A Christmas Carol

Ebenezer Scrooge was a miser the like of which the world had never seen. He squeezed, he wrenched, he grasped, and he clung to every coin, and he gave away nothing to anybody. The cold sat so deep inside him that it had sharpened his nose, turned his lips blue and frozen his eyes. Even at Christmas he did not thaw one little bit.

Seven years before, his partner, old Jacob Marley, had died. Scrooge buried him as cheaply as he could, and he never repainted the sign over the door: "Scrooge and Marley". Paint costs money, after all.

That Christmas Eve a yellow fog lay over London, so thick that the houses across the street looked like ghosts. Scrooge sat in his counting-house counting his money. In a poky little cubby next door his clerk, Bob Cratchit, bent over his papers. Scrooge kept the coals in his own room, and whenever the clerk reached for the shovel, his master grumbled that they would have to part company. So Bob wrapped himself in his white comforter and warmed his fingers over the candle.

"A merry Christmas, Uncle!" called a ringing voice from the doorway.

It was Scrooge’s nephew Fred, rosy from the frost, with eyes that sparkled.

"Bah!" grunted Scrooge. "Humbug!"

"Christmas a humbug, Uncle? You don’t mean that!"

"I do. What is Christmas? A time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer. If I had my way, every idiot who goes about saying 'merry Christmas' would be boiled in his own pudding!"

"Uncle, come and dine with us tomorrow," Fred went on bravely.

"No."

"But why?"

"Why did you get married?"

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" Scrooge snorted, as if he had heard the silliest thing in the world. "Good afternoon."

Fred left without losing his temper.

The door had barely closed behind him when two gentlemen came in, carrying papers.

"We are collecting for the poor," said one. "Thousands of people lack a warm corner and a crust of bread this holiday. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing."

"You wish to be anonymous?" asked the gentleman.

"I wish to be left alone. Are there no prisons? No workhouses? I pay my taxes for those, and that is enough for me."

"Many would rather die than go there."

"Then they had better do it," said Scrooge, "and decrease the surplus population."

The gentlemen glanced at each other and left. Outside, some boy, blue with cold, began a carol right through the keyhole. Scrooge chased him off with a ruler.

At last it was time to close the office.

"I suppose you’ll want the whole day off tomorrow?" Scrooge scowled.

"If it’s convenient, sir. It’s only once a year."

"A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every year! Very well. But be here all the earlier the day after!"

Bob promised. Then he went out into the street and slid down the ice twenty times with the boys, in honour of Christmas Eve, and ran home as fast as he could, to his children.

Scrooge walked home to his old dark house, where nobody but offices lived besides him. He put the key in the lock, and froze. The brass door-knocker, the very one he saw every day, had become a face. Marley’s face! Pale, with spectacles pushed up on its forehead, and its hair stirring as if in a hot breath. Scrooge blinked, and there was an ordinary knocker again.

"Humbug," he said.

Still, he went through every room with his candle, and even looked under the bed. Then he locked himself in with a double turn of the key, which he never did, put on his dressing-gown and nightcap, and sat down by the tiniest of fires with a bowl of gruel.

All at once every bell in the house began to jangle, bells that had hung idle for years. Down below something clattered, as if somebody were dragging heavy chains up the stairs. Clank... clank... nearer and nearer, and through the locked door into the room walked Marley.

It was the same Marley, in the same waistcoat and the same tasselled boots. Only he was transparent: through him Scrooge could see the two buttons on the back of his coat. Around his middle wound a long chain, and fastened to it were cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, purses and heavy ledgers.

"I don’t believe in you," said Scrooge. "You’re a bit of undigested potato. There’s more gravy than grave about you, whatever you are."

The ghost howled so terribly and shook his chain so hard that Scrooge clutched his chair.

"Do you believe in me now?"

"I do, I do! But why do you wear chains, Jacob?"

"I forged this chain in life," Marley answered hollowly. "Link by link, coin by coin. I put it on myself, and I wear it still. Yours, Ebenezer, was just as heavy seven years ago. You have worked on it hard ever since."

Scrooge felt himself all over without meaning to, but felt nothing.

"Now I wander the world and cannot help anyone," sighed the ghost. "And I could have, while I lived! Listen: you still have a chance. Three spirits will visit you. The first when the bell tolls one. The second the next night at the same hour. The third the night after, at the last stroke of midnight."

"Couldn’t I take them all at once, and have it over with?" asked Scrooge.

Marley did not answer. He backed toward the window, the window opened by itself, and the ghost melted into the fog. Scrooge wanted to say "Humbug", but stuck on the very first syllable. He lay down just as he was and fell asleep at once.

The bell tolled one. The curtains of the bed were drawn aside, and a strange visitor stood before Scrooge: as small as a child, yet with hair as white as an old man’s. In his hand he held a sprig of green holly, and from the crown of his head shone a bright beam of light.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past," he said softly. "Your past. Come."

They passed through the wall and found themselves on a country road under a frosty sky.

"Why, I grew up here!" cried Scrooge, clasping his hands.

In a cold old schoolhouse, in an empty classroom, one lonely boy sat over a book. All the others had been fetched home for the holidays, but not he.

Scrooge knew him for himself. He sat down on the bench beside him and wept without noticing it.

"Yesterday a boy sang a carol at my door," he muttered. "I wish I had not chased him off."

The classroom door flew open and a little girl ran in, younger than her brother. She threw her arms around his neck.

"I’ve come to bring you home, dear brother! Father is so much kinder now, and he’s sent for you. For good! It will be the best Christmas ever!"

"Fan," whispered Scrooge. "My little sister. She had such a big heart."

"She died long ago," said the Spirit. "And she left a son."

"Yes," Scrooge answered awkwardly. "Fred."

Then the Spirit led him to a shop in town with a high desk.

"Why, it’s old Fezziwig!" cried Scrooge. "I was his apprentice!"

A stout, merry old man rubbed his hands and called out:

"Hello, lads! Ebenezer! Dick! No more work, it’s Christmas Eve! Put up the shutters!"

In a minute everything was cleared away, the floor swept, the fire lit, and the shop became a ballroom. In came a fiddler, in came Mrs. Fezziwig, all smiles, in came the three Miss Fezziwigs and their six followers, the baker, the cook, and the boy from the shop next door. They danced until the floor creaked. And when old Fezziwig and his wife took their turn, his legs flashed so fast that they seemed to give off light.

Young Scrooge whirled around and laughed with the rest.

"Why are they all so grateful to him?" asked the Spirit. "He spent a few coins, no more."

"It isn’t the coins!" said Scrooge hotly. "He had the power to make us happy or unhappy, to make our work a pleasure or a toil. And he chose pleasure! That is worth more than a fortune." Then he suddenly fell silent.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing... I should like to say a word or two to my clerk. That’s all."

The last picture was quiet. Scrooge, grown now, with a cold glitter in his eyes, sat beside a young woman named Belle.

"You love something else now," said Belle, and there were tears in her eyes. "Gold. I see your dreams dropping off one by one, until only one is left: to grow rich. I release you. May you be happy in the life you have chosen."

She went away, and young Scrooge did not stop her.

"Enough!" cried old Scrooge. "Show me no more!"

He snatched the cap, which looked like a candle-snuffer, from the Spirit and pressed it down on his head. Light streamed out from beneath it, but Scrooge pressed with all his might, and suddenly he found himself in his own bed.

When the bell struck one again, nobody came to him. But bright light was pouring from the next room. Scrooge shuffled in in his slippers, and did not know his own room. The walls and ceiling were green with holly, ivy and mistletoe, and a fire roared in the hearth such as had not been seen there for many winters. On the floor, heaped up like a throne, lay turkeys, geese, hams, long wreaths of sausages, plum puddings, red chestnuts, rosy apples and juicy oranges. On top of this mountain sat a jolly giant in a green robe trimmed with white fur, with a wreath of holly on his curls and a glowing torch in his hand.

"Come in!" he boomed. "Come in and know me better! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present."

"Lead me where you will," said Scrooge quietly. "Yesterday I learned something."

He caught hold of the hem of the robe, and the room vanished.

And there the Spirit stopped, at Bob Cratchit’s little house. Mrs. Cratchit, in a twice-turned gown but with fine new ribbons, was laying the cloth. Two small Cratchits burst in shouting: they had smelled the geese at the baker’s and recognised their own by the scent! Then Bob came in with Tiny Tim on his shoulder, a tiny boy with a crutch in his hand and an iron frame on his thin little legs.

The goose was not large, but with apple sauce and mashed potatoes there was enough for everyone, and all the Cratchits declared with one voice that the world had never seen such a goose. Then Mrs. Cratchit went, all in a flutter, to fetch the pudding. What if it was not done? What if it broke? What if somebody had climbed over the fence and stolen it?! But in she came with it at last: round and hard as a cannonball, with a sprig of holly on top, blazing with blue flame.

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears!" said Bob, raising his glass.

"God bless us, every one!" said Tiny Tim.

He sat on his little stool close to his father, and Bob held his thin little hand, as if afraid someone would take him away.

"Spirit," asked Scrooge quietly, "will Tiny Tim live?"

"I see an empty stool by the fireside," answered the Spirit, "and a crutch without an owner, carefully kept. If nothing changes, the boy will die."

"No! No, kind Spirit, say he will be spared!"

"Why?" The Spirit shrugged. "If he is to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head: those were his own words.

Then the Spirit carried him to Fred’s house. There was such laughter that the windowpanes rang.

"He said Christmas was a humbug!" cried Fred, helpless with laughter. "But I’m sorry for him. He has heaps of money, and no good comes of it, not even to himself. I shall ask him every year all the same."

Then they played Yes and No. Fred thought of something, and everyone guessed. Is it an animal? Yes. A live animal? Yes. Does it growl and grumble? Yes. Is it shown in a menagerie? No!

"I know!" shrieked Fred’s sister-in-law. "It’s your uncle Scro-o-o-oge!"

And so it was. Then Fred raised his glass:

"To Uncle Scrooge! Wherever he is, a merry Christmas to him!"

"To Uncle Scrooge!" they all joined in.

And Scrooge, whom nobody could see, felt so light at heart that he was ready to thank them.

Midnight struck. The Ghost of Christmas Present vanished, and out of the fog, like the fog itself, glided a third visitor. Tall, wrapped in a dark hooded robe, so that only an outstretched hand could be seen. He said nothing.

"Are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?" asked Scrooge, and heard how his voice trembled.

The hood bent slightly.

"I fear you more than any spirit I have seen," confessed Scrooge. "But lead on. I want to be a different man."

On the Exchange stood merchants whom Scrooge knew well.

"When did he die?"

"Last night, I believe."

"And who gets his money?"

"I don’t know," yawned one. "He didn’t leave it to me."

"It’ll be a cheap funeral, I expect. Who would go? Unless lunch is provided, I won’t go!"

They all laughed and went their ways. Scrooge wondered whom they could mean. He looked for himself among the men in his usual place, but someone else stood there.

Then the Spirit brought him to the Cratchits. The little house was very, very quiet. Peter, the eldest son, was reading aloud, and Mrs. Cratchit was sewing, rubbing her eyes often: it was the candle, she said. Bob came in, kissed the children and sat down by the fire. Beside him stood an empty stool, with a little crutch leaning against it.

"We shall never forget our Tiny Tim, shall we?" said Bob softly. "So patient, so small. And we shall never quarrel among ourselves, because we’ll remember him."

"Never, Father!" answered the children.

The Spirit led Scrooge on and pointed with his hand at a neglected gravestone, and on that stone Scrooge read his own name: EBENEZER SCROOGE.

He fell on his knees.

"Spirit! I am not the man I was! I will honour Christmas in my heart and keep it all the year. I will not forget what all three have taught me. Tell me this can still be changed!"

He seized the Spirit’s hand, and suddenly the dark robe shrank and wrinkled, and became a bedpost. His own bedpost!

The bed was his own, the room was his own, and best of all: the time was his own, to make it all right!

"I don’t know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying at once and tangling himself in his stockings. "I’m as light as a feather, as happy as an angel, as merry as a schoolboy! A merry Christmas to everybody! Ha, ha, ha!"

For a man who had not laughed for so many years, it was a splendid laugh.

The bells rang out over all London. Scrooge threw open the window. A clear, cold, glittering morning!

"Hello, boy!" he called to a boy in holiday clothes. "What’s today?"

"Today?" The boy stared. "Why, Christmas Day!"

"Christmas Day! I haven’t missed it! The Spirits did it all in one night! Boy, do you know the poulterer’s on the corner? The one with the biggest turkey hanging in the window, the prize one. Has it been sold?"

"The one as big as me?"

"What a clever boy! That very one!"

"It’s hanging there now."

"Go and buy it! Bring the man here and I’ll tell him where to take it. Come back in five minutes and you shall have half a crown!"

The boy shot off like a bullet from a gun.

"I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s," whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands and breaking into laughter. "He won’t know who sends it! It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim!"

The turkey was so enormous that it could never have stood on its own legs for a minute: it would have snapped them like matches. A cab had to be hired.

And in the street Scrooge met one of those gentlemen who had been collecting for the poor, and whispered such a sum in his ear that the gentleman gasped. "And a great many back payments are included in it," Scrooge explained.

In the afternoon Scrooge walked up to Fred’s door ten times or so before he dared to knock.

"It’s I, your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you have me, Fred?"

Will he! Fred nearly shook his arm off. The evening was wonderful, the games were wonderful, and everyone was won-der-fully happy.

The next morning Scrooge was at the office before anyone. Oh, how he longed to catch Bob coming in late! And he did. Bob was eighteen and a half minutes late, slipped onto his stool and set his pen scratching as if he meant to catch up with nine o’clock.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge in his old voice, as well as he could. "What do you mean by coming at this time of day?"

"I am very sorry, sir. I was making rather merry yesterday."

"Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I am not going to put up with this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he leaped from his stool and gave Bob such a dig in the ribs that he staggered, "and therefore I am about to raise your salary!"

Bob trembled and reached for the ruler: should he call for help to restrain a madman?

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, so heartily that it was impossible to doubt him. "I will help your family. And now make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i!"

Scrooge did everything he promised, and more. And to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he became a second father. And the invisible chain he had forged for so many years fell apart link by link, every time Scrooge helped someone.