She then got on her bonnet and went out, having been anxious to get out
much sooner. There was, as usual, a cessation of the small-talk in
the Lodge as she passed through it; and a Collegian who had come in
on Saturday night, received the intimation from the elbow of a more
seasoned Collegian, 'Look out. Here she is!' She wanted to see her
sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples's, she found that both her
sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre where they were engaged.
Having taken thought of this probability by the way, and having settled
that in such case she would follow them, she set off afresh for the
theatre, which was on that side of the river, and not very far away.
Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the
ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door,
with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of
itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being
further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen
with their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door,
looking not at all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured
by this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for
her to enter a dark hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out
than anything else--where she could hear the distant playing of music
and the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he
had a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in
a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message
up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through. The
first lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and
half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it
seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her. But as she was
very good-natured, and said, 'Come with me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit
for you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer
at every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the
sound of dancing feet.
At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were
tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of
unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, ropes, and
rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed
to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little
Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment,
was quite bewildered, when she heard her sister's voice. 'Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?' 'I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day
to-morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--'