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Rigaud effects an entrance to Mrs. Clennam's house
Harry Furniss
1910
14.9 cm x 9.5 cm, framed
Dickens's Little Dorrit, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 29, "Mrs. Flintwinch goes on Dreaming," facing XII, 385.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
From this posture [Affery] started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand.
The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about it, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had a quantity of hair and moustache — jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where it had a tinge of red — and a high hook nose. He laughed at Mistress Affery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache. . . . . [358]
"Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my character. I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see." He showed her that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were saturated with water; she had previously observed that he was dishevelled and sallow, as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled that he could not keep his teeth from chattering. "I am just landed from the packet-boat, madam, and have been delayed by the weather: the infernal weather! In consequence of this, madam, some necessary business that I should otherwise have transacted here within the regular hours (necessary business because money-business), still remains to be done. Now, if you will fetch any authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for my opening the door, I'll open the door. If this arrangement should be objectionable, I'll &mdash" and with the same smile he made a significant feint of backing away.
Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave in her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once requested her to do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow window, made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in a moment had his hand at the sash, raising it. His eyes looked so very sinister, as he put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress Affery, that she thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go straight up-stairs to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent him?
Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the house door. "Now, my dear madam," he said, as he took back his cloak and threw it on, "if you have the goodness to — what the Devil's that!" [Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 29, "Mrs. Flintwinch goes on Dreaming," 359-360]
This situation has no parallel in Phiz's original serial illustrations, but has an equivalent in James Mahoney's Household Edition illustrations of 1873, although Furniss's version is far more effective as character comedy. The over-the-top poses of the characters are complemented by gothic architectural elaboration around a gloomy portal worthy of Edgar Allen Poe, with a gargoyle leering down upon Affery from the capital, upper centre. Such touches are entirely absent in Mahoney's 1873 treatment of the same scene. The Miltonic overtunes are unmistakable as the Satanic Frenchman's housebreaking parallels Satan's surreptitiously entering the precincts of Eden in Paradise Lost, but Mistress Affery seems more terrified and distracted than the naive, gullible Eve. Significantly, the illustration lacks the usual, lengthy caption of the majority of Furniss's illustrations for this novel, as if he has a situation rather than a particular passage of description or dialogue in mind.
Left: Phiz's original, Part 9 (August 1856) illustration of the meeting of Rigaud and Flintwinch, Mr. Flintwinch has a mild Attack of Irritability. Centre: Sol Eytinge, Junior's study of the irritable husband and his anxious wife, Mr.and Mrs. Flintwinch (1867). Right: The Darley frontispiece featuring Mrs. Clennam with Blandois and the Flintwinches, Closing in — Book II, Ch. XXX. (1863)
Above: Mahoney's Household Edition 1873 illustration of Rigaud's terrifying Affery outside the Clennam mansion, "What's the matter?" he asked in plain English. "What are you frightened at" (Book I, Ch. 29).
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Created 25 May 2016
Last modified 27 January 2020