The morning after the ball, Mr. Collins requests the honour of a private audience with Miss Elizabeth. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 19 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: one of the great comic proposals in literature, delivered by a man incapable of imagining the word no.

Mrs. Bennet clears the room over Elizabeth’s protests, and Mr. Collins begins with his reasons for marrying, in order: it is right for a clergyman to set the example, it will add greatly to his happiness, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh has twice condescended to advise it. Affection appears nowhere on the list, though he promises that on the subject of her small fortune he will be uniformly silent after the wedding.

• Mr. Collins runs away with his feelings in the most businesslike manner possible, assuring Elizabeth that her wit and vivacity, tempered by silence and respect, will be acceptable to Lady Catherine.
• He notes, as a selling point, that she stands to receive only one thousand pounds in the four per cents after her mother’s death, and gallantly promises never to reproach her with it.
• Elizabeth refuses him plainly, then again, then again; each refusal is filed as the usual practice of elegant females who mean to accept.
• Driven to bluntness, she asks to be considered a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart, and leaves him still convinced the suit will prosper once her parents weigh in.