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a christmas carol(鍦ｈ癁璧炴瓕)
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A CHRISTMAS CAROL
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by Charles Dickens
I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of
an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves,
with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses
pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
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Stave 1: Marley's Ghost
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the
undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name
was good upon `Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what
there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,
myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the
trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will
therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a
door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be
otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years.
Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his
sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even
Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was
an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and
solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral
brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can
come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced
that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing
more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon
his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's
Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years
afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was
known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business
called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both
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names. It was all the same to him.
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!
Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous
fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within
him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek,
stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue;
and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his
head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low
temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and
didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth
could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer
than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain
less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The
heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect. They often `came down' handsomely, and
Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks,
`My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No
beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it
was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to
such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners
into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though
they said, `No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his
way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep
its distance, was what the knowing ones call `nuts' to Scrooge.
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve
-- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting
weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,
go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and
stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city
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clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not
been light all day -- and candles were flaring in the windows of the
neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The
fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without,
that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were
mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring
everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was
brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his
eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was
copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so
very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it,
for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk
came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary
for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and
tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a
strong imagination, he failed.
`A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It
was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that
this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
`Bah!' said Scrooge, `Humbug!'
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this
nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and
handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. `Christmas a
humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's nephew. `You don't mean that, I am sure?'
`I do,' said Scrooge. `Merry Christmas! What right have you to be
merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.'
`Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. `What right have you to be
dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.'
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said
`Bah!' again; and followed it up with `Humbug.'
`Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew.
`What else can I be,' returned the uncle, `when I live in such a world of
fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's
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Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time
for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for
balancing your books and having every item in `em through a round dozen
of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said
Scrooge indignantly, `every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas"
on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake
of holly through his heart. He should!'
`Uncle!' pleaded the nephew.
`Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, `keep Christmas in your own
way, and let me keep it in mine.'
`Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. `But you don't keep it.'
`Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. `Much good may it do you!
Much good it has ever done you!'
`There are many things from which I might have derived good, by
which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. `Christmas
among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time,
when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name
and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good
time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of,
in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one
consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below
them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not
another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle,
though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe
that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'
The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately
sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last
frail spark for ever.
`Let me hear another sound from you,' said Scrooge, `and you'll keep
your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. `I wonder you don't go into
Parliament.'
`Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.'
Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he did. He went the
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whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that
extremity first.
`But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. `Why?'
`Why did you get married?' said Scrooge.
`Because I fell in love.'
`Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if that were the only
one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. `Good
afternoon!'
`Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why
give it as a reason for not coming now?'
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.
`I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be
friends?'
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.
`I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never
had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A
Merry Christmas, uncle!'
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.
`And A Happy New Year!'
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He
stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk,
who cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them
cordially.
`There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: `my
clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a
merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.'
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people
in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with
their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their
hands, and bowed to him.
`Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the gentlemen, referring
to his list. `Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?'
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`Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' Scrooge replied. `He
died seven years ago, this very night.'
`We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving
partner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous
word `liberality,' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the
credentials back.
`At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman,
taking up a pen, `it is more than usually desirable that we should make
some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the
present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.'
`Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.
`Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
`And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. `Are they still in
operation?'
`They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, `I wish I could say they were
not.'
`The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said
Scrooge.
`Both very busy, sir.'
`Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had
occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. `I'm very glad
to hear it.'
`Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of
mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, `a few of us are
endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink. and
means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others,
when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you
down for?'
`Nothing!' Scrooge replied.
`You wish to be anonymous?'
`I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. `Since you ask me what I wish,
gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and
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I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the
establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are
badly off must go there.'
`Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'
`If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, `they had better do it, and
decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.'
`But you might know it,' observed the gentleman.
`It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. `It's enough for a man to
understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine
occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!'
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the
gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge returned his labours with an improved
opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with
him.
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about
with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages,
and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose
gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic
window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in
the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were
chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the
main street at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the
gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of
ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking
their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude,
its overflowing sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The
brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the
lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed.
Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant,
with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as
bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of
the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to
keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and even the little
tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being
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drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his
garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.
Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good
Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such
weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he
would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose,
gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,
stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol:
but at the first sound of
`God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!'
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled
in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.
At length the hour of shutting up the counting- house arrived. With an
ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to
the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and
put on his hat.
`You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said Scrooge.
`If quite convenient, sir.'
`It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, `and it's not fair. If I was to stop
half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?'
The clerk smiled faintly.
`And yet,' said Scrooge, `you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a
day's wages for no work.'
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
`A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
December!' said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. `But I
suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next
morning.'
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a
growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long
ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no
great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys,
twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to
Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's-buff.
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Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern;
and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening
with his banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which
had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of
rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little
business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there
when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,
and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary
enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let
out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its
every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung
about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius
of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the
knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that
Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that
place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as
any man in the city of London, even including -- which is a bold word --
the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that
Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention
of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man
explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in
the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any
intermediate process of change -- not a knocker, but Marley's face.
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects
in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a
dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley
used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the
eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid
colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and
beyond its control, rather than a part or its own expression.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a
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terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be
untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it
sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
