I just finished watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet In episode 4, there’s a great scene where Eliza, after running into Mr. Darcy, leaves in a hurry by carriage back to her family’s house. The scene is weirdly intense and the camera angles begin to shift rapidly closer and closer to the clacking of the horses hooves and the bouncing carriage wheels, and at the same time a fantasmatic picture of Mr. Darcy appears before Eliza’s eyes, followed quickly by a cut to another scene as the pacing of the film (at least temporarily) begins to slow down.

I think it’s best to read this scene in the crudest way possible: as the climax of an orgasm. Interestingly, Victorian physicians used to prescribe bumpy carriage rides to women suffering from so-called “female hysteria.” Just saying.