He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door;and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected to beterrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. Butthere was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts thatheld the knocker on, so he said `Pooh, pooh!' and closed it with a bang.The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every roomabove, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared tohave a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to befrightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall,and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good oldflight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean tosay you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise,with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades:and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare;which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotivehearse going on before him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out ofthe street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may supposethat it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, andScrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through hisrooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of theface to desire to do that.Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobodyunder the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon andbasin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in hishead) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobodyin his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitudeagainst the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, old shoes, twofish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-11--------------------------------------- 12A CHRISTMAS CAROLlocked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured againstsurprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, andhis nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He wasobliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the leastsensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was anold one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all roundwith quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There wereCains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelicmessengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds,Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts -- and yet that face of Marley,seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed upthe whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power toshape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of histhoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.`Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back inthe chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hungin the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with achamber in the highest story of the building. It was with greatastonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, hesaw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcelymade a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in thehouse.This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed anhour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeededby a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragginga heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. Scrooge thenremembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described asdragging chains.The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heardthe noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; thencoming straight towards his door.12--------------------------------------- 13A CHRISTMAS CAROL`It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. `I won't believe it.'His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on throughthe heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its comingin, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried `I know him; Marley'sGhost!' and fell again.The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat,tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and hiscoat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was claspedabout his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it wasmade (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body wastransparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through hiswaistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he hadnever believed it until now.No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantomthrough and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt thechilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture ofthe folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he hadnot observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against hissenses.`How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. `What do you wantwith me?'`Much!' -- Marley's voice, no doubt about it.`Who are you?'`Ask me who I was.'`Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. `You'reparticular, for a shade.' He was going to say `to a shade,' but substitutedthis, as more appropriate.`In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'`Can you -- can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully athim.`I can.'`Do it, then.'13--------------------------------------- 14A CHRISTMAS CAROLScrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost sotransparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt thatin the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of anembarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side ofthe fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.`You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.`I don't.' said Scrooge.`What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of yoursenses?'`I don't know,' said Scrooge.`Why do you doubt your senses?'`Because,' said Scrooge, `a little thing affects them. A slight disorderof the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef,a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel,in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to besmart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down histerror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment,would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was somethingvery awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernalatmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this wasclearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, andskirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.`You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge,for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second,to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.`I do,' replied the Ghost.`You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.`But I see it,' said the Ghost, `notwithstanding.'`Well!' returned Scrooge, `I have but to swallow this, and be for therest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation.Humbug, I tell you! humbug!'14--------------------------------------- 15A CHRISTMAS CAROLAt this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such adismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to savehimself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror,when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were toowarm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.`Mercy!' he said. `Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?'`Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, `do you believe in me ornot?'`I do,' said Scrooge. `I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, andwhy do they come to me?'`It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, `that the spirit withinhim should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide;and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witnesswhat it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned tohappiness!'Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung itsshadowy hands.`You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. `Tell me why?'`I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. `I made it link bylink, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my ownfree will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'Scrooge trembled more and more.`Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, `the weight and length of thestrong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this,seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is aponderous chain!'Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of findinghimself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but hecould see nothing.`Jacob,' he said, imploringly. `Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speakcomfort to me, Jacob!'`I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. `It comes from other regions,15--------------------------------------- 16A CHRISTMAS CAROLEbenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds ofmen. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted tome. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit neverwalked beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my spirit neverroved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and wearyjourneys lie before me!'It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put hishands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, hedid so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.`You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed, in abusiness-like manner, though with humility and deference.`Slow!' the Ghost repeated.`Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. `And travelling all the time!'`The whole time,' said the Ghost. `No rest, no peace. Incessant tortureof remorse.'`You travel fast?' said Scrooge.`On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost.`You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,'said Scrooge.The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain sohideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have beenjustified in indicting it for a nuisance.`Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, `not toknow, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earthmust pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is alldeveloped. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its littlesphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vastmeans of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can makeamends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such wasI!'`But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge,who now began to apply this to himself.`Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind wasmy business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy,16--------------------------------------- 17A CHRISTMAS CAROLforbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings ofmy trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of mybusiness!'It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all itsunavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.`At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said `I suffer most. Whydid I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down,and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poorabode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conductedme!'Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at thisrate, and began to quake exceedingly.`Hear me!' cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly gone.'`I will,' said Scrooge. `But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery,Jacob! Pray!' `How it is that I appear before you in a shape that youcan see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many aday.'It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped theperspiration from his brow.`That is no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. `I am hereto-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping myfate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.'`You were always a good friend to me,' said Scrooge. `Thank `ee!'`You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, `by Three Spirits.'Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.`Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded, in afaltering voice.`It is.'`I -- I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.`Without their visits,' said the Ghost, `you cannot hope to shun the pathI tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One.'`Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?' hintedScrooge.`Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon17--------------------------------------- 18A CHRISTMAS CAROLthe next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Lookto see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember whathas passed between us!'When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from thetable, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by thesmart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by thebandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernaturalvisitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over andabout its arm.The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took,the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it waswide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When theywere within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand,warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising ofthe hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherentsounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful andself-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in themournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He lookedout.The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither inrestless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chainslike Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) werelinked together; none were free. Many had been personally known toScrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in awhite waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, whocried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant,whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was,clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and hadlost the power for ever.Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, hecould not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the nightbecame as it had been when he walked home.18--------------------------------------- 19A CHRISTMAS CAROLScrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which theGhost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with hisown hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say `Humbug!'but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he hadundergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World,or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much inneed of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleepupon the instant.19--------------------------------------- 20A CHRISTMAS CAROLStave 2: The First of the ThreeSpiritsWhen Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he couldscarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of hischamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes,when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So helistened for the hour.To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven,and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve.It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle musthave got into the works. Twelve.He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterousclock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.`Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, `that I can have slept through awhole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything hashappened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon.'The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and gropedhis way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeveof his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see verylittle then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy andextremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if nighthad beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was agreat relief, because "Three days after sight of this First of Exchange payto Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge on his order," and so forth, would have become amere United States security if there were no days to count by.Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought itover and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, themore perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, themore he thought.Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved20--------------------------------------- 21A CHRISTMAS CAROLwithin himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flewback again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, andpresentedthe same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters more,when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost hadwarned him of avisitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until thehour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep thango to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced hemust have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At