A Christmas Carol In Prose Being A Ghost Story Of Christmas E-Book

Charles Dickens.

• Herausgeber: Charles Fred
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Leseprobe

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

IN PROSE BEING A Ghost Story of Christmas

CHARLES DICKENS

 

 

 

STAVE I:  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 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 dog-days; 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 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 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 to-morrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he

did. He went the 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?"

"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.