The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased,
the mists had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the new
sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new existence. To
help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone, and the mountain, a
shining waste of immense white heaps and masses, to be a region of cloud
floating between the blue sky above and the earth far below.
Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning at
the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths which were
not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at work in several
places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to be foot-thawed again
about the door. Mules were busily brought out, tied to the rings in the wall,
and laden; strings of bells were buckled on, burdens were adjusted, the voices
of drivers and riders sounded musically. Some of the earliest had even already
resumed their journey; and, both on the level summit by the dark water near the
convent, and on the downward way of yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of
men and mules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with a clear
tinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues.
In the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the feathery ashes
of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of loaves, butter, and milk. It
also shone on the courier of the Dorrit family, making tea for his party from a
supply he had brought up with him, together with several other small stores
which were chiefly laid in for the use of the strong body of inconvenience. Mr
Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already breakfasted, and were walking up and
down by the lake, smoking their cigars. 'Gowan, eh?' muttered Tip, otherwise
Edward Dorrit, Esquire, turning over the leaves of the book, when the courier
had left them to breakfast. 'Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I
have got to say! If it was worth my while, I'd pull his nose. But it isn't worth
my while--fortunately for him. How's his wife, Amy?
I suppose you know. You generally know things of that sort.'
'She is better, Edward. But they are not going to-day.'
'Oh! They are not going to-day! Fortunately for that fellow too,' said Tip,
'or he and I might have come into collision.'
'It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and not be
fatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.'
'With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her. You haven't
been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old habits, have you, Amy?'
He asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss Fanny, and
at his father too.
'I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, Tip,' said
Little Dorrit.
'You needn't call me Tip, Amy child,' returned that young gentleman with a
frown; 'because that's an old habit, and one you may as well lay aside.'
'I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so natural once, that
it seemed at the moment the right word.'
'Oh yes!' Miss Fanny struck in. 'Natural, and right word, and once, and all
the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well why you have
been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan. You can't blind me.'
'I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry.'
'Oh! angry!' returned that young lady with a flounce. 'I have no patience'
(which indeed was the truth). 'Pray, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, raising his
eyebrows, 'what do you mean? Explain yourself.'
'Oh! Never mind, Pa,' replied Miss Fanny, 'it's no great matter. Amy will
understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before yesterday, and she
may as well admit that she did.'
'My child,' said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, 'has your
sister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?'
'However meek we are,' Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, 'we
don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains, and sitting
perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something about them
beforehand. It's not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs Gowan is.'
'Whose friend?' inquired her father.
'Pa, I am sorry to say,' returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time succeeded
in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and grievance, which she was
often at great pains to do: 'that I believe her to be a friend of that very
objectionable and unpleasant person, who, with a total absence of all delicacy,
which our experience might have led us to expect from him, insulted us and
outraged our feelings in so public and wilful a manner on an occasion to which
it is understood among us that we will not more pointedly allude.'
'Amy, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a dignified
affection, 'is this the case?'
Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was.
'Yes it is!' cried Miss Fanny. 'Of course! I said so! And now, Pa, I do
declare once for all'--this young lady was in the habit of declaring the same
thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times in a day--'that
this is shameful! I do declare once for all that it ought to be put a stop to.
Is it not enough that we have gone through what is only known to ourselves, but
are we to have it thrown in our faces, perseveringly and systematically, by the
very person who should spare our feelings most? Are we to be exposed to this
unnatural conduct every moment of our lives? Are we never to be permitted to
forget? I say again, it is absolutely infamous!'
'Well, Amy,' observed her brother, shaking his head, 'you know I stand by you
whenever I can, and on most occasions. But I must say, that, upon my soul, I do
consider it rather an unaccountable mode of showing your sisterly affection,
that you should back up a man who treated me in the most ungentlemanly way in
which one man can treat another. And who,' he added convincingly, must be a low-
minded thief, you know, or he never could have conducted himself as he did.'
'And see,' said Miss Fanny, 'see what is involved in this! Can we ever hope
to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our two women, and Pa's valet,
and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents, and yet in the midst
of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing about with tumblers of cold
water, like a menial! Why, a policeman,' said Miss Fanny, 'if a beggar had a fit
in the street, could but go plunging about with tumblers, as this very Amy did
in this very room before our very eyes last night!'
'I don't so much mind that, once in a way,' remarked Mr Edward; 'but your
Clennam, as he thinks proper to call himself, is another thing.' 'He is part of
the same thing,' returned Miss Fanny, 'and of a piece with all the rest. He
obtruded himself upon us in the first instance. We never wanted him. I always
showed him, for one, that I could have dispensed with his company with the
greatest pleasure.
He then commits that gross outrage upon our feelings, which he never could or
would have committed but for the delight he took in exposing us; and then we are
to be demeaned for the service of his friends! Why, I don't wonder at this Mr
Gowan's conduct towards you. What else was to be expected when he was enjoying
our past misfortunes--gloating over them at the moment!' 'Father--Edward--no
indeed!' pleaded Little Dorrit. 'Neither Mr nor Mrs Gowan had ever heard our
name. They were, and they are, quite ignorant of our history.'
'So much the worse,' retorted Fanny, determined not to admit anything in
extenuation, 'for then you have no excuse. If they had known about us, you might
have felt yourself called upon to conciliate them. That would have been a weak
and ridiculous mistake, but I can respect a mistake, whereas I can't respect a
wilful and deliberate abasing of those who should be nearest and dearest to us.
No. I can't respect that. I can do nothing but denounce that.'
'I never offend you wilfully, Fanny,' said Little Dorrit, 'though you are so
hard with me.'
'Then you should be more careful, Amy,' returned her sister. 'If you do such
things by accident, you should be more careful. If I happened to have been born
in a peculiar place, and under peculiar circumstances that blunted my knowledge
of propriety, I fancy I should think myself bound to consider at every step, "Am
I going, ignorantly, to compromise any near and dear relations?" That is what I
fancy I should do, if it was my case.'
Mr Dorrit now interposed, at once to stop these painful subjects by his
authority, and to point their moral by his wisdom.
'My dear,' said he to his younger daughter, 'I beg you to--ha--to say no
more. Your sister Fanny expresses herself strongly, but not without considerable
reason. You have now a--hum--a great position to support. That great position is
not occupied by yourself alone, but by--ha--by me, and--ha hum--by us. Us. Now,
it is incumbent upon all people in an exalted position, but it is particularly
so on this family, for reasons which I--ha--will not dwell upon, to make
themselves respected. To be vigilant in making themselves respected. Dependants,
to respect us, must be--ha--kept at a distance and--hum--kept down. Down.
Therefore, your not exposing yourself to the remarks of our attendants by
appearing to have at any time dispensed with their services and performed them
for yourself, is--ha--highly important.'
'Why, who can doubt it?' cried Miss Fanny. 'It's the essence of everything.'
'Fanny,' returned her father, grandiloquently, 'give me leave, my dear. We then
come to--ha--to Mr Clennam. I am free to say that I do not, Amy, share your
sister's sentiments--that is to say altogether--hum--altogether--in reference to
Mr Clennam. I am content to regard that individual in the light
of--ha--generally-- a well-behaved person. Hum. A well-behaved person. Nor will
I inquire whether Mr Clennam did, at any time, obtrude himself on-- ha--my
society. He knew my society to be--hum--sought, and his plea might be that he
regarded me in the light of a public character. But there were circumstances
attending my--ha--slight knowledge of Mr Clennam (it was very slight), which,'
here Mr Dorrit became extremely grave and impressive, 'would render it highly
indelicate in Mr Clennam to--ha--to seek to renew communication with me or with
any member of my family under existing circumstances. If Mr Clennam has
sufficient delicacy to perceive the impropriety of any such attempt, I am bound
as a responsible gentleman to--ha--defer to that delicacy on his part. If, on
the other hand, Mr Clennam has not that delicacy, I cannot for a
moment--ha--hold any correspondence with so--hum--coarse a mind. In either case,
it would appear that Mr Clennam is put altogether out of the question, and that
we have nothing to do with him or he with us. Ha--Mrs General!'
The entrance of the lady whom he announced, to take her place at the
breakfast-table, terminated the discussion. Shortly afterwards, the courier
announced that the valet, and the footman, and the two maids, and the four
guides, and the fourteen mules, were in readiness; so the breakfast party went
out to the convent door to join the cavalcade.
Mr Gowan stood aloof with his cigar and pencil, but Mr Blandois was on the
spot to pay his respects to the ladies. When he gallantly pulled off his
slouched hat to Little Dorrit, she thought he had even a more sinister look,
standing swart and cloaked in the snow, than he had in the fire-light
over-night. But, as both her father and her sister received his homage with some
favour, she refrained from expressing any distrust of him, lest it should prove
to be a new blemish derived from her prison birth.
Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was yet in
sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois, backed by the
convent smoke which rose straight and high from the chimneys in a golden film,
always standing on one jutting point looking down after them. Long after he was
a mere black stick in the snow, she felt as though she could yet see that smile
of his, that high nose, and those eyes that were too near it. And even after
that, when the convent was gone and some light morning clouds veiled the pass
below it, the ghastly skeleton arms by the wayside seemed to be all pointing up
at him.
More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to melt,
Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they came down into the
softer regions. Again the sun was warm, again the streams descending from
glaciers and snowy caverns were refreshing to drink at, again they came among
the pine-trees, the rocky rivulets, the verdant heights and dales, the wooden
chalets and rough zigzag fences of Swiss country. Sometimes the way so widened
that she and her father could ride abreast. And then to look at him, handsomely
clothed in his fur and broadcloths, rich, free, numerously served and attended,
his eyes roving far away among the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen
before them to darken his sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough.
Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore the
clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a sacrifice to the family
credit, and went where he was taken, with a certain patient animal enjoyment,
which seemed to express that the air and change did him good. In all other
respects, save one, he shone with no light but such as was reflected from his
brother. His brother's greatness, wealth, freedom, and grandeur, pleased him
without any reference to himself. Silent and retiring, he had no use for speech
when he could hear his brother speak; no desire to be waited on, so that the
servants devoted themselves to his brother. The only noticeable change he
originated in himself, was an alteration in his manner to his younger niece.
Every day it refined more and more into a marked respect, very rarely shown by
age to youth, and still more rarely susceptible, one would have said, of the
fitness with which he invested it. On those occasions when Miss Fanny did
declare once for all, he would take the next opportunity of baring his grey head
before his younger niece, and of helping her to alight, or handing her to the
carriage, or showing her any other attention, with the profoundest deference.
Yet it never appeared misplaced or forced, being always heartily simple,
spontaneous, and genuine. Neither would he ever consent, even at his brother's
request, to be helped to any place before her, or to take precedence of her in
anything. So jealous was he of her being respected, that, on this very journey
down from the Great Saint Bernard, he took sudden and violent umbrage at the
footman's being remiss to hold her stirrup, though standing near when she
dismounted; and unspeakably astonished the whole retinue by charging at him on a
hard-headed mule, riding him into a corner, and threatening to trample him to
death.
They were a goodly company, and the Innkeepers all but worshipped them.
Wherever they went, their importance preceded them in the person of the courier
riding before, to see that the rooms of state were ready. He was the herald of
the family procession. The great travelling-carriage came next: containing,
inside, Mr Dorrit, Miss Dorrit, Miss Amy Dorrit, and Mrs General; outside, some
of the retainers, and (in fine weather) Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for whom the box
was reserved. Then came the chariot containing Frederick Dorrit, Esquire, and an
empty place occupied by Edward Dorrit, Esquire, in wet weather. Then came the
fourgon with the rest of the retainers, the heavy baggage, and as much as it
could carry of the mud and dust which the other vehicles left behind.
These equipages adorned the yard of the hotel at Martigny, on the return of
the family from their mountain excursion. Other vehicles were there, much
company being on the road, from the patched Italian Vettura--like the body of a
swing from an English fair put upon a wooden tray on wheels, and having another
wooden tray without wheels put atop of it--to the trim English carriage. But
there was another adornment of the hotel which Mr Dorrit had not bargained for.
Two strange travellers embellished one of his rooms.
The Innkeeper, hat in hand in the yard, swore to the courier that he was
blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly afflicted, that he was
the most miserable and unfortunate of beasts, that he had the head of a wooden
pig. He ought never to have made the concession, he said, but the very genteel
lady had so passionately prayed him for the accommodation of that room to dine
in, only for a little half-hour, that he had been vanquished. The little
half-hour was expired, the lady and gentleman were taking their little dessert
and half-cup of coffee, the note was paid, the horses were ordered, they would
depart immediately; but, owing to an unhappy destiny and the curse of Heaven,
they were not yet gone.
Nothing could exceed Mr Dorrit's indignation, as he turned at the foot of the
staircase on hearing these apologies. He felt that the family dignity was struck
at by an assassin's hand. He had a sense of his dignity, which was of the most
exquisite nature. He could detect a design upon it when nobody else had any
perception of the fact. His life was made an agony by the number of fine
scalpels that he felt to be incessantly engaged in dissecting his dignity.
'Is it possible, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, reddening excessively, 'that you
have--ha--had the audacity to place one of my rooms at the disposition of any
other person?'
Thousands of pardons! It was the host's profound misfortune to have been
overcome by that too genteel lady. He besought Monseigneur not to enrage
himself. He threw himself on Monseigneur for clemency. If Monseigneur would have
the distinguished goodness to occupy the other salon especially reserved for
him, for but five minutes, all would go well.
'No, sir,' said Mr Dorrit. 'I will not occupy any salon. I will leave your
house without eating or drinking, or setting foot in it.
How do you dare to act like this? Who am I that you--ha--separate me from
other gentlemen?'
Alas! The host called all the universe to witness that Monseigneur was the
most amiable of the whole body of nobility, the most important, the most
estimable, the most honoured. If he separated Monseigneur from others, it was
only because he was more distinguished, more cherished, more generous, more
renowned.
'Don't tell me so, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit, in a mighty heat. 'You have
affronted me. You have heaped insults upon me. How dare you? Explain yourself.'
Ah, just Heaven, then, how could the host explain himself when he had nothing
more to explain; when he had only to apologise, and confide himself to the so
well-known magnanimity of Monseigneur!
'I tell you, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, panting with anger, 'that you separate
me--ha--from other gentlemen; that you make distinctions between me and other
gentlemen of fortune and station. I demand of you, why? I wish to know
on--ha--what authority, on whose authority. Reply sir. Explain. Answer why.'
Permit the landlord humbly to submit to Monsieur the Courier then, that
Monseigneur, ordinarily so gracious, enraged himself without cause. There was no
why. Monsieur the Courier would represent to Monseigneur, that he deceived
himself in suspecting that there was any why, but the why his devoted servant
had already had the honour to present to him. The very genteel lady--
'Silence!' cried Mr Dorrit. 'Hold your tongue! I will hear no more of the
very genteel lady; I will hear no more of you. Look at this family--my family--a
family more genteel than any lady. You have treated this family with disrespect;
you have been insolent to this family. I'll ruin you. Ha--send for the horses,
pack the carriages, I'll not set foot in this man's house again!'
No one had interfered in the dispute, which was beyond the French colloquial
powers of Edward Dorrit, Esquire, and scarcely within the province of the
ladies. Miss Fanny, however, now supported her father with great bitterness;
declaring, in her native tongue, that it was quite clear there was something
special in this man's impertinence; and that she considered it important that he
should be, by some means, forced to give up his authority for making
distinctions between that family and other wealthy families. What the reasons of
his presumption could be, she was at a loss to imagine; but reasons he must
have, and they ought to be torn from him.
All the guides, mule-drivers, and idlers in the yard, had made themselves
parties to the angry conference, and were much impressed by the courier's now
bestirring himself to get the carriages out. With the aid of some dozen people
to each wheel, this was done at a great cost of noise; and then the loading was
proceeded with, pending the arrival of the horses from the post-house.
But the very genteel lady's English chariot being already horsed and at the
inn-door, the landlord had slipped up-stairs to represent his hard case. This
was notified to the yard by his now coming down the staircase in attendance on
the gentleman and the lady, and by his pointing out the offended majesty of Mr
Dorrit to them with a significant motion of his hand.
'Beg your pardon,' said the gentleman, detaching himself from the lady, and
coming forward. 'I am a man of few words and a bad hand at an explanation--but
lady here is extremely anxious that there should be no Row. Lady--a mother of
mine, in point of fact--wishes me to say that she hopes no Row.'
Mr Dorrit, still panting under his injury, saluted the gentleman, and saluted
the lady, in a distant, final, and invincible manner.
'No, but really--here, old feller; you!' This was the gentleman's way of
appealing to Edward Dorrit, Esquire, on whom he pounced as a great and
providential relief. 'Let you and I try to make this all right. Lady so very
much wishes no Row.'
Edward Dorrit, Esquire, led a little apart by the button, assumed a
diplomatic expression of countenance in replying, 'Why you must confess, that
when you bespeak a lot of rooms beforehand, and they belong to you, it's not
pleasant to find other people in 'em.'
'No,' said the other, 'I know it isn't. I admit it. Still, let you and I try
to make it all right, and avoid Row. The fault is not this chap's at all, but my
mother's. Being a remarkably fine woman with no bigodd nonsense about her--well
educated, too--she was too many for this chap. Regularly pocketed him.'
'If that's the case--' Edward Dorrit, Esquire, began.
'Assure you 'pon my soul 'tis the case. Consequently,' said the other
gentleman, retiring on his main position, 'why Row?'
'Edmund,' said the lady from the doorway, 'I hope you have explained, or are
explaining, to the satisfaction of this gentleman and his family that the civil
landlord is not to blame?'
'Assure you, ma'am,' returned Edmund, 'perfectly paralysing myself with
trying it on.' He then looked steadfastly at Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for some
seconds, and suddenly added, in a burst of confidence, 'Old feller! Is it all
right?'
'I don't know, after all,' said the lady, gracefully advancing a step or two
towards Mr Dorrit, 'but that I had better say myself, at once, that I assured
this good man I took all the consequences on myself of occupying one of a
stranger's suite of rooms during his absence, for just as much (or as little)
time as I could dine in. I had no idea the rightful owner would come back so
soon, nor had I any idea that he had come back, or I should have hastened to
make restoration of my ill-gotten chamber, and to have offered my explanation
and apology. I trust in saying this--'
For a moment the lady, with a glass at her eye, stood transfixed and
speechless before the two Miss Dorrits. At the same moment, Miss Fanny, in the
foreground of a grand pictorial composition, formed by the family, the family
equipages, and the family servants, held her sister tight under one arm to
detain her on the spot, and with the other arm fanned herself with a
distinguished air, and negligently surveyed the lady from head to foot.
The lady, recovering herself quickly--for it was Mrs Merdle and she was not
easily dashed--went on to add that she trusted in saying this, she apologised
for her boldness, and restored this well- behaved landlord to the favour that
was so very valuable to him. Mr Dorrit, on the altar of whose dignity all this
was incense, made a gracious reply; and said that his people
should--ha--countermand his horses, and he would--hum--overlook what he had at
first supposed to be an affront, but now regarded as an honour. Upon this the
bosom bent to him; and its owner, with a wonderful command of feature, addressed
a winning smile of adieu to the two sisters, as young ladies of fortune in whose
favour she was much prepossessed, and whom she had never had the gratification
of seeing before.
Not so, however, Mr Sparkler. This gentleman, becoming transfixed at the same
moment as his lady-mother, could not by any means unfix himself again, but stood
stiffly staring at the whole composition with Miss Fanny in the Foreground. On
his mother saying, 'Edmund, we are quite ready; will you give me your arm?' he
seemed, by the motion of his lips, to reply with some remark comprehending the
form of words in which his shining talents found the most frequent utterance,
but he relaxed no muscle. So fixed was his figure, that it would have been
matter of some difficulty to bend him sufficiently to get him in the
carriage-door, if he had not received the timely assistance of a maternal pull
from within. He was no sooner within than the pad of the little window in the
back of the chariot disappeared, and his eye usurped its place. There it
remained as long as so small an object was discernible, and probably much
longer, staring (as though something inexpressibly surprising should happen to a
codfish) like an ill-executed eye in a large locket.
This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her so much to
think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her asperities exceedingly.
When the procession was again in motion next day, she occupied her place in it
with a new gaiety; and showed such a flow of spirits indeed, that Mrs General
looked rather surprised.
Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that Fanny was
pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing part, and a quiet one.
Sitting opposite her father in the travelling-carriage, and recalling the old
Marshalsea room, her present existence was a dream. All that she saw was new and
wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed to her as if those visions of
mountains and picturesque countries might melt away at any moment, and the
carriage, turning some abrupt corner, bring up with a jolt at the old Marshalsea
gate.
To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as having glided
into a corner where she had no one to think for, nothing to plan and contrive,
no cares of others to load herself with. Strange as that was, it was far
stranger yet to find a space between herself and her father, where others
occupied themselves in taking care of him, and where she was never expected to
be. At first, this was so much more unlike her old experience than even the
mountains themselves, that she had been unable to resign herself to it, and had
tried to retain her old place about him. But he had spoken to her alone, and had
said that people--ha-- people in an exalted position, my dear, must scrupulously
exact respect from their dependents; and that for her, his daughter, Miss Amy
Dorrit, of the sole remaining branch of the Dorrits of Dorsetshire, to be known
to--hum--to occupy herself in fulfilling the functions of--ha hum--a valet,
would be incompatible with that respect. Therefore, my dear, he--ha--he laid his
parental injunctions upon her, to remember that she was a lady, who had now to
conduct herself with--hum--a proper pride, and to preserve the rank of a lady;
and consequently he requested her to abstain from doing what would
occasion--ha--unpleasant and derogatory remarks. She had obeyed without a
murmur. Thus it had been brought about that she now sat in her corner of the
luxurious carriage with her little patient hands folded before her, quite
displaced even from the last point of the old standing ground in life on which
her feet had lingered.
It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the more
surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality of her own inner
life as she went through its vacant places all day long. The gorges of the
Simplon, its enormous depths and thundering waterfalls, the wonderful road, the
points of danger where a loose wheel or a faltering horse would have been
destruction, the descent into Italy, the opening of that beautiful land as the
rugged mountain-chasm widened and let them out from a gloomy and dark
imprisonment--all a dream--only the old mean Marshalsea a reality. Nay, even the
old mean Marshalsea was shaken to its foundations when she pictured it without
her father. She could scarcely believe that the prisoners were still lingering
in the close yard, that the mean rooms were still every one tenanted, and that
the turnkey still stood in the Lodge letting people in and out, all just as she
well knew it to be.
With a remembrance of her father's old life in prison hanging about her like
the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake from a dream of her
birth-place into a whole day's dream. The painted room in which she awoke, often
a humbled state-chamber in a dilapidated palace, would begin it; with its wild
red autumnal vine-leaves overhanging the glass, its orange-trees on the cracked
white terrace outside the window, a group of monks and peasants in the little
street below, misery and magnificence wrestling with each other upon every rood
of ground in the prospect, no matter how widely diversified, and misery throwing
magnificence with the strength of fate. To this would succeed a labyrinth of
bare passages and pillared galleries, with the family procession already
preparing in the quadrangle below, through the carriages and luggage being
brought together by the servants for the day's journey. Then breakfast in
another painted chamber, damp-stained and of desolate proportions; and then the
departure, which, to her timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her
place in the ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing. For then the courier (who
himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the Marshalsea)
would present himself to report that all was ready; and then her father's valet
would pompously induct him into his travelling-cloak; and then Fanny's maid, and
her own maid (who was a weight on Little Dorrit's mind--absolutely made her cry
at first, she knew so little what to do with her), would be in attendance; and
then her brother's man would complete his master's equipment; and then her
father would give his arm to Mrs General, and her uncle would give his to her,
and, escorted by the landlord and Inn servants, they would swoop down-stairs.
There, a crowd would be collected to see them enter their carriages, which,
amidst much bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and clattering, they
would do; and so they would be driven madly through narrow unsavoury streets,
and jerked out at the town gate.
Among the day's unrealities would be roads where the bright red vines were
looped and garlanded together on trees for many miles; woods of olives; white
villages and towns on hill-sides, lovely without, but frightful in their dirt
and poverty within; crosses by the way; deep blue lakes with fairy islands, and
clustering boats with awnings of bright colours and sails of beautiful forms;
vast piles of building mouldering to dust; hanging-gardens where the weeds had
grown so strong that their stems, like wedges driven home, had split the arch
and rent the wall; stone-terraced lanes, with the lizards running into and out
of every chink; beggars of all sorts everywhere: pitiful, picturesque, hungry,
merry; children beggars and aged beggars. Often at posting-houses and other
halting places, these miserable creatures would appear to her the only realities
of the day; and many a time, when the money she had brought to give them was all
given away, she would sit with her folded hands, thoughtfully looking after some
diminutive girl leading her grey father, as if the sight reminded her of
something in the days that were gone.
Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together in splendid
rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of wonders, walked through
miles of palaces, and rested in dark corners of great churches; where there were
winking lamps of gold and silver among pillars and arches, kneeling figures
dotted about at confessionals and on the pavements; where there was the mist and
scent of incense; where there were pictures, fantastic images, gaudy altars,
great heights and distances, all softly lighted through stained glass, and the
massive curtains that hung in the doorways. From these cities they would go on
again, by the roads of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where there
was not a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window with a whole
inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to support life,
nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing to hope, nothing to do
but die.
Again they would come to whole towns of palaces, whose proper inmates were
all banished, and which were all changed into barracks: troops of idle soldiers
leaning out of the state windows, where their accoutrements hung drying on the
marble architecture, and showing to the mind like hosts of rats who were
(happily) eating away the props of the edifices that supported them, and must
soon, with them, be smashed on the heads of the other swarms of soldiers and the
swarms of priests, and the swarms of spies, who were all the ill-looking
population left to be ruined, in the streets below.
Through such scenes, the family procession moved on to Venice. And here it
dispersed for a time, as they were to live in Venice some few months in a palace
(itself six times as big as the whole Marshalsea) on the Grand Canal.
In this crowning unreality, where all the streets were paved with water, and
where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was broken by no sound but
the softened ringing of church-bells, the rippling of the current, and the cry
of the gondoliers turning the corners of the flowing streets, Little Dorrit,
quite lost by her task being done, sat down to muse. The family began a gay
life, went here and there, and turned night into day; but she was timid of
joining in their gaieties, and only asked leave to be left alone.
Sometimes she would step into one of the gondolas that were always kept in
waiting, moored to painted posts at the door--when she could escape from the
attendance of that oppressive maid, who was her mistress, and a very hard
one--and would be taken all over the strange city. Social people in other
gondolas began to ask each other who the little solitary girl was whom they
passed, sitting in her boat with folded hands, looking so pensively and
wonderingly about her. Never thinking that it would be worth anybody's while to
notice her or her doings, Little Dorrit, in her quiet, scared, lost manner, went
about the city none the less.
But her favourite station was the balcony of her own room, overhanging the
canal, with other balconies below, and none above. It was of massive stone
darkened by ages, built in a wild fancy which came from the East to that
collection of wild fancies; and Little Dorrit was little indeed, leaning on the
broad-cushioned ledge, and looking over. As she liked no place of an evening
half so well, she soon began to be watched for, and many eyes in passing
gondolas were raised, and many people said, There was the little figure of the
English girl who was always alone.
Such people were not realities to the little figure of the English girl; such
people were all unknown to her. She would watch the sunset, in its long low
lines of purple and red, and its burning flush high up into the sky: so glowing
on the buildings, and so lightening their structure, that it made them look as
if their strong walls were transparent, and they shone from within. She would
watch those glories expire; and then, after looking at the black gondolas
underneath, taking guests to music and dancing, would raise her eyes to the
shining stars. Was there no party of her own, in other times, on which the stars
had shone? To think of that old gate now! She would think of that old gate, and
of herself sitting at it in the dead of the night, pillowing Maggy's head; and
of other places and of other scenes associated with those different times. And
then she would lean upon her balcony, and look over at the water, as though they
all lay underneath it. When she got to that, she would musingly watch its
running, as if, in the general vision, it might run dry, and show her the prison
again, and herself, and the old room , and the old inmates, and the old
visitors: all lasting realities that had never changed.
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