Chapter 8

Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles Dickens

Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall

A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather, is one of
the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity can devise. Perhaps
it is even a sweetener of dreams, for those which hovered over the
rough couch of Nicholas, and whispered their airy nothings in his
ear, were of an agreeable and happy kind. He was making his fortune
very fast indeed, when the faint glimmer of an expiring candle shone
before his eyes, and a voice he had no difficulty in recognising as
part and parcel of Mr Squeers, admonished him that it was time to
rise.

'Past seven, Nickleby,' said Mr Squeers.

'Has morning come already?' asked Nicholas, sitting up in
bed.

'Ah! that has it,' replied Squeers, 'and ready iced too. Now,
Nickleby, come; tumble up, will you?'

Nicholas needed no further admonition, but 'tumbled up' at once,
and proceeded to dress himself by the light of the taper, which Mr
Squeers carried in his hand.

'Here's a pretty go,' said that gentleman; 'the pump's
froze.'

'Indeed!' said Nicholas, not much interested in the
intelligence.

'Yes,' replied Squeers. 'You can't wash yourself this
morning.'

'Not wash myself!' exclaimed Nicholas.

'No, not a bit of it,' rejoined Squeers tartly. 'So you must be
content with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the ice in
the well, and can get a bucketful out for the boys. Don't stand
staring at me, but do look sharp, will you?'

Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on his
clothes. Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew the candle
out; when the voice of his amiable consort was heard in the passage,
demanding admittance.

'Come in, my love,' said Squeers.

Mrs Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night-jacket
which had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the previous night,
and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet of some antiquity, which
she wore, with much ease and lightness, on the top of the nightcap
before mentioned.

'Drat the things,' said the lady, opening the cupboard; 'I can't
find the school spoon anywhere.'

'Never mind it, my dear,' observed Squeers in a soothing manner;
'it's of no consequence.'

'No consequence, why how you talk!' retorted Mrs Squeers
sharply; 'isn't it brimstone morning?'

'I forgot, my dear,' rejoined Squeers; 'yes, it certainly is.
We purify the boys' bloods now and then, Nickleby.'

'Purify fiddlesticks' ends,' said his lady. 'Don't think, young
man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone and molasses,
just to purify them; because if you think we carry on the business in
that way, you'll find yourself mistaken, and so I tell you
plainly.'

'My dear,' said Squeers frowning. 'Hem!'

'Oh! nonsense,' rejoined Mrs Squeers. 'If the young man comes
to be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don't want
any foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone and treacle,
partly because if they hadn't something or other in the way of
medicine they'd be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and
partly because it spoils their appetites and comes cheaper than
breakfast and dinner. So, it does them good and us good at the same
time, and that's fair enough I'm sure.'

Having given this explanation, Mrs Squeers put her head into the
closet and instituted a stricter search after the spoon, in which Mr
Squeers assisted. A few words passed between them while they were
thus engaged, but as their voices were partially stifled by the
cupboard, all that Nicholas could distinguish was, that Mr Squeers
said what Mrs Squeers had said, was injudicious, and that Mrs Squeers
said what Mr Squeers said, was 'stuff.'

A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it proving
fruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs Squeers, and boxed
by Mr Squeers; which course of treatment brightening his intellects,
enabled him to suggest that possibly Mrs Squeers might have the spoon
in her pocket, as indeed turned out to be the case. As Mrs Squeers
had previously protested, however, that she was quite certain she had
not got it, Smike received another box on the ear for presuming to
contradict his mistress, together with a promise of a sound thrashing
if he were not more respectful in future; so that he took nothing
very advantageous by his motion.

'A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby,' said Squeers when his
consort had hurried away, pushing the drudge before her.

'Indeed, sir!' observed Nicholas.

'I don't know her equal,' said Squeers; 'I do not know her
equal. That woman, Nickleby, is always the same--always the same
bustling, lively, active, saving creetur that you see her now.'

Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agreeable
domestic prospect thus opened to him; but Squeers was, fortunately,
too much occupied with his own reflections to perceive it.

'It's my way to say, when I am up in London,' continued Squeers,
'that to them boys she is a mother. But she is more than a mother to
them; ten times more. She does things for them boys, Nickleby, that
I don't believe half the mothers going, would do for their own
sons.'

'I should think they would not, sir,' answered Nicholas.

Now, the fact was, that both Mr and Mrs Squeers viewed the boys
in the light of their proper and natural enemies; or, in other words,
they held and considered that their business and profession was to
get as much from every boy as could by possibility be screwed out of
him. On this point they were both agreed, and behaved in unison
accordingly. The only difference between them was, that Mrs Squeers
waged war against the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers
covered his rascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual
deceit; as if he really had a notion of someday or other being able
to take himself in, and persuade his own mind that he was a very good
fellow.

'But come,' said Squeers, interrupting the progress of some
thoughts to this effect in the mind of his usher, 'let's go to the
schoolroom; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?'

Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting-
jacket, which he took down from a peg in the passage; and Squeers,
arming himself with his cane, led the way across a yard, to a door in
the rear of the house.

'There,' said the schoolmaster as they stepped in together;
'this is our shop, Nickleby!'

It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects to
attract attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about him, really
without seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, the place
resolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with a couple of windows,
whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being stopped
up with old copy-books and paper. There were a couple of long old
rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked, and damaged, in every
possible way; two or three forms; a detached desk for Squeers; and
another for his assistant. The ceiling was supported, like that of a
barn, by cross-beams and rafters; and the walls were so stained and
discoloured, that it was impossible to tell whether they had ever
been touched with paint or whitewash.

But the pupils--the young noblemen! How the last faint traces
of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his
efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in
dismay around! Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures,
children with the countenances of old men, deformities with irons
upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long
meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on
the view together; there were the bleared eye, the hare-lip, the
crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural
aversion conceived by parents for their offspring, or of young lives
which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one horrible
endurance of cruelty and neglect. There were little faces which
should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged
suffering; there was childhood with the light of its eye quenched,
its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining; there were
vicious-faced boys, brooding, with leaden eyes, like malefactors in a
jail; and there were young creatures on whom the sins of their frail
parents had descended, weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had
known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. With every kindly
sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every young and
healthy feeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful
passion that can fester in swollen hearts, eating its evil way to
their core in silence, what an incipient Hell was breeding here!

And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque
features, which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might
have provoked a smile. Mrs Squeers stood at one of the desks,
presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which
delicious compound she administered a large instalment to each boy in
succession: using for the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might
have been originally manufactured for some gigantic top, and which
widened every young gentleman's mouth considerably: they being all
obliged, under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the
bowl at a gasp. In another corner, huddled together for
companionship, were the little boys who had arrived on the preceding
night, three of them in very large leather breeches, and two in old
trousers, a something tighter fit than drawers are usually worn; at
no great distance from these was seated the juvenile son and heir of
Mr Squeers--a striking likeness of his father--kicking, with great
vigour, under the hands of Smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of
new boots that bore a most suspicious resemblance to those which the
least of the little boys had worn on the journey down--as the little
boy himself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriation
with a look of most rueful amazement. Besides these, there was a
long row of boys waiting, with countenances of no pleasant
anticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who had just escaped
from the infliction, making a variety of wry mouths indicative of
anything but satisfaction. The whole were attired in such motley,
ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been irresistibly
ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder, and
disease, with which they were associated.

'Now,' said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane,
which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, 'is
that physicking over?'

'Just over,' said Mrs Squeers, choking the last boy in her
hurry, and tapping the crown of his head with the wooden spoon to
restore him. 'Here, you Smike; take away now. Look sharp!'

Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs Squeers having called
up a little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands upon it,
hurried out after him into a species of wash-house, where there was a
small fire and a large kettle, together with a number of little
wooden bowls which were arranged upon a board.

Into these bowls, Mrs Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant,
poured a brown composition, which looked like diluted pincushions
without the covers, and was called porridge. A minute wedge of brown
bread was inserted in each bowl, and when they had eaten their
porridge by means of the bread, the boys ate the bread itself, and
had finished their breakfast; whereupon Mr Squeers said, in a solemn
voice, 'For what we have received, may the Lord make us truly
thankful!'--and went away to his own.

Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, for much
the same reason which induces some savages to swallow earth--lest
they should be inconveniently hungry when there is nothing to eat.
Having further disposed of a slice of bread and butter, allotted to
him in virtue of his office, he sat himself down, to wait for
school-time.

He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all seemed
to be. There was none of the noise and clamour of a schoolroom; none
of its boisterous play, or hearty mirth. The children sat crouching
and shivering together, and seemed to lack the spirit to move about.
The only pupil who evinced the slightest tendency towards locomotion
or playfulness was Master Squeers, and as his chief amusement was to
tread upon the other boys' toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits
was rather disagreeable than otherwise.

After some half-hour's delay, Mr Squeers reappeared, and the
boys took their places and their books, of which latter commodity the
average might be about one to eight learners. A few minutes having
elapsed, during which Mr Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a
perfect apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could say
every word of their contents by heart if he only chose to take the
trouble, that gentleman called up the first class.

Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the
schoolmaster's desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and
elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned
eye.

'This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy,
Nickleby,' said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him.
'We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then,
where's the first boy?'

'Please, sir, he's cleaning the back-parlour window,' said the
temporary head of the philosophical class.

'So he is, to be sure,' rejoined Squeers. 'We go upon the
practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system.
C-l-e-a- n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n,
win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows this out of
book, he goes and does it. It's just the same principle as the use
of the globes. Where's the second boy?'

'Please, sir, he's weeding the garden,' replied a small
voice.

'To be sure,' said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. 'So he
is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun
substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that
bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em. That's
our system, Nickleby: what do you think of it?'

'It's very useful one, at any rate,' answered Nicholas.

'I believe you,' rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis of
his usher. 'Third boy, what's horse?'

'A beast, sir,' replied the boy.

'So it is,' said Squeers. 'Ain't it, Nickleby?'

'I believe there is no doubt of that, sir,' answered
Nicholas.

'Of course there isn't,' said Squeers. 'A horse is a quadruped,
and quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through the
grammar knows, or else where's the use of having grammars at all?'

'Where, indeed!' said Nicholas abstractedly.

'As you're perfect in that,' resumed Squeers, turning to the
boy, 'go and look after my horse, and rub him down well, or I'll rub
you down. The rest of the class go and draw water up, till somebody
tells you to leave off, for it's washing-day tomorrow, and they want
the coppers filled.'

So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in
practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning and
half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he might
think of him by this time.

'That's the way we do it, Nickleby,' he said, after a pause.

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was scarcely
perceptible, and said he saw it was.

'And a very good way it is, too,' said Squeers. 'Now, just take
them fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because, you
know, you must begin to be useful. Idling about here won't do.'

Mr Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly occurred to him,
either that he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his
assistant did not say enough to him in praise of the establishment.
The children were arranged in a semicircle round the new master, and
he was soon listening to their dull, drawling, hesitating recital of
those stories of engrossing interest which are to be found in the
more antiquated spelling-books.

In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on. At
one o'clock, the boys, having previously had their appetites
thoroughly taken away by stir-about and potatoes, sat down in the
kitchen to some hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was graciously
permitted to take his portion to his own solitary desk, to eat it
there in peace. After this, there was another hour of crouching in
the schoolroom and shivering with cold, and then school began
again.

It was Mr Squeer's custom to call the boys together, and make a
sort of report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis,
regarding the relations and friends he had seen, the news he had
heard, the letters he had brought down, the bills which had been
paid, the accounts which had been left unpaid, and so forth. This
solemn proceeding always took place in the afternoon of the day
succeeding his return; perhaps, because the boys acquired strength of
mind from the suspense of the morning, or, possibly, because Mr
Squeers himself acquired greater sternness and inflexibility from
certain warm potations in which he was wont to indulge after his
early dinner. Be this as it may, the boys were recalled from house-
window, garden, stable, and cow-yard, and the school were assembled
in full conclave, when Mr Squeers, with a small bundle of papers in
his hand, and Mrs S. following with a pair of canes, entered the room
and proclaimed silence.

'Let any boy speak a word without leave,' said Mr Squeers
mildly, 'and I'll take the skin off his back.'

This special proclamation had the desired effect, and a
deathlike silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which Mr
Squeers went on to say:

'Boys, I've been to London, and have returned to my family and
you, as strong and well as ever.'

According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble
cheers at this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers! Sights of
extra strength with the chill on.

'I have seen the parents of some boys,' continued Squeers,
turning over his papers, 'and they're so glad to hear how their sons
are getting on, that there's no prospect at all of their going away,
which of course is a very pleasant thing to reflect upon, for all
parties.'

Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeers said
this, but the greater part of the young gentlemen having no
particular parents to speak of, were wholly uninterested in the thing
one way or other.

'I have had diappointments to contend against,' said Squeers,
looking very grim; 'Bolder's father was two pound ten short. Where
is Bolder?'

'Here he is, please sir,' rejoined twenty officious voices.
Boys are very like men to be sure.

'Come here, Bolder,' said Squeers.

An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands, stepped
from his place to the master's desk, and raised his eyes imploringly
to Squeers's face; his own, quite white from the rapid beating of his
heart.

'Bolder,' said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was
considering, as the saying goes, where to have him. 'Bolder, if you
father thinks that because--why, what's this, sir?'

As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy's hand by the cuff of his
jacket, and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror and
disgust.

'What do you call this, sir?' demanded the schoolmaster,
administering a cut with the cane to expedite the reply.

'I can't help it, indeed, sir,' rejoined the boy, crying. 'They
will come; it's the dirty work I think, sir--at least I don't know
what it is, sir, but it's not my fault.'

'Bolder,' said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and
moistening the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the cane,
'you're an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last thrashing
did you no good, we must see what another will do towards beating it
out of you.'

With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, Mr
Squeers fell upon the boy and caned him soundly: not leaving off,
indeed, until his arm was tired out.

'There,' said Squeers, when he had quite done; 'rub away as hard
as you like, you won't rub that off in a hurry. Oh! you won't hold
that noise, won't you? Put him out, Smike.'

The drudge knew better from long experience, than to hesitate
about obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a side-door, and Mr
Squeers perched himself again on his own stool, supported by Mrs
Squeers, who occupied another at his side.

'Now let us see,' said Squeers. 'A letter for Cobbey. Stand
up, Cobbey.'

Another boy stood up, and eyed the letter very hard while
Squeers made a mental abstract of the same.

'Oh!' said Squeers: 'Cobbey's grandmother is dead, and his uncle
John has took to drinking, which is all the news his sister sends,
except eighteenpence, which will just pay for that broken square of
glass. Mrs Squeers, my dear, will you take the money?'

The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most
business-like air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as coolly
as possible.

'Graymarsh,' said Squeers, 'he's the next. Stand up,
Graymarsh.'

Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over the
letter as before.

'Graymarsh's maternal aunt,' said Squeers, when he had possessed
himself of the contents, 'is very glad to hear he's so well and
happy, and sends her respectful compliments to Mrs Squeers, and
thinks she must be an angel. She likewise thinks Mr Squeers is too
good for this world; but hopes he may long be spared to carry on the
business. Would have sent the two pair of stockings as desired, but
is short of money, so forwards a tract instead, and hopes Graymarsh
will put his trust in Providence. Hopes, above all, that he will
study in everything to please Mr and Mrs Squeers, and look upon them
as his only friends; and that he will love Master Squeers; and not
object to sleeping five in a bed, which no Christian should. Ah!'
said Squeers, folding it up, 'a delightful letter. Very affecting
indeed.'

It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh's maternal aunt was
strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no other than
his maternal parent; Squeers, however, without alluding to this part
of the story (which would have sounded immoral before boys),
proceeded with the business by calling out 'Mobbs,' whereupon another
boy rose, and Graymarsh resumed his seat.

'Mobbs's step-mother,' said Squeers, 'took to her bed on hearing
that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. She
wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects to go to, if he
quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up
his nose at the cow's-liver broth, after his good master had asked a
blessing on it. This was told her in the London newspapers--not by
Mr Squeers, for he is too kind and too good to set anybody against
anybody--and it has vexed her so much, Mobbs can't think. She is
sorry to find he is discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and
hopes Mr Squeers will flog him into a happier state of mind; with
which view, she has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket-money,
and given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the
Missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him.'

'A sulky state of feeling,' said Squeers, after a terrible
pause, during which he had moistened the palm of his right hand
again, 'won't do. Cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up.
Mobbs, come to me!'

Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in
anticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards
retired by the side-door, with as good cause as a boy need have.

Mr Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection of
letters; some enclosing money, which Mrs Squeers 'took care of;' and
others referring to small articles of apparel, as caps and so forth,
all of which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small, and
calculated for nobody but young Squeers, who would appear indeed to
have had most accommodating limbs, since everything that came into
the school fitted him to a nicety. His head, in particular, must
have been singularly elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions
were alike to him.

This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed,
and Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of
the boys in the school-room, which was very cold, and where a meal of
bread and cheese was served out shortly after dark.

There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was
nearest to the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, so
depressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his position,
that if death could have come upon him at that time, he would have
been almost happy to meet it. The cruelty of which he had been an
unwilling witness, the coarse and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even
in his best moods, the filthy place, the sights and sounds about him,
all contributed to this state of feeling; but when he recollected
that, being there as an assistant, he actually seemed--no matter what
unhappy train of circumstances had brought him to that pass--to be
the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest
disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the
moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present situation
must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his head
again.

But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolution
he had formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed. He had
written to his mother and sister, announcing the safe conclusion of
his journey, and saying as little about Dotheboys Hall, and saying
that little as cheerfully, as he possibly could. He hoped that by
remaining where he was, he might do some good, even there; at all
events, others depended too much on his uncle's favour, to admit of
his awakening his wrath just then.

One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish
considerations arising out of his own position. This was the
probable destination of his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived him,
and might he not consign her to some miserable place where her youth
and beauty would prove a far greater curse than ugliness and
decrepitude? To a caged man, bound hand and foot, this was a
terrible idea--but no, he thought, his mother was by; there was the
portrait-painter, too--simple enough, but still living in the world,
and of it. He was willing to believe that Ralph Nickleby had
conceived a personal dislike to himself. Having pretty good reason,
by this time, to reciprocate it, he had no great difficulty in
arriving at this conclusion, and tried to persuade himself that the
feeling extended no farther than between them.

As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once
encountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before
the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and planting
them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and
when he saw that he was observed, shrunk back, as if expecting a
blow.

'You need not fear me,' said Nicholas kindly. 'Are you
cold?'

'N-n-o.'

'You are shivering.'

'I am not cold,' replied Smike quickly. 'I am used to it.'

There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his manner,
and he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas
could not help exclaiming, 'Poor fellow!'

If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away without a
word. But, now, he burst into tears.

'Oh dear, oh dear!' he cried, covering his face with his cracked
and horny hands. 'My heart will break. It will, it will.'

'Hush!' said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. 'Be a
man; you are nearly one by years, God help you.'

'By years!' cried Smike. 'Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How
many of them since I was a little child, younger than any that are
here now! Where are they all!'

'Whom do you speak of?' inquired Nicholas, wishing to rouse the
poor half-witted creature to reason. 'Tell me.'

'My friends,' he replied, 'myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine
have been!'

'There is always hope,' said Nicholas; he knew not what to
say.

'No,' rejoined the other, 'no; none for me. Do you remember the
boy that died here?'

'I was not here, you know,' said Nicholas gently; 'but what of
him?'

'Why,' replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner's
side, 'I was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried
no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to
see faces round his bed that came from home; he said they smiled, and
talked to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do
you hear?'

'Yes, yes,' rejoined Nicholas.

'What faces will smile on me when I die!' cried his companion,
shivering. 'Who will talk to me in those long nights! They cannot
come from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don't know
what it is, and shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear
for me, alive or dead. No hope, no hope!'

The bell rang to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound into
his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice.
It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not
retired; there was no retirement there--followed--to his dirty and
crowded dormitory.