Little Dorrit | Page 2

was very nearly correct. How this young Newton (for such I
judge him to be) came by his information, I don't know; he was a
quarter of a century too young to know anything about it of himself. I
pointed to the window of the room where Little Dorrit was born, and
where her father lived so long, and asked him what was the name of the
lodger who tenanted that apartment at present? He said, 'Tom Pythick.'
I asked him who was Tom Pythick? and he said, 'Joe Pythick's uncle.'
A little further on, I found the older and smaller wall, which used to
enclose the pent-up inner prison where nobody was put, except for
ceremony. But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of
Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very
paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to
the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls
were lowered when the place got free; will look upon rooms in which
the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many
miserable years.
In the Preface to Bleak House I remarked that I had never had so many
readers. In the Preface to its next successor, Little Dorrit, I have still to
repeat the same words. Deeply sensible of the affection and confidence
that have grown up between us, I add to this Preface, as I added to that,
May we meet again!
London May 1857

BOOK THE FIRST POVERTY
CHAPTER 1
Sun and Shadow

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.
A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in
southern France then, than at any other time, before or since.
Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid
sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become
universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring
white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of
arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only
things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines
drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a
little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.
There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the
harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation
between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the
pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with
which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch;
ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled,
night or day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards,
Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians,
Greeks, Turks, descendants from all the builders of Babel, come to
trade at Marseilles, sought the shade alike--taking refuge in any
hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of
purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire.
The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line of
Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist,
slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere
else. Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the hill-side,
stared from the hollow, stared from the interminable plain. Far away
the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the monotonous
wayside avenues of parched trees without shade, drooped beneath the
stare of earth and sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells, in long files
of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did their recumbent
drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened; so did the
exhausted labourers in the fields. Everything that lived or grew, was

oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough
stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like a rattle. The
very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in the
atmosphere as if the air itself were panting.
Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep
out the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a
white-hot arrow. The churches were the freest from it. To come out of
the twilight of pillars and arches--dreamily dotted with winking lamps,
dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and
begging--was to plunge into a fiery river, and swim for life to the
nearest strip of shade. So, with people lounging and lying wherever
shade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with
occasional jangling of discordant church bells