Chapter 3: On the Road

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

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.