As
memory grows stronger and more vivid, I can see that same face
still - the dwarf! the dwarf! the dwarf! - Satan's true
representative on earth, darkening and blighting ever passing
year. I do not know where we lived, but I imagine it to have
been one of the vilest and lowest dens in London, though the
rooms I occupied were, for that matter, decent and orderly
enough. Those rooms the daylight never entered, the windows were
boarded up within, and fastened by shutters without, so that of
the world beyond I was as ignorant as a child of two hours old.
I saw but two human faces, his" - she seemed to hate him too much
even to pronounce his name - "and his housekeeper's, a creature
almost as vile as himself, and who is now a servant here; and
with this precious pair to guard me I grew up to be fifteen years
old. My outer life consisted of eating, sleeping, reading - for
the wretch taught me to read - playing with my dogs and birds,
and listening to old Margery's stories. But there was an inward
life, fierce and strong, as it was rank and morbid, lived and
brooded over alone, when Margery and her master fancied me
sleeping in idiotic content.
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