記憶に残る英文

大学受験時に取り組んだ英文問題に以下のようなものがありました。当時難しくて全く歯が立たず、悔しい思いをしたのを覚えています。後にこの文章の出典がジェーンオースティンの「高慢と偏見」であることをネット検索で発見したのですが、考えてみると1800年頃の小説のしかも心理描写のテキストを試験の題材にしていたとは驚きです。

なお、どこの大学の過去問かは不明です。

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(          ) had he made (     )clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly 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.

 far from suspecting that =  not aware that

（　）に入るのはsooner, itですが、No sooner ～than、that以下をさす形式主語it といった構文知識をみる問題自体は何ら難しいものではなく、むしろ標準でしょうか。

renderの入った文の訳は、the beautiful expression of her dark eyes rendered it 

uncommonly intelligentと能動態にすれば訳しやすくなります。render＝makeでだいたいＯＫでしょう。

もう一つの下線部は Some others equally mortifying succeeded to this discovery 

の倒置文であることがポイント。

この文章でball=舞踏会、symmetry=均整　といった単語を覚えたのも思い出しました。

問題としては難しく、今時相応しくないように思えますが、小説の印象的な場面で、文章も面白いので取り上げてみました。