Hard Times

Stephen descends Bounderby's white steps and crosses the street with his eyes on the ground. A touch on his arm: an old woman, tall and plainly dressed, with country mud on her shoes and a spare shawl on her arm. She has come forty miles by Parliamentary train this morning, walked nine miles to the station before that, and will walk nine miles back tonight. She comes once a year, she says, to spend her savings — to tramp about the streets and see the gentlemen. She wants only a glimpse of Mr. Bounderby. She asks Stephen how he looked — portly? bold? outspoken? healthy as the fresh wind? Each answer fills her with infinite content. She seems to have come all this way simply for the comfort of knowing he is well and prospering. She asks if Stephen is happy. He answers evasively, not wanting to disappoint her. At the factory gate she takes his hand and kisses it — 'I must kiss the hand that has worked in this fine factory for a dozen year!' — and there is something in the gesture, Dickens notes, neither out of time nor place. Stephen is at his loom half an hour before he notices, glancing through the window, that she is still standing in the muddy street below, gazing up at the factory as if the heavy machinery were proud music to her. By evening she is gone. He returns home that night to the dreary room above the little shop, and the shameful figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart.