Subject: Beginning of Little Dorrit
From: Paul Miller (phm@midsouth.rr.com)
Date: Sat Sep 22 2001 - 09:02:50 GMT
The beginning of Little Dorrit by Dickens is so choice, sharing it with
Bananafish literati, yes a must or bust.
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 and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to
be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day.
Paul
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