Little Dorrit

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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.

CHAPTER 4

A Letter from Little Dorrit

Dear Mr Clennam,

I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be
glad to hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear
from me as I am to write to you; for everything about you is as you
have been accustomed to see it, and you miss nothing--unless it
should be me, which can only be for a very little while together
and very seldom--while everything in my life is so strange, and I
miss so much.

When we were in Switzerland, which appears to have been years ago,
though it was only weeks, I met young Mrs Gowan, who was on a
mountain excursion like ourselves. She told me she was very well
and very happy. She sent you the message, by me, that she thanked
you affectionately and would never forget you. She was quite
confiding with me, and I loved her almost as soon as I spoke to
her. But there is nothing singular in that; who could help loving
so beautiful and winning a creature! I could not wonder at any one
loving her. No indeed.

It will not make you uneasy on Mrs Gowan's account, I hope--for I
remember that you said you had the interest of a true friend in
her--if I tell you that I wish she could have married some one
better suited to her. Mr Gowan seems fond of her, and of course
she is very fond of him, but I thought he was not earnest enough--I
don't mean in that respect--I mean in anything. I could not keep
it out of my mind that if I was Mrs Gowan (what a change that would
be, and how I must alter to become like her!) I should feel that I
was rather lonely and lost, for the want of some one who was
steadfast and firm in purpose. I even thought she felt this want
a little, almost without knowing it. But mind you are not made
uneasy by this, for she was 'very well and very happy.' And she
looked most beautiful.

I expect to meet her again before long, and indeed have been
expecting for some days past to see her here. I will ever be as
good a friend to her as I can for your sake. Dear Mr Clennam, I
dare say you think little of having been a friend to me when I had
no other (not that I have any other now, for I have made no new
friends), but I think much of it, and I never can forget it.

I wish I knew--but it is best for no one to write to me--how Mr and
Mrs Plornish prosper in the business which my dear father bought
for them, and that old Mr Nandy lives happily with them and his two
grandchildren, and sings all his songs over and over again. I
cannot quite keep back the tears from my eyes when I think of my
poor Maggy, and of the blank she must have felt at first, however
kind they all are to her, without her Little Mother. Will you go
and tell her, as a strict secret, with my love, that she never can
have regretted our separation more than I have regretted it? And
will you tell them all that I have thought of them every day, and
that my heart is faithful to them everywhere? O, if you could know
how faithful, you would almost pity me for being so far away and
being so grand!

You will be glad, I am sure, to know that my dear father is very
well in health, and that all these changes are highly beneficial to
him, and that he is very different indeed from what he used to be
when you used to see him. There is an improvement in my uncle too,
I think, though he never complained of old, and never exults now.
Fanny is very graceful, quick, and clever. It is natural to her to
be a lady; she has adapted herself to our new fortunes with
wonderful ease.

This reminds me that I have not been able to do so, and that I
sometimes almost despair of ever being able to do so. I find that
I cannot learn. Mrs General is always with us, and we speak French
and speak Italian, and she takes pains to form us in many ways.
When I say we speak French and Italian, I mean they do. As for me,
I am so slow that I scarcely get on at all. As soon as I begin to
plan, and think, and try, all my planning, thinking, and trying go
in old directions, and I begin to feel careful again about the
expenses of the day, and about my dear father, and about my work,
and then I remember with a start that there are no such cares left,
and that in itself is so new and improbable that it sets me
wandering again. I should not have the courage to mention this to
any one but you.

It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights.
They are very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not
collected enough--not familiar enough with myself, if you can quite
understand what I mean--to have all the pleasure in them that I
might have. What I knew before them, blends with them, too, so
curiously. For instance, when we were among the mountains, I often
felt (I hesitate to tell such an idle thing, dear Mr Clennam, even
to you) as if the Marshalsea must be behind that great rock; or as
if Mrs Clennam's room where I have worked so many days, and where
I first saw you, must be just beyond that snow. Do you remember
one night when I came with Maggy to your lodging in Covent Garden?
That room I have often and often fancied I have seen before me,
travelling along for miles by the side of our carriage, when I have
looked out of the carriage-window after dark. We were shut out
that night, and sat at the iron gate, and walked about till
morning. I often look up at the stars, even from the balcony of
this room, and believe that I am in the street again, shut out with
Maggy. It is the same with people that I left in England.

When I go about here in a gondola, I surprise myself looking into
other gondolas as if I hoped to see them. It would overcome me
with joy to see them, but I don't think it would surprise me much,
at first. In my fanciful times, I fancy that they might be
anywhere; and I almost expect to see their dear faces on the
bridges or the quays.

Another difficulty that I have will seem very strange to you. It
must seem very strange to any one but me, and does even to me: I
often feel the old sad pity for--I need not write the word--for
him. Changed as he is, and inexpressibly blest and thankful as I
always am to know it, the old sorrowful feeling of compassion comes
upon me sometimes with such strength that I want to put my arms
round his neck, tell him how I love him, and cry a little on his
breast. I should be glad after that, and proud and happy. But I
know that I must not do this; that he would not like it, that Fanny
would be angry, that Mrs General would be amazed; and so I quiet
myself. Yet in doing so, I struggle with the feeling that I have
come to be at a distance from him; and that even in the midst of
all the servants and attendants, he is deserted, and in want of me.

Dear Mr Clennam, I have written a great deal about myself, but I
must write a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say
in this weak letter would be left out of it. In all these foolish
thoughts of mine, which I have been so hardy as to confess to you
because I know you will understand me if anybody can, and will make
more allowance for me than anybody else would if you cannot--in all
these thoughts, there is one thought scarcely ever--never--out of
my memory, and that is that I hope you sometimes, in a quiet
moment, have a thought for me. I must tell you that as to this, I
have felt, ever since I have been away, an anxiety which I am very
anxious to relieve. I have been afraid that you may think of me in
a new light, or a new character. Don't do that, I could not bear
that--it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose. It would
break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way that
would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to
me. What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never
think of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never
think of me as dressing any better, or living any better, than when
you first knew me. That you will remember me only as the little
shabby girl you protected with so much tenderness, from whose
threadbare dress you have kept away the rain, and whose wet feet
you have dried at your fire. That you will think of me (when you
think of me at all), and of my true affection and devoted
gratitude, always without change, as of your poor child,
LITTLE DORRIT.

P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs
Gowan. Her words were, 'Very well and very happy.' And she looked
most beautiful.

CHAPTER 5

Something Wrong Somewhere

The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who
was much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set
an hour of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding
some conference with Mrs General.

The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler,
his valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed
about a third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his
compliments to that lady, and represent him as desiring the favour
of an interview. It being that period of the forenoon when the
various members of the family had coffee in their own chambers,
some couple of hours before assembling at breakfast in a faded hall
which had once been sumptuous, but was now the prey of watery
vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was accessible to the
valet. That envoy found her on a little square of carpet, so
extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone and
marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for
the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come
into possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty
purses by one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had
that moment been transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial
saloon with which it had no connection.

Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty
coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's
apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming to her (which, in
his gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and
escorted Mrs General to the presence. It was quite a walk, by
mysterious staircases and corridors, from Mrs General's apartment,
--hoodwinked by a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in
it, and dungeon-like opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with
a thousand downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture
in them had been weeping tears of rust into the Adriatic for
centuries--to Mr Dorrit's apartment: with a whole English house-
front of window, a prospect of beautiful church-domes rising into
the blue sky sheer out of the water which reflected them, and a
hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the doorways below, where
his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure, drowsily
swinging in a little forest of piles.

Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap--the dormant grub
that had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into
a rare butterfly--rose to receive Mrs General. A chair to Mrs
General. An easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you
about, what do you mean? Now, leave us!

'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty--'

'By no means,' Mrs General interposed. 'I was quite at your
disposition. I had had my coffee.'

'--I took the liberty,' said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent
placidity of one who was above correction, 'to solicit the favour
of a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather
worried respecting my--ha--my younger daughter. You will have
observed a great difference of temperament, madam, between my two
daughters?'

Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was
never without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted),
'There is a great difference.'

'May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?' said Mr Dorrit,
with a deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.

'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'has force of character and self-
reliance. Amy, none.'

None? O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs
General, ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-
master who taught her sister to dance. O Mrs General, Mrs General,
ask me, her father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching
the life of this slighted little creature from her childhood up!

No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit's head. He looked at Mrs
General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind
the proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, 'True, madam.'

'I would not,' said Mrs General, 'be understood to say, observe,
that there is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material
there--perhaps, indeed, a little too much.'

'Will you be kind enough, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to be--ha--more
explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having--
hum--too much material. What material?'

'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'at present forms too many opinions.

Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.'

Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr
Dorrit hastened to reply, 'Unquestionably, madam, you are right.'
Mrs General returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner,
'I believe so.'

'But you are aware, my dear madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that my
daughters had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when
they were very young; and that, in consequence of my not having
been until lately the recognised heir to my property, they have
lived with me as a comparatively poor, though always proud,
gentleman, in--ha hum--retirement!'

'I do not,' said Mrs General, 'lose sight of the circumstance.'
'Madam,'pursued Mr Dorrit, 'of my daughter Fanny, under her present
guidance and with such an example constantly before her--'

(Mrs General shut her eyes.)

--'I have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in
Fanny. But my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and
vexes my thoughts. I must inform you that she has always been my
favourite.'

'There is no accounting,' said Mrs General, 'for these
partialities.'

'Ha--no,' assented Mr Dorrit. 'No. Now, madam, I am troubled by
noticing that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does
not Care to go about with us; she is lost in the society we have
here; our tastes are evidently not her tastes. Which,' said Mr
Dorrit, summing up with judicial gravity, 'is to say, in other
words, that there is something wrong in--ha--Amy.'

'May we incline to the supposition,' said Mrs General, with a
little touch of varnish, 'that something is referable to the
novelty of the position?'

'Excuse me, madam,' observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly. 'The
daughter of a gentleman, though--ha--himself at one time
comparatively far from affluent--comparatively--and herself reared
in--hum--retirement, need not of necessity find this position so
very novel.'

'True,' said Mrs General, 'true.'

'Therefore, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid
an emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated,
with urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I
took the liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I
might mention the topic to you, and inquire how you would advise
me?'

'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'I have conversed with Amy
several times since we have been residing here, on the general
subject of the formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself
to me as wondering exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her
that it is better not to wonder. I have pointed out to her that
the celebrated Mr Eustace, the classical tourist, did not think
much of it; and that he compared the Rialto, greatly to its
disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges. I need not
add, after what you have said, that I have not yet found my
arguments successful. You do me the honour to ask me what to
advise. It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a
baseless assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been
accustomed to exercise influence over the minds of others.'

'Hum--madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I have been at the head of--ha of a
considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not
unaccustomed to--an influential position.'

'I am happy,' returned Mrs General, 'to be so corroborated. I
would therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr Dorrit
should speak to Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes
known to her. Being his favourite, besides, and no doubt attached
to him, she is all the more likely to yield to his influence.'

'I had anticipated your suggestion, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'but--
ha--was not sure that I might--hum--not encroach on--'

'On my province, Mr Dorrit?' said Mrs General, graciously. 'Do not
mention it.'

'Then, with your leave, madam,' resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his
little bell to summon his valet, 'I will send for her at once.'

'Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?'

'Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for
a minute or two--'

'Not at all.'

So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy's maid, and
to request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit
wished to see her in his own room. In delivering this charge to
Tinkler, Mr Dorrit looked severely at him, and also kept a jealous
eye upon him until he went out at the door, mistrusting that he
might have something in his mind prejudicial to the family dignity;
that he might have even got wind of some Collegiate joke before he
came into the service, and might be derisively reviving its
remembrance at the present moment. If Tinkler had happened to
smile, however faintly and innocently, nothing would have persuaded
Mr Dorrit, to the hour of his death, but that this was the case.
As Tinkler happened, however, very fortunately for himself, to be
of a serious and composed countenance, he escaped the secret danger
that threatened him. And as on his return--when Mr Dorrit eyed him
again--he announced Miss Amy as if she had come to a funeral, he
left a vague impression on Mr Dorrit's mind that he was a well-
conducted young fellow, who had been brought up in the study of his
Catechism by a widowed mother.

'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have just now been the subject of some
conversation between myself and Mrs General. We agree that you
scarcely seem at home here. Ha--how is this?'

A pause.

'I think, father, I require a little time.'

'Papa is a preferable mode of address,' observed Mrs General.
'Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives
a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and
prism are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and
prism. You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a
demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company--on entering
a room, for instance--Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism,
prunes and prism.'

'Pray, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, 'attend to the--hum--precepts of
Mrs General.'

Poor Little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent
varnisher, promised to try.

'You say, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'that you think you require
time. Time for what?'

Another pause.

'To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant,'
said Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she
had very nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too,
in her desire to submit herself to Mrs General and please him.

Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased. 'Amy,' he
returned, 'it appears to me, I must say, that you have had
abundance of time for that. Ha--you surprise me. You disappoint
me. Fanny has conquered any such little difficulties, and--hum--
why not you?'

'I hope I shall do better soon,' said Little Dorrit.

'I hope so,' returned her father. 'I--ha--I most devoutly hope so,
Amy. I sent for you, in order that I might say--hum--impressively
say, in the presence of Mrs General, to whom we are all so much
indebted for obligingly being present among us, on--ha--on this or
any other occasion,' Mrs General shut her eyes, 'that I--ha hum--am
not pleased with you. You make Mrs General's a thankless task.
You--ha--embarrass me very much. You have always (as I have
informed Mrs General) been my favourite child; I have always made
you a--hum--a friend and companion; in return, I beg--I--ha--I do
beg, that you accommodate yourself better to --hum--circumstances,
and dutifully do what becomes your--your station.'

Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual, being
excited on the subject and anxious to make himself particularly
emphatic.

'I do beg,' he repeated, 'that this may be attended to, and that
you will seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a
manner both becoming your position as--ha--Miss Amy Dorrit, and
satisfactory to myself and Mrs General.'

That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then,
slowly opening them and rising, added these words:
'If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will
accept of my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr.
Dorrit will have no further cause of anxiety. May I take this
opportunity of remarking, as an instance in point, that it is
scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the attention which I
have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young friend of mine?
They should not be looked at. Nothing disagreeable should ever be
looked at. Apart from such a habit standing in the way of that
graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good
breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A
truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of
anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.'
Having delivered this exalted sentiment, Mrs General made a
sweeping obeisance, and retired with an expression of mouth
indicative of Prunes and Prism.

Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet
earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except
for a passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone
with him the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and
there was repressed emotion in her face.

Not for herself. She might feel a little wounded, but her care was
not for herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had
turned, to him. A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since
their accession to fortune, that even now she could never see him
as he used to be before the prison days, had gradually begun to
assume form in her mind. She felt that, in what he had just now
said to her and in his whole bearing towards her, there was the
well-known shadow of the Marshalsea wall. It took a new shape, but
it was the old sad shadow. She began with sorrowful unwillingness
to acknowledge to herself that she was not strong enough to keep
off the fear that no space in the life of man could overcome that
quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had no blame to
bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with, no
emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded
tenderness.

This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in
the brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city
without and the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at
the moment in the long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging,
and wished to take her seat beside him, and comfort him, and be
again full of confidence with him, and of usefulness to him. If he
divined what was in her thoughts, his own were not in tune with it.

After some uneasy moving in his seat, he got up and walked about,
looking very much dissatisfied.

'Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?'

'No, no. Nothing else.'

'I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you
will not think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more
than ever, to adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me --for
indeed I have tried all along, though I have failed, I know.'