!” And before I could say anything, she burst into tears, sobbing loudly and histrionically. Eric looked over at me, and rolled his eyes. +I drove home, making a mental note to speak to Nicole about her language after dinner, when she had calmed down. +I was chopping green beans so they would fit in the steamer when Eric came and stood in the kitchen doorway. “Hey Dad, where’s my MP3?” +“I have no idea.” I could never get used to the idea that I was supposed to know where every one of their personal possessions was. Eric’s Game Boy, his baseball glove, Nicole’s tank tops, her bracelet ... +“Well, I can’t find it.” Eric remained standing in the doorway, not coming any closer, in case I made him help set the table. +“Have you looked?” +“Everywhere, Dad.” +“Uh-huh. You looked in your room?” +“All over.” +“Family room?” +“Everywhere.” +“In the car? Maybe you left it in the car.” +“I didn’t, Dad.” +“You leave it in your locker at school?” +“We don’t have lockers, we have cubbies.” +“You look in the pockets of your jacket?” +“Dad. Come on. I did all that. I need it.” +“Since you’ve already looked everywhere, I won’t be able to find it either, will I?” +“Dad. Would you please just help me?” +The pot roast had another half hour to go. I put down the knife and went into Eric’s room. I looked in all the usual places, the back of his closet where clothes were kicked into a heap (I would have to talk to Maria about that), under the bed, behind the bed table, in the bottom drawer in the bathroom, and under the piles of stuff on his desk. Eric was right. It wasn’t in his room. We headed toward the family room. I glanced in at the baby’s room as I passed by. And I saw it immediately. It was on the shelf beside the changing table, right alongside the tubes of baby ointment. Eric grabbed it. “Hey, thanks Dad!” And he scampered off. There was no point in asking why it was in the baby’s room. I went back to the kitchen and resumed chopping my green beans. Almost immediately: +“Daa-ad!” +“What?” I called. +“It doesn’t work!” +“Don’t shout.” +He came back to the kitchen, looking sulky. “She broke it.” +“Who broke it?” +“Amanda. She drooled on it or something, and she broke it. It’s not fair.” +“You check the battery?” +He gave me a pitying look. “ ’Course, Dad. I told you, she broke it! It’s not fair!” +I doubted his MP3 player was broken. These things were solid-state devices, no moving parts. And it was too large for the baby to handle. I dumped the green beans on the steamer tray, and held out my hand. “Give it to me.” +We went into the garage and I got out my toolbox. Eric watched my every move. I had a full set of the small tools you need for computers and electronic devices. I worked quickly. Four Phillips head screws, and the back cover came off in my hand. I found myself staring at the green circuit board. It was covered by a fine layer of grayish dust, like lint from a clothes dryer, that obscured all the electronic components. I suspected that Eric had slid into home plate with this thing in his pocket. That was probably why it didn’t work. But I looked along the edge of the plastic and saw a rubber gasket where the back fitted against the device. They’d made this thing airtight ... as they should. +I blew the dust away, so I could see better. I was hoping to see a loose battery connection, or a memory chip that had popped up from heat, anyway something that would be easy to fix. I squinted at the chips, trying to read the writing. The writing on one chip was obscured, because there seemed to be some kind of— +I paused. +“What is it?” Eric said, watching me. +“Hand me that magnifying glass.” +Eric gave me a big glass, and I swung my high-intensity lamp low, and bent over the chip, examining it closely. The reason I couldn’t read the writing was that the surface of the chip had been corroded. The whole chip was etched in rivulets, a miniature river delta. I understood now where the dust had come from. It was the disintegrated remains of the chip. “Can you fix it, Dad?” Eric said. “Can you?” +What could have caused this? The rest of the motherboard seemed fine. The controller chip was untouched. Only the memory chip was damaged. I wasn’t a hardware guy, but I knew enough to do basic computer repairs. I could install hard drives, add memory, things like that. I’d handled memory chips before, and I’d never seen anything like this. All I could think was that it was a faulty chip. These MP3 players were probably built with the cheapest components available. +“Dad? Can you fix it?” +“No,” I said. “It needs another chip. I’ll get you one tomorrow.” +“ ’Cause she slimed it, right?” +“No. I think it’s just a faulty chip.” +“Dad. It was fine for a whole year. She slimed it. It’s not fair!” As if on cue, the baby started crying. I left the MP3 player on the garage table, and went back inside the house. I looked at my watch. I would just have time to change Amanda’s diaper, and mix her cereal for dinner, before the pot roast came out. +By nine, the younger kids were asleep, and the house was quiet except for Nicole’s voice, saying, “That sounds pretty serious. That sounds pretty serious. That sounds ... pretty serious.” She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at herself and reciting her lines. +I’d gotten voice mail from Julia saying she’d be back by eight, but she hadn’t made it. I wasn’t about to call and check up on her. Anyway, I was tired, too tired to work up the energy to worry about her. I’d picked up a lot of tricks in the last months—mostly involving liberal use of tinfoil so I didn’t have to clean so much—but even so, after I did the cooking, set the table, fed the kids, played airplane to get the baby to eat her cereal, cleared the table, wiped down the high chair, put the baby to bed, and then cleaned up the kitchen, I was tired. Especially since the baby kept spitting out the cereal, and Eric kept insisting all through dinner that it wasn’t fair, he wanted chicken fingers instead of the roast. +I flopped down on the bed, and flicked on the TV. +There was only static, and then I realized the DVD player was still turned on, interrupting the cable transmission. I hit the remote button, and the disc in the machine began to play. It was Julia’s demo, from several days before. +The camera moved through the bloodstream, and into the heart. Again, I saw that the liquid of blood was almost colorless, with bouncing red cells. Julia was speaking. On the table, the subject lay with the antenna above his body. +“We’re coming out of the ventricle, and you see the aorta ahead ... And now we will go through the arterial system ...” +She turned to face the camera. +“The images you have seen are fleeting, but we can allow the camera to cycle through for as much as half an hour, and we can build up highly detailed composites of anything we want to see. We can even pause the camera, using a strong magnetic field. When we are finished, we simply shunt the blood through an intravenous loop surrounded by a strong magnetic field, removing the particles, and then send the patient home.” +The video image came back to Julia. “This Xymos technology is safe, reliable, and extremely easy to use. It does not require highly trained personnel; it can be administered by an IV nurse or a medical technician. In the United States alone, a million people die each year from vascular disease. More than thirty million have diagnosed cardiovascular disease. Commercial prospects for this imaging technology are very strong. Because it is painless, simple, and safe, it will replace other imaging techniques such as CAT scans and angiography and will become the standard procedure. We will market the nanotech cameras, the antenna, and monitor systems. Our per-test cost will be only twenty dollars. This is in contrast to certain gene technologies that currently charge two to three thousand dollars a test. But at a mere twenty dollars, we expect worldwide revenues to exceed four hundred million dollars in the first year. And once the procedure is established, those figures will triple. We are talking about a technology that generates one point two billion dollars a year. Now if there are questions ...” I yawned, and flicked the TV off. It was impressive, and her argument was compelling. In fact, I couldn’t understand why Xymos was having trouble getting their next round of funding. For investors, this should be a slam dunk. +But then, she probably wasn’t having trouble. She was probably just using the funding crisis as an excuse to stay late every night. For her own reasons. +I turned out the light. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark, I began to see fleeting images. Julia’s thigh, over another man’s leg. Julia’s back arched. Julia breathing heavily, her muscles tensed. Her arm reaching up to push against the headboard. I found I couldn’t stop the images. +I got out of bed, and went to check the kids. Nicole was still up, emailing her friends. I told her it was time for lights out. Eric had kicked off his covers. I pulled them back up. The baby was still purple, but she slept soundly, her breathing gentle and regular. +I got back into bed. I willed myself to go to sleep, to think of something else. I tossed and turned, adjusted the pillow, got up for a glass of milk and cookies. Eventually, finally, I fell into a restless sleep. +And I had a very strange dream. +Sometime during the night, I rolled over to see Julia standing by the bed, undressing. She was moving slowly, as if tired or very dreamy, unbuttoning her blouse. She was turned away from me, but I could see her face in the mirror. She looked beautiful, almost regal. Her features looked more chiseled than I remembered, though perhaps it was just the light. My eyes were half-closed. She hadn’t noticed I was awake. She continued to slowly unbutton her blouse. Her lips were moving, as if she were whispering something, or praying. Her eyes seemed vacant, lost in thought. +Then as I watched, her lips turned dark red, and then black. She didn’t seem to notice. The blackness flowed away from her mouth across her cheeks and over her lower face, and onto her neck. I held my breath. I felt great danger. The blackness now flowed in a sheet down her body until she was entirely covered, as if with a cloak. Only the upper half of her face remained exposed. Her features were composed; in fact she seemed oblivious, just staring into space, dark lips silently moving. Watching her, I felt a chill that ran deep into my bones. Then a moment later the black sheet slid to the floor and vanished. +Julia, normal again, finished removing her blouse, and walked into the bathroom. I wanted to get up and follow her, but I found I could not move. A heavy fatigue held me down on the bed, immobilizing me. I was so exhausted I could hardly breathe. This oppressive sense of fatigue grew rapidly, and overwhelmed my consciousness. Losing all awareness, I felt my eyes close, and I slept. +Chapter 4 +DAY 4 6:40 A.M. +The next morning the dream was still fresh in my mind, vivid and disturbing. It felt utterly real, not like a dream at all. +Julia was already up. I got out of bed and walked around to where I had seen her the night before. I looked down at the rug, the bedside table, the creased sheets and pillow. There was nothing unusual, nothing out of order. No dark lines or marks anywhere. I went into the bathroom and looked at her cosmetics, in a neat line on her side of the sink. Everything I saw was mundane. However disturbing my dream had been, it was still a dream. But one part of it was true enough: Julia was looking more beautiful than ever. When I found her in the kitchen, pouring coffee, I saw that her face did indeed look more chiseled, more striking. Julia had always had a chubby face. Now it was lean, defined. She looked like a high-fashion model. Her body, too—now that I looked closely—appeared leaner, more muscular. She hadn’t lost weight, she just looked trim, tight, energetic. +I said, “You look great.” +She laughed. “I can’t imagine why. I’m exhausted.” +“What time did you get in?” +“About eleven. I hope I didn’t wake you.” +“No. But I had a weird dream.” +“Oh yes?” +“Yes, it was—” +“Mommy! Mommy!” Eric burst into the kitchen. “It’s not fair! Nicole won’t get out of the bathroom. She’s been in there for an hour. It’s not fair!” +“Go use our bathroom.” +“But I need my socks, Mommy. It’s not fair.” +This was a familiar problem. Eric had a couple of pairs of favorite socks that he wore day after day until they were black with grime. For some reason, the other socks in his drawer were not satisfactory. I could never get him to explain why. But putting on socks in the morning was a major problem with him. +“Eric,” I said, “we talked about this, you’re supposed to wear clean socks.” +“But those are my good ones!” +“Eric. You have plenty of good socks.” +“It’s not fair, Dad. She’s been in there an hour, I’m not kidding.” +“Eric, go choose other socks.” +“Dad ...” +I just pointed my finger toward his bedroom. +“Shees.” He walked off muttering about how it wasn’t fair. +I turned back to Julia to resume our conversation. She was staring at me coldly. “You really don’t get it, do you?” +“Get what?” +“He came in talking to me, and you just took over. You took over the whole thing.” +Immediately, I realized she was right. “I’m sorry,” I said. +“I don’t get to see the children very much these days, Jack. I think I should be able to have my interaction without your taking control.” +“I’m sorry. I handle this kind of thing all day, and I guess—” +“This really is a problem, Jack.” +“I said I’m sorry.” +“I know that’s what you said, but I don’t think you are sorry, because I don’t see you doing anything to change your controlling behavior.” +“Julia,” I said. Now I was trying to control my temper. I took a breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry it happened.” +“You’re just shutting me out,” she said, “and you are keeping me from my children—” +“Julia, God damn it, you’re never here!” +A frosty silence. Then: +“I certainly am here,” she said. “Don’t you dare say I am not.” +“Wait a minute, wait a minute. When are you here? When was the last time you made it for dinner, Julia? Not last night, not the night before, not the night before that. Not all week, Julia. You are not here.” +She glared at me. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Jack. I don’t know what kind of game you are playing.” +“I’m not playing any game. I’m asking you a question.” +“I’m a good mother, and I balance a very demanding job, a very demanding job, and the needs of my family. And I get absolutely no help from you.” +“What are you talking about?” I said, my voice rising still higher. I was starting to have a sense of unreality here. +“You undercut me, you sabotage me, you turn the children against me,” she said. “I see what you’re doing. Don’t think I don’t. You are not supportive of me at all. After all these years of marriage, I must say it’s a lousy thing to do to your wife.” And she stalked out of the room, fists clenched. She was so angry, she didn’t see that Nicole was standing back from the door, listening to the whole thing. And staring at me, as her mother swept past. +Now we were driving to school. “She’s crazy, Dad.” +“No, she’s not.” +“You know that she is. You’re just pretending.” +“Nicole, she’s your mother,” I said. “Your mother is not crazy. She’s working very hard right now.” +“That’s what you said last week, after the fight.” +“Well, it happens to be true.” +“You guys didn’t used to fight.” +“There’s a lot of stress right now.” +Nicole snorted, crossed her arms, stared forward. “I don’t know why you put up with her.” +“And I don’t know why you were listening to what is none of your business.” +“Dad, why do you pull that crap with me?” +“Nicole ...” +“Sor-ry. But why can’t you have a real conversation, instead of defending her all the time? It’s not normal, what she’s doing. I know you think she’s crazy.” +“I don’t,” I said. +From the backseat, Eric whacked her on the back of the head. “You’re the one who’s crazy,” he said. +“Shut up, butt breath.” +“Shut up yourself, weasel puke.” +“I don’t want to hear any more from either of you,” I said loudly. “I am not in the mood.” By then we were pulling into the turnaround in front of the school. The kids piled out. Nicole jumped out of the front seat, turned back to get her backpack, shot me a look, and was gone. I didn’t think Julia was crazy, but something had certainly changed, and as I replayed that morning’s conversation in my head, I felt uneasy for other reasons. A lot of her comments sounded like she was building a case against me. Laying it out methodically, step by step. You are shutting me out and keeping me away from my children. +I am here, you just don’t notice. +I’m a good mother, I balance a very demanding job with the needs of my family. +You are not supportive of me at all. You undercut me, you sabotage me. +You are turning the children against me. +I could easily imagine her lawyer saying these things in court. And I knew why. According to a recent article I had read in Redbook magazine, “alienation of affection” was currently the trendy argument in court. The father is turning the children against the mother. Poisoning their little minds by word and deed. While the Mom is blameless as always. Every father knew the legal system was hopelessly biased in favor of mothers. The courts gave lip service to equality, and then ruled a child needed its mother. Even if she was absent. Even if she smacked them around, or forgot to feed them. As long as she wasn’t shooting up, or breaking their bones, she was a fit mother in the eyes of the court. And even if she was shooting up, a father might not win the case. One of my friends at MediaTronics had an ex-wife on heroin who’d been in and out of rehab for years. They’d finally divorced and had joint custody. She was supposedly clean but the kids said she wasn’t. My friend was worried. He didn’t want his ex driving the kids when she was loaded. He didn’t want drug dealers around his kids. So he went to court to ask for full custody, and he lost. The judge said the wife was genuinely trying to overcome her addiction, and that children need their mother. So that was the reality. And now it looked to me as if Julia was starting to lay out that case. It gave me the creeps. +About the time I had worked myself into a fine lather, my cell phone rang. It was Julia. She was calling to apologize. +“I’m really sorry. I said stupid things today. I didn’t mean it.” +“What?” +“Jack, I know you support me. Of course you do. I couldn’t manage without you. You’re doing a great job with the kids. I’m just not myself these days. It was stupid, Jack. I’m sorry I said those things.” +When I got off the phone I thought, I wish I had recorded that. I had a ten o’clock meeting with my headhunter, Annie Gerard. We met in the sunny courtyard of a coffee shop on Baker. We always met outside, so Annie could smoke. She had her laptop out and her wireless modem plugged in. A cigarette dangled from her lip, and she squinted in the smoke. +“Got anything?” I said, sitting down opposite her. +“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do. Two very good possibilities.” +“Great,” I said, stirring my latte. “Tell me.” +“How about this? Chief research analyst for IBM, working on advanced distributed systems architecture.” +“Right up my alley.” +“I thought so, too. You’re highly qualified for this one, Jack. You’d run a research lab of sixty people. Base pay two-fifty plus options going out five years plus royalties on anything developed in your lab.” +“Sounds great. Where?” +“Armonk.” +“New York?” I shook my head. “No way, Annie. What else?” +“Head of a team to design multi-agent systems for an insurance company that’s doing data mining. It’s an excellent opportunity, and—” +“Where?” +“Austin.” +I sighed. “Annie. Julia’s got a job she likes, she’s very devoted to it, and she won’t leave it now. My kids are in school, and—” +“People move all the time, Jack. They all have kids in school. Kids adapt.” +“But with Julia ...” +“Other people have working wives, too. They still move.” +“I know, but the thing is with Julia ...” +“Have you talked to her about it? Have you broached the subject?” +“Well, no, because I—” +“Jack.” Annie stared at me over the laptop screen. “I think you better cut the crap. You’re not in a position to be picky. You’re starting to have a shelf-life problem.” +“Shelf life,” I said. +“That’s right, Jack. You’ve been out of work six months now. That’s a long time in high tech. Companies figure if it takes you that long to find a job, there must be something wrong with you. They don’t know what, they just assume you’ve been rejected too many times, by too many other companies. Pretty soon, they won’t even interview. Not in San Jose, not in Armonk, not in Austin, not in Cambridge. The boat’s sailed. Are you hearing me? Am I getting through here?” +“Yes, but—” +“No buts, Jack. You’ve got to talk to your wife. You’ve got to figure out a way to get yourself off the shelf.” +“But I can’t leave the Valley. I have to stay here.” +“Here is not so good.” She flipped the screen up again. “Whenever I bring up your name, I keep getting—listen, what’s going on at MediaTronics, anyway? Is Don Gross going to be indicted?” +“I don’t know.” +“I’ve been hearing that rumor for months now, but it never seems to happen. For your sake, I hope it happens soon.” +“I don’t get it,” I said. “I’m perfectly positioned in a hot field, multi-agent distributed processing, and—” +“Hot?” she said, squinting at me. “Distributed processing’s not hot, Jack. It’s fucking radioactive. Everybody in the Valley figures that the breakthroughs in artificial life are going to come from distributed processing.” +“They are,” I said, nodding. +In the last few years, artificial life had replaced artificial intelligence as a long-term computing goal. The idea was to write programs that had the attributes of living creatures—the ability to adapt, cooperate, learn, adjust to change. Many of those qualities were especially important in robotics, and they were starting to be realized with distributed processing. Distributed processing meant that you divided your work among several processors, or among a network of virtual agents that you created in the computer. There were several basic ways this was done. One way was to create a large population of fairly dumb agents that worked together to accomplish a goal—just like a colony of ants worked together to accomplish a goal. My own team had done a lot of that work. +Another method was to make a so-called neural network that mimicked the network of neurons in the human brain. It turned out that even simple neural nets had surprising power. These networks could learn. They could build on past experience. We’d done some of that, too. A third technique was to create virtual genes in the computer, and let them evolve in a virtual world until some goal was attained. +And there were several other procedures, as well. Taken together, these procedures represented a huge change from the older notions of artificial intelligence, or AI. In the old days, programmers tried to write rules to cover every situation. For example, they tried to teach computers that if someone bought something at a store, they had to pay before leaving. But this commonsense knowledge proved extremely difficult to program. The computer would make mistakes. New rules would be added to avoid the mistakes. Then more mistakes, and more rules. Eventually the programs were gigantic, millions of lines of code, and they began to fail out of sheer complexity. They were too large to debug. You couldn’t figure out where the errors were coming from. +So it began to seem as if rule-based AI was never going to work. Lots of people made dire predictions about the end of artificial intelligence. The eighties were a good time for English professors who believed that computers would never match human intelligence. But distributed networks of agents offered an entirely new approach. And the programming philosophy was new, too. The old rules-based programming was “top down.” The system as a whole was given rules of behavior. +But the new programming was “bottom up.” The program defined the behavior of individual agents at the lowest structural level. But the behavior of the system as a whole was not defined. Instead, the behavior of the system emerged, the result of hundreds of small interactions occurring at a lower level. +Because the system was not programmed, it could produce surprising results. Results never anticipated by the programmers. That was why they could seem “lifelike.” And that was why the field was so hot, because— +“Jack.” +Annie was tapping my hand. I blinked. +“Jack, did you hear anything I just said to you?” +“Sorry.” +“I don’t have your full attention,” she said. She blew cigarette smoke in my face. “Yes, you’re right, you’re in a hot field. But that’s all the more reason to worry about shelf life. It’s not like you’re an electrical engineer specializing in optical-drive mechanisms. Hot fields move fast. Six months can make or break a company.” +“I know.” +“You’re at risk, Jack.” +“I understand.” +“So. Will you talk to your wife? Please?” +“Yes.” +“Okay,” she said. “Make sure you do. Because otherwise, I can’t help you.” She flicked her burning cigarette into the remains of my latte. It sizzled and died. She snapped her laptop shut, got up, and left. +I put a call in to Julia, but didn’t get her. I left voice mail. I knew it was a waste of time even to bring up moving to her. She’d certainly say no—especially if she had a new boyfriend. But Annie was right, I was in trouble. I had to do something. I had to ask. I sat at my desk at home, turning the SSVT box in my hands, trying to think what to do. I had another hour and a half before I picked up the kids. I really wanted to talk to Julia. I decided to call Julia again through the company switchboard, to see if they could track her down. “Xymos Technology.” +“Julia Forman, please.” +“Please hold.” Some classical music, then another voice. “Ms. Forman’s office.” +I recognized Carol, her assistant. “Carol, it’s Jack.” +“Oh, hi, Mr. Forman. How are you?” +“I’m fine, thanks.” +“Are you looking for Julia?” +“Yes, I am.” +“She’s in Nevada for the day, at the fab plant. Shall I try to connect you there?” +“Yes, please.” +“One moment.” +I was put on hold. For quite a while. +“Mr. Forman, she’s in a meeting for the next hour. I expect her to call back when it breaks up. Do you want her to call you?” +“Yes, please.” +“Do you want me to tell her anything?” +“No,” I said. “Just ask her to call.” +“Okay, Mr. Forman.” +I hung up, stared into space, turning the SSVT box. She’s in Nevada for the day. Julia had said nothing to me about going to Nevada. I replayed the conversation with Carol in my mind. Had Carol sounded uncomfortable? Was she covering? I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure of anything now. I stared out the window and as I watched, the sprinklers kicked on, shooting up cones of spray all over the lawn. It was right in the heat of midday, the wrong time to water. It wasn’t supposed to happen. The sprinklers had been fixed just the other day. I began to feel depressed, staring at the water. It seemed like everything was wrong. I had no job, my wife was absent, the kids were a pain, I felt constantly inadequate dealing with them—and now the fucking sprinklers weren’t working right. They were going to burn out the fucking lawn. +And then the baby began to cry. +I waited for Julia to call, but she never did. I cut up chicken breasts into strips (the trick is to keep them cold, almost frozen) for dinner, because chicken fingers were another meal they never argued about. I got out rice to boil. I looked at the carrots in the fridge and decided that even though they were a little old, I’d still use them tonight. I cut my finger while I was chopping the carrots. It wasn’t a big cut but it bled a lot, and the Band-Aid didn’t stop the bleeding. It kept bleeding through the pad, so I kept putting on new Band-Aids. It was frustrating. +Dinner was late and the kids were cranky. Eric complained loudly that my chicken fingers were gross, that McDonald’s were way better, and why couldn’t we have those? Nicole tried out various line readings for her play, while Eric mimicked her under his breath. The baby spit up every mouthful of her cereal until I stopped and mixed it with some mashed banana. After that, she ate steadily. I don’t know why I never thought to do that before. Amanda was getting older, and she didn’t want the bland stuff anymore. +Eric had left his homework at school; I told him to call his friends for the assignment, but he wouldn’t. Nicole was online for an hour with her friends; I kept popping into her room and telling her to get off the computer until her homework was done, and she’d say, “In just a minute, Dad.” The baby fussed, and it took a long time for me to get her down. I went back into Nicole’s room and said, “Now, damn it!” Nicole began to cry. Eric came in to gloat. I asked him why he wasn’t in bed. He saw the look on my face, and scampered away. Sobbing, Nicole said I should apologize to her. I said she should have done what I told her to do twice before. She went into the bathroom and slammed the door. From his room, Eric yelled, “I can’t sleep with all that racket!” +I yelled back, “One more word and no television for a week!” +“Not fair!” +I went into the bedroom and turned on the TV to watch the rest of the game. After half an hour, I checked on the kids. The baby was sleeping peacefully. Eric was asleep, all his covers thrown off. I pulled them back on him. Nicole was studying. When she saw me, she apologized. I gave her a hug. +I went back into the bedroom, and watched the game for about ten minutes before I fell asleep. +Chapter 5 +DAY 5 7:10 A.M. +When I awoke in the morning, I saw that Julia’s side of the bed was still made up, her pillow uncreased. She hadn’t come home last night at all. I checked the telephone messages; there were none. Eric wandered in, and saw the bed. “Where’s Mom?” +“I don’t know, son.” +“Did she leave already?” +“I guess so ...” +He stared at me, and then at the unmade bed. And he walked out of the room. He wasn’t going to deal with it. +But I was beginning to think I had to. Maybe I should even talk to a lawyer. Except in my mind, there was something irrevocable about talking to a lawyer. If the trouble was that serious, it was probably fatal. I didn’t want to believe my marriage was over, so I wanted to postpone seeing a lawyer. +That was when I decided to call my sister in San Diego. Ellen is a clinical psychologist, she has a practice in La Jolla. It was early enough that I figured she hadn’t gone to the office yet; she answered the phone at home. She sounded surprised I had called. I love my sister but we are very different. Anyway, I told her briefly about the things I’d been suspecting about Julia, and why. +“You’re saying Julia didn’t come home and she didn’t call?” +“Right.” +“Did you call her?” +“Not yet.” +“How come?” +“I don’t know.” +“Maybe she was in an accident, maybe she’s hurt ...” +“I don’t think so.” +“Why not?” +“You always hear if there’s an accident. There’s no accident.” +“You sound upset, Jack.” +“I don’t know. Maybe.” +My sister was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Jack, you’ve got a problem. Why aren’t you doing something?” +“Like what?” +“Like see a marriage counselor. Or a lawyer.” +“Oh, jeez.” +“Don’t you think you should?” she asked. +“I don’t know. No. Not yet.” +“Jack. She didn’t come home last night and she didn’t bother to call. When this woman drops a hint, she uses a bombsight. How much clearer do you need it to be?” +“I don’t know.” +“You’re saying ‘I don’t know’ a lot. Are you aware of that?” +“I guess so.” +A pause. “Jack, are you all right?” +“I don’t know.” +“Do you want me to come up for a couple of days? Because I can, no problem. I was supposed to go out of town with my boyfriend, but his company just got bought. So I’m available, if you want me to come up.” +“No. It’s okay.” +“You sure? I’m worried about you.” +“No, no,” I said. “You don’t have to worry.” +“Are you depressed?” +“No. Why?” +“Sleeping okay? Exercising?” +“Fair. Not really exercising that much.” +“Uh-huh. Do you have a job yet?” +“No.” +“Prospects?” +“Not really. No.” +“Jack,” she said. “You have to see a lawyer.” +“Maybe in a while.” +“Jack. What’s the matter with you? This is what you’ve told me. Your wife is acting cold and angry toward you. She’s lying to you. She’s acting strange with the kids. She doesn’t seem to care about her family. She’s angry and absent a lot. It’s getting worse. You think she’s involved with someone else. Last night, she doesn’t even show up or call. And you’re just going to let this go without doing anything?” +“I don’t know what to do.” +“I told you. See a lawyer.” +“You think so?” +“You’re damn right I think so.” +“I don’t know ...” +She sighed, a long exasperated hiss. “Jack. Look. I know you’re a little passive at times, but—” +“I’m not passive,” I said. And I added, “I hate it when you shrink me.” +“Your wife is screwing around on you, you think she’s building a case to take the kids away from you, and you’re just letting it happen. I’d say that’s passive.” +“What am I supposed to do?” +“I told you.” Another exasperated sigh. “Okay. I’m taking a couple of days and coming up to see you.” +“Ellen—” +“Don’t argue. I’m coming. You can tell Julia I’m going to help out with the kids. I’ll be up there this afternoon.” +“But—” +“Don’t argue.” +And she got off the phone. +* * * +I’m not passive. I’m thoughtful. Ellen’s very energetic, her personality’s perfect for a psychologist, because she loves to tell people what to do. Frankly, I think she’s pushy. And she thinks I’m passive. +This is Ellen’s idea about me. That I went to Stanford in the late seventies, and studied population biology—a purely academic field, with no practical application, no jobs except in universities. In those days population biology was being revolutionized by field studies of animals, and by advances in genetic screening. Both required computer analysis, using advanced mathematical algorithms. I couldn’t find the kind of programs I needed for my research, so I began to write them myself. And I slid sideways into computer science—another geeky, purely academic field. +But my graduation just happened to coincide with the rise of Silicon Valley and the personal-computer explosion. Low-number employees at startup companies were making a fortune in the eighties, and I did pretty well at the first one I worked for. I met Julia, and we got married, had kids. Everything was smooth. We were both doing great, just by showing up for work. I got hired away by another company; more perks, bigger options. I just rode the advancing wave into the nineties. By then I wasn’t programming anymore, I was supervising software development. And things just fell into place for me, without any real effort on my part. I just fell into my life. I never had to prove myself. +That’s Ellen’s idea of me. My idea is different. The companies of Silicon Valley are the most intensely competitive in the history of the planet. Everybody works a hundred hours a week. Everybody is racing against milestones. Everybody is cutting development cycles. The cycles were originally three years to a new product, a new version. Then it was two years. Then eighteen months. Now it was twelve months—a new version every year. If you figure beta debugging to golden master takes four months, then you have only eight months to do the actual work. Eight months to revise ten million lines of code, and make sure it all works right. In short, Silicon Valley is no place for a passive person, and I’m not one. I hustled my ass off every minute of every day. I had to prove myself every day—or I’d be gone. That was my idea about myself. I was sure I was right. +Ellen was right about one part, though. A strong streak of luck ran through my career. Because my original field of study had been biology, I had an advantage when computer programs began to explicitly mimic biological systems. In fact, there were programmers who shuttled back and forth between computer simulation and studies of animal groups in the wild, applying the lessons of one to the other. +But further, I had worked in population biology—the study of groups of living organisms. And computer science had evolved in the direction of massively parallel networked structures—the programming of populations of intelligent agents. A special kind of thinking was required to handle populations of agents, and I had been trained in that thinking for years. So I was admirably suited to the trends of my field, and I made excellent progress as the fields emerged. I had been in the right place at the right time. +That much was true. +Agent-based programs that modeled biological populations were increasingly important in the real world. Like my own programs that mimicked ant foraging to control big communications networks. Or programs that mimicked division of labor among termite colonies to control thermostats in a skyscraper. And closely related were the programs that mimicked genetic selection, used for a wide range of applications. In one program, witnesses to a crime were shown nine faces and asked to choose which was most like the criminal, even if none really were; the program then showed them nine more faces, and asked them to choose again; and from many repeated generations the program slowly evolved a highly accurate composite picture of the face, far more accurate than any police artist could make. Witnesses never had to say what exactly they were responding to in each face; they just chose, and the program evolved. +And then there were the biotech companies, which had found they could not successfully engineer new proteins because the proteins tended to fold up weirdly. So now they used genetic selection to “evolve” the new proteins instead. All these procedures had become standard practice in a matter of just a few years. And they were increasingly powerful, increasingly important. +So, yes, I had been in the right place at the right time. But I wasn’t passive, I was lucky. I hadn’t showered or shaved yet. I went in the bathroom, stripped off my T-shirt, and stared at myself in the mirror. I was startled to see how soft I looked around the gut. I hadn’t realized. Of course I was forty, and the fact was, I hadn’t been exercising as much lately. Not because I was depressed. I was busy with the kids, and tired a lot of the time. I just didn’t feel like exercising, that was all. +I stared at my own reflection, and wondered if Ellen was right. +There’s one problem with all psychological knowledge—nobody can apply it to themselves. People can be incredibly astute about the shortcomings of their friends, spouses, children. But they have no insight into themselves at all. The same people who are coldly clear-eyed about the world around them have nothing but fantasies about themselves. Psychological knowledge doesn’t work if you look in a mirror. This bizarre fact is, as far as I know, unexplained. Personally, I always thought there was a clue from computer programming, in a procedure called recursion. Recursion means making the program loop back on itself, to use its own information to do things over and over until it gets a result. You use recursion for certain data-sorting algorithms and things like that. But it’s got to be done carefully, or you risk having the machine fall into what is called an infinite regress. It’s the programming equivalent of those funhouse mirrors that reflect mirrors, and mirrors, ever smaller and smaller, stretching away to infinity. The program keeps going, repeating and repeating, but nothing happens. The machine hangs. +I always figured something similar must happen when people turn their psychological insight-apparatus on themselves. The brain hangs. The thought process goes and goes, but it doesn’t get anywhere. It must be something like that, because we know that people can think about themselves indefinitely. Some people think of little else. Yet people never seem to change as a result of their intensive introspection. They never understand themselves better. It’s very rare to find genuine self-knowledge. +It’s almost as if you need someone else to tell you who you are, or to hold up the mirror for you. Which, if you think about it, is very weird. +Or maybe it’s not. +There’s an old question in artificial intelligence about whether a program can ever be aware of itself. Most programmers will say it was impossible. People have tried to do it, and failed. But there’s a more fundamental version of the question, a philosophical question about whether any machine can understand its own workings. Some people say that’s impossible, too. The machine can’t know itself for the same reason you can’t bite your own teeth. And it certainly seems to be impossible: the human brain is the most complicated structure in the known universe, but brains still know very little about themselves. For the last thirty years, such questions have been fun to kick around with a beer on Friday afternoons after work. They were never taken seriously. But lately these philosophical questions have taken on new importance because there has been rapid progress in reproducing certain brain functions. Not the entire brain, just certain functions. For example, before I was fired, my development team was using multi-agent processing to enable computers to learn, to recognize patterns in data, to understand natural languages, to prioritize and switch tasks. What was important about the programs was that the machines literally learned. They got better at their jobs with experience. Which is more than some human beings can claim. The phone rang. It was Ellen. “Did you call your lawyer?” +“Not yet. For Christ’s sake.” +“I’m on the 2:10 to San Jose. I’ll see you around five at your house.” +“Listen, Ellen, it really isn’t necessary—” +“I know that. I’m just getting out of town. I need a break. See you soon, Jack.” And she hung up. +So now she was handling me. +In any case, I figured there was no point in calling a lawyer today. I had too much to do. The dry cleaning had to be picked up, so I did that. There was a Starbucks across the street, and I went over to get a latte to take with me. +And there was Gary Marder, my attorney, with a very young blonde in low-cut jeans and crop top that left her belly exposed. They were nuzzling each other in the checkout line. She didn’t look much older than a college student. I was embarrassed and was turning to leave when Gary saw me, and waved. +“Hey, Jack.” +“Hi, Gary.” +He held out his hand, and I shook it. He said, “Say hello to Melissa.” +I said, “Hi, Melissa.” +“Oh hi.” She seemed vaguely annoyed at this interruption, although I couldn’t be sure. She had that vacant look some young girls get around men. It occurred to me that she couldn’t be more than six years older than Nicole. What was she doing with a guy like Gary? “So. How’s it going, Jack?” Gary said, slipping his arm around Melissa’s bare waist. +“Okay,” I said. “Pretty good.” +“Yeah? That’s good.” But he was frowning at me. +“Well, uh, yeah ...” I stood there, hesitating, feeling foolish in front of the girl. She clearly wanted me to leave. But I was thinking of what Ellen would say: You ran into your lawyer and you didn’t even ask him? +So I said, “Gary, could I speak to you for a minute?” +“Of course.” He gave the girl money to pay for the coffee, and we stepped to one side of the room. +I lowered my voice. “Listen, Gary,” I said, “I think I need to see a divorce lawyer.” +“Because what?” +“Because I think Julia is having an affair.” +“You think? Or you know for a fact?” +“No. I don’t know for sure.” +“So you just suspect it?” +“Yes.” +Gary sighed. He gave me a look. +I said, “And there’s other things going on, too. She’s starting to say that I am turning the kids against her.” +“Alienation of affection,” he said, nodding. “Legal cliché du jour. She makes these statements when?” +“When we have fights.” +Another sigh. “Jack, couples say all kinds of shit when they fight. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” +“I think it does. I’m worried it does.” +“This is upsetting you?” +“Yes.” +“Have you seen a marriage counselor?” +“No.” +“See one.” +“Why?” +“Two reasons. First, because you should. You’ve been married to Julia a long time, and as far as I know it’s been mostly good. And second, because you’ll start to establish a record of trying to save the marriage, which contradicts a claim of alienation of affection.” +“Yes, but—” +“If you’re right that she is starting to build a case, then you have to be extremely careful, my friend. Alienation of affection is a tough argument to defend against. The kids are pissed at Mom, and she says you’re behind it. How can you prove it’s not true? You can’t. Plus you’ve been home a lot, so it’s easier to imagine that it might be true. The court will see you as dissatisfied, and possibly resentful of your working spouse.” He held up his hand. “I know, I know none of that’s true, Jack, but it’s an easy argument to make, that’s my point. And her attorney will make it. In your resentment, you turned the kids against her.” +“That’s bullshit.” +“Of course. I know that.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “So see a good counselor. If you need names, call my office and Barbara’ll give you a couple of reputable ones.” I called Julia to tell her that Ellen was coming up for a few days. Of course, I didn’t reach Julia, just her voice mail. I left a longish message, explaining what was happening. Then I went to do the shopping because with Ellen staying over, we’d need some extra supplies. I was rolling my cart down the supermarket aisle when I got a call from the hospital. It was the beardless ER doctor again. He was calling to check on Amanda and I said her bruises were almost gone. +“That’s good,” he said. “Glad to hear it.” +I said, “What about the MRI?” +The doctor said the MRI results were not relevant, because the machine had malfunctioned and had never examined Amanda. “In fact, we’re worried about all the readings for the last few weeks,” he said. “Because apparently the machine was slowly breaking down.” +“How do you mean?” +“It was being corroded or something. All the memory chips were turning to powder.” +I felt a chill, remembering Eric’s MP3 player. “Why would that happen?” I said. “The best guess is it’s been corroded by some gas that escaped from the wall lines, probably during the night. Like chlorine gas, that’d do it. Except the thing is, only the memory chips were damaged. The other chips were fine.” +Things were getting stranger by the minute. And they got stranger still a few minutes later, when Julia called all cheerful and upbeat, to announce that she was coming home in the afternoon and would be there in plenty of time for dinner. +“It’ll be great to see Ellen,” she said. “Why is she coming?” +“I think she just wanted to get out of town.” +“Well, it’ll be great for you to have her around for a few days. Some grown-up company.” +“You bet,” I said. +I waited for her to explain why she hadn’t come home. But all she said was, “Hey, I got to run, Jack, I’ll talk to you later—” +“Julia,” I said. “Wait a minute.” +“What?” +I hesitated, wondering how to put it. I said, “I was worried about you last night.” +“You were? Why?” +“When you didn’t come home.” +“Honey, I called you. I got stuck out at the plant. Didn’t you check your messages?” +“Yes ...” +“And you didn’t have a message from me?” +“No. I didn’t.” +“Well, I don’t know what happened. I left you a message, Jack. I called the house first and got Maria, but she couldn’t, you know, it was too complicated ... So then I called your cell and I left you a message that I was stuck at the plant until today.” +“Well, I didn’t get it,” I said, trying not to sound like I was pouting. “Sorry about that, honey, but check your service. Anyway listen, I really have to go. See you tonight, okay? Kiss kiss.” +And she hung up. +I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and checked it. There was no message. I checked the phone log. There were no calls last night. +Julia hadn’t called me. No one had called me. +I began to feel a sinking sensation, that descent into depression again. I felt tired, I couldn’t move. I stared at the produce on the supermarket shelves. I couldn’t remember why I was there. +I had just about decided to leave the supermarket when my cell phone rang in my hand. I flipped it open. It was Tim Bergman, the guy who had taken over my job at MediaTronics. “Are you sitting down?” he said. +“No. Why?” +“I’ve got some pretty strange news. Brace yourself.” +“Okay ...” +“Don wants to call you.” +Don Gross was the head of the company, the guy who had fired me. “What for?” +“He wants to hire you back.” +“He wants what?” +“Yeah. I know. It’s crazy. To hire you back.” +“Why?” I said. +“We’re having some problems with distributed systems that we’ve sold to customers.” +“Which ones?” +“Well, PREDPREY.” +“That’s one of the old ones,” I said. “Who sold that?” PREDPREY was a system we’d designed over a year ago. Like most of our programs, it had been based on biological models. PREDPREY was a goal-seeking program based on predator/prey dynamics. But it was extremely simple in its structure. +“Well, Xymos wanted something very simple,” Tim said. +“You sold PREDPREY to Xymos?” +“Right. Licensed, actually. With a contract to support it. That’s driving us crazy.” +“Why?” +“It isn’t working right, apparently. Goal seeking has gone haywire. A lot of the time, the program seems to lose its goal.” +“I’m not surprised,” I said, “because we didn’t specify reinforcers.” Reinforcers were program weights that sustained the goals. The reason you needed them was that since the networked agents could learn, they might learn in a way that caused them to drift away from the goal. You needed a way to store the original goal so it didn’t get lost. The fact was you could easily come to think of agent programs as children. The programs forgot things, lost things, dropped things. It was all emergent behavior. It wasn’t programmed, but it was the outcome of programming. And apparently it was happening to Xymos. +“Well,” Tim said, “Don figures you were running the team when the program was originally written, so you’re the guy to fix it. Plus, your wife is high up in Xymos management, so your joining the team will reassure their top people.” +I wasn’t sure that was true, but I didn’t say anything. +“Anyway, that’s the situation,” Tim continued. “I’m calling you to ask if Don should call you. Because he doesn’t want to get rejected.” +I felt a burst of anger. He doesn’t want to get rejected. “Tim,” I said. “I can’t go back to work there.” +“Oh, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be up at the Xymos fab plant.” +“Oh yes? How would that work?” +“Don would hire you as an off-site consultant. Something like that.” +“Uh-huh,” I said, in my best noncommittal tone. Everything about this proposal sounded like a bad idea. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to work for that son of a bitch Don. And it was always a bad idea to return to a company after you’d been fired—for any reason, under any arrangement. Everybody knew that. +But on the other hand, if I agreed to work as a consultant, it would get rid of my shelf-life problem. And it would get me out of the house. It would accomplish a lot of things. After a pause, I said, “Listen, Tim, let me think about it.” +“You want to call me back?” +“Okay. Yes.” +“When will you call?” he said. +The tension in his voice was clear. I said, “You’ve got some urgency about this ...” +“Yeah, well, some. Like I said, that contract’s driving us crazy. We have five programmers from the original team practically living out at that Xymos plant. And they’re not getting anywhere on this problem. So if you’re not going to help us, we have to look elsewhere, right away.” +“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said. +“Tomorrow morning?” he said, hinting. +“Okay,” I said. “Yes, tomorrow morning.” +Tim’s call should have made me feel better about things, but it didn’t. I took the baby to the park, and pushed her in the swing for a while. Amanda liked being pushed in the swing. She could do it for twenty or thirty minutes at a time, and always cried when I took her out. Later I sat on the concrete curb of the sandbox while she crawled around, and pulled herself up to standing on the concrete turtles and other playthings. One of the older toddlers knocked her over, but she didn’t cry; she just got back up. She seemed to like being around the older kids. I watched her, and thought about going back to work. +“Of course you told them yes,” Ellen said to me. We were in the kitchen. She had just arrived, her black suitcase unpacked in the corner. Ellen looked exactly the same, still rail-thin, energetic, blond, hyper. My sister never seemed to age. She was drinking a cup of tea from teabags that she had brought with her. Special organic oolong tea from a special shop in San Francisco. That hadn’t changed, either—Ellen had always been fussy about food, even as a kid. As an adult, she traveled around with her own teas, her own salad dressings, her own vitamins neatly arranged in little glassine packs. +“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t tell them yes. I said I’d think about it.” +“Think about it? Are you kidding? Jack, you have to go back to work. You know you do.” She stared at me, appraising. “You’re depressed.” +“I’m not.” +“You should have some of this tea,” she said. “All that coffee is bad for your nerves.” +“Tea has more caffeine than coffee.” +“Jack. You have to go back to work.” +“I know that, Ellen.” +“And if it’s a consulting job ... wouldn’t that be perfect? Solve all your problems?” +“I don’t know,” I said. +“Really? What don’t you know.” +“I don’t know if I’m getting the full story,” I said. “I mean, if Xymos is having all this trouble, how come Julia hasn’t said anything about it to me?” +Ellen shook her head. “It sounds like Julia isn’t saying much of anything to you these days.” She stared at me. “So why didn’t you accept right away?” +“I need to check around first.” +“Check what, Jack?” Her tone conveyed disbelief. Ellen was acting like I had a psychological problem that needed to be fixed. My sister was starting to get to me, and we’d only been together a few minutes. My older sister, treating me like I was a kid again. I stood up. “Listen, Ellen,” I said. “I’ve spent my life in this business, and I know how it works. There’s two possible reasons Don wants me back. The first is the company’s in a jam and they think I can help.” +“That’s what they said.” +“Right. That’s what they said. But the other possibility is that they’ve made an incredible mess of things and by now it can’t be fixed—and they know it.” +“So they want somebody to blame?” +“Right. They want a donkey to pin the tail on.” +She frowned. I saw her hesitate. “Do you really think so?” +“I don’t know, that’s the point,” I said. “But I have to find out.” +“Which you will do by ...” +“By making some calls. Maybe paying a surprise visit to the fab building tomorrow.” +“Okay. That sounds right to me.” +“I’m glad I have your approval.” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. +“Jack,” she said. She got up and hugged me. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all.” +“I appreciate that,” I said. “But you’re not helping me.” +“Okay. Then what can I do to help you?” +“Watch the kids, while I make some calls.” +I figured I would first call Ricky Morse, the guy I’d seen in the supermarket buying Huggies. I had a long relationship with Ricky; he worked at Xymos and he was casual enough about information that he might tell me what was really going on there. The only problem was that Ricky was based in the Valley, and he’d already told me that the action was all at the fab building. But he was a place for me to start. +I called his office, but the receptionist said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Morse is not in the office.” +“When is he expected back?” +“I really couldn’t say. Do you want voice mail?” +I left Ricky a voice-mail message. Then I called his home number. His wife answered. Mary was getting her Ph.D. in French history; I imagined her studying, bouncing the baby, with a book open on her lap. I said, “How are you, Mary?” +“I’m fine, Jack.” +“How’s the baby? Ricky tells me you never get diaper rash. I’m jealous.” I tried to sound casual. Just a social call. +Mary laughed. “She’s a good baby, and we didn’t have colic, thank God. But Ricky hasn’t been around for the rashes,” she said. “We’ve had some.” +I said, “Actually, I’m looking for Ricky. Is he there?” +“No, Jack. He’s been gone all week. He’s out at that fab plant in Nevada.” +“Oh, right.” I remembered now that Ricky had mentioned that, when we had met in the supermarket. +“Have you been out to that plant?” Mary said. I thought I detected an uneasy tone. +“No, I haven’t, but—” +“Julia is there a lot, isn’t she? What does she say about it?” Definitely worried. +“Well, not much. I gather they have new technology that’s very hush-hush. Why?” +She hesitated. “Maybe it’s my imagination ...” +“What is?” +“Well, sometimes when Ricky calls, he sounds kind of weird to me.” +“How?” +“I’m sure he’s distracted and working hard, but he says some strange things. He doesn’t always make a lot of sense. And he seems evasive. Like he’s, I don’t know, hiding something.” +“Hiding something ...” +She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I even thought maybe he’s having an affair. You know, that woman Mae Chang is out there, and he always liked her. She’s so pretty.” Mae Chang used to work in my division at MediaTronics. “I hadn’t heard she was at the fab plant.” +“Yes. I think a lot of the people who used to work for you are there, now.” +“Well,” I said. “I don’t think Ricky is having an affair, Mary. It’s just not like him. And it’s not like Mae.” +“It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for,” she said, apparently referring to Mae. “And I’m still nursing, so I haven’t lost my weight yet, I mean, my thighs are as big as sides of beef.” +“I don’t think that—” +“They rub together when I walk. Squishy.” +“Mary, I’m sure—” +“Is Julia okay, Jack? She’s not acting weird?” +“No more than usual,” I said, trying to make a joke. I was feeling bad as I said it. For days I had wished that people would level with me about Julia, but now that I had something to share with Mary, I wasn’t going to level with her. I was going to keep my mouth shut. I said, “Julia’s working hard, and she sometimes is a little odd.” +“Does she say anything about a black cloud?” +“Uh ... no.” +“The new world? Being present for the birth of the new world order?” That sounded like conspiracy talk to me. Like those people who worried about the Trilateral Commission and thought that the Rockefellers ran the world. “No, nothing like that.” +“She mention a black cloak?” +I felt suddenly slowed down. Moving very slowly. “What?” +“The other night Ricky was talking about a black cloak, being covered in a black cloak. It was late, he was tired, he was sort of babbling.” +“What did he say about the black cloak?” +“Nothing. Just that.” She paused. “You think they’re taking drugs out there?” +“I don’t know,” I said. +“You know, there’s pressure, working around the clock, and nobody’s sleeping much. I wonder about drugs.” +“Let me call Ricky,” I said. +Mary gave me his cell phone number, and I wrote it down. I was about to dial it when the door slammed, and I heard Eric say, “Hey, Mom! Who’s that guy in the car with you?” I got up, and looked out the window at the driveway. Julia’s BMW convertible was there, top down. I checked my watch. It was only 4:30. +I went out into the hall and saw Julia hugging Eric. She was saying, “It must have been sunlight on the windshield. There’s nobody else in the car.” +“Yes there was. I saw him.” +“Oh yes?” She opened the front door. “Go look for yourself.” Eric went out onto the lawn. Julia smiled at me. “He thinks someone was in the car.” +Eric came back in, shrugging. “Oh well. Guess not.” +“That’s right, honey.” Julia walked down the hall toward me. “Is Ellen here?” +“Just got here.” +“Great. I’m going to take a shower, and we’ll talk. Let’s open some wine. What do you want to do about dinner?” +“I’ve got steaks ready.” +“Great. Sounds great.” +And with a cheerful wave, she went down the hallway. +It was a warm evening and we had dinner in the backyard. I put out the red-checkered tablecloth and grilled the steaks on the barbecue, wearing my chef’s apron that said the chef’s word is law, and we had a sort of classic American family dinner. +Julia was charming and chatty, focusing her attention on my sister, talking about the kids, about school, about changes she wanted to make on the house. “That window has to come out,” she said, pointing back at the kitchen, “and we’ll put French doors in so it’ll open to the outside. It’ll be great.” I was astonished by Julia’s performance. Even the kids were staring at her. Julia mentioned how proud she was of Nicole’s big part in the forthcoming school play. Nicole said, “Mom, I have a bad part.” +“Oh, not really, honey,” Julia said. +“Yes, I do. I just have two lines.” +“Now honey, I’m sure you’re—” +Eric piped up. “ ‘Look, here comes John now.’ ‘That sounds pretty serious.’ ” +“Shut up, weasel turd.” +“She says ’em in the bathroom, over and over,” Eric announced. “About a billion gazillion times.” +Julia said, “Who’s John?” +“Those are the lines in the play.” +“Oh. Well, anyway, I’m sure you’ll be wonderful. And our little Eric is making such progress in soccer, aren’t you, hon?” +“It’s over next week,” Eric said, turning sulky. Julia hadn’t made it to any of his games this fall. “It’s been so good for him,” Julia said to Ellen. “Team sports build cooperation. Especially with boys, it helps with that competitiveness.” +Ellen wasn’t saying anything, just nodding and listening. +For this particular evening, Julia had insisted on feeding the baby, and had positioned the high chair beside her. But Amanda was accustomed to playing airplane at every mealtime. She was waiting for someone to move the spoon toward her, saying, “Rrrrrrr-owwwww ... here comes the airplane ... open the doors!” Since Julia wasn’t doing that, Amanda kept her mouth tightly shut. Which was part of the game, too. +“Oh well. I guess she’s not hungry,” Julia said, with a shrug. “Did she just have a bottle, Jack?” +“No,” I said. “She doesn’t get one until after dinner.” +“Well, I know that. I meant, before.” +“No,” I said. “Not before.” I gestured toward Amanda. “Shall I try?” +“Sure.” Julia handed me the spoon, and I sat beside Amanda and began to play airplane. “Rrrrr-owwww ...” Amanda immediately grinned and opened her mouth. +“Jack’s been wonderful with the kids, just wonderful,” Julia said to Ellen. +“I think it’s good for a man to experience home life,” Ellen said. +“Oh, it is. It is. He’s helped me a lot.” She patted my knee. “You really have, Jack.” It was clear to me that Julia was too bright, too cheerful. She was keyed up, talking fast, and obviously trying to impress Ellen that she was in charge of her family. I could see that Ellen wasn’t buying it. But Julia was so speedy, she didn’t notice. I began to wonder if she were on drugs. Was that the reason for her strange behavior? Was she on amphetamines? “And work,” Julia continued, “is so incredible these days. Xymos is really making breakthroughs—the kind of breakthroughs people have been waiting for more than ten years to happen. But at last, it’s happening.” +“Like the black cloak?” I said, fishing. +Julia blinked. “The what?” She shook her head. “What’re you talking about, hon?” +“A black cloak. Didn’t you say something about a black cloak the other day?” +“No ...” She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.” She turned back to Ellen. “Anyway, all this molecular technology has been much slower to come to market than we expected. But at last, it really is here.” +“You seem very excited,” Ellen said. +“I have to tell you, it’s thrilling, Ellen.” She lowered her voice. “And on top of it, we’ll probably make a bundle.” +“That’d be good,” Ellen said. “But I guess you’ve had to put in long hours ...” +“Not that long,” Julia said. “All things considered, it hasn’t been bad. Just the last week or so.” I saw Nicole’s eyes widen. Eric was staring at his mother as he ate. But the kids didn’t say anything. Neither did I. +“It’s just a transition period,” Julia continued. “All companies have these transitional periods.” +“Of course,” Ellen said. +The sun was going down. The air was cooler. The kids left the table. I got up and started to clear. Ellen was helping me. Julia kept talking, then said, “I’d love to stay, but I have something going on, and I have to get back to the office for a while.” If Ellen was surprised to hear this, she didn’t show it. All she said was, “Long hours.” +“Just during this transition.” She turned to me. “Thanks for holding the fort, honey.” At the door, she turned, blew me an air kiss. “Love, Jack.” +And she left. +Ellen frowned, watching her go. “Just a little abrupt, wouldn’t you say?” +I shrugged. +“Will she say good-bye to the kids?” +“Probably not.” +“She’ll just run right out the door?” +“Right.” +Ellen shook her head. “Jack,” she said, “I don’t know if she’s having an affair or not, but—what’s she taking?” +“Nothing, as far as I know.” +“She’s on something. I’m certain of it. Would you say she’s lost weight?” +“Yes. Some.” +“And sleeping very little. And obviously speedy ...” Ellen shook her head. “A lot of these hard-charging executives are on drugs.” +“I don’t know,” I said. +She just looked at me. +I went back into my office to call Ricky, and from the office window I saw Julia backing her car down the driveway. I went to wave to her, but she was looking over her shoulder as she backed away. In the evening light I saw golden reflections on the windshield, streaking from the trees above. She had almost reached the street when I thought I saw someone sitting in the passenger seat beside her. It looked like a man. +I couldn’t see his features clearly through the windshield, with the car moving down the drive. When Julia backed onto the street, her body blocked my view of the passenger. But it seemed as if Julia was talking to him, animatedly. Then she put the car in gear and leaned back in her seat, and for a moment I had a brief, clear look. The man was backlit, his face in shadow, and he must have been looking directly at her because I still couldn’t make out any features, but from the way he was slouching I had the impression of someone young, maybe in his twenties, though I honestly couldn’t be sure. It was just a glimpse. Then the BMW accelerated, and she drove off down the street. +I thought: the hell with this. I ran outside, and down the driveway. I reached the street just as Julia came to the stop sign to the end of the block, her brake lights flaring. She was probably fifty yards away, the street illuminated in low, slanting yellow light. It looked as if she was alone in the car, but I really couldn’t see well. I felt a moment of relief, and of foolishness. There I was, standing in the street, for no good reason. My mind was playing tricks on me. There was nobody in the car. +Then, as Julia made the right turn, the guy popped up again, like he had been bent over, getting something from the glove compartment. And then the car was gone. And in an instant all my distress came flooding back, like a hot pain that spread across my chest and body. I felt short of breath, and a little dizzy. +There was somebody in the car. +I trudged back up the driveway, feeling churning emotions, not sure what to do next. “You’re not sure what to do next?” Ellen said. We were doing the pots and pans at the sink, the things that didn’t go in the dishwasher. Ellen was drying, while I scrubbed. “You pick up the phone and call her.” +“She’s in the car.” +“She has a car phone. Call her.” +“Uh-huh,” I said. “So how do I put it? Hey Julia, who’s the guy in the car with you?” I shook my head. “That’s going to be a tough conversation.” +“Maybe so.” +“That’ll be a divorce, for sure.” +She just stared at me. “You don’t want a divorce, do you.” +“Hell, no. I want to keep my family together.” +“That may not be possible, Jack. It may not be your decision to make.” +“None of this makes any sense,” I said. “I mean the guy in the car, he was like a kid, somebody young.” +“So?” +“That’s not Julia’s style.” +“Oh?” Ellen’s eyebrows went up. “He was probably in his twenties or early thirties. And anyway, are you so sure about Julia’s style?” +“Well, I’ve lived with her for thirteen years.” +She set down one of the pots with a bang. “Jack. I understand that all this must be hard to accept.” +“It is, it is.” In my mind, I kept replaying the car backing down the driveway, over and over. I was thinking that there was something strange about the other person in the car, something odd in his appearance. In my mind, I kept trying to see his face but I never could. The features were blurred by the windshield, by the light shifting as she backed down the drive ... I couldn’t see the eyes, or the cheekbones, or the mouth. In my memory, the whole face was dark and indistinct. I tried to explain that to her. +“It’s not surprising.” +“No?” +“No. It’s called denial. Look Jack, the fact is, you have the evidence right in front of your eyes. You’ve seen it, Jack. Don’t you think it’s time you believed it?” +I knew she was right. “Yes,” I said. “It’s time.” +The phone was ringing. My hands were up to the elbows in soap suds. I asked Ellen to get it, but one of the kids had already picked it up. I finished scrubbing the barbecue grill, handed it to Ellen to dry. +“Jack,” Ellen said, “you have to start seeing things as they really are, and not as you want them to be.” +“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll call her.” +At that moment Nicole came into the kitchen, looking pale. +“Dad? It’s the police. They want to talk to you.” +Chapter 6 +DAY 5 9:10 P.M. +Julia’s convertible had gone off the road about five miles from the house. It had plunged fifty feet down a steep ravine, cutting a track through the sage and juniper bushes. Then it must have rolled, because now it lay at an angle, wheels facing upward. I could see only the underside of the car. The sun was almost down, and the ravine was dark. The three rescue ambulances on the road had their red lights flashing, and the rescue crews were already rappelling down on ropes. As I watched, portable floodlights were set up, bathing the wreck in a harsh blue glow. I heard the crackle of radios all around. +I stood up on the road with a motorcycle police officer. I had already asked to go down there, and was told I couldn’t; I had to stay on the road. When I heard the radios, I said, “Is she hurt? Is my wife hurt?” +“We’ll know in a minute.” He was calm. +“What about the other guy?” +“Just a minute,” he said. He had a headset in his helmet, because he just started talking in a low voice. It sounded like a lot of code words. I heard “... update a four-oh-two for seven-three-nine here ...” +I stood at the edge, and looked down, trying to see. By now there were workers all around the car, and several hidden behind the upturned frame. A long time seemed to pass. +The cop said, “Your wife is unconscious but she’s ... She was wearing her seat belt, and stayed in the car. They think she’s all right. Vital signs are stable. They say no spinal injuries but ... she ... sounds like she broke her arm.” +“But she’s all right?” +“They think so.” Another pause while he listened. I heard him say, “I have the husband here, so let’s eight-seven.” When he turned back to me, he said, “Yes. She’s coming around. She’ll have to be checked for internal bleeding at the hospital. And she’s got a broken arm. But they say she’s all right. They’re getting her on a stretcher now.” +“Thank God,” I said. +The policeman nodded. “This is a bad piece of road.” +“This has happened before?” +He nodded. “Every few months. Not usually so lucky.” +I flipped open my cell phone and called Ellen, told her to explain to the kids there was nothing to worry about, that Mom was going to be okay. “Especially Nicole,” I said. “I’ll take care of it,” Ellen promised me. +I flipped the phone shut and turned back to the cop. “What about the other guy?” I said. +“She’s alone in the car.” +“No,” I said. “There was another guy with her.” +He spoke on his headset, then turned back to me. “They say no. There’s no sign of anyone else.” +“Maybe he was thrown,” I said. +“They’re asking your wife now ...” He listened a moment. “She says she was alone.” +“You’re kidding,” I said. +He looked at me, shrugged. “That’s what she says.” In the flashing red lights of the ambulances, I couldn’t read his expression. But his tone implied: another guy who doesn’t know his own wife. I turned away, looked over the edge of the road. +One of the rescue vehicles had extended a steel arm with a winch that hung over the ravine. A cable was being lowered. I saw the workers, struggling for footing against the steep slope, as they attached a stretcher to the winch. I couldn’t see Julia clearly on the stretcher, she was strapped down, covered in a silver space blanket. She started to rise, passing through the cone of blue light, then into darkness. +The cop said, “They’re asking about drugs and medicines. Is your wife taking any drugs or medicines?” +“Not that I know of.” +“How about alcohol? Was she drinking?” +“Wine at dinner. One or two glasses.” +The cop turned away and spoke again, quietly in the darkness. After a pause, I heard him say, “That’s affirmative.” +The stretcher twisted slowly as it rose into the air. One of the workers, halfway up the slope, reached out to steady it. The stretcher continued upward. +I still couldn’t see Julia clearly, until it reached the level of the road and the rescue workers swung it around, and unclipped it from the line. She was swollen; her left cheekbone was purple and the forehead above her left eye was purple as well. She must have hit her head pretty hard. She was breathing shallowly. I moved alongside the stretcher. She saw me and said, “Jack ...” and tried to smile. +“Just take it easy,” I said. +She gave a little cough. “Jack. It was an accident.” +The medics were maneuvering around the motorcycle. I had to watch where I was going. “Of course it was.” +“It’s not what you think, Jack.” +I said, “What is, Julia?” She seemed to be delirious. Her voice seemed to drift in and out. “I know what you’re thinking.” Her hand gripped my arm. “Promise me you won’t get involved in this, Jack.” +I didn’t say anything, I just walked with her. +She squeezed me harder. “Promise me you’ll stay out of it.” +“I promise,” I said. +She relaxed then, dropping my arm. “This doesn’t involve our family. The kids will be fine. You’ll be fine. Just stay out, okay?” +“Okay,” I said, just wanting to mollify her. +“Jack?” +“Yes, honey, I’m here.” +By now we were approaching the nearest ambulance. The doors swung open. One of the rescue team said, “You related to her?” +“I’m her husband.” +“You want to come?” +“Yes.” +“Hop in.” +I got into the ambulance first, then they slid the stretcher in, one of the rescue team got in and slammed the doors shut. We started down the road, siren moaning. I was immediately moved aside by the two paramedics, working on her. One was recording notes on a handheld device and the other was starting a second IV in her other arm. They were worried about her blood pressure, which was dropping. That was a great cause for concern. During all this I couldn’t really see Julia, but I heard her murmuring. I tried to move forward, but the medics pushed me back. “Let us work, sir. Your wife’s got injuries. We have to work.” +For the rest of the way, I sat on a little jump seat and gripped a wall handle as the ambulance careened around curves. By now Julia was clearly delirious, babbling nonsense. I heard something about “the black clouds,” that were “not black anymore.” Then she shifted into a kind of lecture, talking about “adolescent rebellion.” She mentioned Amanda by name, and Eric, asking if they were all right. She seemed agitated. The medics kept trying to reassure her. And finally she lapsed into repeating “I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong” as the ambulance sped through the night. +Listening to her, I couldn’t help but worry. +The examination suggested Julia’s injuries might be more extensive than they first thought. There was a lot to rule out: possible pelvic fracture, possible hematoma, possible fracture of a cervical vertebra, left arm broken in two places and might need to be pinned. The doctors seemed most worried about her pelvis. They were handling her much more gingerly when they put her into intensive care. +But Julia was conscious, catching my eye and smiling at me from time to time, until she fell asleep. The doctors said there was nothing for me to do; they would wake her up every half hour during the night. They said that she would be in the hospital at least three days, probably a week. +They told me to get some rest. I left the hospital a little before midnight. I took a taxi back to the crash site, to pick up my car. It was a cold night. The police cars and rescue ambulances were gone. In their place was a big flatbed tow truck, which was winching Julia’s car up the hill. A skinny guy smoking a cigarette was running the winch. “Nothing to see,” he said to me. “Everybody’s gone to the hospital.” +I said it was my wife’s car. +“Can’t drive it,” he said. He asked me for my insurance card. I got it out of my wallet and handed it to him. He said, “I heard your wife’s okay.” +“So far.” +“You’re a lucky guy.” He jerked his thumb, pointing across the road. “Are they with you?” Across the street a small white van was parked. The sides were bare, with no markings or company logo. But low on the front door I saw a serial number, in black. And underneath it said SSVT unit. +I said, “No, they’re not with me.” +“Been here an hour,” he said. “Just sitting there.” +I couldn’t see anyone inside the van; the front windows were dark. I started across the street toward them. I heard the faint crackle of a radio. When I was about ten feet away the lights came on, the engine started, and the van roared past me, and drove down the highway. As it passed, I had a glimpse of the driver. He was wearing a shiny suit of some kind, like silvery plastic, and a tight hood of the same material. I thought I saw some funny, silver apparatus hanging around his neck. It looked like a gas mask, except it was silver. But I wasn’t sure. +As the car drove away, I noticed the rear bumper had two green stickers, each with a big X. That was the Xymos logo. But it was the license plate that really caught my eye. It was a Nevada plate. +That van had come from the fabrication plant, out in the desert. +I frowned. It was time for me to visit the fab plant, I thought. I pulled out my cell phone, and dialed Tim Bergman. I told him I had reconsidered his offer and I would take the consulting job, after all. +“That’s great,” Tim said. “Don will be very happy.” +“Great,” I said. “How soon can I start?” + +DESERT +Chapter 7 +DAY 6 7:12 A.M. +With the vibration of the helicopter, I must have dozed off for a few minutes. I awoke and yawned, hearing voices in my headphones. They were all men speaking: +“Well, what exactly is the problem?” A growling voice. +“Apparently, the plant released some material into the environment. It was an accident. Now, several dead animals have been found out in the desert. In the vicinity of the plant.” A reasonable, organized voice. +“Who found them?” Growly. +“Couple of nosy environmentalists. They ignored the keep-out signs, snooped around the plant. They’ve complained to the company and are demanding to inspect the plant.” +“Which we can’t allow.” +“No, no.” +“How do we handle this?” said a timid voice. +“I say we minimize the amount of contamination released, and give data that show no untoward consequence is possible.” Organized voice. +“Hell, I wouldn’t play it that way,” said growling voice. “We’re better off flatly denying it. Nothing was released. I mean, what’s the evidence anything was released?” +“Well, the dead animals. A coyote, some desert rats. Maybe a few birds.” +“Hell, animals die in nature all the time. I mean, remember the business about those slashed cows? It was supposed to be aliens from UFOs that were slashing the cows. Finally turned out the cows were dying of natural causes, and it was decomposing gas in the carcasses that split them open. Remember that?” +“Vaguely.” +Timid voice: “I’m not sure we can just deny—” +“Fuck yes, deny.” +“Aren’t there pictures? I think the environmentalists took pictures.” +“Well, who cares? What will the pictures show, a dead coyote? Nobody is going to get worked up about a dead coyote. Trust me. Pilot? Pilot, where the fuck are we?” I opened my eyes. I was sitting in the front of the helicopter, alongside the pilot. The helicopter was flying east, into the glare of low morning sun. Beneath my feet I saw mostly flat terrain, with low clumps of cactus, juniper, and the occasional scraggly Joshua tree. The pilot was flying alongside the power-line towers that marched in single file across the desert, a steel army with outstretched arms. The towers cast long shadows in the morning light. A heavyset man leaned forward from the backseat. He was wearing a suit and tie. “Pilot? Are we there yet?” +“We just crossed the Nevada line. Another ten minutes.” +The heavyset man grunted and sat back. I’d met him when we took off, but I couldn’t remember his name now. I glanced back at the three men, all in suits and ties, who were traveling with me. They were all PR consultants hired by Xymos. I could match their appearance to their voices. A slender, nervous man, twisting his hands. Then a middle-aged man with a briefcase on his lap. And the heavyset man, older and growly, obviously in charge. “Why the hell did they put it in Nevada, anyway?” +“Fewer regulations, easier inspections. These days California is sticky about new industry. There was going to be a year’s delay just for environmental-impact statements. And a far more difficult permitting process. So they came here.” +Growly looked out the window at the desert. “What a shithole,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck what goes on out here, it’s not a problem.” He turned to me. “What do you do?” +“I’m a computer programmer.” +“You covered by an NDA?” He meant, did I have a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent me from discussing what I had just heard. +“Yes,” I said. +“You coming out to work at the plant?” +“To consult,” I said. “Yes.” +“Consulting’s the way to go,” he said, nodding as if I were an ally. “No responsibility. No liability. Just give your opinion, and watch them not take it.” With a crackle, the pilot’s voice broke in over the headsets. “Xymos Molecular Manufacturing is dead ahead,” he said. “You can just see it now.” +Twenty miles in front of us, I saw an isolated cluster of low buildings silhouetted on the horizon. The PR people in the back all leaned forward. +“Is that it?” said Growly. “That’s all it is?” +“It’s bigger than it looks from here,” the pilot said. +As the helicopter came closer, I could see that the buildings were interlocked, featureless concrete blocks, all whitewashed. The PR people were so pleased they almost burst into applause. “Hey, it’s beautiful!” +“Looks like a fucking hospital.” +“Great architecture.” +“It’ll photograph great.” +I said, “Why will it photograph great?” +“Because it has no projections,” the man with the briefcase said. “No antennas, no spikes, no things poking up. People are afraid of spikes and antennas. There are studies. But a building that’s plain and square like this, and white—perfect color choice, associations to virginal, hospital, cure, pure—a building like this, they don’t care.” +“Those environmentalists are fucked,” said Growly, with satisfaction. “They do medical research here, right?” +“Not exactly ...” +“They will when I get through, trust me. Medical research is the way to go on this.” +The pilot pointed out the different buildings as he circled them. “That first concrete block, that’s power. Walkway to that low building, that’s the residences. Next door, fab support, labs, whatever. And then the square windowless three-story one, that’s the main fab building. They tell me it’s a shell, it’s got another building inside it. Then over to the right, that low flat shed, that’s external storage and parking. Cars have to be under shade here, or the dashboards buckle. Get a first-degree burn if you touch your steering wheel.” I said, “And they have residences?” +The pilot nodded. “Yeah. Have to. Nearest motel is a hundred and sixty-one miles. Over near Reno.” +“So how many people live in this facility?” Growly said. +“They can take twelve,” the pilot said. “But they’ve generally got about five to eight. Doesn’t take a lot to run the place. It’s all automated, from what I hear.” +“What else do you hear?” +“Not very damn much,” the pilot said. “They’re closed-mouthed about this place. I’ve never even been inside.” +“Good,” said Growly. “Let’s make sure they keep it that way.” +The pilot turned the stick in his hand. The helicopter banked, and started down. I opened the plastic door in the bubble cockpit, and started to get out. It was like stepping into an oven. The blast of heat made me gasp. +“This is nothing!” the pilot shouted, over the whirr of the blades. “This is almost winter! Can’t be more than a hundred and five!” +“Great,” I said, inhaling hot air. I reached in the back for my overnight bag and my laptop. I’d stowed them under the seat of the timid man. +“I have to take a piss,” said Growly, releasing his seat belt. +“Dave ...” said the man with the briefcase, in a warning tone. +“Fuck, it’s just for a minute.” +“Dave—” an embarrassed glance toward me, then lowering his voice: “They said, we don’t get out of the helicopter, remember?” +“Aw hell. I can’t wait another hour. Anyway, what’s the difference?” He gestured toward the surrounding desert. “There’s nothing the fuck out here for a million miles.” +“But, Dave—” +“You guys give me a pain. I’m going to pee, damn it.” He hefted his bulk up, and moved toward the door. +I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation because by then I had taken off my earphones. Growly was clambering out. I grabbed my bags, turned and moved away, crouched beneath the blades. They cast a flickering shadow on the pad. I came to the edge of the pad where the concrete ended abruptly in a dirt path that threaded among the clumps of cholla cactus toward the blocky white power building fifty yards away. There was no one to greet me—in fact, no one in sight at all. +Looking back, I saw Growly zip up his trousers and climb back into the helicopter. The pilot pulled the door shut and lifted off, waving to me as he rose into the air. I waved back, then ducked away from the swirl of spitting sand. The helicopter circled once and headed west. The sound faded. +The desert was silent except for the hum of the electrical power lines a few hundred yards away. The wind ruffled my shirt, flapped my trouser legs. I turned in a slow circle, wondering what to do now. And thinking about the words of the PR guy: They said, we don’t get out of the helicopter, remember? +“Hey! Hey, you!” +I looked back. A door had cracked open in the white power block. A man’s head stuck out. He shouted, “Are you Jack Forman?” +“Yes,” I said. +“Well, what the hell you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Get inside, for Chrissake.” +And he slammed the door shut again. +That was my welcome to the Xymos Fabrication Facility. Lugging my bags, I trudged down the dirt path toward the door. +Things never turn out the way you expect. +* * * +I stepped into a small room, with dark gray walls on three sides. The walls were some smooth material like Formica. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the relative darkness. Then I saw that the fourth wall directly ahead of me was entirely glass, leading to a small compartment and a second glass wall. The glass walls were fitted with folding steel arms, ending in metal pressure pads. It looked a little bit like what you’d expect to see in a bank vault. Beyond the second glass wall I could see a burly man in blue trousers and a blue work shirt, with the Xymos logo on the pocket. He was clearly the plant maintenance engineer. He gestured to me. +“It’s an airlock. Door’s automatic. Walk forward.” +I did, and the nearest glass door hissed open. A red light came on. In the compartment ahead, I saw grillwork on floor, ceiling, and both walls. I hesitated. “Looks like a fuckin’ toaster, don’t it?” the man said, grinning. He had some teeth missing. “But don’t worry, it’ll just blow you a little. Come ahead.” +I stepped into the glass compartment, and set my bag on the ground. +“No, no. Pick the bag up.” +I picked it up again. Immediately, the glass door behind me hissed shut, the steel arms unfolding smoothly. The pressure pads sealed with a thunk. I felt a slight discomfort in my ears as the airlock pressurized. The man in blue said, “You might want to close your eyes.” I closed my eyes and immediately felt chilling spray strike my face and body from all sides. My clothes were soaked. I smelled a stinging odor like acetone, or nail polish remover. I began to shiver; the liquid was really cold. +The first blast of air came from above my head, a roar that quickly built to hurricane intensity. I stiffened my body to steady myself. My clothes flapped and pressed flat against my body. The wind increased, threatening to tear the bag from my hand. Then the air stopped for a moment, and a second blast came upward from the floor. It was disorienting, but it only lasted a few moments. Then with a whoosh the vacuum pumps kicked in and I felt a slight ache in my ears as the pressure dropped, like an airplane descending. Then silence. A voice said, “That’s it. Come ahead.” +I opened my eyes. The liquid they’d sprayed on me had evaporated; my clothes were dry. The doors hissed open before me. I stepped out and the man in blue looked at me quizzically. “Feel okay?” +“Yeah, I think so.” +“No itching?” +“No ...” +“Good. We had a few people who were allergic to the stuff. But we’ve got to do this routine, for the clean rooms.” +I nodded. It was obviously a procedure to remove dust and other contaminants. The dousing fluid was highly volatile, evaporating at room temperature, drawing off microparticles on my body and clothes. The air jets and vacuum completed the scrub. The procedure would remove any loose particles on my body and suck them away. +“I’m Vince Reynolds,” the man said, but he didn’t hold out his hand. “You call me Vince. And you’re Jack?” +I said I was. +“Okay, Jack,” he said. “They’re waiting for you, so let’s get started. We got to take precautions, because this is an HMF, that’s high magnetic field environment, greater than 33 Tesla, so ...” He picked up a cardboard box. “Better lose your watch.” I put the watch in the box. +“And the belt.” +I took my belt off, put it in the box. +“Any other jewelry? Bracelet? Necklace? Piercings? Decorative pins or medals? MedicAlert?” +“No.” +“How about metal inside your body? Old injury, bullets, shrapnel? No? Any pins for broken arms or legs, hip or knee replacement? No? Artificial valves, artificial cartilage, vascular pumps or implants?” +I said I didn’t have any of those things. +“Well, you’re still young,” he said. “Now how about in your bag?” He made me take everything out and spread it on a table, so he could rummage through it. I had plenty of metal in there: another belt with a metal buckle, nail clippers, a can of shaving cream, razor and blades, a pocket knife, blue jeans with metal rivets ... +He took the knife and the belt but left the rest. “You can put your stuff back in the bag,” he said. “Now, here’s the deal. Your bag goes to the residence building, but no farther. Okay? There’s an alarm at the residence door if you try to take any metal past there. But do me a favor and don’t set it off, okay? ’Cause it shuts down the magnets as a safety procedure and it takes about two minutes to start ’em up again. Pisses the techs off, especially if they’re fabbing at the time. Ruins all their hard work.” +I said I would try to remember. +“The rest of your stuff stays right here.” He nodded to the wall behind me; I saw a dozen small safes, each with an electronic keypad. “You set the combination and lock it up yourself.” He turned aside so I could do that. +“I won’t need a watch?” +He shook his head. “We’ll get you a watch.” +“What about a belt?” +“We’ll get you a belt.” +“And my laptop?” I said. +“It goes in the safe,” he said. “Unless you want to scrub your hard drive with the magnetic field.” I put the laptop in with the rest of my stuff, and locked the door. I felt strangely stripped, like a man entering prison. “You don’t want my shoelaces, too?” I said, making a joke. “Nah. You keep those. So you can strangle yourself, if it turns out you need to.” +“Why would I need to?” +“I really couldn’t say.” Vince shrugged. “But these guys working here? Let me tell you, they’re all fucking crazy. They’re making these teeny-weeny little things you can’t see, pushing around molecules and shit, sticking ’em together. It’s real tense and detailed work, and it makes them crazy. Every fucking one of ’em. Nutty as loons. Come this way.” We passed through another set of glass doors. But this time, there was no spray. +* * * +We entered the power plant. Beneath blue halogen lamps, I saw huge metal tubs ten feet high, and fat ceramic insulators thick as a man’s leg. Everything hummed. I felt a distinct vibration in the floor. There were signs all around with jagged red lightning bolts saying warning: lethal electrical currents! +“You use a lot of power here,” I said. +“Enough for a small town,” Vince said. He pointed to one of the signs. “Take those warnings seriously. We had problems with fires, a while back.” +“Oh?” +“Yeah. Got a nest of rats in the building. Buggers kept getting fried. Literally. I hate the smell of burning rat fur, don’t you?” +“Never had that experience,” I said. +“Smells like what you’d think.” +“Uh-huh,” I said. “How did the rats get in?” +“Up through the toilet bowl.” I must have looked surprised, because Vince said, “Oh, you don’t know that? Rats do that all the time, it’s just a short swim for them to get in. ’Course, if it happened while you were sitting, it’d be a nasty surprise.” He gave a short laugh. “Problem was the contractor for the building didn’t bury the leach field deep enough. Anyhow, rats got in. We’ve had a few accidents like that since I’ve been here.” +“Is that right? What kind of accidents?” +He shrugged. “They tried to make these buildings perfect,” he said. “Because they’re working with such small-size things. But it’s not a perfect world, Jack. Never has been. Never will be.” I said again, “What kind of accidents?” +By then we had come to the far door, with a keypad, and Vince punched in numbers quickly. The door clicked open. “All the doors are keyed the same. Oh six, oh four, oh two.” Vince pushed the door wide, and we stepped into a covered passageway connecting the power plant to the other buildings. It was stifling hot here, despite the roar of the air conditioner. “Contractor,” Vince explained. “Never balanced the air handlers right. We had ’em back five times to fix it, but this passage is always hot.” +At the end of the corridor was another door, and Vince had me punch in the code myself. The door clicked open. +I faced another airlock: a wall of thick glass, with another wall a few feet beyond. And behind that second wall, I saw Ricky Morse in jeans and a T-shirt, grinning and waving cheerfully to me. +His T-shirt said, “Obey Me, I Am Root.” +It was an inside joke. In the UNIX operating system, it meant the boss. +Over an intercom speaker, Ricky said, “I’ll take it from here, Vince.” +Vince waved. “No problem.” +“You fix that positive pressure setting?” +“Did it an hour ago. Why?” +“It may not be holding in the main lab.” +“I’ll check it again,” Vince said. “Maybe we got another leak somewhere.” He slapped me on the back, jerked his thumb toward the interior of the building. “Lots of luck in there.” Then he turned and walked back the way he came. +“It’s great to see you,” Ricky said. “You know the code to get in?” I said I did. He pointed to a keypad. I punched the numbers in. The glass wall slid sideways. I stepped into another narrow space about four feet wide, with metal grills on all four sides. The wall closed behind me. +A fierce blast of air shot up from the floor, puffing up my trouser legs, ruffling my clothing. Almost immediately it was followed by blasts of air coming from both sides, then from top, blowing down hard on my hair and shoulders. Then a whoosh of vacuum. The glass in front of me slid laterally. I smoothed down my hair and stepped out. +“Sorry about that.” Ricky shook my hand vigorously. “But at least we don’t have to wear bunny suits,” he said. I noticed that he looked strong, healthy. The muscles in his forearms were defined. +I said, “You look good, Ricky. Working out?” +“Oh, you know. Not really.” +“You’re pretty cut,” I said. I punched him on the shoulder. +He grinned. “Just tension on the job. Did Vince frighten you?” +“Not exactly ...” +“He’s a little strange,” Ricky said. “Vince grew up alone out in the desert with his mother. She died when he was five. Body was pretty decomposed when they finally found her. Poor kid, he just didn’t know what to do. I guess I’d be strange, too.” Ricky gave a shrug. “But I’m glad you’re here, Jack. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” Despite Ricky’s apparent good health, I was noticing now that he seemed nervous, edgy. He led me briskly down a short hallway. “So. How’s Julia?” +“Broke her arm, and hit her head pretty badly. She’s in the hospital for observation. But she’s going to be all right.” +“Good. That’s good.” He nodded quickly, continuing down a corridor. “Who’s taking care of the kids?” +I told him that my sister was in town. +“Then you can stay awhile? A few days?” +I said, “I guess. If you need me that long.” Ordinarily, software consultants don’t spend a lot of time on-site. One day, maybe two. Not more than that. +Ricky glanced over his shoulder at me. “Did Julia, ah, explain to you about this place?” +“Not really, no.” +“But you knew she was spending a lot of time here.” +I said, “Oh sure. Yes.” +“The last few weeks, she came out almost every day on the helicopter. Stayed over a couple of nights, too.” +I said, “I didn’t know she took such an interest in manufacturing.” +Ricky seemed to hesitate a moment. Then he said, “Well, Jack, this is a whole new thing ...” He frowned. “She really didn’t tell you anything?” +“No. Not really. Why?” +He didn’t answer. +He opened the far door and waved me through. “This is our residential module, where everybody sleeps and eats.” +The air was cool after the passageway. The walls were the same smooth Formica material. I heard a low, continuous whoosh of air handlers. A series of doors opened off the hallway. One of them had my name on it, written in marker on a piece of tape. Ricky opened the door. “Home sweet home, Jack.” +The room was monastic—a small bed, a tiny desk just large enough to hold a workstation monitor and keyboard. Above the bed, a shelf for books and clothes. All the furniture had been coated with smooth-flowing white plastic laminate. There were no nooks or crannies to hold stray particles of dirt. There was no window in the room either, but a liquid-crystal screen showed a view of the desert outside. +There was a plastic watch and a belt with a plastic buckle on the bed. I put them on. +Ricky said, “Dump your gear, and I’ll give you the tour.” +Still keeping his brisk pace, he led me into a medium-size lounge with a couch and chairs around a coffee table, and a bulletin board on the wall. All the furniture here was the same flowing plastic laminate. “To the right is the kitchen and the rec room with TV, video games, so forth.” We entered the small kitchen. There were two people there, a man and a woman, eating sandwiches standing up. “I think you know these guys,” Ricky said, grinning. And I did. They had been on my team at MediaTronics. +Rosie Castro was dark, thin, exotic-looking, and sarcastic; she wore baggy cargo shorts and a T-shirt tight across her large breasts, which read YOU WISH. Independent and rebellious, Rosie had been a Shakespearean scholar at Harvard before she decided, in her words, that “Shakespeare is fucking dead. For fucking centuries. There is nothing new to say. What’s the point?” She transferred to MIT, became a protégée of Robert Kim, working on natural language programming. It turned out she was brilliant at it. And these days natural language programs were starting to involve distributed processing. Because it turned out people evaluate a sentence in several ways simultaneously, while it is being spoken; they don’t wait until it is finished but rather they form expectations of what is coming. That’s a perfect situation for distributed processing, which can work on a problem at several points simultaneously. I said, “Still wearing those T-shirts, Rosie.” At MediaTronics, we’d had some trouble about the way she dressed. +“Hey. Keeps the boys awake,” she said, shrugging. +“Actually, we ignore them.” I turned to David Brooks, stiff, formal, obsessively neat, and almost bald at twenty-eight. He blinked behind thick glasses. “They’re not that good, anyway,” he said. Rosie stuck her tongue out at him. +David was an engineer, and he had an engineer’s bluntness and lack of social skills. He was also full of contradictions; although he fussed over every detail of his work and appearance, on weekends he raced a dirt bike, often coming back covered in mud. He shook my hand enthusiastically. “I’m very glad you’re here, Jack.” +I said, “Somebody’s going to have to tell me why you’re all so glad to see me.” Rosie said, “Well, it’s because you know more about the multi-agent algorithms that—” +“I’m going to show him around first,” Ricky said, interrupting. “Then we’ll talk.” +“Why?” Rosie said. “You want it to be a surprise?” +“Hell of a surprise,” David said. +“No, not at all,” Ricky said, giving them a hard look. “I just want Jack to have some background first. I want to go over that with him.” +David looked at his watch. “Well, how much time do you think that will take? Because I figure we’ve got—” +“I said, Let me show him around, for Christ’s sake!” Ricky was almost snarling. I was surprised; I’d never seen him lose his temper before. But apparently they had: +“Okay, okay, Ricky.” +“Hey, you’re the boss, Ricky.” +“That’s right, I am,” Ricky said, still visibly angry. “And by the way, your break ended ten minutes ago. So let’s get back to work.” He looked into the adjoining game room. “Where are the others?” +“Fixing the perimeter sensors.” +“You mean they’re outside?” +“No, no. They’re in the utility room. Bobby thinks there’s a calibration problem with the sensor units.” +“Great. Did anybody tell Vince?” +“No. It’s software: Bobby’s taking care of it.” +It was at that point that my cell phone beeped. I was surprised, pulled it out of my pocket. I turned to the others. “Cell phones work?” +“Yeah,” Ricky said, “we’re wired here.” He went back to his argument with David and Rosie. I stepped into the corridor and got my messages. There was only one, from the hospital, about Julia. “We understand you are Ms. Forman’s husband, and if you could call us please as soon as possible ...” Then an extension for a Dr. Rana. I dialed back at once. The switchboard put me through. “ICU.” +I asked for Dr. Rana, and waited until he came on. I said, “This is Jack Forman. Julia Forman’s husband.” +“Oh yes, Mr. Forman.” A pleasant, melodic voice. “Thank you for calling back. I understand you accompanied your wife to the hospital last night. Yes? Well then you know the seriousness of her injuries, or should I say her potential injuries. We really do feel that she needs to have a thorough workup for cervical fracture, and for subdural hematoma, and she needs a pelvic fracture workup as well.” +“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I was told last night. Is there a problem?” +“Actually, there is. Your wife is refusing treatment.” +“She is?” +“Last night, she allowed us to take X-rays and to set the fractures in her wrist. We’ve explained to her that X-rays are limited in what we can see, and that it is quite important for her to have an MRI, but she is refusing that.” +I said, “Why?” +“She says she doesn’t need it.” +“Of course she needs it,” I said. +“Yes, she does, Mr. Forman,” Rana said. “I don’t want to alarm you but the concern with pelvic fracture is massive hemorrhaging into the abdomen and, well, bleeding to death. It can happen very quickly, and—” +“What do you want me to do?” +“We’d like you to talk to her.” +“Of course. Put her on.” +“Unfortunately, she’s gone for some additional X-rays just now. Is there a number where you can be reached? Your cell phone? All right. One other thing, Mr. Forman, we weren’t able to take a psychiatric history from your wife ...” +“Why is that?” +“She refuses to talk about it. I’m referring to drugs, any history of behavioral disorders, that kind of thing. Can you shed any light in that area?” +“I’ll try ...” +“I don’t want to alarm you, but your wife has been, well, a bit on the irrational side. At times, almost delusional.” +“She’s been under a lot of stress lately,” I said. +“Yes, I am sure that contributes,” Dr. Rana said smoothly. “And she has suffered a severe head injury, which we need to investigate further. I don’t want to alarm you, but frankly it was the opinion of the psychiatric consult that your wife was suffering from a bipolar disorder, or a drug disorder, or both.” +“I see ...” +“And of course such questions naturally arise in the context of a single-car automobile accident ...” +He meant that the accident might be a suicide attempt. I didn’t think that was likely. “I have no knowledge of my wife taking drugs,” I said. “But I have been concerned about her behavior for, oh, a few weeks now.” +Ricky came over, and stood by me impatiently. I put my hand over the phone. “It’s about Julia.” He nodded, and glanced at his watch. Raised his eyebrows. I thought it was pretty odd, that he would push me when I was talking to the hospital about my wife—and his immediate superior. The doctor rambled on for a while, and I did my best to answer his questions, but the fact was I didn’t have any information that could help him. He said he would have Julia call when she got back, and I said I would wait for the call. I flipped the phone closed. Ricky said, “Okay, fine. Sorry to rush you, Jack, but ... you know, I’ve got a lot to show you.” +“Is there a time problem?” I said. +“I don’t know. Maybe.” +I started to ask what he meant by that, but he was already leading me forward, walking quickly. We left the residential area, passing through another glass door, and down another passageway. This passage, I noticed, was tightly sealed. We walked along a glass walkway suspended above the floor. The glass had little perforations, and beneath was a series of vacuum ducts for suction. By now I was growing accustomed to the constant hiss of the air handlers. Midway down the corridor was another pair of glass doors. We had to go through them one at a time. They parted as we went through, and closed behind us. Continuing on, I again had the distinct feeling of being in a prison, of going through a succession of barred gates, going deeper and deeper into something. +It might be all high-tech and shiny glass walls—but it was still a prison. +Chapter 8 +DAY 6 8:12 A.M. +We came into a large room marked UTILITY and beneath it, MOLSTOCK/FABSTOCK/FEEDSTOCK. The walls and ceiling were covered with the familiar smooth plastic laminate. Large laminated containers were stacked on the floor. Off to the right I saw a row of big stainless-steel kettles, sunk below ground with lots of piping and valves surrounding them, and coming up to the first-floor level. It looked exactly like a microbrewery, and I was about to ask Ricky about it when he said, “So there you are!” Working at a junction box beneath a monitor screen were three more members of my old team. They looked slightly guilty as we came up, like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Of course Bobby Lembeck was their leader. At thirty-five, Bobby now supervised more code than he wrote, but he could still write when he wanted to. As always, he was wearing faded jeans and a Ghost in the Shell T-shirt, his ubiquitous Walkman clamped to his waist. Then there was Mae Chang, beautiful and delicate, about as different from Rosie Castro as any woman could be. Mae had worked as a field biologist in Sichuan studying the golden snub-nosed monkey before turning to programming in her mid-twenties. Her time in the field, as well as her natural inclination, led her to be almost silent. Mae said very little, moved almost soundlessly, and never raised her voice—but she never lost an argument, either. Like many field biologists, she had developed the uncanny ability to slip into the background, to become unnoticed, almost to vanish. +And finally Charley Davenport, grumpy, rumpled, and already overweight at thirty. Slow and lumbering, he looked as if he had slept in his clothes, and in fact he often did, after a marathon programming session. Charley had worked under John Holland in Chicago and Doyne Farmer at Los Alamos. He was an expert in genetic algorithms, the kind of programming that mimicked natural selection to hone answers. But he was an irritating personality—he hummed, he snorted, talked to himself, and farted with noisy abandon. The group only tolerated him because he was so talented. +“Does it really take three people to do this?” Ricky said, after I’d shaken hands all around. +“Yes,” Bobby said, “it does take three people, El Rooto, because it’s complicated.” +“Why? And don’t call me El Rooto.” +“I obey, Mr. Root.” +“Just get on with it ...” +“Well,” Bobby said, “I started to check the sensors after this morning’s episode, and it looks to me like they’re miscalibrated. But since nobody is going outside, the question is whether we’re reading them wrong, or whether the sensors themselves are faulty, or just scaled wrong on the equipment in here. Mae knows these sensors, she’s used them in China. I’m making code revisions now. And Charley is here because he won’t go away and leave us alone.” +“Shit, I have better things to do,” Charley said. “But I wrote the algorithm that controls the sensors, and we need to optimize the sensor code after they’re done. I’m just waiting until they stop screwing around. Then I’ll optimize.” He looked pointedly at Bobby. “None of these guys can optimize worth a damn.” +Mae said, “Bobby can.” +“Yeah, if you give him six months, maybe.” +“Children, children,” Ricky said. “Let’s not make a scene in front of our guest.” I smiled blandly. The truth was, I hadn’t been paying attention to what they were saying. I was just watching them. These were three of my best programmers—and when they had worked for me, they had been self-assured to the point of arrogance. But now I was struck by how nervous the group was. They were all on edge, bickering, jumpy. And thinking back, I realized that Rosie and David had been on edge, too. +Charley started humming in that irritating way of his. +“Oh, Christ,” Bobby Lembeck said. “Would you tell him to shut up?” +Ricky said, “Charley, you know we’ve talked about the humming.” +Charley continued to hum. +“Charley ...” +Charley gave a long, theatrical sigh. He stopped humming. +“Thank you,” Bobby said. +Charley rolled his eyes, and looked at the ceiling. +“All right,” Ricky said. “Finish up quickly, and get back to your stations.” +“Okay, fine.” +“I want everybody in place as soon as possible.” +“Okay,” Bobby said. +“I’m serious. In your places.” +“For Christ’s sake, Ricky, okay, okay. Now will you stop talking and let us work?” Leaving the group behind, Ricky took me across the floor to a small room. I said, “Ricky, these kids aren’t the way they were when they worked for me.” +“I know. Everybody’s a little uptight right now.” +“And why is that?” +“Because of what’s going on here.” +“And what is going on here?” +He stopped before a small cubicle on the other side of the room. “Julia couldn’t tell you, because it was classified.” He touched the door with a keycard. I said, “Classified? Medical imaging is classified?” +The door latch clicked open, and we went inside. The door closed behind us. I saw a table, two chairs, a computer monitor and a keyboard. Ricky sat down, and immediately started typing. “The medical imaging project was just an afterthought,” he said, “a minor commercial application of the technology we are already developing.” +“Uh-huh. Which is?” +“Military.” +“Xymos is doing military work?” +“Yes. Under contract.” He paused. “Two years ago, the Department of Defense realized from their experience in Bosnia that there was enormous value to robot aircraft that could fly overhead and transmit battlefield images in real time. The Pentagon knew that there would be more and more sophisticated uses for these flying cameras in future wars. You could use them to spot the locations of enemy troops, even when they were hidden in jungle or in buildings; you could use them to control laser-guided rocket fire, or to identify the location of friendly troops, and so on. Commanders on the ground could call up the images they wanted, in the spectra they wanted—visible, infrared, UV, whatever. Real-time imaging was going to be a very powerful tool in future warfare.” +“Okay ...” +“But obviously,” Ricky said, “these robot cameras were vulnerable. You could shoot them down like pigeons. The Pentagon wanted a camera that couldn’t be shot down. They imagined something very small, maybe the size of a dragonfly—a target too small to hit. But there were problems with power supply, with small control surfaces, and with resolution using such a small lens. They needed a bigger lens.” +I nodded. “And so you thought of a swarm of nanocomponents.” +“That’s right.” Ricky pointed to the screen, where a cluster of black spots wheeled and turned in the air, like birds. “A cloud of components would allow you to make a camera with as large a lens as you wanted. And it couldn’t be shot down because a bullet would just pass through the cloud. Furthermore, you could disperse the cloud, the way a flock of birds disperses with a gunshot. Then the camera would be invisible until it re-formed again. So it seemed an ideal solution. The Pentagon gave us three years of DARPA funding.” +“And?” +“We set out to make the camera. It was of course immediately obvious that we had a problem with distributed intelligence.” +I was familiar with the problem. The nanoparticles in the cloud had to be endowed with a rudimentary intelligence, so that they could interact with each other to form a flock that wheeled in the air. Such coordinated activity might look pretty intelligent, but it occurred even when the individuals making up the flock were rather stupid. After all, birds and fish could do it, and they weren’t the brightest creatures on the planet. +Most people watching a flock of birds or a school of fish assumed there was a leader, and that all the other animals followed the leader. That was because human beings, like most social mammals, had group leaders. +But birds and fish had no leaders. Their groups weren’t organized that way. Careful study of flocking behavior—frame-by-frame video analysis—showed that, in fact, there was no leader. Birds and fish responded to a few simple stimuli among themselves, and the result was coordinated behavior. But nobody was controlling it. Nobody was leading it. Nobody was directing it. +Nor were individual birds genetically programmed for flocking behavior. Flocking was not hard-wired. There was nothing in the bird brain that said, “When thus-and-such happens, start flocking.” On the contrary, flocking simply emerged within the group as a result of much simpler, low-level rules. Rules like, “Stay close to the birds nearest you, but don’t bump into them.” From those rules, the entire group flocked in smooth coordination. Because flocking arose from low-level rules, it was called emergent behavior. The technical definition of emergent behavior was behavior that occurred in a group but was not programmed into any member of the group. Emergent behavior could occur in any population, including a computer population. Or a robot population. Or a nanoswarm. +I said to Ricky, “Your problem was emergent behavior in the swarm?” +“Exactly.” +“It was unpredictable?” +“To put it mildly.” +In recent decades, this notion of emergent group behavior had caused a minor revolution in computer science. What that meant for programmers was that you could lay down rules of behavior for individual agents, but not for the agents acting together. Individual agents—whether programming modules, or processors, or as in this case, actual micro-robots—could be programmed to cooperate under certain circumstances, and to compete under other circumstances. They could be given goals. They could be instructed to pursue their goals with single-minded intensity, or to be available to help other agents. But the result of these interactions could not be programmed. It just emerged, with often surprising outcomes. +In a way this was very exciting. For the first time, a program could produce results that absolutely could not be predicted by the programmer. These programs behaved more like living organisms than man-made automatons. That excited programmers—but it frustrated them, too. Because the program’s emergent behavior was erratic. Sometimes competing agents fought to a standstill, and the program failed to accomplish anything. Sometimes agents were so influenced by one another that they lost track of their goal, and did something else instead. In that sense the program was very childlike—unpredictable and easily distracted. As one programmer put it, “Trying to program distributed intelligence is like telling a five-year-old kid to go to his room and change his clothes. He may do that, but he is equally likely to do something else and never return.” +Because these programs behaved in a lifelike way, programmers began to draw analogies to the behavior of real organisms in the real world. In fact, they began to model the behavior of actual organisms as a way to get some control over program outcomes. So you had programmers studying ant swarming, or termite mounding, or bee dancing, in order to write programs to control airplane landing schedules, or package routing, or language translation. These programs often worked beautifully, but they could still go awry, particularly if circumstances changed drastically. Then they would lose their goals. That was why I began, five years ago, to model predator-prey relationships as a way to keep goals fixed. Because hungry predators weren’t distracted. Circumstances might force them to improvise their methods; and they might try many times before they succeeded—but they didn’t lose track of their goal. +So I became an expert in predator-prey relationships. I knew about packs of hyenas, African hunting dogs, stalking lionesses, and attacking columns of army ants. My team had studied the literature from the field biologists, and we had generalized those findings into a program module called PREDPREY, which could be used to control any system of agents and make its behavior purposeful. To make the program seek a goal. +Looking at Ricky’s screen, the coordinated units moving smoothly as they turned through the air, I said, “You used PREDPREY to program your individual units?” +“Right. We used those rules.” +“Well, the behavior looks pretty good to me,” I said, watching the screen. “Why is there a problem?” +“We’re not sure.” +“What does that mean?” +“It means we know there’s a problem, but we’re not sure what’s causing it. Whether the problem is programming—or something else.” +“Something else? Like what?” I frowned. “I don’t get it, Ricky. This is just a cluster of microbots. You can make it do what you want. If the programming’s not right, you adjust it. What don’t I understand?” +Ricky looked at me uneasily. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “Let me show you how we manufacture these agents,” he said. “Then you’ll understand the situation better.” Having watched Julia’s demo tape, I was immensely curious to see what he showed me next. Because many people I respected thought molecular manufacturing was impossible. One of the major theoretical objections was the time it would take to build a working molecule. To work at all, the nanoassembly line would have to be far more efficient than anything previously known in human manufacturing. Basically, all man-made assembly lines ran at roughly the same speed: they could add one part per second. An automobile, for example, had a few thousand parts. You could build a car in a matter of hours. A commercial aircraft had six million parts, and took several months to build. +But a typical manufactured molecule consisted of 1025 parts. That was 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts. As a practical matter, this number was unimaginably large. The human brain couldn’t comprehend it. But calculations showed that even if you could assemble at the rate of a million parts per second, the time to complete one molecule would still be 3,000 trillion years—longer than the known age of the universe. And that was a problem. It was known as the build-time problem. +I said to Ricky, “If you’re doing industrial manufacturing ...” +“We are.” +“Then you must have solved the build-time problem.” +“We have.” +“How?” +“Just wait.” +Most scientists assumed this problem would be solved by building from larger subunits, molecular fragments consisting of billions of atoms. That would cut the assembly time down to a couple of years. Then, with partial self-assembly, you might get the time down to several hours, perhaps even one hour. But even with further refinements, it remained a theoretical challenge to produce commercial quantities of product. Because the goal was not to manufacture a single molecule in an hour. The goal was to manufacture several pounds of molecules in an hour. No one had ever figured out how to do that. +We passed a couple of laboratories, including one that looked like a standard microbiology lab, or a genetics lab. I saw Mae standing in that lab, puttering around. I started to ask Ricky why he had a microbiology lab here, but he brushed my question aside. He was impatient now, in a hurry. I saw him glance at his watch. Directly ahead was a final glass airlock. Stenciled on the glass door was MicroFabrication. Ricky waved me in. “One at a time,” he said. “That’s all the system allows.” +I stepped in. The doors hissed shut behind me, the pressure pads again thunking shut. Another blast of air: from below, from the sides, from above. By now I was getting used to it. The second door opened, and I walked forward down another short corridor, opening into a large room beyond. I saw bright, shining white light—so bright it hurt my eyes. Ricky came after me, talking as we walked, but I don’t remember what he said. I couldn’t focus on his words. I just stared. Because by now I was inside the main fab building—a huge windowless space, like a giant hangar three stories high. And within this hangar stood a structure of immense complexity that seemed to hang in midair, glowing like a jewel. +Chapter 9 +DAY 6 9:12 A.M. +At first, it was hard to understand what I was seeing—it looked like an enormous glowing octopus rising above me, with glinting, faceted arms extending outward in all directions, throwing complex reflections and bands of color onto the outer walls. Except this octopus had multiple layers of arms. One layer was low, just a foot above the floor. A second was at chest-level; the third and fourth layers were higher, above my head. And they all glowed, sparkled brilliantly. +I blinked, dazzled. I began to make out the details. The octopus was contained within an irregular three-story framework built entirely of modular glass cubes. Floors, walls, ceilings, staircases—everything was cubes. But the arrangement was haphazard, as if someone had dumped a mound of giant transparent sugar cubes in the center of the room. Within this cluster of cubes the arms of the octopus snaked off in all directions. The whole thing was held up by a web of black anodized struts and connectors, but they were obscured by the reflections, which is why the octopus seemed to hang in midair. +Ricky grinned. “Convergent assembly. The architecture is fractal. Neat, huh?” I nodded slowly. I was seeing more details. What I had seen as an octopus was actually a branching tree structure. A central square conduit ran vertically through the center of the room, with smaller pipes branching off on all sides. From these branches, even smaller pipes branched off in turn, and smaller ones still. The smallest of the pipes were pencil-thin. Everything gleamed as if it were mirrored. +“Why is it so bright?” +“The glass has diamondoid coating,” he said. “At the molecular level, glass is like Swiss cheese, full of holes. And of course it’s a liquid, so atoms just pass right through it.” +“So you coat the glass.” +“Right. Have to.” +Within this shining forest of branching glass, David and Rosie moved, making notes, adjusting valves, consulting handheld computers. I understood that I was looking at a massively parallel assembly line. Small fragments of molecules were introduced into the smallest pipes, and atoms were added to them. When that was finished, they moved into the next largest pipes, where more atoms were added. In this way, molecules moved progressively toward the center of the structure, until assembly was completed, and they were discharged into the central pipe. “Exactly right,” Ricky said. “This is just the same as an automobile assembly line, except that it’s on a molecular scale. Molecules start at the ends, and come down the line to the center. We stick on a protein sequence here, a methyl group there, just the way they stick doors and wheels on a car. At the end of the line, off rolls a new, custom-made molecular structure. Built to our specifications.” +“And the different arms?” +“Make different molecules. That’s why the arms look different.” In several places, the octopus arm passed through a steel tunnel reinforced with heavy bolts, for vacuum ducting. In other places, a cube was covered with quilted silver insulation, and I saw liquid nitrogen tanks nearby; extremely low temperatures were generated in that section. +“Those’re our cryogenic rooms,” Ricky said. “We don’t go very low, maybe -70 Centigrade, max. Come on, I’ll show you.” He led me through the complex, following glass walkways that threaded among the arms. In some places, a short staircase enabled us to step over the lowest arms. +Ricky chatted continuously about technical details: vacuum-jacketed hoses, metal phase separators, globe check valves. When we reached the insulated cube, he opened the heavy door to reveal a small room, with a second room adjacent. It looked like a pair of meat lockers. Small glass windows were set in each door. At the moment, everything was at room temperature. “You can have two different temps here,” he said. “Run one from the other, if you want, but it’s usually automated.” +Ricky led me back outside, glancing at his watch as he did so. I said, “Are we late for an appointment?” +“What? No, no. Nothing like that.” Nearby two cubes were actually solid metal rooms, with thick electrical cables running inside. I said, “Those your magnet rooms?” +“That’s right,” Ricky said. “We’ve got pulsed field magnets generating 33 Tesla in the core. That’s something like a million times the magnetic field of the earth.” With a grunt, he pushed open the steel door to the nearest magnet room. I saw a large doughnut-shaped object, about six feet in diameter, with a hole in the center about an inch wide. The doughnut was completely encased in tubing and plastic insulation. Heavy steel bolts running from top to bottom held the jacketing in place. +“Lot of cooling for this puppy, I can tell you. And a lot of power: fifteen kilovolts. Takes a full-minute load time for the capacitors. And of course we can only pulse it. If we turned it on continuously, it’d explode—ripped apart by the field it generates.” He pointed to the base of the magnet, where there was a round push button at knee level. “That’s the safety cutoff there,” he said. “Just in case. Hit it with your knee if your hands are full.” +I said, “So you use high magnetic fields to do part of your assemb—” +But Ricky had already turned and headed out the door, again glancing at his watch. I hurried after him. +“Ricky ...” +“I have more to show you,” he said. “We’re getting to the end.” +“Ricky, this is all very impressive,” I said, gesturing to the glowing arms. “But most of your assembly line is running at room temperature—no vacuum, no cryo, no mag field.” +“Right. No special conditions.” +“How is that possible?” +He shrugged. “The assemblers don’t need it.” +“The assemblers?” I said. “Are you telling me you’ve got molecular assemblers on this line?” +“Yes. Of course.” +“Assemblers are doing your fabrication for you?” +“Of course. I thought you understood that.” +“No, Ricky,” I said, “I didn’t understand that at all. And I don’t like to be lied to.” +He got a wounded look on his face. “I’m not lying.” +But I was certain that he was. +One of the first things scientists learned about molecular manufacturing was how phenomenally difficult it was to carry out. In 1990, some IBM researchers pushed xenon atoms around on a nickel plate until they formed the letters “IBM” in the shape of the company logo. The entire logo was one ten-billionth of an inch long and could only be seen through an electron microscope. But it made a striking visual and it got a lot of publicity. IBM allowed people to think it was a proof of concept, the opening of a door to molecular manufacturing. But it was more of a stunt than anything else. +Because pushing individual atoms into a specific arrangement was slow, painstaking, and expensive work. It took the IBM researchers a whole day to move thirty-five atoms. Nobody believed you could create a whole new technology in this way. Instead, most people believed that nanoengineers would eventually find a way to build “assemblers”—miniature molecular machines that could turn out specific molecules the way a ball-bearing machine turned out ball bearings. The new technology would rely on molecular machines to make molecular products. It was a nice concept, but the practical problems were daunting. Because assemblers were vastly more complicated than the molecules they made, attempts to design and build them had been difficult from the outset. To my knowledge, no laboratory anywhere in the world had actually done it. But now Ricky was telling me, quite casually, that Xymos could build molecular assemblers that were now turning out molecules for the company. And I didn’t believe him. +I had worked all my life in technology, and I had developed a feel for what was possible. This kind of giant leap forward just didn’t happen. It never did. Technologies were a form of knowledge, and like all knowledge, technologies grew, evolved, matured. To believe otherwise was to believe that the Wright brothers could build a rocket and fly to the moon instead of flying three hundred feet over sand dunes at Kitty Hawk. +Nanotechnology was still at the Kitty Hawk stage. +“Come on, Ricky,” I said. “How are you really doing this?” +“The technical details aren’t that important, Jack.” +“What fresh bullshit is this? Of course they’re important.” +“Jack,” he said, giving me his most winning smile. “Do you really think I’m lying to you?” +“Yes, Ricky,” I said. “I do.” +I looked up at the octopus arms all around me. Surrounded by glass, I saw my own reflection dozens of times in the surfaces around me. It was confusing, disorienting. Trying to gather my thoughts, I looked down at my feet. +And I noticed that even though we had been walking on glass walkways, some sections of the ground floor were glass, as well. One section was nearby. I walked toward it. Through the glass I could see steel ducting and pipes below ground level. One set of pipes caught my eye, because they ran from the storage room to a nearby glass cube, at which point they emerged from the floor and headed upward, branching into the smaller tubes. That, I assumed, was the feedstock—the slush of raw organic material that would be transformed on the assembly line into finished molecules. +Looking back down at the floor, I followed the pipes backward to the place where they entered from the adjacent room. This junction was glass, too. I could see the curved steel underbellies of the big kettles I’d noticed earlier. The tanks that I had thought were a microbrewery. Because that’s certainly what it had looked like, a small brewery. Machinery for controlled fermentation, for controlled microbial growth. +And then I realized what it really was. +I said, “You son of a bitch.” +Ricky smiled again, and shrugged. “Hey,” he said. “It gets the job done.” Those kettles in the next room were indeed tanks for controlled microbial growth. But Ricky wasn’t making beer—he was making microbes, and I had no doubt about the reason why. Unable to construct genuine nanoassemblers, Xymos was using bacteria to crank out their molecules. This was genetic engineering, not nanotechnology. “Well, not exactly,” Ricky said, when I told him what I thought. “But I admit we’re using a hybrid technology. Not much of a surprise in any case, is it?” That was true. For at least ten years, observers had been predicting that genetic engineering, computer programming, and nanotechnology would eventually merge. They were all involved with similar—and interconnected—activities. There wasn’t that much difference between using a computer to decode part of a bacterial genome and using a computer to help you insert new genes into the bacteria, to make new proteins. And there wasn’t much difference between creating a new bacteria to spit out, say, insulin molecules, and creating a man-made, micromechanical assembler to spit out new molecules. It was all happening at the molecular level. It was all the same challenge of imposing human design on extremely complex systems. And molecular design was nothing if not complicated. +You could think of a molecule as a series of atoms snapped together like Lego blocks, one after another. But the image was misleading. Because unlike a Lego set, atoms couldn’t be snapped together in any arrangement you liked. An inserted atom was subject to powerful local forces—magnetic and chemical—with frequently undesirable results. The atom might be kicked out of its position. It might remain, but at an awkward angle. It might even fold the entire molecule up in knots. +As a result, molecular manufacturing was an exercise in the art of the possible, of substituting atoms and groups of atoms to make equivalent structures that would work in the desired way. In the face of all this difficulty, it was impossible to ignore the fact that there already existed proven molecular factories capable of turning out large numbers of molecules: they were called cells. +“Unfortunately, cellular manufacturing can take us only so far,” Ricky said. “We harvest the substrate molecules—the raw materials—and then we build on them with nanoengineering procedures. So we do a little of both.” +I pointed down at the tanks. “What cells are you growing?” +“Theta-d 5972,” he said. +“Which is?” +“A strain of E. coli.” +E. coli was a common bacterium, found pretty much everywhere in the natural environment, even in the human intestine. I said, “Did anyone think it might not be a good idea to use cells that can live inside human beings?” +“Not really,” he said. “Frankly that wasn’t a consideration. We just wanted a well-studied cell that was fully documented in the literature. We chose an industry standard.” +“Uh-huh ...” +“Anyway,” Ricky continued, “I don’t think it’s a problem, Jack. It won’t thrive in the human gut. Theta-d is optimized for a variety of nutrient sources—to make it cheap to grow in the laboratory. In fact, I think it can even grow on garbage.” +“So that’s how you get your molecules. Bacteria make them for you.” +“Yes,” he said, “that’s how we get the primary molecules. We harvest twenty-seven primary molecules. They fit together in relatively high-temperature settings where the atoms are more active and mix quickly.” +“That’s why it’s hot in here?” +“Yes. Reaction efficiency has a maxima at one hundred forty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, so we work there. That’s where we get the fastest combination rate. But these molecules will combine at much lower temperatures. Even around thirty-five, forty degrees Fahrenheit, you’ll get a certain amount of molecular combination.” +“And you don’t need other conditions,” I said. “Vacuum? Pressure? High magnetic fields?” Ricky shook his head. “No, Jack. We maintain those conditions to speed up assembly, but it’s not strictly necessary. The design is really elegant. The component molecules go together quite easily.” +“And these component molecules combine to form your final assembler?” +“Which then assembles the molecules we want. Yes.” +It was a clever solution, creating his assemblers with bacteria. But Ricky was telling me the components assembled themselves almost automatically, with nothing required but high temperature. What, then, was this complex glass building used for? “Efficiency, and process separation,” Ricky said. “We can build as many as nine assemblers simultaneously, in the different arms.” +“And where do the assemblers make the final molecules?” +“In this same structure. But first, we reapply them.” +I shook my head. I wasn’t familiar with the term. “Reapply?” +“It’s a little refinement we developed here. We’re patenting it. You see, our system worked perfectly right from the start—but our yields were extremely low. We were harvesting half a gram of finished molecules an hour. At that rate, it would take several days to make a single camera. We couldn’t figure out what the problem was. The late assembly in the arms is done in gas phase. It turned out that the molecular assemblers were heavy, and tended to sink to the bottom. The bacteria settled on a layer above them, releasing component molecules that were lighter still, and floated higher. So the assemblers were making very little contact with the molecules they were meant to assemble. We tried mixing technologies but they didn’t help.” +“So you did what?” +“We modified the assembler design to provide a lipotrophic base that would attach to the surface of the bacteria. That brought the assemblers into better contact with the component molecules, and immediately our yields jumped five orders of magnitude.” +“And now your assemblers sit on the bacteria?” +“Correct. They attach to the outer cell membrane.” +At a nearby workstation, Ricky punched up the assembler design on the flat panel display. The assembler looked like a sort of pinwheel, a series of spiral arms going off in different directions, and a dense knot of atoms in the center. “It’s fractal, as I said,” he said. “So it looks sort of the same at smaller orders of magnitude.” He laughed. “Like the old joke, turtles all the way down.” He pressed more keys. “Anyway, here’s the attached configuration.” The screen now showed the assembler adhering to a much larger pill-shaped object, like a pinwheel attached to a submarine. “That’s the Theta-d bacterium,” Ricky said. “With the assembler on it.” +As I watched, several more pinwheels attached themselves. “And these assemblers make the actual camera units?” +“Correct.” He typed again. I saw a new image. “This is our target micromachine, the final camera. You’ve seen the bloodstream version. This is the Pentagon version, quite a bit larger and designed to be airborne. What you’re looking at is a molecular helicopter.” +“Where’s the propeller?” I said. +“Hasn’t got one. The machine uses those little round protrusions you see there, stuck in at angles. Those’re motors. The machines actually maneuver by climbing the viscosity of the air.” +“Climbing the what?” +“Viscosity. Of the air.” He smiled. “Micromachine level, remember? It’s a whole new world, Jack.” +However innovative the design, Ricky was still bound by the Pentagon’s engineering specs for the product, and the product wasn’t performing. Yes, they had built a camera that couldn’t be shot down, and it transmitted images very well. Ricky explained it worked perfectly during tests indoors. But outside, even a modest breeze tended to blow it away like the cloud of dust it was. The engineering team at Xymos was attempting to modify the units to increase mobility, but so far without success. Meanwhile the Department of Defense decided the design constraints were unbeatable, and had backed away from the whole nano concept; the Xymos contract had been canceled; DOD was going to pull funding in another six weeks. I said, “That’s why Julia was so desperate for venture capital, these last few weeks?” +“Right,” Ricky said. “Frankly, this whole company could go belly up before Christmas.” +“Unless you fix the units, so they can work in wind.” +“Right, right.” +I said, “Ricky, I’m a programmer. I can’t help you with your agent mobility problems. That’s an issue of molecular design. It’s engineering. It’s not my area.” +“Um, I know that.” He paused, frowned. “But actually, we think the program code may be involved in the solution.” +“The code? Involved in the solution to what?” +“Jack, I have to be frank with you. We’ve made a mistake,” he said. “But it’s not our fault. I swear to you. It wasn’t us. It was the contractors.” He started down the stairs. “Come on, I’ll show you.” +Walking briskly, he led me to the far side of the facility, where I saw an open yellow elevator cage mounted on the wall. It was a small elevator, and I was uncomfortable because it was open; I averted my eyes. Ricky said, “Don’t like heights?” +“Can’t stand them.” +“Well, it’s better than walking.” He pointed off to one side, where an iron ladder ran up the wall to the ceiling. “When the elevator goes out, we have to climb up that.” I shuddered. “Not me.” +We rode the elevator all the way up to the ceiling, three stories above the ground. Hanging beneath the ceiling was a tangle of ducts and conduits, and a network of mesh walkways to enable workers to service them. I hated the mesh, because I could see through it to the floor far below. I tried not to look down. We had to duck repeatedly beneath the low-hanging pipes. Ricky shouted over the roar of the equipment. +“Everything’s up here!” he yelled, pointing in various directions. “Air handlers over there! Water tank for the fire sprinkler system there! Electrical junction boxes there! This is really the center of everything!” Ricky continued down the walkway, finally stopping beside a big air vent, about three feet in diameter, that went into the outer wall. +“This is vent three,” he said, leaning close to my ear. “It’s one of four main vents that exhausts air to the outside. Now, you see those slots along the vent, and the square boxes that sit in the slots? Those are filter packs. We have microfilters arranged in successive layers, to prevent any external contamination from the facility.” +“I see them ...” +“You see them now,” Ricky said. “Unfortunately, the contractor forgot to install the filters in this particular vent. In fact, they didn’t even cut the slots, so the building inspectors never realized anything was missing. They signed off on the building; we started working here. And we vented unfiltered air to the outside environment.” +“For how long?” +Ricky bit his lip. “Three weeks.” +“And you were at full production?” +He nodded. “We figure we vented approximately twenty-five kilos of contaminants.” +“And what were the contaminants?” +“A little of everything. We’re not sure of exactly what.” +“So you vented E. coli, assemblers, finished molecules, everything?” +“Correct. But we don’t know what proportions.” +“Do the proportions matter?” +“They might. Yes.” +Ricky was increasingly edgy as he told me all this, biting his lip, scratching his head, avoiding my eyes. I didn’t get it. In the annals of industrial pollution, fifty pounds of contamination was trivial. Fifty pounds of material would fit comfortably in a gym bag. Unless it was highly toxic or radioactive—and it wasn’t—such a small quantity simply didn’t matter. I said, “Ricky, so what? Those particles were scattered by the wind across hundreds of miles of desert. They’ll decay from sunlight and cosmic radiation. They’ll break up, decompose. In a few hours or days, they’re gone. Right?” +Ricky shrugged. “Actually, Jack, that’s not what—” +It was at that moment that the alarm went off. +It was a quiet alarm, just a soft, insistent pinging, but it made Ricky jump. He ran down the walkway, feet clanging on the metal, toward a computer workstation mounted on the wall. There was a status window in the corner of the monitor. It was flashing red: PV-90 ENTRY. +I said, “What does that mean?” +“Something set off the perimeter alarms.” He unclipped his radio and said, “Vince, lock us down.” +The radio crackled. “We’re locked down, Ricky.” +“Raise positive pressure.” +“It’s up five pounds above baseline. You want more?” +“No. Leave it there. Do we have visualization?” +“Not yet.” +“Shit.” Ricky stuck the radio back on his belt, began typing quickly. The workstation screen divided into a half-dozen small images from security cameras mounted all around the facility. Some showed the surrounding desert from high views, looking down from rooftops. Others were ground views. The cameras panned slowly. +I saw nothing. Just desert scrub and occasional clumps of cactus. +“False alarm?” I said. +Ricky shook his head. “I wish.” +I said, “I don’t see anything.” +“It’ll take a minute to find it.” +“Find what?” +“That.” +He pointed to the monitor, and bit his lip. +I saw what appeared to be a small, swirling cloud of dark particles. It looked like a dust devil, one of those tiny tornado-like clusters that moved over the ground, spun by convection currents rising from the hot desert floor. Except that this cloud was black, and it had some definition—it seemed to be pinched in the middle, making it look a bit like an old-fashioned Coke bottle. But it didn’t hold that shape consistently. The appearance kept shifting, transforming. “Ricky,” I said. “What are we looking at?” +“I was hoping you’d tell me.” +“It looks like an agent swarm. Is that your camera swarm?” +“No. It’s something else.” +“How do you know?” +“Because we can’t control it. It doesn’t respond to our radio signals.” +“You’ve tried?” +“Yes. We’ve tried to make contact with it for almost two weeks,” he said. “It’s generating an electrical field that we can measure, but for some reason we can’t interact with it.” +“So you have a runaway swarm.” +“Yes.” +“Acting autonomously.” +“Yes.” +“And this has been going on for ...” +“Days. About ten days.” +“Ten days?” I frowned. “How is that possible, Ricky? The swarm’s a collection of micro-robotic machines. Why haven’t they decayed, or run out of power? And why exactly can’t you control them? Because if they have the ability to swarm, then there’s some electrically mediated interaction among them. So you should be able to take control of the swarm—or at least disrupt it.” +“All true,” Ricky said. “Except we can’t. And we’ve tried everything we can think of.” He was focused on the screen, watching intently. “That cloud is independent of us. Period.” +“And so you brought me out here ...” +“To help us get the fucking thing back,” Ricky said. +Chapter 10 +DAY 6 9:32 A.M. +It was, I thought, a problem no one had ever imagined before. In all the years that I had been programming agents, the focus had been on getting them to interact in a way that produced useful results. It never occurred to us that there might be a larger control issue, or a question of independence. Because it simply couldn’t happen. Individual agents were too small to be self-powered; they had to get their energy from some external source, such as a supplied electrical or microwave field. All you had to do was turn off the field, and the agents died. The swarm was no more difficult to control than a household appliance, like a kitchen blender. Flip the power off and it went dead. +But Ricky was telling me this cloud had been self-sustaining for days. That just didn’t make sense. “Where is it getting power?” +He sighed. “We built the units with a small piezo wafer to generate current from photons. It’s only supplementary—we added it as an afterthought—but they seem to be managing with it alone.” +“So the units are solar-powered,” I said. +“Right.” +“Whose idea was that?” +“The Pentagon asked for it.” +“And you built in capacitance?” +“Yeah. They can store charge for three hours.” +“Okay, fine,” I said. Now we were getting somewhere. “So they have enough power for three hours. What happens at night?” +“At night, they presumably lose power after three hours of darkness.” +“And then the cloud falls apart?” +“Yes.” +“And the individual units drop to the ground?” +“Presumably, yes.” +“Can’t you take control of them then?” +“We could,” Ricky said, “if we could find them. We go out every night, looking. But we can never find them.” +“You’ve built in markers?” +“Yes, sure. Every single unit has a fluorescing module in the shell. They show up blue-green under UV light.” +“So you go out at night looking for a patch of desert that glows blue-green.” +“Right. And so far, we haven’t found it.” +That didn’t really surprise me. If the cloud collapsed tightly, it would form a clump about six inches in diameter on the desert floor. And it was a big desert out there. They could easily miss it, night after night. +But as I thought about it, there was another aspect that didn’t make sense. Once the cloud fell to the ground—once the individual units lost power—then the cloud had no organization. It could be scattered by wind, like so many dust particles, never to re-form. But evidently that didn’t happen. The units didn’t scatter. Instead, the cloud returned day after day. Why was that? +“We think,” Ricky said, “that it may hide at night.” +“Hide?” +“Yeah. We think it goes to some protected area, maybe an overhang, or a hole in the ground, something like that.” +I pointed to the cloud as it swirled toward us. “You think that swarm is capable of hiding?” +“I think it’s capable of adapting. In fact, I know it is.” He sighed. “Anyway, it’s more than just one swarm, Jack.” +“There’s more than one?” +“There’s at least three. Maybe more, by now.” +I felt a momentary blankness, a kind of sleepy gray confusion that washed over me. I suddenly couldn’t think, I couldn’t put it together. “What are you saying?” +“I’m saying it reproduces, Jack,” he said. “The fucking swarm reproduces.” The camera now showed a ground-level view of the dust cloud as it swirled toward us. But as I watched, I realized it wasn’t swirling like a dust devil. Instead, the particles were twisting one way, then another, in a kind of sinuous movement. +They were definitely swarming. +“Swarming” was a term for the behavior of certain social insects like ants or bees, which swarmed whenever the hive moved to a new site. A cloud of bees will fly in one direction and then another, forming a dark river in the air. The swarm might halt and cling to a tree for perhaps an hour, perhaps overnight, before continuing onward. Eventually the bees settled on a new location for their hive, and stopped swarming. +In recent years, programmers had written programs that modeled this insect behavior. Swarm-intelligence algorithms had become an important tool in computer programming. To programmers, a swarm meant a population of computer agents that acted together to solve a problem by distributed intelligence. Swarming became a popular way to organize agents to work together. There were professional organizations and conferences devoted entirely to swarm-intelligence programs. Lately it had become a kind of default solution—if you couldn’t code anything more inventive, you made your agents swarm. +But as I watched, I could see this cloud was not swarming in any ordinary sense. The sinuous back-and-forth motion seemed to be only part of its movement. There was also a rhythmic expansion and contraction, a pulse, almost like breathing. And intermittently, the cloud seemed to thin out, and rise higher, then to collapse down, and become more squat. These changes occurred continuously, but in a repeating rhythm—or rather a series of superimposed rhythms. “Shit,” Ricky said. “I don’t see the others. And I know it’s not alone.” He pressed the radio again. “Vince? You see any others?” +“No, Ricky.” +“Where are the others? Guys? Speak to me.” +Radios crackled all over the facility. Bobby Lembeck: “Ricky, it’s alone.” +“It can’t be alone.” +Mae Chang: “Ricky, nothing else is registering out there.” +“Just one swarm, Ricky.” That was David Brooks. +“It can’t be alone!” Ricky was gripping the radio so tightly his fingers were white. He pressed the button. “Vince? Take the PPI up to seven.” +“You sure?” +“Do it.” +“Well, all right, if you really think—” +“Just skip the fucking commentary, and do it!” +Ricky was talking about increasing the positive pressure inside the building to seven pounds per square inch. All clean facilities maintained a positive pressure so that outside dust particles could not enter from any leak; they would be blown outward by the escaping air. But one or two pounds was enough to maintain that. Seven pounds of positive pressure was a lot. It was unnecessary to keep out passive particles. +But of course these particles weren’t passive. +Watching the cloud swirl and undulate as it came closer, I saw that parts of it occasionally caught the sunlight in a way that turned it a shimmering, iridescent silver. Then the color faded, and the swarm became black again. That had to be the piezo panels catching the sun. But it clearly demonstrated that the individual microunits were highly mobile, since the entire cloud never turned silver at the same time, but only portions, or bands. “I thought you said the Pentagon was giving up on you, because you couldn’t control this swarm in wind.” +“Right. We couldn’t.” +“But you must have had strong wind in the last few days.” +“Of course. Usually comes up in late afternoon. We had ten knots yesterday.” +“Why wasn’t the swarm blown away?” +“Because it’s figured that one out,” Ricky said gloomily. “It’s adapted to it.” +“How?” +“Keep watching, you’ll probably see it. Whenever the wind gusts, the swarm sinks, hangs near the ground. Then it rises up again once the wind dies down.” +“This is emergent behavior?” +“Right. Nobody programmed it.” He bit his lip. Was he lying again? +“So you’re telling me it’s learned ...” +“Right, right.” +“How can it learn? The agents have no memory.” +“Uh ... well, that’s a long story,” Ricky said. +“They have memory?” +“Yes, they have memory. Limited. We built it in.” Ricky pressed the button on his radio. “Anybody hear anything?” +The answers came back, crackling in his handset. +“Not yet.” +“Nothing.” +“No sounds?” +“Not yet.” +I said to Ricky, “It makes sounds?” +“We’re not sure. Sometimes it seems like it. We’ve been trying to record it ...” He flicked keys on the workstation, quickly shifting the monitor images, making them larger, one after another. He shook his head. “I don’t like this. That thing can’t be alone,” he said. “I want to know where the others are.” +“How do you know there are others?” +“Because there always are.” He chewed his lip tensely as he looked at the monitor. “I wonder what it’s up to now ...” +We didn’t have long to wait. In a few moments, the black swarm had come within a few yards of the building. Abruptly, it divided in two, and then divided again. Now there were three swarms, swirling side by side. +“Son of a bitch,” Ricky said. “It was hiding the others inside itself.” He pushed his button again. “Guys, we got all three. And they’re close.” +They were, in fact, too close to be seen by the ground-view camera. Ricky switched to the overhead views. I saw three black clouds, all moving laterally along the side of the building. The behavior seemed distinctly purposeful. +“What’re they trying to do?” I said. +“Get inside,” Ricky said. +“Why?” +“You’d have to ask them. But yesterday one of them—” +Suddenly, from a clump of cactus near the building, a cottontail rabbit sprinted away across the desert floor. Immediately, the three swarms turned and pursued it. Ricky switched the monitor view. We now watched at ground level. The three clouds converged on the terrified bunny, which was moving fast, a whitish blur on the screen. The clouds swirled after it with surprising speed. The behavior was clear: they were hunting. I felt a moment of irrational pride. PREDPREY was working perfectly! Those swarms might as well be lionesses chasing a gazelle, so purposeful was their behavior. The swarms turned sharply, then split up, cutting off the rabbit’s escape to the left and right. The behavior of the three clouds clearly appeared coordinated. Now they were closing in. And suddenly one of the swarms sank down, engulfing the rabbit. The other two swarms fell on it moments later. The resulting particle cloud was so dense, it was hard to see the rabbit anymore. Apparently it had flipped onto its back, because I saw its hind legs kicking spasmodically in the air, above the cloud itself. +I said, “They’re killing it ...” +“Yeah,” Ricky said, nodding. “That’s right.” +“I thought this was a camera swarm.” +“Yeah, well.” +“How are they killing it?” +“We don’t know, Jack. But it’s fast.” +I frowned. “So you’ve seen this before?” +Ricky hesitated, bit his lip. Didn’t answer me, just stared at the screen. +I said, “Ricky, you’ve seen this before?” +He gave a long sigh. “Yeah. Well, the first time was yesterday. They killed a rattlesnake yesterday.” +I thought, they killed a rattlesnake yesterday. I said, “Jesus, Ricky.” I thought of the men in the helicopter, talking about all the dead animals. I wondered if Ricky was telling me all he knew. +“Yeah.” +The rabbit no longer kicked. A single protruding foot trembled with small convulsions, and then was still. The cloud swirled low to the ground around the animal, rising and falling slightly. This continued for almost a minute. +I said, “What’re they doing now?” +Ricky shook his head. “I’m not sure. But they did this before, too.” +“It almost looks like they’re eating it.” +“I know,” Ricky said. +Of course that was absurd. PREDPREY was just a biological analogy. As I watched the pulsing cloud, it occurred to me that this behavior might actually represent a program hang. I couldn’t remember exactly what rules we had written for individual units after the goal was attained. Real predators, of course, would eat their prey, but there was no analogous behavior for these micro-robots. So perhaps the cloud was just swirling in confusion. If so, it should start moving again soon. +Usually, when a distributed-intelligence program stalled, it was a temporary phenomenon. Sooner or later, random environmental influences would cause enough units to act that they induced all the others to act, too. Then the program would start up again. The units would resume goal seeking. +This behavior was roughly what you saw in a lecture hall, after the lecture was over. The audience milled around for a while, stretching, talking to people close to them, or greeting friends, collecting coats and belongings. Only a few people left at once, and the main crowd ignored them. But after a certain percentage of the audience had gone, the remaining people would stop milling and begin to leave quickly. It was a kind of focus change. If I was right, then I should see something similar in the behavior of the cloud. The swirls should lose their coordinated appearance; there should be ragged wisps of particles rising into the air. Only then would the main cloud move. +I glanced at the timeclock in the corner of the monitor. “How long has it been now?” +“About two minutes.” +That wasn’t particularly long for a stall, I thought. At one point when we were writing PREDPREY, we used the computer to simulate coordinated agent behavior. We always restarted after a hang, but finally we decided to wait and see if the program was really permanently stalled. We found that the program might hang for as long as twelve hours before suddenly kicking off, and coming back to life again. In fact, that behavior interested the neuroscientists because— +“They’re starting,” Ricky said. +And they were. The swarms were beginning to rise up from the dead rabbit. I saw at once that my theory was wrong. There was no raggedness, no rising wisps. The three clouds rose up together, smoothly. The behavior seemed entirely nonrandom and controlled. The clouds swirled separately for a moment, then merged into one. Sunlight flashed on shimmering silver. The rabbit lay motionless on its side. +And then the swarm moved swiftly away, whooshing off into the desert. It shrank toward the horizon. In moments, it was gone. +Ricky was watching me. “What do you think?” +“You’ve got a breakaway robotic nanoswarm. That some idiot made self-powered and self-sustaining.” +“You think we can get it back?” +“No,” I said. “From what I’ve seen, there’s not a chance in hell.” +Ricky sighed, and shook his head. +“But you can certainly get rid of it,” I said. “You can kill it.” +“We can?” +“Absolutely.” +“Really?” His face brightened. +“Absolutely.” And I meant it. I was convinced that Ricky was overstating the problem he faced. He hadn’t thought it through. He hadn’t done all he could do. I was confident that I could destroy the runaway swarm quickly. I expected that I’d be done with the whole business by dawn tomorrow—at the very latest. That was how little I understood my adversary. +Chapter 11 +DAY 6 10:11 A.M. +In retrospect, I was right about one thing: it was vitally important to know how the rabbit had died. Of course I know the reason now. I also know why the rabbit was attacked. But that first day at the laboratory, I didn’t have the faintest notion of what had happened. And I could never have guessed the truth. +None of us could have, at that point. +Not even Ricky. +Not even Julia. +It was ten minutes after the swarms had gone and we were all standing in the storage room. The whole group had gathered there, tense and anxious. They watched me as I clipped a radio transmitter to my belt, and pulled a headset over my head. The headset included a video camera, mounted by my left ear. It took a while to get the video transmitter working right. Ricky said, “You’re really going out there?” +“I am,” I said. “I want to know what happened to that rabbit.” I turned to the others. “Who’s coming with me?” +Nobody moved. Bobby Lembeck stared at the floor, hands in his pockets. David Brooks blinked rapidly, and looked away. Ricky was inspecting his fingernails. I caught Rosie Castro’s eye. She shook her head. “No fucking way, Jack.” +“Why not, Rosie?” +“You saw it yourself. They’re hunting.” +“Are they?” +“Sure as hell looked like it.” +“Rosie,” I said, “I trained you better than this. How can the swarms be hunting?” +“We all saw it.” She stuck her chin out stubbornly. “All three of the swarms, hunting, coordinated.” +“But how?” I said. +Now she frowned, looking confused. “What are you asking? There’s no mystery. The agents can communicate. They can each generate an electrical signal.” +“Right,” I said. “How big a signal?” +“Well ...” She shrugged. +“How big, Rosie? It can’t be much, the agent is only a hundredth of the thickness of a human hair. Can’t be generating much of a signal, right?” +“True ...” +“And electromagnetic radiation decays according to the square of the radius, right?” Every school kid learned that fact in high school physics. As you moved away from the electromagnetic source, the strength faded fast—very fast. +And what that meant was the individual agents could only communicate with their immediate neighbors, with agents very close to them. Not to other swarms twenty or thirty yards away. Rosie’s frown deepened. The whole group was frowning now, looking at each other uneasily. +David Brooks coughed. “Then what did we see, Jack?” +“You saw an illusion,” I said firmly. “You saw three swarms acting independently, and you thought they were coordinated. But they’re not. And I’m pretty certain that other things you believe about these swarms aren’t true, either.” +* * * +There was a lot I didn’t understand about the swarms—and a lot I didn’t believe. I didn’t believe, for example, that the swarms were reproducing. I thought Ricky and the others must be pretty unnerved even to imagine it. After all, the fifty pounds of material they’d exhausted into the environment could easily account for the three swarms I had seen—and dozens more besides. (I was guessing that each swarm consisted of three pounds of nanoparticles. That was roughly the weight of a large bee swarm.) +As for the fact that these swarms showed purposeful behavior, that was not in the least troubling; it was the intended result of low-level programming. And I didn’t believe the swarms were coordinated. It simply wasn’t possible, because the fields were too weak. Nor did I believe the swarms had the adaptive powers that Ricky attributed to them. I’d seen too many demos of robots carrying out some task—like cooperating to push a box around the room—which was interpreted by observers as intelligent behavior, when in fact the robots were stupid, minimally programmed, and cooperating by accident. A lot of behavior looked smarter than it was. (As Charley Davenport used to say, “Ricky should thank God for that.”) And finally, I didn’t really believe that the swarms were dangerous. I didn’t think that a three-pound cloud of nanoparticles could represent much of a threat to anything, not even a rabbit. I wasn’t at all sure it had been killed. I seemed to recall that rabbits were nervous creatures, prone to die of fright. Or the pursuing particles might have swarmed in through the nose and mouth, blocking the respiratory passages and choking the animal to death. If so, the death was accidental, not purposeful. Accidental death made more sense to me. In short, I thought that Ricky and the others had consistently misinterpreted what they saw. They’d spooked themselves. +On the other hand, I had to admit that several unanswered questions nagged at me. The first, and most obvious, was why the swarm had escaped their control. The original camera swarm was designed to be controlled by an RF transmitter beaming toward it. Now apparently the swarm ignored transmitted radio commands, and I didn’t understand why. I suspected an error in manufacturing. The particles had probably been made incorrectly. Second was the question of the swarm’s longevity. The individual particles were extremely small, subject to damage from cosmic rays, photochemical decay, dehydration of their protein chains, and other environmental factors. In the harsh desert, all the swarms should have shriveled up and died of “old age” many days ago. But they hadn’t. Why not? Third, there was the problem of the swarm’s apparent goal. According to Ricky, the swarms kept coming back to the main building. Ricky believed they were trying to get inside. But that didn’t seem to be a reasonable agent goal, and I wanted to look at the program code to see what was causing it. Frankly, I suspected a bug in the code. And finally, I wanted to know why they had pursued the rabbit. Because PREDPREY didn’t program units to become literal predators. It merely used a predator model to keep the agents focused and goal-oriented. Somehow, that had changed, and the swarms now appeared to be actually hunting. +That, too, was probably a bug in the code. +To my mind, all these uncertainties came down to a single, central question—how had the rabbit died? I didn’t think it had been killed. I suspected the rabbit’s death was accidental, not purposeful. +But we needed to find out. +I adjusted my portable radio headset, with the sunglasses and the video camera mounted by the left eye. I picked up the plastic bag for the rabbit’s body and turned to the others. “Anybody coming with me?” +There was an uncomfortable silence. +Ricky said, “What’s the bag for?” +“To bring the rabbit back in.” +“No fucking way,” Ricky said. “You want to go out there, that’s your business. But you’re not bringing that rabbit back here.” +“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. +“I’m not. We run a level-six clean environment here, Jack. That rabbit’s filthy. Can’t come in.” +“All right, then, we can store it in Mae’s lab and—” +“No way, Jack. Sorry. It’s not coming through the first airlock.” I looked at the others. They were all nodding their heads in agreement. +“All right, then. I’ll examine it out there.” +“You’re really going to go out?” +“Why not?” I looked at them, one after another. “I have to tell you guys, I think you’ve all got your knickers in a twist. The cloud’s not dangerous. And yes, I’m going out.” I turned to Mae. “Do you have a dissection kit of some kind that—” +“I’ll come with you,” she said quietly. +“Okay. Thanks.” I was surprised that Mae was the first to come around to my way of seeing things. But as a field biologist, she was probably better than the others at assessing real-world risk. In any case, her decision seemed to break some tension in the room; the others visibly relaxed. Mae went off to get the dissecting tools and some lab equipment. That was when the phone rang. Vince answered it, and turned to me. “You know somebody named Dr. Ellen Forman?” +“Yes.” It was my sister. +“She’s on the line.” Vince handed me the phone, and stepped back. I felt suddenly nervous. I glanced at my watch. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, time for Amanda’s morning nap. She should be asleep in her crib by now. Then I remembered I had promised my sister I would call her at eleven to check in, to see how things were going. I said, “Hello? Ellen? Is everything all right?” +“Sure. Fine.” A long, long sigh. “It’s fine. I don’t know how you do it, is all.” +“Tired?” +“About as tired as I’ve ever felt.” +“Kids get off to school okay?” +Another sigh. “Yes. In the car, Eric hit Nicole on the back, and she punched him on the ear.” +“You’ve got to interrupt them if they start that, Ellen.” +“So I’m learning,” she said wearily. +“And the baby? How’s her rash?” +“Better. I’m using the ointment.” +“Her movements okay?” +“Sure. She’s well coordinated for her age. Is there a problem I should know about?” +“No, no,” I said. I turned away from the group, lowered my voice. “I meant, is she pooping okay?” +Behind me, I heard Charley Davenport snicker. +“Copiously,” Ellen said. “She’s sleeping now. I took her to the park for a while. She was ready to go down. Everything’s okay at the house. Except the pilot for the water heater went out, but the guy’s coming to fix it.” +“Good, good ... Listen, Ellen, I’m in the middle of something here—” +“Jack? Julia called from the hospital a few minutes ago. She was looking for you.” +“Uh-huh ...” +“When I said you’d gone to Nevada, she got pretty upset.” +“Is that right?” +“She said you didn’t understand. And you were going to make it worse. Something like that. I think you better call her. She sounded agitated.” +“Okay. I’ll call.” +“How are things going out there? You be back tonight?” +“Not tonight,” I said. “Sometime tomorrow morning. Ellen, I have to go now—” +“Call the kids at dinnertime, if you can. They’d like to hear from you. Auntie Ellen is fine, but she’s not Dad. You know what I mean.” +“Okay. You’ll eat at six?” +“About.” +I told her I’d try to call, and I hung up. +* * * +Mae and I were standing by the double glass walls of the outer airlock, just inside the building entrance. Beyond the glass, I could see the solid-steel fire door that led outside. Ricky was standing beside us, gloomy and nervous, watching as we made our final preparations. “You sure this is necessary? To go outside?” +“It’s essential.” +“Why don’t you and Mae wait until nightfall, and go out then?” +“Because the rabbit won’t be there,” I said. “By nightfall, coyotes or hawks will have come and taken the carcass away.” +“I don’t know about that,” Ricky said. “We haven’t seen any coyotes around here for a while.” +“Oh hell,” I said impatiently, turning on my radio headset. “In the time we’ve spent arguing about this, we could have been out and back already. See you, Ricky.” I went through the glass door, and stood in the airlock. The door hissed shut behind me. The air handlers whooshed briefly in the now-familiar pattern, and then the far glass slid open. I walked toward the steel fire door. Looking back, I saw Mae stepping into the airlock. I opened the fire door a crack. Harsh, glaring sunlight laid a burning strip on the floor. I felt hot air on my face. Over the intercom, Ricky said, “Good luck, guys.” I took a breath, pushed the door wider, and stepped out into the desert. The wind had dropped, and the midmorning heat was stifling. Somewhere a bird chittered; otherwise it was silent. Standing by the door, I squinted in the glare of the sunlight. A shiver ran down my back. I took another deep breath. +I was certain that the swarms were not dangerous. But now that I was outside, my theoretical inferences seemed to lose force. I must have caught Ricky’s tension, because I was feeling distinctly uneasy. Now that I was outside, the rabbit carcass looked much farther away than I had imagined. It was perhaps fifty yards from the door, half the length of a football field. The surrounding desert seemed barren and exposed. I scanned the shimmering horizon, looking for black shapes. I saw none. +The fire door opened behind me, and Mae said, “Ready when you are, Jack.” +“Then let’s do it.” +We set off toward the rabbit, feet crunching on the desert sand. We moved away from the building. Almost immediately, my heart began to pound, and I started to sweat. I forced myself to breathe deeply and slowly, working to stay calm. The sun was hot on my face. I knew I had let Ricky spook me, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I kept glancing toward the horizon. Mae was a couple of steps behind me. I said, “How’re you doing?” +“I’ll be glad when it’s over.” +We were moving through a field of knee-high yellow cholla cactus. Their spines caught the sun. Here and there, a large barrel cactus stuck up from the floor like a bristling green thumb. Some small, silent birds hopped on the ground, beneath the cholla. As we approached, they took to the air, wheeling specks against the blue. They landed a hundred yards away. At last we came to the rabbit, surrounded by a buzzing black cloud. Startled, I hesitated a step. +“It’s just flies,” Mae said. She moved forward and crouched down beside the carcass, ignoring the flies. She pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, and handed me a pair to put on. She placed a square sheet of plastic on the ground, securing it with a rock at each corner. She lifted the rabbit and set it down in the center of the plastic. She unzipped a little dissection kit and laid it open. I saw steel instruments glinting in sunlight: forceps, scalpel, several kinds of scissors. She also laid out a syringe and several rubber-topped test tubes in a row. Her movements were quick, practiced. She had done this before. +I crouched down beside her. The carcass had no odor. Externally I could see no sign of what had caused the death. The staring eye looked pink and healthy. Mae said, “Bobby? Are you recording me?” +Over the headset, I heard Bobby Lembeck say, “Move your camera down.” +Mae touched the camera mounted on her sunglasses. +“Little more ... little more ... Good. That’s enough.” +“Okay,” Mae said. She turned the rabbit’s body over in her hands, inspecting it from all sides. She dictated swiftly: “On external examination the animal appears entirely normal. There is no sign of congenital anomaly or disease, the fur is thick and healthy in appearance. The nasal passages appear partially or entirely blocked. I note some fecal material excreted at the anus but presume that is normal evacuation at the time of death.” She flipped the animal onto its back and held the forepaws apart with her hands. “I need you, Jack.” She wanted me to hold the paws for her. The carcass was still warm and had not begun to stiffen. +She took the scalpel and swiftly cut down the exposed midsection. A red gash opened; blood flowed. I saw bones of the rib cage, and pinkish coils of intestine. Mae spoke continuously as she cut, noting the tissue color and texture. She said to me “Hold here,” and I moved my one hand down, to hold aside the slick intestine. With a single stroke of the scalpel she sliced opened the stomach. Muddy green liquid spilled out, and some pulpy material that seemed to be undigested fiber. The inner wall of the stomach appeared roughened, but Mae said that was normal. She ran her finger expertly around the stomach wall, then paused. “Umm. Look there,” she said. +“What?” +“There.” She pointed. In several places the stomach was reddish, bleeding slightly as if it had been rubbed raw. I saw black patches in the midst of the bleeding. “That’s not normal,” Mae said. “That’s pathology.” She took a magnifying glass and peered closer, then dictated: “I observe dark areas approximately four to eight millimeters in diameter, which I presume to be clusters of nanoparticles present in the stomach lining,” she said. “These clusters are found in association with mild bleeding of the villous wall.” +“There are nanoparticles in the stomach?” I said. “How did they get there? Did the rabbit eat them? Swallow them involuntarily?” +“I doubt it. I would assume they entered actively.” +I frowned. “You mean they crawled down the—” +“Esophagus. Yes. At least, I think so.” +“Why would they do that?” +“I don’t know.” +She never paused in her swift dissection. She took scissors and cut upward through the breastbone, then pushed the rib cage open with her fingers. “Hold here.” I moved my hands to hold the ribs open as she had done. The edges of bone were sharp. With my other hand, I held the hind legs open. Mae worked between my hands. +“The lungs are bright pink and firm, normal appearance.” She cut one lobe with the scalpel, then again, and again. Finally she exposed the bronchial tube, and cut it open. It was dark black on the inside. +“Bronchi show heavy infestation with nanoparticles consistent with inhalation of swarm elements,” she said, dictating. “You getting this, Bobby?” +“Getting it all. Video resolution is good.” +She continued to cut upward. “Following the bronchial tree toward the throat ...” And she continued cutting, into the throat, and then from the nose back across the cheek, then opening the mouth ... I had to turn away for a moment. But she continued calmly to dictate. “I am observing heavy infiltration of all the nasal passages and pharynx. This is suggestive of partial or full airway obstruction, which in turn may indicate the cause of death.” I looked back. “What?” +The rabbit’s head was hardly recognizable any longer, she had cut the jaw free and was now peering down the throat. “Have a look for yourself,” she said, “there seems to be dense particles closing the pharynx, and a response that looks something like an allergic reaction or—” Then Ricky: “Say, are you guys going to stay out much longer?” +“As long as it takes,” I said. I turned to Mae. “What kind of allergic reaction?” +“Well,” she said, “you see this area of tissue, and how swollen it is, and you see how it’s turned gray, which is suggestive—” +“You realize,” Ricky said, “that you’ve been out there four minutes already.” +“We’re only out here because we can’t bring the rabbit back,” I said. +“That’s right, you can’t.” +Mae was shaking her head as she listened to this. “Ricky, you’re not helping here ...” +Bobby said, “Don’t shake your head, Mae. You’re moving the camera back and forth.” +“Sorry.” +But I saw her raise her head, as if she was looking toward the horizon, and while she did so, she uncorked a test tube and slipped a slice of stomach lining into the glass. She put it in her pocket. Then looked back down. No one watching the video would have seen what she did. She said, “All right, we’ll take blood samples now.” +“Blood’s all you’re bringing in here, guys,” Ricky said. +“Yes, Ricky. We know.” +Mae reached for the syringe, stuck the needle into an artery, drew a blood sample, expelled it into a plastic tube, popped the needle off one-handed, put on another, and drew a second sample from a vein. Her pace never slowed. +I said, “I have the feeling you’ve done this before.” +“This is nothing. In Sichuan, we were always working in heavy snowstorms, you can’t see what you’re doing, your hands are freezing, the animal’s frozen solid, can’t get a needle in ...” She set the tubes of blood aside. “Now we will just take a few cultures, and we’re done ...” She flipped over her case, looked. “Oh, bad luck.” +“What’s that?” I said. +“The culture swabs aren’t here.” +“But you had them inside?” +“Yes, I’m sure of it.” +I said, “Ricky, you see the swabs anywhere?” +“Yes. They’re right here by the airlock.” +“You want to bring them out to us?” +“Oh sure, guys.” He laughed harshly. “No way I’m going out there in daylight. You want ’em, you come get ’em.” +Mae said to me, “You want to go?” +“No,” I said. I was already holding the animal open; my hands were in position. “I’ll wait here. You go.” +“Okay.” She got to her feet. “Try and keep the flies off. We don’t want any more contamination than necessary. I’ll be back in a moment.” She moved off at a light jog toward the door. I heard her footsteps fade, then the clang of the metal door shutting behind her. Then silence. Attracted by the slit-open carcass, the flies came back in force, buzzing around my head, trying to land on the exposed guts. I released the rabbit’s hind legs and swatted the flies away with one hand. I kept myself busy with the flies, so I wouldn’t think about the fact that I was alone out here. +I kept glancing off in the distance, but I never saw anything. I kept brushing away the flies, and occasionally my hand touched against the rabbit’s fur, and that was when I noticed that beneath the fur, the skin was bright red. +Bright red—exactly like a bad sunburn. Just seeing it made me shiver. +I spoke into my headset. “Bobby?” +Crackle. “Yes, Jack.” +“Can you see the rabbit?” +“Yes, Jack.” +“You see the redness of the skin? Are you picking that up?” +“Uh, just a minute.” +I heard a soft whirr by my temple. Bobby was controlling the camera remotely, zooming in. The whirring stopped. +I said, “Can you see this? Through my camera?” +There was no answer. +“Bobby?” +I heard murmurs, whispers. Or maybe it was static. +“Bobby, are you there?” +Silence. I heard breathing. +“Uh, Jack?” Now it was the voice of David Brooks. “You better go in.” +“Mae hasn’t come back yet. Where is she?” +“Mae’s inside.” +“Well, I have to wait, she’s going to do cultures—” +“No. Come in now, Jack.” +I let go of the rabbit, and got to my feet. I looked around, scanned the horizon. “I don’t see anything.” +“They’re on the other side of the building, Jack.” +His voice was calm, but I felt a chill. “They are?” +“Come inside now, Jack.” +I bent over, picked up Mae’s samples, her dissection kit lying beside the rabbit carcass. The black leather of the kit was hot from the sun. +“Jack?” +“Just a minute ...” +“Jack. Stop fucking around.” +I started toward the steel door. My feet crunching on the desert floor. I didn’t see anything at all. +But I heard something. +It was a peculiar low, thrumming sound. At first I thought I was hearing machinery, but the sound rose and fell, pulsing like a heartbeat. Other beats were superimposed, along with some kind of hissing, creating a strange, unworldly quality—like nothing I’d ever heard. When I look back on it now, I think that more than anything else, it was the sound that made me afraid. +I walked faster. I said, “Where are they?” +“Coming.” +“Where?” +“Jack? You better run.” +“What?” +“Run.” +I still couldn’t see anything, but the sound was building in intensity. I broke into a jog. The frequency of the sound was so low, I felt it as a vibration in my body. But I could hear it, too. The thumping, irregular pulse. +“Run, Jack.” +I thought, Fuck it. +And I ran. +* * * +Swirling and glinting silver, the first swarm came around the corner of the building. The hissing vibration was coming from the cloud. Sliding along the side of the building, it moved toward me. It would reach the door long before I could. +I looked back to see a second swarm as it came around the far end of the building. It, too, moved toward me. +The headset crackled. I heard David Brooks: “Jack, you can’t make it.” +“I see that,” I said. The first swarm had already reached the door, and was standing in front of it, blocking my way. I stopped, uncertain what to do. I saw a stick on the ground in front of me, a big one, four feet long. I picked it up, swung it in my hand. The swarm pulsed, but did not move from the door. +The second swarm was still coming toward me. +It was time for a diversion. I was familiar with the PREDPREY code. I knew the swarms were programmed to pursue moving targets if they seemed to be fleeing from them. What would make a good target? +I cocked my arm, and threw the black dissection kit high into the air, in the general direction of the second swarm. The kit landed on edge, and tumbled across the ground for a moment. Immediately, the second swarm began to go after it. +At the same moment, the first swarm moved away from the door, also pursuing the kit. It was just like a dog chasing a ball. I felt a moment of elation as I watched it go. It was, after all, just a programmed swarm. I thought: This is child’s play. I hurried toward the door. That was a mistake. Because apparently my hasty movement triggered the swarm, which immediately stopped, and swirled backward to the door again, blocking my path. There it remained, pulsing streaks of silver, like a blade glinting in the sun. Blocking my path. +It took me a moment to realize the significance of that. My movement hadn’t triggered the swarm to pursue me. The swarm hadn’t chased me at all. Instead it had moved to block my way. It was anticipating my movement. +That wasn’t in the code. The swarm was inventing new behavior, appropriate to the situation. Instead of pursuing me, it had fallen back and trapped me. +It had gone beyond its programming—way beyond. I couldn’t see how that had happened. I thought it must be some kind of random reinforcement. Because the individual particles had very little memory. The intelligence of the swarm was necessarily limited. It shouldn’t be that difficult to outsmart it. +I tried to feint to the left, then the right. The cloud went with me, but only for a moment. Then it dropped back to the door again. As if it knew that my goal was the door, and by staying there it would succeed. +That was far too clever. There had to be additional programming they hadn’t told me about. I said into the headset, “What the hell have you guys done with these things?” David: “It’s not going to let you get past, Jack.” +Just hearing him say that irritated me. “You think so? We’ll see.” Because my next step was obvious. Close to the ground like this, the swarm was structurally vulnerable. It was a cluster of particles no larger than specks of dust. If I disrupted the cluster—if I broke up its structure—then the particles would have to reorganize themselves, just as a scattered flock of birds would re-form in the air. That would take at least a few seconds. And in that time I would be able to get through the door. +But how to disrupt it? I swung the stick in my hand, hearing it whoosh through the air, but it was clearly unsatisfactory. I needed something with a much bigger flat surface, like a paddle or a palm frond—something to create a large disrupting wind ... My mind was racing. I needed something. +Something. +Behind me, the second cloud was closing in. It moved toward me in an erratic zigzag pattern, to cut off any attempt I might make to run past it. I watched with a kind of horrified fascination. I knew that this, too, had never been coded in the program. This was self-organized, emergent behavior—and its purpose was only too clear. It was stalking me. The pulsing sound grew louder as the swarm came closer and closer. +I had to disrupt it. +Turning in a circle, I looked at the ground all around me. I saw nothing I could use. The nearest juniper tree was too far away. The cholla cactuses were flimsy. I thought, of course there’s nothing out here, it’s the fucking desert. I scanned the exterior of the building, hoping someone had left out an implement, like a rake ... +Nothing. +Nothing at all. I was out here with nothing but the shirt on my back, and there was nobody that could help me to— +Of course! +The headset crackled: “Jack, listen ...” +But I didn’t hear any more after that. As I pulled my shirt over my head, the headset came away, falling to the ground. And then, holding the shirt in my hand, I swung it in broad whooshing arcs through the air. And screaming like a banshee, I charged the swarm by the door. +The swarm vibrated with a deep thrumming sound. It flattened slightly as I ran toward it, and then I was in the midst of the particles, and plunged into an odd semidarkness, like being in a dust storm. I couldn’t see anything—I couldn’t see the door—I groped blindly for the doorknob—and my eyes stung from the particles, but I kept swinging my shirt in broad whooshing arcs, and in a moment the darkness began to fade. I was dispersing the cloud, sending particles spinning off in all directions. My vision was clearing, and my breathing was still okay, though my throat felt dry and painful. I began to feel thousands of tiny pinpricks all over my body, but they hardly hurt. +Now I could see the door in front of me. The doorknob was just to my left. I kept swinging my shirt, and suddenly the cloud seemed to clear entirely away, almost as if it was moving out of range of my disruption. In that instant I slipped through the door and slammed it shut behind me. I blinked in sudden darkness. I could hardly see. I thought my eyes would adjust from the glare of sunlight, and I waited a moment, but my vision did not improve. Instead, it seemed to be getting worse. I could just make out the glass doors of the airlock directly ahead. I still felt the stinging pinpricks all over my skin. My throat was dry and my breathing was raspy. I coughed. My vision was dimming. I started to feel dizzy. +On the other side of the airlock, Ricky and Mae stood watching me. I heard Ricky shout, “Come on, Jack! Hurry!” +My eyes burned painfully. My dizziness grew rapidly worse. I leaned against the wall to keep from falling over. My throat felt thick. I was having difficulty breathing. Gasping, I waited for the glass doors to open, but they remained closed. I stared stupidly at the airlock. “You have to stand in front of the doors! Stand!” +I felt like the world was in slow motion. All my strength was gone. My body felt weak and shaky. The stinging was worse. The room was getting darker. I didn’t think I could stand up on my own. +“Stand! Jack!” +Somehow, I shoved away from the wall, and lurched toward the airlock. With a hiss, the glass doors slid open. +“Go, Jack! Now!” +I saw spots before my eyes. I was dizzy, and sick to my stomach. I stumbled into the airlock, banging against the glass as I stepped inside. With every second that passed it was harder to breathe. I knew I was suffocating. +Outside the building, I heard the low thrumming sound start up again. I turned slowly to look back. +The glass doors hissed shut. +I looked down at my body but could barely see it. My skin appeared black. I was covered in dust. My body ached. My shirt was black with dust, too. The spray stung me, and I closed my eyes. Then the air handlers started up, whooshing loudly. I saw the dust sucked off my shirt. My vision was clearer, but I still couldn’t breathe. The shirt slipped from my hand, flattening against the grate at my feet. I bent to reach down for it. My body began to shake, tremble. I heard only the roar of the handlers. +I felt a wave of nausea. My knees buckled. I sagged against the wall. I looked at Mae and Ricky through the second glass doors; they seemed far away. As I watched, they receded even farther, moving away into the distance. Soon they were too far away for me to worry any longer. I knew I was dying. As I closed my eyes, I fell to the ground, and the roar of the air handlers faded into cold and total silence. +Chapter 12 +DAY 6 11:12 A.M. +“Don’t move.” +Something icy-cold coursed through my veins. I shuddered. +“Jack. Don’t move. Just for a second, okay?” +Something cold, a cold liquid running up my arm. I opened my eyes. The light was directly overhead, glaring, greenish-bright; I winced. My whole body ached. I felt like I’d been beaten. I was lying on my back on the black counter of Mae’s biology lab. Squinting in the glare, I saw Mae standing beside me, bent over my left arm. She had an intravenous line in my elbow. “What’s going on?” +“Jack, please. Don’t move. I’ve only done this on lab animals.” +“That’s reassuring.” I lifted my head to see what she was doing. My temples throbbed. I groaned, and lay back. +Mae said, “Feel bad?” +“Terrible.” +“I’ll bet. I had to inject you three times.” +“With what?” +“You were in anaphylactic shock, Jack. You had a severe allergic reaction. Your throat almost closed up.” +“Allergic reaction,” I said. “That’s what it was?” +“Severe one.” +“It was from the swarm?” +She hesitated for a moment, then: “Of course.” +“Would nano-sized particles cause an allergic reaction like that?” +“They certainly could ...” +I said, “But you don’t think so.” +“No, I don’t. I think the nanoparticles are antigenically inert. I think you reacted to a coliform toxin.” +“A coliform toxin ...” My throbbing headache came in waves. I took a breath, let it out slowly. I tried to figure out what she was saying. My mind was slow; my head hurt. A coliform toxin. +“Right.” +“A toxin from E. coli bacteria? Is that what you mean?” +“Right. Proteolytic toxin, probably.” +“And where would a toxin like that come from?” +“From the swarm,” she said. +That made no sense at all. According to Ricky the E. coli bacteria were only used to manufacture precursor molecules. “But bacteria wouldn’t be present in the swarm itself,” I said. “I don’t know, Jack. I think they could be.” +Why was she so diffident? I wondered. It wasn’t like her. Ordinarily, Mae was precise, sharp. “Well,” I said, “somebody knows. The swarm’s been designed. Bacteria’s either been designed in, or not.” +I heard her sigh, as if I just wasn’t getting it. +But what wasn’t I getting? +I said, “Did you salvage the particles that were blown off in the airlock? Did you keep the stuff from the airlock?” +“No. All the airlock particles were incinerated.” +“Was that a smart—” +“It’s built into the system, Jack. As a safety feature. We can’t override it.” +“Okay.” Now it was my turn to sigh. So we didn’t have any examples of swarm agents to study. I started to sit up, but she put a gentle hand on my chest, restraining me. “Take it slowly, Jack.” +She was right, because sitting up made my headache much worse. I swung my feet over the side of the table. “How long was I out?” +“Twelve minutes.” +“I feel like I was beaten up.” My ribs ached with every breath. +“You had a lot of trouble breathing.” +“I still do.” I reached for a Kleenex and blew my nose. A lot of black stuff came out, mixed with blood and dust from the desert. I had to blow my nose four or five times to clear it. I crumpled the Kleenex and started to throw it away. Mae held out her hand. “I’ll take that.” +“No, it’s okay—” +“Give it to me, Jack.” +She took the Kleenex and slipped it into a little plastic bag and sealed it. That was when I realized how stupidly my mind was working. Of course that Kleenex would contain exactly the particles I wanted to study. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and waited for the throbbing in my head to ease up a little. When I opened my eyes again the glare in the room was less bright. It almost looked normal. +“By the way,” Mae said, “Julia just called. She said you can’t call her back, something about some tests. But she wanted to talk to you.” +“Uh-huh.” +I watched Mae take the Kleenex bag and put it inside a sealed jar. She screwed down the lid tightly. “Mae,” I said, “if there’s E. coli in the swarm, we can find out by looking at that right now. Shouldn’t we do that?” +“I can’t right now. I will as soon as I can. I’m having a little trouble with one of the fermentation units, and I need the microscopes for that.” +“What kind of trouble?” +“I’m not sure yet. But yields are falling in one tank.” She shook her head. “It’s probably nothing serious. These things happen all the time. This whole manufacturing process is incredibly delicate, Jack. Keeping it going is like juggling a hundred balls at once. I have my hands full.” I nodded. But I was starting to think that the real reason she wasn’t looking at the Kleenex was that she already knew the swarm contained bacteria. She just didn’t think it was her place to tell me that. And if that’s what was going on, then she never would tell me. “Mae,” I said. “Somebody has to tell me what’s going on here. Not Ricky. I want somebody to really tell me.” +“Good,” she said. “I think that’s a very good idea.” +* * * +That was how I found myself sitting in front of a computer workstation in one of those small rooms. The project engineer, David Brooks, sat beside me. As he talked, David continuously straightened his clothes—he smoothed his tie, shot his cuffs, snugged his collar, pulled up the creases in his trousers from his thighs. Then he’d cross one ankle over his knee, pull up his sock, cross the other ankle. Run his hands over his shoulders, brushing away imaginary dust. And then start over again. It was all unconscious, of course, and with my headache I might have found it irritating. But I didn’t focus on it. Because with every piece of new information David gave me, my headache got worse and worse. +Unlike Ricky, David had a very organized mind, and he told me everything, starting from the beginning. Xymos had contracted to make a micro-robotic swarm that would function as an aerial camera. The particles were successfully manufactured, and worked indoors. But when they were tested outside, they lacked mobility in wind. The test swarm was blown away in a strong breeze. That was six weeks ago. +“You tested more swarms after that?” I said. +“Yes, many. Over the next four weeks, or so.” +“None worked?” +“Right. None worked.” +“So those original swarms are all gone—blown away by the wind?” +“Yes.” +“Which means the runaway swarms that we see now have nothing to do with your original test swarms.” +“Correct ...” +“They are a result of contamination ...” +David blinked rapidly. “What do you mean, contamination?” +“The twenty-five kilos of material that was blown by the exhaust fan into the environment because of a missing filter ...” +“Who said it was twenty-five kilos?” +“Ricky did.” +“Oh, no, Jack,” David said. “We vented stuff for days. We must have vented five or six hundred kilos of contaminants—bacteria, molecules, assemblers.” So Ricky had been understating the situation again. But I didn’t understand why he bothered to lie about this. After all, it was just a mistake. And as Ricky had said, it was the contractor’s mistake. “Okay,” I said. “And you saw the first of these desert swarms when?” +“Two weeks ago,” David said, nodding and smoothing his tie. +He explained that at first, the swarm was so disorganized that when it first appeared, they thought it was a cloud of desert insects, gnats or something. “It showed up for a while, going here and there around the laboratory building, and then it was gone. It seemed like a random event.” +A swarm appeared again a couple of days later, he said, and by then it was much better organized. “It displayed distinctive swarming behavior, that sort of swirling in the cloud that you’ve seen. So it was clear that it was our stuff.” +“And what happened then?” +“The swarm swirled around the desert near the installation, like before. It came and went. For the next few days, we tried to gain control of it by radio, but we never could. And eventually—about a week after that—we found that none of the cars would start.” He paused. “I went out there to have a look, and I found that all the onboard computers were dead. These days all automobiles have microprocessors built into them. They control everything from fuel injection to radios and door locks.” +“But now the computers were not functioning?” +“Yeah. Actually, the processor chips themselves were fine. But the memory chips had eroded. They’d literally turned to dust.” +I thought, Oh shit. I said, “Could you figure out why?” +“Sure. It wasn’t any big mystery, Jack. The erosion had the characteristic signature of gamma assemblers. You know about that? No? Well, we have nine different assemblers involved in manufacturing. Each assembler has a different function. The gamma assemblers break down carbon material in silicate layers. They actually cut at the nano level—slicing out chunks of carbon substrate.” +“So these assemblers cut the memory chips in the cars.” +“Right, right, but ...” David hesitated. He was acting as if I were missing the point. He tugged at his cuffs, fingered his collar. “The thing you have to keep in mind, Jack, is that these assemblers can work at room temperature. If anything, the desert heat’s even better for them. Hotter is more efficient.” +For a moment I didn’t understand what he was talking about. What difference did it make about room temperature or desert heat? What did that have to do with memory chips in cars? And then suddenly, finally, the penny dropped. +“Holy shit,” I said. +He nodded. “Yeah.” +David was saying that a mixture of components had been vented into the desert, and that these components—which were designed to self-assemble in the fabrication structure—would also self-assemble in the outside world. Assembly could be carried out autonomously in the desert. And obviously, that’s exactly what was happening. +I ticked the points off to make sure I had it right. “Basic assembly begins with the bacteria. They’ve been engineered to eat anything, even garbage, so they can find something in the desert to live off of.” +“Right.” +“Which means the bacteria multiply, and begin churning out molecules that self-combine, forming larger molecules. Pretty soon you have assemblers, and the assemblers begin to do the final work and turn out new microagents.” +“Right, right.” +“Which means that the swarms are reproducing.” +“Yes. They are.” +“And the individual agents have memory.” +“Yes. A small amount.” +“And they don’t need much, that’s the whole point of distributed intelligence. It’s collective. So they have intelligence, and since they have memory, they can learn from experience.” +“Yes.” +“And the PREDPREY program means they can solve problems. And the program generates enough random elements to let them innovate.” +“Right. Yes.” +My head throbbed. I was seeing all the implications, now, and they weren’t good. “So,” I said, “what you’re telling me is this swarm reproduces, is self-sustaining, learns from experience, has collective intelligence, and can innovate to solve problems.” +“Yes.” +“Which means for all practical purposes, it’s alive.” +“Yes.” David nodded. “At least, it behaves as if it is alive. Functionally it’s alive, Jack.” +I said, “This is very fucking bad news.” +Brooks said, “Tell me.” +“I’d like to know,” I said, “why this thing wasn’t destroyed a long time ago.” +David said nothing. He just smoothed his tie, and looked uncomfortable. “Because you realize,” I said, “that you’re talking about a mechanical plague. That’s what you’ve got here. It’s just like a bacterial plague, or a viral plague. Except it’s mechanical organisms. You’ve got a fucking man-made plague.” +He nodded. “Yes.” +“That’s evolving.” +“Yes.” +“And it’s not limited by biological rates of evolution. It’s probably evolving much faster.” +He nodded. “It is evolving faster.” +“How much faster, David?” +Brooks sighed. “Pretty damn fast. It’ll be different this afternoon, when it comes back.” +“Will it come back?” +“It always does.” +“And why does it come back?” I said. +“It’s trying to get inside.” +“And why is that?” +David shifted uncomfortably. “We have only theories, Jack.” +“Try me.” +“One possibility is that it’s a territorial thing. As you know, the original PREDPREY code includes a concept of a range, of a territory in which the predators will roam. And within that core range, it defines a sort of home base, which the swarm may consider to be the inside of this facility.” +I said, “You believe that?” +“Not really, no.” He hesitated. “Actually,” he said, “most of us think that it comes back looking for your wife, Jack. It’s looking for Julia.” +Chapter 13 +DAY 6 11:42 A.M. +That was how, with a splitting headache, I found myself on the phone to the hospital in San Jose. “Julia Forman, please.” I spelled the name for the operator. “She’s in the ICU,” the operator said. +“Yes, that’s right.” +“I’m sorry but direct calls are not allowed.” +“Then the nursing station.” +“Thank you, please hold.” +I waited. No one was answering the phone. I called back, went through the operator again, and finally got through to the ICU nursing station. The nurse told me Julia was in X-ray and didn’t know when she would be back. I said Julia was supposed to be back by now. The nurse said rather testily that she was looking at Julia’s bed right now, and she could assure me Julia wasn’t in it. +I said I’d call back. +I shut the phone and turned to David. “What was Julia doing in all this?” +“Helping us, Jack.” +“I’m sure. But how, exactly?” +“In the beginning, she was trying to coax it back,” he said. “We needed the swarm close to the building to take control again by radio. So Julia helped us keep it close.” +“How?” +“Well, she entertained it.” +“She what?” +“I guess you’d call it that. It was very quickly obvious that the swarm had rudimentary intelligence. It was Julia’s idea to treat it like a child. She went outside with bright blocks, toys. Things a kid would like. And the swarm seemed to be responding to her. She was very excited about it.” +“The swarm was safe to be around at that time?” +“Yes, completely safe. It was just a particle cloud.” David shrugged. “Anyway, after the first day or so, she decided to go a step further and formally test it. You know, test it like a child psychologist.” +“You mean, teach it,” I said. +“No. Her idea was to test it.” +“David,” I said. “That swarm’s a distributed intelligence. It’s a goddamn net. It’ll learn from whatever you do. Testing is teaching. What exactly was she doing with it?” +“Just, you know, sort of games. She’d lay out three colored blocks on the ground, two blue and one yellow, see if it would choose the yellow. Then with squares and triangles. Stuff like that.” +“But David,” I said. “You all knew this was a runaway, evolving outside the laboratory. Didn’t anybody think to just go out and destroy it?” +“Sure. We all wanted to. Julia wouldn’t allow it.” +“Why?” +“She wanted it kept alive.” +“And nobody argued with her?” +“She’s a vice president of the company, Jack. She kept saying the swarm was a lucky accident, that we had stumbled onto something really big, that it could eventually save the company and we mustn’t destroy it. She was, I don’t know, she was really taken with it. I mean, she was proud of it. Like it was her invention. All she wanted to do was ‘rein it in.’ Her words.” +“Yeah. Well. How long ago did she say that?” +“Yesterday, Jack.” David shrugged. “You know, she only left here yesterday afternoon.” It took me a moment to realize that he was right. Just a single day had passed since Julia had been here, and then had had her accident. And in that time, the swarms had already advanced enormously. +“How many swarms were there yesterday?” +“Three. But we only saw two. I guess one was hiding.” He shook his head. “You know, one of the swarms had become like a pet to her. It was smaller than the others. It’d wait for her to come outside, and it always stuck close to her. Sometimes when she came out it swirled around her, like it was excited to see her. She’d talk to it, too, like it was a dog or something.” I pressed my throbbing temples. “She talked to it,” I repeated. Jesus Christ. “Don’t tell me the swarms have auditory sensors, too.” +“No. They don’t.” +“So talking was a waste of time.” +“Uh, well ... we think the cloud was close enough that her breath deflected some of the particles. In a rhythmic pattern.” +“So the whole cloud was one giant eardrum?” +“In a way, yeah.” +“And it’s a net, so it learned ...” +“Yeah.” +I sighed. “Are you going to tell me it talked back?” +“No, but it started making weird sounds.” +I nodded. I’d heard those weird sounds. “How does it do that?” +“We’re not sure. Bobby thinks it’s the reverse of the auditory deflection that allows it to hear. The particles pulse in a coordinated front, and generate a sound wave. Sort of like an audio speaker.” +It would have to be something like that, I thought. Even though it seemed unlikely that it could do it. The swarm was basically a dust cloud of miniature particles. The particles didn’t have either the mass or the energy to generate a sound wave. +A thought occurred to me. “David,” I said, “was Julia out there yesterday, with the swarms?” +“Yes, in the morning. No problem. It was a few hours later, after she left, that they killed the snake.” +“And was anything killed before that?” +“Uh ... possibly a coyote a few days ago, I’m not sure.” +“So maybe the snake wasn’t the first?” +“Maybe ...” +“And today they killed a rabbit.” +“Yeah. So it’s progressing fast, now.” +“Thank you, Julia,” I said. +I was pretty sure the accelerated behavior of the swarms that we were seeing was a function of past learning. This was a characteristic of distributed systems—and for that matter a characteristic of evolution, which could be considered a kind of learning, if you wanted to think of it in those terms. In either case, it meant that systems experienced a long, slow starting period, followed by ever-increasing speed. +You could see that exact speedup in the evolution of life on earth. The first life shows up four billion years ago as single-cell creatures. Nothing changes for the next two billion years. Then nuclei appear in the cells. Things start to pick up. Only a few hundred million years later, multicellular organisms. A few hundred million years after that, explosive diversity of life. And more diversity. By a couple of hundred million years ago there are large plants and animals, complex creatures, dinosaurs. In all this, man’s a latecomer: four million years ago, upright apes. Two million years ago, early human ancestors. Thirty-five thousand years ago, cave paintings. The acceleration was dramatic. If you compressed the history of life on earth into twenty-four hours, then multicellular organisms appeared in the last twelve hours, dinosaurs in the last hour, the earliest men in the last forty seconds, and modern men less than one second ago. It had taken two billion years for primitive cells to incorporate a nucleus, the first step toward complexity. But it had taken only 200 million years—one-tenth of the time—to evolve multicellular animals. And it took only four million years to go from small-brained apes with crude bone tools to modern man and genetic engineering. That was how fast the pace had increased. +This same pattern showed up in the behavior of agent-based systems. It took a long time for agents to “lay the groundwork” and to accomplish the early stuff, but once that was completed, subsequent progress could be swift. There was no way to skip the groundwork, just as there was no way for a human being to skip childhood. You had to do the preliminary work. But at the same time, there was no way to avoid the subsequent acceleration. It was, so to speak, built into the system. +Teaching made the progression more efficient, and I was sure Julia’s teaching had been an important factor in the behavior of the swarm now. Simply by interacting with it, she had introduced a selection pressure in an organism with emergent behavior that couldn’t be predicted. It was a very foolish thing to do. +So the swarm—already developing rapidly—would develop even more rapidly in the future. And since it was a man-made organism, evolution was not taking place on a biological timescale. Instead, it was happening in a matter of hours. +Destroying the swarms would be more difficult with each passing hour. “Okay,” I said to David. “If the swarms are coming back, then we better get ready for them.” I got to my feet, wincing at the headache, and headed for the door. “What do you have in mind?” David said. +“What do you think I have in mind?” I said. “We’ve got to kill these things cold stone dead. We have to wipe them off the face of the planet. And we have to do it right now.” David shifted in his chair. “Fine with me,” he said. “But I don’t think Ricky’s going to like it.” +“Why not?” +David shrugged. “He’s just not.” +I waited, and said nothing. +David fidgeted in his chair, more and more uncomfortable. “The thing is, he and Julia are, uh, in agreement on this.” +“They’re in agreement.” +“Yes. They see eye to eye. I mean, on this.” +I said, “What are you trying to say to me, David?” +“Nothing. Just what I said. They agree the swarms should be kept alive. I think Ricky’s going to oppose you, that’s all.” +I needed to talk to Mae again. I found her in the biology lab, hunched over a computer monitor, looking at images of white bacterial growth on dark red media. I said, “Mae, listen, I’ve talked to David and I need to—uh, Mae? Have you got a problem?” She was looking fixedly at the screen. +“I think I do,” she said. “A problem with the feedstock.” +“What kind of problem?” +“The latest Theta-d stocks aren’t growing properly.” She pointed to an image in the upper corner of the monitor, which showed bacteria growing in smooth white circles. “That’s normal coliform growth,” she said. “That’s how it’s supposed to look. But here ...” She brought up another image in the center of the screen. The round forms appeared moth-eaten, ragged and misshapen. “That’s not normal growth,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m afraid it’s phage contamination.” +“You mean a virus?” I said. A phage was a virus that attacked bacteria. “Yes,” she said. “Coli are susceptible to a very large number of phages. T4 phage is of course the most common, but Theta-d was engineered to be T4-resistant. So I suspect it’s a new phage that’s doing this.” +“A new phage? You mean it’s newly evolved?” +“Yes. Probably a mutant of an existing strain, that somehow gets around the engineered resistance. But it’s bad news for manufacturing. If we have infected bacterial stocks, we’ll have to shut down production. Otherwise we’ll just be spewing viruses out.” +“Frankly,” I said, “shutting down production might be a good idea.” +“I’ll probably have to. I’ll try to isolate it, but it looks aggressive. I may not be able to get rid of it without scrubbing the kettle. Starting over with fresh stock. Ricky’s not going to like it.” +“Have you told him about this?” +“Not yet.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he needs more bad news right now. And besides ...” She stopped, as if she had thought better of what she was going to say. “Besides what?” +“Ricky has a huge stake in the success of this company.” She turned to face me. “Bobby heard him on the phone the other day, talking about his stock options. And sounding worried. I think Ricky sees Xymos as his last big chance to score. He’s been here five years. If this doesn’t work out, he’ll be too senior to start over at a new company. He’s got a wife and baby; he can’t gamble another five years, waiting to see if the next company clicks. So he’s really trying to make this happen, really driving himself. He’s up all night, working, figuring. He isn’t sleeping more than three or four hours. Frankly, I worry it’s affecting his judgment.” +“I can imagine,” I said. “The pressure must be terrible.” +“He’s so sleep-deprived it makes him erratic,” Mae said. “I’m never sure what he’ll do, or how he’ll respond. Sometimes I get the feeling he doesn’t want to get rid of the swarms at all. Or maybe he’s scared.” +“Maybe,” I said. +“Anyway, he’s erratic. So if I were you I’d be careful,” she said, “when you go after the swarms. Because that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? Go after them?” +“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I’m going to do.” +Chapter 14 +DAY 6 1:12 P.M. +They had all gathered in the lounge, with the video games and pinball machines. Nobody was playing them now. They were watching me with anxious eyes as I explained what we had to do. The plan was simple enough—the swarm itself was dictating what we had to do, although I was skipping that uncomfortable truth. +Basically, I told them we had a runaway swarm we couldn’t control. And the swarm exhibited self-organizing behavior. “Whenever you have a high SO component, it means the swarm can reassemble itself after an injury or disruption. Just as it did with me. So this swarm has to be totally, physically destroyed. That means subjecting the particles to heat, cold, acid, or high magnetic fields. And from what I’ve seen of its behavior, I’d say our best chance to destroy it is at night when the swarm loses energy and sinks to the ground.” +Ricky whined, “But we already told you, Jack, we can’t find it at night—” +“That’s right, you can’t,” I said. “Because you didn’t tag it. Look, it’s a big desert out there. If you want to trace it back to its hiding place, you’ve got to tag it with something so strong you can follow its trail wherever it goes.” +“Tag it with what?” +“That’s my next question,” I said. “What kind of tagging agents have we got around here?” I was greeted with blank looks. “Come on, guys. This is an industrial facility. You must have something that will coat the particles and leave a trail we can follow. I’m talking about a substance that fluoresces intensely, or a pheromone with a characteristic chemical signature, or something radioactive ... No?” +More blank looks. Shaking their heads. +“Well,” Mae said, “of course, we have radioisotopes.” +“All right, fine.” Now we were getting somewhere. +“We use them to check for leaks in the system. The helicopter brings them out once a week.” +“What isotopes do you have?” +“Selenium-72 and Rhenium-186. Sometimes Xenon-133 as well. I’m not sure what we’ve got on hand right now.” +“What kind of half-lives are we talking about?” Certain isotopes lost radioactivity very rapidly, in a matter of hours or minutes. If so, they wouldn’t be useful to me. “Half-life averages about a week,” Mae said. “Selenium’s eight days. Rhenium’s four days. Xenon-133 is five days. Five and a quarter.” +“Okay. Any of them should do fine for our purposes,” I said. “We only need the radioactivity to last for one night, after we tag the swarm.” +Mae said, “We usually put the isotopes in FDG. It’s a liquid glucose base. You could spray it.” +“That should be fine,” I said. “Where are the isotopes now?” +Mae smiled bleakly. “In the storage unit,” she said. +“Where is that?” +“Outside. Next to the parked cars.” +“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s go out and get them.” +“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Ricky said, throwing up his hands. “Are you out of your mind? You nearly died out there this morning, Jack. You can’t go back out.” +“There isn’t any choice,” I said. +“Sure there is. Wait until nightfall.” +“No,” I said. “Because that means we can’t spray them until tomorrow. And we can’t trace and destroy them until tomorrow night. That means we wait thirty-six hours with an organism that is evolving fast. We can’t risk it.” +“Risk it? Jack, if you go out now, you’ll never survive. You’re fucking crazy even to consider it.” +Charley Davenport had been staring at the monitor. Now he turned to the group. “No, Jack’s not crazy.” He grinned at me. “And I’m going with him.” Charley began to hum: “Born to Be Wild.” +“I’m going, too,” Mae said. “I know where the isotopes are stored.” +I said, “It’s not really necessary, Mae, you can tell me—” +“No. I’m coming.” +“We’ll need to improvise a spray apparatus of some kind.” David Brooks was rolling up his sleeves carefully. “Presumably, remotely controlled. That’s Rosie’s specialty.” +“Okay, I’ll come, too,” Rosie Castro said, looking at David. “You’re all going?” Ricky stared from one to another of us, shaking his head. “This is extremely risky,” he said. “Extremely risky.” +Nobody said anything. We all just stared at him. +Then Ricky said, “Charley, will you shut the fuck up?” He turned to me. “I don’t think I can allow this, Jack ...” +“I don’t think you have a choice,” I said. +“I’m in charge here.” +“Not now,” I said. I felt a burst of annoyance. I felt like telling him he’d screwed the pooch by allowing a swarm to evolve in the environment. But I didn’t know how many critical decisions Julia had made. In the end, Ricky was obsequious to management, trying to please them like a child pleasing a parent. He did it charmingly; that was how he had moved ahead in life. That was also his greatest weakness. +But now Ricky stuck out his chin stubbornly. “You just can’t do it, Jack,” he said. “You guys can’t go out there and survive.” +“Sure we can, Ricky,” Charley Davenport said. He pointed to the monitor. “Look for yourself.” +The monitor showed the desert outside. The early afternoon sun was shining on scrubby cactus. One stunted juniper in the distance, dark against the sun. For a moment I didn’t understand what Charley was talking about. Then I saw the sand blowing low on the ground. And I noticed the juniper was bent to one side. +“That’s right, folks,” Charley Davenport said. “We got a high wind out there. High wind, no swarms—remember? They have to hug the ground.” He headed toward the passageway leading to the power station. “Time’s a-wasting. Let’s do it, guys.” Everybody filed out. I was the last to leave. To my astonishment, Ricky pulled me aside, blocked the door with his body. “I’m sorry, Jack, I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the others. But I just can’t let you do this.” +“Would you rather have somebody else do it?” I said. +He frowned. “What do you mean?” +“You better face facts, Ricky. This is already a disaster. And if we can’t get it under control right away, then we have to call for help.” +“Help? What do you mean?” +“I mean, call the Pentagon. Call the Army. We have to call somebody to get these swarms under control.” +“Jesus, Jack. We can’t do that.” +“We have no choice.” +“But it would destroy the company. We’d never get funding again.” +“That wouldn’t bother me one bit,” I said. I was feeling angry about what had happened in the desert. A chain of bad decisions, errors and fuckups extending over weeks and months. It seemed as if everyone at Xymos was doing short-term solutions, patch-and-fix, quick and dirty. No one was paying attention to the long-term consequences. +“Look,” I said, “you’ve got a runaway swarm that’s apparently lethal. You can’t screw around with this anymore.” +“But, Julia—” +“Julia isn’t here.” +“But she said—” +“I don’t care what she said, Ricky.” +“But the company—” +“Fuck the company. Ricky.” I grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him once hard. “Don’t you get it? You won’t go outside. You’re afraid of this thing, Ricky. We have to kill it. And if we can’t kill it soon, we have to call for help.” +“No.” +“Yes, Ricky.” +“We’ll see about that,” he snarled. His body tensed, his eyes flared. He grabbed my shirt collar. I just stood there, staring at him. I didn’t move. Ricky glared at me for a moment, and then released his grip. He patted me on the shoulder and smoothed out my collar. “Ah hell, Jack,” he said. “What am I doing?” And he gave me his self-deprecating surfer grin. “I’m sorry. I think the pressure must be getting to me. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Fuck the company. We have to do this. We have to destroy those things right away.” +“Yes,” I said, still staring at him. “We do.” +He paused. He took his hand away from my collar. “You think I’m acting weird, don’t you? Mary thinks I’m acting weird, too. She said so, the other day. Am I acting weird?” +“Well ...” +“You can tell me.” +“Maybe on edge ... You getting any sleep?” +“Not much. Couple of hours.” +“Maybe you should take a pill.” +“I did. Doesn’t seem to help. It’s the damn pressure. I’ve been here a week now. This place gets to you.” +“I imagine it must.” +“Yeah. Well, anyway.” He turned away, as if suddenly embarrassed. “Look, I’ll be on the radio,” he said. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’m very grateful to you, Jack. You’ve brought sanity and order here. Just ... just be careful out there, okay?” +“I will.” +Ricky stepped aside. +I went out the door past him. +Going down the hallway to the power station, with the air conditioners roaring full blast, Mae fell into step beside me. I said to her, “You really don’t need to go out there, Mae. You could tell me over the radio how to handle the isotopes.” +“It’s not the isotopes I’m concerned with,” she said, her voice low, so it would be buried in the roar. “It’s the rabbit.” +I wasn’t sure I’d heard her. “The what?” +“The rabbit. I need to examine the rabbit again.” +“Why?” +“You remember that tissue sample I cut from the stomach? Well, I looked at it under the microscope a few minutes ago.” +“And?” +“I’m afraid we have big problems, Jack.” +Chapter 15 +DAY 6 2:52 P.M. +I was the first one out the door, squinting in the desert sunlight. Even though it was almost three o’clock, the sun seemed as bright and hot as ever. A hot wind ruffled my trousers and shirt. I pulled my headset mouthpiece closer to my lips and said, “Bobby, you reading?” +“I read you, Jack.” +“Got an image?” +“Yes, Jack.” +Charley Davenport came out and laughed. He said, “You know, Ricky, you really are a stupid shmuck. You know that?” +Over my headset, I heard Ricky say, “Save it. You know I don’t like compliments. Just get on with it.” +Mae came through the door next. She had a backpack slung over one shoulder. She said to me, “For the isotopes.” +“Are they heavy?” +“The containers are.” +Then David Brooks came out, with Rosie close behind him. She made a face as she stepped onto the sand. “Jesus, it’s hot,” she said. +“Yeah, I think you’ll find deserts tend to be that way,” Charley said. +“No shit, Charley.” +“I wouldn’t shit you, Rosie.” He belched. +I was busy scanning the horizon, but I saw nothing. The cars were parked under a shed about fifty yards away. The shed ended in a square white concrete building with narrow windows. That was the storage unit. +We started toward it. Rosie said, “Is that place air-conditioned?” +“Yes,” Mae said. “But it’s still hot. It’s poorly insulated.” +“Is it airtight?” I said. +“Not really.” +“That means no,” Davenport said, laughing. He spoke into his headset. “Bobby, what wind do we have?” +“Seventeen knots,” Bobby Lembeck said. “Good strong wind.” +“And how long until the wind dies? Sunset?” +“Probably, yeah. Another three hours.” +I said, “That’ll be plenty of time.” +I noticed that David Brooks was not saying anything. He just trudged toward the building. Rosie followed close behind him. +“But you never know,” Davenport said. “We could all be toast. Any minute now.” He laughed again, in his irritating way. +Ricky said, “Charley, why don’t you shut the fuck up?” +“Why don’t you come out and make me, big boy?” Charley said. “What’s the matter, your veins clogged with chicken shit?” +I said, “Let’s stay focused, Charley.” +“Hey, I’m focused. I’m focused.” +The wind was blowing sand, creating a brownish blur just above the ground. Mae walked beside me. She looked across the desert and said abruptly, “I want to have a look at the rabbit. You all go ahead if you want.” +She headed off to the right, toward the carcass. I went with her. And the others turned in a group and followed us. It seemed everybody wanted to stay together. The wind was still strong. Charley said, “Why do you want to see it, Mae?” +“I want to check something.” She was pulling on gloves as she walked. +The headset crackled. Ricky said, “Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?” +“We’re going to see the rabbit,” Charley said. +“What for?” +“Mae wants to see it.” +“She saw it before. Guys, you’re very exposed out there. I wouldn’t be waltzing around.” +“Nobody’s waltzing around, Ricky.” +By now I could see the rabbit in the distance, partially obscured by the blowing sand. In a few moments, we were all standing over the carcass. The wind had blown the body over on its side. Mae crouched down, turned it on its back, laid open the carcass. +“Jeez,” Rosie said. +I was startled to see that the exposed flesh was no longer smooth and pink. Instead, it was roughened everywhere, and in a few places looked as if it had been scraped. And it was covered by a milky white coating. +“Looks like it was dipped in acid,” Charley said. +“Yes, it does,” Mae said. She sounded grim. +I glanced at my watch. All this had occurred in two hours. “What happened to it?” Mae had taken out her magnifying glass and was bent close to the animal. She looked here and there, moving the glass quickly. Then she said, “It’s been partially eaten.” +“Eaten? By what?” +“Bacteria.” +“Wait a minute,” Charley Davenport said. “You think this is caused by Theta-d? You think the E. coli is eating it?” +“We’ll know soon enough,” she said. She reached into a pouch, and pulled out several glass tubes containing sterile swabs. +“But it’s only been dead a short time.” +“Long enough,” Mae said. “And high temperatures accelerate growth.” She daubed the animal with one swab after another, replacing each in a glass tube. “Then the Theta-d must be multiplying very aggressively.” +“Bacteria will do that if you give them a good nutrient source. You shift into log phase growth where they’re doubling every two or three minutes. I think that’s what’s happening here.” +I said, “But if that’s true, it means the swarm—” +“I don’t know what it means, Jack,” she said quickly. She looked at me and gave a slight shake of the head. The meaning was clear: not now. +But the others weren’t put off. “Mae, Mae, Mae,” Charley Davenport said. “You’re telling us that the swarms killed the rabbit in order to eat it? In order to grow more coli? And make more nanoswarms?” +“I didn’t say that, Charley.” Her voice was calm, almost soothing. “But that’s what you think,” Charley continued. “You think the swarms consume mammalian tissue in order to reproduce—” +“Yes. That’s what I think, Charley.” Mae put her swabs away carefully, and got to her feet. “But I’ve taken cultures, now. We’ll run them in Luria and agerose, and we’ll see what we see.” +“I bet if we come back in another hour, this white stuff will be gone, and we’ll see black forming all over the body. New black nanoparticles. And eventually there’ll be enough for a new swarm.” +She nodded. “Yes. I think so, too.” +“And that’s why the wildlife around here has disappeared?” David Brooks said. +“Yes.” She brushed a strand of hair back with her hand. “This has been going on for a while.” There was a moment of silence. We all stood around the rabbit carcass, our backs to the blowing wind. The carcass was being consumed so quickly, I imagined I could almost see it happening right before my eyes, in real time. +“We better get rid of those fucking swarms,” Charley said. +We all turned, and set off for the shed. +Nobody spoke. +There was nothing to say. +As we walked ahead, some of those small birds that hopped around the desert floor under the cholla cactus suddenly took to the air, chittering and wheeling before us. I said to Mae, “So there’s no wildlife, but the birds are here?” +“Seems to be that way.” +The flock wheeled and came back, then settled to the ground a hundred yards away. “Maybe they’re too small for the swarms to bother with,” Mae said. “Not enough flesh on their bodies.” +“Maybe.” I was thinking there might be another answer. But to be sure, I would have to check the code. +I stepped from the sun into the shade of the corrugated shed, and moved along the line of cars toward the door of the storage unit. The door was plastered with warning symbols—for nuclear radiation, biohazard, microwaves, high explosives, laser radiation. Charley said, “You can see why we keep this shit outside.” +As I came to the door, Vince said, “Jack, you have a call. I’ll patch it.” My cell phone rang. It was probably Julia. I flipped it open. “Hello?” +“Dad.” It was Eric. With that emphatic tone that he got when he was upset. +I sighed. “Yes, Eric.” +“When are you coming back?” +“I’m not sure, son.” +“Will you be here for dinner?” +“I’m afraid not. Why? What’s the problem?” +“She is such an asshole.” +“Eric, just tell me what the problem—” +“Aunt Ellen sticks up for her all the time. It’s not fair.” +“I’m kind of busy now, Eric, so just tell me—” +“Why? What are you doing?” +“Just tell me what’s wrong, son.” +“Never mind,” he said, turning sulky, “if you’re not coming home, it doesn’t matter. Where are you, anyway? Are you in the desert?” +“Yes. How did you know that?” +“I talked to Mom. Aunt Ellen made us go to the hospital to see her. It’s not fair. I didn’t want to go. She made me anyway.” +“Uh-huh. How is Mom?” +“She’s checking out of the hospital.” +“She’s finished all her tests?” +“The doctors wanted her to stay,” Eric said. “But she wants to get out. She has a cast on her arm, that’s all. She says everything else is fine. Dad? Why do I always have to do what Aunt Ellen says? It’s not fair.” +“Let me talk to Ellen.” +“She isn’t here. She took Nicole to buy a new dress for her play.” +“Who’s with you at the house?” +“Maria.” +“Okay,” I said. “Have you done your homework?” +“Not yet.” +“Well, get busy, son. I want your homework done before dinner.” It was amazing how these lines just popped out of a parent’s mouth. +By now I had reached the storage room door. I stared at all the warning signs. There were several I didn’t know, like a diamond made up of four different colored squares inside, each with a number. Mae unlocked the door and went in. +“Dad?” Eric started to cry. “When are you coming home?” +“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope by tomorrow.” +“Okay. Promise?” +“I promise.” +I could hear him sniffling, and then through the phone a long snarff sound as he wiped his nose on his shirt. I told him he could call me later if he wanted to. He seemed better, and said okay, and then said good-bye. +I hung up, and entered the storage building. +The interior was divided into two large storage rooms, with shelves on all four walls, and freestanding shelves in the middle of the rooms. Concrete walls, concrete floor. There was another door in the second room, and a corrugated rollup door for truck deliveries. Hot sunlight came in through wood-frame windows. The air-conditioning rumbled noisily but, as Mae had said, the rooms were still hot. I closed the door behind me, and looked at the seal. It was just ordinary weather stripping. The shed was definitely not airtight. I walked along the shelves, stacked with bins of spare parts for the fabrication machinery, and the labs. The second room had more mundane items: cleaning supplies, toilet paper, bars of soap, boxes of cereal, and a couple of refrigerators filled with food. I turned to Mae. “Where are the isotopes?” +“Over here.” She led me around a set of shelves, to a steel lid set in the concrete floor. The lid was about three feet in diameter. It looked like a buried garbage can, except for the glowing LED and keypad in the center. Mae dropped to one knee, and punched in a code quickly. The lid lifted with a hiss. +I saw a ladder that led down into a circular steel chamber. The isotopes were stored in metal containers of different sizes. Apparently Mae could tell which they were just by looking, because she said, “We have Selenium-172. Shall we use that?” +“Sure.” +Mae started to climb down into the chamber. +“Will you fucking cut it out?” In a corner of the room, David Brooks jumped back from Charley Davenport. Charley was holding a big spray bottle of Windex cleaner. He was testing the squeeze trigger mechanism, and in the process spraying streaks of water on David. It didn’t look accidental. “Give me that damn thing,” David said, snatching the bottle away. “I think it might work,” Charley said blandly. “But we’d need a remote mechanism.” From the first room, Rosie said, “Would this work?” She held up a shiny cylinder, with wires dangling from it. “Isn’t this a solenoid relay?” +“Yes,” David said. “But I doubt it can exert enough force to squeeze this bottle. Has it got a rating? We need something bigger.” +“And don’t forget, you also need a remote controller,” Charley said. “Unless you want to stand there and spray the fucker yourself.” +Mae came up from below, carrying a heavy metal tube. She walked to the sink, and reached for a bottle of straw-colored liquid. She pulled on heavy rubber-coated gloves, and started to mix the isotope into the liquid. A radiation counter over the sink was chattering. Over the headset, Ricky said, “Aren’t you guys forgetting something? Even if you have a remote, how are you going to get the cloud to come to it? Because I don’t think the swarm will just come over and stand there while you hose it down.” +“We’ll find something to attract them,” I said. +“Like what?” +“They were attracted to the rabbit.” +“We don’t have any rabbits.” +Charley said, “You know, Ricky, you are a very negative person.” +“I’m just telling you the facts.” +“Thank you for sharing,” Charley said. +Like Mae, Charley was seeing it, too: Ricky had dragged his feet every step of the way. It was as if Ricky wanted to keep the swarms alive. Which made no sense at all. But that’s how he was behaving. +I would have said something to Charley about Ricky, but over our headsets everybody heard everything. The downside of modern communications: everybody can listen in. “Hey guys?” It was Bobby Lembeck. “How’s it coming?” +“We’re getting there. Why?” +“The wind’s dropping.” +“What is it now?” I said. +“Fifteen knots. Down from eighteen.” +“That’s still strong,” I said. “We’re okay.” +“I know. I’m just telling you.” +From the next room, Rosie said, “What’s thermite?” In her hand she held a plastic tray filled with thumb-sized metal tubes. +“Careful with that,” David said. “It must be left over from construction. I guess they did thermite welding.” +“But what is it?” +“Thermite is aluminum and iron oxide,” David said. “It burns very hot—three thousand degrees—and so bright you can’t look directly at it. And it’ll melt steel for welding.” +“How much of that have we got?” I said to Rosie. “Because we can use it tonight.” +“There’s four boxes back there.” She plucked one tube from the box. “So how do you set ’em off?” +“Be careful, Rosie. That’s a magnesium wrapper. Any decent heat source will ignite it.” +“Even matches?” +“If you want to lose your hand. Better use road flares, something with a fuse.” +“I’ll see,” she said, and she disappeared around the corner. +The radiation counter was still clicking. I turned to the sink. Mae had capped the isotope tube. She was now pouring the straw-colored liquid into a Windex bottle. “Hey, guys?” It was Bobby Lembeck again. “I’m picking up some instability. Wind’s fluctuating at twelve knots.” +“Okay,” I said. “We don’t need to hear every little change, Bobby.” +“I’m seeing some instability, is all.” +“I think we’re okay for the moment, Bobby.” +Mae was going to be another few minutes, in any case. I went over to a computer workstation and turned it on. The screen glowed; there was a menu of options. Aloud, I said, “Ricky, can I put up the swarm code on this monitor?” +“The code?” Ricky said. He sounded alarmed. “What do you want the code for?” +“I want to see what you guys have done.” +“Why?” +“Ricky, for Christ’s sake, can I see it or not?” +“Sure, of course you can. All the code revisions are in the directory slash code. It’s passworded.” +I was typing. I found the directory. But I wasn’t being allowed to enter it. “And the password is?” +“It’s l-a-n-g-t-o-n, all lowercase.” +“Okay.” +I entered the password. I was now in the directory, looking at a list of program modifications, each with file size and date. The document sizes were large, which meant that these were all programs for other aspects of the swarm mechanism. Because the code for the particles themselves would be small—just a few lines, maybe eight, ten kilobytes, no more. “Ricky.” +“Yes, Jack.” +“Where’s the particle code?” +“Isn’t it there?” +“God damn it, Ricky. Stop screwing around.” +“Hey, Jack, I’m not responsible for the archiving—” +“Ricky, these are workfiles, not archives,” I said. “Tell me where.” +A brief pause. “There should be a subdirectory slash C-D-N. It’s kept there.” +I scrolled down. “I see it.” +Within this directory, I found a list of files, all very small. The modification dates started about six weeks ago. There was nothing new from the last two weeks. “Ricky. You haven’t changed the code for two weeks?” +“Yeah, about that.” +I clicked on the most recent document. “You got high-level summaries?” When these guys had worked for me, I always insisted that they write natural language summaries of the program structure. It was faster to review than documentation within the code itself. And they often solved logic problems when they had to write it out briefly. “Should be there,” Ricky said. +On the screen, I saw: + +/*Initialize*/ +For j=1 to L x V do +Sj = 0 /*set initial demand to 0/ +End For +For i=l to z do +For j = 1 to L x V do +ij = (state (x,y,z)) /*agent threshold param*/ +? ij = (intent (Cj,Hj)) /*agent intention fill*/ +Response = 0 /* begin agent response*/ +Zone = z(i) /* intitial zone unlearned by agent*/ +Sweep =1 /* activate agent travel*/ +End For +End For + +/*Main*/ +For kl=1 to RVd do +For tm=1 to nv do +For = i to j do /* tracking surrounds*/ +? ij = (intent (Cj,Hj)) /*agent intention fill*/ +ij <> (state (x,y,z)) /*agent is in motion*/ +ikl = (filed (x,y,z)) /*track nearest agents */ + +I scanned it for a while, looking for how they had changed it. Then I scrolled down into the actual code, to see the implementation. But the important code wasn’t there. The entire set of particle behaviors was marked as an object call to a something titled “compstat_do.” +“Ricky,” I said, “what’s ‘compstat_do’? Where is it?” +“Should be there.” +“It’s not.” +“I don’t know. Maybe it’s compiled.” +“Well that isn’t going to do me any good, is it?” You couldn’t read compiled code. “Ricky, I want to see that damn module. What is the problem?” +“No problem. I have to look for it, is all.” +“Okay ...” +“I’ll do it when you get back.” +I glanced over at Mae. “Have you gone through the code?” +She shook her head. Her expression seemed to say it was never going to happen, that Ricky would make up more excuses and keep putting me off. I didn’t understand why. I was there to advise them on the code, after all. That was my area of expertise. In the next room, Rosie and David were poking through the shelves of supplies, looking for radio relays. They weren’t having any success. Across the room, Charley Davenport farted loudly and cried, “Bingo!” +“Jesus, Charley,” Rosie said. +“You shouldn’t hold things in,” Charley said. “It makes you sick.” +“You make me sick.” Rosie said. +“Oh, sorry.” Charley held up his hand, showing a shiny metal contraption. “Then I guess you don’t want this remote-controlled compression valve.” +“What?” Rosie said, turning. +“Are you kidding?” David said, going over to look. +“And it’s got a pressure rating of ADC twenty pi.” +“That should work fine,” David said. +“If you don’t fuck it up,” Charley said. +They took the valve and went to the sink, where Mae was still pouring, wearing her heavy gloves. She said, “Let me finish ...” +“Will I glow in the dark?” Charley said, grinning at her. +“Just your farts,” Rosie said. +“Hey, they already do that. ’Specially when you light ’em.” +“Jesus, Charley.” +“Farts are methane, you know. Burns with a hard blue gemlike flame.” And he laughed. +“I’m glad you appreciate yourself,” Rosie said. “Because nobody else does.” +“Ouch, ouch,” Charley said, clutching his breast. “I die, I die ...” +“Don’t get our hopes up.” +My headset crackled. “Hey guys?” It was Bobby Lembeck again. “Wind’s just dropped to six knots.” +I said, “Okay.” I turned to the others. “Let’s finish up, guys.” +David said, “We’re waiting for Mae. Then we’ll fit this valve.” +“Let’s fit it back in the lab,” I said. +“Well, I just want to make sure—” +“Back at the lab,” I said. “Pack it up, guys.” +I went to the window and looked out. The wind was still ruffling the juniper bushes, but there was no longer a layer of sand blowing across the ground. +Ricky came on the headset: “Jack, get your fucking team out of there.” +“We’re doing it now,” I said. +David Brooks said in a formal tone, “Guys, there’s no point in leaving until we have a valve that we know fits this bottle—” +“I think we better go,” Mae said. “Finished or not.” +“What good would that do?” David said. +“Pack up,” I said. “Stop talking and pack it up now.” +Over the headset, Bobby said, “Four knots and falling. Fast.” +“Let’s go, everybody,” I said. I was herding them toward the door. +Then Ricky came on. “No.” +“What?” +“You can’t leave now.” +“Why not?” +“Because it’s too late. They’re here.” +Chapter 16 +DAY 6 3:12 P.M. +Everyone went to the window; we banged heads trying to look out in all directions. As far as I could see, the horizon was clear. I saw nothing at all. “Where are they?” I said. “Coming from the south. We have them on the monitors.” +“How many?” Charley said. +“Four.” +“Four!” +“Yeah, four.” +The main building was south of us. There were no windows in the south wall of the shed. +David said, “We don’t see anything. How fast are they coming?” +“Fast.” +“Do we have time to run for it?” +“I don’t think so.” +David frowned. “He doesn’t think so. Jesus.” +And before I could say anything, David had bolted for the far door, opened it, and stepped out into the sunlight. Through the rectangle of the open door we saw him look to the south, shading his eyes with his hand. We all spoke at once: +“David!” +“David, what the fuck are you doing?” +“David, you asshole!” +“I’m trying to see ...” +“Get back here!” +“You stupid bastard!” +But Brooks remained where he was, hands over his eyes. “I don’t see anything yet,” he said. “And I don’t hear anything. Listen, I think maybe we can make a run for—uh, no we can’t.” He sprinted back inside, stumbled on the door frame, fell, scrambled to his feet, and slammed the door shut, pulled it tight behind him, tugging on the doorknob. “Where are they?” +“Coming,” he said. “They’re coming.” His voice shook with tension. “Oh Jesus, they’re coming.” He pulled back on the doorknob with both hands, using his whole body weight. He muttered over and over, “Coming ... they’re coming ...” +“Oh great,” Charley said. “The fucking guy’s cracked.” +I went over to David, and put my hand on his shoulder. He was pulling on the doorknob, breathing in ragged gasps. “David,” I said quietly. “Let’s take it easy now. Let’s take a deep breath.” +“I just—I have to keep—have to keep them—” He was sweating, his whole body tense, his shoulder shaking under my hand. It was pure panic. +“David,” I said. “Let’s take a deep breath, okay?” +“I have to—have to—have—have—have—” +“Big breath, David ...” I took one, demonstrating. “That feels better. Come on now. Big breath ...” +David was nodding, trying to hear me. He took a short breath. Then resumed his quick gasps. +“That’s good, David, now another one ...” +Another breath. His breathing slowed slightly. He stopped shaking. +“Okay, David, that’s good ...” +Behind me, Charley said, “I always knew that guy was fucked up. Look at him, talking to him like a fucking baby.” +I glanced back, and shot Charley a look. He just shrugged. “Hey, I’m fucking right.” +Mae said, “It’s not helping, Charley.” +“Fuck helping.” +Rosie said, “Charley, just shut up for a while, okay?” +I turned back to David. I kept my voice even. “All right, David ... That’s good, breathe ... okay now, let go of the doorknob.” +David shook his head, refusing, but he seemed confused now, uncertain of what he was doing. He blinked his eyes rapidly. It was as if he was coming out of a trance. +I said softly, “Let go of the doorknob. It’s not doing any good.” +Finally, he let go, and sat back on the ground. He began to cry, head in hands. +“Oh Jesus,” Charley said. “That’s all we need.” +“Shut up, Charley.” +Rosie went to the refrigerator and came back with a bottle of water. She gave it to David, who drank as he cried. She helped him to his feet, nodded to me that she’d take it from here. I went back to the center of the room, where the others were standing by the workstation screen. On the screen, the lines of code had been replaced by a monitor view of the north face of the main building. Four swarms were there, glinting silver as they moved up and down the length of the building. +“What’re they doing?” I said. +“Trying to get in.” +I said, “Why do they do that?” +“We’re not sure,” Mae said. +We watched for a moment in silence. Once again I was struck by the purposefulness of their behavior. They reminded me of bears trying to break into a trailer to get food. They paused at every doorway and closed window, hovering there, moving up and down along the seals, until finally moving on to the next opening. +I said, “And do they always try the doors like that?” +“Yes. Why?” +“Because it looks like they don’t remember that the doors are sealed.” +“No,” Charley said. “They don’t remember.” +“Because they don’t have enough memory?” +“Either that,” he said, “or this is another generation.” +“You mean these are new swarms since noon?” +“Yes.” +I looked at my watch. “There’s a new generation every three hours?” +Charley shrugged. “I couldn’t say. We never found where they reproduce. I’m just guessing.” The possibility that new generations were coming that fast meant that whatever evolutionary mechanism was built into the code was progressing fast, too. Ordinarily, genetic algorithms—which modeled reproduction to arrive at solutions—ordinarily, they ran between 500 and 5,000 generations to arrive at an optimization. If these swarms were reproducing every three hours, it meant they had turned over something like 100 generations in the last two weeks. And with 100 generations, the behavior would be much sharper. +Mae watched them on the monitor and said, “At least they’re staying by the main building. It seems like they don’t know we’re here.” +“How would they know?” I said. +“They wouldn’t,” Charley said. “Their main sensory modality is vision. They may have picked up a little auditory over the generations, but it’s still primarily vision. If they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist for them.” +Rosie came over with David. He said, “I’m really sorry, guys.” +“No problem.” +“It’s okay, David.” +“I don’t know what happened. I just couldn’t stand it.” +Charley said, “Don’t worry, David. We understand. You’re a psycho and you cracked. We get the picture. No problem.” +Rosie put her arm around David, who blew his nose loudly. She stared at the monitor. “What’s happening with them now?” Rosie said. +“They don’t seem to know we’re here.” +“Okay ...” +“We’re hoping it stays that way.” +“Uh-huh. And if it doesn’t?” Rosie said. +I had been thinking about that. “If it doesn’t, we rely on the holes in the PREDPREY assumptions. We exploit the weaknesses in the programming.” +“Which means?” +“We flock,” I said. +Charley gave a horse laugh. “Yeah, right, we flock—and pray like hell!” +“I’m serious,” I said. +Over the last thirty years, scientists had studied predator-prey interactions in everything from the lion to the hyena to the warrior ant. There was now a much better understanding of how prey defended themselves. Animals like zebras and caribou didn’t live in herds because they were sociable; herding was a defense against predation. Large numbers of animals provided increased vigilance. And attacking predators were often confused when the herd fled in all directions. Sometimes they literally stopped cold. Show a predator too many moving targets and it often chased none. +The same thing was true of flocking birds and schooling fish—those coordinated group movements made it harder for predators to pick out a single individual. Predators were drawn to attack an animal that was distinctive in some way. That was one reason why they attacked infants so often—not only because they were easier prey, but because they looked different. In the same way, predators killed more males than females because nondominant males tended to hang on the outskirts of the herd, where they were more noticeable. In fact, thirty years ago when Hans Kruuk studied hyenas in the Serengeti, he found that putting paint on an animal guaranteed it would be killed in the next attack. That was the power of difference. +So the message was simple. Stay together. Stay the same. +That was our best chance. +But I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. +The swarms disappeared for a while. They had gone around to the other side of the laboratory building. We waited tensely. Eventually they reappeared. They once again moved along the side of the building, trying openings one after another. +We all watched the monitor. David Brooks was sweating profusely. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “How long are they going to keep doing that?” +“As long as they fucking want,” Charley said. +Mae said, “At least until the wind kicks up again. And it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen soon.” +“Jesus,” David said. “I don’t know how you guys can stand it.” He was pale; sweat had dripped from his eyebrows onto his glasses. He looked like he was going to pass out. I said, “David. Do you want to sit down?” +“Maybe I better.” +“Okay.” +“Come on, David,” Rosie said. She took him across the room to the sink, and sat him on the floor. He hugged his knees, put his head down. She put cold water on a paper towel and placed it on the back of his neck. Her gestures were tender. +“That fucking guy,” Charley said, shaking his head. “That’s all we need right now.” +“Charley,” Mae said, “you’re not helping ...” +“So what? We’re trapped in this fucking shed, it’s not fucking airtight, there’s nothing we can do, no place we can go, and he’s fucking cracking up, makes everything worse.” +“Yes,” she said quietly, “that’s all true. And you’re not helping it.” +Charley gave her a look, and began to hum the theme from The Twilight Zone. “Charley,” I said. “Pay attention.” I was watching the swarms. Their behavior had subtly changed. They no longer stayed close to the building. Instead, they now moved in a zigzag pattern away from the wall into the desert, and then back again. They were all doing it, in a kind of fluid dance. +Mae saw it, too. “New behavior ...” +“Yes,” I said. “Their strategy isn’t working, so they’re trying something else.” +“Not going to do shit for them,” Charley said. “They can zigzag all they want, it won’t open any doors.” +Even so, I was fascinated to see this emergent behavior. The zigzags were becoming more exaggerated; the swarms were moving farther and farther away from the buildings. Their strategy was shifting progressively. It was evolving as we watched. “It’s really amazing,” I said. “Little fuckers,” Charley said. +One of the swarms was now quite close to the rabbit carcass. It approached within a few yards, and swirled away again, heading back to the main building. A thought occurred to me. “How well do the swarms see?” +The headset clicked. It was Ricky. “They see fabulously,” he said. “It’s what they were made to do, after all. Eyesight’s twenty-oh-five,” he said. “Fantastic resolution. Better than any human.” I said, “And how do they do the imaging?” Because they were just a series of individual particles. Like the rods and cones in the eye, central processing was required to form a picture from all the inputs. How was that processing accomplished? +Ricky coughed. “Uh ... not sure.” +Charley said, “It showed up in later generations.” +“You mean they evolved vision on their own?” +“Yeah.” +“And we don’t know how they do it ...” +“No. We just know they just do.” +We watched as the swarm angled away from the wall, moved back near the rabbit, then returned to the wall once more. The other swarms were farther down the building, doing the same thing. Swirling out into the desert, then swirling back again. Over the headset, Ricky said, “Why do you ask?” +“Because.” +“You think they’ll find the rabbit?” +“I’m not worried about the rabbit,” I said. “Anyway, it looks like they already missed it.” +“Then what?” +“Uh-oh,” Mae said. +“Shit,” Charley said, and he gave a long sigh. +We were looking at the nearest swarm, the one that had just bypassed the rabbit. That swarm had moved out into the desert again, perhaps ten yards away from the rabbit. But instead of turning back in its usual pattern, it had paused in the desert. It didn’t move, but the silvery column rose and fell. +“Why is it doing that?” I said. “That up and down thing?” +“Something to do with imaging? Focusing?” +“No,” I said. “I mean, why did it stop?” +“Program stall?” +I shook my head. “I doubt it.” +“Then what?” +“I think it sees something.” +“Like what?” Charley said. +I was afraid I knew the answer. The swarm represented an extremely high-resolution camera combined with a distributed intelligence network. And one thing distributed networks did particularly well was detect patterns. That was why distributed network programs were used to recognize faces for security systems, or to assemble the shattered fragments of archaeological pottery. The networks could find patterns in data better than the human eye. “What patterns?” Charley said, when I told him. “There’s nothing out there to detect except sand and cactus thorns.” +Mae said, “And footprints.” +“What? You mean our footprints? From us walking over here? Shit, Mae, the sand’s been blowing for the last fifteen minutes. There’s no footprints left to find.” We watched the swarm hang there, rising and falling like it was breathing. The cloud had turned mostly black now, with just an occasional glint of silver. It had remained at the same spot for ten or fifteen seconds, pulsing up and down. The other swarms were continuing in their zigzag course, but this one stayed where it was. +Charley bit his lip. “You really think it sees something?” +“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” +Suddenly, the swarm rose up, and began to move again. But it wasn’t coming toward us. Instead, it moved on a diagonal over the desert, heading back toward the door in the power building. When it came to the door, it stopped, and swirled in place. “What the hell?” Charley said. +I knew what it was. So did Mae. “It just tracked us,” she said. “Backward.” The swarm had followed the path we had originally taken from the door to the rabbit. The question was, what would it do next? +The next five minutes were tense. The swarm retraced its path, going back to the rabbit. It swirled around the rabbit for a while, moving in slow semicircles back and forth. Then once again it retraced the route back to the power station door. It stayed at the door for a while, then returned to the rabbit. +The swarm repeated this sequence three times. Meanwhile, the other swarms had continued their zigzagging around the building, and were now out of sight. The solitary swarm returned to the door, then headed back to the rabbit again. +“It’s stuck in a loop,” Charley said. “It just does the same thing over and over again.” +“Lucky for us,” I said. I was waiting to see if the swarm would modify its behavior. So far it hadn’t. And if it had very little memory, then it might be like an Alzheimer’s patient, unable to remember it had done all this before. +Now it was going around the rabbit, moving in semicircles. +“Definitely stuck in a loop,” Charley said. +I waited. +I hadn’t been able to review all the changes they’d made to PREDPREY, because the central module was missing. But the original program had a randomizing element built into it, to handle situations exactly like this. Whenever PREDPREY failed to attain its goal, and there were no specific environmental inputs to provoke new action, then its behavior was randomly modified. This was a well-known solution. For example, psychologists now believed a certain amount of random behavior was necessary for innovation. You couldn’t be creative without striking out in new directions, and those directions were likely to be random— +“Uh-oh,” Mae said. +The behavior had changed. +The swarm moved in larger circles, going around and around the rabbit. And almost immediately, it came across another path. It paused a moment, and then suddenly rose up, and began to move directly toward us. It was following exactly the same path we had taken, walking to the shed. +“Shit,” Charley said. “I think we’re fucked.” +Mae and Charley rushed across the room to look out the window. David and Rosie stood and peered out the window above the sink. And I started to shout: “No, no! Get away from the windows!” +“What?” +“It’s visual, remember? Get away from the windows!” +There was no good place to hide in the storage room, not really. Rosie and David crawled under the sink. Charley pushed in beside them, ignoring their protests. Mae slipped into the shadows of one corner of the room, easing herself into the space where two shelves didn’t quite meet. She could only be seen from the west window, and then not easily. The radio crackled. “Hey guys?” It was Ricky. “One’s heading for you. And uh ... No ... two others are joining it.” +“Ricky,” I said. “Go off air.” +“What?” +“No more radio contact.” +“Why?” +“Off, Ricky.” +I dropped down on my knees behind a cardboard carton of supplies in the main room. The carton wasn’t large enough to hide me entirely—my feet stuck out—but like Mae, I wasn’t easily seen. Someone outside would have to look at an angle through the north window to see me. In any case, it was the best I could do. +From my crouched position, I could just see the others huddled beneath the sink. I couldn’t see Mae at all, unless I really stuck my head around the corner of the carton. When I did, she looked quiet, composed. I ducked back and waited. +I heard nothing but the hum of the air conditioner. +Ten or fifteen seconds passed. I could see the sunlight streaming in through the north window above the sink. It made a white rectangle on the floor to my left. My headset crackled. “Why no contact?” +“Jesus fucking A,” Charley muttered. +I put my finger to my lips, and shook my head. +“Ricky,” I said, “don’t these things have auditory capacity?” +“Sure, maybe a little, but—” +“Be quiet and stay off.” +“But—” +I reached for the transmitter at my belt, and clicked it off. I signaled the others beneath the sink. They each turned their transmitters off. +Charley mouthed something to me. I thought he mouthed, “That fucking guy wants us killed.” +But I couldn’t be sure. +We waited. +It couldn’t have been more than two or three minutes, but it seemed forever. My knees began to hurt on the hard concrete floor. Trying to get more comfortable, I shifted my position cautiously; by now I was sure the first swarm was in our vicinity. It hadn’t appeared at the windows yet, and I wondered what was taking so long. Perhaps as it followed our path it had paused to inspect the cars. I wondered what swarm intelligence would make of an automobile. How puzzling it must look to that high-resolution eye. But maybe because the cars were inanimate, the swarm would ignore them as some sort of large, brightly colored boulders. But still ... What was taking so long? +My knees hurt more with every passing second. I changed my position, putting weight on my hands and raising my knees like a runner at the blocks. I had a moment of temporary relief. I was so focused on my pain that I didn’t notice at first that the glaring white rectangle on the floor was turning darker at the center, and spreading out to the sides. In a moment the entire rectangle turned dull gray. +The swarm was here. +I wasn’t certain, but I fancied that beneath the hum of the air conditioner was a deep thrumming sound. From my position behind the crate, I saw the window above the sink grow progressively darker from swirling black particles. It was as if there was a dust storm right outside. Inside the shed it was dark. Surprisingly dark. +Underneath the sink, David Brooks began to moan. Charley clapped his hand over his mouth. They looked upward, even though the sink blocked their view of the window above them. And then the swarm vanished from the window, as quickly as it had come. Sunlight poured in again. +Nobody moved. +We waited. +Moments later, the window in the west wall turned dark, in the same way. I wondered why the swarm didn’t enter. The window wasn’t airtight. The nanoparticles could slide through the cracks without difficulty. But they didn’t even seem to try. Perhaps this was an instance where network learning was on our side. Perhaps the swarms had been trained by their experience at the lab to think doors and windows were impermeable. Maybe that’s why they weren’t trying. +The thought gave me a hopeful feeling that helped counteract the pain in my knees. The west window was still dark, when the north window over the sink turned dark again. Now two swarms were looking in at the same time. Ricky had said there were three coming toward the building. He hadn’t mentioned the fourth. I wondered where the third swarm was. A moment later, I knew. +Like a silent black mist, nanoparticles began to come into the room underneath the west door. Soon more particles entered, all around the door frame. Inside the room, the particles appeared to spin and swirl aimlessly, but I knew they would self-organize in a few moments. Then at the north window, I saw more particles flooding through the cracks. Through the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling, still more particles rushed downward. There was no point in waiting any longer. I got to my feet and stepped from my hiding place. I shouted for everybody to come out of hiding. “Form up in two rows!” Charley grabbed the Windex spray bottle and fell into line, grumbling, “What do you think our fucking chances are?” +“The best they’ll ever get,” I said. “Reynolds rules! Form up and stay with me! Let’s go—now!” +If we weren’t so frightened, we might have felt ridiculous, shuffling back and forth across the room in a tight cluster, trying to coordinate our movements—trying to imitate a flock of birds. My heart was pounding in my chest. I heard a roaring sound in my ears. It was hard to focus on our steps. I knew we were awkward, but we got better quickly. When we came to a wall, we wheeled and headed back again, moving in unison. I started swinging my arms and clapping with each step. The others did the same. It helped our coordination. And we each fought our terror. As Mae said later, “It was step aerobics from hell.” And all the time, we watched the black nanoparticles as they came hissing into the room through cracks in doors and windows. It seemed to go on for a long time, but it was probably only thirty or forty seconds. Soon a kind of undifferentiated fog filled the room. I felt pinpricks all over my body, and I was sure the others felt it, too. David started moaning again, but Rosie was right beside him, encouraging him, urging him to keep it together. Suddenly, with shocking speed the fog cleared, the particles coalescing into two fully formed columns that now stood directly before us, rising and falling in dark ripples. Seen this close, the swarms exuded an unmistakable sense of menace, almost malevolence. Their deep thrumming sound was clearly audible, but intermittently I heard an angry hiss, like a snake. +But they did not attack us. Just as I had hoped, the programming deficits worked for us. Confronted by a cluster of coordinated prey, these predators were stymied. They did nothing at all. +At least for now. +Between claps, Charley said, “Do you believe—this fucking shit—it’s working!” I said, “Yes but maybe—not for long.” I was worried about how long David could control his anxiety. And I was worried about the swarms. I didn’t know how long they’d just stand there before they innovated new behavior. I said, “I suggest we—move toward that—back door behind us—and get the hell out.” +As we wheeled away from the wall, I angled slightly toward the rear room. Clapping and stepping in unison, our group moved away from the swarms, which thrummed deeply and followed. +“And if we get outside, then what?” David whined. He was having trouble staying in sync with the rest of us. In his panic, he kept stumbling. He was sweating and blinking rapidly. “We continue this way—flocking this way—back to the lab—and get inside—are you willing to try?” +“Oh jeez,” he moaned. “It’s so far ... I don’t know if ...” He stumbled again, nearly lost his balance. And he wasn’t clapping with the rest of us. I could almost feel his terror, his overwhelming urge to flee. +“David you stay with us—if you go on your own—you’ll never make it—are you listening?” David moaned, “I don’t know ... Jack ... I don’t know if I can ...” He stumbled again, bumped into Rosie, who fell against Charley, who caught her and pulled her back to her feet. But our flock was knocked into momentary disarray, our coordination gone. Immediately, the swarms turned dense black, coiled and tightened, as if ready to spring. I heard Charley whisper “Oh fuck,” under his breath, and indeed, for a moment I thought he was right, and that it was all over. +But then we regained our rhythm, and immediately the swarms rose up, returned to normal. Their dense blackness faded. They resumed their steady pulsing. They followed us into the next room. But still they did not attack. We were now about twenty feet from the back door, the same door we had come in. I started to feel optimistic. For the first time, I thought it was possible we really might make it. +And then, in an instant, everything went to hell. +* * * +David Brooks bolted. +We were well into the back room, and about to work our way around the freestanding shelves in the center of the room, when he ran straight between the swarms and past them, heading for the far door. +The swarms instantly spun and chased him. +Rosie was screaming for him to come back, but David was focused on the door. The swarms pursued him with surprising speed. David had almost reached the door—his hand was reaching for the doorknob—when one swarm sank low, and spread itself across the floor ahead of him, turning it black. +The moment David Brooks reached the black surface, his feet shot out from under him, as if he had stepped on ice. He howled in pain as he slammed onto the concrete, and immediately tried to scramble to his feet again, but he couldn’t get up; he kept slipping and falling, again and again. His eyeglasses shattered; the frames cut his nose. His lips were coated with swirling black residue. He started to have trouble breathing. +Rosie was still screaming as the second swarm descended on David, and the black spread across his face, onto his eyes, into his hair. His movements became increasingly frantic, he moaned pitifully like an animal, yet somehow, as he slid and tumbled on hands and knees, he managed to make his way toward the door. At last he lunged upward, grabbed the doorknob, and managed to pull himself to his knees. With a final desperate movement, he twisted the knob, and kicked the door open as he fell. +Hot sunlight flared into the shed—and the third swarm swirled in from outside. +Rosie cried, “We’ve got to do something!” I grabbed her arm as she ran past me toward David. She struggled in my grip. “We have to help him! We have to help him!” +“There’s nothing we can do.” +“We have to help him!” +“Rosie. There’s nothing we can do.” +David was now rolling on the ground, black from head to toe. The third swarm had enveloped him. It was difficult to see through the dancing particles. It looked as though David’s mouth was a dark hole, his eyeballs completely black. I thought he might be blind. His breath came in ragged gasps, with little choking sounds. The swarm was flowing into his mouth like a black river. +His body began to shudder. He clutched at his neck. His feet drummed on the floor. I was sure he was dying. +“Come on, Jack,” Charley said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” +“You can’t leave him!” Rosie shouted. “You can’t, you can’t!” David was sliding out the door, into the sunlight. His movements were less vigorous now; his mouth was moving, but we heard only gasps. +Rosie struggled to get free. +Charley grabbed her shoulder and said, “God damn it, Rosie—” +“Fuck you!” She wrenched free from his grip, she stamped on my foot and in my moment of surprise I let go, and she sprinted across the shed into the next room, shouting “David! David!” His hand, black as a miner’s, stretched toward her. She grabbed his wrist. And in the same moment she fell, slipping on the black floor just as he had done. She kept saying his name, until she began to cough, and a black rim appeared on her lips. +Charley said, “Let’s go, for Christ’s sake. I can’t watch.” +I felt unable to move my feet, unable to leave. I turned to Mae. Tears were running down her cheeks. She said: “Go.” +Rosie was still calling out David’s name as she hugged him, pulled his body to her chest. But he didn’t seem to be moving on his own anymore. +Charley leaned close to me and said, “It’s not your fucking fault.” +I nodded slowly. I knew what he was saying was true. +“Hell, this is your first day on the job.” Charley reached down to my belt, flicked my headset on. “Let’s go.” +I turned toward the door behind me. +And we went outside. +Chapter 17 +DAY 6 4:12 P.M. +Beneath the corrugated roof, the air was hot and still. The line of cars stretched away from us. I heard the whirr of a video camera motor up by the roof. Ricky must have seen us coming out on the monitors. Static hissed in my headset. Ricky said, “What the hell’s going on?” +“Nothing good,” I said. Beyond the line of shade, the afternoon sun was still bright. +“Where are the others?” Ricky said. “Is everybody okay?” +“No. Everybody is not.” +“Well tell me—” +“Not now.” In retrospect, we were all numb from what had happened. We didn’t have any reaction except to try and get to safety. +The lab building stood across the desert a hundred yards to our right. We could reach the power station door in thirty or forty seconds. We set off toward it at a brisk jog. Ricky was still talking, but we didn’t answer him. We were all thinking about the same thing: in another half a minute we would reach the door, and safety. +But we had forgotten the fourth swarm. +“Oh fuck,” Charley said. +The fourth swarm swirled out from the side of the lab building, and started straight toward us. We stopped, confused. “What do we do?” Mae said, “Flock?” +“No.” I shook my head. “There’s only three of us.” We were too small a group to confuse a predator. But I couldn’t think of any other strategy to try. All the predator-prey studies I had ever read began to play back in my head. Those studies agreed on one thing. Whether you modeled warrior ants or Serengeti lions, the studies confirmed one major dynamic: left to their own devices, predators would kill all the prey until none remained—unless there was a prey refuge. In real life the prey refuge might be a nest in a tree, or an underground den, or a deep pool in a river. If the prey had a refuge, they’d survive. Without a refuge, the predators would kill them all. +“I think we’re fucked,” Charley said. +We needed a refuge. The swarm was bearing down on us. I could almost feel the pinpricks on my skin, and taste the dry ashen taste in my mouth. We had to find some kind of shelter before the swarm reached us. I turned full circle, looking in all directions, but there was nothing I could see, except— +“Are the cars locked?” +My headset crackled. “No, they shouldn’t be.” +We turned and ran. +The nearest car was a blue Ford sedan. I opened the driver’s door, and Mae opened the passenger side. The swarm was right behind us. I could hear the thrumming sound as I slammed the door shut, as Mae slammed hers. Charley, still holding the Windex spray, was trying to open the rear passenger door, but it was locked. Mae twisted in the seat to unlock the door, but Charley had already turned to the next car, a Land Cruiser, and climbed inside. And slammed the door. +“Yow!” he said. “Fucking hot!” +“I know,” I said. The inside of the car was like an oven. Mae and I were both sweating. The swarm rushed toward us, and swirled over the front windshield, pulsating, shifting back and forth. +Over the headset, a panicked Ricky said, “Guys? Where are you? Guys?” +“We’re in the cars.” +“Which cars?” +“What fucking difference does it make?” Charley said. “We’re in two of the fucking cars, Ricky.” +The black swarm moved away from our sedan over to the Toyota. We watched as it slid from one window to another, trying to get in. Charley grinned at me through the glass. “It’s not like the shed. These cars are airtight. So ... fuck ’em.” +“What about the air vents?” I said. +“I shut mine.” +“But they aren’t airtight, are they?” +“No,” he said. “But you’d have to go under the hood to begin to get in. Or maybe through the trunk. And I’m betting this overbred buzzball can’t figure that out.” Inside our car, Mae was snapping closed the dashboard air ducts one after another. She opened the glove compartment, glanced inside, shut it again. I said, “You find any keys?” +She shook her head, no. +Over the headset, Ricky said, “Guys? You got more company.” +I turned to see two additional swarms coming around the shed. They immediately swirled over our car, front and back. I felt like we were in a dust storm. I looked at Mae. She was sitting very still, stony-faced, just watching. +The two new clouds finished circling the car, then came to the front. One was positioned just outside Mae’s passenger door window. It pulsed, glinting silver. The other was on the hood of the car, moving back and forth from Mae to me. From time to time, it would rush the windshield, and disperse itself over the glass. Then it would coalesce again, back away down the hood, and rush again. +Charley cackled gleefully. “Trying to get in. I told you: they can’t do it.” I wasn’t so sure. I noticed that with each charge, the swarm would move farther back down the hood, taking a longer run. Soon it would back itself up to the front grill. And if it started inspecting the grill, it could find the opening to the air vents. And then it would be over. Mae was rummaging in the utility compartment between the seats. She came up with a roll of tape and a box of plastic sandwich baggies. She said, “Maybe we can tape the vents ...” I shook my head. “There’s no point,” I said. “They’re nanoparticles. They’re small enough to pass right through a membrane.” +“You mean they’d come through the plastic?” +“Or around, through small cracks. You can’t seal it well enough to keep them out.” +“Then we just sit here?” +“Basically, yes.” +“And hope they don’t figure it out.” +I nodded. “That’s right.” +Over the headset, Bobby Lembeck said, “Wind’s starting to pick up again. Six knots.” It sounded like he was trying to be encouraging, but six knots wasn’t anywhere near enough force. The swarms outside the windshield moved effortlessly around the car. Charley said, “Jack? I just lost my buzzball. Where is it?” +I looked over at Charley’s car, and saw that the third swarm had slid down to the front tire well, where it was swirling in circles and moving in and out through the holes in the hubcap. “Checking your hubcaps, Charley,” I said. +“Umm.” He sounded unhappy, and with good reason. If the swarm started exploring the car thoroughly, it might stumble on a way in. He said, “I guess the question is, how big is their SO component, really?” +“That’s right,” I said. +Mae said, “In English?” +I explained. The swarms had no leader, and no central intelligence. Their intelligence was the sum of the individual particles. Those particles self-organized into a swarm, and their self-organizing tendency had unpredictable results. You really didn’t know what they would do. The swarms might continue to be ineffective, as they were now. They might come upon the solution by chance. Or they might start searching in an organized way. But they hadn’t done that so far. +My clothes were heavy, soaked in sweat. Sweat was dripping from my nose and chin. I wiped my forehead with the back of my arm. I looked at Mae. She was sweating, too. Ricky said, “Hey, Jack?” +“What.” +“Julia called a while ago. She’s checked out of the hospital and—” +“Not now, Ricky.” +“She’s coming out here tonight.” +“We’ll talk later, Ricky.” +“I just thought you’d want to know.” +“Jesus,” Charley said, exploding. “Someone tell this asshole to shut up. We’re busy!” +Bobby Lembeck said, “Eight knots of wind now. No, sorry ... seven.” +Charley said, “Jesus, the suspense is killing me. Where’s my swarm now, Jack?” +“Under the car. I can’t see what it’s doing ... No, wait ... It’s coming up behind you, Charley. Looks like it’s checking out your taillights.” +“Some kind of car freak,” he said. “Well, it can check away.” +I was looking over my shoulder at Charley’s swarm when Mae said, “Jack. Look.” The swarm outside her window on the passenger side had changed. It was almost entirely silver now, shimmering but pretty stable, and on this silver surface I saw Mae’s head and shoulders reflected back. The reflection wasn’t perfect, because her eyes and mouth were slightly blurred, but basically it was accurate. +I frowned. “It’s a mirror ...” +“No,” she said. “It’s not.” She turned away from the window to look at me. Her image on the silver surface did not change. The face continued to stare into the car. Then, after a moment or two, the image shivered, dissolved and re-formed to show the back of her head. “What does that mean?” Mae said. +“I’ve got a pretty good idea, but—” +The swarm on the front hood was doing the same thing, except that its silver surface showed the two of us sitting side by side in the car, looking very frightened. Again, the image was somewhat blurred. And now it was clear to me that the swarm was not a literal mirror. The swarm itself was generating the image by the precise positioning of individual particles, which meant— +“Bad news,” Charley said. +“I know,” I said. “They’re innovating.” +“What do you figure, is it one of the presets?” +“Basically, yes. I assume it’s imitation.” +Mae shook her head, not understanding. +“The program presets certain strategies to help attain goals. The strategies model what real predators do. So one preset strategy is to freeze where you are and wait, to ambush. Another is to random-walk until you stumble on your prey, and then pursue. A third is to camouflage yourself by taking on some element of the environment, so you blend in. And a fourth is to mimic the prey’s behavior—to imitate it.” +She said, “You think this is imitation?” +“I think this is a form of imitation, yes.” +“It’s trying to make itself appear like us?” +“Yes.” +“This is emergent behavior? It’s evolved on its own?” +“Yes,” I said. +“Bad news,” Charley said mournfully. “Bad, bad news.” +Sitting in the car, I started to get angry. Because what the mirror imaging meant to me was that I didn’t know the real structure of the nanoparticles. I’d been told there was a piezo wafer that would reflect light. So it wasn’t surprising that the swarm occasionally flashed silver in the sun. That didn’t call for sophisticated orientation of the particles. In fact, you would expect that sort of silvery ripple as a random effect, just the way heavily trafficked highways will clog up and then flow freely again. The congestion was caused by random speed changes from one or two motorists, but the effect rippled down the entire highway. The same would be true of the swarms. A chance effect would pass like a wave down the swarm. And that’s what we had seen. +But this mirroring behavior was something entirely different. The swarms were now producing images in color, and holding them fairly stable. Such complexity wasn’t possible from the simple nanoparticle I’d been shown. I doubted you could generate a full spectrum from a silver layer. It was theoretically possible that the silver could be precisely tilted to produce prismatic colors, but that implied enormous sophistication of movement. +It was more logical to imagine that the particles had another method to create colors. And that meant I hadn’t been told the truth about the particles, either. Ricky had lied to me yet again. So I was angry. +I had already concluded something was wrong with Ricky, and in retrospect, the problem lay with me, not him. Even after the debacle in the storage shed, I still failed to grasp that the swarms were evolving faster than our ability to keep pace with them. I should have realized what I was up against when the swarms demonstrated a new strategy—making the floor slippery to disable their prey, and to move them. Among ants, that would be called collective transport; the phenomenon was well known. But for these swarms, it was unprecedented, newly evolved behavior. Yet at the time I was too horrified to recognize its true significance. Now, sitting in the hot car, it wasn’t useful to blame Ricky, but I was scared, and tired, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. +“Jack.” Mae nudged my shoulder, and pointed to Charley’s car. +Her face was grim. +The swarm by the taillight of Charley’s car was now a black stream that curved high in the air, and then disappeared in the seam where the red plastic joined the metal. Over the headset I said, “Hey, Charley ... I think it’s found a way.” +“Yeah, I see it. Fuck a duck.” +Charley was scrambling into the backseat. Already particles were beginning to fill the inside of the car, making a gray fog that rapidly darkened. Charley coughed. I couldn’t see what he was doing, he was down below the window. He coughed again. +“Charley?” +He didn’t answer. But I heard him swearing. +“Charley, you better get out.” +“Fuck these guys.” +And then there was an odd sound, which at first I couldn’t place. I turned to Mae, who was pressing her headset to her ear. It was a strange, rhythmic rasping. She looked at me questioningly. +“Charley?” +“I’m—spray these little bastards. Let’s see how they do when they’re wet.” +Mae said, “You’re spraying the isotope?” +He didn’t answer. But a moment later he appeared in the window again, spraying in all directions with the Windex bottle. Liquid streaked across the glass, and dripped down. The interior of the car was growing darker as more and more particles entered. Soon we couldn’t see him at all. His hand emerged from the black, pressed against the glass, then disappeared again. He was coughing continuously. A dry cough. +“Charley,” I said, “run for it.” +“Ah fuck. What’s the point?” +Bobby Lembeck said, “Wind’s ten knots. Go for it.” +Ten knots wasn’t enough but it was better than nothing. +“Charley? You hear?” +We heard his voice from the black interior. “Yeah, okay ... I’m looking—can’t find—fucking door handle, can’t feel ... Where’s the goddamn door handle on this—” He broke into a spasm of coughing. +Over the headset, I heard voices inside the lab, all speaking rapidly. Ricky said, “He’s in the Toyota. Where’s the handle in the Toyota?” +Bobby Lembeck: “I don’t know, it’s not my car.” +“Whose car is it? Vince?” +Vince: “No, no. It’s that guy with the bad eyes.” +“Who?” +“The engineer. The guy who blinks all the time.” +“David Brooks?” +“Yeah. Him.” +Ricky said, “Guys? We think it’s David’s car.” +I said, “That’s not going to do us any—” +And then I broke off, because Mae was pointing behind her to the backseat of our car. From the seam where the seat cushion met the back, particles were hissing into the car like black smoke. +I looked closer, and saw a blanket on the floor of the backseat. Mae saw it, too, and threw herself bodily into the back, diving between the seats. She kicked me in the head as she went, but she had the blanket and began stuffing it into the crack. My headset came off, and caught on the steering wheel as I tried to climb back to help her. It was cramped in the car. I heard a tinny voice from the earpieces. +“Come on,” Mae said. “Come on.” +I was bigger than she was; there wasn’t room for me back there; my body jackknifed over the driver’s seat as I grabbed the blanket and helped her stuff it. I was vaguely aware that the passenger door banged open on the Toyota, and I saw Charley’s foot emerge from the black. He was going to try his luck outside. Maybe we should, too, I thought, as I helped her with the blanket. The blanket wouldn’t do any good, it was just a delaying tactic. Already I sensed the particles were sifting right through the cloth; the car was continuing to fill. The air was getting darker and darker. I felt the pinpricks all over my skin. “Mae, let’s run.” +She didn’t answer, she just kept pushing the blanket harder into the cracks. Probably she knew we’d never make it if we went outside. The swarms would run us down, get in our path, make us slip and fall. And once we fell, they would suffocate us. Just as they did to the others. The air was thicker. I started to cough. In the semidarkness I kept hearing a tinny voice from the headsets. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Mae’s headset had fallen off, too, and I thought I had seen it on the front seat, but now it was becoming too dark to see. My eyes burned. I coughed continuously. Mae was coughing, too. I didn’t know if she was still stuffing the blanket. She was just a shadow in the fog. +I squeezed my eyes against the sharp pain. My throat was tightening, and my cough was dry. I felt dizzy again. I knew we couldn’t survive more than a minute or so, perhaps less. I looked back at Mae, but couldn’t see her. I heard her coughing. I waved my hand, trying to clear the fog so I could see her. It didn’t work. I waved my hand in front of the windshield, and it cleared momentarily. +Despite my fit of coughing, I saw the lab in the distance. The sun was shining. Everything looked normal. It was infuriating that it should appear so normal and peaceful while we coughed ourselves to death. I couldn’t see what happened to Charley. He wasn’t in front of me anywhere. In fact—I waved my hand again—all I saw was— +Blowing sand. +Jesus, blowing sand. +The wind was back up. +“Mae.” I coughed. “Mae. The door.” +I don’t know if she heard me. She was coughing hard. I reached for the driver’s side door, fumbling for the handle. I felt confused and disoriented. I was coughing continuously. I touched hot metal, jerked it down. +The door swung open beside me. Hot desert air rushed in, swirling the fog. The wind had definitely come up. “Mae.” +She was racked with coughing. Perhaps she couldn’t move. I lunged for the passenger door opposite me. My ribs banged on the gearshift. The fog was thinner now, and I saw the handle, twisted it, and shoved the door open. It banged shut in the wind. I pushed forward, twisted, shoved it open again, holding it open with my hand. +Wind blew through the car. +The black cloud vanished in a few seconds. The backseat was still dark. I crawled forward, out the passenger door, and opened the back door. She reached to me, and I hauled her out. We were both coughing hard. Her legs buckled. I threw her arm over my shoulder and half carried her out into the open desert. +Even now, I don’t know how I made it back to the laboratory building. The swarms had vanished; the wind was blowing hard. Mae was a dead weight on my shoulders, her body limp, her feet dragging over the sand. I had no energy. I was racked with spasms of coughing, which often forced me to stop. I couldn’t get my breath. I was dizzy, disoriented. The glare of the sun had a greenish tinge and I saw spots before my eyes. Mae was coughing weakly; her breaths shallow. I had the feeling she wouldn’t survive. I trudged on, putting one foot ahead of the other. Somehow the door loomed in front of me, and I got it open. I brought Mae into the black outer room. On the other side of the glass airlock, Ricky and Bobby Lembeck were waiting. They were cheering us on, but I couldn’t hear them. My headset was back in the car. The airlock doors hissed open, and I got Mae inside. She managed to stand, though she was doubled over coughing. I stepped away. The wind began to blow her clean. I leaned against the wall, out of breath, dizzy. +I thought, Haven’t I done this before? +I looked at my watch. It was just three hours since I had narrowly escaped the last attack. I bent over and put my hands on my knees. I stared at the floor and waited for the airlock to become free. I glanced over at Ricky and Bobby. They were yelling, pointing to their ears. I shook my head. +Couldn’t they see I didn’t have a headset? +I said, “Where’s Charley?” +They answered, but I couldn’t hear them. +“Did he make it? Where’s Charley?” +I winced at a harsh electronic squeal, and then over the intercom Ricky said, “—not much you can do.” +“Is he here?” I said. “Did he make it?” +“No.” +“Where is he?” +“Back at the car,” Ricky said. “He never got out of the car. Didn’t you know?” +“I was busy,” I said. “So he’s back there?” +“Yeah.” +“Is he dead?” +“No, no. He’s alive.” +I was still breathing hard, still dizzy. “What?” +“It’s hard to tell on the video monitor, but it looks like he is alive ...” +“Then why the fuck don’t you guys go get him?” +Ricky’s voice was calm. “We can’t, Jack. We have to take care of Mae.” +“Someone here could go.” +“We don’t have anyone to spare.” +“I can’t go,” I said. “I’m in no shape to go.” +“Of course not,” Ricky said, turning on his soothing voice. The undertaker’s voice. “All this must be a terrible shock to you, Jack, all you’ve gone through—” +“Just ... tell me ... who’s going to get him, Ricky?” +“To be brutally honest,” Ricky said, “I don’t think there’s any point. He had a convulsion. A bad one. I don’t think he has much left.” +I said, “Nobody’s going?” +“I’m afraid there’s no point, Jack.” +Inside the airlock, Bobby was helping Mae out and leading her down the corridor. Ricky was standing there. Watching me through the glass. +“Your turn, Jack. Come on in.” +I didn’t move. I stayed leaning against the wall. I said, “Somebody has to go get him.” +“Not right now. The wind isn’t stable, Jack. It’ll fall again any minute.” +“But he’s alive.” +“Not for long.” +“Somebody has to go,” I said. +“Jack, you know as well as I do what we’re up against,” Ricky said. He was doing the voice of reason now, calm and logical. “We’ve had terrible losses. We can’t risk anybody else. By the time somebody gets to Charley, he’ll be dead. He may be dead already. Come on and get in the airlock.” +I was taking stock of my body, feeling my breathing, my chest, my deep fatigue. I couldn’t go back out right now. Not in the condition I was in. +So I got into the airlock. +* * * +With a roar, the blowers flattened my hair, fluttered my clothes, and cleaned the black particles from my clothes and skin. My vision improved almost immediately. I breathed easier. Now they were blowing upward. I held out my hand and saw it turn from black to pale gray, then to normal flesh color again. +Now the blowers came from the sides. I took a deep breath. The pinpricks were no longer so painful on my skin. Either I was feeling them less, or they were being blown off my skin. My head cleared a little. I took another breath. I didn’t feel good. But I felt better. The glass doors opened. Ricky held out his arms. “Jack. Thank God you’re safe.” +I didn’t answer him. I just turned around, and went back the way I had come. +“Jack ...” +The glass doors whished shut, and locked with a thunk. “I’m not leaving him out there,” I said. +“What’re you going to do? You can’t carry him, he’s too big. What’re you going to do?” +“I don’t know. But I’m not leaving him behind, Ricky.” +And I went back outside. +Of course I was doing exactly what Ricky wanted—exactly what he expected me to do—but I didn’t realize it at the time. And even if somebody had told me, I wouldn’t have credited Ricky with that degree of psychological sophistication. Ricky was pretty obvious in the way he managed people. But this time, he got me. +Chapter 18 +DAY 6 4:22 P.M. +The wind was blowing briskly. There was no sign of the swarms, and I crossed to the shed without incident. I didn’t have a headset so I was spared Ricky’s commentary. The back passenger door of the Toyota was open. I found Charley lying on his back, motionless. It took me a moment to see he was still breathing, although shallowly. With an effort, I managed to pull him into a sitting position. He stared at me with dull eyes. His lips were blue and his skin was chalky gray. A tear ran down his cheek. His mouth moved. “Don’t try to talk,” I said. “Save your energy.” Grunting, I pulled him over to the edge of the seat, by the door, and swung his legs around so he was facing out. Charley was a big guy, six feet tall and at least twenty pounds heavier than I was. I knew I couldn’t carry him back. But behind the backseat of the Toyota I saw the fat tires of a dirt bike. That might work. “Charley, can you hear me?” +An almost imperceptible nod. +“Can you stand up?” +Nothing. No reaction. He wasn’t looking at me; he was staring into space. +“Charley,” I said, “do you think you can stand?” +He nodded again, then straightened his body so he slid off the seat, and landed on the ground. He stood shakily for a moment, his legs trembling, and then he collapsed against me, clutching me to hold himself up. I sagged under his weight. +“Okay, Charley ...” I eased him back to the car, and sat him down on the running board. “Just stay there, okay?” +I let go of him, and he remained sitting. He still stared into space, unfocused. +“I’ll be right back.” +I went around to the back of the Land Cruiser, and popped the trunk. There was a dirt bike, all right—the cleanest dirt bike I had ever seen. It was encased in a heavy Mylar bag. And it had been wiped down after it was used. That would be David’s way, I thought. He was always so clean, so organized. +I pulled the bike out of the car and set it on the ground. There was no key in the ignition. I went to the front of the Toyota, and opened the passenger door. The front seats were spotless and carefully ordered. David had one of those suction cup notepads on the dashboard, a cradle for his cell phone, and a telephone headset mounted on a little hook. I opened his glove box and saw that the interior was neatly arranged, too. Registration papers in an envelope, beneath a small plastic tray divided into compartments containing lip balm, Kleenex, Band-Aids. No keys. Then I noticed that between the seats there was a storage box for the CD player, and beneath it was a locked tray. It had the same kind of lock as the ignition. It probably opened with the ignition key. +I banged the tray with the heel of my hand, and heard something metallic rattle inside. It might have been a small key. Like a dirt bike key. Anyway, something metal. Where were David’s keys? I wondered if Vince had taken David’s keys away on arrival, as he had taken mine. If so, then the keys were in the lab. That wouldn’t do me any good. I looked toward the lab building, wondering if I should go back to get them. That was when I noticed that the wind was blowing less strongly. There was still a layer of sand blowing along the ground, but it was less vigorous. +Great, I thought. That’s all I need now. +Feeling new urgency, I decided to give up on the dirt bike and its missing key. Perhaps there was something in the storage shed that I could use to move Charley back to the lab. I didn’t remember anything, but I went into the shed to check, anyway. I entered cautiously, hearing a banging sound. It turned out to be the far door, banging open and shut in the wind. Rosie’s body lay just inside the door, alternately light and dark as the door banged. She had the same milky coating on her skin that the rabbit had had. But I didn’t go over to look closely. I hastily searched the shelves, opened the utility closet, looked behind stacked boxes. I found a furniture dolly made of wooden slats with small rollers. But it would be useless in sand. I went back outside under the corrugated shed, and hurried to the Toyota. There was nothing to do but try to carry Charley across to the lab building. I might be able to manage it if he could support part of his own weight. Maybe by now he was feeling better, I thought. Maybe he was stronger. +But one look at his face told me he wasn’t. If anything, he appeared weaker. +“Shit, Charley, what am I going to do with you?” +He didn’t answer. +“I can’t carry you. And David didn’t leave any keys in his car, so we’re out of luck—” I stopped. +What if David were locked out of his car? He was an engineer, he thought of contingencies like that. Even if it was unlikely to happen, David would never be caught unprepared. He’d never be flagging down cars asking if they had a wire hanger he could borrow. No, no. David would have hidden a key. Probably in one of those magnetic key boxes. I started to lie down on my back to look underneath the car when it occurred to me that David would never get his clothes dirty just to retrieve a key. He’d hide it cleverly, but within easy reach. With that in mind, I ran my fingers along the inside of the front bumpers. Nothing. I went to the back bumper, did the same. Nothing. I felt under the running boards on both sides of the car. Nothing. No magnetic box, no key. I couldn’t believe it, so I got down and looked under the car, to see if there was a brace or a strut I had somehow missed with my fingers. No, there wasn’t. I felt no key. +I shook my head, puzzled. The hiding place needed to be steel for the magnetic box. And it needed to be protected from the elements. That was why almost everybody hid their keys inside the car bumpers. +David hadn’t done that. +Where else could you hide a key? +I walked around the car again, looking at the smooth lines of the metal. I ran my fingers around the front grill opening, and under the back license plate indentation. No key. +I started to sweat. It wasn’t only the tension: by now I could definitely feel the drop in the wind. I went back to Charley, who was still sitting on the sideboard. +“How you doing, Charley?” +He didn’t answer, just gave a little shrug. I took his headset off, and put it on. I heard static, and voices talking softly. It sounded like Ricky and Bobby, and it sounded like an argument. I pulled the mouthpiece near my lips and said, “Guys? Speak to me.” +A pause. Bobby, surprised: “Jack?” +“That’s right ...” +“Jack, you can’t stay there. The wind’s been falling steadily for the last few minutes. It’s only ten knots now.” +“Okay ...” +“Jack, you’ve got to come back in.” +“I can’t just yet.” +“Below seven knots, the swarms can move.” +“Okay ...” +Ricky: “What do you mean, okay? Jesus, Jack, are you coming in or not?” +“I can’t carry Charley.” +“You knew that when you went out.” +“Uh-huh.” +“Jack. What the hell are you doing?” +I heard the whirr of the video monitor in the corner of the shed. I looked over the roof of the car and saw the lens rotate as they zoomed in on me. The Toyota was such a big car, it almost blocked my view of the camera. And the ski rack on top made it even higher. I vaguely wondered why David had a ski rack, because he didn’t ski; he always hated cold. The rack must have come with the car as standard equipment and— +I swore. It was so obvious. +There was only one place I hadn’t checked. I jumped up on the running board and looked at the roof of the car. I ran my fingers over the ski rack, and along the parallel tracks bolted to the roof. My fingers touched black tape against the black rack. I pulled the tape away, and saw a silver key. +“Jack? Nine knots.” +“Okay.” +I dropped back down to the ground, and climbed in the driver’s seat. I put the key in the lock box and twisted it. The box opened. Inside I found a small yellow key. “Jack? What’re you doing?” +I hurried around to the back of the car. I fitted the yellow key in the ignition. I straddled the bike and started it up. The motor rumbled loudly under the corrugated shed. +“Jack?” +I walked the bike around the side of the car to where Charley was sitting. That was going to be the tricky part. The bike didn’t have a kickstand; I moved as close to Charley as I could and then tried to support him enough that he could climb onto the backseat while I still sat on the bike and kept it upright. Fortunately, he seemed to understand what I was doing; I got him in place and told him to hold on to me. +Bobby Lembeck: “Jack? They’re here.” +“Where?” +“South side. Coming toward you.” +“Okay.” +I gunned the motor, and pulled the passenger door shut. And I stayed exactly where I was. +“Jack?” +Ricky: “What’s the matter with him? He knows what the danger is.” +Bobby: “I know.” +“He’s just sitting there.” +Charley had his hands around my waist. His head was on my shoulder. I could hear his raspy breathing. I said, “Hold tight, Charley.” He nodded. +Ricky: “Jack? What’re you doing?” +Then at my ear, in a voice just above a whisper, Charley said, “Fucking idiot.” +“Yes.” I nodded. I waited. I could see the swarms now, coming around the building. This time there were nine swarms, and they headed straight for me in a V formation. Their own flocking behavior. +Nine swarms, I thought. Soon there would be thirty swarms, and then two hundred ... +Bobby: “Jack, do you see them?” +“I see them.” Of course I saw them. +And of course they were different from before. They were denser now, the columns thicker and more substantial. Those swarms didn’t weigh three pounds anymore. I sensed they were closer to ten or twenty pounds. Maybe even more than that. Maybe thirty pounds. They would have real weight now, and real substance. +I waited. I stayed where I was. Some detached part of my brain was wondering what the formation would do when it reached me. Would they circle me? Would some of the swarms hang back and wait? What did they make of the noisy bike? +Nothing—they came right for me, flattening the V into a line, then into a kind of inverted V. I could hear the deep vibrating hum. With so many swarms it was much louder. The swirling columns were twenty yards away from me, then ten. Were they able to move faster now, or was it my imagination? I waited until they were almost upon me before I twisted the throttle and raced forward. I passed straight through the lead swarm, into the blackness and out again, and then I was gunning for the power station door, bouncing over the desert, not daring to look back over my shoulder. It was a wild ride, and it only lasted a few seconds. As we reached the power station, I dropped the bike, put my shoulder under Charley’s arm, and staggered the final step or two to the door. +The swarms were still fifty yards away from the door when I managed to turn the knob, pull, get one foot in the crack, and kick the door open the rest of the way. When I did that I lost my balance, and Charley and I more or less fell through the door onto the concrete. The door came swinging shut, and whanged into our legs, which hung outside. I felt a sharp pain in my ankles—but worse, the door was still open, kept ajar by our legs. Through the opening I could see the swarms approaching. +I scrambled to my feet and dragged Charley’s inert body into the room. The door shut, but I knew it was a fire door, and it wasn’t airtight. Nanoparticles could come right in. I had to get both of us into the airlock. We wouldn’t be safe until the first set of glass doors had hissed shut. Grunting and sweating, I hauled Charley into the airlock. I got him into a sitting position, propped up against the side blowers. That cleared his feet of the glass doors. And because only one person could be in the airlock at a time, I stepped back outside. And I waited for the doors to close. +But they didn’t close. +I looked on the side wall for some sort of button, but I didn’t see anything. The lights were on inside the airlock, so it was getting power. But the doors didn’t close. And I knew the swarms were fast approaching. +Bobby Lembeck and Mae came running into the far room. I saw them through the second set of glass doors. They were waving their arms, making big gestures, apparently indicating for me to come back into the airlock. But that didn’t make sense. Into my headset, I said, “I thought you had to go one at a time.” +They didn’t have headsets, and couldn’t hear me. They were waving frantically, come in, come in. +I held up two fingers questioningly. +They shook their heads. They seemed to be indicating I was missing the point. At my feet, I saw the nanoparticles begin to come into the room like black steam. They were coming through the edges of the fire door. I had only five or ten seconds now. I stepped back in the airlock. Bobby and Mae were nodding, approving. But the doors did not close. Now they were making other gestures, lifting. +“You want me to lift Charley?” +They did. I shook my head. Charley was slumped there in a sitting position, a dead weight on the ground. I looked back at the anteroom, and saw it was filling with black particles, starting to form a grayish mist in the air. The grayish mist was coming into the airlock as well. I felt the first tiny pinpricks on my skin. +I looked at Bobby and Mae, on the other side of the glass. They could see what was happening; they knew only seconds remained. They were again making gestures: lift Charley up. I bent over him, got my hands under his armpits. I tried to haul him to his feet, but he didn’t budge. +“Charley, for God’s sake, help.” Groaning, I tried again. Charley kicked his legs and pushed with his arms and I got him a couple of feet off the ground. Then he slid back down. “Charley, come on, once more ...” I pulled up as hard as I could, and this time he helped a lot and we got his legs back under him and with a final heave, got him standing. I kept my hands under his armpits; we were in a kind of crazy lovers’ clench. Charley was wheezing. I looked back to the glass doors. +The doors didn’t close. +The air was getting blacker all the time. I looked to Mae and Bobby, and they were frantic, holding up two fingers, shaking them at me. I didn’t get it. “Yes, there’s two of us ...” What was wrong with the damned doors? Finally Mae bent over, and very deliberately pointed with one finger of each hand to her two shoes. I saw her mouth, “Two shoes.” And point to Charley. “Yeah, so, we have two shoes. He’s standing on two shoes.” +Mae shook her head. +She held up four fingers. +“Four shoes?” +The pinpricks were irritating, making it difficult to think. I felt the old confusion begin to seep over me. My brain felt sluggish. What did she mean, four shoes? It was beginning to get dark in the airlock. It was becoming harder to see Mae and Bobby. They were pantomiming something else, but I didn’t get it. They began to feel distant to me, distant and trivial. I was without energy, and without care. Two shoes, four shoes. +And then I got it. I turned my back to Charley, leaned against him, and said, “Put your hands around my neck.” He did, and I grabbed his legs and lifted his feet off the floor. Instantly, the door hissed shut. +That was it, I thought. +The blowers began to blast down on us. The air rapidly cleared. I strained to hold Charley up and I managed until I saw the second set of doors unlock and slide open. Mae and Bobby hurried into the airlock. +And I just fell down. Charley landed on top of me. I think it was Bobby who dragged him off me. I’m not sure. From that point on, I don’t remember much at all. + +NEST +Chapter 19 +DAY 6 6:18 P.M. +I woke up in my bed in the residential module. The air handlers were roaring so loudly the room sounded like an airport. Bleary-eyed, I staggered over to the door. The door was locked. I pounded on it for a while but nobody answered, even when I yelled. I went to the little workstation on the desk and clicked it on. A menu came up and I searched for some kind of intercom. I didn’t see anything like that, although I poked around the interface for a while. I must have set something off, because a window opened and Ricky appeared, smiling at me. He said, “So, you’re awake. How do you feel?” +“Unlock the goddamn door.” +“Is your door locked?” +“Unlock it, damn it.” +“It was only for your own protection.” +“Ricky,” I said, “open the damn door.” +“I already did. It’s open, Jack.” +I walked to the door. He was right, it opened immediately. I looked at the latch. There was an extra bolt, some kind of remote locking mechanism. I’d have to remember to tape over that. On the monitor, Ricky said, “You might want to take a shower.” +“Yeah, I would. Why is the air so loud?” +“We turned on full venting in your room,” Ricky said. “In case there were any extra particles.” +I rummaged in my bag for clothes. “Where’s the shower?” +“Do you want some help?” +“No, I do not want some help. Just tell me where the goddamn shower is.” +“You sound angry.” +“Fuck you, Ricky.” +The shower helped. I stood under it for about twenty minutes, letting the steaming hot water run over my aching body. I seemed to have a lot of bruises—on my chest, my thigh—but I couldn’t remember how I had gotten them. +When I came out, I found Ricky there, sitting on a bench. “Jack, I’m very concerned.” +“How’s Charley?” +“He seems to be okay. He’s sleeping.” +“Did you lock his room, too?” +“Jack. I know you’ve been through an ordeal, and I want you to know we’re all very grateful for what you’ve done—I mean, the company is grateful, and—” +“Fuck the company.” +“Jack, I understand how you might be angry.” +“Cut the crap, Ricky. I got no goddamn help at all. Not from you, and not from anybody else in this place.” +“I’m sure it must feel that way ...” +“It is that way, Ricky. No help is no help.” +“Jack, Jack. Please. I’m trying to tell you that I’m sorry for everything that happened. I feel terrible about it. I really do. If there were any way to go back and change it, believe me, I would.” +I looked at him. “I don’t believe you, Ricky.” +He gave a winning little smile. “I hope in time that will change.” +“It won’t.” +“You know that I always valued our friendship, Jack. It was always the most important thing to me.” +I just stared at him. Ricky wasn’t listening at all. He just had that silly smile-and-everything-will-be-fine look on his face. I thought, Is he on drugs? He was certainly acting bizarrely. +“Well, anyway.” He took a breath, changed the subject. “Julia’s coming out, that’s good news. She should be here sometime this evening.” +“Uh-huh. Why is she coming out?” +“Well, I’m sure because she’s worried about these runaway swarms.” +“How worried is she?” I said. “Because these swarms could have been killed off weeks ago, when the evolutionary patterns first appeared. But that didn’t happen.” +“Yes. Well. The thing is, back then nobody really understood—” +“I think they did.” +“Well, no.” He managed to appear unjustly accused, and slightly offended. But I was getting tired of his game. +“Ricky,” I said, “I came out here on the helicopter with a bunch of PR guys. Who notified them there’s a PR problem here?” +“I don’t know about any PR guys.” +“They’d been told not to get out of the helicopter. That it was dangerous here.” +He shook his head. “I have no idea ... I don’t know what you’re talking about.” +I threw up my hands, and walked out of the bathroom. +“I don’t!” Ricky called after me, protesting. “I swear, I don’t know a thing about it!” Half an hour later, as a kind of peace offering, Ricky brought me the missing code I had been asking for. It was brief, just a sheet of paper. +“Sorry about that,” he said. “Took me a while to find it. Rosie took a whole subdirectory offline a few days ago to work on one section. I guess she forgot to put it back. That’s why it wasn’t in the main directory.” +“Uh-huh.” I scanned the sheet. “What was she working on?” +Ricky shrugged. “Beats me. One of the other files.” + +/*Mod Compstat_do*/ +Exec (move{? ij (Cx1, Cy1, Cz1)} )/*init */ +{ ij (x1, y1, z1)} /*state*/ +{ ikl (x1,y1,z1) (x2,y2,z2) } /*track*/ +Push {z(i)} /*store*/ +React /*ref state*/ +?1 {(dx(i, j, k)} {(place(Cj,Hj)} +?2 {(fx,(a,q)} +Place {z(q)} /*store*/ +Intent /*ref intent*/ +?ijk {(dx(i, j, k)} {(place(Cj,Hj)} +?x {(fx,(a,q)} +Load {z(i)} /*store*/ +Exec (move{? ij (Cx1, Cy1, Cz1)} ) +Exec (pre{? ij (Hx1, Hy1, Hz1)} ) +Exec (post{? ij (Hx1, Hy1, Hz1)} ) +Push { ij (x1, y1, z1)} +{ ikl (x1,y1,z1) move (x2,y2,z2) } /*track*/ {0,1,0,01) + +“Ricky,” I said, “this code looks almost the same as the original.” +“Yeah, I think so. The changes are all minor. I don’t know why it’s such an issue.” He shrugged. “I mean, as soon as we lost control of the swarm, the precise code seemed a little beside the point to me. You couldn’t change it, anyway.” +“And how did you lose control? There’s no evolutionary algorithm in this code here.” He spread his hands. “Jack,” he said, “if we knew that, we’d know everything. We wouldn’t be in this mess.” +“But I was asked to come here and check problems with the code my team had written, Ricky. I was told the agents were losing track of their goals ...” +“I’d say breaking free of radio control is losing track of goals.” +“But the code’s not changed.” +“Yeah well, nobody really cared about the code itself, Jack. It’s the implications of the code. It’s the behavior that emerges from the code. That’s what we wanted you to help us with. Because I mean, it is your code, right?” +“Yeah, and it’s your swarm.” +“True enough, Jack.” +He shrugged in his self-deprecating way, and left the room. I stared at the paper for a while, and then wondered why he’d printed it out for me. It meant I couldn’t check the electronic document. Maybe Ricky was glossing over yet another problem. Maybe the code really had been changed, but he wasn’t showing me. Or maybe— +The hell with it, I thought. I crumpled up the sheet of paper, and tossed it in the wastebasket. However this problem got solved, it wasn’t going to be with computer code. That much was clear. +Mae was in the biology lab, peering at her monitor, hand cupped under her chin. I said, “You feel okay?” +“Yes.” She smiled. “How about you?” +“Just tired. And my headache’s back.” +“I have one, too. But I think mine’s from this phage.” She pointed to the monitor screen. There was a scanning electron microscope image of a virus in black and white. The phage looked like a mortar shell—bulbous pointed head, attached to a narrower tail. I said, “That’s the new mutant you were talking about before?” +“Yes. I’ve already taken one fermentation tank offline. Production is now at only sixty percent capacity. Not that it matters, I suppose.” +“And what’re you doing with that offline tank?” +“I’m testing anti-viral reagents,” she said. “I have a limited number of them here. We’re not really set up to analyze contaminants. Protocol is just to go offline and scrub any tank that goes bad.” +“Why haven’t you done that?” +“I probably will, eventually. But since this is a new mutant, I thought I better try and find a counteragent. Because they’ll need it for future production. I mean, the virus will be back.” +“You mean it will reappear again? Re-evolve?” +“Yes. Perhaps more or less virulent, but essentially the same.” I nodded. I knew about this from work with genetic algorithms—programs that were specifically designed to mimic evolution. Most people imagined evolution to be a one-time-only process, a confluence of chance events. If plants hadn’t started making oxygen, animal life would never have evolved. If an asteroid hadn’t wiped out the dinosaurs, mammals would never have taken over. If some fish hadn’t come onto land, we’d all still be in the water. And so on. All that was true enough, but there was another side of evolution, too. Certain forms, and certain ways of life, kept appearing again and again. For example, parasitism—one animal living off another—had evolved independently many times in the course of evolution. Parasitism was a reliable way for life-forms to interact; and it kept reemerging. A similar phenomenon occurred with genetic programs. They tended to move toward certain tried-and-true solutions. The programmers talked about it in terms of peaks on a fitness landscape; they could model it as three-dimensional false-color mountain range. But the fact was that evolution had its stable side, too. +And one thing you could count on was that any big, hot broth of bacteria was likely to get contaminated by a virus, and if that virus couldn’t infect the bacteria, it would mutate to a form that could. You could count on that the way you could count on finding ants in your sugar bowl if you left it out on the counter too long. +Considering that evolution has been studied for a hundred and fifty years, it was surprising how little we knew about it. The old ideas about survival of the fittest had gone out of fashion long ago. Those views were too simpleminded. Nineteenth-century thinkers saw evolution as “nature red in tooth and claw,” envisioning a world where strong animals killed weaker ones. They didn’t take into account that the weaker ones would inevitably get stronger, or fight back in some other way. Which of course they always do. +The new ideas emphasized interactions among continuously evolving forms. Some people talked of evolution as an arms race, by which they meant an ever-escalating interaction. A plant attacked by a pest evolves a pesticide in its leaves. The pest evolves to tolerate the pesticide, so the plant evolves a stronger pesticide. And so on. +Others talked about this pattern as coevolution, in which two or more life-forms evolved simultaneously to tolerate each other. Thus a plant attacked by ants evolves to tolerate the ants, and even begins to make special food for them on the surface of its leaves. In return the resident ants protect the plant, stinging any animal that tries to eat the leaves. Pretty soon neither the plant nor the ant species can survive without the other. +This pattern was so fundamental that many people thought it was the real core of evolution. Parasitism and symbiosis were the true basis for evolutionary change. These processes lay at the heart of all evolution, and had been present from the very beginning. Lynn Margulies was famous for demonstrating that bacteria had originally developed nuclei by swallowing other bacteria. +By the twenty-first century, it was clear that coevolution wasn’t limited to paired creatures in some isolated spinning dance. There were coevolutionary patterns with three, ten, or n life-forms, where n could be any number at all. A cornfield contained many kinds of plants, was attacked by many pests, and evolved many defenses. The plants competed with weeds; the pests competed with other pests; larger animals ate both the plants and the pests. The outcome of this complex interaction was always changing, always evolving. And it was inherently unpredictable. +That was, in the end, why I was so angry with Ricky. +He should have known the dangers, when he found he couldn’t control the swarms. It was insanity to sit back and allow them to evolve on their own. Ricky was bright; he knew about genetic algorithms; he knew the biological background for current trends in programming. He knew that self-organization was inevitable. +He knew that emergent forms were unpredictable. +He knew that evolution involved interaction with n forms. +He knew all that, and he did it anyway. +He did, or Julia did. +* * * +I checked on Charley. He was still asleep in his room, sprawled out on the bed. Bobby Lembeck walked by. “How long has he been asleep?” +“Since you got back. Three hours or so.” +“Do you think we should wake him up, check on him?” +“Nah, let him sleep. We’ll check him after dinner.” +“When is that?” +“Half an hour.” Bobby Lembeck laughed. “I’m cooking.” +That reminded me I was supposed to call home around dinnertime, so I went into my room and dialed. +Ellen answered the phone. “Hello? What is it!” She sounded harried. I heard Amanda crying and Eric yelling at Nicole in the background. Ellen said, “Nicole, do not do that to your brother!” +I said, “Hi, Ellen.” +“Oh, thank God,” she said. “You have to speak to your daughter.” +“What’s going on?” +“Just a minute. Nicole, it’s your father.” I could tell she was holding out the phone to her. +A pause, then, “Hi, Dad.” +“What’s going on, Nic?” +“Nothing. Eric is being a brat.” Matter-of-factly. +“Nic, I want to know what you did to your brother.” +“Dad.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. I knew she was cupping her hand over the phone. “Aunt Ellen is not very nice.” +“I heard that,” Ellen said, in the background. But at least the baby had stopped crying; she’d been picked up. +“Nicole,” I said. “You’re the oldest child, I’m counting on you to help keep things together while I’m gone.” +“I’m trying, Dad. But he is a majorly turkey butt.” +From the background: “I am not! Up yours, weasel poop!” +“Dad. You see what I’m up against.” +Eric: “Up your hole with a ten-foot pole!” +I looked at the monitor in front of me. It showed views of the desert outside, rotating images from all the security cameras. One camera showed my dirt bike, lying on its side, near the door to the power station. Another camera showed the outside of the storage shed, with the door swinging open and shut, revealing the outline of Rosie’s body inside. Two people had died today. I had almost died. And now my family, which yesterday had been the most important thing in my life, seemed distant and petty. +“It’s very simple, Dad,” Nicole was saying in her most reasonable grown-up voice. “I came home with Aunt Ellen from the store, I got a very nice blouse for the show, and then Eric came into my room and knocked all my books on the floor. So I told him to pick them up. He said no and called me the b-word, so I kicked him in the butt, not very hard, and took his G.I. Joe and hid it. That’s all.” +I said, “You took his G.I. Joe?” G.I. Joe was Eric’s most important possession. He talked to G.I. Joe. He slept with G.I. Joe on the pillow beside him. +“He can have it back,” she said, “as soon as he cleans up my books.” +“Nic ...” +“Dad, he called me the b-word.” +“Give him his G.I. Joe.” +The images on the screen were rotating through the various cameras. Each image only stayed on screen for a second or two. I waited for the image of the shed to come back up. I had a nagging feeling about it. Something bothered me. +“Dad, this is humiliating.” +“Nic, you’re not the mother—” +“Oh yeah, and she was here for maybe five seconds.” +“She was at the house? Mom was there?” +“But then, big surprise, she had to go. She had a plane to catch.” +“Uh-huh. Nicole, you need to listen to Ellen—” +“Dad, I told you she’s being—” +“Because she’s in charge until I get back. So if she says to do something, you do it.” +“Dad. I feel this is unreasonable.” Her members-of-the-jury voice. +“Well, honey, that’s how it is.” +“But my problem—” +“Nicole. That’s how it is. Until I get back.” +“When are you coming home?” +“Probably tomorrow.” +“Okay.” +“So. We understand each other?” +“Yes, Dad. I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown here ...” +“Then I promise I’ll visit you in the mental hospital, as soon as I get back.” +“Very funny.” +“Let me speak to Eric.” +I had a short conversation with Eric, who told me several times that it was not fair. I told him to put Nicole’s books back. He said he didn’t knock them down, it was an accident. I said to put them back anyway. Then I talked to Ellen briefly. I encouraged her as best I could. Sometime during this conversation, the security camera showing the outside of the shed came up again. And I again saw the swinging door, and the outside of the shed. In this elevation the shed was slightly above grade; there were four wooden steps leading from the door down to ground level. But it all looked the way it should. I did not know what had bothered me. Then I realized. +David’s body wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the frame. Earlier in the day, I had seen his body slide out the door and disappear from view, so it should be lying outside. Given the slight grade, it might have rolled a few yards from the door, but not more than that. No body. +But perhaps I was mistaken. Or perhaps there were coyotes. In any case the camera image had now changed. I’d have to sit through another cycle to see it again. I decided not to wait. If David’s body was gone, there was nothing I could do about it now. It was about seven o’clock when we sat down to eat dinner in the little kitchen of the residential module. Bobby brought out plates of ravioli with tomato sauce, and mixed vegetables. I had been a stay-at-home dad long enough to recognize the brands of frozen food he was using. “I really think that Contadina is better ravioli.” +Bobby shrugged. “I go to the fridge, I find what’s there.” +I was surprisingly hungry. I ate everything on my plate. +“Couldn’t have been that bad,” Bobby said. +Mae was silent as she ate, as usual. Beside her, Vince ate noisily. Ricky was at the far end of the table, away from me, looking down at his food and not meeting my eyes. It was all right with me. Nobody wanted to talk about Rosie and David, but the empty stools around the table were pretty obvious. Bobby said to me, “So, you’re going to go out tonight?” +“Yes,” I said. “When is it dark?” +“Sunset should be around seven-twenty,” Bobby said. He flicked on a monitor on the wall. “I’ll get you the exact time.” +I said, “So we can go out three hours after that. Sometime after ten.” +Bobby said, “And you think you can track the swarm?” +“We should. Charley sprayed one swarm pretty thoroughly.” +“As a result of which, I glow in the dark,” Charley said, laughing. He came into the room and sat down. +Everyone greeted him enthusiastically. If nothing else, it felt better to have another body at the table. I asked him how he felt. +“Okay. A little weak. And I have a fucking headache from hell.” +“I know. Me too.” +“And me,” Mae said. +“It’s worse than the headache Ricky gives me,” Charley said, looking down the table. “Lasts longer, too.” +Ricky said nothing. Just continued eating. +“Do you suppose these things get into your brain?” Charley said. “I mean, they’re nanoparticles. They can get inhaled, cross the blood-brain barrier ... and go into the brain?” +Bobby pushed a plate of pasta in front of Charley. He immediately ground pepper all over it. +“Don’t you want to taste it?” +“No offense. But I’m sure it needs it.” He started to eat. +“I mean,” he continued, “that’s what everybody’s worried about nanotechnology polluting the environment, right? Nanoparticles are small enough to get places nobody’s ever had to worry about before. They can get into the synapses between neurons. They can get into the cytoplasm of cardiac cells. They can get into cell nuclei. They’re small enough to go anywhere inside the body. So maybe we’re infected, Jack.” +“You don’t seem that worried about it,” Ricky said. +“Hey, what can I do about it now? Hope I give it to you, is about all. Hey, this spaghetti’s not bad.” +“Ravioli,” Bobby said. +“Whatever. Just needs a little pepper.” He ground some more over the top. “Sundown is seven-twenty-seven,” Bobby said, reading the time off the monitor. He went back to eating. “And it does not need pepper.” +“Fucking does.” +“I already put in pepper.” +“Needs more.” +I said, “Guys? Are we missing anybody?” +“I don’t think so, why?” +I pointed to the monitor. “Who’s that standing out in the desert?” +Chapter 20 +DAY 6 7:12 P.M. +“Oh shit,” Bobby said. He jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. Everyone else did, too. I followed the others. +Ricky was holding his radio as he went: “Vince, lock us down. Vince?” +“We’re locked down,” Vince said. “Pressure is five plus.” +“Why didn’t the alarm go off?” +“Can’t say. Maybe they’ve learned to get past that, too.” +I followed everybody into the utility room, where there were large wall-mounted liquid crystal displays showing the outside video cameras. Views of the desert from all angles. The sun was already below the horizon, but the sky was a bright orange, fading into purple and then dark blue. Silhouetted against this sky was a young man with short hair. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and looked like a surfer. I couldn’t see his face clearly in the failing light, but even so, watching the way he moved, I thought there was something familiar about him. +“We got any floodlights out there?” Charley said. He was walking around, holding his bowl of pasta, still eating. +“Lights coming up,” Bobby said, and a moment later the young man stood in glaring light. Now I could see him clearly— +And then it hit me. It looked like the same kid who had been in Julia’s car last night after dinner, when she drove away, just before her accident. The same blond surfer kid who, now that I saw him again, looked like— +“Jesus, Ricky,” Bobby said. “He looks like you.” +“You’re right,” Mae said. “It’s Ricky. Even the T-shirt.” +Ricky was getting a soft drink out of the dispensing machine. He turned toward the display screen. “What’re you guys talking about?” +“He looks like you,” Mae said. “He even has your T-shirt with I Am Root on the front.” Ricky looked at his own T-shirt, then back at the screen. He was silent for a moment. “I’ll be damned.” +I said, “You’ve never been out of the building, Ricky. How come it’s you?” +“Fucking beats me,” Ricky said. He shrugged casually. Too casually? +Mae said, “I can’t make out the face very well. I mean the features.” Charley moved closer to the largest of the screens and squinted at the image. “The reason you can’t see features,” he said, “is because there aren’t any.” +“Oh, come on.” +“Charley, it’s a resolution artifact, that’s all.” +“It’s not,” Charley said. “There’re no fucking features. Zoom it in and see for yourself.” Bobby zoomed. The image of the blond head enlarged. The figure was moving back and forth, in and out of the frame, but it was immediately clear that Charley was right. There were no features. There was an oval patch of pale skin beneath the blond hairline; and there was the suggestion of a nose and brow ridges, and a sort of mound where the lips should be. But there were no actual features. +It was as if a sculptor had started to carve a face, and had stopped before he was finished. It was an unfinished face. +Except that the eyebrows moved, from time to time. A sort of wiggle, or flutter. Or perhaps that was an artifact. +“You know what we’re looking at here, don’t you?” Charley said. He sounded worried. “Pan down. Let’s see the rest of him.” Bobby panned down, and we saw white sneakers moving over the desert dirt. Except the sneakers didn’t seem to be touching the ground, but rather hovering just above it. And the sneakers themselves were sort of blurry. There was a hint of shoelaces, and a streak where a Nike logo would be. But it was like a sketch, rather than an actual sneaker. +“This is very weird,” Mae said. +“Not weird at all,” Charley said. “It’s a calculated approximation for density. The swarm doesn’t have enough agents to make high-resolution shoes. So it’s approximating.” +“Or else,” I said, “it’s the best it can do with the materials at hand. It must be generating all these colors by tilting its photovoltaic surface at slight angles, catching the light. It’s like those flash cards the crowd holds up in football stadiums to make a picture.” +“In which case,” Charley said, “its behavior is quite sophisticated.” +“More sophisticated than what we saw earlier,” I said. +“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Ricky said irritably. “You’re acting like this swarm is Einstein.” +“Obviously not,” Charley said, “ ’cause if it’s modeling you, it’s certainly no Einstein.” +“Give it a rest, Charley.” +“I would, Ricky, but you’re such an asshole I get provoked over and over.” +Bobby said, “Why don’t you both give it a rest?” +Mae turned to me and said, “Why is the swarm doing this? Imitating the prey?” +“Basically, yes,” I said. +“I hate to think of us as prey,” Ricky said. +Mae said, “You mean it’s been coded to, literally, physically imitate the prey?” +“No,” I said. “The program instruction is more generalized than that. It simply directs the agents to attain the goal. So we are seeing one possible emergent solution. Which is more advanced than the previous version. Before, it had trouble making a stable 2-D image. Now it’s modeling in three dimensions.” +I glanced at the programmers. They had stricken looks on their faces. They knew exactly how big an advance they were witnessing. The transition to three dimensions meant that not only was the swarm now imitating our external appearance, it was also imitating our behavior. Our walks, our gestures. Which implied a far more complicated internal model. Mae said, “And the swarm decided this on its own?” +“Yes,” I said. “Although I’m not sure ‘decided’ is the right term. The emergent behavior is the sum of individual agent behaviors. There isn’t anybody there to ‘decide’ anything. There’s no brain, no higher control in that swarm.” +“Group mind?” Mae said. “Hive mind?” +“In a way,” I said. “The point is, there is no central control.” +“But it looks so controlled,” she said. “It looks like a defined, purposeful organism.” +“Yeah, well, so do we,” Charley said, with a harsh laugh. +Nobody else laughed with him. +If you want to think of it that way, a human being is actually a giant swarm. Or more precisely, it’s a swarm of swarms, because each organ—blood, liver, kidneys—is a separate swarm. What we refer to as a “body” is really the combination of all these organ swarms. We think our bodies are solid, but that’s only because we can’t see what is going on at the cellular level. If you could enlarge the human body, blow it up to a vast size, you would see that it was literally nothing but a swirling mass of cells and atoms, clustered together into smaller swirls of cells and atoms. +Who cares? Well, it turns out a lot of processing occurs at the level of the organs. Human behavior is determined in many places. The control of our behavior is not located in our brains. It’s all over our bodies. +So you could argue that “swarm intelligence” rules human beings, too. Balance is controlled by the cerebellar swarm, and rarely comes to consciousness. Other processing occurs in the spinal cord, the stomach, the intestine. A lot of vision takes place in the eyeballs, long before the brain is involved. +And for that matter, a lot of sophisticated brain processing occurs beneath awareness, too. An easy proof is object avoidance. A mobile robot has to devote a tremendous amount of processing time simply to avoid obstacles in the environment. Human beings do, too, but they’re never aware of it—until the lights go out. Then they learn painfully just how much processing is really required. +So there’s an argument that the whole structure of consciousness, and the human sense of self-control and purposefulness, is a user illusion. We don’t have conscious control over ourselves at all. We just think we do. +Just because human beings went around thinking of themselves as “I” didn’t mean that it was true. And for all we knew, this damned swarm had some sort of rudimentary sense of itself as an entity. Or, if it didn’t, it might very soon start to. +Watching the faceless man on the monitor, we saw that the image was now becoming unstable. The swarm had trouble keeping the appearance solid. Instead it fluctuated: at moments, the face and shoulders seemed to dissolve into dust, then reemerge as solid again. It was strange to watch it. +“Losing its grip?” Bobby said. +“No, I think it’s getting tired,” Charley said. +“You mean it’s running out of power.” +“Yeah, probably. It’d take a lot of extra juice to tilt all those particles into exact orientations.” +Indeed, the swarm was reverting back to a cloud appearance again. +“So this is a low-power mode?” I said. +“Yeah. I’m sure they were optimized for power management.” +“Or they are now,” I said. +It was getting darker quickly, now. The orange was gone from the sky. The monitor was starting to lose definition. +The swarm turned, and swirled away. +“I’ll be goddamned,” Charley said. +I watched the swarm disappear into the horizon. +“Three hours,” I said, “and they’re history.” +Chapter 21 +DAY 6 10:12 P.M. +Charley went back to bed right after dinner. He was still asleep at ten that night, when Mae and I were preparing to go out again. We were wearing down vests and jackets, because it was going to be cold. We needed a third person to go with us. Ricky said he had to wait for Julia, who was flying in any minute now; that was fine with me, I didn’t want him anyway. Vince was off somewhere watching TV and drinking beer. That left Bobby. Bobby didn’t want to go, but Mae shamed him into coming. There was a question about how the three of us would get around, since it was possible the swarm hiding place might be some distance away, perhaps even several miles. We still had David’s dirt bike, but that could only sit two. It turned out Vince had an ATV in the shed. I went to see him in the power unit to ask him for the key. +“Don’t need a key,” he said. He was sitting on a couch, watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I heard Regis say, “Final answer?” +“I said, What do you mean?” +“Key’s in it,” Vince said. “Always there.” +“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean there was a vehicle in the shed with keys in it all the time?” +“Sure.” On the TV, I heard, “For four thousand dollars, what is the name of the smallest state in Europe?” +“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” I said, starting to get mad. +Vince shrugged. “Couldn’t say. Nobody asked me.” +I stalked back to the main unit. “Where the hell is Ricky?” +“He’s on the phone,” Bobby said. “Talking to the brass back in the Valley.” +Mae said, “Take it easy.” +“I’m taking it easy,” I said. “Which phone? In the main unit?” +“Jack.” She put her hands on my shoulders, stopped me. “It’s after ten o’clock. Forget it.” +“Forget it? He could have gotten us killed.” +“And right now we have work to do.” +I looked at her calm face, her steady expression. I thought of the swift way she had eviscerated the rabbit. +“You’re right,” I said. +“Good,” she said, turning away. “Now I think as soon as we get some backpacks, we’ll be ready to go.” +There was a reason, I thought, why Mae never lost an argument. I went to the storage cupboard and got out three packs. I threw one to Bobby. +“Let’s hit the road,” I said. +It was a clear night, filled with stars. We walked in darkness toward the storage shed, a dark outline against the dark sky. I pushed the dirt bike along. None of us talked for a while. Finally, Bobby said, “We’re going to need lights.” +“We’re going to need a lot of things,” Mae said. “I made a list.” We came to the storage shed, and pushed open the door. I saw Bobby hang back in the darkness. I went in, and fumbled for the lights. I flicked them on. The interior of the storage shed appeared just as we had left it. Mae unzipped her backpack and began walking down the row of shelves. “We need portable lights ... ignition fuses ... flares ... oxygen ...” +Bobby said, “Oxygen? Really?” +“If this site is underground, yes, we may ... and we need thermite.” +I said, “Rosie had it. Maybe she set it down when she ... I’ll look.” I went into the next room. The box of thermite tubes lay overturned on the floor, the tubes nearby. Rosie must have dropped it when she ran. I wondered if she had had any in her hand. I looked over at her body by the door. +Rosie’s body was gone. +“Jesus.” +Bobby came running in. “What is it? What’s wrong?” +I pointed to the door. “Rosie’s gone.” +“What do you mean, gone?” +I looked at him. “Gone, Bobby. The body was here before and now it’s gone.” +“How can that be? An animal?” +“I don’t know.” I went over and crouched down at the spot where her body had been. When I had last seen her, five or six hours ago, her body had been covered with a milky secretion. Some of that secretion covered the floor, too. It looked exactly like thick, dried milk. Up where her head had been, the secretion was smooth and undisturbed. But closer to the door, it appeared to have been scraped. There were streaks in the coating. “It looks like she was dragged out,” Bobby said. +“Yes.” +I peered closely at the secretion, looking for footprints. A coyote alone couldn’t have dragged her; a pack of animals would be needed to pull her out the door. They would surely leave marks. I saw none. +I got up and walked to the door. Bobby stood beside me, looking out into the darkness. +“You see anything?” he said. +“No.” +I returned to Mae. She had found everything. She had coiled magnesium fuse. She had flare guns. She had portable halogen flashlights. She had head-mounted lamps with big elastic bands. She had small binoculars and night-vision goggles. She had a field radio. And she had oxygen bottles and clear-plastic gas masks. I was uneasy when I recognized that these were the same plastic masks I had seen on the men in the SSVT van back in California last night, except they weren’t silvered. +And then I thought, Was it only last night? It was. Hardly twenty-four hours had passed. +It felt to me like a month. +Mae was dividing everything into the three backpacks. Watching her, I realized that she was the only one of us with actual field experience. In comparison, we were all stay-at-homes, theoreticians. I was surprised how dependent on her I felt tonight. Bobby hefted the nearest pack and grunted. “You really think we need all this stuff, Mae?” +“It’s not like you have to carry it; we’re driving. And yes, better safe than sorry.” +“Okay, fine, but I mean—a field radio?” +“You never know.” +“Who you gonna call?” +“The thing is, Bobby,” she said, “if it turns out you need any of this stuff, you really need it.” +“Yeah, but it’s—” +Mae picked up the second backpack, and slung it over her shoulder. She handled the weight easily. She looked at Bobby. “You were saying?” +“Never mind.” +I picked up the third backpack. It wasn’t bad. Bobby was complaining because he was scared. It was true that the oxygen bottle was a little larger and heavier than I would have liked, and it fitted awkwardly into the backpack. But Mae insisted we have extra oxygen. Bobby said nervously, “Extra oxygen? How big do you guys think this hiding place is?” +“I have no idea,” Mae said. “But the most recent swarms are much larger.” She went to the sink, and picked up the radiation counter. But when she unplugged it from the wall, she saw the battery was dead. We had to hunt for a new battery, unscrew the case, replace the battery. I was worried the replacement would be dead, too. If it was, we were finished. +Mae said, “We better be careful with the night-vision goggles, too. I don’t know how good any of the batteries are for the stuff we have.” +But the counter clicked loudly. The battery indicator glowed. “Full power,” she said. “It’ll last four hours.” +“Let’s get started,” I said. +It was 10:43 P.M. +The radiation counter went crazy when we came to the Toyota, clicking so rapidly the sound was continuous. Holding the wand in front of her, Mae left the car, walked into the desert. She turned west and the clicks diminished. She went east and they picked up again. But as she continued east, the clicks slowed. She turned north, and they increased. “North,” she said. +I got on the bike, gunned the engine. +Bobby rumbled out of the shed on the All-Terrain Vehicle, with its fat rear tires and bicycle handlebars. The ATV looked ungainly but I knew it was probably better suited to night travel in the desert. +Mae got on the back of my bike, leaned over to hold the wand near the ground, and said, “Okay. Let’s go.” +We started off into the desert, under a cloudless night sky. +The headlight on the bike bounced up and down, jerking the shadows on the terrain ahead, making it difficult to see what was coming. The desert that had looked so flat and featureless in daylight was now revealed to have sandy dips, rock-filled beds, and deep arroyos that came up without warning. It took all my attention to keep the bike upright—particularly since Mae was continuously calling to me, “Go left ... now right ... now right ... okay, too much, left ...” Sometimes we had to make a full circle until she could be certain of the right path. If anybody followed our track in daylight, they’d think the driver must be drunk, it twisted and turned so much. The bike jumped and swerved on rough ground. We were now several miles from the lab, and I was starting to worry. I could hear the counter clicks, and they were becoming less frequent. It was getting hard to distinguish the swarm trail from the background radiation. I didn’t understand why that should happen but there was no question it was. If we didn’t locate the swarm hiding place soon, we’d lose the trail entirely. Mae was worried, too. She kept bending over closer and closer to the ground, with one hand on the wand and one hand around my waist. And I had to go slower, because the trail was becoming so faint. We lost the trail, found it, went off it again. Under the black canopy of stars, we backtracked, turned in circles. I caught myself holding my breath. And at last I was going around and around in the same spot, trying not to feel desperate. I made the circle three times, then four, but to no avail: the counter in Mae’s hand just clicked randomly. And suddenly it was clear to us that the trail was truly lost. We were out here in the middle of nowhere, driving in circles. +We had lost the trail. +Exhaustion hit me suddenly, and hard. I had been running on adrenaline all day and now that I was finally defeated a deep weariness came over my body. My eyes drooped. I felt as if I could go to sleep standing on the bike. +Behind me, Mae sat up and said, “Don’t worry, okay?” +“What do you mean?” I said wearily. “My plan has totally failed, Mae.” +“Maybe not yet,” she said. +Bobby pulled up close to us. “You guys look behind you?” he said. +“Why?” +“Look back,” he said. “Look how far we’ve come.” +I turned and looked over my shoulder. To the south, I saw the bright lights of the fabrication building, surprisingly close. We couldn’t be more than a mile or two away. We must have traveled in a big semicircle, eventually turning back toward our starting point. “That’s weird.” +Mae had got off the bike, and stepped in front of the headlamp. She was looking at the LCD readout on the counter. She said, “Hmmm.” +Bobby said hopefully, “So, what do you say, Mae? Time to go back?” +“No,” Mae said. “It’s not time to go back. Take a look at this.” Bobby leaned over, and we both looked at the LCD readout. It showed a graph of radiation intensity, stepping progressively downward, and finally dropping quickly. Bobby frowned. “And this is?” +“Time course of tonight’s readings,” she said. “The machine’s showing us that ever since we started, the intensity of the radiation has declined arithmetically—it’s a straight-line decrease, a staircase, see there? And it’s stayed arithmetic until the last minute or so, when the decrease suddenly became exponential. It just fell to zero.” +“So?” Bobby looked puzzled. “That means what? I don’t get it.” +“I do.” She turned to me, climbed back on the bike. “I think I know what happened. Go forward—slowly.” +I let out the clutch, and rumbled forward. My bouncing headlight showed a slight rise in the desert, scrubby cactus ahead ... +“No. Slower, Jack.” +I slowed. Now we were practically going at a walk. I yawned. There was no point in questioning her; she was intense, focused. I was just tired and defeated. We continued up the desert rise until it flattened, and then the bike began to tilt downward— +“Stop.” +I stopped. +Directly ahead, the desert floor abruptly ended. I saw blackness beyond. +“Is that a cliff?” +“No. Just a high ridge.” +I edged the bike forward. The land definitely fell away. Soon we were at the edge and I could get my bearings. We were at the crest of a ridge fifteen feet high, which formed one side of a very wide streambed. Directly beneath me I saw smooth river rocks, with occasional boulders and clumps of scraggly brush that stretched about fifty yards away, to the far side of the riverbed. Beyond the distant bank, the desert was flat again. “I understand now,” I said. “The swarm jumped.” +“Yes,” she said, “it became airborne. And we lost the trail.” +“But then it must have landed somewhere down there,” Bobby said, pointing to the streambed. +“Maybe,” I said. “And maybe not.” +I was thinking it would take us many minutes to find a safe route down. Then we would spend a long time searching among the bushes and rocks of the streambed, before picking up the trail again. It might take hours. We might not find it at all. From our position up here on top of the ridge, we saw the daunting expanse of desert stretching out before us. I said, “The swarm could have touched down in the streambed. Or it could have come down just beyond the bed. Or it could have gone quarter mile beyond.” Mae was not discouraged. “Bobby, you stay here,” she said. “You’ll mark the position where it jumped. Jack and I will find a path down, go out into that plain, and run in a straight line east-west until we pick up the trail again. Sooner or later, we’ll find it.” +“Okay,” Bobby said. “Got you.” +“Okay,” I said. We might as well do it. We had nothing to lose. But I had very little confidence we would succeed. +Bobby leaned forward over his ATV. “What’s that?” +“What?” +“An animal. I saw glowing eyes.” +“Where?” +“In that brush over there.” He pointed to the center of the streambed. I frowned. We both had our headlights trained down the ridge. We were lighting a fairly large arc of desert. I didn’t see any animals. +“There!” Mae said. +“I don’t see anything.” +She pointed. “It just went behind that juniper bush. See the bush that looks like a pyramid? That has the dead branches on one side?” +“I see it,” I said. “But ...” I didn’t see an animal. +“It’s moving left to right. Wait a minute and it’ll come out again.” We waited, and then I saw a pair of bright green, glowing spots. Close to the ground, moving right. I saw a flash of pale white. And almost immediately I knew that something was wrong. So did Bobby. He twisted his handlebars, moving his headlamp to point directly to the spot. He reached for binoculars. +“That’s not an animal ...” he said. +Moving among the low bushes, we saw more white—flesh white. But we saw only glimpses. And then I saw a flat white surface that I realized with a shock was a human hand, dragging along the ground. A hand with outstretched fingers. +“Jesus,” Bobby said, staring through the binoculars. +“What? What is it?” +“It’s a body being dragged,” he said. And then, in a funny voice, he said, “It’s Rosie.” +Chapter 22 +DAY 6 10:58 P.M. +Gunning the bike, I took off with Mae, running along the edge of the ridge until it sloped down toward the streambed floor. Bobby stayed where he was, watching Rosie’s body. In a few minutes I had crossed the streambed to the other bank, and was moving back toward his light on the hill. +Mae said, “Let’s slow down, Jack.” +So I slowed down, leaning forward over my handlebars, trying to see the ground far ahead. Suddenly the radiation counter began to chatter again. +“Good sign,” I said. +We moved ahead. Now we were directly across from Bobby on the ridge above. His headlamp cast a faint light on the ground all around us, sort of like moonlight. I waved for him to come down. He turned his vehicle and headed west. Without his light, the ground was suddenly darker, more mysterious. +And then we saw Rosie Castro. +Rosie lay on her back, her head tilted so she appeared to be looking backward, directly at me, her eyes wide, her arm outstretched toward me, her pale hand open. There was an expression of pleading—or terror—on her face. Rigor mortis had set in, and her body jerked stiffly as it moved over low shrubs and desert cactus. +She was being dragged away—but no animal was dragging her. +“I think you should turn your light off,” Mae said. +“But I don’t see what’s doing it ... there’s like a shadow underneath her ...” +“That’s not a shadow,” Mae said. “It’s them.” +“They’re dragging her?” +She nodded. “Turn your light off.” +I flicked off the headlamp. We stood in darkness. I said, “I thought swarms couldn’t maintain power more than three hours.” +“That’s what Ricky said.” +“He’s lying again?” +“Or they’ve overcome that limitation in the wild.” +The implications were unsettling. If the swarms could now sustain power through the night, then they might be active when we reached their hiding place. I was counting on finding them collapsed, the particles spread on the ground. I intended to kill them in their sleep, so to speak. Now it seemed they weren’t sleeping. +We stood there in the cool dark air, thinking things over. Finally Mae said, “Aren’t these swarms modeled on insect behavior?” +“Not really,” I said. “The programming model was predator-prey. But because the swarm is a population of interacting particles, to some degree it will behave like any population of interacting particles, such as insects. Why?” +“Insects can execute plans that take longer than the lifespan of a single generation. They can build nests that require many generations. Isn’t that true?” +“I think so ...” +“So maybe one swarm carried the body for a while, and then another took over. Maybe there have been three or four swarms so far. That way none of them has to go three hours at night.” I didn’t like the implications of that idea any better. “That would mean the swarms are working together,” I said. “It would mean they’re coordinated.” +“They clearly are, by now.” +“Except that’s not possible,” I said to her. “Because they don’t have the signaling capability.” +“It wasn’t possible a few generations ago,” Mae said. “Now it is. Remember the V formation that came toward you? They were coordinated.” +That was true. I just hadn’t realized it at the time. Standing there in the desert night, I wondered what else I hadn’t realized. I squinted into the darkness, trying to see ahead. “Where are they taking her?” I said. +Mae unzipped my backpack, and pulled out a set of night goggles. “Try these.” I was about to help her get hers, but she’d deftly taken her pack off, opened it, and pulled out her own goggles. Her movements were quick, sure. +I slipped on the headset, adjusted the strap, and flipped the lenses down over my eyes. These were the new Gen 4 goggles that showed images in muted color. Almost immediately, I saw Rosie in the desert. Her body was disappearing behind the scrub as she moved farther and farther away. +“Okay, so where are they taking her?” I said again. Even as I spoke, I raised the goggles higher, and at once I saw where they were taking her. +From a distance it looked like a natural formation—a mound of dark earth about fifteen feet wide and six feet high. Erosion had carved deep, vertical clefts so that the mound looked a little like a huge gear turned on edge. It would be easy to overlook this formation as natural. But it wasn’t natural. And erosion hadn’t produced its sculpted look. On the contrary, I was seeing an artificial construction, similar to the nests made by African termites and other social insects. +Wearing the second pair of goggles, Mae looked for a while in silence, then said, “Are you going to tell me that is the product of self-organized behavior? That the behavior to make it just emerged all by itself?” +“Actually, yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what happened.” +“Hard to believe.” +“I know.” +Mae was a good biologist, but she was a primate biologist. She was accustomed to studying small populations of highly intelligent animals that had dominance hierarchies and group leaders. She understood complex behavior to be the result of complex intelligence. And she had trouble grasping the sheer power of self-organized behavior within a very large population of dumb animals. +In any case, this was a deep human prejudice. Human beings expected to find a central command in any organization. States had governments. Corporations had CEOs. Schools had principals. Armies had generals. Human beings tended to believe that without central command, chaos would overwhelm the organization and nothing significant could be accomplished. From this standpoint, it was difficult to believe that extremely stupid creatures with brains smaller than pinheads were capable of construction projects more complicated than any human project. But in fact, they were. +African termites were a classic example. These insects made earthen castlelike mounds a hundred feet in diameter and thrusting spires twenty feet into the air. To appreciate their accomplishment, you had to imagine that if termites were the size of people, these mounds would be skyscrapers one mile high and five miles in diameter. And like a skyscraper, the termite mound had an intricate internal architecture to provide fresh air, remove excess CO2 and heat, and so on. Inside the structure were gardens to grow food, residences for royalty, and living space for as many as two million termites. No two mounds were exactly the same; each was individually constructed to suit the requirements and advantages of a particular site. All this was accomplished with no architect, no foreman, no central authority. Nor was a blueprint for construction encoded in the termite genes. Instead these huge creations were the result of relatively simple rules that the individual termites followed in relation to one another. (Rules like, “If you smell that another termite has been here, put a dirt pellet on this spot.”) Yet the outcome was arguably more complex than any human creation. Now we were seeing a new construction made by a new creature, and it was again difficult to conceive how it might have been made. How could a swarm make a mound, anyway? But I was beginning to realize that out here in the desert, asking how something happened was a fool’s errand. The swarms were changing fast, almost minute to minute. The natural human impulse to figure it out was a waste of time. By the time you figured it out, things would have changed. +Bobby rumbled up in his ATV, and cut his light. We all stood there under the stars. Bobby said, “What do we do now?” +“Follow Rosie,” I said. +“Looks like Rosie is going into that mound,” he said. “You mean we follow her there?” +“Yes,” I said. +At Mae’s suggestion, we walked the rest of the way. Lugging our backpacks, it took us the better part of ten minutes to reach the vicinity of the mound. We paused about fifty feet away. There was a nauseating smell in the air, a putrid odor of rotting and decay. It was so strong it made my stomach turn. Then too, a faint green glow seemed to be emanating from inside the mound. +Bobby whispered, “You really want to go in there?” +“Not yet,” Mae whispered. She pointed off to one side. Rosie’s body was moving up the slope of the mound. As she came to the rim, her rigid legs pointed into the air for a moment. Then her body toppled over, and she fell into the interior. But she stopped before she disappeared entirely; for several seconds, her head remained above the rim, her arm outstretched, as if she were reaching for air. Then, slowly, she slid the rest of the way down, and vanished. Bobby shivered. +Mae whispered, “Okay. Let’s go.” +She started forward in her usual noiseless way. Following her, I tried to be as quiet as I could. Bobby crunched and crackled his way along the ground. Mae paused, and gave him a hard look. +Bobby held up his hands as if to say, what can I do? +She whispered, “Watch where you put your feet.” +He whispered, “I am.” +“You’re not.” +“It’s dark, I can’t see.” +“You can if you try.” +I couldn’t recall ever seeing Mae show irritation before, but we were all under pressure now. And the stench was terrible. Mae turned and once again moved forward silently. Bobby followed, making just as much noise as before. We had only gone a few steps before Mae turned, held up her hand, and signaled for him to stay where he was. He shook his head, no. He clearly didn’t want to be left alone. +She gripped his shoulder, pointed firmly to the ground, and whispered, “You stay here.” +“No ...” +She whispered, “You’ll get us all killed.” +He whispered, “I promise.” +She shook her head, pointed to the ground. Sit. +Finally, Bobby sat down. +Mae looked at me. I nodded. We set out again. By now we were twenty feet from the mound itself. The smell was almost overpowering. My stomach churned; I was afraid I might be sick. And this close, we began to hear the deep thrumming sound. More than anything it was that sound that made me want to run away. But Mae kept going. +We crouched down as we climbed the mound, and then lay flat along the rim. I could see Mae’s face in the green glow coming from inside. For some reason the stench didn’t bother me anymore. Probably because I was too frightened. +Mae reached into the side pouch of her pack, and withdrew a small thumb-sized camera on a thin telescoping stick. She brought out a tiny LCD screen and set it on the ground between us. Then she slid the stick over the rim. +On the screen, we saw a green interior of smooth undulating walls. Nothing seemed to be moving. She turned the camera this way and that. All we saw were green walls. There was no sign of Rosie. +Mae looked at me, pointed to her eyes. Want to take a look now? +I nodded. +We inched forward slowly, until we could look over the rim. +It wasn’t what I expected at all. +The mound simply narrowed an existing opening that was huge—twenty feet wide or more, revealing a rock slide that sloped downward from the rim and ended at a gaping hole in the rock to our right. The green light was coming from somewhere inside this gaping hole. What I was seeing was the entrance to a very large cave. From our position on the rim, we couldn’t see into the cave itself, but the thrumming sound suggested activity within. Mae opened the telescoping stick to its full length, and gently lowered the camera into the hole. Soon we could see farther into the cave. It was undoubtedly natural, and large: perhaps eight feet high, ten feet wide. The rock walls were pale white, and appeared to be covered with the milky substance we’d seen on Rosie. +And Rosie’s body was only a short distance inside. We could see her hand sticking out around a bend in the rock wall. But we could see nothing beyond the bend. Mae signaled me: want to go down? +I nodded slowly. I didn’t like how this felt, I didn’t like that I had no idea what was beyond the bend. But we really had no choice. +She pointed back toward Bobby. Get him? +I shook my head, no. He wouldn’t help us here. +She nodded, and started very slowly to slide out of her backpack, making no sound at all, when she suddenly froze. Literally froze: she didn’t move a muscle. I looked at the screen. And I froze, too. +A figure had walked from behind the bend, and now stood alertly at the entrance of the cave, looking around. +It was Ricky. +* * * +He was behaving as if he had heard a sound, or had been alerted for some other reason. The video camera still dangled down the rim of the mound. It was pretty small; I didn’t know if he would see it. +I watched the screen tensely. +The camera didn’t have good resolution and the screen was the size of my palm, but it was still clear that the figure was Ricky. I didn’t understand what he was doing here—or even how he had gotten here. Then another man came around the bend. +He was also Ricky. +I glanced at Mae, but she remained utterly still, a statue. Only her eyes moved. I squinted at the screen. Within the limits of video resolution, the two figures appeared to be identical in every respect. Same clothes, same movements, same gestures and shrugs. I couldn’t see the faces well, but I had the impression they were more detailed than before. They didn’t seem to notice the camera. +They looked up at the sky, and then at the rock slide for a while, and then they turned their backs on us, and returned to the interior of the cave. +Still Mae did not move. She had been motionless for almost a minute already and in that time she hadn’t even blinked. Now the men were gone, and— +Another figure came around the corner. It was David Brooks. He moved awkwardly, stiffly at first, but he quickly became more fluid. I had the feeling I was watching a puppeteer perfect his moves, animating the figure in a more lifelike way. Then David became Ricky. And then David again. And the David figure turned and went away. +Still Mae waited. She waited fully two more minutes, and then finally withdrew the camera. She jerked her thumb, indicating we should go back. Together, we crept away from the rim, back down the mound, and moved away silently into the desert night. We gathered a hundred yards to the west, near our vehicles. Mae was rummaging in her backpack; she pulled out a clipboard with a felt marker. She flicked on her penlight and began to draw. +“This is what you’re up against,” she said. “The cave has an opening like this, which you saw. Past the bend, there’s a big hole in the floor, and the cave spirals downward for maybe a hundred yards. That brings you into one large chamber that is maybe a hundred feet high, and a couple of hundred feet wide. Single big room, that’s all. There are no passages leading off, at least none that I saw.” +“That you saw?” +“I’ve been in there,” she said, nodding. +“When?” +“A couple of weeks ago. Back when we first started looking for the swarm’s hiding place. I found that cave and went in there in day-light. I didn’t find any indication of a swarm then.” She explained that the cave was filled with bats, the whole ceiling covered with them, packed together in a pink squirming mass, all the way out to the entrance. “Ugh,” Bobby said. “I hate bats.” +“I didn’t see any bats there tonight.” +“You think they’ve been driven away?” +“Eaten, probably.” +“Jesus, guys,” Bobby said, shaking his head. “I’m just a programmer. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can go in there.” +Mae ignored him. She said to me, “If we go in,” she said, “we’ll have to set off thermite, and keep doing it all the way down to the chamber. I’m not sure we have enough thermite to do that.” +“Maybe not,” I said. I had a different concern. “We’re wasting our time unless we destroy all the swarms, and all the assemblers that are making them. Right?” They both nodded. +“I’m not sure that’ll be possible,” I said. “I thought the swarms would be powered down at night. I thought we could destroy them on the ground. But they’re not powered down—at least not all of them. And if just one of them gets past us, if it escapes from the cave ...” I shrugged. “Then this has all been a waste of time.” +“Right,” Bobby said, nodding. “That’s right. It’d be a waste of time.” +Mae said, “We need some way to trap them in the cave.” +“There isn’t any way,” Bobby said. “I mean, they can just fly out, whenever they want.” Mae said, “There might be a way.” She started rummaging in her backpack again, looking for something. “Meanwhile, the three of us better spread out.” +“Why?” Bobby said, alarmed. +“Just do it,” Mae said. “Now get moving.” +I tightened my backpack, and adjusted the straps so it wouldn’t rattle. I locked the night-vision goggles up on my forehead, and I started forward. I had gotten about halfway to the mound when I saw a dark figure climb out into the night. +I dropped down as quietly as I could. I was in a thick patch of sagebrush three feet high, so I was reasonably well concealed. I looked over my shoulder, but I didn’t see either Mae or Bobby; they’d dropped to the ground, too. I didn’t know if they’d separated yet. Cautiously, I pushed aside a plant in front of me, and looked toward the mound. The legs of the figure were silhouetted against the faint green glow. The upper body was black against the night stars. I flipped down the goggles, and waited a moment while they flared blue, and then saw the image resolve. +This time it was Rosie. Walking around in the night, looking in all directions, her body vigilant and alert. Except that she didn’t move like Rosie, she moved more like a man. Then after a moment, the silhouette changed into Ricky. And it moved like Ricky. The figure crouched down, and appeared to be looking over the tops of the sage. I wondered what had brought it out of the mound. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Behind the figure, a white light appeared on the western horizon. It grew rapidly in brilliance, and soon I heard the thumping of helicopter blades. That would be Julia coming from the Valley, I thought. I wondered what was so urgent that she had had to leave the hospital against orders, and fly out here in the middle of the night. +As the helicopter approached, it switched on its searchlight. I watched the circle of blue-white light as it rippled over the ground toward us. The Ricky figure watched, too, then slid down out of sight. +And then the helicopter roared over me, blinding me for a moment in the halogen light. Almost immediately it banked sharply, and circled back. +What the hell was going on? +The helicopter made a slow arc, passing over the mound but not stopping, then coming to a stop right above where I was hiding. I was caught in the blue glow. I rolled onto my back and waved to the helicopter, pointing repeatedly toward the lab. I mouthed “Go!” and pointed away. +The helicopter descended, and for a moment I thought it was going to land right beside me. Then it abruptly banked again, and moved away low to the ground, heading south toward the concrete pad. The sound faded. +I decided I had better change my position fast. I got to my knees and in a crouch, moved crabwise thirty yards to the left. Then I dropped down again. When I looked back at the mound, I saw three—no, four figures coming out of the interior. They moved apart, each heading to a different area of the mound. They all looked like Ricky. I watched as they went down the slope of the mound, and moved out into the bush. My heart began to pound in my chest. One of the figures was coming in my direction. As it approached, I saw it veer off to the right. It was going to the place where I had been before. When it reached my last hiding place, it stopped, and turned in all directions. It was not far from me at all. I could see through the goggles that this new Ricky figure now had a complete face, and the clothing was much more detailed. In addition, this figure moved with the sensation of real body weight. It might be an illusion, of course, but I guessed that the swarm had increased mass, and now weighed fifty pounds, maybe more. Maybe twice that. If so, then the swarm now had enough mass to jolt you with a physical impact. Even knock you off your feet. +Through the goggles I saw the figure’s eyes move, and blink. The surface of the face now had the texture of skin. The hair appeared to be composed of individual strands. The lips moved, the tongue licked nervously. All in all this face looked very much like Ricky—disturbingly like Ricky. When the head turned in my direction, I felt that Ricky was staring right at me. And I suppose it was, because the figure began to move directly toward me. I was trapped. My heart was thumping in my chest. I hadn’t planned for this; I had no protection, no sort of defense. I could get up and run, of course, but there was nowhere to go. I was surrounded by miles of desert, and the swarms would hunt me down. In a few moments I would be— +With a roar, the helicopter came back. The Ricky figure looked toward it as it came, and then turned and fled, literally flying over the ground, not bothering any longer to animate the legs and feet. It was creepy to see this human replica, suddenly floating over the desert. But the other three Ricky figures were running, too. Running hard, conveying a distinct sense of panic. Did the swarms fear the helicopter? It seemed they did. And as I watched, I understood why. Even though the swarms were now heavier and more substantial, they were still vulnerable to strong winds. The helicopter was a hundred feet in the air but the downdraft was powerful enough to deform the running figures, flattening them partially as they fled. It was as if they were being hammered down. +The figures vanished into the mound. +I looked back at Mae. She was standing up in the streambed now, talking on her radio to the helicopter. She’d needed that radio, all right. She yelled to me, “Let’s go!” and began running toward me. I was dimly aware of Bobby, running away from the mound, back to his ATV. But there was no time to worry about him. The helicopter hung poised right above the mound itself. Dust whipped up, stinging my eyes. +Then Mae was beside me. Removing our goggles, we pulled on our oxygen masks. She turned me, twisted the tank valve behind me. I did the same for her. Then we put the night goggles back on. It seemed like a lot of contraptions jiggling and rattling around my face. She clipped a halogen flashlight to my belt, and another to her own. She leaned close, shouted: “Ready?” +“I’m ready!” +“Okay, let’s go!” +There was no time to think. It was better that way. The helicopter downdraft roared in my ears. Together we clawed our way up the slope of the mound, our clothes whipping around us. We arrived at the edge, barely visible in the thick swirling dust. We couldn’t see anything beyond the rim. We couldn’t see what was below. +Mae took my hand, and we jumped. +Chapter 23 +DAY 6 11:22 P.M. +I landed on loose stones, and half stumbled, half slid down the slope toward the cave entrance. The thumping of the helicopter blades above us was loud. Mae was right beside me, but I could hardly see her in the thick dust. There were no Ricky figures anywhere in sight. We came to the cave entrance and stopped. Mae pulled out the thermite capsules. She gave me the magnesium fuses. She tossed me a plastic cigarette lighter. I thought, that’s what we’re using? Her face was already partly clouded behind the mask. Her eyes were hidden behind the night-vision goggles. She pointed to the interior of the cave. I nodded. +She tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to my goggles. I didn’t understand, so she reached forward by my cheek and flicked a switch. +“—me now?” she said. +“Yes, I hear.” +“Okay then, let’s go.” +We started into the cave. The green glow had vanished in the thick dust. We had only the infrared light mounted on top of our night-vision goggles. We saw no figures. We heard nothing but the thumping of the helicopter. But as we went deeper into the cave, the sound began to fade. +And as the sound faded, so did the wind. +Mae was focused. She said, “Bobby? Do you hear me?” +“Yes, I hear you.” +“Get your ass in here.” +“I’m trying to—” +“Don’t try. Get in here, Bobby.” +I shook my head. If I knew Bobby Lembeck, he was never coming into this pit. We rounded the bend, and saw nothing but suspended dust, the vague outlines of cave walls. The walls seemed smooth here, with no place to hide. Then from the gloom directly ahead I saw a Ricky figure emerge. He was expressionless, just walking toward us. Then another figure from the left, and another. The three formed a line. They marched toward us at a steady pace, their faces identical and expressionless. +“First lesson,” Mae said, holding out the thermite cap. +“Let’s hope they don’t learn it,” I said, and I lit the fuse. It sputtered white-hot sparks. She tossed the cap forward. It landed a few feet in front of the advancing group. They ignored it, staring forward at us. +Mae said, “It’s a three count ... two ... one ... and turn away.” I twisted away, ducking my head under my arm just as a sphere of blinding white filled the tunnel. Even though my eyes were closed, the glare was so strong that I saw spots when I opened my eyes again. I turned back. +Mae was already moving forward. The dust in the air had a slightly darker tint. I saw no sign of the three figures. +“Did they run?” +“No. Vaporized,” she said. She sounded pleased. +“New situations,” I said. I was feeling encouraged. If the programming assumptions still held, the swarms would be weak when reacting to genuinely new situations. In time they would learn; in time they would evolve strategies to deal with the new conditions. But initially their response would be disorganized, chaotic. That was a weakness of distributed intelligence. It was powerful, and it was flexible, but it was slow to respond to unprecedented events. “We hope,” Mae said. +We came to the gaping hole in the cave floor she had described. In the night goggles, I saw a sort of sloping ramp. Four or five figures were coming up toward us, and there seemed to be more behind. They all looked like Ricky, but many of them were not so well formed. And those in the rear were just swirling clouds. The thrumming sound was loud. “Second lesson.” Mae held out a cap. It sizzled white when I lit it. She rolled it gently down the ramp. The figures hesitated when they saw it. +“Damn,” I said, but then it was time to duck away, and shield my eyes from the explosive flash. Inside the confined space, there was a roar of expanding gas. I felt a burst of intense heat on my back. When I looked again, most of the swarms beneath us had vanished. But a few hung back, apparently undamaged. +They were learning. +Fast. +“Next lesson,” Mae said, holding two caps this time. I lit both and she rolled one, and threw the second one deeper down the ramp. The explosions roared simultaneously, and a huge gust of hot air rolled upward past us. My shirt caught fire. Mae pounded it out with the flat of her hand, smacking me with rapid strokes. +When we looked again, there were no figures in sight, and no dark swarms. +We went down the ramp, heading deeper into the cave. +We had started with twenty thermite caps. We had sixteen left, and we had gone only a short distance down the ramp toward the large room at the bottom. Mae moved quickly now—I had to hurry to catch up with her—but her instincts were good. The few swarms that materialized before us all quickly backed away at our approach. +We were herding them into the lower room. +Mae said, “Bobby, where are you?” +The headset crackled. “—trying—get—” +“Bobby, come on, damn it.” +But all the while we were moving deeper into the cave, and soon we heard only static. Down here, dust hung suspended in the air, diffusing the infrared beams. We could see clearly the walls and ground directly ahead of us, but beyond that, there was total blackness. The sense of darkness and isolation was frightening. I couldn’t tell what was on either side of me unless I turned my head, sweeping my beam back and forth. I began to smell that rotten odor again, sharp and nauseating. +We were coming to level ground. Mae stayed calm; when a half-dozen swarms buzzed before us, she held out another cap for me to light. Before I could light the fuse, the swarms backed off. She advanced at once. +“Sort of like lion taming,” she said. +“So far,” I said. +I didn’t know how long we could keep this up. The cave was large, much larger than I had imagined. Sixteen caps didn’t seem like enough to get us through it. I wondered if Mae was worried, too. She didn’t seem to be. But probably she wouldn’t show it. Something was crunching underfoot. I looked down and saw the floor was carpeted with thousands of tiny, delicate yellow bones. Like bird bones. Except these were the bones of bats. Mae was right: they’d all been eaten. +In the upper corner of my night-vision image, a red light began to blink. It was some kind of warning, probably the battery. “Mae ...” I began. Then the red light went out, as abruptly as it had begun. +“What?” she said. “What is it?” +“Never mind.” +And then at last we came to the large central chamber—except there was no central chamber, at least, not anymore. Now the huge space was filled from floor to ceiling with an array of dark spheres, about two feet in diameter, and bristling with spiky protrusions. They looked like enormous sea urchins. They were stacked in large clusters. The arrangement was orderly. Mae said, “Is this what I think it is?” Her voice was calm, detached. Almost scholarly. “Yeah, I think so,” I said. Unless I was wrong, these spiked clusters were an organic version of the fabrication plant that Xymos had built on the surface. “This is how they reproduce.” I moved forward. +“I don’t know if we should go in ...” she said. +“We have to, Mae. Look at it: it’s ordered.” +“You think there’s a center?” +“Maybe.” And if there was, I wanted to drop thermite on it. I continued onward. Moving among the clusters was an eerie sensation. Thick mucuslike liquid dripped from the tips of the spikes. And the spheres seemed to be coated with a kind of thick gel that quivered, making the whole cluster seem to be moving, alive. I paused to look more closely. Then I saw that the surface of the spheres really was alive; crawling within the gel were masses of twisting black worms. “Jesus ...” +“They were here before,” she said calmly. +“What?” +“The worms. They were living in the layer of guano on the cave floor, when I came here before. They eat organic material and excrete high-content phosphorus compounds.” +“And now they’re involved in swarm synthesis,” I said. “That didn’t take long, just a few days. Coevolution in action. The spheres probably provide food, and collect their excretions in some way.” +“Or collect them,” Mae said dryly. +“Yeah. Maybe.” It wasn’t inconceivable. Ants raised aphids the way we raised cows. Other insects grew fungus in gardens for food. +We moved deeper into the room. The swarms swirled on all sides of us, but they kept their distance. Probably another unprecedented event, I thought: intruders in the nest. They hadn’t decided what to do. I moved carefully; the floor was now increasingly slippery in spots. There was a kind of thick muck on the ground. In a few places it glowed streaky green. The streaks seemed to go inward, toward the center. I had the sense that the floor sloped gently downward. “How much farther?” Mae said. She still sounded calm, but I didn’t think she was. I wasn’t either; when I looked back I could no longer see the entrance to the chamber, hidden behind the clusters. +And then suddenly we reached the center of the room, because the clusters ended in an open space, and directly ahead I saw what looked like a miniature version of the mound outside. It was a mound about four feet high, perfectly circular, with flat vanes extending outward on all sides. It too was streaked with green. Pale smoke was coming off the vanes. We moved closer. +“It’s hot,” she said. And it was. The heat was intense; that’s why it was smoking. She said, “What do you think is in there?” +I looked at the floor. I could see now that the streaks of green were running from the clusters down to this central mound. I said, “Assemblers.” The spiky urchins generated raw organic material. It flowed to the center, where the assemblers churned out the final molecules. This is where the final assembly occurred. +“Then this is the heart,” Mae said. +“Yeah. You could say.” +The swarms were all around us, hanging back by the clusters. Apparently, they wouldn’t come into the center. But they were everywhere around us, waiting for us. “How many you want?” she said quietly, taking the thermite from her pack. +I looked around at all the swarms. +“Five here,” I said. “We’ll need the rest to get out.” +“We can’t light five at once ...” +“It’s all right.” I held out my hand. “Give them to me.” +“But, Jack ...” +“Come on, Mae.” +She gave me five capsules. I moved closer and tossed them, unlit, into the central mound. The surrounding swarms buzzed, but still did not approach us. +“Okay,” she said. She understood immediately what I was doing. She was already taking out more capsules. +“Now four,” I said, looking back at the swarms. They were restless, moving back and forth. I didn’t know how long they would stay there. “Three for you, one for me. You do the swarms.” +“Right ...” She gave me one capsule. I lit the others for her. She threw them back in the direction we had come. The swarms danced away. +She counted: “Three ... two ... one ... now!” +We crouched, ducked away from the harsh blast of light. I heard a cracking sound; when I looked again, some of the clusters were breaking up, falling apart. Spikes were rolling on the ground. Without hesitating, I lit the next capsule, and as it spit white sparks, I tossed it into the central mound. +“Let’s go!” +We ran for the entrance. The clusters were crumbling in front of us. Mae leapt easily over the falling spikes, and kept going. I followed her, counting in my mind ... three ... two ... one ... +Now. +There was a kind of high-pitched shriek, and then a terrific blast of hot gas, a booming detonation and stabbing pain in my ears. The shock wave knocked me flat on the ground, sent me skidding forward in the sludge. I felt the spikes sticking in my skin all over my body. My goggles were knocked away, and I was surrounded by blackness. Blackness. I could see nothing at all. I wiped the sludge from my face. I tried to get to my feet, slipped and fell. “Mae,” I said. “Mae ...” +“There was an explosion,” she said, in a surprised voice. +“Mae, where are you? I can’t see.” +Everything was pitch black. I could see nothing at all. I was deep in some damn cave full of spiky things and I couldn’t see. I fought panic. +“It’s all right,” Mae said. In the darkness I felt her hand gripping my arm. Apparently she could see me. She said, “The flashlight’s on your belt.” She guided my hand. I fumbled in the darkness, feeling for the clip. I found it, but I couldn’t get it open. It was a spring clip and my fingers kept slipping off. I began to hear a thrumming sound, low at first, but starting to build. My hands were sweating. Finally the clip opened, and I flicked the flashlight on with a sigh of relief. I saw Mae in the cold halogen beam; she still had her goggles, and looked away. I swung the beam around the cave. It had been transformed by the explosion. Many of the clusters had broken apart and the spikes were all over the floor. Some substance on the floor was beginning to burn. Acrid, foul smoke was billowing up. The air was thick and dark. ... I stepped backward, and felt something squishy. +I looked down and saw David Brooks’s shirt. Then I realized I was standing on what was left of David’s torso, which had turned into a kind of whitish jelly. My foot was right in his abdomen. His rib cage scraped against my shin, leaving a white streak on my pants. I looked back and saw David’s face, ghostly white and eroded, his features eaten away until he looked as featureless as the faces on the swarms. I felt instant nausea, and tasted bile. “Come on,” Mae said, grabbing my arm, squeezing it hard. “Come on, Jack.” With a sucking sound, my foot pulled free of the body. I tried to scrape my shoe on the floor, to get clean of the white muck. I was not thinking anymore, I was just fighting nausea and an overpowering sense of horror. I wanted to run. Mae was talking to me but I didn’t hear her. I saw only glimpses of the room around me, and was only dimly aware that the swarms were emerging all around us, swarm after swarm after swarm. They were buzzing everywhere. “I need you, Jack,” Mae said, holding out four caps, and somehow, fumbling with the flashlight, I managed to light them and she flung them in all directions. I threw my hands over my eyes as the hot spheres exploded around me. When I looked again, the swarms were gone. But in only a few moments, they began to reemerge. First one swarm, then three, then six, then ten—and then too many to count. They were converging, with an angry buzz, toward us. “How many caps have we got left?” I said. +“Eight.” +I knew then that we were not going to make it. We were too deep in the cave. We would never get out. I had no idea how many swarms were around us—my halogen beam swung back and forth across what seemed like an army. +“Jack ...” Mae said, holding out her hand. She never seemed to lose confidence. I lit three more caps and Mae threw them, retracing her steps toward the entrance as she did so. I stayed close to her, but I knew our situation was hopeless. Each blast scattered the swarms for just a moment. Then they quickly regrouped. There were far too many swarms. “Jack.” More thermite in her hands. +Now I could see the entrance to the chamber, just a few yards ahead. My eyes were watering from all the acrid smoke. My halogen light was just a narrow beam cutting through the dust. The air was getting thicker and thicker. +A final series of white-hot blasts, and we came to the entrance. I saw the ramp leading back toward the surface. I never thought we’d get this far. But I wasn’t thinking anymore, everything was impressions. +“How many left?” I said. +Mae didn’t answer me. I heard the rumble of an engine from somewhere above us. Looking up I saw a wobbling white light in the cave higher up. The rumble became very loud—I heard an engine gunned—and then I saw the ATV poised on the ramp above. Bobby was up there, shouting “Get outttttt!” +Mae turned and ran up the ramp, and I scrambled to follow her. I was vaguely aware of Bobby lighting something that burst into orange flame, and then Mae pushed me against the wall as the riderless ATV roared down the ramp toward the chamber below, with a flaming cloth hanging from its gas tank. It was a motorized Molotov cocktail. +As soon as it passed, Mae shoved me hard in the back. “Run!” I sprinted the last few yards up the ramp. Bobby was reaching down for us, hauling us up over the lip to the level above. I fell and scraped my knee but hardly felt it as he dragged me onto my feet again. Then I was running hard toward the cave entrance and had almost reached the opening when a fiery blast knocked us off our feet, and I went tumbling through the air, and smashed against one of the cave walls. I got to my feet, head ringing. My flashlight was gone. I heard a kind of strange screaming sound from somewhere behind me, or thought I did. I looked at Mae and Bobby. They were getting to their feet. With the helicopter still thumping above us, we clambered up the incline and collapsed over the lip of the mound, and tumbled down the slopes, out into the cool, black desert night. +The last thing I saw was Mae waving the helicopter away, gesturing for it to go, go, go— +And then the cave exploded. +The ground jumped beneath my feet, knocking me over. I fell to the ground just as the shock wave caused sharp pain in my ears. I heard the deep rumble of the explosion. From the mouth of the cave an enormous angry fireball billowed upward, orange laced in black. I felt a wave of heat rolling down toward me, and then it was gone, and everything was suddenly quiet, and the world around me was black. +How long I lay there beneath the stars I am not sure. I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I remember was Bobby pushing me up into the backseat of the helicopter. Mae was already inside, and she leaned over to buckle me in. They were both looking at me with expressions of concern. I wondered dully if I had been injured. I didn’t feel any pain. The door slammed beside me, and Bobby got in the front next to the pilot. We had done it. We had succeeded. +I could hardly believe it was over. +The helicopter rose into the air and I saw the lights of the lab in the distance. + +PREY +Chapter 24 +DAY 7 12:12 A.M. +“Jack.” +Julia rushed toward me as I came down the corridor. In the overhead light her face looked beautiful in a lean, elegant way. She was in truth more beautiful than I remembered. Her ankle was bandaged and she had a cast on her wrist. She threw her arms around me and buried her head in my shoulder. Her hair smelled of lavender. “Oh, Jack, Jack. Thank God you’re all right.” +“Yeah,” I said hoarsely. “I’m okay.” +“I’m so glad ... so glad.” +I just stood there, feeling her hug me. Then I hugged her back. I didn’t know how to react. She was so energized, but I was exhausted, flat. +“Are you all right, Jack?” she said, still hugging me. +“Yeah, Julia.” I said, just above a whisper. “I am.” +“What’s wrong with your voice?” she said, pulling back to look at me. She scanned my face. “What’s wrong?” +“He probably burned his vocal cords,” Mae said. She was hoarse, too. Her face was blackened with soot. She had a cut on her cheek, and another on her forehead. Julia embraced me again, her fingers touched my shirt. “Darling, you’re hurt ...” +“Just my shirt.” +“Jack, are you sure you’re not hurt? I think you’re hurt ...” +“No, I’m okay.” I stepped away from her awkwardly. +“I can’t tell you,” she said, “how grateful I am for what you did tonight, Jack. What all of you did,” she added, turning to the others. “You, Mae, and Bobby too. I’m only sorry I wasn’t here to help. I know this is all my fault. But we’re very grateful. The company is grateful.” I thought, The company? But all I said was, “Yeah, well, it had to be done.” +“It did, yes, it certainly did. Quickly and decisively. And you did it, Jack. Thank God.” Ricky was standing in the background, head bobbing up and down. He was like one of those mechanical birds that drinks from a water glass. Bobbing up and down. I felt unreal, as if I was in a play. +“I think we should all have a drink to celebrate,” Julia was saying, as we went down the corridor. “There must be some champagne around here. Ricky? Is there? Yes? I want to celebrate what you guys have done.” +“I just want to sleep,” I said. +“Oh, come on, just one glass.” +It was typical Julia, I thought. Involved in her own world, not noticing how anyone around her was feeling. The last thing any of us wanted to do right now was drink champagne. “Thanks anyway,” Mae said, shaking her head. +“Are you sure? Really? It’d be fun. How about you, Bobby?” +“Maybe tomorrow,” Bobby said. +“Oh well, okay, after all, you’re the conquering heroes! We’ll do it tomorrow, then.” I noticed how fast she was talking, how quick her body movements were. I remembered Ellen’s comment about her taking drugs. It certainly seemed like she was on something. But I was so tired I just didn’t give a damn. +“I’ve told the news to Larry Handler, the head of the company,” she said, “and he’s very grateful to you all.” +“That’s nice,” I said. “Is he going to notify the Army?” +“Notify the Army? About what?” +“About the runaway experiment.” +“Well, Jack, that’s all taken care of now. You’ve taken care of it.” +“I’m not sure we have,” I said. “Some of the swarms might have escaped. Or there might be another nest out there. To be safe, I think we should call in the Army.” I didn’t really think we had missed anything, but I wanted to get outsiders in here. I was tired. I wanted somebody else to take over. +“The Army?” Julia’s eyes flicked to Ricky, then back to me. “Jack, you’re absolutely right,” she said firmly. “This is an extremely serious situation. If there is the slightest chance something was missed, we must notify them at once.” +“I mean tonight.” +“Yes, I agree, Jack. Tonight. In fact, I’ll do it right now.” I glanced back at Ricky. He was walking along, still nodding in that mechanical way. I didn’t get it. What about Ricky’s earlier panic? His fear that the experiment would be made public? Now it seemed he didn’t care. +Julia said, “You three can get some sleep, and I’ll call my contacts at the Pentagon.” +“I’ll go with you,” I said. +“It’s really not necessary.” +“I want to,” I said. +She glanced at me and smiled. “You don’t trust me?” +“It’s not that,” I said. “But they might have questions I could answer for them.” +“Okay, fine. Good idea. Excellent idea.” +I felt sure that something was wrong. I felt as if I were in a play, and everyone was acting a part. Except I didn’t know what the play was. I glanced over at Mae. She was frowning slightly. She must have sensed it, too. +We passed through the airlocks into the residential unit. Here the air felt uncomfortably cold to me; I shivered. We went into the kitchen and Julia reached for the phone. “Let’s make that call, Jack,” she said. +I went to the refrigerator and got a ginger ale. Mae had an iced tea. Bobby had a beer. We were all thirsty. I noticed a bottle of champagne sitting in the fridge, waiting. I touched it; it was cold. There were six glasses in there, too, being chilled. She’d already planned the party. Julia pushed the speakerphone button. We heard a dial tone. She punched in a number. But the call didn’t go through. The line just went dead. +“Huh,” she said. “Let’s try that again ...” +She dialed a second time. Again, the call failed to go through. +“That’s funny. Ricky, I’m not getting an outside line.” +“Try one more time,” Ricky said. +I sipped my ginger ale and watched them. There was no question that this was all an act, a performance for our benefit. Julia dutifully dialed a third time. I wondered what number she was calling. Or did she know the number for the Pentagon by heart? “Huh,” she said. “Nothing.” +Ricky picked up the phone, looked at the base, put it down again. “Should be okay,” he said, acting puzzled. +“Oh for Christ’s sake,” I said. “Let me guess. Something has happened and we can’t dial out.” +“No, no, we can,” Ricky said. +“I was just calling a few minutes ago,” Julia said. “Just before you got back.” +Ricky pushed away from the table. “I’ll check the comm lines.” +“You do that,” I said, glowering. +Julia was staring at me. “Jack,” she said, “I’m worried about you.” +“Uh-huh.” +“You’re angry.” +“I’m being fucked with.” +“I promise you,” she said quietly, meeting my eyes. “You’re not.” Mae got up from the table, saying she was going to take a shower. Bobby wandered into the lounge to play a video game, his usual way to unwind. Soon I heard the sound of machine-gun fire, and the cries of dead bad guys. Julia and I were alone in the kitchen. She leaned over the table toward me. She spoke in a low, earnest voice. “Jack,” she said, “I think I owe you an explanation.” +“No,” I said. “You don’t.” +“I mean, for my behavior. My decisions these past days.” +“It doesn’t matter.” +“It does to me.” +“Maybe later, Julia.” +“I need to tell you now. You see, the thing is, I just wanted to save the company, Jack. That’s all. The camera failed and we couldn’t fix it, we lost our contract, and the company was falling apart. I’ve never lost a company before. I never had one shot out from underneath me, and I didn’t want Xymos to be the first. I was invested, I had a stake, and I guess I had my pride. I wanted to save it. I know I didn’t use good judgment. I was desperate. It’s nobody else’s fault. They all wanted to stop it. I pushed them to go on. It was ... it was my crusade.” She shrugged. “And it was all for nothing. The company’s going to fold in a matter of days. I’ve lost it.” She leaned closer. “But I don’t want to lose you, too. I don’t want to lose my family. I don’t want to lose us.” +She dropped her voice lower, and stretched her hand across the table to cover mine. “I want to make amends, Jack. I want to make things right, and get us back on track again.” She paused. “I hope you do, too.” +I said, “I’m not sure how I feel.” +“You’re tired.” +“Yes. But I’m not sure, anymore.” +“You mean, about us?” +I said, “I hate this fucking conversation.” And I did. I hated that she would start this when I was exhausted, when I had just gone through an ordeal that nearly got me killed and that was, ultimately, all her doing. I hated that she dismissed her involvement as “bad judgment” when it was considerably worse than that. +“Oh Jack, let’s go back to the way we were,” she said, and suddenly she leaned the rest of the way across the table and tried to kiss me on the lips. I pulled back, turned my head away. She stared at me, eyes pleading. “Jack, please.” +“This is not the time or the place, Julia,” I said. +A pause. She didn’t know what to say. Finally: “The kids miss you.” +“I’m sure they do. I miss them, too.” +She burst into tears. “And they don’t miss me ...” she sobbed. “They don’t even care about me ... about their mother ...” She reached for my hand again. I let her hold it. I tried to take stock of my feelings. I just felt tired, and very uncomfortable. I wanted her to stop crying. “Julia ...” +The intercom clicked. I heard Ricky’s voice, amplified. “Hey, guys? We have a problem with the comm lines. You better come here right away.” +The comm room consisted of a large closet in one corner of the maintenance room. It was sealed with a heavy security door, with a small tempered glass window set in the upper half. Through this window, I could see all the wiring panels and switch racks for the telecommunications in the lab. I also saw that great chunks of wiring had been yanked out. And slumped in a corner of the closet I saw Charley Davenport. He appeared to be dead. His mouth hung open, his eyes stared into space. His skin was purple-gray. A black buzzing swarm swirled around his head. +“I can’t imagine how this happened,” Ricky was saying. “He was fast asleep when I checked on him ...” +“When was that?” I said. +“Maybe half an hour ago.” +“And the swarm? How’d it get there?” +“I can’t imagine,” Ricky said. “He must have carried it with him, from outside.” +“How?” I said. “He went through all the airlocks.” +“I know, but ...” +“But what, Ricky? How’s it possible?” +“Maybe ... I don’t know, maybe it was in his throat or something.” +“In his throat?” I said. “You mean, just hanging out between his tonsils? These things kill you, you know.” +“Yeah, I know. Of course I know.” He shrugged. “Beats me.” +I stared at Ricky, trying to understand his demeanor. He had just discovered that his lab was invaded by a lethal nanoswarm, and he didn’t appear to be upset at all. He was taking it all very casually. +Mae came hurrying into the room. She took in the situation with a glance. “Did anyone check the video playback?” +“We can’t,” Ricky said. He pointed to the closet. “The controls are disabled—in there.” +“So you don’t know how he got in there?” +“No. But he evidently didn’t want us calling out. At least ... that’s how it looks.” +Mae said, “Why would Charley go in there?” +I shook my head. I had no idea. +Julia said, “It’s airtight. Maybe he knew he was infected and wanted to seal himself off. I mean, he locked the door from the inside.” +I said, “He did? How do you know that?” +Julia said, “Um ... I just assumed ... uh ...” She peered through the glass. “And, uh, you can see the lock reflected in that chrome fitting ... see that one there?” I didn’t bother to look. But Mae did, and I heard her say, “Oh yes, Julia, you’re right. Good observation. I missed that myself.” It sounded very phony, but Julia didn’t seem to react. So everybody was playacting, now. Everything was staged. And I didn’t understand why. But as I watched Mae with Julia, I noticed that she was being extremely careful with my wife. Almost as if she was afraid of her, or at least afraid of offending her. +That was odd. +And a little alarming. +I said to Ricky, “Is there a way to unlock the door?” +“I think so. Vince probably has a skeleton key. But nobody’s unlocking that door now, Jack. Not as long as that swarm is in there.” +“So we can’t call anywhere?” I said. “We’re stuck here? Incommunicado?” +“Until tomorrow, yes. Helicopter will be back tomorrow morning, on its regular run.” Ricky peered in through the glass at the destruction. “Jeez. Charley really did a job on those switching panels.” +I said, “Why do you think he would do that?” +Ricky shook his head. “Charley was a little crazy, you know. I mean he was colorful. But all that farting and humming ... he was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, Jack.” +“I never thought so.” +“Just my opinion,” he said. +I stood beside Ricky and looked through the glass. The swarm was buzzing around Charley’s head, and I was starting to see the milky coating form on his body. The usual pattern. I said, “What about pumping liquid nitrogen in there? Freezing the swarm?” +“We could probably do that,” Ricky said, “but I’m afraid we’d damage the equipment.” +“Can you turn the air handlers up enough to suck the particles out?” +“Handlers are going full-bore now.” +“And you wouldn’t want to use a fire extinguisher ...” +He shook his head. “Extinguishers are Halon. Won’t affect the particles.” +“So we’re effectively kept out of that room.” +“Far as I can tell, yes.” +“Cell phones?” +He shook his head. “Antennas route through that room. Every form of communication we have—cells, Internet, high-speed data trunks—everything goes through that room.” Julia said, “Charley knew that room was airtight. I bet he went there to protect the rest of us. It was a selfless act. A courageous act.” +She was developing her theory about Charley, fleshing it out, adding details. It was a little distracting, considering the main problem was still unanswered—how to unlock the door, and disable the swarm. I said, “Is there another window in that closet?” +“No.” +“This window in the door is the only one?” +“Yes.” +“Okay, then,” I said, “let’s black out the window, and turn the lights out in there. And wait a few hours, until the swarm loses power.” +“Jeez, I don’t know,” Ricky said doubtfully. +“What do you mean, Ricky?” Julia said. “I think it’s a great idea. It’s certainly worth a try. Let’s do it right now.” +“Okay, fine,” Ricky said, immediately deferring to her. “But you’re going to have to wait six hours.” +I said, “I thought it was three hours.” +“It is, but I want extra hours before I open that door. If that swarm gets loose in here, we’ve all had it.” +In the end, that was what we decided to do. We got black cloth and taped it over the window, and put black cardboard over that. We turned out the lights and taped the light switch in the off position. At the end of that time, exhaustion hit me again. I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. I said, “I have to go to bed.” +“We should all get some sleep,” Julia said. “We can revisit this in the morning.” We all headed off toward the residence module. Mae sidled up alongside me. “How are you feeling?” she said. +“Okay. My back’s starting to hurt a little.” +She nodded. “You better let me take a look at it.” +“Why?” +“Just let me take a look, before you go to bed.” +“Oh, Jack, darling,” Julia cried. “You poor baby.” +“What is it?” +I was sitting on the kitchen table with my shirt off. Julia and Mae were behind me, clucking. +“What is it?” I said again. +“There’s some blistering,” Mae said. +“Blistering?” Julia said. “His whole back is covered—” +“I think we have dressings,” Mae said, interrupting her, reaching for the first-aid kit beneath the sink. +“Yes, I hope so.” Julia smiled at me. “Jack, I can’t tell you how sorry I am, that you had to go through this.” +“This may sting a little,” Mae said. +I knew that Mae wanted to talk to me alone, but there was no opportunity. Julia was not going to leave us alone for a minute. She had always been jealous of Mae, even years ago when I first hired Mae in my company, and now she was competing with her for my attention. I wasn’t flattered. +The dressings were cool at first, as Mae applied them, but within moments they stung bitterly. I winced. +“I don’t know what painkillers we have,” Mae said. “You’ve got a good area of second-degree burns.” +Julia rummaged frantically through the first-aid kit, tossing contents out right and left. Tubes and canisters clattered to the floor. “There’s morphine,” she said at last, holding up a bottle. She smiled at me brightly. “That should do it!” +“I don’t want morphine,” I said. What I really wanted to say was that I wanted her to go to bed. Julia was annoying me. Her frantic edge was getting on my nerves. And I wanted to talk to Mae alone. +“There’s nothing else,” Julia said, “except aspirin.” +“Aspirin is fine.” +“I’m worried it won’t be—” +“Aspirin is fine.” +“You don’t have to bite my head off.” +“I’m sorry. I don’t feel well.” +“Well, I’m only trying to help.” Julia stepped back. “I mean, if you two want to be alone, you should just say so.” +“No,” I said, “we do not want to be alone.” +“Well, I’m only trying to help.” She turned back to the medicine kit. “Maybe there is something else ...” Containers of tape and plastic bottles of antibiotics fell to the floor. “Julia,” I said. “Please stop.” +“What am I doing? What am I doing that is so awful?” +“Just stop.” +“I’m only trying to help.” +“I know that.” +Behind me, Mae said, “Okay. All finished now. That should hold you until tomorrow.” She yawned. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.” +I thanked her, and watched her leave the room. When I turned back, Julia was holding a glass of water and two aspirins for me. +“Thank you,” I said. +“I never liked that woman,” she said. +“Let’s get some sleep,” I said. +“There’s only single beds here.” +“I know.” +She moved closer. “I’d like to be with you, Jack.” +“I’m really tired. I’ll see you in the morning, Julia.” +I went back to my room and looked at the bed. I didn’t bother taking off my clothes. +I don’t remember my head touching the pillow. +Chapter 25 +DAY 7 4:42 A.M. +I slept restlessly, with constant and terrible dreams. I dreamed that I was back in Monterey, marrying Julia again, and I was standing in front of the minister when she came up alongside me in her bridal gown, and when she lifted the veil I was shocked by how beautiful and young and slender she was. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, trying to conceal my uneasiness. Because now I saw she was more than slender, her face was thin, almost emaciated. Almost a skull. Then I turned to the minister in front of us, but it was Mae, and she was pouring colored liquids back and forth in test tubes. When I looked back at Julia she was very angry, and said she never liked that woman. Somehow it was my fault. I was to blame. I woke up briefly, sweating. The pillow was soaked. I turned it over, and went back to sleep. I saw myself sleeping on the bed, and I looked up and saw that the door to my room was open. Light came in from the hallway outside. A shadow fell across my bed. Ricky came into the room and looked down at me. His face was backlit and dark, I couldn’t see his expression, but he said, “I always loved you, Jack.” He leaned over to whisper something in my ear, and I realized as his head came down that he was going to kiss me instead. He was going to kiss me on the lips, passionately. His mouth was open. His tongue licked his lips. I was very upset, I didn’t know what to do, but at that moment Julia came in and said, “What’s going on?” and Ricky hastily pulled away, and made some kind of evasive comment. Julia was very angry and said, “Not now, you fool,” and Ricky made another evasive comment. And then Julia said, “This is completely unnecessary, it will take care of itself.” And Ricky said, “There are constriction coefficients for deterministic algorithms if you do interval global optimization.” And she said, “It won’t hurt you if you don’t fight it.” She turned on the light in the room and walked out. Then I was suddenly back in my Monterey wedding, Julia was standing beside me in white, and I turned to look back at the audience, and I saw my three kids sitting in the first row, smiling and happy. And as I watched a black line appeared around their mouths, and swept down their bodies, until they were cloaked in black. They continued to smile, but I was horrified. I ran to them, but I couldn’t rub the black cloak off. And Nicole said calmly, “Don’t forget the sprinklers, Dad.” +I woke up, tangled up in the sheets, drenched in sweat. The door to my room was open. A rectangle of light fell across my bed from the hallway outside. I looked over at the workstation monitor. It said “4:55 A.M.” I closed my eyes and lay there for a while, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was wet and uncomfortable. I decided to take a shower. Shortly before five in the morning, I got out of bed. +The hallway was silent. I walked down the corridor to the bathrooms. The doors to all the bedrooms were open, which seemed strange. I could see everybody sleeping as I walked past. And the lights were on in all the bedrooms. I saw Ricky asleep, and I saw Bobby, and I saw Julia, and Vince. Mae’s bed was empty. And of course Charley’s bed was empty. I stopped in the kitchen to get a ginger ale from the refrigerator. I was very thirsty, my throat painful and parched. And my stomach felt a little queasy. I looked at the champagne bottle. I suddenly had a funny feeling about it, as if it might have been tampered with. I took it out and looked closely at the cap, at the metal foil that covered the cork. It looked entirely normal. No tampering, no needle marks, no nothing. +Just a bottle of champagne. +I put it back and closed the refrigerator door. +I began to wonder if I had been unfair to Julia. Maybe she really did believe she’d made a mistake and wanted to put things right. Maybe she just wanted to show her gratitude. Maybe I was being too tough on her. Too unforgiving. +Because when you thought about it, what had she done that was suspicious or wrong? She’d been glad to see me, even if she was over the top. She’d accepted responsibility for the experiment, and she’d apologized for it. She’d immediately agreed to make the call to the Army. She’d agreed with my plan to kill the swarm in the comm room. She’d done everything she could do to show she supported me, and was on my side. +But I still was uneasy. +And of course there was the matter of Charley and his swarm. Ricky’s idea that Charley had somehow been carrying the swarm inside his body, in his mouth or under his armpit or something, didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Those swarms killed within seconds. So it left a question—how did the swarm get into the comm room with Charley? Did it get in from outside? Why hadn’t it attacked Julia and Ricky and Vince? +I forgot about my shower. +I decided to go down to the utility room, and look around outside the comm room door. Maybe there was something I had missed. Julia had been talking a lot, interrupting my train of thought. Almost as if she hadn’t wanted me to figure something out ... +There I was again, being hard on Julia. +I went through the airlock, down the corridor, through another airlock. When you were tired, it was annoying to have that wind blowing on you. I came out into the utility area, and went toward the comm room door. I didn’t notice anything. +I heard the sound of a clicking keyboard, and looked into the biology lab. Mae was there, at her workstation. +I said, “What are you doing?” +“Checking the video playback.” +“I thought we couldn’t do that, because Charley pulled the wires.” +“That’s what Ricky said. But it isn’t true.” +I started to come around the lab bench, to look over her shoulder. She held up her hand. +“Jack,” she said. “Maybe you don’t want to look at this.” +“What? Why not?” +“It’s, uh ... maybe you don’t want to deal with this. Not right now. Maybe tomorrow.” But of course after that, I practically ran around the table to see what was on her monitor. And I stopped. What I saw on her screen was an image of an empty corridor. With a time code at the bottom of the picture. “Is this it?” I said. “Is this what I shouldn’t deal with?” +“No.” She turned in her chair. “Look, Jack, you have to go through all the security cameras in sequence, and each one only records ten frames a minute, so it’s very difficult to be sure of what we’re—” +“Just show me, Mae.” +“I have to go back a bit ...” She pressed the back button in the corner of the keyboard repeatedly. Like many new control systems, the Xymos system was modeled on Internet browser technology. You could go backward in work, retracing your steps. The frames jumped backward until she came to the place she wanted. Then she ran it forward, the security images jumping from one camera to the next in rapid succession. A corridor. The main plant. Another angle on the plant. An airlock. Another corridor. The utility room. A corridor. The kitchen. The lounge. The residence hallway. An exterior view, looking down at the floodlit desert. Corridor. The power room. The outside, ground level. Another corridor. I blinked. “How long have you been doing this?” +“About an hour.” +“Jesus.” +Next I saw a corridor. Ricky moving down it. Power station. Outside, looking down on Julia stepping into the floodlight. A corridor. Julia and Ricky together, embracing, and then a corridor, and— +“Wait,” I said. +Mae hit a button. She looked at me, said nothing. She pressed another key, flicked the images forward slowly. She stopped on the camera that showed Ricky and Julia. “Ten frames.” +The movement was blurred and jerky. Ricky and Julia moved toward each other. They embraced. There was a clear sense of ease, of familiarity between them. And then they kissed passionately. +“Aw, shit,” I said, turning away from the screen. “Shit, shit, shit.” +“I’m sorry, Jack,” Mae said. “I don’t know what to say.” +I felt a wave of dizziness, almost as if I might collapse. I sat down on the table. I kept my body turned away from the screen. I just couldn’t look. I took a deep breath. Mae was saying something more, but I didn’t hear her words. I took another breath. I ran my hand through my hair. +I said, “Did you know about this?” +“No. Not until a few minutes ago.” +“Did anybody?” +“No. We used to joke about it sometimes, that they had a relationship, but none of us believed it.” +“Jesus.” I ran my hand through my hair again. “Tell me the truth, Mae. I need to hear the truth. Did you know about this or not?” +“No, Jack. I didn’t.” +Silence. I took a breath. I tried to take stock of my feelings. “You know what’s funny?” I said. “What’s funny is that I’ve suspected this for a while now. I mean, I was pretty sure it was happening, I just didn’t know who ... I mean ... Even though I expected it, it’s still kind of a shock.” +“I’m sure.” +“I never would have figured Ricky,” I said. “He’s such a ... I don’t know ... smarmy kind of guy. And he’s not a big power guy. Somehow I would have thought she’d pick someone more important, I guess.” As I said it, I remembered my conversation with Ellen after dinner. Are you so sure about Julia’s style? +That was after I’d seen the guy in the car. The guy whose face I couldn’t really make out ... +Ellen: It’s called denial, Jack. +“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head. I felt angry, embarrassed, confused, furious. It kept changing every second. +Mae waited. She didn’t move or speak. She was completely still. Finally she said, “Do you want to see any more?” +“Is there more?” +“Yes.” +“I don’t know if I, uh ... No, I don’t want to see any more.” +“Maybe you better.” +“No.” +“I mean, it might make you feel better.” +“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think I can take it.” +She said, “It may not be what you think, Jack. At least, it may not be exactly what you think.” +It’s called denial, Jack. +“Sorry, Mae,” I said, “but I don’t want to pretend anymore. I saw it. I know what it is.” I thought I’d be with Julia forever. I thought we loved the kids together, we had a family, a house, a life together. And Ricky had a new baby of his own. It just was weird. It didn’t make sense to me. But then, things never turn out the way you think they will. I heard Mae typing quickly on the keyboard. I turned so I could see her, but not the screen. “What’re you doing?” +“Trying to find Charley. See if I can track what happened to him over the last few hours.” She continued typing. I took a breath. She was right. Whatever was going on in my personal life was already well advanced. There was nothing I could do about it, at least not right now. I turned all the way around and faced the screen. +“Okay,” I said. “Let’s look for Charley.” +It was disorienting to watch the camera images flash by, repeating in sequence. People popped in and out of images. I saw Julia in the kitchen. The next time I saw her and Ricky in the kitchen. The refrigerator door was open, then shut. I saw Vince in the main plant room, then he popped out. I saw him in a corridor, then gone. +“I don’t see Charley.” +“Maybe he’s still asleep,” Mae said. +“Can you see in the bedrooms?” +“Yes, there are cameras there, but I’d have to change security cycle. Ordinary cycle doesn’t go into the bedrooms.” +“How big a deal is it to change the security cycle?” +“I’m not sure. This is really Ricky’s area. The system here is pretty complicated. Ricky’s the only one who really knows how to work it. Let’s see if we find Charley in the regular cycle.” So that’s what we did, waiting to see if he appeared in any of the standard camera images. We searched for about ten minutes more. From time to time, I had to look away from the images, though it never seemed to bother Mae. But sure enough, we saw him in the residential hallway, walking down the corridor, rubbing his face. He’d just woken up. “Okay,” Mae said. “We got him.” +“What’s the time?” +She froze the image, so we could read it. It was 12:10 A.M. +I said, “That’s only about half an hour before we got back.” +“Yes.” She ran the images forward. Charley disappeared from the hallway, but we saw him briefly, heading into the bathroom. Then we saw Ricky and Julia in the kitchen. I felt my body tense. But they were just talking. Then Julia put the champagne in the refrigerator, and Ricky started handing her glasses to put in beside the bottle. +It was difficult to be sure what happened next, because of the frame rate. Ten frames a second of video meant that you only got an image every six seconds, so events appeared blurred and jumpy when things moved fast, because too much happened between the frames. +But this is what I thought happened: +Charley showed up, and began talking to the two of them. He was smiling, cheerful. He pointed to the glasses. Julia and Ricky put the glasses away while they talked to him. Then he held up his hand, to stop. +He pointed to a glass that Julia was holding in her hand before she put it in the refrigerator. He said something. +Julia shook her head, and put the glass in the refrigerator. Charley seemed puzzled. He pointed again to another glass. Julia shook her head. Then Charley hunched his shoulders and thrust out his chin, as if he were getting angry. He poked the table repeatedly with his finger, making a point. +Ricky stepped forward between Julia and Charley. He acted like someone interrupting an argument. He held his hands up soothingly to Charley: take it easy. Charley wasn’t taking it easy. He was pointing to the sink, heaped with unwashed dishes. +Ricky shook his head, and put his hand on Charley’s shoulder. +Charley brushed it off. +The two men began to argue. Meanwhile, Julia calmly put the rest of the glasses into the refrigerator. She seemed indifferent to the argument a few feet from her, almost as if she didn’t hear it. Charley was trying to get around Ricky to the refrigerator, but Ricky kept moving to block him, and held his hands up each time. +Ricky’s whole demeanor suggested that he did not regard Charley as rational. He was treating Charley in that careful way you do when someone’s out of control. Mae said, “Is Charley being affected by the swarm? Is that why he’s acting that way?” +“I can’t tell.” I looked closer at the screen. “I don’t see any swarm.” +“No,” she said. “But he’s pretty angry.” +“What does he want them to do?” I said. +Mae shook her head. “Put the glasses back? Wash them? Use different glasses? I can’t tell.” I said, “Charley doesn’t care about that stuff. He’d eat out of a dirty plate somebody else had used.” I smiled. “I’ve seen him do it.” +Suddenly, Charley stepped several paces back. For a moment, he was completely still, as if he had discovered something that stunned him. Ricky said something to him. Charley began pointing and shouting at both of them. Ricky tried to approach him. Charley kept backing away, and then he turned to the phone, mounted on the wall. He lifted the receiver. Ricky came forward, very quickly, his body a blur, and slammed the phone down. He shoved Charley back—hard. Ricky’s strength was surprising. Charley was a big guy, but he went down to the floor, and skidded backward a few feet. Charley got to his feet, continued to yell, then he turned and ran out of the room. +Julia and Ricky exchanged a glance. Julia said something to him. +Immediately, Ricky ran after Charley. +Julia ran after Ricky. +“Where are they going?” I said. +Mae released the hold button, and the screen flashed “Updating Time,” and then we started seeing images from all the cameras again, in sequence. We saw Charley running down a corridor, and we saw Ricky start after him. We waited impatiently for the next cycle. But nobody was visible there. +Another cycle. Then we saw Charley in the utility room, dialing the phone. He glanced over his shoulder. A moment later, Ricky came in, and Charley hung up the phone. They argued, circling around each other. +Charley picked up a shovel, and swung it at Ricky. The first time Ricky dodged away. The second time it caught him on the shoulder and knocked him to the floor. Charley swung the shovel over his head, and slammed it down on Ricky’s head. The gesture was brutal, the intention clearly murderous. Ricky managed to duck back just as the shovel smashed onto the concrete. +“My God ...” Mae said. +Ricky was getting to his feet, when Charley turned and saw Julia enter the room. Julia held out her hand, pleading with Charley (to put down the shovel?). Charley looked from one of them to the other. And then Vince entered the room, too. Now that they were all in the room, he seemed to lose his urge to fight. They were circling him, closing in. Suddenly Charley dashed for the comm room, stepped inside, and tried to shut the door behind him. Ricky was on him in a flash. He had his foot in the door and Charley couldn’t get it closed. Charley’s face looked angry through the glass. Vince came right alongside Ricky. With both of them at the door, I couldn’t see what was happening. Julia seemed to be giving orders. I thought I saw her reach her hand through the crack in the door, but it was difficult to be sure. In any case, the door opened, and both Vince and Ricky entered the room. The action that came next was swift, blurred on the video, but apparently the three men were fighting, and Ricky managed to get behind Charley, and get him in a hammerlock; Vince pulled Charley’s arm behind his back, and together the two men subdued Charley. He stopped fighting. The image was less blurred. +“What’s happening?” Mae said. “They never told us any of this.” Ricky and Vince were holding Charley from behind. Charley was panting, his chest heaving, but he no longer struggled. Julia came into the room. She looked at Charley, and had some conversation with him. +And then Julia walked up to Charley, and kissed him full and long on the lips. Charley struggled, tried to wrench away. Vince grabbed a fistful of Charley’s hair and tried to hold his head steady. Julia continued to kiss him. Then she stepped away, and as she did I saw a river of black between her mouth and Charley’s. It was only there for a moment, and then it faded. +“Oh my God,” Mae said. +Julia wiped her lips, and smiled. +Charley sagged, dropped to the ground. He appeared dazed. A black cloud came out of his mouth, and swirled around his head. Vince patted him on the head and left the room. Ricky went over to the panels—and pulled out wiring by the handful. He literally ripped the panels apart. Then he turned back to Charley, said something else, and walked out of the comm room. +At once Charley sprang to his feet, closed the door, and locked it. But Ricky and Julia just laughed, as if this was a futile gesture. Charley sagged again, and from then on he was out of sight. +Ricky threw his arm around Julia’s shoulder, and they walked out of the room together. +“Well, you two are certainly up bright and early!” +I turned. +Julia was standing in the doorway. +Chapter 26 +DAY 7 5:12 A.M. +She came forward into the room, smiling. “You know, Jack,” she said, “if I didn’t trust you so completely, I’d think there was something going on between the two of you.” +“Really,” I said. I stepped away from Mae a little, while she typed quickly. I felt tremendously uneasy. “Why would you think that?” +“Well, you had your heads together about something,” she said, as she came toward us. “You looked quite fascinated by what you were seeing on the screen. What’re you looking at, anyway?” +“It’s ah, technical.” +“May I see? I’m interested in technical things. Didn’t Ricky tell you I had a new technical interest? I do. I’m fascinated by this technology. It’s a new world, isn’t it? The twenty-first century has arrived. Don’t get up, Mae. I’ll just look over your shoulder.” By now she had walked around the bench, and could see the screen. She frowned at the image, which showed bacterial cultures on a red growth medium. White circles within red circles. “What’s this?” +Mae said, “Bacterial colonies. We’ve got some contamination of the coli stock. I had to take one tank offline. We’re trying to figure out what’s wrong.” +“Probably phage, don’t you think?” Julia said. “Isn’t that what it usually is with bacterial stocks—a virus?” She sighed. “Everything about molecular manufacturing is so delicate. Things go wrong so easily, and so often. You have to keep alert for trouble.” She glanced at me, and at Mae. “But surely this isn’t what you’ve been looking at all this time ...” +“Actually, it is,” I said. +“What? Pictures of mold?” +“Bacteria.” +“Yes, bacteria. You’ve been looking at this the whole time, Mae?” +She shrugged, nodded. “Yes, Julia. It’s my job.” +“And I don’t question your dedication for a moment,” Julia said. “But do you mind?” Her hand darted forward and hit the back key in the corner of the keyboard. The previous screen showed more pictures of bacterial growth. +The next screen showed a virus electron micrograph. +And then a table of growth data over the last twelve hours. +Julia continued to hit the back key half a dozen times more, but all she saw were images of bacteria and viruses, graphs, and data tables. She took her hand away from the keyboard. “You seem to be devoting a lot of time to this. Is it really so important?” +“Well, it’s a contaminant,” Mae said. “If we don’t control it, we’ll have to shut down the entire system.” +“Then by all means keep at it.” She turned to me. “Want to have breakfast? I’d imagine you must be starving.” +“Sounds great,” I said. +“Come with me,” Julia said. “We’ll make it together.” +“Okay,” I said. I glanced at Mae. “I’ll see you later. Let me know if I can do anything to help.” +I left with Julia. We started down the corridor to the residences. +“I don’t know why,” Julia said, “but that woman bothers me.” +“I don’t know why either. She’s very good. Very thoughtful, very conscientious.” +“And very pretty.” +“Julia ...” +“Is that why you won’t kiss me? Because you’re involved with her?” +“Julia, for Christ’s sake.” +She stared at me, waiting. +“Look,” I said. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks for everybody. Frankly, you’ve been difficult to live with.” +“I’m sure I have.” +“And frankly, I’ve been pretty angry with you.” +“With good reason, I know. I’m sorry for what I put you through.” She leaned over, kissed me on the cheek. “But it feels so distant now. I don’t like the tension between us. What do you say we kiss and make up?” +“Maybe later,” I said. “We have a lot to do now.” +She got playful, puckering her lips, kissing air. “Oooh, come on, sweetie, just a little smooch ... come on, it won’t kill you ...” +“Later,” I said. +She sighed, and gave up. We continued down the corridor in silence for a while. Then she said, in a serious voice, “You’re avoiding me, Jack. And I want to know why.” I didn’t answer her, I just gave a long-suffering sigh and kept walking, acting like what she’d said was beneath response. In fact, I was badly worried. +I couldn’t keep refusing to kiss her forever; sooner or later she’d figure out what I knew. Maybe she already had. Because even when Julia was acting girlish, she seemed sharper, more alert than she’d ever been before. I had the feeling she didn’t miss anything. And I had the same feeling about Ricky. It was as if they were tuned up, ultra-aware. And I was worried about what I’d seen on Mae’s monitor. The black cloud that seemed to come from Julia’s mouth. Had it really been there, on the video? Because as far as I knew, swarms killed their prey on contact. They were merciless. Now Julia seemed to be harboring a swarm. How could that be? Did she have some sort of immunity? Or was the swarm tolerating her, not killing her for some reason? And what about Ricky and Vince? Did they have immunity, too? +One thing was clear: Julia and Ricky did not want us to call anybody. They had deliberately isolated us in the desert, knowing that they would have only a few hours until the helicopter arrived. So apparently, that’s all the time they needed. To do what? Kill us? Or just infect us? What? +Walking down the corridor next to my wife, I felt as if I was walking with a stranger. With somebody I didn’t know anymore. Somebody who was immensely dangerous. I glanced at my watch. The helicopter would be here in less than two hours, now. +Julia smiled. “Got an appointment?” +“No. Just thinking it’s time for breakfast.” +“Jack,” she said. “Why won’t you be honest with me?” +“I’m being honest ...” +“No. You were wondering how long until the helicopter comes.” +I shrugged. +“Two hours,” she said. And she added, “I’ll bet you’ll be glad to get out of here, won’t you?” +“Yes,” I said. “But I’m not leaving until everything is done.” +“Why? What’s left to be done?” +By now we had reached the residential unit. I could smell bacon and eggs cooking. Ricky came around the corner. He smiled heartily when he saw me. “Hey, Jack. How’d you sleep?” +“I slept okay.” +“Really? ’Cause you look a little tired.” +“I had bad dreams,” I said. +“Oh yes? Bad dreams? Bummer.” +“It happens sometimes,” I said. +We all went into the kitchen. Bobby was making breakfast. “Scrambled eggs with chives and cream cheese,” he said cheerfully. “What kind of toast do you guys want?” Julia wanted wheat toast. Ricky wanted English muffin. I said I didn’t want anything. I was looking at Ricky, noticing again how strong he appeared. Beneath his T-shirt, the muscles were well defined, cut. He caught me staring at him. “Something wrong?” +“No. Just admiring your butch look.” I tried to be light, but the truth was that I felt incredibly uncomfortable in the kitchen with all of them around me. I kept thinking of Charley, and how swiftly they had attacked him. I wasn’t hungry; I just wanted to get out of there. But I couldn’t see how to do it without arousing suspicion. +Julia went to the refrigerator, opened the door. The champagne was in there. “You guys ready to celebrate now?” +“Sure,” Bobby said. “Sounds great, a little mimosa in the morning ...” +“Absolutely not,” I said. “Julia, I’m going to insist you take this situation seriously. We’re not out of the woods yet. We have to get the Army in here, and we haven’t been able to call. It’s not time to break out the champagne.” +She pouted. “Oh, you’re such a spoilsport ...” +“Spoilsport hell. You’re being ridiculous.” +“Oooh, baby, don’t get mad, just kiss me, kiss me.” She puckered her lips again, and leaned across the table. +But it seemed like getting angry was the only move I had. “God damn it, Julia,” I said, raising my voice, “the only reason we are in this mess is because you didn’t take it seriously in the first place. You had a runaway swarm out there in the desert for what—two weeks? And instead of eradicating it, you played with it. You fooled around until it got out of control, and as a result three people are dead. This is not a goddamn celebration, Julia. It’s a disaster. And I am not drinking any fucking champagne while I am here and neither is anyone else.” I took the bottle to the sink and smashed it. I turned back to her. “Got it?” +Stony-faced, she said, “That was completely unnecessary.” +I saw Ricky looking at me thoughtfully. As if he was trying to decide something. Bobby turned his back while he cooked, as if he was embarrassed by a marital spat. Had they gotten to Bobby? I thought I saw a thin black line at his neck, but I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t dare stare. +“Unnecessary?” I said, full of outrage. “Those people were my friends. And they were your friends, Ricky. And yours, Bobby. And I don’t want to hear this celebration shit anymore!” I turned and stomped out of the room. As I left, Vince was coming in. “Better take it easy, pal,” Vince said. “You’ll give yourself a stroke.” +“Fuck off,” I said. +Vince raised his eyebrows. I brushed past him. +“You’re not fooling anybody, Jack!” Julia called after me. “I know what you’re really up to!” +My stomach flipped. But I kept walking. +“I can see right through you, Jack. I know you’re going back to her.” +“Damn right!” I said. +Was that what Julia really thought? I didn’t believe it for a moment. She was just trying to mislead me, to keep me off guard until ... what? What were they going to do? There were four of them. And only two of us—at least, there were two if they hadn’t already gotten to Mae. +Mae wasn’t in the biology laboratory. I looked around and saw that a side door was ajar, leading downstairs to the underground level where the fermentation chambers were installed. Up close, they were much larger than I had realized, giant stainless spheres about six feet across. They were surrounded by a maze of pipes and valves and temperature control units. It was warm here, and very noisy. +Mae was standing by the third unit, making notes on a clipboard and shutting a valve. She had a rack of test tubes at her feet. I went down and stood beside her. She looked at me, then shot a glance toward the ceiling, where a security camera was mounted. She walked around to the other side of the tank, and I followed her. Over here, the tank blocked the camera. She said, “They slept with the lights on.” +I nodded. I knew what it meant, now. +“They’re all infected,” she said. +“Yes.” +“And it’s not killing them.” +“Yes,” I said, “but I don’t understand why.” +“It must have evolved,” she said, “to tolerate them.” +“That fast?” +“Evolution can happen fast,” she said. “You know the Ewald studies.” I did. Paul Ewald had studied cholera. What he found was that the cholera organism would quickly change to sustain an epidemic. In places where there were no sanitary water supplies but perhaps a ditch running through a village, the cholera was virulent, prostrating the victim and killing him where he fell from massive overwhelming diarrhea. The diarrhea contained millions of cholera organisms; it would run into the water supply and infect others in the village. In this way the cholera reproduced, and the epidemic continued. +But when there was sanitary water supply, the virulent strain could not reproduce. The victim would die where he fell but his diarrhea would not enter the water supply. Others would not be infected, and the epidemic would fade. Under those circumstances, the epidemic evolved to a milder form, enabling the victim to walk around and spread the milder organisms by contact, dirty linens, and so on. +Mae was suggesting that the same thing had happened to the swarms. They had evolved to a milder form, which could be transmitted from one person to another. “It’s creepy,” I said. +She nodded. “But what can we do about it?” +And then she began to cry silently, tears running down her cheeks. Mae was always so strong. Seeing her upset unnerved me now. She was shaking her head. “Jack, there’s nothing we can do. There’s four of them. They’re stronger than we are. They’re going to kill us the way they killed Charley.” +She pressed her head against my shoulder. I put my arm around her. But I couldn’t comfort her. Because I knew she was right. +There was no way out. +Winston Churchill once said that being shot at focused the mind wonderfully. My mind was going very fast now. I was thinking that I had made a mistake and I had to fix it. Even though it was a typically human mistake. +Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything—evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing—it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We looked at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing. Of course we knew it was changing but we behaved as if it wasn’t. We denied the reality of change. So change always surprised us. Parents were even surprised by the maturing of their own children. They treated them as younger than they really were. And I had been surprised by the change in the evolution of the swarms. There was no reason why the swarms shouldn’t evolve in two directions at the same time. Or three, or four, or ten directions, for that matter. I should have anticipated that. I should have looked for it, expected it. If I had, I might be better prepared to deal with the situation now. But instead I had treated the swarm as one problem—a problem out there, in the desert—and I had ignored other possibilities. +It’s called denial, Jack. +I started to wonder what else I was denying now. What else I had failed to see. Where did I go wrong? What was the first clue I had missed? Probably the fact that my initial contact with a swarm had produced an allergic reaction—a reaction that almost killed me. Mae had called it a coliform reaction. Caused by a toxin from the bacteria in the swarm. That toxin was obviously the result of an evolutionary change in the E. coli that made up the swarm. Well, for that matter, the very presence of phage in the tank was an evolutionary change, a viral response to the bacteria that— +“Mae,” I said. “Wait a minute.” +“What?” +I said, “There might be something we can do to stop them.” +She was skeptical; I could see it in her face. But she wiped her eyes and listened. +I said, “The swarm consists of particles and bacteria, is that right?” +“Yes ...” +“The bacteria provide the raw ingredients for the particles to reproduce themselves. Right? Okay. So if the bacteria die, the swarm dies too?” +“Probably.” She frowned. “Are you thinking of an antibiotic? Giving everyone an antibiotic? Because you need a lot of antibiotics to clear an E. coli infection, they’d have to take drugs for several days, and I don’t—” +“No. I’m not thinking of antibiotics.” I tapped the tank in front of me. “I’m thinking of this.” +“Phage?” +“Why not?” +“I don’t know if it will work,” she said. She frowned. “It might. Except ... how’re you going to get the phage into them? They won’t just drink it down, you know.” +“Then we’ll fill the atmosphere with it,” I said. “They’ll breathe it in and they’ll never know.” +“Uh-huh. How do we fill the atmosphere?” +“Easy. Don’t shut down this tank. Feed the bacteria into the system. I want the assembly line to start making virus—a lot of virus. Then we release into the air.” Mae sighed. “It won’t work, Jack,” she said. +“Why not?” +“Because the assembly line won’t make a lot of virus.” +“Why not?” +“Because of the way the virus reproduces. You know—the virus floats around, attaches to a cell wall, and injects itself into the cell. Then it takes over the cell’s own RNA, and converts it to making more viruses. The cell ceases all its normal metabolic functions, and just cranks out viruses. Pretty soon the cell is packed with viruses, and it bursts like a balloon. All the viruses are released, they float to other cells, and the process starts all over.” +“Yes ... so?” +“If I introduce phage into the assembly lines, the virus will reproduce rapidly—for a while. But it will rupture a lot of cell membranes, leaving behind all those membranes as a lipid crud. The crud will clog the intermediate filters. After about an hour or two, the assembly lines will start to overheat, the safety systems will kick in, and shut everything down. The whole production line will just stop. No virus.” +“Can the safety systems be turned off?” +“Yes. But I don’t know how.” +“Who does?” +“Only Ricky.” +I shook my head. “That won’t do us any good. Are you sure you can’t figure out—” +“There’s a code,” she said. “Ricky’s the only one who knows it.” +“Oh.” +“Anyway, Jack, it’d be too dangerous to turn off the safeties. Parts of that system operate at high temperature, and high voltages. And there’s a lot of ketones and methane produced in the arms. It’s continuously monitored and drawn off to keep the levels below a certain concentration. But if it isn’t drawn off, and you start high voltage sparking ...” She paused, shrugged. +“What’re you saying? It could explode?” +“No, Jack. I’m saying it will explode. In a matter of minutes after the safeties are shut off. Six, maybe eight minutes at most. And you wouldn’t want to be there when that happens. So you can’t use the system to produce a lot of virus. Safeties on or safeties off, it just won’t work.” Silence. +Frustration. +I looked around the room. I looked at the steel tank, curving upward over my head. I looked at the rack of test tubes at Mae’s feet. I looked in the corner, where I saw a mop, a bucket, and a one-gallon plastic bottle of water. And I looked at Mae, frightened, still on the verge of tears, but somehow holding it together. +And I had a plan. +“Okay. Do it anyway. Release the virus into the system.” +“What’s the point of that?” +“Just do it.” +“Jack,” she said. “Why are we doing this? I’m afraid they know that we know. We can’t fool them. They’re too clever. If we try to do this, they’ll be onto us in a minute.” +“Yes,” I said. “They probably will.” +“And it won’t work, anyway. The system won’t make viruses. So why, Jack? What good will it do?” +Mae had been a good friend through all this, and now I had a plan and I wasn’t going to tell her. I hated to do it this way, but I had to make a distraction for the others. I had to fool them. And she had to help me do it—which meant she had to believe in a different plan. I said, “Mae, we have to distract them, to fool them. I want you to release the virus into the assembly line. Let them focus on that. Let them worry about that. Meanwhile, I’ll take some virus up to the maintenance area beneath the roof, and dump it into the sprinkler reservoir.” +“And then set the sprinklers off?” +“Yes.” +She nodded. “And they’ll be soaked in virus. Everybody in this facility. Drenched.” +“Right.” +She said, “It just might work, Jack.” +“I can’t think of anything better,” I said. “Now open one of those valves, and let’s draw off some test tubes of virus. And I want you to put some virus into that gallon jug over there.” She hesitated. “The valve is on the other side of the tank. The security camera will see us.” +“That’s okay,” I said. “It can’t be helped now. You just have to buy me a little time.” +“And how do I do that?” +I told her. She made a face. “You’re kidding! They’ll never do that!” +“Of course not. I just need a little time.” +* * * +We went around the tank. She filled the test tubes. The liquid that came out was a thick brown slop. It smelled fecal. It looked fecal. Mae said to me, “Are you sure about this?” +“Got to do it,” I said. “There’s no choice.” +“You first.” +I picked up the test tube, took a breath, and swallowed it whole. It was disgusting. My stomach heaved. I thought I would vomit, but I didn’t. I took another breath, swallowed some water from the gallon jug, and looked at Mae. +“Awful, huh?” she said. +“Awful.” +She picked up a test tube, held her nose, and swallowed. I waited through her coughing fit. She managed not to vomit. I gave her the gallon jug, she drank, and poured the rest out onto the floor. Then she filled it with brown slop. +The last thing she did was twist the handle of a big flow valve. “There,” she said. “It’s going into the system now.” +“Okay,” I said. I took two test tubes and stuck them in my shirt pocket. I took the gallon jug. It said ARROWHEAD PURE WATER on the label. “See you later.” And I hurried off. As I went down the hallway, I figured there was one chance in a hundred that I would succeed. Maybe only one chance in a thousand. +But I had a chance. +Later on, I watched the entire scene on the security camera, so I knew what happened to Mae. She walked into the kitchen, carrying her rack of brown test tubes. The others were all there, eating. Julia gave her a frosty look. Vince ignored her. Ricky said, “What’ve you got there, Mae?” +“Phage,” she said. +“What for?” +Now Julia looked over. Mae said, “It’s from the fermentation tank.” +“Ew, no wonder it stinks.” +“Jack just drank one. He made me drink one.” +Ricky snorted. “What’d you do that for? Jeez, I’m surprised you didn’t puke.” +“I almost did. Jack wants all of you to drink one, too.” +Bobby laughed. “Yeah? What for?” +“To make sure none of you is infected.” +Ricky frowned. “Infected? What do you mean, infected?” +“Jack says that Charley was harboring the swarm inside his body, so maybe the rest of us are, too. Or some of us. So you drink this virus, and it’ll kill the bacteria inside you, and kill the swarm.” +Bobby said, “Are you serious? Drink that crap? No way, Mae!” +She turned to Vince. +“Smells like shit to me,” Vince said. “Let someone else try it first.” +Mae said, “Ricky? You want to be the first?” +Ricky shook his head. “I’m not drinking that. Why should I?” +“Well, for one thing, you’d be assured you weren’t infected. And for another, we would be assured, too.” +“What do you mean, it’s a test?” +Mae shrugged. “That’s what Jack thinks.” +Julia frowned. She turned to Mae. “Where is Jack now?” she said. “I don’t know. The last time I saw him was by the fermentation chambers. I don’t know where he is now.” +“Yes, you do,” Julia said coldly. “You know exactly where he is.” +“I don’t. He didn’t tell me.” +“He did tell you. He tells you everything,” Julia said. “In fact, you and he planned this little interlude, didn’t you? You couldn’t seriously expect us to drink that stuff. Where is Jack, Mae?” +“I told you, I don’t know.” +Julia said to Bobby, “Check the monitors. Find him.” She came around the table. “Now then, Mae.” Her voice was calm, but full of menace. “I want you to answer me. And I want you to tell me the truth.” +Mae backed away from her. Ricky and Vince were closing in on either side of her. Mae backed against the wall. +Julia advanced slowly. “Tell me now, Mae,” she said. “It will be much better for you if you cooperate.” +From the other side of the room, Bobby said, “I found him. He’s going through the fab room. He’s carrying a jug of the crap, looks like.” +“Tell me, Mae,” Julia said, leaning close to Mae. She was so close their lips were almost touching. Mae squeezed her eyes and her lips tightly shut. Her body was beginning to shake with fear. Julia caressed her hair. “Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just tell me what he is doing with that jug,” Julia said. +Mae began to sob hysterically. “I knew it wouldn’t work. I told him you would find out.” +“Of course we would,” Julia said quietly. “Of course we would find out. Just tell now.” +“He took the jug of virus,” Mae said, “and he’s putting it in the water sprinklers.” +“Is he?” Julia said. “That’s really very clever of him. Thank you, sweetie.” And she kissed Mae on the mouth. Mae squirmed, but her back was against the wall, and Julia held her head. When Julia finally stepped back, she said, “Try and stay calm. Just remember. It won’t hurt you if you don’t fight against it.” +And she walked out of the room. +Chapter 27 +DAY 7 6:12 A.M. +Things happened faster than I expected. I could hear them running toward me down the corridor. I hastily hid the jug, then ran back and continued crossing the fabrication room. That was when they all came after me. I started to run. Vince tackled me, and I hit the concrete floor hard. Ricky threw himself on top of me after I was down. He knocked the wind out of me. Then Vince kicked me in the ribs a couple of times, and together they dragged me to my feet to face Julia. +“Hi, Jack,” she said, smiling. “How’s it going?” +“It’s been better.” +“We’ve had a nice talk with Mae,” Julia said. “So there’s no point in beating around the bush.” She looked around the floor nearby. “Where is the jug?” +“What jug?” +“Jack.” She shook her head sadly. “Why do you bother? Where is the jug of phage you were going to put in the sprinkler system?” +“I don’t have any jug.” +She stepped close to me. I could feel her breath on my face. “Jack ... I know that look on your face, Jack. You have a plan, don’t you? Now tell me where the jug is.” +“What jug?” +Her lips brushed mine. I just stood there, still as a statue. “Jack darling,” she whispered, “you know better than to play with dangerous things. I want the jug.” I stood there. +“Jack ... just one kiss ...” She was close, seductive. +Ricky said, “Forget it, Julia. He’s not afraid of you. He drank the virus and he thinks it’ll protect him.” +“Will it?” Julia said, stepping back. +“Maybe,” Ricky said, “but I bet he’s afraid to die.” +And then he and Vince began dragging me across the fabrication room. They were taking me to the high mag field room. I began to struggle. +“That’s right,” Ricky said. “You know what’s coming, don’t you?” This was not in my plan. I hadn’t expected it; I didn’t know what I could do now. I struggled harder, kicking and twisting, but they were both immensely strong. They just dragged me forward. Julia opened the heavy steel door to the mag room. Inside, I saw the circular drum of the magnet, six feet in diameter. +They shoved me in roughly. I sprawled on the ground in the room. My head banged against the steel shielding. I heard the door click and lock. +I got to my feet. +I heard the rumble of the cooling pumps as they started up. The intercom clicked. I heard Ricky’s voice. “Ever wonder why these walls are made out of steel, Jack? Pulsed magnets are dangerous. Run them continuously, and they blow apart. Get ripped apart by the field they generate. We got a one-minute load time. So you’ve got one minute to think it over.” I had been in this room before, when Ricky showed me around. I remembered there was a knee plate, a safety cutoff. I hit it with my knee. +“Won’t work, Jack,” Ricky said laconically. “I inverted the switching. Now it turns the magnet on, instead of off. Thought you’d like to know.” +The rumbling was louder. The room began to vibrate slightly. The air grew swiftly colder. In a moment I could see my breath. +“Sorry if you’re uncomfortable, but that’s only temporary,” Ricky said. “Once the pulses get going, the room’ll heat up fast. Uh, let’s see. Forty-seven seconds.” The sound was a rapid chunk-chunk-chunk, like a muffled jackhammer. It was loud, and getting louder. I could hardly hear Ricky over the intercom. “Now Jack,” he said. “You have a family. A family that needs you. So think about your choices very carefully.” +I said, “Let me speak to Julia.” +“No, Jack. She doesn’t want to talk to you right now. She’s very disappointed in you, Jack.” +“Let me speak to her.” +“Jack, aren’t you listening to me? She says no. Not until you tell her where the virus is.” Chunk-chunk-chunk. The room was starting to get warmer. I could hear the gurgle of the coolant as it went through the piping. I kicked the safety plate with my knee. “I told you, Jack. It’ll only turn the magnet on. Are you having trouble hearing me?” +“Yes,” I yelled. “I am.” +“Well that’s too bad,” Ricky said. “I’m sorry to hear that.” At least, I thought that’s what he was saying. The chunk-chunk-chunk seemed to fill the room, to make the very air vibrate. It sounded like an enormous MRI, those giant pumps. My head hurt. I stared at the magnet, at the heavy bolts that held the plates together. Those bolts would soon become missiles. +“We’re not fucking around, Jack,” Ricky said. “We’d hate to lose you. Twenty seconds.” The load time was the time it took to charge the magnet capacitors, so that millisecond pulses of electricity could be delivered. I wondered how long after loading it would take for the pulses to blow the magnet apart. Probably a few seconds at most. So time was running out for me. I didn’t know what to do. Everything had gone horribly wrong. And the worst part was that I had lost the only advantage I ever had, because they now recognized the importance of the virus. Earlier they hadn’t focused on it as a threat. But now they understood, and were demanding I hand it over. Soon they would think to destroy the fermentation tank. They would eradicate the virus very thoroughly, I felt sure. +And there was nothing I could do about it. Not now. +I wondered how Mae was, and whether they had hurt her. I wondered if she was still alive. I felt detached, indifferent. I was sitting in an oversized MRI, that was all. This big terrifying sound, it must have been how Amanda felt, when she was in the MRI ... My mind drifted, uncaring. +“Ten seconds,” Ricky said. “Come on, Jack. Don’t be a hero. It’s not your style. Tell us where it is. Six seconds. Five. Jack, come on ...” +The chunk-chunk-chunk stopped, and there was a whang! and a scream of rending metal. The magnet had switched on, for a few milliseconds. +“First pulse,” Ricky said. “Don’t be an asshole, Jack.” +Another whang! Whang! Whang! The pulses were coming faster and faster. I saw the jacketing on the coolant beginning to indent with each pulse. They were coming too fast. Whang! Whang! +I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouted, “Okay! Ricky! I’ll tell you!” +Whang! “Go ahead, Jack!” Whang! “I’m waiting.” +“No! Turn it off first. And I only tell Julia.” +Whang! Whang! “Very unreasonable of you, Jack. You’re in no position to bargain.” Whang! +“You want the virus, or you want it to be a surprise?” +Whang! Whang! Whang! +And then abruptly, silence. Nothing but the low swoosh of the coolant flowing through the jacketing. The magnet was hot to the touch. But at least the MRI sound had stopped. The MRI ... +I stood in the room, and waited for Julia to come in. And then, thinking it over, I sat down. +I heard the door unlock. Julia walked in. +“Jack. You’re not hurt, are you?” +“No,” I said. “Just my nerves are shot.” +“I don’t know why you put yourself through it,” she said. “It was totally unnecessary. But guess what? I have good news. The helicopter just arrived.” +“It did?” +“Yes, it’s early today. Just think, wouldn’t it be nice to be on it now, going home? Back to your house, back to your family? Wouldn’t that feel great?” +I sat there with my back against the wall, looking up at her. “Are you saying I can go?” +“Of course, Jack. There’s no reason for you to stay here. Just give me the bottle of virus, and go home.” +I didn’t believe her for a second. I was seeing the friendly Julia, the seductive Julia. But I didn’t believe her. “Where is Mae?” +“She’s resting.” +“You’ve hurt her.” +“No. No, no, no. Why would I do that?” She shook her head. “You really don’t understand, do you? I don’t want to hurt anybody, Jack. Not you, not Mae, not anybody. I especially don’t want to hurt you.” +“Try telling that to Ricky.” +“Jack. Please. Let’s put emotion aside and be logical for a moment. You’re doing all this to yourself. Why can’t you accept the new situation?” She held out her hand to me. I took it, and she pulled me up. She was strong. Stronger than I ever remembered her being. “After all,” she said, “you’re an integral part of this. You killed the wild type for us, Jack.” +“So the benign type could flourish ...” +“Exactly, Jack. So the benign type could flourish. And create a new synergy with human beings.” +“The synergy that you have now, for example.” +“That’s right, Jack.” She smiled. It was a creepy smile. +“You are, what? Coexisting? Coevolving?” +“Symbiotic.” She was still smiling. +“Julia, this is all bullshit,” I said. “This is a disease.” +“Well of course you would say that. Because you don’t know any better, yet. You haven’t experienced it.” She came forward and hugged me. I let her do it. “You have no idea what’s ahead of you.” +“Story of my life,” I said. +“Stop being so stubborn, for once. Just go along with it. You look tired, Jack.” I sighed. “I am tired,” I said. And I was. I was feeling distinctly weak in her arms. I was sure she could sense it. +“Then why don’t you just relax. Embrace me, Jack.” +“I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.” +“Yes, I am.” She smiled again, ruffled my hair with her hand. “Oh, Jack ... I really have missed you.” +“Me too,” I said. “I missed you.” I gave her a hug, squeezed her, held her close. Our faces were close. She looked beautiful, her lips parted, her eyes staring up at me, soft, inviting. I felt her relax. Then I said, “Just tell me one thing, Julia. It’s been bothering me.” +“Sure, Jack.” +“Why did you refuse to have an MRI in the hospital?” +She frowned, leaned back to look at me. “What? What do you mean?” +“Are you like Amanda?” +“Amanda?” +“Our baby daughter ... you remember her. She was cured by the MRI. Instantly.” +“What are you talking about?” +“Julia, does the swarm have some problem with magnetic fields?” +Her eyes widened. She began to struggle in my grip. “Let go of me! Ricky! Ricky!” +“Sorry, hon,” I said. I kicked the plate with my knee. And there was a loud whang! as the magnet pulsed. +Julia screamed. +Her mouth was open as she screamed, a steady continuous sound, her face rigid with tension. I held her hard. The skin of her face began to shiver, vibrating rapidly. And then her features seemed to grow, to swell as she screamed. I thought her eyes looked frightened. The swelling continued, and began to break up into rivulets, and streams. And then in a sudden rush Julia literally disintegrated before my eyes. The skin of her swollen face and body blew away from her in streams of particles, like sand blown off a sand dune. The particles curved away in the arc of the magnetic field toward the sides of the room. I felt her body growing lighter and lighter in my arms. Still the particles continued to flow away, with a kind of whooshing sound, to all corners of the room. And when it was finished, what was left behind—what I still held in my arms—was a pale and cadaverous form. Julia’s eyes were sunk deep in her cheeks. Her mouth was thin and cracked, her skin translucent. Her hair was colorless, brittle. Her collarbones protruded from her bony neck. She looked like she was dying of cancer. Her mouth worked. I heard faint words, hardly more than breathing. I leaned in, turned my ear to her mouth to hear. +“Jack,” she whispered. “It’s eating me.” +I said, “I know.” +Her voice was just a whisper. “You have to do something.” +“I know.” +“Jack ... the children ...” +“Okay.” +She whispered, “I ... kissed them ...” +I said nothing. I just closed my eyes. +“Jack ... Save my babies ... Jack ...” +“Okay,” I said. +I glanced up at the walls and saw, all around me, Julia’s face and body stretched and fitted to the room. The particles retained her appearance, but were now flattened onto the walls. And they were still moving, coordinating with the movement of her lips, the blink of her eyes. As I watched, they began to drift back from the walls toward her in a flesh-colored haze. Outside the room, I heard Ricky shouting, “Julia! Julia!” He kicked the door a couple of times, but he didn’t come in. I knew he wouldn’t dare. I had waited a full minute so the capacitors were charged. He couldn’t stop me from pulsing the magnet now. I could do it at will—at least, until the charge ran out. I didn’t know how long that would be. “Jack ...” +I looked at her. Her eyes were sad, pleading. +“Jack,” she said. “I didn’t know ...” +“It’s all right,” I said. The particles were drifting back, reassembling her face before my eyes. Julia was becoming solid, and beautiful again. +I kicked the knee plate. +Whang! +The particles shot away, flying back to the walls, though not so swiftly this time. And I had the cadaverous Julia in my arms again, her deep-set eyes pleading with me. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out one of the vials of phage. “I want you to drink this,” I said. +“No ... no ...” She was agitated. “Too late ... for ...” +“Try,” I said. I held the vial to her lips. “Come on, darling. I want you to try.” +“No ... please ... Not important ...” +Ricky was yelling: “Julia! Julia!” He pounded on the door. “Julia, are you all right?” The cadaver eyes rolled toward the door. Her mouth worked. Her skeleton fingers plucked at my shirt, scratching the cloth. She wanted to tell me something. I turned my head again, so I could hear. +She breathed shallowly, weakly. I couldn’t catch the words. And then suddenly they were clear. +She said, “They have to kill you now.” +“I know,” I said. +“Don’t let them ... Children ...” +“I won’t.” +Her bony hand touched my cheek. She whispered, “You know I always loved you, Jack. I would never hurt you.” +“I know, Julia. I know.” +The particles on the walls were drifting free once more. Now they seemed to telescope back, returning to her face and body. I kicked the knee plate once again, hoping for more time with her, but there was only a dull mechanical thunk. +The capacitor was drained. +And suddenly, in a whoosh, all the particles returned, and Julia was full and beautiful and strong as before, and she pushed me away from her with a contemptuous look and said in a loud, firm voice, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Jack.” +“So am I,” I said. +“But it can’t be helped. We’re wasting time. I want the bottle of virus, Jack. And I want it right now.” +In a way it made everything easier. Because I understood I wasn’t dealing with Julia anymore. I didn’t have to worry about what might happen to her. I just had to worry about Mae—assuming she was still alive—and me. +And assuming I could stay alive for the next few minutes. +Chapter 28 +DAY 7 7:12 A.M. +“Okay,” I said to her. “Okay. I’ll get you the virus.” +She frowned. “You’ve got that look on your face again ...” +“No,” I said. “I’m done. I’ll take you.” +“Good. We’ll start with those vials in your pocket.” +“What, these here?” I said. I reached into my pocket for them as I went through the door. Outside, Ricky and Vince were waiting for me. +“Very fucking funny,” Ricky said. “You know you could have killed her. You could have killed your own wife.” +“How about that,” I said. +I was still fumbling in my pocket, as if the test tubes were stuck in the cloth. They didn’t know what I was doing, so they grabbed me again, Vince on one side and Ricky on the other. +“Guys,” I said, “I can’t do this if you—” +“Let him go,” Julia said, coming out of the room. +“Like hell,” Vince said. “He’ll pull something.” +I was still struggling, trying to bring the tubes out. Finally I had them in my hand. While we struggled, I threw one onto the ground. It smashed on the concrete floor, and brown sludge spattered up. +“Jesus!” They all jumped away, releasing me. They stared at the floor, and bent over to look at their feet, making sure none of it had touched them. +And in that moment, I ran. +* * * +I grabbed the jug from its hiding place, and kept going across the fabrication room. I had to get all the way across the room to the elevator, and ride it up to the ceiling level, where all the basic system equipment was located. Up there, where the air handlers were, and the electrical junction boxes—and the tank for the sprinkler system. If I could reach the elevator and ride it just seven or eight feet in the air, then they couldn’t touch me. If I could do that, then my plan would work. +The elevator was a hundred and fifty feet away. +I ran hard, vaulting over the lowest arms of the octopus, ducking beneath the chest-high sections. I glanced back and couldn’t see them through the maze of arms and machinery. But I heard the three of them shouting, and I heard running feet. I heard Julia say, “He’s going for the sprinklers!” Ahead, I saw the yellow open cage of the elevator. I was going to make it, after all. +At that moment, I stumbled over one of the arms and went sprawling. The jug skidded across the floor, came to rest against a support beam. I scrambled quickly to my feet again, and retrieved the jug. I knew they were right behind me. I didn’t dare look back now. I ran for the elevator, ducking beneath one final pipe, but when I looked again, Vince was already there. He must have known a shortcut through the octopus arms; somehow he had beaten me. Now he stood in the open cage, grinning. I looked back and saw Ricky just a few yards behind me, closing fast. +Julia called, “Give it up, Jack! It’s no good.” +She was right about that, it was no good at all. I couldn’t get past Vince. And I couldn’t outrun Ricky now, he was much too close. I jumped over a pipe, stepped around a standing electrical box, and ducked down. As Ricky jumped the pipe, I slammed my elbow upward between his legs. He howled and went down, rolling on the floor in agony. I stopped and kicked him in the head as hard as I could. That was for Charley. +I ran. +At the elevator, Vince stood in a half-crouch, fists bunched. He was relishing a fight. I ran straight toward him and he grinned broadly in anticipation. +And at the last moment, I swerved left. I jumped. +And started climbing the ladder on the wall. +Julia screamed, “Stop him! Stop him!” +It was difficult climbing, because I had my thumb hooked through the jug; the bottle kept banging painfully against the back of my right hand as I went up. I focused on the pain. I panic at heights and I didn’t want to look down. And so I couldn’t see what was dragging at my legs, pulling me back toward the floor. I kicked, but whatever it was held on to me. Finally, I turned to look. I was ten feet above the ground, and two rungs beneath me, Ricky had his free arm locked around my legs, his hand clutching my ankle. He jerked at my feet, and yanked them off the rung. I slid for an instant and then felt a burst of searing pain in my hands. But I held on. +Ricky was smiling grimly. I kicked my legs backward, trying to hit his face, but to no avail, he had both legs locked tight against his chest. He was immensely strong. I kept trying until I realized that I could pull one leg up and free. I did, and stomped down on his hand that was holding on to the rung. He yelled, and released my legs to hold on to the ladder with his other hand. I stomped again—and kicked straight back, catching him right under the chin. He slid down five rungs, then caught himself. He hung there, near the bottom of the ladder. I climbed again. +Julia was running across the floor. “Stop him!” +I heard the elevator grind as Vince rode up past me, heading toward the top. He would wait for me there. +I climbed. +I was fifteen feet above the floor, then twenty. I looked down to see Ricky pursuing me but he was far behind, I didn’t think he could catch me, and then Julia came swirling up through the air toward me, spiraling like a corkscrew—and grabbed the ladder right alongside me. Except she wasn’t Julia, she was the swarm, and for a moment the swarm was disorganized enough that I could see right through her in places; I could see the swirling particles that composed her. I looked down and saw the real Julia, deathly pale, standing and looking up at me, her face a skull. By now the swarm alongside me became solid-appearing, as I had seen it become solid before. It looked like Julia. The mouth moved and I heard a strange voice say “Sorry, Jack.” And the swarm shrank, becoming denser still, collapsing into a small Julia, about four feet tall. +I turned to climb again. +The small Julia swung back, and slammed hard against my body. I felt like I was hit by a sack of cement, the wind knocked out of me. My grip loosened from the ladder, and I barely managed to hang on, as the Julia swarm smashed against me again. I ducked and dodged, grunting in pain, and kept going despite the impacts. The swarm had enough mass to hurt me, but not enough to knock me off the ladder. +The swarm must have realized it, too, because now the small Julia swarm compressed itself into a sphere, and slid smoothly forward to envelop my head in a buzzing cloud. I was totally blind. I could see nothing at all. It was as if I was in a dust storm. I groped for the next rung on the ladder, and the next after that. Pinpricks stung my face and hands, the pain becoming more intense, sharper. Apparently the swarm was learning how to focus pain. But at least it hadn’t learned to suffocate. The swarm did nothing to interfere with my breathing. I kept on. +I climbed in darkness. +And then I felt Ricky pulling at my legs again. And in that moment, finally, I didn’t see how I could go on. +I was twenty-five feet in the air, hanging on to a ladder for dear life, dragging a jug of brown sludge up with me, with Vince above waiting and Ricky below dragging, and a swarm buzzing around my head, blinding me and stinging me like hell. I was exhausted and defeated and I could feel my energy draining away. My fingers felt shaky on the rungs. I couldn’t hold my grip much longer. I knew that all I had to do was release my grip and fall, and it would be over in an instant. I was finished, anyway. +I felt for the next rung, gripped it, and hauled my body up. But my shoulders burned. Ricky was pulling down fiercely. I knew he would win. They would all win. They were always going to win. And then I thought of Julia, pale as a ghost and brittle thin, saying in a whisper “Save my babies.” I thought of the kids, waiting for me to come back. I saw them sitting around the table waiting for dinner. And I knew I had to go on no matter what. So I did. +It’s not clear to me now what happened to Ricky. Somehow he pulled my legs off the rungs, and I hung in the air from my arms, kicking wildly, and I must have kicked him in the face and broken his nose. +Because in an instant Ricky let go of me, and I heard a thump-thump-thumping as his body went down the ladder, and he desperately tried to grab the rungs as he fell. I heard, “Ricky, no!” and the cloud vanished from my head, I was completely free again. I looked down and saw the Julia swarm alongside Ricky, who had caught himself about twelve feet above the floor. He looked up angrily. His mouth and nose were gushing blood. He started toward me but the Julia swarm said, “No, Ricky. No, you can’t! Let Vince.” +And then Ricky half climbed, half fell the rest of the way down the ladder to the ground, and the swarm reinhabited Julia’s pale body, and the two of them stood there and watched me. I turned away from them and looked up the ladder. +Vince was standing there, five feet above me. +His feet were on the top rungs, and he was leaning over, blocking my way. There was no possible way I could get past him. I paused to take stock, shifted my weight on the ladder, got one leg up to the next rung, hooked my free arm around the rung nearest my face. But as I raised my leg, I felt the lump in my pocket. I paused. +I had one more vial of phage. +I reached into my pocket, and drew it out to show him. I pulled out the cork with my teeth. “Hey, Vince,” I said. “How about a shit shower?” +He didn’t move. But his eyes narrowed. +I moved up another rung. +“Better get back, Vince,” I said. I was panting so hard I couldn’t manage the proper menace. “Get on back before you get wet ...” +One more rung. I was only three rungs below him. +“It’s your call, Vince.” I held the vial in my other hand. “I can’t hit your face from down here. But I’ll sure as hell hit your legs and shoes. Do you care?” +One more rung. +Vince stayed where he was. +“Maybe not,” I said. “You like to live dangerously?” +I paused. If I advanced another rung, he could kick me in the head. If I stayed where I was, he would have to come down to me, and I could get him. So I stayed. “What do you say, Vince? Going to stay, or go?” +He frowned. His eyes flicked back and forth, from my face to the vial, and back again. +And then he stepped away from the ladder. +“Good boy, Vince.” +I came up one rung. +He had stepped back so far that now I couldn’t see where he was. I thought he was probably planning to rush me at the top. So I got ready to duck down, and swing laterally. Last rung. +And now I saw him. He wasn’t planning anything. Vince was shaking with panic, a cornered animal, huddled back in the dark recess of the walkway. I couldn’t read his eyes, but I saw his body tremble. +“Okay, Vince,” I said. “I’m coming up.” +I stepped onto the mesh platform. I was right at the top of the stairs, surrounded by roaring machinery. Not twenty paces away, I saw the paired steel tanks for the sprinkler system. I glanced down and saw Ricky and Julia, staring up at me. I wondered if they realized how close I was to my goal. +I looked back at Vince, just in time to see him pull a translucent white plastic tarp off a corner box. He wrapped himself in the tarp like a shield, and then, with a guttural yell, he charged. I was right at the edge of the ladder. I had no time to get out of the way, I just turned sideways and braced myself against a big three-foot pipe against the coming impact. Vince slammed into me. +The vial went flying out of my hand, shattering on the mesh. The jug was knocked from my other hand and tumbled along the walkway, coming to rest at the lip of the mesh path. Another few inches and it would go over. I moved toward it. +Still hiding behind the tarp, Vince smashed into me again. I was slammed back against the pipe. My head clanged on steel. I slipped on the brown sludge that dripped through holes in the mesh, barely kept my balance. Vince slammed me again. +In his panic he never realized I had lost my weapons. Or perhaps he couldn’t see through the tarp. He just kept pounding me with his full body, and I finally slipped on the sludge and went down on my knees. I immediately scrambled toward the jug, which was about ten feet away. That odd behavior made Vince stop for a moment; he pulled down the tarp, saw the jug, and lunged for it, vaulting his whole body forward in the air. +But he was too late. I had my hand on the jug, and yanked it away, just as Vince landed, tarp and all, right where the jug had been. His head banged hard on the walkway lip. He was momentarily stunned, shaking his head to clear it. +And I grabbed the edge of the tarp, and yanked upward. +Vince yelled, and went over the side. +I watched as he hit the floor. His body didn’t move. Then the swarm came off him, sliding into the air like his ghost. The ghost joined Ricky and Julia who were looking up at me. Then they turned away and hurried across the floor of the fabrication room, jumping over the octopus arms as they went. Their movements conveyed a clear sense of urgency. You might even think they were frightened. +Good, I thought. +I got to my feet and headed for the sprinkler tanks. The instructions were stenciled on the lower tank. It was easy to figure out the valves. I twisted the inflow, unscrewed the filler cap, waited for the pressurized nitrogen to hiss out, and then dumped in the jug of phage. I listened as it gurgled into the tank. Then I screwed the cap back on, twisted the valve, repressurized with nitrogen. +And I was done. +I took a deep breath. +I was going to win this thing, after all. +I rode the elevator down, feeling good for the first time all day. +Chapter 29 +DAY 7 8:12 A.M. +They were all clustered together on the other side of the room—Julia, Ricky, and now Bobby, as well. Vince was there, too, hovering in the background, but I could sometimes see through him, his swarm was slightly transparent. I wondered which of the others were only swarms now. I couldn’t be sure. But it didn’t matter now, anyway. +They were standing beside a bank of computer monitors that showed every parameter of the manufacturing process: graphs of temperature, output, God knows what else. But they had turned their backs to the monitors. They were watching me. +I walked calmly toward them, in measured steps. I was in no rush. Far from it. I must have taken a full two minutes to cross the fabrication room to where they were standing. They regarded me with puzzlement, and then with increasingly open amusement. “Well, Jack,” Julia said finally. “How’s your day going?” +“Not bad,” I said. “Things are looking up.” +“You seem very confident.” +I shrugged. +“You’ve got everything under control?” Julia said. +I shrugged again. +“By the way, where is Mae?” +“I don’t know. Why?” +“Bobby’s been looking for her. He can’t find her anywhere.” +“I have no idea,” I said. “Why were you looking for her?” +“We thought we should all be together,” Julia said, “when we finish our business here.” +“Oh,” I said. “Is that what happens now? We finish?” +She nodded slowly. “Yes, Jack. It is.” +I couldn’t risk looking at my watch, I had to try and gauge how much time had passed. I was guessing three or four minutes. I said, “So, what do you have in mind?” Julia began to pace. “Well, Jack, I’m very disappointed in how things have gone with you. I really am. You know how much I care about you. I would never want anything to happen to you. But you’re fighting us, Jack. And you won’t stop fighting. And we can’t have that.” +“I see,” I said. +“We just can’t, Jack.” +I reached in my pocket and brought out a plastic cigarette lighter. If Julia or the others noticed, they gave no sign. +She kept pacing. “Jack, you put me in a difficult position.” +“How’s that?” +“You’ve been privileged to witness the birth of something truly new, here. Something new and miraculous. But you are not sympathetic, Jack.” +“No, I’m not.” +“Birth is painful.” +“So is death,” I said. +She continued to pace. “Yes,” she said. “So is death.” She frowned at me. +“Something the matter?” +“Where is Mae?” she said again. +“I don’t know. I don’t have the faintest idea.” +She continued to frown. “We have to find her, Jack.” +“I’m sure you will.” +“Yes, we will.” +“So you don’t need me,” I said. “Just do it on your own. I mean, you’re the future, if I remember right. Superior and unstoppable. I’m just a guy.” +Julia started walking around me, looking at me from all sides. I could see she was puzzled by my behavior. Or appraising. Maybe I had overdone it. Gone too far. She was picking up something. She suspected something. And that made me very nervous. I turned the cigarette lighter over in my hands, nervously. +“Jack,” she said. “You disappoint me.” +“You said that already.” +“Yes,” she said. “But I am still not sure ...” +As if on some unspoken cue the men all began to walk in circles. They were moving in concentric circles around me. Was this some kind of scanning procedure? Or did it mean something else? +I was trying to guess the time. I figured five minutes had elapsed. +“Come, Jack. I want to look more closely.” +She put her arm on my shoulder and led me over to one of the big octopus arms. It was easily six feet across, and mirrored on its surface. I could see Julia standing next to me. Her arm over my shoulder. +“Don’t we make a handsome couple? It’s a shame. We could have such a future.” +I said, “Yeah, well ...” +And the moment I spoke, a river of pale particles streamed off Julia, curved in the air, and came down like a shower all over my body and into my mouth. I clamped my mouth shut, but it didn’t matter, because in the mirror my body seemed to dissolve away, to be replaced by Julia’s body. It was as if her skin had left her, flowed into the air, and slid down over me. Now there were two Julias standing side by side in front of the mirror. I said, “Cut it out, Julia.” +She laughed. “Why? I think it’s fun.” +“Stop it,” I said. I sounded like myself, even though I looked like Julia. “Stop it.” +“Don’t you like it? I think it’s amusing. You get to be me, for a while.” +“I said, stop it.” +“Jack, you’re just no fun anymore.” +I pulled at the Julia-image on my face, trying to tear it away like a mask. But I felt only my own skin beneath my fingertips. When I scratched at my cheek, the Julia-cheek showed scratches in the mirror. I reached back and touched my own hair. In my panic, I dropped the cigarette lighter. It clattered on the concrete floor. +“Get it off me,” I said. “Get it off.” +I heard a whoosh in my ears, and the Julia-skin was gone, sweeping into the air, then descending onto Julia. Except that she now looked like me. Now there were two Jacks, side by side in the mirror. +“Is this better?” she said. +“I don’t know what you are trying to prove.” I took a breath. +I bent over and picked up the lighter. +“I’m not trying to prove anything,” she said. “I’m just feeling you out, Jack. And you know what I found? You’ve got a secret, Jack. And you thought I wouldn’t find it out.” +“Yes?” +“But I did,” she said. +I didn’t know how to take her words. I wasn’t sure where I was anymore, and the changes in appearance had so unnerved me that I had lost track of the time. “You’re worried about the time, aren’t you, Jack,” she said. “You needn’t be. We have plenty of time. Everything is under control here. Are you going to tell us your secret? Or do we have to make you tell?” +Behind her, I could see the stacked monitor screens of the control station. The corner ones had a flashing bar along the top, with lettering that I couldn’t read. I could see that some of the graphs were rising steeply, their lines turning from blue to yellow to red as they climbed. I did nothing. +Julia turned to the men. “Okay,” she said. “Make him tell.” +The three men converged toward me. It was time to show them. It was time to spring my trap. “No problem,” I said. I raised my lighter, flicked the flame, and held it under the nearest sprinkler head. +The men stopped in their tracks. They watched me. +I held the lighter steady. The sprinkler head blackened with the smoke. +And nothing happened. +* * * +The flame was melting the soft metal tab beneath the sprinkler head. Splotches of silver were dripping on the ground at my feet. And still nothing happened. The sprinklers didn’t come on. “Oh shit,” I said. +Julia was watching me thoughtfully. “It was a nice try. Very inventive, Jack. Good thinking. But you forgot one thing.” +“What’s that?” +“There’s a safety system for the plant. And when we saw you going for the sprinklers, Ricky turned the system off. Safeties off, sprinklers off.” She shrugged. “Guess you’re out of luck, Jack.” +I flicked the lighter off. There was nothing for me to do. I just stood there, feeling foolish. I thought I smelled a faint odor in the room. A kind of sweetish, nauseating odor. But I couldn’t be sure. +“It was a nice try, though,” Julia said. “But enough is enough.” She turned to the men, and jerked her head. The three of them walked toward me. I said, “Hey guys, come on ...” They didn’t react. Their faces were impassive. They grabbed me and I started to struggle. “Hey, come on now ...” I pulled free of them. “Hey!” Ricky said, “Don’t make it any harder for us, Jack,” and I said, “Fuck you, Ricky,” and I spit in his face just as they threw me to the floor. I was hoping the virus would get in his mouth. I was hoping I would delay him, that we would have a fight. Anything for a delay. But they threw me to the floor, and then they all fell on me and began to strangle me. I could feel their hands on my neck. Bobby had his hands over my mouth and nose. I tried to bite him. He just kept his hands firmly in place and stared at me. Ricky smiled distantly at me. It was as if he didn’t know me, had no feeling for me. They were all strangers, killing me efficiently and quickly. I pounded on them with my fists, until Ricky got his knee on one of my arms, pinning it down, and Bobby got the other arm. Now I couldn’t move at all. I tried to kick my legs, but Julia was sitting on my legs. Helping them out. I saw the world start to turn misty before my eyes. A faint and misty gray. +Then there was a faint popping sound, almost like popcorn, or glass cracking, and then Julia screamed, “What is that?” +The three men released me, and got to their feet. They walked away from me. I lay on the ground, coughing. I didn’t even try to get up. +“What is that?” Julia yelled. +The first of the octopus tubes burst open, high above us. Brown liquid steam hissed out. Another tube popped open, and another. The sound of hissing filled the room. The air was turning dark foggy brown, billowing brown. +Julia screamed “What is that?” +“It’s the assembly line,” Ricky said. “It’s overheated. And it’s blowing.” +“How? How can that happen?” +I sat up, still coughing, and got to my feet. I said, “No safety systems, remember? You turned them off. Now it’s blowing virus all through this room.” +“Not for long,” Julia said. “We’ll have the safeties back in two seconds.” Ricky was already standing at the control board, frantically hitting keys. +“Good thinking, Julia,” I said. I lit my cigarette lighter, and held it under the sprinkler head. +Julia screamed, “Stop! Ricky, stop!” +Ricky stopped. +I said, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” +Julia turned in fury and hissed, “I hate you.” +Already her body was turning shades of gray, fading to a kind of monochrome. So was Ricky, the color washing out of him. It was the virus in the air, already affecting their swarms. There was a brief crackle of sparks, from high in the octopus arms. Then another short lightning arc. Ricky saw it and yelled, “Forget it, Julia! We take our chances!” He hit the keys and turned the safety system back on. Alarms started to sound. The screens flashed red with the excess concentrations of methane and other gases. The main screen showed: safety systems on. And the sprinklers burst into cones of brown spray. +* * * +They screamed as the water touched them. They were writhing and beginning to shrink, to shrivel right before my eyes. Julia’s face was contorted. She stared at me with pure hatred. But already she was starting to dissolve. She fell to her knees, and then onto her back. The others were all rolling on the floor, screaming in pain. +“Come on, Jack.” Someone was tugging at my sleeve. It was Mae. “Come on,” she said. “This room is full of methane. You have to go.” +I hesitated, still looking at Julia. Then we turned and ran. +Chapter 30 +DAY 7 9:11 A.M. +The helicopter pilot pushed the doors open as we ran across the pad. We jumped in. Mae said, “Go!” +He said, “I’ll have to insist you get your harnesses on before—” +“Fly this fucking thing!” I yelled. +“Sorry, it’s a regulation, and it’s not safe—” +Black smoke started to pour out of the power station door we had just come out of. It billowed into the blue desert sky. +The pilot saw it and said, “Hang on!” +We lifted off and headed north, swinging wide of the building. Now there was smoke coming from all the exhaust vents near the roof. A black haze was rising into the air. Mae said, “Fire burns the nanoparticles and the bacteria, too. Don’t worry.” +The pilot said, “Where are we going?” +“Home.” +He headed west, and within minutes we had left the building behind. It disappeared below the horizon. Mae was sitting back in her seat, eyes closed. I said to her, “I thought it was going to blow up. But they turned the safety system back on again. So I guess it won’t.” She said nothing. +I said, “So what was the big rush to get out of there? And where were you, anyway? Nobody could find you.” +She said, “I was outside, in the storage shed.” +“Doing what?” +“Looking for more thermite.” +“Find any?” +There was no sound. Just a flash of yellow light that spread across the desert horizon for an instant, and then faded. You could almost believe it never happened. But the helicopter rocked and jolted as the shock wave passed us. +The pilot said, “Holy Mother of God, what was that?” +“Industrial accident,” I said. “Very unfortunate.” +He reached for his radio. “I better report it.” +“Yes,” I said. “You better do that.” +We flew west, and I saw the green line of the forest and the rolling foothills of the Sierras, as we crossed into California. +Chapter 31 +DAY 7 11:57 P.M. +It’s late. +Almost midnight. The house is silent around me. I am not sure how this will turn out. The kids are all desperately sick, throwing up after I gave them the virus. I can hear my son and daughter retching in separate bathrooms. I went in to check on them a few minutes ago, to see what was coming up. Their faces were deathly pale. I can see they’re afraid, because they know I’m afraid. I haven’t told them about Julia yet. They haven’t asked. They’re too sick to ask right now. +I’m worried most about the baby, because I had to give her the virus, too. It was her only hope. Ellen’s with her now, but Ellen is vomiting, too. The baby has yet to throw up. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. Young kids react differently. +I think I’m okay, at least for the moment. I’m dead tired. I think I’ve been dozing off from time to time all night. Right now I’m sitting here looking out the back window, waiting for Mae. She hopped the fence at the end of my backyard, and is probably scrambling around in the brush on the slope that goes down behind the property, where the sprinklers are. She thought there was a faint green light coming from somewhere down the slope. I told her not to go down there alone, but I’m too tired to go get her. If she waits until tomorrow, the Army can come here with flame throwers and blast the hell out of whatever it is. +The Army is acting dumb about this whole thing, but I have Julia’s computer here at home, and I have an email trail on her hard drive. I removed the hard drive, just to be safe. I duped it, and put the original in a safe deposit box in town. I’m not really worried about the Army. I’m worried about Larry Handler and the others at Xymos. They know they have horrific lawsuits on their hands. The company will declare bankruptcy sometime this week, but they’re still liable for criminal charges. Larry especially. I wouldn’t cry if he went to jail. Mae and I have managed to put together most of the events of the past few days. My daughter’s rash was caused by gamma assemblers—the micromachines that assembled finished molecules from component fragments. The gammas must have been on Julia’s clothing when she came home from the lab. Julia worried about that possibility; that was why she took a shower as soon as she got home. The lab itself had good decontamination procedures, but Julia was interacting with the swarms outside the lab. She knew there was a danger. Anyway, that night she accidentally let the gammas loose in the nursery. The gamma assemblers are designed to cut microfragments of silicon, but faced with a pliable substance like skin, they only pinch it. It’s painful, and causes microtrauma of a sort that nobody had ever seen before. Or would ever have suspected. No wonder Amanda didn’t have a fever. She didn’t have an infection. She had a coating of biting particles on her skin. The magnetic field of the MRI cured her in an instant; all the assemblers were yanked away from her in the first pulse. (Apparently that is also what happened to the guy in the desert. He somehow came in contact with a batch of assemblers. He had been camping within a mile of the Xymos desert facility.) Julia knew what was wrong with Amanda, but she didn’t tell anybody. Instead she called the Xymos cleanup crew, which showed up in the middle of the night while I was at the hospital. Only Eric saw them, and now I know what he saw. Because the same crew arrived here a few hours ago to sweep my house. They were the same men I’d seen in the van on the road that night. +The lead man wears a silver bunny suit that’s antimagnetic, and he does look ghostly. His silvered mask makes him appear faceless. He goes into the environment first to check it out. Then four other men in coveralls follow, to vacuum and clean up. I had told Eric he’d dreamed it, but he hadn’t. The crew left behind one of their sensor cubes, under Amanda’s bed. That was intentional, to check for residual gammas in case they’d missed any. It wasn’t a surge suppressor; it was just constructed to look like one. +When I finally figured all this out, I was furious with Julia for not telling me what was going on. For making me worry. But of course, she was diseased. And there’s no point in being angry with her now. +Eric’s MP3 player was cut by gamma assemblers, the same way the cars in the desert were. And just as the MRI was. For some reason the gamma assemblers cut memory chips and leave central processors alone. I haven’t heard an explanation why. There was a swarm in the convertible with Julia that night. It had come back with her from the desert. I don’t know whether she brought it intentionally or not. The swarm could collapse into nothing, which is why Eric didn’t see anything when he went out to the car to look. And I wasn’t sure of what I saw when she pulled away, which was reasonable enough. The swarm was probably catching the light in odd ways. In my memory, it looked a little like Ricky, but it was probably too soon for the swarm to be taking on appearances. It hadn’t evolved that much, yet. Or maybe I just saw an indistinct shape, and in my jealousy I imagined it to be a person. I don’t think I made it up, but maybe I did. Ellen thinks I might have. After her car crashed, Julia called for the cleanup crews. That’s why they were there on the road late that night. They were waiting to go down the hill and clean up the site. I don’t know what caused the crash itself, whether it was something to do with the swarm or whether it was just an accident. There’s no one to ask about it now. +The facility in the desert was entirely destroyed. There was enough methane in the main laboratory to produce a fireball in excess of two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Any biological materials would have been incinerated. But I still worry. They never found any bodies in the ruins, not even skeletons. +* * * +Mae took the bacteriophage to her old lab in Palo Alto. I hope she made them understand how desperate the situation is. She’s being very quiet about their reaction. I think they should put the phage into the water supply, but Mae says the chlorine will take it out. Maybe there should be a vaccine program. As far as we know, the phage works to kill the swarms. Sometimes I have ringing in my ears, which is a worrisome sign. And I feel a vibrating in my chest and abdomen. I can’t tell if I am just paranoid, or if something is really happening to me. I try to keep a brave face for the kids, but of course you can’t fool kids. They know I’m frightened. +The last mystery to be cleared up was why the swarms always returned to the laboratory. It never made any sense to me. I kept worrying about it because it was such an unreasonable goal. It didn’t fit the PREDPREY formulations. Why would a predator keep returning to a particular location? +Of course, in retrospect there was only one possible answer. The swarms were intentionally programmed to return. The goal was explicitly defined by the programmers themselves. But why would anybody program in a goal like that? +I didn’t know until a few hours ago. +The code that Ricky showed me wasn’t the code they had actually used on the particles. He couldn’t show me the real code, because I would have known immediately what had been done. Ricky didn’t ever tell me. Nobody ever told me. +What bothers me most is an email I found on Julia’s hard drive earlier today. It was from her to Ricky Morse, with a CC to Larry Handler, the head of Xymos, outlining the procedure to follow to get the camera swarm to work in high wind. The plan was to intentionally release a swarm into the environment. +And that’s exactly what they did. +They pretended it was an accidental release, caused by missing air filters. That’s why Ricky gave me that long guided tour, and the song and dance about the contractor and ventilation system. But none of what he told me was true. The release was planned. It was intentional from the beginning. +When they couldn’t make the swarm work in high wind, they tried to engineer a solution. They failed. The particles were just too small and light—and arguably too stupid, too. They had design flaws from the beginning and now they couldn’t solve them. Their whole multimillion-dollar defense project was going down the drain, and they couldn’t solve it. So they decided to make the swarm solve it for them. +They reconfigured the nanoparticles to add solar power and memory. They rewrote the particle program to include a genetic algorithm. And they released the particles to reproduce and evolve, and see if the swarm could learn to survive on its own. And they succeeded. +It was so dumb, it was breathtaking. I didn’t understand how they could have embarked on this plan without recognizing the consequences. Like everything else I’d seen at Xymos, it was jerry-built, half-baked, concocted in a hurry to solve present problems and never a thought to the future. That might be typical corporate thinking when you were under the gun, but with technologies like these it was dangerous as hell. +But of course, the real truth was more complicated. The technology itself invited the behavior. Distributed agent systems ran by themselves. That was how they functioned. That was the whole point: you set them up and let them go. You got in the habit of doing that. You got in the habit of treating agent networks that way. Autonomy was the point of it all. But it was one thing to release a population of virtual agents inside a computer’s memory to solve a problem. It was another thing to set real agents free in the real world. They just didn’t see the difference. Or they didn’t care to see it. +And they set the swarm free. +The technical term for this is “self-optimization.” The swarm evolves on its own, the less successful agents die off, and the more successful agents reproduce the next generation. After ten or a hundred generations, the swarm evolves toward a best solution. An optimum solution. This kind of thing is done all the time inside the computer. It’s even used to generate new computer algorithms. Danny Hillis did one of the first of those runs years back, to optimize a sorting algorithm. To see if the computer could figure out how to make itself work better. The program found a new method. Other people quickly followed his lead. But it hasn’t been done with autonomous robots in the real world. As far as I know, this was the first time. Maybe it’s already happened, and we just didn’t hear about it. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll happen again. +Probably soon. +It’s two in the morning. The kids finally stopped vomiting. They’ve gone to sleep. They seem to be peaceful. The baby is asleep. Ellen is still pretty sick. I must have dozed off again. I don’t know what woke me. I see Mae coming up the hill from behind my house. She’s with the guy in the silver suit, and the rest of the SSVT team. She’s walking toward me. I can see that she’s smiling. I hope her news is good. +I could use some good news right now. +Julia’s original email says, “We have nothing to lose.” But in the end they lost everything—their company, their lives, everything. And the ironic thing is, the procedure worked. The swarm actually solved the problem they had set for it. +But then it kept going, kept evolving. +And they let it. +They didn’t understand what they were doing. +I’m afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race. +I hope it’s not. +We might get lucky. diff --git a/cppy/data/pride-and-prejudice.txt b/cppy/data/pride-and-prejudice.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97e47a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/cppy/data/pride-and-prejudice.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13426 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pride and Prejudice + +Author: Jane Austen + +Posting Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #1342] +Release Date: June, 1998 +[Last updated: August 11, 2011] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIDE AND PREJUDICE *** + + + + +Produced by Anonymous Volunteers + + + + + +PRIDE AND PREJUDICE + +By Jane Austen + + + +Chapter 1 + + +It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession +of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. + +However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his +first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds +of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property +of some one or other of their daughters. + +"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that +Netherfield Park is let at last?" + +Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. + +"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she +told me all about it." + +Mr. Bennet made no answer. + +"Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently. + +"_You_ want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it." + +This was invitation enough. + +"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken +by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came +down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much +delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he +is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to +be in the house by the end of next week." + +"What is his name?" + +"Bingley." + +"Is he married or single?" + +"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or +five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!" + +"How so? How can it affect them?" + +"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You +must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them." + +"Is that his design in settling here?" + +"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he +_may_ fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as +soon as he comes." + +"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send +them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are +as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the +party." + +"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly _have_ had my share of beauty, but +I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five +grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty." + +"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of." + +"But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into +the neighbourhood." + +"It is more than I engage for, I assure you." + +"But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would +be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to +go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no +newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for _us_ to +visit him if you do not." + +"You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very +glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my +hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though +I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy." + +"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the +others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so +good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving _her_ the preference." + +"They have none of them much to recommend them," replied he; "they are +all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of +quickness than her sisters." + +"Mr. Bennet, how _can_ you abuse your own children in such a way? You +take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves." + +"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They +are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration +these last twenty years at least." + +"Ah, you do not know what I suffer." + +"But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four +thousand a year come into the neighbourhood." + +"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not +visit them." + +"Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them +all." + +Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, +reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had +been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. _Her_ mind +was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, +little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, +she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her +daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. + + + +Chapter 2 + + +Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He +had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring +his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was +paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following +manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he +suddenly addressed her with: + +"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy." + +"We are not in a way to know _what_ Mr. Bingley likes," said her mother +resentfully, "since we are not to visit." + +"But you forget, mamma," said Elizabeth, "that we shall meet him at the +assemblies, and that Mrs. Long promised to introduce him." + +"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces +of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion +of her." + +"No more have I," said Mr. Bennet; "and I am glad to find that you do +not depend on her serving you." + +Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, but, unable to contain +herself, began scolding one of her daughters. + +"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's sake! Have a little +compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces." + +"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," said her father; "she times +them ill." + +"I do not cough for my own amusement," replied Kitty fretfully. "When is +your next ball to be, Lizzy?" + +"To-morrow fortnight." + +"Aye, so it is," cried her mother, "and Mrs. Long does not come back +till the day before; so it will be impossible for her to introduce him, +for she will not know him herself." + +"Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce +Mr. Bingley to _her_." + +"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him +myself; how can you be so teasing?" + +"I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly +very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a +fortnight. But if _we_ do not venture somebody else will; and after all, +Mrs. Long and her daughters must stand their chance; and, therefore, as +she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will +take it on myself." + +The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only, "Nonsense, +nonsense!" + +"What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?" cried he. "Do +you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on +them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you _there_. What say you, +Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read +great books and make extracts." + +Mary wished to say something sensible, but knew not how. + +"While Mary is adjusting her ideas," he continued, "let us return to Mr. +Bingley." + +"I am sick of Mr. Bingley," cried his wife. + +"I am sorry to hear _that_; but why did not you tell me that before? If +I had known as much this morning I certainly would not have called +on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we +cannot escape the acquaintance now." + +The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished; that of Mrs. +Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though, when the first tumult of joy +was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the +while. + +"How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should +persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to +neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a +good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning and never said a +word about it till now." + +"Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose," said Mr. Bennet; and, +as he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife. + +"What an excellent father you have, girls!" said she, when the door was +shut. "I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; +or me, either, for that matter. At our time of life it is not so +pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintances every day; but +for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my love, though you _are_ +the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next +ball." + +"Oh!" said Lydia stoutly, "I am not afraid; for though I _am_ the +youngest, I'm the tallest." + +The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would +return Mr. Bennet's visit, and determining when they should ask him to +dinner. + + + +Chapter 3 + + +Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five +daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her +husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him +in various ways--with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and +distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all, and they were at +last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, +Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been +delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely +agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly +with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of +dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively +hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained. + +"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield," +said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well +married, I shall have nothing to wish for." + +In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit, and sat about +ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being +admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had +heard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more +fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining from an upper +window that he wore a blue coat, and rode a black horse. + +An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched; and already +had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her +housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley +was obliged to be in town the following day, and, consequently, unable +to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite +disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town +so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that +he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never +settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears +a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get +a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley +was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. +The girls grieved over such a number of ladies, but were comforted the +day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve he brought only +six with him from London--his five sisters and a cousin. And when +the party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five +altogether--Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and +another young man. + +Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant +countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, +with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely +looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention +of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and +the report which was in general circulation within five minutes +after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen +pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he +was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great +admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust +which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be +proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all +his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most +forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared +with his friend. + +Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal +people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, +was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving +one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for +themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced +only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being +introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in +walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. +His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man +in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. +Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of +his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his +having slighted one of her daughters. + +Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit +down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been +standing near enough for her to hear a conversation between him and Mr. +Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend +to join it. + +"Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you dance. I hate to see you +standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better +dance." + +"I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am +particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this +it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not +another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to +stand up with." + +"I would not be so fastidious as you are," cried Mr. Bingley, "for a +kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in +my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them you see +uncommonly pretty." + +"_You_ are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room," said Mr. +Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet. + +"Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one +of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I +dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you." + +"Which do you mean?" and turning round he looked for a moment at +Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said: +"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt _me_; I am in no +humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted +by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her +smiles, for you are wasting your time with me." + +Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth +remained with no very cordial feelings toward him. She told the story, +however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, +playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. + +The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. +Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield +party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been +distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as +her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's +pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most +accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been +fortunate enough never to be without partners, which was all that they +had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, in good +spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they +were the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With +a book he was regardless of time; and on the present occasion he had a +good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised +such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that his wife's views on +the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found out that he had a +different story to hear. + +"Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet," as she entered the room, "we have had a most +delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. +Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well +she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with +her twice! Only think of _that_, my dear; he actually danced with her +twice! and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second +time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand +up with her! But, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody +can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going +down the dance. So he inquired who she was, and got introduced, and +asked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King, +and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, +and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the _Boulanger_--" + +"If he had had any compassion for _me_," cried her husband impatiently, +"he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of +his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!" + +"Oh! my dear, I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively +handsome! And his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw +anything more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs. +Hurst's gown--" + +Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any +description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch +of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some +exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy. + +"But I can assure you," she added, "that Lizzy does not lose much by not +suiting _his_ fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at +all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring +him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very +great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my +dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man." + + + +Chapter 4 + + +When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in +her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister just how very +much she admired him. + +"He is just what a young man ought to be," said she, "sensible, +good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!--so much +ease, with such perfect good breeding!" + +"He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth, "which a young man ought +likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete." + +"I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I +did not expect such a compliment." + +"Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between +us. Compliments always take _you_ by surprise, and _me_ never. What +could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help +seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman +in the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is +very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a +stupider person." + +"Dear Lizzy!" + +"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. +You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable +in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in your +life." + +"I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone; but I always speak +what I think." + +"I know you do; and it is _that_ which makes the wonder. With _your_ +good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of +others! Affectation of candour is common enough--one meets with it +everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design--to take the +good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing +of the bad--belongs to you alone. And so you like this man's sisters, +too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his." + +"Certainly not--at first. But they are very pleasing women when you +converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep +his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming +neighbour in her." + +Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced; their behaviour at +the assembly had not been calculated to please in general; and with more +quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister, +and with a judgement too unassailed by any attention to herself, she +was very little disposed to approve them. They were in fact very fine +ladies; not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the +power of making themselves agreeable when they chose it, but proud and +conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the +first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand +pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of +associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect +entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of +a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply +impressed on their memories than that their brother's fortune and their +own had been acquired by trade. + +Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred +thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an +estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and +sometimes made choice of his county; but as he was now provided with a +good house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those +who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the +remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to +purchase. + +His sisters were anxious for his having an estate of his own; but, +though he was now only established as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no +means unwilling to preside at his table--nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had +married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider +his house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of +age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation +to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for +half-an-hour--was pleased with the situation and the principal +rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it +immediately. + +Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of +great opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the +easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition +could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he +never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy's regard, Bingley +had the firmest reliance, and of his judgement the highest opinion. +In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means +deficient, but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, +reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not +inviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage. Bingley +was sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually +giving offense. + +The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently +characteristic. Bingley had never met with more pleasant people or +prettier girls in his life; everybody had been most kind and attentive +to him; there had been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon felt +acquainted with all the room; and, as to Miss Bennet, he could not +conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a +collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for +none of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and from none received +either attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, +but she smiled too much. + +Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so--but still they admired +her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one +whom they would not object to know more of. Miss Bennet was therefore +established as a sweet girl, and their brother felt authorized by such +commendation to think of her as he chose. + + + +Chapter 5 + + +Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets +were particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade +in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the +honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty. +The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a +disgust to his business, and to his residence in a small market town; +and, in quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house +about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge, +where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, +unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all +the world. For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him +supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By +nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. +James's had made him courteous. + +Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a +valuable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest +of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was +Elizabeth's intimate friend. + +That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over +a ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly +brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate. + +"_You_ began the evening well, Charlotte," said Mrs. Bennet with civil +self-command to Miss Lucas. "_You_ were Mr. Bingley's first choice." + +"Yes; but he seemed to like his second better." + +"Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be +sure that _did_ seem as if he admired her--indeed I rather believe he +_did_--I heard something about it--but I hardly know what--something +about Mr. Robinson." + +"Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson; did not +I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton +assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many +pretty women in the room, and _which_ he thought the prettiest? and his +answering immediately to the last question: 'Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet, +beyond a doubt; there cannot be two opinions on that point.'" + +"Upon my word! Well, that is very decided indeed--that does seem as +if--but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know." + +"_My_ overhearings were more to the purpose than _yours_, Eliza," said +Charlotte. "Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, +is he?--poor Eliza!--to be only just _tolerable_." + +"I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his +ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite +a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he +sat close to her for half-an-hour without once opening his lips." + +"Are you quite sure, ma'am?--is not there a little mistake?" said Jane. +"I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her." + +"Aye--because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he +could not help answering her; but she said he seemed quite angry at +being spoke to." + +"Miss Bingley told me," said Jane, "that he never speaks much, +unless among his intimate acquaintances. With _them_ he is remarkably +agreeable." + +"I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very +agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it +was; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had +heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to +the ball in a hack chaise." + +"I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long," said Miss Lucas, "but I +wish he had danced with Eliza." + +"Another time, Lizzy," said her mother, "I would not dance with _him_, +if I were you." + +"I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you _never_ to dance with him." + +"His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not offend _me_ so much as pride +often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so +very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, +should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a _right_ +to be proud." + +"That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and I could easily forgive +_his_ pride, if he had not mortified _mine_." + +"Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her +reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have +ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human +nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us +who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some +quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different +things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may +be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of +ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us." + +"If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy," cried a young Lucas, who came with +his sisters, "I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of +foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a day." + +"Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought," said Mrs. +Bennet; "and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle +directly." + +The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she +would, and the argument ended only with the visit. + + + +Chapter 6 + + +The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit +was soon returned in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners grew on +the goodwill of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was +found to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to, +a wish of being better acquainted with _them_ was expressed towards +the two eldest. By Jane, this attention was received with the greatest +pleasure, but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment +of everybody, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them; +though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value as arising in +all probability from the influence of their brother's admiration. It +was generally evident whenever they met, that he _did_ admire her and +to _her_ it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference +which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a +way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it +was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane +united, with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a +uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions +of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas. + +"It may perhaps be pleasant," replied Charlotte, "to be able to impose +on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be +so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill +from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and +it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in +the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every +attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all +_begin_ freely--a slight preference is natural enough; but there are +very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without +encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show _more_ +affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he +may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on." + +"But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If I can +perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not to +discover it too." + +"Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane's disposition as you do." + +"But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal +it, he must find it out." + +"Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But, though Bingley and Jane +meet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together; and, as they +always see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that +every moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should +therefore make the most of every half-hour in which she can command his +attention. When she is secure of him, there will be more leisure for +falling in love as much as she chooses." + +"Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth, "where nothing is in +question but the desire of being well married, and if I were determined +to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But +these are not Jane's feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet, +she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard nor of its +reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four +dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house, +and has since dined with him in company four times. This is not quite +enough to make her understand his character." + +"Not as you represent it. Had she merely _dined_ with him, she might +only have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must +remember that four evenings have also been spent together--and four +evenings may do a great deal." + +"Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they +both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other +leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded." + +"Well," said Charlotte, "I wish Jane success with all my heart; and +if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a +chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a +twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If +the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or +ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the +least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to +have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as +possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your +life." + +"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not +sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself." + +Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth +was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some +interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely +allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the +ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no +sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly +had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered +uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To +this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had +detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry +in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and +pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those +of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of +this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made +himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough +to dance with. + +He began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing +with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so +drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas's, where a large party were +assembled. + +"What does Mr. Darcy mean," said she to Charlotte, "by listening to my +conversation with Colonel Forster?" + +"That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer." + +"But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see +what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by +being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him." + +On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have +any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such +a subject to him; which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she +turned to him and said: + +"Did you not think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly +well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at +Meryton?" + +"With great energy; but it is always a subject which makes a lady +energetic." + +"You are severe on us." + +"It will be _her_ turn soon to be teased," said Miss Lucas. "I am going +to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows." + +"You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!--always wanting me +to play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken +a musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would +really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of +hearing the very best performers." On Miss Lucas's persevering, however, +she added, "Very well, if it must be so, it must." And gravely glancing +at Mr. Darcy, "There is a fine old saying, which everybody here is of +course familiar with: 'Keep your breath to cool your porridge'; and I +shall keep mine to swell my song." + +Her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song +or two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that +she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her +sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in +the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always +impatient for display. + +Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her +application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited +manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she +had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with +much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the +end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by +Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who, +with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in +dancing at one end of the room. + +Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of +passing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too +much engrossed by his thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was +his neighbour, till Sir William thus began: + +"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There +is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first +refinements of polished society." + +"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst +the less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance." + +Sir William only smiled. "Your friend performs delightfully," he +continued after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; "and I doubt +not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy." + +"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir." + +"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do +you often dance at St. James's?" + +"Never, sir." + +"Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?" + +"It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it." + +"You have a house in town, I conclude?" + +Mr. Darcy bowed. + +"I had once had some thought of fixing in town myself--for I am fond +of superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the air of +London would agree with Lady Lucas." + +He paused in hopes of an answer; but his companion was not disposed +to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was +struck with the action of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to +her: + +"My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow +me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You +cannot refuse to dance, I am sure when so much beauty is before you." +And, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy who, though +extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly +drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William: + +"Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you +not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner." + +Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of +her hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at +all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion. + +"You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny +me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the +amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us +for one half-hour." + +"Mr. Darcy is all politeness," said Elizabeth, smiling. + +"He is, indeed; but, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, +we cannot wonder at his complaisance--for who would object to such a +partner?" + +Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not +injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some +complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley: + +"I can guess the subject of your reverie." + +"I should imagine not." + +"You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings +in this manner--in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion. +I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise--the +nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all those people! What would +I give to hear your strictures on them!" + +"Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more +agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure +which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow." + +Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he +would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. +Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity: + +"Miss Elizabeth Bennet." + +"Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss Bingley. "I am all astonishment. +How long has she been such a favourite?--and pray, when am I to wish you +joy?" + +"That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady's +imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love +to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy." + +"Nay, if you are serious about it, I shall consider the matter is +absolutely settled. You will be having a charming mother-in-law, indeed; +and, of course, she will always be at Pemberley with you." + +He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to +entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her +that all was safe, her wit flowed long. + + + +Chapter 7 + + +Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two +thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, +in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's +fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply +the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and +had left her four thousand pounds. + +She had a sister married to a Mr. Phillips, who had been a clerk to +their father and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in +London in a respectable line of trade. + +The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most +convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted +thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt and +to a milliner's shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family, +Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions; +their minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing +better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning +hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and however bare of news +the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some +from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with +news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the +neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the +headquarters. + +Their visits to Mrs. Phillips were now productive of the most +interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge +of the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a +secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr. +Phillips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a store of +felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and +Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation +to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the +regimentals of an ensign. + +After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. +Bennet coolly observed: + +"From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two +of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but +I am now convinced." + +Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect +indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, +and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the +next morning to London. + +"I am astonished, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "that you should be so +ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly +of anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however." + +"If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it." + +"Yes--but as it happens, they are all of them very clever." + +"This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I +had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must +so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly +foolish." + +"My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of +their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will +not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when +I liked a red coat myself very well--and, indeed, so I do still at my +heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, +should want one of my girls I shall not say nay to him; and I thought +Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in +his regimentals." + +"Mamma," cried Lydia, "my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain +Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first +came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library." + +Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with +a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited +for an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was +eagerly calling out, while her daughter read, + +"Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well, +Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love." + +"It is from Miss Bingley," said Jane, and then read it aloud. + +"MY DEAR FRIEND,-- + +"If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, +we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, +for a whole day's tete-a-tete between two women can never end without a +quarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this. My brother and the +gentlemen are to dine with the officers.--Yours ever, + +"CAROLINE BINGLEY" + +"With the officers!" cried Lydia. "I wonder my aunt did not tell us of +_that_." + +"Dining out," said Mrs. Bennet, "that is very unlucky." + +"Can I have the carriage?" said Jane. + +"No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to +rain; and then you must stay all night." + +"That would be a good scheme," said Elizabeth, "if you were sure that +they would not offer to send her home." + +"Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton, +and the Hursts have no horses to theirs." + +"I had much rather go in the coach." + +"But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are +wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are they not?" + +"They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them." + +"But if you have got them to-day," said Elizabeth, "my mother's purpose +will be answered." + +She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses +were engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her +mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a +bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before +it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was +delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; +Jane certainly could not come back. + +"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet more than +once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the +next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her +contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield +brought the following note for Elizabeth: + +"MY DEAREST LIZZY,-- + +"I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be +imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not +hear of my returning till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. +Jones--therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been +to me--and, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the +matter with me.--Yours, etc." + +"Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note +aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness--if she +should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of +Mr. Bingley, and under your orders." + +"Oh! I am not afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling +colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is +all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage." + +Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though +the carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking +was her only alternative. She declared her resolution. + +"How can you be so silly," cried her mother, "as to think of such a +thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get +there." + +"I shall be very fit to see Jane--which is all I want." + +"Is this a hint to me, Lizzy," said her father, "to send for the +horses?" + +"No, indeed, I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing +when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner." + +"I admire the activity of your benevolence," observed Mary, "but every +impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, +exertion should always be in proportion to what is required." + +"We will go as far as Meryton with you," said Catherine and Lydia. +Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off +together. + +"If we make haste," said Lydia, as they walked along, "perhaps we may +see something of Captain Carter before he goes." + +In Meryton they parted; the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one +of the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing +field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing +over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last +within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face +glowing with the warmth of exercise. + +She was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were +assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. +That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such +dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and +Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt +for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their +brother's manners there was something better than politeness; there +was good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. +Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the +brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as +to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was +thinking only of his breakfast. + +Her inquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss +Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not +well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her +immediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving +alarm or inconvenience from expressing in her note how much she longed +for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal, +however, to much conversation, and when Miss Bingley left them +together, could attempt little besides expressions of gratitude for the +extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended +her. + +When breakfast was over they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth +began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and +solicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecary came, and having +examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught +a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it; +advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice +was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head +ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment; nor were +the other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had, in +fact, nothing to do elsewhere. + +When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go, and very +unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only +wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern +in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer +of the chaise to an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present. +Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was dispatched to +Longbourn to acquaint the family with her stay and bring back a supply +of clothes. + + + +Chapter 8 + + +At five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half-past six +Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil inquiries which then +poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the +much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very +favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing +this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how +shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked +being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their +indifference towards Jane when not immediately before them restored +Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her former dislike. + +Their brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could +regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his +attentions to herself most pleasing, and they prevented her feeling +herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the +others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was +engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. +Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to +eat, drink, and play at cards; who, when he found her to prefer a plain +dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her. + +When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley +began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were +pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence; +she had no conversation, no style, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the +same, and added: + +"She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent +walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really +looked almost wild." + +"She did, indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very +nonsensical to come at all! Why must _she_ be scampering about the +country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair, so untidy, so blowsy!" + +"Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep +in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to +hide it not doing its office." + +"Your picture may be very exact, Louisa," said Bingley; "but this was +all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably +well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite +escaped my notice." + +"_You_ observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure," said Miss Bingley; "and I am +inclined to think that you would not wish to see _your_ sister make such +an exhibition." + +"Certainly not." + +"To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, +above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! What could she mean by +it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, +a most country-town indifference to decorum." + +"It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing," said +Bingley. + +"I am afraid, Mr. Darcy," observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, "that +this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes." + +"Not at all," he replied; "they were brightened by the exercise." A +short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again: + +"I have an excessive regard for Miss Jane Bennet, she is really a very +sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with +such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is +no chance of it." + +"I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in +Meryton." + +"Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside." + +"That is capital," added her sister, and they both laughed heartily. + +"If they had uncles enough to fill _all_ Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it +would not make them one jot less agreeable." + +"But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any +consideration in the world," replied Darcy. + +To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their +hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of +their dear friend's vulgar relations. + +With a renewal of tenderness, however, they returned to her room on +leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. +She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till +late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her sleep, and +when it seemed to her rather right than pleasant that she should go +downstairs herself. On entering the drawing-room she found the whole +party at loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting +them to be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the +excuse, said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay +below, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment. + +"Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; "that is rather singular." + +"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great +reader, and has no pleasure in anything else." + +"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am +_not_ a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things." + +"In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure," said Bingley; "and +I hope it will be soon increased by seeing her quite well." + +Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards the +table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her +others--all that his library afforded. + +"And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own +credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more +than I ever looked into." + +Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those +in the room. + +"I am astonished," said Miss Bingley, "that my father should have left +so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at +Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!" + +"It ought to be good," he replied, "it has been the work of many +generations." + +"And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying +books." + +"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as +these." + +"Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of +that noble place. Charles, when you build _your_ house, I wish it may be +half as delightful as Pemberley." + +"I wish it may." + +"But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that +neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a +finer county in England than Derbyshire." + +"With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it." + +"I am talking of possibilities, Charles." + +"Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get +Pemberley by purchase than by imitation." + +Elizabeth was so much caught with what passed, as to leave her very +little attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew +near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his +eldest sister, to observe the game. + +"Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?" said Miss Bingley; "will +she be as tall as I am?" + +"I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or +rather taller." + +"How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me +so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished +for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite." + +"It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "how young ladies can have patience +to be so very accomplished as they all are." + +"All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?" + +"Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and +net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure +I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being +informed that she was very accomplished." + +"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has +too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no +otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very +far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I +cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my +acquaintance, that are really accomplished." + +"Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley. + +"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your +idea of an accomplished woman." + +"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it." + +"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really +esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met +with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, +dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides +all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of +walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word +will be but half-deserved." + +"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must +yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by +extensive reading." + +"I am no longer surprised at your knowing _only_ six accomplished women. +I rather wonder now at your knowing _any_." + +"Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all +this?" + +"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and +application, and elegance, as you describe united." + +Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her +implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who +answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with +bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all +conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the +room. + +"Elizabeth Bennet," said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, +"is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the +other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it +succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art." + +"Undoubtedly," replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, +"there is a meanness in _all_ the arts which ladies sometimes condescend +to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is +despicable." + +Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to +continue the subject. + +Elizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and +that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones being sent for +immediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could +be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most +eminent physicians. This she would not hear of; but she was not so +unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal; and it was settled +that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet +were not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable; his sisters +declared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness, +however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief +to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every +attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister. + + + +Chapter 9 + + +Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room, and in the +morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the +inquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid, +and some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his +sisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a +note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her +own judgement of her situation. The note was immediately dispatched, and +its contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her +two youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast. + +Had she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been +very miserable; but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was +not alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her +restoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She +would not listen, therefore, to her daughter's proposal of being carried +home; neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think +it at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss +Bingley's appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all +attended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes +that Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected. + +"Indeed I have, sir," was her answer. "She is a great deal too ill to be +moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass +a little longer on your kindness." + +"Removed!" cried Bingley. "It must not be thought of. My sister, I am +sure, will not hear of her removal." + +"You may depend upon it, Madam," said Miss Bingley, with cold civility, +"that Miss Bennet will receive every possible attention while she +remains with us." + +Mrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments. + +"I am sure," she added, "if it was not for such good friends I do not +know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers +a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is +always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest +temper I have ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are +nothing to _her_. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a +charming prospect over the gravel walk. I do not know a place in the +country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it +in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease." + +"Whatever I do is done in a hurry," replied he; "and therefore if I +should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five +minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here." + +"That is exactly what I should have supposed of you," said Elizabeth. + +"You begin to comprehend me, do you?" cried he, turning towards her. + +"Oh! yes--I understand you perfectly." + +"I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen +through I am afraid is pitiful." + +"That is as it happens. It does not follow that a deep, intricate +character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours." + +"Lizzy," cried her mother, "remember where you are, and do not run on in +the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home." + +"I did not know before," continued Bingley immediately, "that you were a +studier of character. It must be an amusing study." + +"Yes, but intricate characters are the _most_ amusing. They have at +least that advantage." + +"The country," said Darcy, "can in general supply but a few subjects for +such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and +unvarying society." + +"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be +observed in them for ever." + +"Yes, indeed," cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning +a country neighbourhood. "I assure you there is quite as much of _that_ +going on in the country as in town." + +Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, +turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete +victory over him, continued her triumph. + +"I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for +my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal +pleasanter, is it not, Mr. Bingley?" + +"When I am in the country," he replied, "I never wish to leave it; +and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their +advantages, and I can be equally happy in either." + +"Aye--that is because you have the right disposition. But that +gentleman," looking at Darcy, "seemed to think the country was nothing +at all." + +"Indeed, Mamma, you are mistaken," said Elizabeth, blushing for her +mother. "You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not +such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in the town, +which you must acknowledge to be true." + +"Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting +with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few +neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families." + +Nothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his +countenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eyes towards +Mr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of +saying something that might turn her mother's thoughts, now asked her if +Charlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since _her_ coming away. + +"Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir +William is, Mr. Bingley, is not he? So much the man of fashion! So +genteel and easy! He has always something to say to everybody. _That_ +is my idea of good breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very +important, and never open their mouths, quite mistake the matter." + +"Did Charlotte dine with you?" + +"No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mince-pies. For +my part, Mr. Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work; +_my_ daughters are brought up very differently. But everybody is to +judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, +I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think +Charlotte so _very_ plain--but then she is our particular friend." + +"She seems a very pleasant young woman." + +"Oh! dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself +has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast +of my own child, but to be sure, Jane--one does not often see anybody +better looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own +partiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a man at my brother +Gardiner's in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was +sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he +did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses +on her, and very pretty they were." + +"And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has +been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first +discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!" + +"I have been used to consider poetry as the _food_ of love," said Darcy. + +"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is +strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I +am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away." + +Darcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth +tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to +speak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs. +Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to +Jane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was +unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be +civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part +indeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and +soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of +her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to +each other during the whole visit, and the result of it was, that the +youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming +into the country to give a ball at Netherfield. + +Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion +and good-humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose +affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high +animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the +attention of the officers, to whom her uncle's good dinners, and her own +easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very +equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and +abruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most +shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this +sudden attack was delightful to their mother's ear: + +"I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when +your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of +the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing when she is ill." + +Lydia declared herself satisfied. "Oh! yes--it would be much better to +wait till Jane was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter +would be at Meryton again. And when you have given _your_ ball," she +added, "I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel +Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not." + +Mrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned +instantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations' behaviour to the +remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy; the latter of whom, however, +could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of _her_, in spite of +all Miss Bingley's witticisms on _fine eyes_. + + + +Chapter 10 + + +The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss +Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who +continued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizabeth joined +their party in the drawing-room. The loo-table, however, did not appear. +Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching +the progress of his letter and repeatedly calling off his attention by +messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and +Mrs. Hurst was observing their game. + +Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in +attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual +commendations of the lady, either on his handwriting, or on the evenness +of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern +with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was +exactly in union with her opinion of each. + +"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!" + +He made no answer. + +"You write uncommonly fast." + +"You are mistaken. I write rather slowly." + +"How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a +year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!" + +"It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours." + +"Pray tell your sister that I long to see her." + +"I have already told her so once, by your desire." + +"I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend +pens remarkably well." + +"Thank you--but I always mend my own." + +"How can you contrive to write so even?" + +He was silent. + +"Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp; +and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful +little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss +Grantley's." + +"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At +present I have not room to do them justice." + +"Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you +always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?" + +"They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me +to determine." + +"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with +ease, cannot write ill." + +"That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline," cried her +brother, "because he does _not_ write with ease. He studies too much for +words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?" + +"My style of writing is very different from yours." + +"Oh!" cried Miss Bingley, "Charles writes in the most careless way +imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest." + +"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them--by which +means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents." + +"Your humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm reproof." + +"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of +humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an +indirect boast." + +"And which of the two do you call _my_ little recent piece of modesty?" + +"The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in +writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of +thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you +think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with +quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any +attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. +Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield +you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of +panegyric, of compliment to yourself--and yet what is there so very +laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business +undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?" + +"Nay," cried Bingley, "this is too much, to remember at night all the +foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, +I believe what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this +moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless +precipitance merely to show off before the ladies." + +"I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that +you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as +dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were +mounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better +stay till next week,' you would probably do it, you would probably not +go--and at another word, might stay a month." + +"You have only proved by this," cried Elizabeth, "that Mr. Bingley did +not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much +more than he did himself." + +"I am exceedingly gratified," said Bingley, "by your converting what my +friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am +afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means +intend; for he would certainly think better of me, if under such a +circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I +could." + +"Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intentions +as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?" + +"Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter; Darcy must speak for +himself." + +"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, +but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to +stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, +that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and +the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering +one argument in favour of its propriety." + +"To yield readily--easily--to the _persuasion_ of a friend is no merit +with you." + +"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of +either." + +"You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of +friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make +one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason +one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have +supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the +circumstance occurs before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour +thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, +where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no +very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying +with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?" + +"Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to +arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to +appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting +between the parties?" + +"By all means," cried Bingley; "let us hear all the particulars, not +forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more +weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure +you, that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with +myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not +know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in +particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, +when he has nothing to do." + +Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was +rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly +resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her +brother for talking such nonsense. + +"I see your design, Bingley," said his friend. "You dislike an argument, +and want to silence this." + +"Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss +Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very +thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me." + +"What you ask," said Elizabeth, "is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. +Darcy had much better finish his letter." + +Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter. + +When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth +for an indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with some alacrity +to the pianoforte; and, after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead +the way which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she +seated herself. + +Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed, +Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music-books +that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed +on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of +admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her +because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, +however, at last that she drew his notice because there was something +more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in +any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked +him too little to care for his approbation. + +After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by +a lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near +Elizabeth, said to her: + +"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an +opportunity of dancing a reel?" + +She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some +surprise at her silence. + +"Oh!" said she, "I heard you before, but I could not immediately +determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,' +that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always +delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of +their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell +you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if +you dare." + +"Indeed I do not dare." + +Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his +gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her +manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy +had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really +believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he +should be in some danger. + +Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great +anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some +assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth. + +She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of +their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance. + +"I hope," said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery +the next day, "you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this +desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue; +and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after +officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to +check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, +which your lady possesses." + +"Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?" + +"Oh! yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Phillips be placed +in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great-uncle the +judge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different +lines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not have it taken, for +what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?" + +"It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their +colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be +copied." + +At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and +Elizabeth herself. + +"I did not know that you intended to walk," said Miss Bingley, in some +confusion, lest they had been overheard. + +"You used us abominably ill," answered Mrs. Hurst, "running away without +telling us that you were coming out." + +Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk +by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness, +and immediately said: + +"This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the +avenue." + +But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, +laughingly answered: + +"No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear +to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a +fourth. Good-bye." + +She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of +being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered +as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening. + + + +Chapter 11 + + +When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her +sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the +drawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many +professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable +as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared. +Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an +entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh +at their acquaintance with spirit. + +But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object; +Miss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy, and she had +something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed +himself to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst also +made her a slight bow, and said he was "very glad;" but diffuseness +and warmth remained for Bingley's salutation. He was full of joy and +attention. The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she +should suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire +to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from +the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone +else. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great +delight. + +When tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the +card-table--but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. +Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open +petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and +the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr. +Hurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the +sofas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book; Miss Bingley did the same; +and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets +and rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss +Bennet. + +Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. +Darcy's progress through _his_ book, as in reading her own; and she +was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She +could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her +question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be +amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the +second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, "How pleasant +it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no +enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a +book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not +an excellent library." + +No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and +cast her eyes round the room in quest for some amusement; when hearing +her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly +towards him and said: + +"By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at +Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult +the wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are +not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a +pleasure." + +"If you mean Darcy," cried her brother, "he may go to bed, if he +chooses, before it begins--but as for the ball, it is quite a settled +thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send +round my cards." + +"I should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were +carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably +tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much +more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of +the day." + +"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be +near so much like a ball." + +Miss Bingley made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked +about the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but +Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In +the desperation of her feelings, she resolved on one effort more, and, +turning to Elizabeth, said: + +"Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a +turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so +long in one attitude." + +Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley +succeeded no less in the real object of her civility; Mr. Darcy looked +up. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as +Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was +directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that +he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down +the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would +interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his +meaning?"--and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him? + +"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe +on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing +about it." + +Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in +anything, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his +two motives. + +"I have not the smallest objection to explaining them," said he, as soon +as she allowed him to speak. "You either choose this method of passing +the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret +affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures +appear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be +completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better +as I sit by the fire." + +"Oh! shocking!" cried Miss Bingley. "I never heard anything so +abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?" + +"Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination," said Elizabeth. "We +can all plague and punish one another. Tease him--laugh at him. Intimate +as you are, you must know how it is to be done." + +"But upon my honour, I do _not_. I do assure you that my intimacy has +not yet taught me _that_. Tease calmness of manner and presence of +mind! No, no; I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will +not expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a +subject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself." + +"Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!" cried Elizabeth. "That is an +uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would +be a great loss to _me_ to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a +laugh." + +"Miss Bingley," said he, "has given me more credit than can be. +The wisest and the best of men--nay, the wisest and best of their +actions--may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in +life is a joke." + +"Certainly," replied Elizabeth--"there are such people, but I hope I +am not one of _them_. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. +Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, _do_ divert me, I own, +and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely +what you are without." + +"Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study +of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong +understanding to ridicule." + +"Such as vanity and pride." + +"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride--where there is a real +superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation." + +Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile. + +"Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume," said Miss Bingley; +"and pray what is the result?" + +"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it +himself without disguise." + +"No," said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, +but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch +for. It is, I believe, too little yielding--certainly too little for the +convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others +so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings +are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper +would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost +forever." + +"_That_ is a failing indeed!" cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment +_is_ a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I +really cannot _laugh_ at it. You are safe from me." + +"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular +evil--a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." + +"And _your_ defect is to hate everybody." + +"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand +them." + +"Do let us have a little music," cried Miss Bingley, tired of a +conversation in which she had no share. "Louisa, you will not mind my +waking Mr. Hurst?" + +Her sister had not the smallest objection, and the pianoforte was +opened; and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for +it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention. + + + +Chapter 12 + + +In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the +next morning to their mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for +them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on +her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which +would exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive +them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at +least not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs. +Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage +before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley +and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them +very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively +resolved--nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the +contrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long, +she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at +length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield +that morning should be mentioned, and the request made. + +The communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was +said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work +on Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was +then sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her jealousy and dislike +of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other. + +The master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so +soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be +safe for her--that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where +she felt herself to be right. + +To Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence--Elizabeth had been at +Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked--and Miss +Bingley was uncivil to _her_, and more teasing than usual to himself. +He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration +should _now_ escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope +of influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been +suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight +in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke +ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were +at one time left by themselves for half-an-hour, he adhered most +conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her. + +On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost +all, took place. Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last +very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted, +after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her +to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most +tenderly, she even shook hands with the former. Elizabeth took leave of +the whole party in the liveliest of spirits. + +They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet +wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much +trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their +father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really +glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The +evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of +its animation, and almost all its sense by the absence of Jane and +Elizabeth. + +They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough-bass and human +nature; and had some extracts to admire, and some new observations of +threadbare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information +for them of a different sort. Much had been done and much had been said +in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers +had dined lately with their uncle, a private had been flogged, and it +had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married. + + + +Chapter 13 + + +"I hope, my dear," said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at +breakfast the next morning, "that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, +because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party." + +"Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, +unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in--and I hope _my_ dinners +are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home." + +"The person of whom I speak is a gentleman, and a stranger." + +Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. "A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr. +Bingley, I am sure! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. +Bingley. But--good Lord! how unlucky! There is not a bit of fish to be +got to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell--I must speak to Hill this +moment." + +"It is _not_ Mr. Bingley," said her husband; "it is a person whom I +never saw in the whole course of my life." + +This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being +eagerly questioned by his wife and his five daughters at once. + +After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained: + +"About a month ago I received this letter; and about a fortnight ago +I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring +early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, +may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases." + +"Oh! my dear," cried his wife, "I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. +Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing +in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own +children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago +to do something or other about it." + +Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They +had often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which +Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail +bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of +five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. + +"It certainly is a most iniquitous affair," said Mr. Bennet, "and +nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. +But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little +softened by his manner of expressing himself." + +"No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it is very impertinent of +him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false +friends. Why could he not keep on quarreling with you, as his father did +before him?" + +"Why, indeed; he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that +head, as you will hear." + +"Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, 15th October. + +"Dear Sir,-- + +"The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured +father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the +misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but +for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might +seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone +with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.--'There, Mrs. +Bennet.'--My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having +received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be +distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de +Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has +preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be +my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her +ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which +are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I +feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in +all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I +flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and +that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate +will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the +offered olive-branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the +means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for +it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible +amends--but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to +receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting +on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and +shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'ennight +following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine +is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided +that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.--I +remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and +daughters, your well-wisher and friend, + +"WILLIAM COLLINS" + +"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peace-making gentleman," +said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. "He seems to be a most +conscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will +prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so +indulgent as to let him come to us again." + +"There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however, and if +he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to +discourage him." + +"Though it is difficult," said Jane, "to guess in what way he can mean +to make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his +credit." + +Elizabeth was chiefly struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady +Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying +his parishioners whenever it were required. + +"He must be an oddity, I think," said she. "I cannot make him +out.--There is something very pompous in his style.--And what can he +mean by apologising for being next in the entail?--We cannot suppose he +would help it if he could.--Could he be a sensible man, sir?" + +"No, my dear, I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the +reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his +letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him." + +"In point of composition," said Mary, "the letter does not seem +defective. The idea of the olive-branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I +think it is well expressed." + +To Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any +degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should +come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had +received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for +their mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her ill-will, +and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which +astonished her husband and daughters. + +Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great +politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the +ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in +need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a +tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and +stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated +before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of +daughters; said he had heard much of their beauty, but that in this +instance fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did +not doubt her seeing them all in due time disposed of in marriage. This +gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs. +Bennet, who quarreled with no compliments, answered most readily. + +"You are very kind, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may +prove so, for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so +oddly." + +"You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate." + +"Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you +must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with _you_, for such things +I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates +will go when once they come to be entailed." + +"I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and +could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing +forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come +prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more; but, perhaps, +when we are better acquainted--" + +He was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each +other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The +hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised; +and his commendation of everything would have touched Mrs. Bennet's +heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his +own future property. The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and +he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its +cooking was owing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who +assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a +good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He +begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared +herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a +quarter of an hour. + + + +Chapter 14 + + +During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants +were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his +guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to +shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady +Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for +his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen +better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him +to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect +he protested that "he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in +a person of rank--such affability and condescension, as he had himself +experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to +approve of both of the discourses which he had already had the honour of +preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, +and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of +quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many +people he knew, but _he_ had never seen anything but affability in her. +She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she +made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the +neighbourhood nor to his leaving the parish occasionally for a week or +two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to +marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had +once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly +approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed +to suggest some herself--some shelves in the closet up stairs." + +"That is all very proper and civil, I am sure," said Mrs. Bennet, "and +I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies +in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?" + +"The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane +from Rosings Park, her ladyship's residence." + +"I think you said she was a widow, sir? Has she any family?" + +"She has only one daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very +extensive property." + +"Ah!" said Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, "then she is better off than +many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome?" + +"She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says +that, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the +handsomest of her sex, because there is that in her features which marks +the young lady of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly +constitution, which has prevented her from making that progress in many +accomplishments which she could not have otherwise failed of, as I am +informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still +resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends +to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies." + +"Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at +court." + +"Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town; +and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine one day, has deprived the +British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased +with the idea; and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to +offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable +to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that +her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most +elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by +her. These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and +it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to +pay." + +"You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you +that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask +whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the +moment, or are the result of previous study?" + +"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I +sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant +compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to +give them as unstudied an air as possible." + +Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd +as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, +maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, +and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner +in his pleasure. + +By tea-time, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad +to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and, when tea was over, +glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily +assented, and a book was produced; but, on beholding it (for everything +announced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and +begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at +him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some +deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the +volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three +pages, she interrupted him with: + +"Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away +Richard; and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me +so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more +about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town." + +Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. +Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said: + +"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books +of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes +me, I confess; for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to +them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin." + +Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at +backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted +very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. +Mrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's +interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would +resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his +young cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any +affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared +for backgammon. + + + +Chapter 15 + + +Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had +been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part +of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and +miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he +had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful +acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had +given him originally great humility of manner; but it was now a +good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in +retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected +prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de +Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which +he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, +mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a +clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of +pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility. + +Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to +marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had +a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found +them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. +This was his plan of amends--of atonement--for inheriting their father's +estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and +suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own +part. + +His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face +confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what +was due to seniority; and for the first evening _she_ was his settled +choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a +quarter of an hour's tete-a-tete with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a +conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally +to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at +Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general +encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. "As to +her _younger_ daughters, she could not take upon her to say--she could +not positively answer--but she did not _know_ of any prepossession; her +_eldest_ daughter, she must just mention--she felt it incumbent on her +to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged." + +Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth--and it was soon +done--done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally +next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course. + +Mrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have +two daughters married; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of +the day before was now high in her good graces. + +Lydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten; every sister +except Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them, +at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, +and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed +him after breakfast; and there he would continue, nominally engaged with +one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. +Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such +doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been +always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told +Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the +house, he was used to be free from them there; his civility, therefore, +was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their +walk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker +than a reader, was extremely pleased to close his large book, and go. + +In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his +cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of +the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were +immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and +nothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in +a shop window, could recall them. + +But the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom +they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking +with another officer on the other side of the way. The officer was +the very Mr. Denny concerning whose return from London Lydia came +to inquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the +stranger's air, all wondered who he could be; and Kitty and Lydia, +determined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under +pretense of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately +had just gained the pavement when the two gentlemen, turning back, had +reached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated +permission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with +him the day before from town, and he was happy to say had accepted a +commission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be; for the +young man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming. +His appearance was greatly in his favour; he had all the best part of +beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address. +The introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness +of conversation--a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and +unassuming; and the whole party were still standing and talking together +very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy +and Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the +ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and +began the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and +Miss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to +Longbourn on purpose to inquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated +it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes +on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the +stranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they +looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting. +Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham, +after a few moments, touched his hat--a salutation which Mr. Darcy just +deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to +imagine; it was impossible not to long to know. + +In another minute, Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what +passed, took leave and rode on with his friend. + +Mr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of +Mr. Phillip's house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia's +pressing entreaties that they should come in, and even in spite of +Mrs. Phillips's throwing up the parlour window and loudly seconding the +invitation. + +Mrs. Phillips was always glad to see her nieces; and the two eldest, +from their recent absence, were particularly welcome, and she was +eagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as +their own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing +about, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones's shop-boy in the +street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to +Netherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility +was claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane's introduction of him. She +received him with her very best politeness, which he returned with +as much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous +acquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself, +however, might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who +introduced him to her notice. Mrs. Phillips was quite awed by such an +excess of good breeding; but her contemplation of one stranger was soon +put to an end by exclamations and inquiries about the other; of whom, +however, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that +Mr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a +lieutenant's commission in the ----shire. She had been watching him the +last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr. +Wickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the +occupation, but unluckily no one passed windows now except a few of the +officers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become "stupid, +disagreeable fellows." Some of them were to dine with the Phillipses +the next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr. +Wickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn +would come in the evening. This was agreed to, and Mrs. Phillips +protested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery +tickets, and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such +delights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr. +Collins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured +with unwearying civility that they were perfectly needless. + +As they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass +between the two gentlemen; but though Jane would have defended either +or both, had they appeared to be in the wrong, she could no more explain +such behaviour than her sister. + +Mr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring +Mrs. Phillips's manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady +Catherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman; +for she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but even +pointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although +utterly unknown to her before. Something, he supposed, might be +attributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so +much attention in the whole course of his life. + + + +Chapter 16 + + +As no objection was made to the young people's engagement with their +aunt, and all Mr. Collins's scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for +a single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach +conveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton; and +the girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawing-room, +that Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle's invitation, and was then in +the house. + +When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. +Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much +struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he +might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast +parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much +gratification; but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what +Rosings was, and who was its proprietor--when she had listened to the +description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found +that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all +the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison +with the housekeeper's room. + +In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion, +with occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and +the improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the +gentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Phillips a very attentive +listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she +heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as +soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, +and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine +their own indifferent imitations of china on the mantelpiece, the +interval of waiting appeared very long. It was over at last, however. +The gentlemen did approach, and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room, +Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking +of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration. +The officers of the ----shire were in general a very creditable, +gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but +Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and +walk, as _they_ were superior to the broad-faced, stuffy uncle Phillips, +breathing port wine, who followed them into the room. + +Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was +turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated +himself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into +conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, made her feel +that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered +interesting by the skill of the speaker. + +With such rivals for the notice of the fair as Mr. Wickham and the +officers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance; to the young +ladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind +listener in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watchfulness, most abundantly +supplied with coffee and muffin. When the card-tables were placed, he +had the opportunity of obliging her in turn, by sitting down to whist. + +"I know little of the game at present," said he, "but I shall be glad +to improve myself, for in my situation in life--" Mrs. Phillips was very +glad for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason. + +Mr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he +received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there +seemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely, for she was a most +determined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets, +she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets +and exclaiming after prizes to have attention for anyone in particular. +Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore +at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear +him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be +told--the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not +even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly +relieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He inquired how far +Netherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in +a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there. + +"About a month," said Elizabeth; and then, unwilling to let the subject +drop, added, "He is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I +understand." + +"Yes," replied Mr. Wickham; "his estate there is a noble one. A clear +ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more +capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself, for +I have been connected with his family in a particular manner from my +infancy." + +Elizabeth could not but look surprised. + +"You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after +seeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting +yesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy?" + +"As much as I ever wish to be," cried Elizabeth very warmly. "I have +spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very +disagreeable." + +"I have no right to give _my_ opinion," said Wickham, "as to his being +agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him +too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for _me_ +to be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general +astonish--and perhaps you would not express it quite so strongly +anywhere else. Here you are in your own family." + +"Upon my word, I say no more _here_ than I might say in any house in +the neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in +Hertfordshire. Everybody is disgusted with his pride. You will not find +him more favourably spoken of by anyone." + +"I cannot pretend to be sorry," said Wickham, after a short +interruption, "that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond +their deserts; but with _him_ I believe it does not often happen. The +world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his +high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen." + +"I should take him, even on _my_ slight acquaintance, to be an +ill-tempered man." Wickham only shook his head. + +"I wonder," said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, "whether he is +likely to be in this country much longer." + +"I do not at all know; but I _heard_ nothing of his going away when I +was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the ----shire will +not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood." + +"Oh! no--it is not for _me_ to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If _he_ +wishes to avoid seeing _me_, he must go. We are not on friendly terms, +and it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for +avoiding _him_ but what I might proclaim before all the world, a sense +of very great ill-usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he +is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men +that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never +be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by +a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been +scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and +everything, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the +memory of his father." + +Elizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with +all her heart; but the delicacy of it prevented further inquiry. + +Mr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the +neighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that +he had yet seen, and speaking of the latter with gentle but very +intelligible gallantry. + +"It was the prospect of constant society, and good society," he added, +"which was my chief inducement to enter the ----shire. I knew it to be +a most respectable, agreeable corps, and my friend Denny tempted me +further by his account of their present quarters, and the very great +attentions and excellent acquaintances Meryton had procured them. +Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and +my spirits will not bear solitude. I _must_ have employment and society. +A military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have +now made it eligible. The church _ought_ to have been my profession--I +was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in +possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we +were speaking of just now." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes--the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best +living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. +I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, +and thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given +elsewhere." + +"Good heavens!" cried Elizabeth; "but how could _that_ be? How could his +will be disregarded? Why did you not seek legal redress?" + +"There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to +give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the +intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it--or to treat it as a merely +conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim +to it by extravagance, imprudence--in short anything or nothing. Certain +it is, that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was +of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no +less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done +anything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and +I may have spoken my opinion _of_ him, and _to_ him, too freely. I can +recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort +of men, and that he hates me." + +"This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced." + +"Some time or other he _will_ be--but it shall not be by _me_. Till I +can forget his father, I can never defy or expose _him_." + +Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than +ever as he expressed them. + +"But what," said she, after a pause, "can have been his motive? What can +have induced him to behave so cruelly?" + +"A thorough, determined dislike of me--a dislike which I cannot but +attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me +less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon +attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had +not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood--the sort +of preference which was often given me." + +"I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this--though I have never liked +him. I had not thought so very ill of him. I had supposed him to be +despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of +descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as +this." + +After a few minutes' reflection, however, she continued, "I _do_ +remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of +his resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition +must be dreadful." + +"I will not trust myself on the subject," replied Wickham; "I can hardly +be just to him." + +Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, "To +treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his +father!" She could have added, "A young man, too, like _you_, whose very +countenance may vouch for your being amiable"--but she contented herself +with, "and one, too, who had probably been his companion from childhood, +connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner!" + +"We were born in the same parish, within the same park; the greatest +part of our youth was passed together; inmates of the same house, +sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. _My_ +father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Phillips, +appears to do so much credit to--but he gave up everything to be of +use to the late Mr. Darcy and devoted all his time to the care of the +Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most +intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to +be under the greatest obligations to my father's active superintendence, +and when, immediately before my father's death, Mr. Darcy gave him a +voluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to +be as much a debt of gratitude to _him_, as of his affection to myself." + +"How strange!" cried Elizabeth. "How abominable! I wonder that the very +pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you! If from no better +motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest--for +dishonesty I must call it." + +"It _is_ wonderful," replied Wickham, "for almost all his actions may +be traced to pride; and pride had often been his best friend. It has +connected him nearer with virtue than with any other feeling. But we are +none of us consistent, and in his behaviour to me there were stronger +impulses even than pride." + +"Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?" + +"Yes. It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money +freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the +poor. Family pride, and _filial_ pride--for he is very proud of what +his father was--have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family, +to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the +Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also _brotherly_ pride, +which, with _some_ brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and +careful guardian of his sister, and you will hear him generally cried up +as the most attentive and best of brothers." + +"What sort of girl is Miss Darcy?" + +He shook his head. "I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to +speak ill of a Darcy. But she is too much like her brother--very, very +proud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond +of me; and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is +nothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen, +and, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father's death, her +home has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her +education." + +After many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not +help reverting once more to the first, and saying: + +"I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley, +who seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, +be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you +know Mr. Bingley?" + +"Not at all." + +"He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. +Darcy is." + +"Probably not; but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not +want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth +his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is +a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His +pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, +sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable--allowing something +for fortune and figure." + +The whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round +the other table and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin +Elizabeth and Mrs. Phillips. The usual inquiries as to his success was +made by the latter. It had not been very great; he had lost every +point; but when Mrs. Phillips began to express her concern thereupon, +he assured her with much earnest gravity that it was not of the least +importance, that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged +that she would not make herself uneasy. + +"I know very well, madam," said he, "that when persons sit down to a +card-table, they must take their chances of these things, and happily I +am not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There +are undoubtedly many who could not say the same, but thanks to Lady +Catherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding +little matters." + +Mr. Wickham's attention was caught; and after observing Mr. Collins for +a few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation +was very intimately acquainted with the family of de Bourgh. + +"Lady Catherine de Bourgh," she replied, "has very lately given him +a living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her +notice, but he certainly has not known her long." + +"You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy +were sisters; consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy." + +"No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine's +connections. I never heard of her existence till the day before +yesterday." + +"Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is +believed that she and her cousin will unite the two estates." + +This information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss +Bingley. Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her +affection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already +self-destined for another. + +"Mr. Collins," said she, "speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her +daughter; but from some particulars that he has related of her ladyship, +I suspect his gratitude misleads him, and that in spite of her being his +patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman." + +"I believe her to be both in a great degree," replied Wickham; "I have +not seen her for many years, but I very well remember that I never liked +her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the +reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe +she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from +her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride for her +nephew, who chooses that everyone connected with him should have an +understanding of the first class." + +Elizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and +they continued talking together, with mutual satisfaction till supper +put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr. +Wickham's attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise +of Mrs. Phillips's supper party, but his manners recommended him to +everybody. Whatever he said, was said well; and whatever he did, done +gracefully. Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could +think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all +the way home; but there was not time for her even to mention his name +as they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia +talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the +fish she had won; and Mr. Collins in describing the civility of Mr. and +Mrs. Phillips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses +at whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing +that he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage +before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House. + + + +Chapter 17 + + +Elizabeth related to Jane the next day what had passed between Mr. +Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; she +knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. +Bingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the +veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The +possibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to +interest all her tender feelings; and nothing remained therefore to be +done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, +and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be +otherwise explained. + +"They have both," said she, "been deceived, I dare say, in some way +or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps +misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to +conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, +without actual blame on either side." + +"Very true, indeed; and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say on +behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the +business? Do clear _them_ too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of +somebody." + +"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my +opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light +it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favourite in such +a manner, one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is +impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his +character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so +excessively deceived in him? Oh! no." + +"I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than +that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me +last night; names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it +be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his +looks." + +"It is difficult indeed--it is distressing. One does not know what to +think." + +"I beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think." + +But Jane could think with certainty on only one point--that Mr. Bingley, +if he _had_ been imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair +became public. + +The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this +conversation passed, by the arrival of the very persons of whom they had +been speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal +invitation for the long-expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed +for the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their +dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly +asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To +the rest of the family they paid little attention; avoiding Mrs. Bennet +as much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to +the others. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an +activity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if +eager to escape from Mrs. Bennet's civilities. + +The prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every +female of the family. Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in +compliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered +by receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a +ceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the +society of her two friends, and the attentions of her brother; and +Elizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr. +Wickham, and of seeing a confirmation of everything in Mr. Darcy's look +and behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended +less on any single event, or any particular person, for though they +each, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham, +he was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball +was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she +had no disinclination for it. + +"While I can have my mornings to myself," said she, "it is enough--I +think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. +Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those +who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for +everybody." + +Elizabeth's spirits were so high on this occasion, that though she did +not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking +him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and if +he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's +amusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no +scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke +either from the Archbishop, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to +dance. + +"I am by no means of the opinion, I assure you," said he, "that a ball +of this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people, +can have any evil tendency; and I am so far from objecting to dancing +myself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair +cousins in the course of the evening; and I take this opportunity of +soliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially, +a preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right +cause, and not to any disrespect for her." + +Elizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being +engaged by Mr. Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins +instead! her liveliness had never been worse timed. There was no help +for it, however. Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own were perforce +delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as +good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his +gallantry from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first +struck her, that _she_ was selected from among her sisters as worthy +of being mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a +quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors. +The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing +civilities toward herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a +compliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than +gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before +her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage +was extremely agreeable to _her_. Elizabeth, however, did not choose +to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the +consequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and +till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him. + +If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the +younger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state at this +time, for from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there +was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton +once. No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought after--the very +shoe-roses for Netherfield were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have +found some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the +improvement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham; and nothing less than +a dance on Tuesday, could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and +Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia. + + + +Chapter 18 + + +Till Elizabeth entered the drawing-room at Netherfield, and looked in +vain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a +doubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty +of meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that +might not unreasonably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than +usual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all +that remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than +might be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose +the dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted for Mr. Darcy's +pleasure in the Bingleys' invitation to the officers; and though +this was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was +pronounced by his friend Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who +told them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the +day before, and was not yet returned; adding, with a significant smile, +"I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if +he had not wanted to avoid a certain gentleman here." + +This part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by +Elizabeth, and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for +Wickham's absence than if her first surmise had been just, every +feeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate +disappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to +the polite inquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make. +Attendance, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham. She +was resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away +with a degree of ill-humour which she could not wholly surmount even in +speaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her. + +But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect +of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her +spirits; and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had +not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition +to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular +notice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress; +they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, +apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being +aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable +partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from +him was ecstasy. + +She danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of +Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked. When those dances +were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with +her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy who took +her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, +without knowing what she did, she accepted him. He walked away again +immediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of +mind; Charlotte tried to console her: + +"I dare say you will find him very agreeable." + +"Heaven forbid! _That_ would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find +a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an +evil." + +When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her +hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a +simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant +in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no +answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which +she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and +reading in her neighbours' looks, their equal amazement in beholding +it. They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to +imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and at +first was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would +be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made +some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again +silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time +with:--"It is _your_ turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked +about the dance, and _you_ ought to make some sort of remark on the size +of the room, or the number of couples." + +He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be +said. + +"Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may +observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But +_now_ we may be silent." + +"Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?" + +"Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be +entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet for the advantage of +_some_, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the +trouble of saying as little as possible." + +"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you +imagine that you are gratifying mine?" + +"Both," replied Elizabeth archly; "for I have always seen a great +similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, +taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say +something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to +posterity with all the eclat of a proverb." + +"This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure," +said he. "How near it may be to _mine_, I cannot pretend to say. _You_ +think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly." + +"I must not decide on my own performance." + +He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down +the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often +walk to Meryton. She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist +the temptation, added, "When you met us there the other day, we had just +been forming a new acquaintance." + +The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of _hauteur_ overspread his +features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself +for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a +constrained manner said, "Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners +as may ensure his _making_ friends--whether he may be equally capable of +_retaining_ them, is less certain." + +"He has been so unlucky as to lose _your_ friendship," replied Elizabeth +with emphasis, "and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all +his life." + +Darcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject. At +that moment, Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass +through the set to the other side of the room; but on perceiving Mr. +Darcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on +his dancing and his partner. + +"I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very +superior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the +first circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not +disgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated, +especially when a certain desirable event, my dear Eliza (glancing at +her sister and Bingley) shall take place. What congratulations will then +flow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcy:--but let me not interrupt you, sir. You +will not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that +young lady, whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me." + +The latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy; but Sir +William's allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his +eyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and +Jane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly, +he turned to his partner, and said, "Sir William's interruption has made +me forget what we were talking of." + +"I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have +interrupted two people in the room who had less to say for themselves. +We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we +are to talk of next I cannot imagine." + +"What think you of books?" said he, smiling. + +"Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same +feelings." + +"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be +no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions." + +"No--I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of +something else." + +"The _present_ always occupies you in such scenes--does it?" said he, +with a look of doubt. + +"Yes, always," she replied, without knowing what she said, for her +thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared +by her suddenly exclaiming, "I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, +that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was +unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its _being +created_." + +"I am," said he, with a firm voice. + +"And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?" + +"I hope not." + +"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, +to be secure of judging properly at first." + +"May I ask to what these questions tend?" + +"Merely to the illustration of _your_ character," said she, endeavouring +to shake off her gravity. "I am trying to make it out." + +"And what is your success?" + +She shook her head. "I do not get on at all. I hear such different +accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly." + +"I can readily believe," answered he gravely, "that reports may vary +greatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were +not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to +fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either." + +"But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another +opportunity." + +"I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours," he coldly replied. +She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in +silence; and on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, +for in Darcy's breast there was a tolerable powerful feeling towards +her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against +another. + +They had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and +with an expression of civil disdain accosted her: + +"So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham! +Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand +questions; and I find that the young man quite forgot to tell you, among +his other communication, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late +Mr. Darcy's steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to +give implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr. Darcy's +using him ill, it is perfectly false; for, on the contrary, he has +always been remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated +Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but +I know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he +cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother +thought that he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to +the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself +out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent +thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you, +Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite's guilt; but really, +considering his descent, one could not expect much better." + +"His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same," said +Elizabeth angrily; "for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse +than of being the son of Mr. Darcy's steward, and of _that_, I can +assure you, he informed me himself." + +"I beg your pardon," replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer. +"Excuse my interference--it was kindly meant." + +"Insolent girl!" said Elizabeth to herself. "You are much mistaken +if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see +nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. +Darcy." She then sought her eldest sister, who has undertaken to make +inquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of +such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently +marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening. +Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for +Wickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way +before the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness. + +"I want to know," said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her +sister's, "what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have +been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person; in which case +you may be sure of my pardon." + +"No," replied Jane, "I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing +satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of +his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have +principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct, +the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that +Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has +received; and I am sorry to say by his account as well as his sister's, +Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has +been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard." + +"Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?" + +"No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton." + +"This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am +satisfied. But what does he say of the living?" + +"He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard +them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to +him _conditionally_ only." + +"I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity," said Elizabeth warmly; +"but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr. +Bingley's defense of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but +since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt +the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture to still think of +both gentlemen as I did before." + +She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on +which there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with +delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Mr. +Bingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence +in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew +to Miss Lucas; to whose inquiry after the pleasantness of her last +partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them, +and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as +to make a most important discovery. + +"I have found out," said he, "by a singular accident, that there is now +in the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the +gentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of +the house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady +Catherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have +thought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de +Bourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made +in time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to +do, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total +ignorance of the connection must plead my apology." + +"You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!" + +"Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier. +I believe him to be Lady Catherine's _nephew_. It will be in my power to +assure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se'nnight." + +Elizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him +that Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction +as an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt; that +it was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either +side; and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in +consequence, to begin the acquaintance. Mr. Collins listened to her +with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she +ceased speaking, replied thus: + +"My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world in +your excellent judgement in all matters within the scope of your +understanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide +difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, +and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that +I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with +the highest rank in the kingdom--provided that a proper humility of +behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to +follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to +perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to +profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant +guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by +education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young +lady like yourself." And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr. +Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose +astonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced +his speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of +it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the +words "apology," "Hunsford," and "Lady Catherine de Bourgh." It vexed +her to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him +with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time +to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however, +was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed +abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the +end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr. +Collins then returned to Elizabeth. + +"I have no reason, I assure you," said he, "to be dissatisfied with my +reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered +me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying +that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be +certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very +handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him." + +As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned +her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley; and the +train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to, +made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her in idea settled in +that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection +could bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of +endeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts +she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to +venture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to +supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which +placed them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find +that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely, +openly, and of nothing else but her expectation that Jane would soon +be married to Mr. Bingley. It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet +seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the +match. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but +three miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and +then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of +Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as +she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger +daughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of +other rich men; and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be +able to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that +she might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked. It was +necessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on +such occasions it is the etiquette; but no one was less likely than Mrs. +Bennet to find comfort in staying home at any period of her life. She +concluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally +fortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no +chance of it. + +In vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother's +words, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible +whisper; for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the +chief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them. Her +mother only scolded her for being nonsensical. + +"What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am +sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say +nothing _he_ may not like to hear." + +"For heaven's sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be for you +to offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by +so doing!" + +Nothing that she could say, however, had any influence. Her mother would +talk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and +blushed again with shame and vexation. She could not help frequently +glancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what +she dreaded; for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was +convinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression +of his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and +steady gravity. + +At length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say; and Lady Lucas, who +had been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no +likelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and +chicken. Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of +tranquillity; for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and +she had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty, +preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent +entreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance, +but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of +exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth's +eyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her +progress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very +ill rewarded at their close; for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks +of the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to +favour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another. +Mary's powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was +weak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies. She looked at +Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to +Bingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs +of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however, +imperturbably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his +interference, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint, +and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, "That will do +extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other +young ladies have time to exhibit." + +Mary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted; and +Elizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father's speech, was afraid +her anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to. + +"If I," said Mr. Collins, "were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I +should have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an +air; for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly +compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however, +to assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time +to music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The +rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make +such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not +offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time +that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care +and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making +as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance +that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody, +especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit +him of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an +occasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the +family." And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had +been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many stared--many +smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his +wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly, +and observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably +clever, good kind of young man. + +To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to +expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would +have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or +finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister +that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his +feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he +must have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should +have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, +and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the +gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable. + +The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teased by +Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though +he could not prevail on her to dance with him again, put it out of her +power to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with +somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room. +He assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it; +that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to +her and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her +the whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed +her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and +good-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself. + +She was at least free from the offense of Mr. Darcy's further notice; +though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite +disengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the +probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in +it. + +The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by +a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of +an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how +heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her +sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and +were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed +every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a +languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the +long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his +sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and +politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said +nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. +Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the +rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a +silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too +much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, +how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn. + +When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly +civil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and +addressed herself especially to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he +would make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without +the ceremony of a formal invitation. Bingley was all grateful pleasure, +and he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on +her, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next +day for a short time. + +Mrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the +delightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of +settlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly +see her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four +months. Of having another daughter married to Mr. Collins, she thought +with equal certainty, and with considerable, though not equal, pleasure. +Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children; and though the +man and the match were quite good enough for _her_, the worth of each +was eclipsed by Mr. Bingley and Netherfield. + + + +Chapter 19 + + +The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his +declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as +his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having +no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at +the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the +observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On +finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, +soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words: + +"May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth, +when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the +course of this morning?" + +Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs. +Bennet answered instantly, "Oh dear!--yes--certainly. I am sure Lizzy +will be very happy--I am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I +want you up stairs." And, gathering her work together, she was hastening +away, when Elizabeth called out: + +"Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse +me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am +going away myself." + +"No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you to stay where you are." And upon +Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to +escape, she added: "Lizzy, I _insist_ upon your staying and hearing Mr. +Collins." + +Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction--and a moment's +consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it +over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to +conceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between +distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as +they were gone, Mr. Collins began. + +"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from +doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You +would have been less amiable in my eyes had there _not_ been this little +unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected +mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the +purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to +dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as +soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of +my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this +subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for +marrying--and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design +of selecting a wife, as I certainly did." + +The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away +with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could +not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him further, +and he continued: + +"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for +every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example +of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced that it will +add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly--which perhaps I ought +to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and +recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling +patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked +too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I +left Hunsford--between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was +arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool, that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you +must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose +a gentlewoman for _my_ sake; and for your _own_, let her be an active, +useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small +income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as +you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' Allow me, by the +way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice +and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the +advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond +anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be +acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and +respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general +intention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views +were directed towards Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I +can assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that +being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured +father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy +myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that +the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy +event takes place--which, however, as I have already said, may not +be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and +I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing +remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the +violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and +shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well +aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds +in the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's +decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head, +therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that +no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married." + +It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. + +"You are too hasty, sir," she cried. "You forget that I have made no +answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for +the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of +your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to +decline them." + +"I am not now to learn," replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the +hand, "that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the +man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their +favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a +third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just +said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long." + +"Upon my word, sir," cried Elizabeth, "your hope is a rather +extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not +one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so +daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second +time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make _me_ +happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who +could make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I +am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the +situation." + +"Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so," said Mr. Collins +very gravely--"but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all +disapprove of you. And you may be certain when I have the honour of +seeing her again, I shall speak in the very highest terms of your +modesty, economy, and other amiable qualification." + +"Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You +must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment +of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by +refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. +In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your +feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn +estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may +be considered, therefore, as finally settled." And rising as she +thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had Mr. Collins not thus +addressed her: + +"When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I +shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given +me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I +know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on +the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to +encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the +female character." + +"Really, Mr. Collins," cried Elizabeth with some warmth, "you puzzle me +exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form +of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as +to convince you of its being one." + +"You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your +refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for +believing it are briefly these: It does not appear to me that my hand is +unworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would +be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections +with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are +circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further +consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no +means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your +portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo +the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must +therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, +I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by +suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females." + +"I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind +of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would +rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you +again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but +to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect +forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant +female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking +the truth from her heart." + +"You are uniformly charming!" cried he, with an air of awkward +gallantry; "and I am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express +authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of +being acceptable." + +To such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make +no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, if +he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering +encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered +in such a manner as to be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could +not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female. + + + +Chapter 20 + + +Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his +successful love; for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule +to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open +the door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she +entered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in +warm terms on the happy prospect or their nearer connection. Mr. Collins +received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then +proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result +of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the +refusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow +from her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character. + +This information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet; she would have been +glad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage +him by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not believe it, +and could not help saying so. + +"But, depend upon it, Mr. Collins," she added, "that Lizzy shall be +brought to reason. I will speak to her about it directly. She is a very +headstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest but I will +_make_ her know it." + +"Pardon me for interrupting you, madam," cried Mr. Collins; "but if +she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would +altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who +naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she +actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it were better not +to force her into accepting me, because if liable to such defects of +temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity." + +"Sir, you quite misunderstand me," said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. "Lizzy is +only headstrong in such matters as these. In everything else she is as +good-natured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and +we shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure." + +She would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her +husband, called out as she entered the library, "Oh! Mr. Bennet, you +are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make +Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you +do not make haste he will change his mind and not have _her_." + +Mr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them +on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by +her communication. + +"I have not the pleasure of understanding you," said he, when she had +finished her speech. "Of what are you talking?" + +"Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins, +and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy." + +"And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems an hopeless business." + +"Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her +marrying him." + +"Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion." + +Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the +library. + +"Come here, child," cried her father as she appeared. "I have sent for +you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made +you an offer of marriage. Is it true?" Elizabeth replied that it was. +"Very well--and this offer of marriage you have refused?" + +"I have, sir." + +"Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your +accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?" + +"Yes, or I will never see her again." + +"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must +be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you +again if you do _not_ marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again +if you _do_." + +Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning, +but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the +affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed. + +"What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, in talking this way? You promised me to +_insist_ upon her marrying him." + +"My dear," replied her husband, "I have two small favours to request. +First, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the +present occasion; and secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the +library to myself as soon as may be." + +Not yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did +Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again; +coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane +in her interest; but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined +interfering; and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and +sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner +varied, however, her determination never did. + +Mr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed. +He thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motives his cousin +could refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other +way. His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her +deserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret. + +While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend +the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to +her, cried in a half whisper, "I am glad you are come, for there is such +fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has +made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him." + +Charlotte hardly had time to answer, before they were joined by Kitty, +who came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the +breakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on +the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating +her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her +family. "Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas," she added in a melancholy tone, +"for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used, +nobody feels for my poor nerves." + +Charlotte's reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth. + +"Aye, there she comes," continued Mrs. Bennet, "looking as unconcerned +as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided +she can have her own way. But I tell you, Miss Lizzy--if you take it +into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, +you will never get a husband at all--and I am sure I do not know who is +to maintain you when your father is dead. I shall not be able to keep +you--and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told +you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again, +and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking +to undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure, indeed, in talking +to anybody. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have +no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it +is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied." + +Her daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that +any attempt to reason with her or soothe her would only increase the +irritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of +them, till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered the room with +an air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to +the girls, "Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold +your tongues, and let me and Mr. Collins have a little conversation +together." + +Elizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but +Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could; and Charlotte, +detained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose inquiries after +herself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little +curiosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending +not to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected +conversation: "Oh! Mr. Collins!" + +"My dear madam," replied he, "let us be for ever silent on this point. +Far be it from me," he presently continued, in a voice that marked his +displeasure, "to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation +to inevitable evils is the duty of us all; the peculiar duty of a +young man who has been so fortunate as I have been in early preferment; +and I trust I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt +of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand; +for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as +when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our +estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect +to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to +your daughter's favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the +compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my +behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my +dismission from your daughter's lips instead of your own. But we are all +liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair. +My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due +consideration for the advantage of all your family, and if my _manner_ +has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise." + + + +Chapter 21 + + +The discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and +Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily +attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her +mother. As for the gentleman himself, _his_ feelings were chiefly +expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, +but by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke +to her, and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of +himself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose +civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and +especially to her friend. + +The morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet's ill-humour or ill +health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth +had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did +not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on +Saturday, and to Saturday he meant to stay. + +After breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton to inquire if Mr. Wickham +were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball. +He joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their +aunt's where his regret and vexation, and the concern of everybody, was +well talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged +that the necessity of his absence _had_ been self-imposed. + +"I found," said he, "as the time drew near that I had better not meet +Mr. Darcy; that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so +many hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes +might arise unpleasant to more than myself." + +She highly approved his forbearance, and they had leisure for a full +discussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly +bestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with +them to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to +her. His accompanying them was a double advantage; she felt all the +compliment it offered to herself, and it was most acceptable as an +occasion of introducing him to her father and mother. + +Soon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet; it came +from Netherfield. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little, +hot-pressed paper, well covered with a lady's fair, flowing hand; and +Elizabeth saw her sister's countenance change as she read it, and saw +her dwelling intently on some particular passages. Jane recollected +herself soon, and putting the letter away, tried to join with her usual +cheerfulness in the general conversation; but Elizabeth felt an anxiety +on the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham; and no +sooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane +invited her to follow her up stairs. When they had gained their own room, +Jane, taking out the letter, said: + +"This is from Caroline Bingley; what it contains has surprised me a good +deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on +their way to town--and without any intention of coming back again. You +shall hear what she says." + +She then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information +of their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly, +and of their meaning to dine in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a +house. The next was in these words: "I do not pretend to regret anything +I shall leave in Hertfordshire, except your society, my dearest friend; +but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that +delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may +lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved +correspondence. I depend on you for that." To these highflown +expressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust; +and though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw +nothing in it really to lament; it was not to be supposed that their +absence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley's being there; and as +to the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must cease to +regard it, in the enjoyment of his. + +"It is unlucky," said she, after a short pause, "that you should not be +able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not +hope that the period of future happiness to which Miss Bingley looks +forward may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful +intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater +satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by +them." + +"Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into +Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you:" + +"When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which +took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we +are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when +Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have +determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend +his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are +already there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my +dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd--but of +that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may +abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your +beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the +three of whom we shall deprive you." + +"It is evident by this," added Jane, "that he comes back no more this +winter." + +"It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean that he _should_." + +"Why will you think so? It must be his own doing. He is his own +master. But you do not know _all_. I _will_ read you the passage which +particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from _you_." + +"Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth, +_we_ are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think +Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments; +and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into +something still more interesting, from the hope we dare entertain of +her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before +mentioned to you my feelings on this subject; but I will not leave the +country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them +unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have +frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing; +her relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister's +partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most +capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to +favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest +Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness +of so many?" + +"What do you think of _this_ sentence, my dear Lizzy?" said Jane as she +finished it. "Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare that +Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister; that she is +perfectly convinced of her brother's indifference; and that if she +suspects the nature of my feelings for him, she means (most kindly!) to +put me on my guard? Can there be any other opinion on the subject?" + +"Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?" + +"Most willingly." + +"You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is +in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him +to town in hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he +does not care about you." + +Jane shook her head. + +"Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you +together can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She +is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. +Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the +case is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she +is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion +that when there has been _one_ intermarriage, she may have less trouble +in achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and +I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But, +my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley +tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest +degree less sensible of _your_ merit than when he took leave of you on +Tuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead +of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend." + +"If we thought alike of Miss Bingley," replied Jane, "your +representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the +foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving +anyone; and all that I can hope in this case is that she is deceiving +herself." + +"That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you +will not take comfort in mine. Believe her to be deceived, by all means. +You have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer." + +"But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in +accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry +elsewhere?" + +"You must decide for yourself," said Elizabeth; "and if, upon mature +deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is +more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you by +all means to refuse him." + +"How can you talk so?" said Jane, faintly smiling. "You must know that +though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could +not hesitate." + +"I did not think you would; and that being the case, I cannot consider +your situation with much compassion." + +"But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be +required. A thousand things may arise in six months!" + +The idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost +contempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's +interested wishes, and she could not for a moment suppose that those +wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man +so totally independent of everyone. + +She represented to her sister as forcibly as possible what she felt +on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect. +Jane's temper was not desponding, and she was gradually led to hope, +though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that +Bingley would return to Netherfield and answer every wish of her heart. + +They agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the +family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct; +but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern, +and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen +to go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After +lamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation that Mr. +Bingley would be soon down again and soon dining at Longbourn, and the +conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that though he had +been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two +full courses. + + + +Chapter 22 + + +The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases and again during the +chief of the day was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. +Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. "It keeps him in good +humour," said she, "and I am more obliged to you than I can express." +Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and +that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was +very amiable, but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth +had any conception of; its object was nothing else than to secure her +from any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards +herself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme; and appearances were so +favourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost +secure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very +soon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his +character, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next +morning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw +himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins, +from a conviction that if they saw him depart, they could not fail to +conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known +till its success might be known likewise; for though feeling almost +secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging, +he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday. +His reception, however, was of the most flattering kind. Miss Lucas +perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and +instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had +she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there. + +In as short a time as Mr. Collins's long speeches would allow, +everything was settled between them to the satisfaction of both; and as +they entered the house he earnestly entreated her to name the day that +was to make him the happiest of men; and though such a solicitation must +be waived for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with +his happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must +guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its +continuance; and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure +and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that +establishment were gained. + +Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent; +and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins's present +circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom +they could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were +exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more +interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer +Mr. Bennet was likely to live; and Sir William gave it as his decided +opinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the +Longbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife +should make their appearance at St. James's. The whole family, in short, +were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes +of _coming out_ a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have +done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's +dying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had +gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were +in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible +nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must +be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly +either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was +the only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, +and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest +preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at +the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all +the good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business +was the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship +she valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder, +and probably would blame her; and though her resolution was not to be +shaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation. She resolved +to give her the information herself, and therefore charged Mr. Collins, +when he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had +passed before any of the family. A promise of secrecy was of course very +dutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty; for the +curiosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct +questions on his return as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was +at the same time exercising great self-denial, for he was longing to +publish his prosperous love. + +As he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the +family, the ceremony of leave-taking was performed when the ladies moved +for the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality, +said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever +his engagements might allow him to visit them. + +"My dear madam," he replied, "this invitation is particularly +gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive; and +you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as +possible." + +They were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for +so speedy a return, immediately said: + +"But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my +good sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of +offending your patroness." + +"My dear sir," replied Mr. Collins, "I am particularly obliged to you +for this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so +material a step without her ladyship's concurrence." + +"You cannot be too much upon your guard. Risk anything rather than her +displeasure; and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us +again, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home, +and be satisfied that _we_ shall take no offence." + +"Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such +affectionate attention; and depend upon it, you will speedily receive +from me a letter of thanks for this, and for every other mark of your +regard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though +my absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now +take the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my +cousin Elizabeth." + +With proper civilities the ladies then withdrew; all of them equally +surprised that he meditated a quick return. Mrs. Bennet wished to +understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her +younger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him. +She rated his abilities much higher than any of the others; there was +a solidity in his reflections which often struck her, and though by no +means so clever as herself, she thought that if encouraged to read +and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very +agreeable companion. But on the following morning, every hope of this +kind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a +private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before. + +The possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her +friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two; but +that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from +possibility as she could encourage him herself, and her astonishment was +consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and +she could not help crying out: + +"Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte--impossible!" + +The steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her +story, gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a +reproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained +her composure, and calmly replied: + +"Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible +that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion, +because he was not so happy as to succeed with you?" + +But Elizabeth had now recollected herself, and making a strong effort +for it, was able to assure with tolerable firmness that the prospect of +their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her +all imaginable happiness. + +"I see what you are feeling," replied Charlotte. "You must be surprised, +very much surprised--so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry +you. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be +satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know; I never +was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins's +character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my +chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on +entering the marriage state." + +Elizabeth quietly answered "Undoubtedly;" and after an awkward pause, +they returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much +longer, and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard. +It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so +unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers +of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now +accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was +not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible +that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better +feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a +most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself +and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it +was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had +chosen. + + + +Chapter 23 + + +Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what +she had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention +it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter, to +announce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them, +and much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the +houses, he unfolded the matter--to an audience not merely wondering, but +incredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness, +protested he must be entirely mistaken; and Lydia, always unguarded and +often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed: + +"Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know +that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?" + +Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne +without anger such treatment; but Sir William's good breeding carried +him through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the +truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the +most forbearing courtesy. + +Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant +a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by +mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and +endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters +by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she +was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the +happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character +of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London. + +Mrs. Bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while +Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings +found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving +the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins +had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be +happy together; and fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two +inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that +Elizabeth was the real cause of the mischief; and the other that she +herself had been barbarously misused by them all; and on these two +points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could +console and nothing could appease her. Nor did that day wear out her +resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without +scolding her, a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William +or Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she +could at all forgive their daughter. + +Mr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such +as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for +it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had +been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and +more foolish than his daughter! + +Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match; but she said +less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness; +nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty +and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a +clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news +to spread at Meryton. + +Lady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort +on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she +called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was, +though Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been +enough to drive happiness away. + +Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them +mutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that +no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her +disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her +sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could +never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, +as Bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his +return. + +Jane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting +the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised +letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to +their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a +twelvemonth's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging +his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many +rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection +of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was +merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready +to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither +he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine, +he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take +place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable +argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him +the happiest of men. + +Mr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of +pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to +complain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come +to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient +and exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house +while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the +most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and +they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued +absence. + +Neither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after +day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the +report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to +Netherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs. +Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous +falsehood. + +Even Elizabeth began to fear--not that Bingley was indifferent--but that +his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as +she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so +dishonorable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its +frequently occurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters +and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss +Darcy and the amusements of London might be too much, she feared, for +the strength of his attachment. + +As for Jane, _her_ anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more +painful than Elizabeth's, but whatever she felt she was desirous of +concealing, and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject +was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother, +an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her +impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he +did not come back she would think herself very ill used. It needed +all Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable +tranquillity. + +Mr. Collins returned most punctually on Monday fortnight, but his +reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his +first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention; +and luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them +from a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by +him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time +to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed. + +Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of +anything concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill-humour, +and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight +of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she +regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see +them, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and +whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that +they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself +and her daughters out of the house, as soon as Mr. Bennet were dead. She +complained bitterly of all this to her husband. + +"Indeed, Mr. Bennet," said she, "it is very hard to think that Charlotte +Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to +make way for _her_, and live to see her take her place in it!" + +"My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for +better things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor." + +This was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet, and therefore, instead of +making any answer, she went on as before. + +"I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was +not for the entail, I should not mind it." + +"What should not you mind?" + +"I should not mind anything at all." + +"Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such +insensibility." + +"I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for anything about the entail. How +anyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own +daughters, I cannot understand; and all for the sake of Mr. Collins too! +Why should _he_ have it more than anybody else?" + +"I leave it to yourself to determine," said Mr. Bennet. + + + +Chapter 24 + + +Miss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very first +sentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for +the winter, and concluded with her brother's regret at not having had +time to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left +the country. + +Hope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest +of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the +writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy's praise occupied +the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on, and Caroline +boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict +the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former +letter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an +inmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of +the latter with regard to new furniture. + +Elizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this, +heard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern +for her sister, and resentment against all others. To Caroline's +assertion of her brother's being partial to Miss Darcy she paid no +credit. That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she +had ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she +could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness +of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave +of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice of his own happiness +to the caprice of their inclination. Had his own happiness, however, +been the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in +whatever manner he thought best, but her sister's was involved in it, as +she thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short, +on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She +could think of nothing else; and yet whether Bingley's regard had really +died away, or were suppressed by his friends' interference; whether +he had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his +observation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be +materially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained +the same, her peace equally wounded. + +A day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to +Elizabeth; but at last, on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a +longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could +not help saying: + +"Oh, that my dear mother had more command over herself! She can have no +idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But +I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall +all be as we were before." + +Elizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said +nothing. + +"You doubt me," cried Jane, slightly colouring; "indeed, you have +no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my +acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, +and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God! I have not _that_ pain. A +little time, therefore--I shall certainly try to get the better." + +With a stronger voice she soon added, "I have this comfort immediately, +that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it +has done no harm to anyone but myself." + +"My dear Jane!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "you are too good. Your sweetness +and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say +to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you +deserve." + +Miss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back +the praise on her sister's warm affection. + +"Nay," said Elizabeth, "this is not fair. _You_ wish to think all the +world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. I only want +to think _you_ perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not +be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your +privilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people +whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see +of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms +my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the +little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or +sense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not mention; the +other is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! In every view it is +unaccountable!" + +"My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will +ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference +of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and +Charlotte's steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a +large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be +ready to believe, for everybody's sake, that she may feel something like +regard and esteem for our cousin." + +"To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else +could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that +Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her +understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a +conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as +I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him +cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though +it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, +change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade +yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of +danger security for happiness." + +"I must think your language too strong in speaking of both," replied +Jane; "and I hope you will be convinced of it by seeing them happy +together. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You +mentioned _two_ instances. I cannot misunderstand you, but I entreat +you, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking _that person_ to blame, and +saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy +ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man +to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but +our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than +it does." + +"And men take care that they should." + +"If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified; but I have no idea +of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine." + +"I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley's conduct to design," +said Elizabeth; "but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others +unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, +want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, +will do the business." + +"And do you impute it to either of those?" + +"Yes; to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what +I think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can." + +"You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him?" + +"Yes, in conjunction with his friend." + +"I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can +only wish his happiness; and if he is attached to me, no other woman can +secure it." + +"Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his +happiness; they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they +may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great +connections, and pride." + +"Beyond a doubt, they _do_ wish him to choose Miss Darcy," replied Jane; +"but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have +known her much longer than they have known me; no wonder if they love +her better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely +they should have opposed their brother's. What sister would think +herself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very +objectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try +to part us; if he were so, they could not succeed. By supposing such an +affection, you make everybody acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most +unhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been +mistaken--or, at least, it is light, it is nothing in comparison of what +I should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in +the best light, in the light in which it may be understood." + +Elizabeth could not oppose such a wish; and from this time Mr. Bingley's +name was scarcely ever mentioned between them. + +Mrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no +more, and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account +for it clearly, there was little chance of her ever considering it with +less perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she +did not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the +effect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her +no more; but though the probability of the statement was admitted at +the time, she had the same story to repeat every day. Mrs. Bennet's best +comfort was that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer. + +Mr. Bennet treated the matter differently. "So, Lizzy," said he one day, +"your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to +being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. +It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction +among her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to +be long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough in +Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham +be _your_ man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably." + +"Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not +all expect Jane's good fortune." + +"True," said Mr. Bennet, "but it is a comfort to think that whatever of +that kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will make +the most of it." + +Mr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom +which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn +family. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now +added that of general unreserve. The whole of what Elizabeth had already +heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him, +was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and everybody was +pleased to know how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they +had known anything of the matter. + +Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be +any extenuating circumstances in the case, unknown to the society +of Hertfordshire; her mild and steady candour always pleaded for +allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes--but by everybody else +Mr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men. + + + +Chapter 25 + + +After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, +Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of +Saturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his +side, by preparations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason +to hope, that shortly after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would +be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his +relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair +cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another +letter of thanks. + +On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving +her brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas +at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly +superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield +ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived +by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so +well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger +than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant +woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the +two eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a particular regard. +They had frequently been staying with her in town. + +The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to +distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was +done she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen. +Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They +had all been very ill-used since she last saw her sister. Two of her +girls had been upon the point of marriage, and after all there was +nothing in it. + +"I do not blame Jane," she continued, "for Jane would have got Mr. +Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think +that she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had it not +been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room, +and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have +a daughter married before I have, and that the Longbourn estate is just +as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed, +sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of +them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted +so in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves +before anybody else. However, your coming just at this time is the +greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us, of +long sleeves." + +Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, +in the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her +sister a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces, turned the +conversation. + +When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. "It +seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane," said she. "I am +sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such +as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl +for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets +her, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent." + +"An excellent consolation in its way," said Elizabeth, "but it will not +do for _us_. We do not suffer by _accident_. It does not often +happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of +independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in +love with only a few days before." + +"But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so +doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as +often applied to feelings which arise from a half-hour's acquaintance, +as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how _violent was_ Mr. Bingley's +love?" + +"I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite +inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time +they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he +offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I +spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be +finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?" + +"Oh, yes!--of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor +Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get +over it immediately. It had better have happened to _you_, Lizzy; you +would have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she +would be prevailed upon to go back with us? Change of scene might be +of service--and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as +anything." + +Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded +of her sister's ready acquiescence. + +"I hope," added Mrs. Gardiner, "that no consideration with regard to +this young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of +town, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go +out so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all, +unless he really comes to see her." + +"And _that_ is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his +friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such +a part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may +perhaps have _heard_ of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he +would hardly think a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its +impurities, were he once to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley +never stirs without him." + +"So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane +correspond with his sister? _She_ will not be able to help calling." + +"She will drop the acquaintance entirely." + +But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this +point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being +withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which +convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely +hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that +his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends +successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's +attractions. + +Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure; and the +Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time, than as she +hoped by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother, +she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of +seeing him. + +The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn; and what with the Phillipses, +the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its +engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment +of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family +dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always +made part of it--of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and +on these occasions, Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's +warm commendation, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them, +from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference +of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and +she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left +Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such +an attachment. + +To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, +unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, +before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very +part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many +acquaintances in common; and though Wickham had been little there since +the death of Darcy's father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher +intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of +procuring. + +Mrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by +character perfectly well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject +of discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute +description which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of +praise on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both +him and herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's +treatment of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman's +reputed disposition when quite a lad which might agree with it, and +was confident at last that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam +Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy. + + + +Chapter 26 + + +Mrs. Gardiner's caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given +on the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone; after +honestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on: + +"You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because +you are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking +openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve +yourself or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want +of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against +_him_; he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he +ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you +must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all +expect you to use it. Your father would depend on _your_ resolution and +good conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father." + +"My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed." + +"Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise." + +"Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of +myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I +can prevent it." + +"Elizabeth, you are not serious now." + +"I beg your pardon, I will try again. At present I am not in love with +Mr. Wickham; no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison, +the most agreeable man I ever saw--and if he becomes really attached to +me--I believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence +of it. Oh! _that_ abominable Mr. Darcy! My father's opinion of me does +me the greatest honour, and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My +father, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I +should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but +since we see every day that where there is affection, young people +are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into +engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many +of my fellow-creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it +would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not +to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first +object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, +I will do my best." + +"Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very +often. At least, you should not _remind_ your mother of inviting him." + +"As I did the other day," said Elizabeth with a conscious smile: "very +true, it will be wise in me to refrain from _that_. But do not imagine +that he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been +so frequently invited this week. You know my mother's ideas as to the +necessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my +honour, I will try to do what I think to be the wisest; and now I hope +you are satisfied." + +Her aunt assured her that she was, and Elizabeth having thanked her for +the kindness of her hints, they parted; a wonderful instance of advice +being given on such a point, without being resented. + +Mr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted +by the Gardiners and Jane; but as he took up his abode with the Lucases, +his arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was +now fast approaching, and she was at length so far resigned as to think +it inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an ill-natured tone, that +she "_wished_ they might be happy." Thursday was to be the wedding day, +and on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit; and when she +rose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother's ungracious and +reluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her +out of the room. As they went downstairs together, Charlotte said: + +"I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza." + +"_That_ you certainly shall." + +"And I have another favour to ask you. Will you come and see me?" + +"We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire." + +"I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to +come to Hunsford." + +Elizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the +visit. + +"My father and Maria are coming to me in March," added Charlotte, "and I +hope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as +welcome as either of them." + +The wedding took place; the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from +the church door, and everybody had as much to say, or to hear, on +the subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend; and their +correspondence was as regular and frequent as it had ever been; that +it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never +address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, +and though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the +sake of what had been, rather than what was. Charlotte's first letters +were received with a good deal of eagerness; there could not but be +curiosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would +like Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to +be; though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte +expressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She +wrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing +which she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and +roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most +friendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins's picture of Hunsford and +Rosings rationally softened; and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait +for her own visit there to know the rest. + +Jane had already written a few lines to her sister to announce their +safe arrival in London; and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it +would be in her power to say something of the Bingleys. + +Her impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience +generally is. Jane had been a week in town without either seeing or +hearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that +her last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been +lost. + +"My aunt," she continued, "is going to-morrow into that part of the +town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street." + +She wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley. +"I did not think Caroline in spirits," were her words, "but she was very +glad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming +to London. I was right, therefore, my last letter had never reached +her. I inquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much +engaged with Mr. Darcy that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that +Miss Darcy was expected to dinner. I wish I could see her. My visit was +not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall +see them soon here." + +Elizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that +accident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister's being in town. + +Four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to +persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be +blind to Miss Bingley's inattention. After waiting at home every morning +for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the +visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and yet more, +the alteration of her manner would allow Jane to deceive herself no +longer. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will +prove what she felt. + +"My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her +better judgement, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been +entirely deceived in Miss Bingley's regard for me. But, my dear sister, +though the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I +still assert that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was +as natural as your suspicion. I do not at all comprehend her reason for +wishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to +happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not +return my visit till yesterday; and not a note, not a line, did I +receive in the meantime. When she did come, it was very evident that +she had no pleasure in it; she made a slight, formal apology, for not +calling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was +in every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was +perfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity, +though I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out +as she did; I can safely say that every advance to intimacy began on +her side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting +wrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the +cause of it. I need not explain myself farther; and though _we_ know +this anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily +account for her behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to +his sister, whatever anxiety she must feel on his behalf is natural and +amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now, +because, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met, long ago. +He knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said +herself; and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she +wanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I +cannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should +be almost tempted to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity +in all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, +and think only of what will make me happy--your affection, and the +invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very +soon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield +again, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better +not mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts +from our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and +Maria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there.--Yours, etc." + +This letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she +considered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least. +All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not +even wish for a renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on +every review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible +advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr. +Darcy's sister, as by Wickham's account, she would make him abundantly +regret what he had thrown away. + +Mrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise +concerning that gentleman, and required information; and Elizabeth +had such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to +herself. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, +he was the admirer of some one else. Elizabeth was watchful enough to +see it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain. +Her heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied +with believing that _she_ would have been his only choice, had fortune +permitted it. The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most +remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself +agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than +in Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence. +Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and while able to +suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was +ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very +sincerely wish him happy. + +All this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and after relating the +circumstances, she thus went on: "I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that +I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure +and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and +wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial +towards _him_; they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find +out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to +think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My +watchfulness has been effectual; and though I certainly should be a more +interesting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love +with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. +Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take +his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the +ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that +handsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain." + + + +Chapter 27 + + +With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise +diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and +sometimes cold, did January and February pass away. March was to take +Elizabeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very seriously of +going thither; but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan +and she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure +as well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing +Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There +was novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such +uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change +was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would moreover give her +a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have +been very sorry for any delay. Everything, however, went on smoothly, +and was finally settled according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was +to accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement +of spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became +perfect as plan could be. + +The only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her, +and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he +told her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter. + +The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly; on +his side even more. His present pursuit could not make him forget that +Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the +first to listen and to pity, the first to be admired; and in his manner +of bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of +what she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their +opinion of her--their opinion of everybody--would always coincide, there +was a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to +him with a most sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced that, +whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable +and pleasing. + +Her fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind to make her +think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a +good-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say +that could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much +delight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but +she had known Sir William's too long. He could tell her nothing new of +the wonders of his presentation and knighthood; and his civilities were +worn out, like his information. + +It was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early +as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's +door, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival; when +they entered the passage she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth, +looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and +lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, +whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to +wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen +her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and +kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and +shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres. + +Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first object was her +sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to +her minute inquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her +spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however, +to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the +particulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and +repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and +herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the +acquaintance. + +Mrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and +complimented her on bearing it so well. + +"But my dear Elizabeth," she added, "what sort of girl is Miss King? I +should be sorry to think our friend mercenary." + +"Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, +between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, +and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, +because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get +a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is +mercenary." + +"If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know +what to think." + +"She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her." + +"But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death +made her mistress of this fortune." + +"No--why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain _my_ +affections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for +making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally +poor?" + +"But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her +so soon after this event." + +"A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant +decorums which other people may observe. If _she_ does not object to it, +why should _we_?" + +"_Her_ not objecting does not justify _him_. It only shows her being +deficient in something herself--sense or feeling." + +"Well," cried Elizabeth, "have it as you choose. _He_ shall be +mercenary, and _she_ shall be foolish." + +"No, Lizzy, that is what I do _not_ choose. I should be sorry, you know, +to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire." + +"Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in +Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not +much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow +where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has +neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones +worth knowing, after all." + +"Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment." + +Before they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the +unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in +a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer. + +"We have not determined how far it shall carry us," said Mrs. Gardiner, +"but, perhaps, to the Lakes." + +No scheme could have been more agreeable to Elizabeth, and her +acceptance of the invitation was most ready and grateful. "Oh, my dear, +dear aunt," she rapturously cried, "what delight! what felicity! You +give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What +are young men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport +we shall spend! And when we _do_ return, it shall not be like other +travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We +_will_ know where we have gone--we _will_ recollect what we have seen. +Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our +imaginations; nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene, +will we begin quarreling about its relative situation. Let _our_ +first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of +travellers." + + + +Chapter 28 + + +Every object in the next day's journey was new and interesting to +Elizabeth; and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment; for she had +seen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health, +and the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight. + +When they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in +search of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view. +The palings of Rosings Park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth +smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants. + +At length the Parsonage was discernible. The garden sloping to the +road, the house standing in it, the green pales, and the laurel hedge, +everything declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte +appeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate which +led by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of +the whole party. In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing +at the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the +liveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with +coming when she found herself so affectionately received. She saw +instantly that her cousin's manners were not altered by his marriage; +his formal civility was just what it had been, and he detained her some +minutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his inquiries after all her +family. They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the +neatness of the entrance, taken into the house; and as soon as they +were in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious +formality to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife's +offers of refreshment. + +Elizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory; and she could not help +in fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its +aspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her, +as if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But +though everything seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to +gratify him by any sigh of repentance, and rather looked with wonder at +her friend that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion. +When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be +ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her +eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but +in general Charlotte wisely did not hear. After sitting long enough to +admire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to +the fender, to give an account of their journey, and of all that had +happened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the +garden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of +which he attended himself. To work in this garden was one of his most +respectable pleasures; and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance +with which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and +owned she encouraged it as much as possible. Here, leading the way +through every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an +interval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out +with a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind. He could number the +fields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in +the most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which +the country or kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the +prospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered +the park nearly opposite the front of his house. It was a handsome +modern building, well situated on rising ground. + +From his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows; +but the ladies, not having shoes to encounter the remains of a white +frost, turned back; and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte +took her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased, +probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's +help. It was rather small, but well built and convenient; and everything +was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency of which +Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be +forgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout, and by +Charlotte's evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often +forgotten. + +She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It +was spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining +in, observed: + +"Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine +de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will +be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I +doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice +when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying she +will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she +honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is +charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed +to walk home. Her ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us. I +_should_ say, one of her ladyship's carriages, for she has several." + +"Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman indeed," added +Charlotte, "and a most attentive neighbour." + +"Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of +woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference." + +The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news, +and telling again what had already been written; and when it closed, +Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon +Charlotte's degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, +and composure in bearing with, her husband, and to acknowledge that it +was all done very well. She had also to anticipate how her visit +would pass, the quiet tenor of their usual employments, the vexatious +interruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with +Rosings. A lively imagination soon settled it all. + +About the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready +for a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in +confusion; and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running +up stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her. She opened +the door and met Maria in the landing place, who, breathless with +agitation, cried out-- + +"Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the dining-room, for +there is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make +haste, and come down this moment." + +Elizabeth asked questions in vain; Maria would tell her nothing more, +and down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in +quest of this wonder; It was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the +garden gate. + +"And is this all?" cried Elizabeth. "I expected at least that the pigs +were got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her +daughter." + +"La! my dear," said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, "it is not +Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them; +the other is Miss de Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little +creature. Who would have thought that she could be so thin and small?" + +"She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind. +Why does she not come in?" + +"Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours +when Miss de Bourgh comes in." + +"I like her appearance," said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. "She +looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will +make him a very proper wife." + +Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation +with the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth's high diversion, was +stationed in the doorway, in earnest contemplation of the greatness +before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss de Bourgh looked that +way. + +At length there was nothing more to be said; the ladies drove on, and +the others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two +girls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which +Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked +to dine at Rosings the next day. + + + +Chapter 29 + + +Mr. Collins's triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete. +The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering +visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his +wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity +of doing it should be given so soon, was such an instance of Lady +Catherine's condescension, as he knew not how to admire enough. + +"I confess," said he, "that I should not have been at all surprised by +her ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at +Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it +would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who +could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there +(an invitation, moreover, including the whole party) so immediately +after your arrival!" + +"I am the less surprised at what has happened," replied Sir William, +"from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which +my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such +instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon." + +Scarcely anything was talked of the whole day or next morning but their +visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what +they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and +so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them. + +When the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth-- + +"Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady +Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which +becomes herself and her daughter. I would advise you merely to put on +whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest--there is no occasion +for anything more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you +for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank +preserved." + +While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different +doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much +objected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of +her ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas +who had been little used to company, and she looked forward to her +introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done +to his presentation at St. James's. + +As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a +mile across the park. Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and +Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such +raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but +slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the +house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally +cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh. + +When they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every +moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm. +Elizabeth's courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady +Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or +miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money or rank she thought +she could witness without trepidation. + +From the entrance-hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a +rapturous air, the fine proportion and the finished ornaments, they +followed the servants through an ante-chamber, to the room where Lady +Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her ladyship, +with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had +settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should +be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those +apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary. + +In spite of having been at St. James's Sir William was so completely +awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage +enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word; +and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge +of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself +quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her +composedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked +features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not +conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her +visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by +silence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone, +as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to +Elizabeth's mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she +believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he represented. + +When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment +she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the +daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment at her +being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any +likeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly; her +features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very +little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance +there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening +to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before +her eyes. + +After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to +admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties, +and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth +looking at in the summer. + +The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants and +all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had +likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her +ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish +nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted +alacrity; and every dish was commended, first by him and then by Sir +William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son-in-law +said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear. +But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and +gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved +a novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth +was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated +between Charlotte and Miss de Bourgh--the former of whom was engaged in +listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all +dinner-time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little +Miss de Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing +she was indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the +gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire. + +When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to +be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any +intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every +subject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to +have her judgement controverted. She inquired into Charlotte's domestic +concerns familiarly and minutely, gave her a great deal of advice as +to the management of them all; told her how everything ought to be +regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the +care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was +beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an +occasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse +with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and +Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew +the least, and who she observed to Mrs. Collins was a very genteel, +pretty kind of girl. She asked her, at different times, how many sisters +she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of +them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they +had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been +her mother's maiden name? Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of +her questions but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then +observed, + +"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your +sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no +occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought +necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss +Bennet?" + +"A little." + +"Oh! then--some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our +instrument is a capital one, probably superior to----You shall try it +some day. Do your sisters play and sing?" + +"One of them does." + +"Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss +Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do +you draw?" + +"No, not at all." + +"What, none of you?" + +"Not one." + +"That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother +should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters." + +"My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London." + +"Has your governess left you?" + +"We never had any governess." + +"No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home +without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must +have been quite a slave to your education." + +Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been +the case. + +"Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you +must have been neglected." + +"Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as +wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to +read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be +idle, certainly might." + +"Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had +known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage +one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady +and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is +wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that +way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces +of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and +it was but the other day that I recommended another young person, +who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite +delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalf's +calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady +Catherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your +younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?" + +"Yes, ma'am, all." + +"All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The +younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters +must be very young?" + +"Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps _she_ is full young to be +much in company. But really, ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon +younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and +amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to +marry early. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth +at the first. And to be kept back on _such_ a motive! I think it would +not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind." + +"Upon my word," said her ladyship, "you give your opinion very decidedly +for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?" + +"With three younger sisters grown up," replied Elizabeth, smiling, "your +ladyship can hardly expect me to own it." + +Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; +and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever +dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence. + +"You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not +conceal your age." + +"I am not one-and-twenty." + +When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card-tables +were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat +down to quadrille; and as Miss de Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the +two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her +party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was +uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson +expressed her fears of Miss de Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or +having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the +other table. Lady Catherine was generally speaking--stating the mistakes +of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins +was employed in agreeing to everything her ladyship said, thanking her +for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. +Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes +and noble names. + +When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, +the tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, +gratefully accepted and immediately ordered. The party then gathered +round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were +to have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by +the arrival of the coach; and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. +Collins's side and as many bows on Sir William's they departed. As soon +as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin +to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for +Charlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her +commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy +Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her ladyship's praise +into his own hands. + + + +Chapter 30 + + +Sir William stayed only a week at Hunsford, but his visit was long +enough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled, +and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not +often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his +morning to driving him out in his gig, and showing him the country; but +when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments, +and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her +cousin by the alteration, for the chief of the time between breakfast +and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden or in +reading and writing, and looking out of the window in his own book-room, +which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards. +Elizabeth had at first rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer +the dining-parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a +more pleasant aspect; but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent +reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been +much less in his own apartment, had they sat in one equally lively; and +she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement. + +From the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and +were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went +along, and how often especially Miss de Bourgh drove by in her phaeton, +which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened +almost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and +had a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever +prevailed upon to get out. + +Very few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and +not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise; +and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings +to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many +hours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her ladyship, +and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during +these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work, +and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement +of the furniture; or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she +accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding +out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family. + +Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in +commission of the peace of the county, she was a most active magistrate +in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her +by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to +be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the +village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold +them into harmony and plenty. + +The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week; +and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one +card-table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart +of the first. Their other engagements were few, as the style of living +in the neighbourhood in general was beyond Mr. Collins's reach. This, +however, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time +comfortably enough; there were half-hours of pleasant conversation with +Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year that she had +often great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she +frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was +along the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was +a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and +where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity. + +In this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. +Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an +addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be +important. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival that Mr. Darcy was +expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not +many of her acquaintances whom she did not prefer, his coming would +furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and +she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him +were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently +destined by Lady Catherine, who talked of his coming with the greatest +satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and +seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by +Miss Lucas and herself. + +His arrival was soon known at the Parsonage; for Mr. Collins was walking +the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane, +in order to have the earliest assurance of it, and after making his +bow as the carriage turned into the Park, hurried home with the great +intelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his +respects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for +Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of +his uncle Lord ----, and, to the great surprise of all the party, when +Mr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen +them from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running +into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding: + +"I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would +never have come so soon to wait upon me." + +Elizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment, +before their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly +afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam, +who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and +address most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been +used to look in Hertfordshire--paid his compliments, with his usual +reserve, to Mrs. Collins, and whatever might be his feelings toward her +friend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely +curtseyed to him without saying a word. + +Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly with the +readiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but +his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and +garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to anybody. +At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to inquire of +Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual +way, and after a moment's pause, added: + +"My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never +happened to see her there?" + +She was perfectly sensible that he never had; but she wished to see +whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between +the Bingleys and Jane, and she thought he looked a little confused as he +answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The +subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went +away. + + + +Chapter 31 + + +Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the Parsonage, +and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasures +of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they +received any invitation thither--for while there were visitors in the +house, they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day, +almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by +such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to +come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little +of Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the +Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had seen +only at church. + +The invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined +the party in Lady Catherine's drawing-room. Her ladyship received +them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so +acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact, +almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, +much more than to any other person in the room. + +Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them; anything was a +welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had +moreover caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and +talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying +at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so +well entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much +spirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, +as well as of Mr. Darcy. _His_ eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned +towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her ladyship, after a +while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not +scruple to call out: + +"What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking +of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is." + +"We are speaking of music, madam," said he, when no longer able to avoid +a reply. + +"Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I +must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. +There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment +of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, +I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health +had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed +delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?" + +Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency. + +"I am very glad to hear such a good account of her," said Lady +Catherine; "and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel +if she does not practice a good deal." + +"I assure you, madam," he replied, "that she does not need such advice. +She practises very constantly." + +"So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write +to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often +tell young ladies that no excellence in music is to be acquired without +constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she +will never play really well unless she practises more; and though Mrs. +Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told +her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs. +Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part +of the house." + +Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's ill-breeding, and made +no answer. + +When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having +promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He +drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then +talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away +from her, and making with his usual deliberation towards the pianoforte +stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's +countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first +convenient pause, turned to him with an arch smile, and said: + +"You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear +me? I will not be alarmed though your sister _does_ play so well. There +is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the +will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate +me." + +"I shall not say you are mistaken," he replied, "because you could not +really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have +had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find +great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are +not your own." + +Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to +Colonel Fitzwilliam, "Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of +me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky +in meeting with a person so able to expose my real character, in a part +of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of +credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all +that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire--and, give me leave to +say, very impolitic too--for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such +things may come out as will shock your relations to hear." + +"I am not afraid of you," said he, smilingly. + +"Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of," cried Colonel +Fitzwilliam. "I should like to know how he behaves among strangers." + +"You shall hear then--but prepare yourself for something very dreadful. +The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, +was at a ball--and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced +only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain +knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a +partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact." + +"I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly +beyond my own party." + +"True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room. Well, Colonel +Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders." + +"Perhaps," said Darcy, "I should have judged better, had I sought an +introduction; but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers." + +"Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?" said Elizabeth, still +addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. "Shall we ask him why a man of sense and +education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend +himself to strangers?" + +"I can answer your question," said Fitzwilliam, "without applying to +him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble." + +"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, +"of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot +catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their +concerns, as I often see done." + +"My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the +masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same +force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I +have always supposed it to be my own fault--because I will not take the +trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe _my_ fingers as +capable as any other woman's of superior execution." + +Darcy smiled and said, "You are perfectly right. You have employed your +time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can +think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers." + +Here they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know +what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again. +Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said +to Darcy: + +"Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and +could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion +of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have +been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn." + +Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his +cousin's praise; but neither at that moment nor at any other could she +discern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss +de Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have +been just as likely to marry _her_, had she been his relation. + +Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing +with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received +them with all the forbearance of civility, and, at the request of the +gentlemen, remained at the instrument till her ladyship's carriage was +ready to take them all home. + + + +Chapter 32 + + +Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane +while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village, +when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a +visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to +be Lady Catherine, and under that apprehension was putting away her +half-finished letter that she might escape all impertinent questions, +when the door opened, and, to her very great surprise, Mr. Darcy, and +Mr. Darcy only, entered the room. + +He seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his +intrusion by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies were +to be within. + +They then sat down, and when her inquiries after Rosings were made, +seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely +necessary, therefore, to think of something, and in this emergence +recollecting _when_ she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and +feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty +departure, she observed: + +"How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! +It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you +all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day +before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?" + +"Perfectly so, I thank you." + +She found that she was to receive no other answer, and, after a short +pause added: + +"I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever +returning to Netherfield again?" + +"I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend +very little of his time there in the future. He has many friends, and +is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually +increasing." + +"If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for +the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we +might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did +not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as +for his own, and we must expect him to keep it or quit it on the same +principle." + +"I should not be surprised," said Darcy, "if he were to give it up as +soon as any eligible purchase offers." + +Elizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his +friend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the +trouble of finding a subject to him. + +He took the hint, and soon began with, "This seems a very comfortable +house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. +Collins first came to Hunsford." + +"I believe she did--and I am sure she could not have bestowed her +kindness on a more grateful object." + +"Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife." + +"Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one +of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made +him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding--though +I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the +wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a +prudential light it is certainly a very good match for her." + +"It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a +distance of her own family and friends." + +"An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles." + +"And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's +journey. Yes, I call it a _very_ easy distance." + +"I should never have considered the distance as one of the _advantages_ +of the match," cried Elizabeth. "I should never have said Mrs. Collins +was settled _near_ her family." + +"It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond +the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far." + +As he spoke there was a sort of smile which Elizabeth fancied she +understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and +Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered: + +"I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her +family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many +varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of +travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the +case _here_. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not +such a one as will allow of frequent journeys--and I am persuaded my +friend would not call herself _near_ her family under less than _half_ +the present distance." + +Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, "_You_ cannot +have a right to such very strong local attachment. _You_ cannot have +been always at Longbourn." + +Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of +feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and +glancing over it, said, in a colder voice: + +"Are you pleased with Kent?" + +A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side +calm and concise--and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte +and her sister, just returned from her walk. The tete-a-tete surprised +them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding +on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying +much to anybody, went away. + +"What can be the meaning of this?" said Charlotte, as soon as he was +gone. "My dear, Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never +have called us in this familiar way." + +But when Elizabeth told of his silence; it did not seem very likely, +even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case; and after various +conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from +the difficulty of finding anything to do, which was the more probable +from the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there +was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard-table, but gentlemen cannot +always be within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the +pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the +two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither +almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes +separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their +aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he +had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended +him still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in +being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her +former favourite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them, she saw +there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners, +she believed he might have the best informed mind. + +But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult +to understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there +ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak, +it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice--a sacrifice +to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really +animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel +Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was +generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told +her; and as she would liked to have believed this change the effect +of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself +seriously to work to find it out. She watched him whenever they were at +Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He +certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that +look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often +doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it +seemed nothing but absence of mind. + +She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his +being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. +Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of +raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her +opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would +vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power. + + +In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying +Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the most pleasant man; he +certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but, +to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage +in the church, and his cousin could have none at all. + + + +Chapter 33 + + +More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, +unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the +mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to +prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that +it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, +therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like +wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was +not merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away, +but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He +never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking +or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third +rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions--about +her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her +opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of +Rosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to +expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying +_there_ too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel +Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant anything, he must +mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed +her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the +pales opposite the Parsonage. + +She was engaged one day as she walked, in perusing Jane's last letter, +and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in +spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw +on looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the +letter immediately and forcing a smile, she said: + +"I did not know before that you ever walked this way." + +"I have been making the tour of the park," he replied, "as I generally +do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are +you going much farther?" + +"No, I should have turned in a moment." + +And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage +together. + +"Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?" said she. + +"Yes--if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He +arranges the business just as he pleases." + +"And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least +pleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems +more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy." + +"He likes to have his own way very well," replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. +"But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it +than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak +feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and +dependence." + +"In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of +either. Now seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and +dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going +wherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for?" + +"These are home questions--and perhaps I cannot say that I have +experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater +weight, I may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where +they like." + +"Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often +do." + +"Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many +in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to +money." + +"Is this," thought Elizabeth, "meant for me?" and she coloured at the +idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, "And pray, what +is the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is +very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds." + +He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt +a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, +she soon afterwards said: + +"I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of +having someone at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a +lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well +for the present, and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he +likes with her." + +"No," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, "that is an advantage which he must +divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy." + +"Are you indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your +charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a +little difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she +may like to have her own way." + +As she spoke she observed him looking at her earnestly; and the manner +in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to +give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other +got pretty near the truth. She directly replied: + +"You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare +say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a +very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and +Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them." + +"I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike man--he +is a great friend of Darcy's." + +"Oh! yes," said Elizabeth drily; "Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. +Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him." + +"Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy _does_ take care of him in +those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in +our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to +him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that +Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture." + +"What is it you mean?" + +"It is a circumstance which Darcy could not wish to be generally known, +because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an +unpleasant thing." + +"You may depend upon my not mentioning it." + +"And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be +Bingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself +on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most +imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other +particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing +him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from +knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer." + +"Did Mr. Darcy give you reasons for this interference?" + +"I understood that there were some very strong objections against the +lady." + +"And what arts did he use to separate them?" + +"He did not talk to me of his own arts," said Fitzwilliam, smiling. "He +only told me what I have now told you." + +Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with +indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she +was so thoughtful. + +"I am thinking of what you have been telling me," said she. "Your +cousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?" + +"You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?" + +"I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his +friend's inclination, or why, upon his own judgement alone, he was to +determine and direct in what manner his friend was to be happy. +But," she continued, recollecting herself, "as we know none of the +particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed +that there was much affection in the case." + +"That is not an unnatural surmise," said Fitzwilliam, "but it is a +lessening of the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly." + +This was spoken jestingly; but it appeared to her so just a picture +of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer, and +therefore, abruptly changing the conversation talked on indifferent +matters until they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room, +as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption +of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other +people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There +could not exist in the world _two_ men over whom Mr. Darcy could have +such boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures +taken to separate Bingley and Jane she had never doubted; but she had +always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement +of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, _he_ was +the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had +suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while +every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the +world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted. + +"There were some very strong objections against the lady," were Colonel +Fitzwilliam's words; and those strong objections probably were, her +having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in +business in London. + +"To Jane herself," she exclaimed, "there could be no possibility of +objection; all loveliness and goodness as she is!--her understanding +excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither +could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some +peculiarities, has abilities Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and +respectability which he will probably never reach." When she thought of +her mother, her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow +that any objections _there_ had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose +pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of +importance in his friend's connections, than from their want of sense; +and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed +by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr. +Bingley for his sister. + +The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned, brought on a +headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening, that, added to +her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her +cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins, +seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go and as much +as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins +could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather +displeased by her staying at home. + + + +Chapter 34 + + +When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself +as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the +examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her +being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any +revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. +But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that +cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which, +proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly +disposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth +noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an +attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's +shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her +a keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation +to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the +next--and, a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should +herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of +her spirits, by all that affection could do. + +She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that +his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear +that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not +mean to be unhappy about him. + +While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the +door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its +being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in +the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her. +But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently +affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the +room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her +health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. +She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and +then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but +said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her +in an agitated manner, and thus began: + +"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." + +Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, +doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement; +and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her, +immediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides +those of the heart to be detailed; and he was not more eloquent on the +subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority--of +its being a degradation--of the family obstacles which had always +opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to +the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his +suit. + +In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to +the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did +not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to +receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she +lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to +answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with +representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite +of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with +expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of +his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt +of a favourable answer. He _spoke_ of apprehension and anxiety, but +his countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could +only exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, the colour rose into her +cheeks, and she said: + +"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to +express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however +unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should +be felt, and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you. But I +cannot--I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly +bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to +anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be +of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented +the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in +overcoming it after this explanation." + +Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed +on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than +surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance +of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the +appearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed +himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings +dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said: + +"And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! +I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavour_ at +civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance." + +"I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire +of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me +against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? +Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil? But I have +other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against +you--had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you +think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has +been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most +beloved sister?" + +As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion +was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she +continued: + +"I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can +excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not, +you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means +of dividing them from each other--of exposing one to the censure of the +world for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for +disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest +kind." + +She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening +with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. +He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. + +"Can you deny that you have done it?" she repeated. + +With assumed tranquillity he then replied: "I have no wish of denying +that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your +sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been +kinder than towards myself." + +Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, +but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her. + +"But it is not merely this affair," she continued, "on which my dislike +is founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion of you was +decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received +many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to +say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? +or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?" + +"You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns," said Darcy, +in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour. + +"Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an +interest in him?" + +"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "yes, his misfortunes +have been great indeed." + +"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth with energy. "You have reduced +him to his present state of poverty--comparative poverty. You have +withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for +him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence +which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! +and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and +ridicule." + +"And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, +"is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! +I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this +calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps," added he, stopping in +his walk, and turning towards her, "these offenses might have been +overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the +scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These +bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater +policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of +my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by +reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. +Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and +just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your +connections?--to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose +condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" + +Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to +the utmost to speak with composure when she said: + +"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your +declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern +which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more +gentlemanlike manner." + +She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued: + +"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that +would have tempted me to accept it." + +Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an +expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on: + +"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." + +"You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your +feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. +Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best +wishes for your health and happiness." + +And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him +the next moment open the front door and quit the house. + +The tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not how +to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for +half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, +was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of +marriage from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in love with her for +so many months! So much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of +all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying +her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his +own case--was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired +unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable +pride--his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to +Jane--his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could +not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. +Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon +overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for +a moment excited. She continued in very agitated reflections till the +sound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to +encounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room. + + + +Chapter 35 + + +Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations +which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the +surprise of what had happened; it was impossible to think of anything +else; and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved, soon after +breakfast, to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding +directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's +sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park, +she turned up the lane, which led farther from the turnpike-road. The +park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one +of the gates into the ground. + +After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was +tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and +look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had +made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the +verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk, +when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which +edged the park; he was moving that way; and, fearful of its being Mr. +Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now +near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced +her name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though +in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the +gate. He had by that time reached it also, and, holding out a letter, +which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure, +"I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you. +Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?" And then, with a +slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight. + +With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, +Elizabeth opened the letter, and, to her still increasing wonder, +perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter-paper, written +quite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise +full. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated +from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:-- + +"Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension +of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those +offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any +intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes +which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the +effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, +should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written +and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand +your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I +demand it of your justice. + +"Two offenses of a very different nature, and by no means of equal +magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was, +that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley +from your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various +claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate +prosperity and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and +wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged +favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other +dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect +its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young +persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could +bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last +night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope +to be in the future secured, when the following account of my actions +and their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them, which +is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which +may be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity +must be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd. + +"I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with +others, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young +woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance +at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious +attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I +had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir +William Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to +your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. +He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could +be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour +attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss +Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also +watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, +but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced +from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions +with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of +sentiment. If _you_ have not been mistaken here, _I_ must have been +in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter +probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict +pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not +scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and +air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction +that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be +easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is +certain--but I will venture to say that my investigation and decisions +are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe +her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial +conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. My objections to the +marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have +the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of +connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But +there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still +existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had +myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before +me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your +mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison to that +total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by +herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your +father. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern +for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this +representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to +have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure, +is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your elder sister, than +it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say +farther that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties +was confirmed, and every inducement heightened which could have led +me before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy +connection. He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as +you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning. + +"The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness +had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was +soon discovered, and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in +detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in +London. We accordingly went--and there I readily engaged in the office +of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I +described, and enforced them earnestly. But, however this remonstrance +might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose +that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been +seconded by the assurance that I hesitated not in giving, of your +sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his +affection with sincere, if not with equal regard. But Bingley has great +natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgement than on his +own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was +no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into +Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the +work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There +is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair on which I do not +reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the +measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in +town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her +brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without +ill consequence is perhaps probable; but his regard did not appear to me +enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this +concealment, this disguise was beneath me; it is done, however, and it +was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no +other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it +was unknowingly done and though the motives which governed me may to +you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn +them. + +"With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured +Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his +connection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me I +am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more +than one witness of undoubted veracity. + +"Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many +years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good +conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to +be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his +kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at +school, and afterwards at Cambridge--most important assistance, as his +own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have +been unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only +fond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging; he +had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be +his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is +many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different +manner. The vicious propensities--the want of principle, which he was +careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape +the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, +and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. +Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain--to what degree +you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham +has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from +unfolding his real character--it adds even another motive. + +"My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to +Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly +recommended it to me, to promote his advancement in the best manner +that his profession might allow--and if he took orders, desired that a +valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There +was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long +survive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham +wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, +he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more +immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he +could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying +law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would +be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed +him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to +his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman; the +business was therefore soon settled--he resigned all claim to assistance +in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to +receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection +between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him +to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I believe he chiefly +lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free +from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. +For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the +incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to +me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured +me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He +had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely +resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in +question--of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was +well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not +have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame +me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every +repetition to it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of +his circumstances--and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me +to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period every +appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But +last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice. + +"I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, +and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold +to any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your +secrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to +the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. +About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed +for her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided +over it, to Ramsgate; and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by +design; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him +and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and +by her connivance and aid, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, +whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to +her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and +to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her +excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed +the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two +before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the +idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as +a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and +how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented +any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place +immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. +Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which +is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of +revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have +been complete indeed. + +"This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have +been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as +false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. +Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he +had imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered +at. Ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either, +detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in +your inclination. + +"You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night; but +I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to +be revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more +particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our +near relationship and constant intimacy, and, still more, as one of +the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted +with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of _me_ +should make _my_ assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by +the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be +the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some +opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the +morning. I will only add, God bless you. + +"FITZWILLIAM DARCY" + + + +Chapter 36 + + +If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to +contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of +its contents. But such as they were, it may well be supposed how eagerly +she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. +Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did +she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; +and steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation +to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong +prejudice against everything he might say, she began his account of what +had happened at Netherfield. She read with an eagerness which hardly +left her 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 her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she +instantly resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst +objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing +him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied +her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and +insolence. + +But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham--when +she read with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which, +if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which +bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself--her +feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. +Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished +to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, "This must be false! +This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!"--and when she had +gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing anything of the +last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not +regard it, that she would never look in it again. + +In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on +nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the letter +was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she +again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and +commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence. +The account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what +he had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though +she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own +words. So far each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the +will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living +was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was +impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the +other; and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did +not err. But when she read and re-read with the closest attention, the +particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions +to the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three +thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down +the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be +impartiality--deliberated on the probability of each statement--but with +little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read +on; but every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had +believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to +render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a +turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole. + +The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at +Mr. Wickham's charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could +bring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his +entrance into the ----shire Militia, in which he had engaged at the +persuasion of the young man who, on meeting him accidentally in town, +had there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life +nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As +to his real character, had information been in her power, she had +never felt a wish of inquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner had +established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried +to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of +integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of +Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those +casual errors under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy +had described as the idleness and vice of many years' continuance. But +no such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before +her, in every charm of air and address; but she could remember no more +substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and +the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After +pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to +read. But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss +Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel +Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was +referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam +himself--from whom she had previously received the information of his +near concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no +reason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to +him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and +at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never +have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his +cousin's corroboration. + +She perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation +between Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips's. +Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was _now_ +struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and +wondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting +himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions +with his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear +of seeing Mr. Darcy--that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that +_he_ should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball +the very next week. She remembered also that, till the Netherfield +family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but +herself; but that after their removal it had been everywhere discussed; +that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's +character, though he had assured her that respect for the father would +always prevent his exposing the son. + +How differently did everything now appear in which he was concerned! +His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and +hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer +the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at anything. +His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive; he had +either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying +his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most +incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter +and fainter; and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not +but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago +asserted his blamelessness in the affair; that proud and repulsive as +were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their +acquaintance--an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much +together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways--seen anything +that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust--anything that spoke him +of irreligious or immoral habits; that among his own connections he was +esteemed and valued--that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a +brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his +sister as to prove him capable of _some_ amiable feeling; that had his +actions been what Mr. Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of +everything right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and +that friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man +as Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible. + +She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham +could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, +absurd. + +"How despicably I have acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself +on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have +often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified +my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this +discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could +not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my +folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect +of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted +prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were +concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself." + +From herself to Jane--from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line +which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation +_there_ had appeared very insufficient, and she read it again. Widely +different was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that +credit to his assertions in one instance, which she had been obliged to +give in the other? He declared himself to be totally unsuspicious of her +sister's attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's +opinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his +description of Jane. She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were +little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air +and manner not often united with great sensibility. + +When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were +mentioned in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense +of shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly +for denial, and the circumstances to which he particularly alluded as +having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first +disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind +than on hers. + +The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed, +but it could not console her for the contempt which had thus been +self-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered +that Jane's disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest +relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt +by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond anything she +had ever known before. + +After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every +variety of thought--re-considering events, determining probabilities, +and reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and +so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made +her at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish +of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such +reflections as must make her unfit for conversation. + +She was immediately told that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each +called during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take +leave--but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least +an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her +till she could be found. Elizabeth could but just _affect_ concern +in missing him; she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no +longer an object; she could think only of her letter. + + + +Chapter 37 + + +The two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning, and Mr. Collins having +been in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was +able to bring home the pleasing intelligence, of their appearing in very +good health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the +melancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then +hastened, to console Lady Catherine and her daughter; and on his return +brought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her ladyship, +importing that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of +having them all to dine with her. + +Elizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had +she chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as +her future niece; nor could she think, without a smile, of what her +ladyship's indignation would have been. "What would she have said? how +would she have behaved?" were questions with which she amused herself. + +Their first subject was the diminution of the Rosings party. "I assure +you, I feel it exceedingly," said Lady Catherine; "I believe no one +feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly +attached to these young men, and know them to be so much attached to +me! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The +dear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last; but Darcy +seemed to feel it most acutely, more, I think, than last year. His +attachment to Rosings certainly increases." + +Mr. Collins had a compliment, and an allusion to throw in here, which +were kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter. + +Lady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of +spirits, and immediately accounting for it by herself, by supposing that +she did not like to go home again so soon, she added: + +"But if that is the case, you must write to your mother and beg that +you may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your +company, I am sure." + +"I am much obliged to your ladyship for your kind invitation," replied +Elizabeth, "but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town +next Saturday." + +"Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected +you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There +can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly +spare you for another fortnight." + +"But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return." + +"Oh! your father of course may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters +are never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay +another _month_ complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as +far as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week; and as +Dawson does not object to the barouche-box, there will be very good room +for one of you--and indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I +should not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large." + +"You are all kindness, madam; but I believe we must abide by our +original plan." + +Lady Catherine seemed resigned. "Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant +with them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea +of two young women travelling post by themselves. It is highly improper. +You must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in +the world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly +guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my +niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her +having two men-servants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of +Mr. Darcy, of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with +propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those +things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I +am glad it occurred to me to mention it; for it would really be +discreditable to _you_ to let them go alone." + +"My uncle is to send a servant for us." + +"Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a man-servant, does he? I am very glad you +have somebody who thinks of these things. Where shall you change horses? +Oh! Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be +attended to." + +Lady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey, +and as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary, +which Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so +occupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be +reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it +as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary +walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant +recollections. + +Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She +studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at +times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address, +she was still full of indignation; but when she considered how unjustly +she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against +herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. +His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect; but she +could not approve him; nor could she for a moment repent her refusal, +or feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again. In her own past +behaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in +the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin. +They were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at +them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his +youngest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right +herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently +united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine +and Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother's indulgence, +what chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weak-spirited, +irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always +affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would +scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While +there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while +Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there +forever. + +Anxiety on Jane's behalf was another prevailing concern; and Mr. Darcy's +explanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion, +heightened the sense of what Jane had lost. His affection was proved +to have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any +could attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend. How +grievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every +respect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had +been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family! + +When to these recollections was added the development of Wickham's +character, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had +seldom been depressed before, were now so much affected as to make it +almost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful. + +Their engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of +her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent +there; and her ladyship again inquired minutely into the particulars of +their journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing, +and was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right +way, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the +work of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh. + +When they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them +a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year; +and Miss de Bourgh exerted herself so far as to curtsey and hold out her +hand to both. + + + +Chapter 38 + + +On Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few +minutes before the others appeared; and he took the opportunity of +paying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary. + +"I know not, Miss Elizabeth," said he, "whether Mrs. Collins has yet +expressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us; but I am very +certain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for +it. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We +know how little there is to tempt anyone to our humble abode. Our plain +manner of living, our small rooms and few domestics, and the little we +see of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like +yourself; but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension, +and that we have done everything in our power to prevent your spending +your time unpleasantly." + +Elizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She +had spent six weeks with great enjoyment; and the pleasure of being with +Charlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make _her_ +feel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified, and with a more smiling +solemnity replied: + +"It gives me great pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not +disagreeably. We have certainly done our best; and most fortunately +having it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and, +from our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the +humble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford +visit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to +Lady Catherine's family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage +and blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You +see how continually we are engaged there. In truth I must acknowledge +that, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should +not think anyone abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are +sharers of our intimacy at Rosings." + +Words were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings; and he was +obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility +and truth in a few short sentences. + +"You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into +Hertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself at least that you will +be able to do so. Lady Catherine's great attentions to Mrs. Collins you +have been a daily witness of; and altogether I trust it does not appear +that your friend has drawn an unfortunate--but on this point it will be +as well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth, +that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in +marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of +thinking. There is in everything a most remarkable resemblance of +character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each +other." + +Elizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was +the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed +and rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to +have the recital of them interrupted by the lady from whom they sprang. +Poor Charlotte! it was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she +had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that +her visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her +home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their +dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms. + +At length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels +placed within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate +parting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by +Mr. Collins, and as they walked down the garden he was commissioning her +with his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks +for the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his +compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her +in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed, +when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had +hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings. + +"But," he added, "you will of course wish to have your humble respects +delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you +while you have been here." + +Elizabeth made no objection; the door was then allowed to be shut, and +the carriage drove off. + +"Good gracious!" cried Maria, after a few minutes' silence, "it seems +but a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have +happened!" + +"A great many indeed," said her companion with a sigh. + +"We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! +How much I shall have to tell!" + +Elizabeth added privately, "And how much I shall have to conceal!" + +Their journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm; and +within four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner's +house, where they were to remain a few days. + +Jane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her +spirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her +aunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at +Longbourn there would be leisure enough for observation. + +It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for +Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals. To know +that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish +Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own +vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation +to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision +in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate; +and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried +into repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister +further. + + + +Chapter 39 + + +It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out +together from Gracechurch Street for the town of ----, in Hertfordshire; +and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage +was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's +punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs. +These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed +in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and +dressing a salad and cucumber. + +After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set +out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, +"Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise?" + +"And we mean to treat you all," added Lydia, "but you must lend us the +money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there." Then, showing +her purchases--"Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think +it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall +pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any +better." + +And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect +unconcern, "Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and +when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I +think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what +one wears this summer, after the ----shire have left Meryton, and they +are going in a fortnight." + +"Are they indeed!" cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction. + +"They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to +take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme; +and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to +go too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall +have!" + +"Yes," thought Elizabeth, "_that_ would be a delightful scheme indeed, +and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole +campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor +regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!" + +"Now I have got some news for you," said Lydia, as they sat down at +table. "What do you think? It is excellent news--capital news--and about +a certain person we all like!" + +Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need +not stay. Lydia laughed, and said: + +"Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the +waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse +things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad +he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for +my news; it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is it not? +There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She +is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool: gone to stay. Wickham is safe." + +"And Mary King is safe!" added Elizabeth; "safe from a connection +imprudent as to fortune." + +"She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him." + +"But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side," said Jane. + +"I am sure there is not on _his_. I will answer for it, he never cared +three straws about her--who could about such a nasty little freckled +thing?" + +Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such +coarseness of _expression_ herself, the coarseness of the _sentiment_ +was little other than her own breast had harboured and fancied liberal! + +As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was +ordered; and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their +boxes, work-bags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and +Lydia's purchases, were seated in it. + +"How nicely we are all crammed in," cried Lydia. "I am glad I bought my +bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now +let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way +home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all +since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any +flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband +before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. +She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not +being married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Phillips wants you so to +get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. +Collins; but _I_ do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! +how I should like to be married before any of you; and then I would +chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece +of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend +the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the +evening; (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are _such_ friends!) and so +she asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen +was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We +dressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes on purpose to pass for a +lady, only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs. +Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow +one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny, +and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they +did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs. +Forster. I thought I should have died. And _that_ made the men suspect +something, and then they soon found out what was the matter." + +With such kinds of histories of their parties and good jokes, did +Lydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her +companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she +could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name. + +Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane +in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet +say voluntarily to Elizabeth: + +"I am glad you are come back, Lizzy." + +Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases +came to meet Maria and hear the news; and various were the subjects that +occupied them: Lady Lucas was inquiring of Maria, after the welfare and +poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one +hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat +some way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger +Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's, +was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who +would hear her. + +"Oh! Mary," said she, "I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! +As we went along, Kitty and I drew up the blinds, and pretended there +was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty +had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved +very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold +luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated +you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never +should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then +we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that +anybody might have heard us ten miles off!" + +To this Mary very gravely replied, "Far be it from me, my dear sister, +to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the +generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for +_me_--I should infinitely prefer a book." + +But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to +anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all. + +In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk +to Meryton, and to see how everybody went on; but Elizabeth steadily +opposed the scheme. It should not be said that the Miss Bennets could +not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers. +There was another reason too for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Mr. +Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The +comfort to _her_ of the regiment's approaching removal was indeed beyond +expression. In a fortnight they were to go--and once gone, she hoped +there could be nothing more to plague her on his account. + +She had not been many hours at home before she found that the Brighton +scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under +frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her +father had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were +at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often +disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last. + + + +Chapter 40 + + +Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could +no longer be overcome; and at length, resolving to suppress every +particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be +surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene +between Mr. Darcy and herself. + +Miss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly +partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly +natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was +sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so +little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the +unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him. + +"His being so sure of succeeding was wrong," said she, "and certainly +ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his +disappointment!" + +"Indeed," replied Elizabeth, "I am heartily sorry for him; but he has +other feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. +You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?" + +"Blame you! Oh, no." + +"But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?" + +"No--I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did." + +"But you _will_ know it, when I tell you what happened the very next +day." + +She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far +as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! +who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that +so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here +collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though +grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery. +Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and +seek to clear the one without involving the other. + +"This will not do," said Elizabeth; "you never will be able to make both +of them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied +with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just +enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting +about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Darcy's; +but you shall do as you choose." + +It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane. + +"I do not know when I have been more shocked," said she. "Wickham so +very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only +consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the +knowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing +of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it +so." + +"Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so +full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am +growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion +makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will +be as light as a feather." + +"Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his +countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner!" + +"There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those +two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the +appearance of it." + +"I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the _appearance_ of it as you +used to do." + +"And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike +to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an +opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually +abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing +at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty." + +"Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat +the matter as you do now." + +"Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough, I may say unhappy. And +with no one to speak to about what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say +that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I +had! Oh! how I wanted you!" + +"How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions +in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they _do_ appear wholly +undeserved." + +"Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most +natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There +is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I +ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand +Wickham's character." + +Miss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, "Surely there can be no +occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your opinion?" + +"That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me +to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular +relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to +myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his +conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy +is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in +Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal +to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to +anyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, +and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At +present I will say nothing about it." + +"You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for +ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to +re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate." + +The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had +got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, +and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish +to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, +of which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other +half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she +had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one +could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect +understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off +this last encumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very +improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to +tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The +liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!" + +She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real +state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a +very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself +in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, +and, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than most first +attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, +and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her +attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the +indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own +health and their tranquillity. + +"Well, Lizzy," said Mrs. Bennet one day, "what is your opinion _now_ of +this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak +of it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day. But +I cannot find out that Jane saw anything of him in London. Well, he is +a very undeserving young man--and I do not suppose there's the least +chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of +his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have inquired of +everybody, too, who is likely to know." + +"I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield any more." + +"Oh well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I +shall always say he used my daughter extremely ill; and if I was her, I +would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will +die of a broken heart; and then he will be sorry for what he has done." + +But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation, +she made no answer. + +"Well, Lizzy," continued her mother, soon afterwards, "and so the +Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope +it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an +excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her +mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in _their_ +housekeeping, I dare say." + +"No, nothing at all." + +"A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. _they_ will +take care not to outrun their income. _They_ will never be distressed +for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often +talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it as +quite their own, I dare say, whenever that happens." + +"It was a subject which they could not mention before me." + +"No; it would have been strange if they had; but I make no doubt they +often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an +estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be +ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me." + + + +Chapter 41 + + +The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was +the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies +in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost +universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, +and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very +frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and +Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such +hard-heartedness in any of the family. + +"Good Heaven! what is to become of us? What are we to do?" would they +often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. "How can you be smiling so, +Lizzy?" + +Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what +she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years +ago. + +"I am sure," said she, "I cried for two days together when Colonel +Miller's regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart." + +"I am sure I shall break _mine_," said Lydia. + +"If one could but go to Brighton!" observed Mrs. Bennet. + +"Oh, yes!--if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so +disagreeable." + +"A little sea-bathing would set me up forever." + +"And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do _me_ a great deal of good," +added Kitty. + +Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through +Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense +of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's +objections; and never had she been so much disposed to pardon his +interference in the views of his friend. + +But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away; for she +received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of +the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a +very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour +and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of +their _three_ months' acquaintance they had been intimate _two_. + +The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, +the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely +to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia +flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone's +congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; +whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repined at her fate +in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish. + +"I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask _me_ as well as Lydia," +said she, "Though I am _not_ her particular friend. I have just as much +right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older." + +In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make +her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from +exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she +considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense +for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it +known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her +go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general +behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of +such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more +imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must +be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said: + +"Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public +place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so +little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present +circumstances." + +"If you were aware," said Elizabeth, "of the very great disadvantage to +us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and +imprudent manner--nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you +would judge differently in the affair." + +"Already arisen?" repeated Mr. Bennet. "What, has she frightened away +some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such +squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity +are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who +have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly." + +"Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not +of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our +importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the +wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark +Lydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear +father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and +of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of +her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character +will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt +that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the +worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond +youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness +of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal +contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger +Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, +ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you +suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever +they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the +disgrace?" + +Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and +affectionately taking her hand said in reply: + +"Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known +you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less +advantage for having a couple of--or I may say, three--very silly +sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to +Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will +keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an +object of prey to anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance +even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find +women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being +there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow +many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest +of her life." + +With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion +continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not +in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on +them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret +over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her +disposition. + +Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her +father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their +united volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised +every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye +of fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers. +She saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them +at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp--its tents +stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young +and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she +saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six +officers at once. + +Had she known her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such +realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have +been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same. +Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy +conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself. + +But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures +continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia's leaving +home. + +Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been +frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty +well over; the agitations of formal partiality entirely so. She had even +learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted +her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present +behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure, +for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those intentions which +had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after +what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in +finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous +gallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the +reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever +cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, +and her preference secured at any time by their renewal. + +On the very last day of the regiment's remaining at Meryton, he dined, +with other of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth +disposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some +inquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she +mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three +weeks at Rosings, and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former. + +He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed; but with a moment's +recollection and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen +him often; and, after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man, +asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. +With an air of indifference he soon afterwards added: + +"How long did you say he was at Rosings?" + +"Nearly three weeks." + +"And you saw him frequently?" + +"Yes, almost every day." + +"His manners are very different from his cousin's." + +"Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance." + +"Indeed!" cried Mr. 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 aught 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 +his mind or his 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 feeling 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 only +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 judgement 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. She saw that he wanted to engage her on +the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge +him. The rest of the evening passed with the _appearance_, on his +side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish +Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a +mutual desire of never meeting again. + +When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, +from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation +between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the +only one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. +Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, +and impressive in her injunctions that she should not miss the +opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible--advice which +there was every reason to believe would be well attended to; and in +the clamorous happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more +gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard. + + + +Chapter 42 + + +Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could +not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic +comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance +of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a +woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in +their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, +esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views +of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of +a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own +imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often +console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of +the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal +enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as +her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not +the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his +wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true +philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given. + +Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her +father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but +respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of +herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to +banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation +and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own +children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so +strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so +unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising +from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used, +might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even +if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife. + +When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure she found little +other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties +abroad were less varied than before, and at home she had a mother and +sister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around +them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty +might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers +of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition +greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all +her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a +watering-place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what +has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had been +looking with impatient desire did not, in taking place, bring all the +satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to +name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity--to have +some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by +again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the +present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes +was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation +for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother +and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the +scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. + +"But it is fortunate," thought she, "that I have something to wish for. +Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. +But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my +sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of +pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can +never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by +the defence of some little peculiar vexation." + +When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely +to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and +always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that +they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers +had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as +made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which +she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a +violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going off to +the camp; and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still +less to be learnt--for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were +much too full of lines under the words to be made public. + +After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good +humour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything wore +a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came +back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet +was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and, by the middle of +June, Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without +tears; an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by +the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to +mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious +arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in +Meryton. + +The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast +approaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter +arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and +curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from +setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again +within a month, and as that left too short a period for them to go so +far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with +the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up +the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour, and, according to the +present plan, were to go no farther northwards than Derbyshire. In that +county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three +weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The +town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where +they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of +her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, +Dovedale, or the Peak. + +Elizabeth was excessively disappointed; she had set her heart on seeing +the Lakes, and still thought there might have been time enough. But it +was her business to be satisfied--and certainly her temper to be happy; +and all was soon right again. + +With the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was +impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its +owner. "But surely," said she, "I may enter his county with impunity, +and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me." + +The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away +before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. +and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at +Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two +younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their +cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and +sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every +way--teaching them, playing with them, and loving them. + +The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the +next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement. +One enjoyment was certain--that of suitableness of companions; +a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear +inconveniences--cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure--and affection +and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were +disappointments abroad. + +It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire, +nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither +lay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, etc. are +sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present +concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's +former residence, and where she had lately learned some acquaintance +still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the +principal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton, +Elizabeth found from her aunt that Pemberley was situated. It was not +in their direct road, nor more than a mile or two out of it. In +talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed +an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his +willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation. + +"My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard +so much?" said her aunt; "a place, too, with which so many of your +acquaintances are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you +know." + +Elizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at +Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. She +must own that she was tired of seeing great houses; after going over so +many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains. + +Mrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. "If it were merely a fine house +richly furnished," said she, "I should not care about it myself; but +the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the +country." + +Elizabeth said no more--but her mind could not acquiesce. The +possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly +occurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea, and +thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt than to run such +a risk. But against this there were objections; and she finally resolved +that it could be the last resource, if her private inquiries to the +absence of the family were unfavourably answered. + +Accordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid +whether Pemberley were not a very fine place? what was the name of its +proprietor? and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for +the summer? A most welcome negative followed the last question--and her +alarms now being removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of +curiosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the +next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and +with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike +to the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go. + + + +Chapter 43 + + +Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of +Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned +in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter. + +The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They +entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through +a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent. + +Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired +every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for +half-a-mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable +eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by +Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which +the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone +building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of +high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was +swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks +were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She +had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural +beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were +all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that +to be mistress of Pemberley might be something! + +They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and, +while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of +meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been +mistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the +hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to +wonder at her being where she was. + +The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking elderly woman, much less +fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They +followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well proportioned +room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went +to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which +they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, +was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and +she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its +banks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, +with delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking +different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be +seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to +the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of +his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of +splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings. + +"And of this place," thought she, "I might have been mistress! With +these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of +viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and +welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no,"--recollecting +herself--"that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to +me; I should not have been allowed to invite them." + +This was a lucky recollection--it saved her from something very like +regret. + +She longed to inquire of the housekeeper whether her master was really +absent, but had not the courage for it. At length however, the question +was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. +Reynolds replied that he was, adding, "But we expect him to-morrow, with +a large party of friends." How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own +journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day! + +Her aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached and saw the +likeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures, +over the mantelpiece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it. +The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was a picture of a young +gentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought +up by him at his own expense. "He is now gone into the army," she added; +"but I am afraid he has turned out very wild." + +Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not +return it. + +"And that," said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, +"is my master--and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the +other--about eight years ago." + +"I have heard much of your master's fine person," said Mrs. Gardiner, +looking at the picture; "it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell +us whether it is like or not." + +Mrs. Reynolds respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this +intimation of her knowing her master. + +"Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?" + +Elizabeth coloured, and said: "A little." + +"And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma'am?" + +"Yes, very handsome." + +"I am sure I know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you +will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late +master's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to +be then. He was very fond of them." + +This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them. + +Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn +when she was only eight years old. + +"And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?" said Mrs. Gardiner. + +"Oh! yes--the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so +accomplished!--She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is +a new instrument just come down for her--a present from my master; she +comes here to-morrow with him." + +Mr. Gardiner, whose manners were very easy and pleasant, encouraged her +communicativeness by his questions and remarks; Mrs. Reynolds, either +by pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her +master and his sister. + +"Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?" + +"Not so much as I could wish, sir; but I dare say he may spend half his +time here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months." + +"Except," thought Elizabeth, "when she goes to Ramsgate." + +"If your master would marry, you might see more of him." + +"Yes, sir; but I do not know when _that_ will be. I do not know who is +good enough for him." + +Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, "It is +very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so." + +"I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him," +replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she +listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, "I have +never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever +since he was four years old." + +This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her +ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion. +Her keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was +grateful to her uncle for saying: + +"There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in +having such a master." + +"Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could +not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are +good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and +he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the +world." + +Elizabeth almost stared at her. "Can this be Mr. Darcy?" thought she. + +"His father was an excellent man," said Mrs. Gardiner. + +"Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him--just +as affable to the poor." + +Elizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs. +Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects +of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the +furniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family +prejudice to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her +master, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his +many merits as they proceeded together up the great staircase. + +"He is the best landlord, and the best master," said she, "that ever +lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but +themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but will give +him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw +anything of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away +like other young men." + +"In what an amiable light does this place him!" thought Elizabeth. + +"This fine account of him," whispered her aunt as they walked, "is not +quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend." + +"Perhaps we might be deceived." + +"That is not very likely; our authority was too good." + +On reaching the spacious lobby above they were shown into a very pretty +sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than +the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to +give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room when +last at Pemberley. + +"He is certainly a good brother," said Elizabeth, as she walked towards +one of the windows. + +Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter +the room. "And this is always the way with him," she added. "Whatever +can give his sister any pleasure is sure to be done in a moment. There +is nothing he would not do for her." + +The picture-gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were +all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings; +but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already +visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss +Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and +also more intelligible. + +In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have +little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of +the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested +her--and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a +smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he +looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest +contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. +Mrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father's +lifetime. + +There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle +sensation towards the original than she had ever felt at the height of +their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds +was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise +of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she +considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship!--how +much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!--how much of +good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought +forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she +stood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his +eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of +gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and +softened its impropriety of expression. + +When all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen, +they returned downstairs, and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were +consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall-door. + +As they walked across the hall towards the river, Elizabeth turned back +to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former +was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself +suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables. + +They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his +appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes +instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest +blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from +surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, +and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least +of perfect civility. + +She had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach, +received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be +overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture +they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two +that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on +beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little +aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, +scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer +she returned to his civil inquiries after her family. Amazed at the +alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that +he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the +impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few +minutes in which they continued were some of the most uncomfortable in +her life. Nor did he seem much more at ease; when he spoke, his accent +had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his inquiries as +to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her having stayed in +Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the +distraction of his thoughts. + +At length every idea seemed to fail him; and, after standing a few +moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took +leave. + +The others then joined her, and expressed admiration of his figure; but +Elizabeth heard not a word, and wholly engrossed by her own feelings, +followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her +coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the +world! How strange it must appear to him! In what a disgraceful light +might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely +thrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? Or, why did he +thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes +sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination; +for it was plain that he was that moment arrived--that moment alighted +from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over +the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly +altered--what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was +amazing!--but to speak with such civility, to inquire after her family! +Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never +had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What +a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings Park, when he put +his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account +for it. + +They had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and +every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer +reach of the woods to which they were approaching; but it was some time +before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered +mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and +seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she +distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that +one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then +was. She longed to know what at the moment was passing in his mind--in +what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of everything, +she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he +felt himself at ease; yet there had been _that_ in his voice which was +not like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in +seeing her she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with +composure. + +At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind +aroused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself. + +They entered the woods, and bidding adieu to the river for a while, +ascended some of the higher grounds; when, in spots where the opening of +the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the +valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading +many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish +of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. +With a triumphant smile they were told that it was ten miles round. +It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which +brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, +to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed +it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene; +it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the +valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, +and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it. +Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the +bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner, +who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only +of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was, +therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house +on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their +progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the +taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the +occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the +man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this +slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment +was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy +approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here +less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before +they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared +for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with +calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed, +she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea +lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the +turning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance, she saw +that he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his +politeness, she began, as they met, to admire the beauty of the place; +but she had not got beyond the words "delightful," and "charming," when +some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of +Pemberley from her might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed, +and she said no more. + +Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked +her if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends. +This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared; +and she could hardly suppress a smile at his being now seeking the +acquaintance of some of those very people against whom his pride had +revolted in his offer to herself. "What will be his surprise," thought +she, "when he knows who they are? He takes them now for people of +fashion." + +The introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their +relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore +it, and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he +could from such disgraceful companions. That he was _surprised_ by the +connection was evident; he sustained it, however, with fortitude, and +so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into +conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased, +could not but triumph. It was consoling that he should know she had +some relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most +attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every +expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, +his taste, or his good manners. + +The conversation soon turned upon fishing; and she heard Mr. Darcy +invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he +chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time +to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of +the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was +walking arm-in-arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of wonder. +Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment +must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and +continually was she repeating, "Why is he so altered? From what can +it proceed? It cannot be for _me_--it cannot be for _my_ sake that his +manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a +change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me." + +After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two +gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to +the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious +water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated +in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found +Elizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred +her husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on +together. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him +to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the +place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been +very unexpected--"for your housekeeper," she added, "informed us that +you would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and indeed, before we +left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected +in the country." He acknowledged the truth of it all, and said that +business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours +before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. "They +will join me early to-morrow," he continued, "and among them are some +who will claim an acquaintance with you--Mr. Bingley and his sisters." + +Elizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly +driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been the last +mentioned between them; and, if she might judge by his complexion, _his_ +mind was not very differently engaged. + +"There is also one other person in the party," he continued after a +pause, "who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow +me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance +during your stay at Lambton?" + +The surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great +for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt +that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her +must be the work of her brother, and, without looking farther, it was +satisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made +him think really ill of her. + +They now walked on in silence, each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth +was not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and +pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of +the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others, and when they had +reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a +mile behind. + +He then asked her to walk into the house--but she declared herself not +tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time much might +have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but +there seemed to be an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected +that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale +with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly--and her +patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tete-a-tete was +over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up they were all pressed to go +into the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and +they parted on each side with utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the +ladies into the carriage; and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him +walking slowly towards the house. + +The observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them +pronounced him to be infinitely superior to anything they had expected. +"He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming," said her uncle. + +"There _is_ something a little stately in him, to be sure," replied her +aunt, "but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now +say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, I +have seen nothing of it." + +"I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more +than civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such +attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling." + +"To be sure, Lizzy," said her aunt, "he is not so handsome as Wickham; +or, rather, he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features +are perfectly good. But how came you to tell me that he was so +disagreeable?" + +Elizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked +him better when they had met in Kent than before, and that she had never +seen him so pleasant as this morning. + +"But perhaps he may be a little whimsical in his civilities," replied +her uncle. "Your great men often are; and therefore I shall not take him +at his word, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off +his grounds." + +Elizabeth felt that they had entirely misunderstood his character, but +said nothing. + +"From what we have seen of him," continued Mrs. Gardiner, "I really +should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by +anybody as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look. +On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he +speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance that would +not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the +good lady who showed us his house did give him a most flaming character! +I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal +master, I suppose, and _that_ in the eye of a servant comprehends every +virtue." + +Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of +his behaviour to Wickham; and therefore gave them to understand, in +as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from +his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different +construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor +Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In +confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary +transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming +her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on. + +Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned; but as they were now +approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to +the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out +to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of +anything else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk they +had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former +acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of a +intercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance. + +The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth +much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing +but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and, above +all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister. + + + +Chapter 44 + + +Elizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit +her the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was consequently +resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning. +But her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their +arrival at Lambton, these visitors came. They had been walking about the +place with some of their new friends, and were just returning to the inn +to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a +carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and a lady in +a curricle driving up the street. Elizabeth immediately recognizing +the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of her +surprise to her relations by acquainting them with the honour which she +expected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment +of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many +of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on +the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they felt that +there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a +quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these +newly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of +Elizabeth's feelings was at every moment increasing. She was quite +amazed at her own discomposure; but amongst other causes of disquiet, +she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much +in her favour; and, more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally +suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her. + +She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she walked +up and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of +inquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made everything worse. + +Miss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction +took place. With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new +acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her +being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud; +but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was +only exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from +her beyond a monosyllable. + +Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though +little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance +womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother; but there +was sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly +unassuming and gentle. Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as +acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much +relieved by discerning such different feelings. + +They had not long been together before Mr. Darcy told her that Bingley +was also coming to wait on her; and she had barely time to express her +satisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley's quick +step was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room. All +Elizabeth's anger against him had been long done away; but had she still +felt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected +cordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again. He +inquired in a friendly, though general way, after her family, and looked +and spoke with the same good-humoured ease that he had ever done. + +To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage +than to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before +them, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just +arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece directed their observation towards +each with an earnest though guarded inquiry; and they soon drew from +those inquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew +what it was to love. Of the lady's sensations they remained a little +in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was +evident enough. + +Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the +feelings of each of her visitors; she wanted to compose her own, and +to make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she +feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she +endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley +was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased. + +In seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister; and, oh! +how ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in +a like manner. Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on +former occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion +that, as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance. But, +though this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his +behaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane. No look +appeared on either side that spoke particular regard. Nothing occurred +between them that could justify the hopes of his sister. On this point +she was soon satisfied; and two or three little circumstances occurred +ere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a +recollection of Jane not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying +more that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared. He observed +to her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone +which had something of real regret, that it "was a very long time since +he had had the pleasure of seeing her;" and, before she could reply, +he added, "It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of +November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield." + +Elizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact; and he afterwards +took occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether +_all_ her sisters were at Longbourn. There was not much in the question, +nor in the preceding remark; but there was a look and a manner which +gave them meaning. + +It was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself; +but, whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general +complaisance, and in all that he said she heard an accent so removed +from _hauteur_ or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that +the improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed however +temporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day. When +she saw him thus seeking the acquaintance and courting the good opinion +of people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a +disgrace--when she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the +very relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last +lively scene in Hunsford Parsonage--the difference, the change was +so great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly +restrain her astonishment from being visible. Never, even in the company +of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations +at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from +self-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance +could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the +acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed would draw +down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and +Rosings. + +Their visitors stayed with them above half-an-hour; and when they arose +to depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing +their wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner +at Pemberley, before they left the country. Miss Darcy, though with a +diffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations, +readily obeyed. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing +how _she_, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its +acceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head. Presuming however, +that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than +any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of +society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for +her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on. + +Bingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth +again, having still a great deal to say to her, and many inquiries to +make after all their Hertfordshire friends. Elizabeth, construing all +this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased, and on +this account, as well as some others, found herself, when their +visitors left them, capable of considering the last half-hour with some +satisfaction, though while it was passing, the enjoyment of it had been +little. Eager to be alone, and fearful of inquiries or hints from her +uncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their +favourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress. + +But she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's curiosity; it was +not their wish to force her communication. It was evident that she was +much better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of; +it was evident that he was very much in love with her. They saw much to +interest, but nothing to justify inquiry. + +Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well; and, as far +as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could +not be untouched by his politeness; and had they drawn his character +from their own feelings and his servant's report, without any reference +to any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known +would not have recognized it for Mr. Darcy. There was now an interest, +however, in believing the housekeeper; and they soon became sensible +that the authority of a servant who had known him since he was four +years old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be +hastily rejected. Neither had anything occurred in the intelligence of +their Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight. They had +nothing to accuse him of but pride; pride he probably had, and if not, +it would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small market-town +where the family did not visit. It was acknowledged, however, that he +was a liberal man, and did much good among the poor. + +With respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held +there in much estimation; for though the chief of his concerns with the +son of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a well-known +fact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind +him, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged. + +As for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than +the last; and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not +long enough to determine her feelings towards _one_ in that mansion; +and she lay awake two whole hours endeavouring to make them out. She +certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she +had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, +that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his +valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some +time ceased to be repugnant to her feeling; and it was now heightened +into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in +his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, +which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, +there was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked. +It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, +but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and +acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations +accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid +her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most +eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display +of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only +were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent +on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much +pride exciting not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent +love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a +sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be +exactly defined. She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, +she felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how +far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would +be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her +fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on her the renewal of +his addresses. + +It had been settled in the evening between the aunt and the niece, that +such a striking civility as Miss Darcy's in coming to see them on the +very day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a +late breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled, +by some exertion of politeness on their side; and, consequently, that +it would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following +morning. They were, therefore, to go. Elizabeth was pleased; though when +she asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply. + +Mr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been +renewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting +some of the gentlemen at Pemberley before noon. + + + +Chapter 45 + + +Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley's dislike of her had +originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how unwelcome her +appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how +much civility on that lady's side the acquaintance would now be renewed. + +On reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon, +whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows +opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody +hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts +which were scattered over the intermediate lawn. + +In this house they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there +with Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in +London. Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with +all the embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear +of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior +the belief of her being proud and reserved. Mrs. Gardiner and her niece, +however, did her justice, and pitied her. + +By Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a curtsey; and, +on their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be, +succeeded for a few moments. It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a +genteel, agreeable-looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind +of discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either of the +others; and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from +Elizabeth, the conversation was carried on. Miss Darcy looked as if she +wished for courage enough to join in it; and sometimes did venture a +short sentence when there was least danger of its being heard. + +Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley, +and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without +calling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her +from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an +inconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity +of saying much. Her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every +moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room. She wished, she +feared that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether +she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After +sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour without hearing Miss +Bingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold +inquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal +indifference and brevity, and the other said no more. + +The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the +entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the +finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many +a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been +given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole +party--for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the +beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected +them round the table. + +While thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether +she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the +feelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but +a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to +regret that he came. + +He had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other +gentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him +only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to +Georgiana that morning. No sooner did he appear than Elizabeth wisely +resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed; a resolution the more +necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she +saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them, +and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour +when he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive +curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's, in spite of the +smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its +objects; for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions +to Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother's +entrance, exerted herself much more to talk, and Elizabeth saw that he +was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded +as much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side. Miss +Bingley saw all this likewise; and, in the imprudence of anger, took the +first opportunity of saying, with sneering civility: + +"Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the ----shire Militia removed from Meryton? +They must be a great loss to _your_ family." + +In Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name; but Elizabeth +instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts; and the +various recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress; +but exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill-natured attack, she +presently answered the question in a tolerably detached tone. While +she spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy, with a heightened +complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with +confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes. Had Miss Bingley known what +pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would +have refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose +Elizabeth by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed +her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in +Darcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies +and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected +with that corps. Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's +meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy +was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley's connections +her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from the very +wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming +hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan, and without +meaning that it should effect his endeavour to separate him from Miss +Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern +for the welfare of his friend. + +Elizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion; and +as Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to +Wickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able +to speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely +recollected her interest in the affair, and the very circumstance which +had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth seemed to have +fixed them on her more and more cheerfully. + +Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above +mentioned; and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage Miss +Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person, +behaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother's +recommendation was enough to ensure her favour; his judgement could not +err. And he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana +without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When +Darcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to +him some part of what she had been saying to his sister. + +"How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy," she +cried; "I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since +the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing +that we should not have known her again." + +However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented +himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than +her being rather tanned, no miraculous consequence of travelling in the +summer. + +"For my own part," she rejoined, "I must confess that I never could +see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no +brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose +wants character--there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are +tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, +which have sometimes been called so fine, I could never see anything +extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do +not like at all; and in her air altogether there is a self-sufficiency +without fashion, which is intolerable." + +Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not +the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always +wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the +success she expected. He was resolutely silent, however, and, from a +determination of making him speak, she continued: + +"I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all +were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect +your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, '_She_ +a beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she +seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at +one time." + +"Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but _that_ +was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have +considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance." + +He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of +having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself. + +Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their +visit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them +both. The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed, +except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked +of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit--of everything but +himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of +him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's +beginning the subject. + + + +Chapter 46 + + +Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from +Jane on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been +renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but +on the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the +receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that +it had been missent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as +Jane had written the direction remarkably ill. + +They had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and +her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by +themselves. The one missent must first be attended to; it had been +written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their +little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded; +but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident +agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect: + +"Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a +most unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you--be +assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia. +An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, +from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland +with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our +surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am +very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing +to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. +Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step +(and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is +disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. +Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How +thankful am I that we never let them know what has been said against +him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about +twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at +eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have +passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect +him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of +their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor +mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly +know what I have written." + +Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing +what she felt, Elizabeth on finishing this letter instantly seized the +other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it +had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first. + +"By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I +wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my +head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest +Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, +and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as the marriage between Mr. Wickham +and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has +taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone +to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the +day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short +letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna +Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. +never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was +repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B. +intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham, +but no further; for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney +coach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that +is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road. +I know not what to think. After making every possible inquiry on that +side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing +them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but +without any success--no such people had been seen to pass through. With +the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions +to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved +for him and Mrs. F., but no one can throw any blame on them. Our +distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the +worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make +it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue +their first plan; and even if _he_ could form such a design against a +young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose +her so lost to everything? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that +Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage; he shook his +head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to +be trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she +exert herself, it would be better; but this is not to be expected. And +as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has +anger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of +confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you +have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the +first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not +so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I +take up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not; but +circumstances are such that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to +come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well, +that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something +more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel +Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do I am sure +I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any +measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to +be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence, my +uncle's advice and assistance would be everything in the world; he will +immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness." + +"Oh! where, where is my uncle?" cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat +as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing +a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door it was +opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous +manner made him start, and before he could recover himself to speak, +she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation, +hastily exclaimed, "I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find +Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not +an instant to lose." + +"Good God! what is the matter?" cried he, with more feeling than +politeness; then recollecting himself, "I will not detain you a minute; +but let me, or let the servant go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are +not well enough; you cannot go yourself." + +Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her and she felt how +little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back +the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless +an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and +mistress home instantly. + +On his quitting the room she sat down, unable to support herself, and +looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, +or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, +"Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you +present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill." + +"No, I thank you," she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. "There +is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well; I am only distressed by +some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn." + +She burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could +not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say +something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate +silence. At length she spoke again. "I have just had a letter from Jane, +with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from anyone. My younger +sister has left all her friends--has eloped; has thrown herself into +the power of--of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. +_You_ know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no +connections, nothing that can tempt him to--she is lost for ever." + +Darcy was fixed in astonishment. "When I consider," she added in a yet +more agitated voice, "that I might have prevented it! I, who knew what +he was. Had I but explained some part of it only--some part of what I +learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not +have happened. But it is all--all too late now." + +"I am grieved indeed," cried Darcy; "grieved--shocked. But is it +certain--absolutely certain?" + +"Oh, yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced +almost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to +Scotland." + +"And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?" + +"My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's +immediate assistance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half-an-hour. But +nothing can be done--I know very well that nothing can be done. How is +such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have +not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!" + +Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. + +"When _my_ eyes were opened to his real character--Oh! had I known what +I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not--I was afraid of doing too +much. Wretched, wretched mistake!" + +Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking +up and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air +gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her +power was sinking; everything _must_ sink under such a proof of family +weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither +wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing +consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It +was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own +wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved +him, as now, when all love must be vain. + +But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia--the +humiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all, soon swallowed +up every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief, +Elizabeth was soon lost to everything else; and, after a pause of +several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by +the voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke +compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, "I am afraid you have been +long desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my +stay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that anything +could be either said or done on my part that might offer consolation to +such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may +seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I +fear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley +to-day." + +"Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that +urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as +long as it is possible, I know it cannot be long." + +He readily assured her of his secrecy; again expressed his sorrow for +her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present +reason to hope, and leaving his compliments for her relations, with only +one serious, parting look, went away. + +As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they +should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as +had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a +retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full +of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those +feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would +formerly have rejoiced in its termination. + +If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's +change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if +otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or +unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on +a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been +exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given +somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, +and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other +less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him +go with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must +produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched +business. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained +a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought, +could flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least +of her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first +letter remained in her mind, she was all surprise--all astonishment that +Wickham should marry a girl whom it was impossible he could marry +for money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared +incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment +as this she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose +Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement without the intention +of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue +nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey. + +She had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that +Lydia had any partiality for him; but she was convinced that Lydia +wanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one +officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions +raised them in her opinion. Her affections had continually been +fluctuating but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and +mistaken indulgence towards such a girl--oh! how acutely did she now +feel it! + +She was wild to be at home--to hear, to see, to be upon the spot to +share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a +family so deranged, a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and +requiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing +could be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost +importance, and till he entered the room her impatience was severe. Mr. +and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing by the servant's +account that their niece was taken suddenly ill; but satisfying them +instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their +summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript +of the last with trembling energy, though Lydia had never been a +favourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply +afflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the +first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner promised every +assistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked +him with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit, +everything relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to +be off as soon as possible. "But what is to be done about Pemberley?" +cried Mrs. Gardiner. "John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for +us; was it so?" + +"Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. +_That_ is all settled." + +"What is all settled?" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to +prepare. "And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real +truth? Oh, that I knew how it was!" + +But wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the +hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure +to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was +impossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of +business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to +be written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their +sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr. +Gardiner meanwhile having settled his account at the inn, nothing +remained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of +the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could +have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn. + + + +Chapter 47 + + +"I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth," said her uncle, as they +drove from the town; "and really, upon serious consideration, I am much +more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does on the +matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should +form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or +friendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel's family, that I +am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends +would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the +regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is +not adequate to the risk!" + +"Do you really think so?" cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment. + +"Upon my word," said Mrs. Gardiner, "I begin to be of your uncle's +opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and +interest, for him to be guilty of. I cannot think so very ill of +Wickham. Can you yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe +him capable of it?" + +"Not, perhaps, of neglecting his own interest; but of every other +neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I +dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland if that had been +the case?" + +"In the first place," replied Mr. Gardiner, "there is no absolute proof +that they are not gone to Scotland." + +"Oh! but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such +a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the +Barnet road." + +"Well, then--supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though +for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptional purpose. It is +not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it +might strike them that they could be more economically, though less +expeditiously, married in London than in Scotland." + +"But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their +marriage be private? Oh, no, no--this is not likely. His most particular +friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending +to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He +cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia--what attraction has she +beyond youth, health, and good humour that could make him, for her sake, +forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what +restraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a +dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know +nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your +other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has +no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's +behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever +seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that _he_ would +do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in +such a matter." + +"But can you think that Lydia is so lost to everything but love of him +as to consent to live with him on any terms other than marriage?" + +"It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed," replied Elizabeth, with +tears in her eyes, "that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such +a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. +Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never +been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half-year, +nay, for a twelvemonth--she has been given up to nothing but amusement +and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle +and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. +Since the ----shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, +flirtation, and officers have been in her head. She has been doing +everything in her power by thinking and talking on the subject, to give +greater--what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are +naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of +person and address that can captivate a woman." + +"But you see that Jane," said her aunt, "does not think so very ill of +Wickham as to believe him capable of the attempt." + +"Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be +their former conduct, that she would think capable of such an attempt, +till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what +Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every +sense of the word; that he has neither integrity nor honour; that he is +as false and deceitful as he is insinuating." + +"And do you really know all this?" cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity +as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive. + +"I do indeed," replied Elizabeth, colouring. "I told you, the other day, +of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you yourself, when last at +Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved +with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other +circumstances which I am not at liberty--which it is not worth while to +relate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From +what he said of Miss Darcy I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud, +reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He +must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found +her." + +"But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you +and Jane seem so well to understand?" + +"Oh, yes!--that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw +so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was +ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home, the ----shire +was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the +case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it +necessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could +it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion which all the +neighbourhood had of him should then be overthrown? And even when it was +settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening +her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That _she_ could be +in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a +consequence as _this_ could ensue, you may easily believe, was far +enough from my thoughts." + +"When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I +suppose, to believe them fond of each other?" + +"Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either +side; and had anything of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware +that ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first +he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all +were. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for +the first two months; but he never distinguished _her_ by any particular +attention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and +wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment, +who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites." + + * * * * * + +It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added +to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by +its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during +the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. +Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find +no interval of ease or forgetfulness. + +They travelled as expeditiously as possible, and, sleeping one night +on the road, reached Longbourn by dinner time the next day. It was a +comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied +by long expectations. + +The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing +on the steps of the house as they entered the paddock; and, when the +carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their +faces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of +capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome. + +Elizabeth jumped out; and, after giving each of them a hasty kiss, +hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down from her +mother's apartment, immediately met her. + +Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the +eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether anything had been +heard of the fugitives. + +"Not yet," replied Jane. "But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope +everything will be well." + +"Is my father in town?" + +"Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word." + +"And have you heard from him often?" + +"We have heard only twice. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday to say +that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I +particularly begged him to do. He merely added that he should not write +again till he had something of importance to mention." + +"And my mother--how is she? How are you all?" + +"My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly +shaken. She is up stairs and will have great satisfaction in seeing you +all. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank +Heaven, are quite well." + +"But you--how are you?" cried Elizabeth. "You look pale. How much you +must have gone through!" + +Her sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well; and their +conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were +engaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach +of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and +thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears. + +When they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth +had already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon +found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of +good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested had not yet +deserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that +every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father, +to explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce their marriage. + +Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes' +conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with +tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villainous +conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill-usage; +blaming everybody but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the +errors of her daughter must principally be owing. + +"If I had been able," said she, "to carry my point in going to Brighton, +with all my family, _this_ would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia +had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out +of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their +side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing if she had been +well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the +charge of her; but I was overruled, as I always am. Poor dear child! +And now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, +wherever he meets him and then he will be killed, and what is to become +of us all? The Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his +grave, and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we +shall do." + +They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after +general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her +that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr. +Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia. + +"Do not give way to useless alarm," added he; "though it is right to be +prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. +It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more we +may gain some news of them; and till we know that they are not married, +and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as +lost. As soon as I get to town I shall go to my brother, and make +him come home with me to Gracechurch Street; and then we may consult +together as to what is to be done." + +"Oh! my dear brother," replied Mrs. Bennet, "that is exactly what I +could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out, +wherever they may be; and if they are not married already, _make_ them +marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but +tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them, +after they are married. And, above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. +Tell him what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my +wits--and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me--such +spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that +I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to +give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does +not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I +know you will contrive it all." + +But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours +in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well +in her hopes as her fear; and after talking with her in this manner till +dinner was on the table, they all left her to vent all her feelings on +the housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters. + +Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real +occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to +oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her +tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it +better that _one_ only of the household, and the one whom they could +most trust should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the +subject. + +In the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been +too busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance +before. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The +faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible +in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger +which she had herself incurred in this business, had given more of +fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was +mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance +of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table: + +"This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. +But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of +each other the balm of sisterly consolation." + +Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, +"Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful +lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one +false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less +brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in +her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex." + +Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed +to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such +kind of moral extractions from the evil before them. + +In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for +half-an-hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of +the opportunity of making any inquiries, which Jane was equally eager to +satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel +of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss +Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued +the subject, by saying, "But tell me all and everything about it which +I have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel +Forster say? Had they no apprehension of anything before the elopement +took place? They must have seen them together for ever." + +"Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, +especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so +grieved for him! His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He +_was_ coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had +any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension +first got abroad, it hastened his journey." + +"And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of +their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?" + +"Yes; but, when questioned by _him_, Denny denied knowing anything of +their plans, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not +repeat his persuasion of their not marrying--and from _that_, I am +inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before." + +"And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a +doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?" + +"How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt +a little uneasy--a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him +in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite +right. My father and mother knew nothing of that; they only felt how +imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural +triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter +she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their +being in love with each other, many weeks." + +"But not before they went to Brighton?" + +"No, I believe not." + +"And did Colonel Forster appear to think well of Wickham himself? Does +he know his real character?" + +"I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly +did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad +affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt; +but I hope this may be false." + +"Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, +this could not have happened!" + +"Perhaps it would have been better," replied her sister. "But to expose +the former faults of any person without knowing what their present +feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions." + +"Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his +wife?" + +"He brought it with him for us to see." + +Jane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These +were the contents: + +"MY DEAR HARRIET, + +"You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help +laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am +missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, +I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I +love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think +it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my +going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, +when I write to them and sign my name 'Lydia Wickham.' What a good joke +it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to +Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. +Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all; and tell him I will +dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall +send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell +Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are +packed up. Good-bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will +drink to our good journey. + +"Your affectionate friend, + +"LYDIA BENNET." + +"Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!" cried Elizabeth when she had +finished it. "What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment! +But at least it shows that _she_ was serious on the subject of their +journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her +side a _scheme_ of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!" + +"I never saw anyone so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten +minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in +such confusion!" + +"Oh! Jane," cried Elizabeth, "was there a servant belonging to it who +did not know the whole story before the end of the day?" + +"I do not know. I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is +very difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to +give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so +much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen +almost took from me my faculties." + +"Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look +well. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety +upon yourself alone." + +"Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every +fatigue, I am sure; but I did not think it right for either of them. +Kitty is slight and delicate; and Mary studies so much, that her hours +of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Phillips came to Longbourn +on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till +Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all. And +Lady Lucas has been very kind; she walked here on Wednesday morning to +condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters', if +they should be of use to us." + +"She had better have stayed at home," cried Elizabeth; "perhaps she +_meant_ well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see +too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence +insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied." + +She then proceeded to inquire into the measures which her father had +intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter. + +"He meant I believe," replied Jane, "to go to Epsom, the place where +they last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anything could +be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the +number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come +with a fare from London; and as he thought that the circumstance of a +gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another might +be remarked he meant to make inquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow +discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he +determined to make inquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible +to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any +other designs that he had formed; but he was in such a hurry to be gone, +and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding +out even so much as this." + + + +Chapter 48 + + +The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next +morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. +His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and +dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion. +They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to +send; but even of _that_ they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. +Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off. + +When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant +information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting, +to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could, +to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only +security for her husband's not being killed in a duel. + +Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few +days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable +to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a +great comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also +visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of +cheering and heartening them up--though, as she never came without +reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, +she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found +them. + +All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months +before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt +to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with +the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family. +Everybody declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world; +and everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted the +appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above +half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of +her sister's ruin more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less +of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come +when, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely +despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of +them. + +Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday his wife received a +letter from him; it told them that, on his arrival, he had immediately +found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street; +that Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival, +but without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now +determined to inquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet +thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first +coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself +did not expect any success from this measure, but as his brother was +eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added that Mr. +Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London and promised +to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect: + +"I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if +possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment, +whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to +know in what part of town he has now concealed himself. If there were +anyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a +clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have +nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in +his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps, +Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, better than any +other person." + +Elizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference to her +authority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information +of so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved. She had never +heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both +of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of +his companions in the ----shire might be able to give more information; +and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application +was a something to look forward to. + +Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious +part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters +was the grand object of every morning's impatience. Through letters, +whatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every +succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance. + +But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for +their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane +had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence, +she accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his +letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as +follows: + +"MY DEAR SIR, + +"I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation +in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now +suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from +Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself +sincerely sympathise with you and all your respectable family, in +your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because +proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be +wanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortune--or that +may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others the +most afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would +have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to +be lamented, because there is reason to suppose as my dear Charlotte +informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has +proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time, +for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think +that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be +guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, +you are grievously to be pitied; in which opinion I am not only joined +by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to +whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that +this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of +all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, +will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads +me moreover to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event +of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved +in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, dear sir, to +console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child +from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her +own heinous offense. + +"I am, dear sir, etc., etc." + +Mr. Gardiner did not write again till he had received an answer from +Colonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send. +It was not known that Wickham had a single relationship with whom he +kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one +living. His former acquaintances had been numerous; but since he +had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of +particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore, +who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the +wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for +secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations, for +it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a +very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a +thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton. +He owed a good deal in town, but his debts of honour were still more +formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars +from the Longbourn family. Jane heard them with horror. "A gamester!" +she cried. "This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it." + +Mr. Gardiner added in his letter, that they might expect to see their +father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered +spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded +to his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and +leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable +for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did +not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering +what her anxiety for his life had been before. + +"What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?" she cried. "Sure he +will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, +and make him marry her, if he comes away?" + +As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she +and the children should go to London, at the same time that Mr. Bennet +came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their +journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn. + +Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her +Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His +name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and +the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their +being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had +received none since her return that could come from Pemberley. + +The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for +the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be +fairly conjectured from _that_, though Elizabeth, who was by this time +tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware +that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of +Lydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought, +one sleepless night out of two. + +When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual +philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the +habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him +away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of +it. + +It was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that +Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly +expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, "Say +nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, +and I ought to feel it." + +"You must not be too severe upon yourself," replied Elizabeth. + +"You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone +to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have +been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. +It will pass away soon enough." + +"Do you suppose them to be in London?" + +"Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?" + +"And Lydia used to want to go to London," added Kitty. + +"She is happy then," said her father drily; "and her residence there +will probably be of some duration." + +Then after a short silence he continued: + +"Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me +last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind." + +They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's +tea. + +"This is a parade," he cried, "which does one good; it gives such an +elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my +library, in my nightcap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as +I can; or, perhaps, I may defer it till Kitty runs away." + +"I am not going to run away, papa," said Kitty fretfully. "If I should +ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia." + +"_You_ go to Brighton. I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne +for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and +you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter into +my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be +absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters. +And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have +spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner." + +Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry. + +"Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good +girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of +them." + + + +Chapter 49 + + +Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking +together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper +coming towards them, and, concluding that she came to call them to their +mother, went forward to meet her; but, instead of the expected summons, +when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, "I beg your pardon, +madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some +good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask." + +"What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town." + +"Dear madam," cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, "don't you know +there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here +this half-hour, and master has had a letter." + +Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They +ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the +library; their father was in neither; and they were on the point of +seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the +butler, who said: + +"If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the +little copse." + +Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once +more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately +pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock. + +Jane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as +Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, +came up with him, and eagerly cried out: + +"Oh, papa, what news--what news? Have you heard from my uncle?" + +"Yes I have had a letter from him by express." + +"Well, and what news does it bring--good or bad?" + +"What is there of good to be expected?" said he, taking the letter from +his pocket. "But perhaps you would like to read it." + +Elizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up. + +"Read it aloud," said their father, "for I hardly know myself what it is +about." + +"Gracechurch Street, Monday, August 2. + +"MY DEAR BROTHER, + +"At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, +upon the whole, I hope it will give you satisfaction. Soon after you +left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of +London they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet; it is enough +to know they are discovered. I have seen them both--" + +"Then it is as I always hoped," cried Jane; "they are married!" + +Elizabeth read on: + +"I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there +was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the +engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will +not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure +to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand +pounds secured among your children after the decease of yourself and +my sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, +during your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions +which, considering everything, I had no hesitation in complying with, +as far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by +express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You +will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's +circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be. +The world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say there +will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to +settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude +will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout +the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to +Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the +smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quiet at +Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as +fast as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it +best that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope +you will approve. She comes to us to-day. I shall write again as soon as +anything more is determined on. Yours, etc., + +"EDW. GARDINER." + +"Is it possible?" cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. "Can it be +possible that he will marry her?" + +"Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we thought him," said her +sister. "My dear father, I congratulate you." + +"And have you answered the letter?" cried Elizabeth. + +"No; but it must be done soon." + +Most earnestly did she then entreaty him to lose no more time before he +wrote. + +"Oh! my dear father," she cried, "come back and write immediately. +Consider how important every moment is in such a case." + +"Let me write for you," said Jane, "if you dislike the trouble +yourself." + +"I dislike it very much," he replied; "but it must be done." + +And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house. + +"And may I ask--" said Elizabeth; "but the terms, I suppose, must be +complied with." + +"Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little." + +"And they _must_ marry! Yet he is _such_ a man!" + +"Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there +are two things that I want very much to know; one is, how much money +your uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how am I ever +to pay him." + +"Money! My uncle!" cried Jane, "what do you mean, sir?" + +"I mean, that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a +temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am +gone." + +"That is very true," said Elizabeth; "though it had not occurred to me +before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh! +it must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has +distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this." + +"No," said her father; "Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing +less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him, +in the very beginning of our relationship." + +"Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be +repaid?" + +Mr. Bennet made no answer, and each of them, deep in thought, continued +silent till they reached the house. Their father then went on to the +library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room. + +"And they are really to be married!" cried Elizabeth, as soon as they +were by themselves. "How strange this is! And for _this_ we are to be +thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, +and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice. Oh, Lydia!" + +"I comfort myself with thinking," replied Jane, "that he certainly would +not marry Lydia if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind +uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten +thousand pounds, or anything like it, has been advanced. He has children +of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand +pounds?" + +"If he were ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been," said +Elizabeth, "and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall +exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has +not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never +be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal +protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as +years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is +actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now, +she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she +first sees my aunt!" + +"We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side," said +Jane: "I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to +marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of +thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself +they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in +time make their past imprudence forgotten." + +"Their conduct has been such," replied Elizabeth, "as neither you, nor +I, nor anybody can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it." + +It now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood +perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library, +therefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make +it known to her. He was writing and, without raising his head, coolly +replied: + +"Just as you please." + +"May we take my uncle's letter to read to her?" + +"Take whatever you like, and get away." + +Elizabeth took the letter from his writing-table, and they went up stairs +together. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication +would, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news, +the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As +soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon +married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its +exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she +had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter +would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her +felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct. + +"My dear, dear Lydia!" she cried. "This is delightful indeed! She will +be married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen! +My good, kind brother! I knew how it would be. I knew he would manage +everything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the +clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about +them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him +how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, +Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear +Lydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet!" + +Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of +these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr. +Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under. + +"For we must attribute this happy conclusion," she added, "in a great +measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to +assist Mr. Wickham with money." + +"Well," cried her mother, "it is all very right; who should do it but +her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children +must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have +ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy! +In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well +it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in +such a flutter, that I am sure I can't write; so I will dictate, and +you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money +afterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately." + +She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and +cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had +not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her +father was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay, she observed, +would be of small importance; and her mother was too happy to be quite +so obstinate as usual. Other schemes, too, came into her head. + +"I will go to Meryton," said she, "as soon as I am dressed, and tell the +good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call +on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage. +An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do +anything for you in Meryton? Oh! Here comes Hill! My dear Hill, have you +heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall +all have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding." + +Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her +congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took +refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom. + +Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was +no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in +looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could +be justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had +feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had +gained. + + + +Chapter 50 + + +Mr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that, +instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for +the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived +him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that +respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever +of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of +prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be +her husband might then have rested in its proper place. + +He was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to anyone +should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother-in-law, and he +was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance, +and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could. + +When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly +useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join +in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow +and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters +successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. +Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he +would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then +too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her +husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their +income. + +Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and +the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the +latter depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with +regard to Lydia, at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet +could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In +terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, +though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect +approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the +engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed +that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would +be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present +arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser by the +hundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket +allowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her +through her mother's hands, Lydia's expenses had been very little within +that sum. + +That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was +another very welcome surprise; for his wish at present was to have as +little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports +of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he +naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon +dispatched; for, though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick +in its execution. He begged to know further particulars of what he +was indebted to his brother, but was too angry with Lydia to send any +message to her. + +The good news spread quickly through the house, and with proportionate +speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent +philosophy. To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage +of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the +happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant +farmhouse. But there was much to be talked of in marrying her; and the +good-natured wishes for her well-doing which had proceeded before from +all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton lost but a little of their spirit +in this change of circumstances, because with such an husband her misery +was considered certain. + +It was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been downstairs; but on this +happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in +spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her +triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object +of her wishes since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of +accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those +attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and +servants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a +proper situation for her daughter, and, without knowing or considering +what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and +importance. + +"Haye Park might do," said she, "if the Gouldings could quit it--or the +great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is +too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for +Pulvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful." + +Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption while the +servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her: "Mrs. +Bennet, before you take any or all of these houses for your son and +daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in this +neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the +impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn." + +A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm. It +soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, +that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his +daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of +affection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend +it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable +resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege without which her +marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all she could believe +possible. She was more alive to the disgrace which her want of new +clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of +shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they +took place. + +Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of +the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for +her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the +proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its +unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the +spot. + +She had no fear of its spreading farther through his means. There were +few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended; +but, at the same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's +frailty would have mortified her so much--not, however, from any fear +of disadvantage from it individually to herself, for, at any rate, +there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been +concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that +Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other +objection, would now be added an alliance and relationship of the +nearest kind with a man whom he so justly scorned. + +From such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The +wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his +feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a +blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she +hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no +longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there +seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that +she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they +should meet. + +What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the +proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now +have been most gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she +doubted not, as the most generous of his sex; but while he was mortal, +there must be a triumph. + +She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in +disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and +temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It +was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease +and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; +and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she +must have received benefit of greater importance. + +But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what +connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and +precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their +family. + +How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, +she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could +belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions +were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet's +acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurance of his eagerness to +promote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with entreaties +that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal +purport of his letter was to inform them that Mr. Wickham had resolved +on quitting the militia. + +"It was greatly my wish that he should do so," he added, "as soon as +his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in +considering the removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on +his account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into +the regulars; and among his former friends, there are still some who +are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an +ensigncy in General ----'s regiment, now quartered in the North. It +is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He +promises fairly; and I hope among different people, where they may each +have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have +written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements, +and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham +in and near Brighton, with assurances of speedy payment, for which I +have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying +similar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin +a list according to his information? He has given in all his debts; I +hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions, +and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment, +unless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs. +Gardiner, that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she +leaves the South. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to +you and your mother.--Yours, etc., + +"E. GARDINER." + +Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal +from the ----shire as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet +was not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the North, +just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company, +for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in +Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and, besides, it was such a +pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted +with everybody, and had so many favourites. + +"She is so fond of Mrs. Forster," said she, "it will be quite shocking +to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she +likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General ----'s +regiment." + +His daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being +admitted into her family again before she set off for the North, +received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth, +who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and +consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents, +urged him so earnestly yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her +and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was +prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their +mother had the satisfaction of knowing that she would be able to show +her married daughter in the neighbourhood before she was banished to the +North. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent +his permission for them to come; and it was settled, that as soon as +the ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was +surprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme, and +had she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would +have been the last object of her wishes. + + + +Chapter 51 + + +Their sister's wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her +probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to +meet them at ----, and they were to return in it by dinner-time. Their +arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets, and Jane more especially, +who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had she +been the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister +must endure. + +They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room to receive +them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet as the carriage drove up to +the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed, +anxious, uneasy. + +Lydia's voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and +she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and +welcomed her with rapture; gave her hand, with an affectionate smile, +to Wickham, who followed his lady; and wished them both joy with an +alacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness. + +Their reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite +so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely +opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was +enough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet +was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, +and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their +congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly +round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and +observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been +there. + +Wickham was not at all more distressed than herself, but his manners +were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been +exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he +claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had +not before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down, +resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence +of an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the +two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour. + +There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither +of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near +Elizabeth, began inquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, +with a good humoured ease which she felt very unable to equal in her +replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the +world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led +voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for +the world. + +"Only think of its being three months," she cried, "since I went away; +it seems but a fortnight I declare; and yet there have been things +enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure +I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I +thought it would be very good fun if I was." + +Her father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked +expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of +which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, "Oh! mamma, do the +people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; +and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he +should know it, and so I let down the side-glass next to him, and took +off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that +he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything." + +Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; +and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to +the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with +anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say +to her eldest sister, "Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go +lower, because I am a married woman." + +It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment +from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good +spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Phillips, the Lucases, and +all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called "Mrs. Wickham" +by each of them; and in the mean time, she went after dinner to show her +ring, and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids. + +"Well, mamma," said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast +room, "and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I +am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half +my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get +husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go." + +"Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don't +at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?" + +"Oh, lord! yes;--there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all +things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We +shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some +balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all." + +"I should like it beyond anything!" said her mother. + +"And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters +behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the +winter is over." + +"I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not +particularly like your way of getting husbands." + +Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham +had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join +his regiment at the end of a fortnight. + +No one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short; and +she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and +having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to +all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did +think, than such as did not. + +Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected +to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her +present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that +their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather +than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring +for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain +that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and +if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity +of having a companion. + +Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every +occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every +thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on +the first of September, than any body else in the country. + +One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two +elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth: + +"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You +were not by, when I told mamma and the others all about it. Are not you +curious to hear how it was managed?" + +"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said +on the subject." + +"La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were +married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in +that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven +o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others +were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in +such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to +put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was +my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as +if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in +ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed +to know whether he would be married in his blue coat." + +"Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never +be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt +were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe +me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a +fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or anything. To be sure London was +rather thin, but, however, the Little Theatre was open. Well, and so +just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon +business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once +they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I +did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we +were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he +came back again in ten minutes' time, and then we all set out. However, +I recollected afterwards that if he had been prevented going, the +wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well." + +"Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. + +"Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious +me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised +them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!" + +"If it was to be secret," said Jane, "say not another word on the +subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further." + +"Oh! certainly," said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; "we will +ask you no questions." + +"Thank you," said Lydia, "for if you did, I should certainly tell you +all, and then Wickham would be angry." + +On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her +power, by running away. + +But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least +it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at +her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, +where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go. +Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her +brain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as +placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She +could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, +wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what +Lydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been +intended. + +"You may readily comprehend," she added, "what my curiosity must be +to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively +speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such +a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it--unless it is, +for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems +to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with +ignorance." + +"Not that I _shall_, though," she added to herself, as she finished +the letter; "and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable +manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it +out." + +Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to +Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad +of it;--till it appeared whether her inquiries would receive any +satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante. + + + +Chapter 52 + + +Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as +soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it +than, hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to +be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to +be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not +contain a denial. + +"Gracechurch street, Sept. 6. + +"MY DEAR NIECE, + +"I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning +to answering it, as I foresee that a _little_ writing will not comprise +what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your +application; I did not expect it from _you_. Don't think me angry, +however, for I only mean to let you know that I had not imagined such +inquiries to be necessary on _your_ side. If you do not choose to +understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised +as I am--and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned +would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really +innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. + +"On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most +unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several +hours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so +dreadfully racked as _yours_ seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. +Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, +and that he had seen and talked with them both; Wickham repeatedly, +Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day +after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for +them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to +himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known as to +make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide +in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and +confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private +actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He +called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy +an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he _had another_ +motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days +in town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to +direct his search, which was more than _we_ had; and the consciousness +of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. + +"There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago +governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause +of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large +house in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting +lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with +Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to +town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he +wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and +corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. +Wickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had +she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up +their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the +wished-for direction. They were in ---- street. He saw Wickham, and +afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he +acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful +situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed +on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But +he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared +for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear +of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or +other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, +it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, +in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never +been _his_ design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment, +on account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing; and +scrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia's flight on her +own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as +to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He +must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have +nothing to live on. + +"Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once. Though +Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able +to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by +marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still +cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage in +some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely +to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. + +"They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham of +course wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be +reasonable. + +"Every thing being settled between _them_, Mr. Darcy's next step was to +make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch +street the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be +seen, and Mr. Darcy found, on further inquiry, that your father was +still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge +your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your +uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the +departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next +day it was only known that a gentleman had called on business. + +"On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home, +and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together. + +"They met again on Sunday, and then _I_ saw him too. It was not all +settled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to +Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that +obstinacy is the real defect of his character, after all. He has been +accused of many faults at different times, but _this_ is the true one. +Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and +I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it), your +uncle would most readily have settled the whole. + +"They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either +the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle +was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his +niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it, +which went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter +this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation +that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where +it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no farther than yourself, or Jane +at most. + +"You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young +people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably +more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own +settled upon _her_, and his commission purchased. The reason why all +this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It +was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that +Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he +had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth +in _this_; though I doubt whether _his_ reserve, or _anybody's_ reserve, +can be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking, +my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would +never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for _another +interest_ in the affair. + +"When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who +were still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in +London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were +then to receive the last finish. + +"I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which +you tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not +afford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us; and Wickham had constant +admission to the house. _He_ was exactly what he had been, when I +knew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was +satisfied with her behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not +perceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming +home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell +you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most +serious manner, representing to her all the wickedness of what she had +done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she +heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was +sometimes quite provoked, but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and +Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her. + +"Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and as Lydia informed you, +attended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave +town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my +dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold +enough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has, +in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His +understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little +more liveliness, and _that_, if he marry _prudently_, his wife may teach +him. I thought him very sly;--he hardly ever mentioned your name. But +slyness seems the fashion. + +"Pray forgive me if I have been very presuming, or at least do not +punish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy +till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little +pair of ponies, would be the very thing. + +"But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half +hour. + +"Yours, very sincerely, + +"M. GARDINER." + +The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits, +in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the +greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had +produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's +match, which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too +great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the +pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true! +He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all +the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which +supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and +despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason +with, persuade, and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to +avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had +done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her +heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly +checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity +was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her--for +a woman who had already refused him--as able to overcome a sentiment so +natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law +of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had, +to be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had +given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary +stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been +wrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and +though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she +could, perhaps, believe that remaining partiality for her might assist +his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially +concerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were +under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They +owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing, to him. Oh! +how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever +encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For +herself she was humbled; but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause +of compassion and honour, he had been able to get the better of himself. +She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It +was hardly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some +pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she +and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted +between Mr. Darcy and herself. + +She was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by some one's +approach; and before she could strike into another path, she was +overtaken by Wickham. + +"I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?" said he, +as he joined her. + +"You certainly do," she replied with a smile; "but it does not follow +that the interruption must be unwelcome." + +"I should be sorry indeed, if it were. We were always good friends; and +now we are better." + +"True. Are the others coming out?" + +"I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to +Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that +you have actually seen Pemberley." + +She replied in the affirmative. + +"I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much +for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the +old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of +me. But of course she did not mention my name to you." + +"Yes, she did." + +"And what did she say?" + +"That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had--not turned +out well. At such a distance as _that_, you know, things are strangely +misrepresented." + +"Certainly," he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had +silenced him; but he soon afterwards said: + +"I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other +several times. I wonder what he can be doing there." + +"Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh," said +Elizabeth. "It must be something particular, to take him there at this +time of year." + +"Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I +understood from the Gardiners that you had." + +"Yes; he introduced us to his sister." + +"And do you like her?" + +"Very much." + +"I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year +or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad +you liked her. I hope she will turn out well." + +"I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age." + +"Did you go by the village of Kympton?" + +"I do not recollect that we did." + +"I mention it, because it is the living which I ought to have had. A +most delightful place!--Excellent Parsonage House! It would have suited +me in every respect." + +"How should you have liked making sermons?" + +"Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, +and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to +repine;--but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The +quiet, the retirement of such a life would have answered all my ideas +of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the +circumstance, when you were in Kent?" + +"I have heard from authority, which I thought _as good_, that it was +left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron." + +"You have. Yes, there was something in _that_; I told you so from the +first, you may remember." + +"I _did_ hear, too, that there was a time, when sermon-making was not +so palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually +declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business +had been compromised accordingly." + +"You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember +what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it." + +They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast +to get rid of him; and unwilling, for her sister's sake, to provoke him, +she only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile: + +"Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let +us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one +mind." + +She held out her hand; he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though +he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house. + + + +Chapter 53 + + +Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he +never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, +by introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she +had said enough to keep him quiet. + +The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was +forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means +entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to +continue at least a twelvemonth. + +"Oh! my dear Lydia," she cried, "when shall we meet again?" + +"Oh, lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps." + +"Write to me very often, my dear." + +"As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for +writing. My sisters may write to _me_. They will have nothing else to +do." + +Mr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He +smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things. + +"He is as fine a fellow," said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of +the house, "as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to +us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas +himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law." + +The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days. + +"I often think," said she, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with +one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them." + +"This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter," said +Elizabeth. "It must make you better satisfied that your other four are +single." + +"It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married, +but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If +that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon." + +But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly +relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an +article of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper +at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her +master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several +weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and +smiled and shook her head by turns. + +"Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister," (for Mrs. +Phillips first brought her the news). "Well, so much the better. Not +that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am +sure _I_ never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome +to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what _may_ happen? +But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to +mention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?" + +"You may depend on it," replied the other, "for Mrs. Nicholls was in +Meryton last night; I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose +to know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certain true. He +comes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was +going to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on +Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed." + +Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing +colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to +Elizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said: + +"I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present +report; and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from +any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that +I _should_ be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect +me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes +alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of +_myself_, but I dread other people's remarks." + +Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in +Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no +other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial +to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming +there _with_ his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come +without it. + +"Yet it is hard," she sometimes thought, "that this poor man cannot +come to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this +speculation! I _will_ leave him to himself." + +In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her +feelings in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily +perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, +more unequal, than she had often seen them. + +The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, +about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again. + +"As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "you +will wait on him of course." + +"No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I +went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in +nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again." + +His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention +would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to +Netherfield. + +"'Tis an etiquette I despise," said he. "If he wants our society, +let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours +in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back +again." + +"Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait +on him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I +am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will +make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for +him." + +Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her +husband's incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her +neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley, in consequence of it, before +_they_ did. As the day of his arrival drew near,-- + +"I begin to be sorry that he comes at all," said Jane to her sister. "It +would be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can +hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well; +but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she +says. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!" + +"I wish I could say anything to comfort you," replied Elizabeth; "but it +is wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction +of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have +always so much." + +Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, +contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety +and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted +the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent; +hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his +arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him, from her dressing-room window, +enter the paddock and ride towards the house. + +Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely +kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went +to the window--she looked,--she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down +again by her sister. + +"There is a gentleman with him, mamma," said Kitty; "who can it be?" + +"Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not +know." + +"La!" replied Kitty, "it looks just like that man that used to be with +him before. Mr. what's-his-name. That tall, proud man." + +"Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!--and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of +Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must +say that I hate the very sight of him." + +Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little +of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness +which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time +after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable +enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their +mother talked on, of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be +civil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either +of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be +suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs. +Gardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him. +To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, +and whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive +information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted +for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an +interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as +what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming--at his +coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, +was almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered +behaviour in Derbyshire. + +The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a +minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to +her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and +wishes must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure. + +"Let me first see how he behaves," said she; "it will then be early +enough for expectation." + +She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to +lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of +her sister as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little +paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the +gentlemen's appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with +tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any +symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance. + +Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down +again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She +had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as usual; and, +she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as +she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother's +presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but +not an improbable, conjecture. + +Bingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period +saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. +Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed, +especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of +her curtsey and address to his friend. + +Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter +the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, +was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill +applied. + +Darcy, after inquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question +which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely anything. He +was not seated by her; perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but +it had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends, +when he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed without +bringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist +the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often +found him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but +the ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when +they last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry +with herself for being so. + +"Could I expect it to be otherwise!" said she. "Yet why did he come?" + +She was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself; and to +him she had hardly courage to speak. + +She inquired after his sister, but could do no more. + +"It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away," said Mrs. Bennet. + +He readily agreed to it. + +"I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People _did_ say +you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope +it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood, +since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my +own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have +seen it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know; +though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately, +George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a +syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or anything. +It was my brother Gardiner's drawing up too, and I wonder how he came to +make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?" + +Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth +dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could +not tell. + +"It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married," +continued her mother, "but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very +hard to have her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to +Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay +I do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have +heard of his leaving the ----shire, and of his being gone into the +regulars. Thank Heaven! he has _some_ friends, though perhaps not so +many as he deserves." + +Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such +misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, +however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually +done before; and she asked Bingley whether he meant to make any stay in +the country at present. A few weeks, he believed. + +"When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley," said her mother, +"I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr. +Bennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and +will save all the best of the covies for you." + +Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious +attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present as had +flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be +hastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant, she felt +that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for +moments of such painful confusion. + +"The first wish of my heart," said she to herself, "is never more to +be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure +that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either +one or the other again!" + +Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no +compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing +how much the beauty of her sister re-kindled the admiration of her +former lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little; +but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He +found her as handsome as she had been last year; as good natured, and +as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no +difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded +that she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busily engaged, +that she did not always know when she was silent. + +When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her +intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at +Longbourn in a few days time. + +"You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley," she added, "for when +you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with +us, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure +you, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep +your engagement." + +Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of +his concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away. + +Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine +there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did +not think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man +on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride +of one who had ten thousand a year. + + + +Chapter 54 + + +As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits; +or in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that +must deaden them more. Mr. Darcy's behaviour astonished and vexed her. + +"Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent," said she, +"did he come at all?" + +She could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure. + +"He could be still amiable, still pleasing, to my uncle and aunt, when +he was in town; and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If +he no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing, man! I will +think no more about him." + +Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach +of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look, which showed her +better satisfied with their visitors, than Elizabeth. + +"Now," said she, "that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly +easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by +his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly +seen that, on both sides, we meet only as common and indifferent +acquaintance." + +"Yes, very indifferent indeed," said Elizabeth, laughingly. "Oh, Jane, +take care." + +"My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak, as to be in danger now?" + +"I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with +you as ever." + + * * * * * + +They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in +the meanwhile, was giving way to all the happy schemes, which the good +humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour's visit, had +revived. + +On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two +who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality +as sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the +dining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take +the place, which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by +her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore +to invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to +hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was +decided. He placed himself by her. + +Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend. +He bore it with noble indifference, and she would have imagined that +Bingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes +likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of half-laughing +alarm. + +His behaviour to her sister was such, during dinner time, as showed an +admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded +Elizabeth, that if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his +own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the +consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It +gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in +no cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table +could divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little +such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to +advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse, but +she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and +cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother's ungraciousness, +made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth's mind; +and she would, at times, have given anything to be privileged to tell +him that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the +family. + +She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of +bringing them together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away +without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation than +the mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance. Anxious +and uneasy, the period which passed in the drawing-room, before the +gentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her +uncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all +her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend. + +"If he does not come to me, _then_," said she, "I shall give him up for +ever." + +The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if he would have +answered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table, +where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee, +in so close a confederacy that there was not a single vacancy near her +which would admit of a chair. And on the gentlemen's approaching, one of +the girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper: + +"The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; +do we?" + +Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with +her eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough +to help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for +being so silly! + +"A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to +expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex, who would not +protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? +There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!" + +She was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup +himself; and she seized the opportunity of saying: + +"Is your sister at Pemberley still?" + +"Yes, she will remain there till Christmas." + +"And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?" + +"Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarborough, +these three weeks." + +She could think of nothing more to say; but if he wished to converse +with her, he might have better success. He stood by her, however, for +some minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the young lady's whispering +to Elizabeth again, he walked away. + +When the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed, the ladies +all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him, +when all her views were overthrown by seeing him fall a victim to her +mother's rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated +with the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure. +They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had +nothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side +of the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself. + +Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to +supper; but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the +others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them. + +"Well girls," said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, "What +say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, +I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The +venison was roasted to a turn--and everybody said they never saw so +fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the +Lucases' last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges +were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French +cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater +beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And +what do you think she said besides? 'Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her +at Netherfield at last.' She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good +a creature as ever lived--and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, +and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously." + +Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits; she had seen enough of +Bingley's behaviour to Jane, to be convinced that she would get him at +last; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy +humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at +not seeing him there again the next day, to make his proposals. + +"It has been a very agreeable day," said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth. "The +party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we +may often meet again." + +Elizabeth smiled. + +"Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me. +I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an +agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am +perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had +any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed +with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally +pleasing, than any other man." + +"You are very cruel," said her sister, "you will not let me smile, and +are provoking me to it every moment." + +"How hard it is in some cases to be believed!" + +"And how impossible in others!" + +"But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I +acknowledge?" + +"That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to +instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive +me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante." + + + +Chapter 55 + + +A few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone. His +friend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in +ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably +good spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many +expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere. + +"Next time you call," said she, "I hope we shall be more lucky." + +He should be particularly happy at any time, etc. etc.; and if she would +give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them. + +"Can you come to-morrow?" + +Yes, he had no engagement at all for to-morrow; and her invitation was +accepted with alacrity. + +He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them +dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing +gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out: + +"My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come--Mr. Bingley is +come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss +Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss +Lizzy's hair." + +"We will be down as soon as we can," said Jane; "but I dare say Kitty is +forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago." + +"Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick! +Where is your sash, my dear?" + +But when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down +without one of her sisters. + +The same anxiety to get them by themselves was visible again in the +evening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his +custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of +the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at +Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any +impression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last +Kitty did, she very innocently said, "What is the matter mamma? What do +you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?" + +"Nothing child, nothing. I did not wink at you." She then sat still +five minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she +suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, "Come here, my love, I want to +speak to you," took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look +at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her +entreaty that _she_ would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. +Bennet half-opened the door and called out: + +"Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you." + +Elizabeth was forced to go. + +"We may as well leave them by themselves you know;" said her mother, as +soon as she was in the hall. "Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in +my dressing-room." + +Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained +quietly in the hall, till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned +into the drawing-room. + +Mrs. Bennet's schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was every +thing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His +ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their +evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the +mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command +of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter. + +He scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper; and before he went +away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. +Bennet's means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband. + +After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed +between the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in +the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy +returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably +persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman's +concurrence. + +Bingley was punctual to his appointment; and he and Mr. Bennet spent +the morning together, as had been agreed on. The latter was much more +agreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption +or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into +silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the +other had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner; +and in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get +every body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter +to write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea; +for as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be +wanted to counteract her mother's schemes. + +But on returning to the drawing-room, when her letter was finished, she +saw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother +had been too ingenious for her. On opening the door, she perceived her +sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in +earnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of +both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would +have told it all. Their situation was awkward enough; but _hers_ she +thought was still worse. Not a syllable was uttered by either; and +Elizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as +well as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and whispering a few +words to her sister, ran out of the room. + +Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give +pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest +emotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world. + +"'Tis too much!" she added, "by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh! +why is not everybody as happy?" + +Elizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, +a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of +kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not +allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be +said for the present. + +"I must go instantly to my mother;" she cried. "I would not on any +account trifle with her affectionate solicitude; or allow her to hear it +from anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to +know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear +family! how shall I bear so much happiness!" + +She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the +card party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty. + +Elizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease +with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many +previous months of suspense and vexation. + +"And this," said she, "is the end of all his friend's anxious +circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the +happiest, wisest, most reasonable end!" + +In a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her +father had been short and to the purpose. + +"Where is your sister?" said he hastily, as he opened the door. + +"With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say." + +He then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes +and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed +her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with +great cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen +to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections; +and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his +expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for +basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of +Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and +himself. + +It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of +Miss Bennet's mind gave a glow of such sweet animation to her face, as +made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped +her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent or +speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, +though she talked to Bingley of nothing else for half an hour; and when +Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed +how really happy he was. + +Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their +visitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he +turned to his daughter, and said: + +"Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman." + +Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his +goodness. + +"You are a good girl;" he replied, "and I have great pleasure in +thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your +doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are +each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so +easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will +always exceed your income." + +"I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be +unpardonable in me." + +"Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet," cried his wife, "what are you +talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely +more." Then addressing her daughter, "Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so +happy! I am sure I shan't get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it +would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not +be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when +he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was +that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that +ever was seen!" + +Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her +favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger +sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness +which she might in future be able to dispense. + +Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty +begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. + +Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; +coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after +supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough +detested, had given him an invitation to dinner which he thought himself +obliged to accept. + +Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for +while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on anyone else; +but she found herself considerably useful to both of them in those hours +of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he +always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of +her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of +relief. + +"He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me that he +was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed +it possible." + +"I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for +it?" + +"It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to +his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have +chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, +as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will +learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we +can never be what we once were to each other." + +"That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever +heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again +the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard." + +"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, +he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being +indifferent would have prevented his coming down again!" + +"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his +modesty." + +This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and +the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased +to find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for, +though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she +knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. + +"I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried +Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed +above them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but +such another man for you!" + +"If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as +you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your +happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very +good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time." + +The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a +secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Phillips, +and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her +neighbours in Meryton. + +The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the +world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, +they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. + + + +Chapter 56 + + +One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been +formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the +dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the +sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up +the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the +equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses +were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who +preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that +somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid +the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the +shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three +continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown +open and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh. + +They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their +astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. +Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even +inferior to what Elizabeth felt. + +She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no +other reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the +head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her +name to her mother on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of +introduction had been made. + +Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such +high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting +for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth, + +"I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your +mother." + +Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. + +"And _that_ I suppose is one of your sisters." + +"Yes, madam," said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to Lady Catherine. +"She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married, +and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man +who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family." + +"You have a very small park here," returned Lady Catherine after a short +silence. + +"It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I +assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's." + +"This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in +summer; the windows are full west." + +Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then +added: + +"May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and +Mrs. Collins well." + +"Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last." + +Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from +Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no +letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. + +Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some +refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, +declined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth, + +"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness +on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you +will favour me with your company." + +"Go, my dear," cried her mother, "and show her ladyship about the +different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage." + +Elizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol, +attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the +hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and +drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent +looking rooms, walked on. + +Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her +waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk +that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for +conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and +disagreeable. + +"How could I ever think her like her nephew?" said she, as she looked in +her face. + +As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following +manner:-- + +"You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my +journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I +come." + +Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment. + +"Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account +for the honour of seeing you here." + +"Miss Bennet," replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, "you ought to +know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere _you_ may +choose to be, you shall not find _me_ so. My character has ever been +celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such +moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most +alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your +sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that +you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon +afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I +_know_ it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him +so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved +on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to +you." + +"If you believed it impossible to be true," said Elizabeth, colouring +with astonishment and disdain, "I wonder you took the trouble of coming +so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?" + +"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted." + +"Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family," said Elizabeth +coolly, "will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report +is in existence." + +"If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been +industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a +report is spread abroad?" + +"I never heard that it was." + +"And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?" + +"I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may +ask questions which I shall not choose to answer." + +"This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has +he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?" + +"Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible." + +"It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his +reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, +have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You +may have drawn him in." + +"If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it." + +"Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such +language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, +and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns." + +"But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this, +ever induce me to be explicit." + +"Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the +presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is +engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?" + +"Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will +make an offer to me." + +Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied: + +"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, +they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of +_his_ mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned +the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would +be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of +inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to +the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his +tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of +propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest +hours he was destined for his cousin?" + +"Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is +no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not +be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to +marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the +marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither +by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make +another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?" + +"Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, +Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or +friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will +be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. +Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned +by any of us." + +"These are heavy misfortunes," replied Elizabeth. "But the wife of Mr. +Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily +attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause +to repine." + +"Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude +for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that +score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came +here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will +I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's +whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment." + +"_That_ will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; +but it will have no effect on me." + +"I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my +nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal +side, from the same noble line; and, on the father's, from respectable, +honourable, and ancient--though untitled--families. Their fortune on +both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of +every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? +The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, +or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you +were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in +which you have been brought up." + +"In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that +sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are +equal." + +"True. You _are_ a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? +Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their +condition." + +"Whatever my connections may be," said Elizabeth, "if your nephew does +not object to them, they can be nothing to _you_." + +"Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?" + +Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady +Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a +moment's deliberation: + +"I am not." + +Lady Catherine seemed pleased. + +"And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?" + +"I will make no promise of the kind." + +"Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more +reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that +I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the +assurance I require." + +"And I certainly _never_ shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into +anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry +your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their +marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would +my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? +Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have +supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the +application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if +you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your +nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; +but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, +therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject." + +"Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the +objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am +no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous +elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a +patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is +such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, is the son of his +late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!--of what are +you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" + +"You can now have nothing further to say," she resentfully answered. +"You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to +the house." + +And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned +back. Her ladyship was highly incensed. + +"You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! +Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you +must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?" + +"Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments." + +"You are then resolved to have him?" + +"I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, +which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without +reference to _you_, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me." + +"It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the +claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in +the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world." + +"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude," replied Elizabeth, "have any +possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either +would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the +resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former +_were_ excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's +concern--and the world in general would have too much sense to join in +the scorn." + +"And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. +I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your +ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you +reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point." + +In this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of +the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added, "I take no leave +of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve +no such attention. I am most seriously displeased." + +Elizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her +ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She +heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother +impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady +Catherine would not come in again and rest herself. + +"She did not choose it," said her daughter, "she would go." + +"She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously +civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were +well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through +Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had +nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?" + +Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to +acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible. + + + +Chapter 57 + + +The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw +Elizabeth into, could not be easily overcome; nor could she, for many +hours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine, it +appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings, +for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. +Darcy. It was a rational scheme, to be sure! but from what the report +of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine; +till she recollected that _his_ being the intimate friend of Bingley, +and _her_ being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the +expectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply +the idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her +sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours +at Lucas Lodge, therefore (for through their communication with the +Collinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine), had +only set that down as almost certain and immediate, which she had looked +forward to as possible at some future time. + +In revolving Lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help +feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting +in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to +prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate +an application to her nephew; and how _he_ might take a similar +representation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared +not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his +aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose +that he thought much higher of her ladyship than _she_ could do; and it +was certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with _one_, +whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would +address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would +probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak +and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning. + +If he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often +seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might +settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity +unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady +Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to +Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way. + +"If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his +friend within a few days," she added, "I shall know how to understand +it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his +constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might +have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him +at all." + + * * * * * + +The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had +been, was very great; but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same +kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity; and +Elizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject. + +The next morning, as she was going downstairs, she was met by her +father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand. + +"Lizzy," said he, "I was going to look for you; come into my room." + +She followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to +tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner +connected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it +might be from Lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the +consequent explanations. + +She followed her father to the fire place, and they both sat down. He +then said, + +"I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me +exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its +contents. I did not know before, that I had two daughters on the brink +of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest." + +The colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous +conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt; +and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained +himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to +herself; when her father continued: + +"You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters +as these; but I think I may defy even _your_ sagacity, to discover the +name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins." + +"From Mr. Collins! and what can _he_ have to say?" + +"Something very much to the purpose of course. He begins with +congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of +which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping +Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience, by reading what he says +on that point. What relates to yourself, is as follows: 'Having thus +offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on +this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another; +of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter +Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after +her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may +be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in +this land.' + +"Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this?" 'This young +gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of +mortal can most desire,--splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive +patronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin +Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate +closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be +inclined to take immediate advantage of.' + +"Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out: + +"'My motive for cautioning you is as follows. We have reason to imagine +that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with +a friendly eye.' + +"_Mr. Darcy_, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I _have_ +surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within +the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie +more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any +woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his +life! It is admirable!" + +Elizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force +one most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so +little agreeable to her. + +"Are you not diverted?" + +"Oh! yes. Pray read on." + +"'After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last +night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she +felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some +family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her +consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty +to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and +her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run +hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.' Mr. +Collins moreover adds, 'I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad +business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their +living together before the marriage took place should be so generally +known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain +from declaring my amazement at hearing that you received the young +couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an +encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should +very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them, +as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their +names to be mentioned in your hearing.' That is his notion of Christian +forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's +situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you +look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be _missish_, +I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we +live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our +turn?" + +"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, "I am excessively diverted. But it is so +strange!" + +"Yes--_that_ is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man +it would have been nothing; but _his_ perfect indifference, and _your_ +pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate +writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any +consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving +him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and +hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine +about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?" + +To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had +been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by +his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her +feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she +would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by +what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference, and she could do nothing but +wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of +his seeing too little, she might have fancied too much. + + + +Chapter 58 + + +Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as +Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy +with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's +visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time +to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat +in momentary dread, 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." + +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 eye, 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. + +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. + +"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." + +Darcy mentioned his letter. "Did it," said he, "did it soon make you +think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its +contents?" + +She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her +former prejudices had been removed. + +"I knew," said he, "that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was +necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part +especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the +power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might +justly make you hate me." + +"The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the +preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my +opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily +changed as that implies." + +"When I wrote that letter," replied Darcy, "I believed myself perfectly +calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a +dreadful bitterness of spirit." + +"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The +adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings +of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now +so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant +circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some +of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you +pleasure." + +"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your +retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment +arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of +innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude +which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. 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. +Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt +by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all +that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught +me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family +circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least +to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. 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." + +"Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?" + +"Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be +wishing, expecting my addresses." + +"My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure +you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me +wrong. How you must have hated me after _that_ evening?" + +"Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take +a proper direction." + +"I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at +Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?" + +"No indeed; I felt nothing but surprise." + +"Your surprise could not be greater than _mine_ in being noticed by you. +My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I +confess that I did not expect to receive _more_ than my due." + +"My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in +my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to +obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you +see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes +introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an +hour after I had seen you." + +He then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her +disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to +the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of +following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed +before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness +there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must +comprehend. + +She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to +each, to be dwelt on farther. + +After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know +anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that +it was time to be at home. + +"What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!" was a wonder which +introduced the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with +their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of +it. + +"I must ask whether you were surprised?" said Elizabeth. + +"Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen." + +"That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much." And +though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much +the case. + +"On the evening before my going to London," said he, "I made a +confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I +told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his +affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had +the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself +mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent +to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was +unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together." + +Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his +friend. + +"Did you speak from your own observation," said she, "when you told him +that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?" + +"From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits +which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection." + +"And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to +him." + +"It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had +prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but +his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess +one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not +allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months +last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was +angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained +in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me +now." + +Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful +friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked +herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, +and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness +of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he +continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they +parted. + + + +Chapter 59 + + +"My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?" was a question +which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, +and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to +say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own +knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything +else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. + +The evening passed quietly, unmarked by anything extraordinary. The +acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent. +Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth; +and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather _knew_ that she was happy +than _felt_ herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment, +there were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt +in the family when her situation became known; she was aware that no +one liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a +dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away. + +At night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far +from Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here. + +"You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be!--engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no, +you shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible." + +"This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and +I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am +in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are +engaged." + +Jane looked at her doubtingly. "Oh, Lizzy! it cannot be. I know how much +you dislike him." + +"You know nothing of the matter. _That_ is all to be forgot. Perhaps I +did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as +these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever +remember it myself." + +Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more +seriously assured her of its truth. + +"Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you," cried +Jane. "My dear, dear Lizzy, I would--I do congratulate you--but are you +certain? forgive the question--are you quite certain that you can be +happy with him?" + +"There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that +we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, +Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?" + +"Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more +delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you +really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than +marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought +to do?" + +"Oh, yes! You will only think I feel _more_ than I ought to do, when I +tell you all." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am +afraid you will be angry." + +"My dearest sister, now _be_ serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let +me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me +how long you have loved him?" + +"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. +But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds +at Pemberley." + +Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the +desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances +of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing +further to wish. + +"Now I am quite happy," said she, "for you will be as happy as myself. +I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, +I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your +husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But +Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you +tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know +of it to another, not to you." + +Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling +to mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made +her equally avoid the name of his friend. But now she would no longer +conceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged, +and half the night spent in conversation. + + * * * * * + +"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next +morning, "if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with +our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always +coming here? I had no notion but he would go a-shooting, or something or +other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him? +Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's +way." + +Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet +was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an +epithet. + +As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and +shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information; +and he soon afterwards said aloud, "Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes +hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?" + +"I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty," said Mrs. Bennet, "to walk +to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has +never seen the view." + +"It may do very well for the others," replied Mr. Bingley; "but I am +sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty?" Kitty owned that +she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see +the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went +up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying: + +"I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that +disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is +all for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking +to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to +inconvenience." + +During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be +asked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the +application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother +would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur +would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she +were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it +was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit +to her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear +the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her +disapprobation. + + * * * * * + +In the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw +Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was +extreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to +be made unhappy; and that it should be through her means--that _she_, +his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be +filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her--was a wretched +reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, +looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes +he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while +pretending to admire her work said in a whisper, "Go to your father, he +wants you in the library." She was gone directly. + +Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious. +"Lizzy," said he, "what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be +accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?" + +How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more +reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from +explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; +but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion, +of her attachment to Mr. Darcy. + +"Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be +sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. +But will they make you happy?" + +"Have you any other objection," said Elizabeth, "than your belief of my +indifference?" + +"None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but +this would be nothing if you really liked him." + +"I do, I do like him," she replied, with tears in her eyes, "I love him. +Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not +know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in +such terms." + +"Lizzy," said her father, "I have given him my consent. He is the kind +of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse anything, which he +condescended to ask. I now give it to _you_, if you are resolved on +having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know +your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor +respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked +up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the +greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape +discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing +_you_ unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are +about." + +Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and +at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object +of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of +him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection +was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months' +suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did +conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match. + +"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to +say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with +you, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy." + +To complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy +had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment. + +"This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing; +made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him +his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble +and economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and _would_ have +paid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own +way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about +his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter." + +He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading +Mr. Collins's letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her +at last to go--saying, as she quitted the room, "If any young men come +for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure." + +Elizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after +half an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join +the others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for +gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer +anything material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity +would come in time. + +When her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her, +and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary; +for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to +utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes that she could +comprehend what she heard; though not in general backward to credit +what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a +lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in +her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself. + +"Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would +have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich +and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages +you will have! Jane's is nothing to it--nothing at all. I am so +pleased--so happy. Such a charming man!--so handsome! so tall!--Oh, my +dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I +hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing +that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, +Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted." + +This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted: and +Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, +soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, +her mother followed her. + +"My dearest child," she cried, "I can think of nothing else! Ten +thousand a year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a Lord! And a +special licence. You must and shall be married by a special licence. But +my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, +that I may have it to-morrow." + +This was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman +himself might be; and Elizabeth found that, though in the certain +possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations' +consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow +passed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood +in such awe of her intended son-in-law that she ventured not to speak to +him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her +deference for his opinion. + +Elizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get +acquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising +every hour in his esteem. + +"I admire all my three sons-in-law highly," said he. "Wickham, perhaps, +is my favourite; but I think I shall like _your_ husband quite as well +as Jane's." + + + +Chapter 60 + + +Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. +Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. "How could +you begin?" said she. "I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when +you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first +place?" + +"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which +laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I +knew that I _had_ begun." + +"My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners--my behaviour +to _you_ was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke +to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere; +did you admire me for my impertinence?" + +"For the liveliness of your mind, I did." + +"You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less. +The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious +attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, +and looking, and thinking for _your_ approbation alone. I roused, and +interested you, because I was so unlike _them_. Had you not been really +amiable, you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you +took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and +in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously +courted you. There--I have saved you the trouble of accounting for +it; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly +reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me--but nobody thinks +of _that_ when they fall in love." + +"Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane while she was +ill at Netherfield?" + +"Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it +by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are +to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me +to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may +be; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling +to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first +called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did +you look as if you did not care about me?" + +"Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement." + +"But I was embarrassed." + +"And so was I." + +"You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner." + +"A man who had felt less, might." + +"How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that +I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you +_would_ have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when +you _would_ have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of +thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect. +_Too much_, I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort +springs from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the +subject. This will never do." + +"You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady +Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of +removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to +your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour +to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me +hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing." + +"Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy, +for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to +Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed? +or had you intended any more serious consequence?" + +"My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could, whether I +might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to +myself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley, +and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made." + +"Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to +befall her?" + +"I am more likely to want more time than courage, Elizabeth. But it +ought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be +done directly." + +"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and +admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But +I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected." + +From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy +had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's +long letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would +be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and +aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as +follows: + +"I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, +for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the +truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. +But _now_ suppose as much as you choose; give a loose rein to your +fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the +subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you +cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a +great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again, +for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your +idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I +am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so +before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she +only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that +he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas. +Yours, etc." + +Mr. Darcy's letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style; and still +different from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in reply +to his last. + +"DEAR SIR, + +"I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon +be the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can. +But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give. + +"Yours sincerely, etc." + +Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching +marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even +to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her +former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was +affected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing +her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved. + +The joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information, +was as sincere as her brother's in sending it. Four sides of paper were +insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of +being loved by her sister. + +Before any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations +to Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the +Collinses were come themselves to Lucas Lodge. The reason of this +sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered +so exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew's letter, that +Charlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till +the storm was blown over. At such a moment, the arrival of her friend +was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their +meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she +saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of +her husband. He bore it, however, with admirable calmness. He could even +listen to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away +the brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all +meeting frequently at St. James's, with very decent composure. If he did +shrug his shoulders, it was not till Sir William was out of sight. + +Mrs. Phillips's vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his +forbearance; and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister, stood in +too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good +humour encouraged, yet, whenever she _did_ speak, she must be vulgar. +Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all +likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield +him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep +him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse +without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising +from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it +added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to +the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing +to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at +Pemberley. + + + +Chapter 61 + + +Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got +rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride +she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may +be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the +accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many +of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, +amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it +was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity +in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and +invariably silly. + +Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her +drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in +going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected. + +Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near +a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to +_his_ easy temper, or _her_ affectionate heart. The darling wish of his +sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county +to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source +of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other. + +Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with +her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally +known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a +temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example, +she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less +ignorant, and less insipid. From the further disadvantage of Lydia's +society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham +frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of +balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going. + +Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily +drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite +unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but +she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no +longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, +it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without +much reluctance. + +As for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from +the marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that +Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude +and falsehood had before been unknown to her; and in spite of every +thing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on +to make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received +from Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least, +if not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this +effect: + +"MY DEAR LIZZY, + +"I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear +Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so +rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. +I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not +think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. +Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, +do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not. + +"Yours, etc." + +As it happened that Elizabeth had _much_ rather not, she endeavoured in +her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind. +Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice +of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she +frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an +income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in +their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to +their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or +herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance +towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the +restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the +extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap +situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for +her soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer; and +in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to +reputation which her marriage had given her. + +Though Darcy could never receive _him_ at Pemberley, yet, for +Elizabeth's sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was +occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself +in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently +staid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he +proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone. + +Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she +thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she +dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as +attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility +to Elizabeth. + +Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters +was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each +other even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion +in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with +an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive, manner of +talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect +which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open +pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen +in her way. By Elizabeth's instructions, she began to comprehend that +a woman may take liberties with her husband which a brother will not +always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself. + +Lady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew; +and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character in +her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him +language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time +all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion, +he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation; +and, after a little further resistance on the part of his aunt, her +resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity +to see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait +on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had +received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the +visits of her uncle and aunt from the city. + +With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. +Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever +sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing +her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIDE AND PREJUDICE *** + +***** This file should be named 1342.txt or 1342.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1342/ + +Produced by Anonymous Volunteers + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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