Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

Gone

On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak but
otherwise restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On
a healthy autumn day; when the golden fields had been reaped and
ploughed again, when the summer fruits had ripened and waned, when
the green perspectives of hops had been laid low by the busy
pickers, when the apples clustering in the orchards were russet,
and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson among the
yellowing foliage. Already in the woods, glimpses of the hardy
winter that was coming were to be caught through unaccustomed
openings among the boughs where the prospect shone defined and
clear, free from the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had
rested on it as the bloom lies on the plum. So, from the seashore
the ocean was no longer to be seen lying asleep in the heat, but
its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and its whole breadth was in
joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach to the little
sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn-tinted leaves that
had drifted from the trees.
Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with
its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a
touch of any of these beauties on it. Blossom what would, its
bricks and bars bore uniformly the same dead crop. Yet Clennam,
listening to the voice as it read to him, heard in it all that
great Nature was doing, heard in it all the soothing songs she
sings to man. At no Mother's knee but hers had he ever dwelt in
his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the harvests
of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early-fostered
seeds of the imagination; on the oaks of retreat from blighting
winds, that have the germs of their strong roots in nursery acorns.

But, in the tones of the voice that read to him, there were
memories of an old feeling of such things, and echoes of every
merciful and loving whisper that had ever stolen to him in his
life.

When the voice stopped, he put his hand over his eyes, murmuring
that the light was strong upon them.

Little Dorrit put the book by, and presently arose quietly to shade
the window. Maggy sat at her needlework in her old place. The
light softened, Little Dorrit brought her chair closer to his side.

'This will soon be over now, dear Mr Clennam. Not only are Mr
Doyce's letters to you so full of friendship and encouragement, but
Mr Rugg says his letters to him are so full of help, and that
everybody (now a little anger is past) is so considerate, and
speaks so well of you, that it will soon be over now.'

'Dear girl. Dear heart. Good angel!'

'You praise me far too much. And yet it is such an exquisite