Little Dorrit Vol.1 f.011 recto

[????] 2
it but a chink or keyhole key hole [???] of, and it shot in like a [???] white-hot arrow. [??????????????]The churches were the freest from it. To come or [???],
out [???] of the cool[???] twilight of [?] pillars and [????] arches—dreamily lighted here and there dotted with twinkling winking lamps [??],
dreamily peopled with [??????????] ugly old shadows [???????] piously spitting, [??????????] ???? dozing, and [??????????] begging—[????????????? ??? ????? ???? to ???? out of this retreat? ??? ??? ???? ????] was to plunge into a fiery
[??? ????????] [??????] river, and swim for life to the nearest strip of shade [?shelter?]. So, [???? ?????] So, with people lounging and lying
wherever [?shelter?] shade was, with but [??????????????????] but little hum of [????] tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional [???????]
[?jingling?] jangling of discordant [????? ??????? bells] church bells and [?clattering?] rattling of vicious drums, [????? ??? ??? deaf ????? and ???? a good deal of ???????] Marseilles lay boiling in the
[sun one day] Marseilles, a ?strong? fact to be [?strongly?] strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the [???]sun one day.

In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive [????] a place [???????] a place
[?????? and ?????? ????? ????] that even the [?????] obtrusive stare blinked at it [had ???? of i?? ?????? the ??? ??? ???], and
[???????] left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. Besides
the two men, [???? - ?in the shadows?]there was a bench notched and disfigured bench, immovable from [????????]the wall, [?under ??????] with a [?????] draught -board rudely hacked upon
it with a knife, [??? rags?] a set of [????? ????? ?? ?? ??????]draughts made of[???? ???? ????? ????] old buttons and
[????]soup bones, [??? of ????] a set of dominoes, two ragsmats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all [??] That was all the chamber
[?contained?] held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, [?and? ??] in addition to the seen vermin, the two men.

It ?had? received such light as it got ????? ????? through a grating of iron bars fashioned like a [????] pretty large window, [???????] [?????]
by means of which it could be always always inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave.
There was a broad strong sill ledge of stone to this grating where the bottom of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above the ground. Upon it, one
of the two men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with his knees drawn up,
and his feet and shoulders planted against the opposite sides of the aperture. The bars
were wide enough apart to admit of his thrusting his arm through to the elbow; and so he held on
negligently, for his greater ease.

A [???????? ?laughing? ?could be? ????/?? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ?????] [????] prison
taint was on [???] everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned
men, were all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the [??????]
iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a
vault, like a tomb, the place prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have kept
[?its ????????] its polluted atmosphere intact in the ?island? one of the spice islands of the Indian ocean.

The man who lay on the side of ledge of the grating was even cold chilled. He [????????] jerked
his [???????] great cloak more heavily upon him ?with? by an impatient movement of his one shoulder, and growled,
“To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that never [?????] shines in here!”

He [????????????] was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he might see the
further down the stairs, with much of the expression of a wild beast in similar expectation. But
his eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and
they were sharp rather than bright—pointed weapons with little surface to betray them. They had no
depth or change; they glittered, and they opened and shut. So far, and
waiving their use to himself, a clockmaker could have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome after its
kind, but too high between the eyes by probably
just as much as his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where