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who was turning old. Yet she might not have thought him old. Something

reminded him that he had not thought himself so, until the roses had

floated away upon the river.

He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took them

out and read them. There seemed to be a sound in them like the sound

of her sweet voice. It fell upon his ear with many tones of tenderness,

that were not insusceptible of the new meaning. Now it was that the

quiet desolation of her answer,'No, No, No,' made to him that night

in that very room--that night when he had been shown the dawn of her

altered fortune, and when other words had passed between them which he

had been destined to remember in humiliation and a prisoner, rushed into

his mind.

Consider the improbability.

But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become

fainter. There was another and a curious inquiry of his own heart's that

concurrently became stronger. In the reluctance he had felt to believe

that she loved any one; in his desire to set that question at rest; in

a half-formed consciousness he had had that there would be a kind of

nobleness in his helping her love for any one, was there no suppressed

something on his own side that he had hushed as it arose? Had he ever

whispered to himself that he must not think of such a thing as her

loving him, that he must not take advantage of her gratitude, that he

must keep his experience in remembrance as a warning and reproof;

that he must regard such youthful hopes as having passed away, as his

friend's dead daughter had passed away; that he must be steady in saying

to himself that the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and

old?

He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day when she

had been so consistently and expressively forgotten. Quite as he might

have kissed her, if she had been conscious? No difference?

The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness also

found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought with them a

basket, filled with choice selections from that stock in trade which met

with such a quick sale and produced such a slow return. Mrs Plornish was

affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but

not lucid manner, that there was ups you see, and there was downs. It

was in vain to ask why ups, why downs; there they was, you know. He had

heerd it given for a truth that accordin' as the world went round, which

round it did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his

turn of standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying

the wrong way into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What

Mr Plornish said was, wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come

up-ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a pleasure to

look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then!

It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical,

wept. It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical,

was intelligible. It may have arisen out of her softened state of mind,

out of her sex's wit, out of a woman's quick association of ideas,

or out of a woman's no association of ideas, but it further happened

somehow that Mrs Plornish's intelligibility displayed itself upon the

very subject of Arthur's meditations.

'The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam,' said Mrs

Plornish, 'you hardly would believe. It's made him quite poorly. As

to his voice, this misfortune has took it away. You know what a sweet

singer father is; but he couldn't get a note out for the children at

tea, if you'll credit what I tell you.'

While speaking, Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes, and

looked retrospectively about the room.

'As to Mr Baptist,' pursued Mrs Plornish, 'whatever he'll do when he

comes to know of it, I can't conceive nor yet imagine. He'd have been

here before now, you may be sure, but that he's away on confidential

business of your own. The persevering manner in which he follows up that

business, and gives himself no rest from it--it really do,' said

Mrs Plornish, winding up in the Italian manner, 'as I say to him,

Mooshattonisha padrona.'

Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this Tuscan

sentence with peculiar elegance. Mr Plornish could not conceal his

exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist.

'But what I say is, Mr Clennam,' the good woman went on, 'there's always

something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself admit.

Speaking in this room, it's not hard to think what the present something

is. It's a thing to be thankful for, indeed, that Miss Dorrit is not

here to know it.'

Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression.

'It's a thing,' reiterated Mrs Plornish, 'to be thankful for, indeed,

that Miss Dorrit is far away. It's to be hoped she is not likely to hear

of it. If she had been here to see it, sir, it's not to be doubted

that the sight of you,' Mrs Plornish repeated those words--'not to be

doubted, that the sight of you--in misfortune and trouble, would have

been almost too much for her affectionate heart. There's nothing I can

think of, that would have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that.'

Of a certainty Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of

quivering defiance in her friendly emotion.

'Yes!' said she. 'And it shows what notice father takes, though at his

time of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy Cottage

knows I neither make it up nor any ways enlarge, "Mary, it's much to

be rejoiced in that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it." Those

were father's words. Father's own words was, "Much to be rejoiced in,

Mary, that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it." I says to

father then, I says to him, "Father, you are right!" That,' Mrs Plornish

concluded, with the air of a very precise legal witness, 'is what passed

betwixt father and me. And I tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt

me and father.'

Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this

opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave

Mr Clennam to himself. 'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish, gravely, 'I

know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable remark several times,

as if it appeared to him to include some great moral secret. Finally,

the worthy couple went away arm in arm.

Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little Dorrit!

Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over. Granted

that she had loved him, and he had known it and had suffered himself

to love her, what a road to have led her away upon--the road that would

have brought her back to this miserable place! He ought to be much

comforted by the reflection that she was quit of it forever; that she

was, or would soon be, married (vague rumours of her father's projects

in that direction had reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her

sister's marriage); and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on

all those perplexed possibilities of a time that was gone.

Dear Little Dorrit.

Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point. Every

thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had travelled

thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and doubts had

worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of the interest

of his life; it was the termination of everything that was good and

pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere waste and darkened

sky.

As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep within

those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such thoughts. What time

Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber, after composing and arranging

the following monumental inscription on his pillow--

STRANGER!

RESPECT THE TOMB OF

JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR,

WHO DIED AT AN ADVANCED AGE

NOT NECESSARY TO MENTION.

HE ENCOUNTERED HIS RIVAL IN A DISTRESSED STATE,

AND FELT INCLINED

TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM;

BUT, FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVED ONE, CONQUERED THOSE FEELINGS

OF BITTERNESS, AND BECAME

MAGNANIMOUS.

CHAPTER 28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea

The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on

Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community

within. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who got

together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to join in

the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room, and was held

in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected that he was

sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for that he was a

poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The whole population were

shy of him on these various counts of indictment, but especially the

last, which involved a species of domestic treason; and he soon became

so confirmed in his seclusion, that his only time for walking up and

down was when the evening Club were assembled at their songs and toasts

and sentiments, and when the yard was nearly left to the women and

children.

Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and moped.

After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment within the

four small walls of the very room he occupied, this consciousness made

him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the observation of other men, and

shrinking from his own, he began to change very sensibly. Anybody might

see that the shadow of the wall was dark upon him.

One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail, and

when he had been trying to read and had not been able to release even

the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, a footstep stopped

at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose and opened it, and an

agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you do, Mr Clennam? I hope I

am not unwelcome in calling to see you.'

It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very

good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free, in

contrast with the squalid prison.

'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the seat

which Clennam offered him.

'I must confess to being much surprised.'

'Not disagreeably, I hope?'

'By no means.'

'Thank you. Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have been

excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of a

temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two private

gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?'

'Your office?'

'Our Circumlocution place.'

'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable

establishment.'

Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily glad to

know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it. I should have

so exceedingly regretted our place having had anything to do with your

difficulties.'

Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the responsibility.

'That's right,' said Ferdinand. 'I am very happy to hear it. I was

rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor you,

because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that kind

of thing now and then. We don't want to do it; but if men will be

gravelled, why--we can't help it.'

'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned Arthur,

gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in me.'

'No, but really! Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle, 'the most

inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a humbug. I won't say

we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be, and must be.

Don't you see?'

'I do not,' said Clennam.

'You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the point of

view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the point of

view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as capital a

Department as you'll find anywhere.'

'Is your place there to be left alone?' asked Clennam.

'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand. 'It is there with the express

intention that everything shall be left alone. That is what it means.

That is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain form to be kept up

that it's for something else, but it's only a form. Why, good Heaven,

we are nothing but forms! Think what a lot of our forms you have gone

through. And you have never got any nearer to an end?'

'Never,' said Clennam.

'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have

us--official and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A field

of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public Service, and we

block the balls.'

Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young Barnacle

replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their backs

broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games.

'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he pursued,

'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your

temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it;

because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky place, in

our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr Clennam, I am

quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and myself, I know I may

be. I was so, when I first saw you making the mistake of not leaving us

alone; because I perceived that you were inexperienced and sanguine, and

had--I hope you'll not object to my saying--some simplicity.'

'Not at all.'