Chapter: 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.

 The next morning the Dorrits and their huge retinue of servants pack up to go down the mountains into Italy. Amy tells Tip that Pet Gowan is doing better, and he worries that she's been trying to take care of her - which is low-class and something only servants are supposed to do. Fanny overhears this exchange and loses it. She figures out that Pet must know Arthur, who apparently did something she finds super-offensive in between the novel's two books. It's not clear what this thing Arthur did is, but Fanny writes him off entirely. Dorrit is less angry about Arthur but tells Amy she is just not doing enough to preserve their family dignity. Poor Amy. No one wants to hang out with Prisony McPrisonson. The only person who is nice to her is her uncle Frederick, who goes out of his way to make sure she is well taken care of and that everyone defers to her. Too bad he's a half-senile old man. After some traveling, the Dorrits get to Venice. When they arrive at their hotel, the innkeeper tells them that a lady and gentleman are using their dining room and will be out in a minute. Dorrit flips his lid and starts yelling at the innkeeper - why is he being treated as less important than the lady? The poor guy doesn't know what to say, and Dorrit threatens to leave the hotel, until out of the dining room pops... Edmund Sparkler! He's all apologies and stuff, and his mom Mrs. Merdle is not too far behind with some more apologies. In the middle of apologizing, she recognizes Fanny and Amy. But Mrs. Merdle is a lady of the world, so she plays it off like she's never met either of them before. Dorrit is satisfied with the apologies, and Mrs. Merdle and Edmund Sparkler go off in the carriage, with Edmund never taking his eyes off Fanny. Fanny is totally psyched by this encounter and is a in a good mood for a while afterwards. Amy, meanwhile, is living in kind of a dream world. They go around Venice and everything seems dreamy and strange to her - the canals and the museums and all the people. All she does is think about the prison and wonder how it's possible that it still exists. It's also very stressful for her to no longer be taking physical care of her father's needs and to be replaced by servants. Looks like Amy is going to have to find a new identity!

