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By Charles Dickens As read by Patrick Stewart External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. A Christmas Carol Nobody ever stopped him in the street by Charles Dickens to say, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No (As performed by Patrick Stewart) beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was Stave 1 - Marley’s Ghost o’clock. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they Marley was dead: to begin with. There saw him coming, would tug their owners is no doubt whatever about that. The into doorways and up courts. register of his burial was signed by the But what did Scrooge care! It was the clerk, the clergyman, the undertaker, the very thing he liked. To edge his way chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. Old along the crowded paths of life, warning Marley was dead as a door-nail. all human sympathy to keep its distance! Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course Once upon a time – and of all the he did. How could it be otherwise? good days in the year, on Christmas Eve Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t - old Scrooge sat busy in his counting- know how many years, though Scrooge house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: never painted out Old Marley’s name. foggy withal: and he could hear the There it stood, years afterwards, above people in the court outside, go wheezing the ware-house door: Scrooge and up and down, beating their hands upon Marley. Sometimes people new to the their breasts, and stamping their feet business called Scrooge “Scrooge,” and upon the pavement stones to warm them. sometimes “Marley,” but he answered to The city clocks had only just gone three, both names. It was all the same to him. but it was quite dark already: The fog Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at came pouring in at every chink and the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, keyhole, and was so dense without, the wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, houses opposite were mere phantoms. covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as The door of Scrooge’s counting-house flint, from which no steel had ever struck was open that he might keep his eye generous fire; secret, and self-contained, upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell and solitary as an oyster. The cold within beyond, a sort of tank, was copying him froze his old features, nipped his letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his that it looked like one coal. But he thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept his grating voice. He carried his own low the coal box in his own room; and so temperature always about with him; he surely as the clerk came in with the iced his office in the dog-days; and he shovel, the master predicted that it would didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas. be necessary for them to part. Whereupon the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at 2 the candle; in which effort, not being a “Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. man of a strong imagination, he failed. “But you don’t keep it. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.” “A merry Christmas, uncle!” It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came “I’ll see you in Hell first.” upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. “But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. He had so heated himself with rapid “Why?” walking in the fog and the frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; and his eyes sparkled. “I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?” “Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!” “Well, I’m sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. but I’ll keep my “Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Christmas humour to the last. So, Merry Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean Christmas, uncle!” that, I’m sure.” “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. “I do. Merry Christmas!” “And A Happy New Year!” “Don’t be cross, Uncle!” “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. “What else can I be,” returned the uncle, His nephew left the room, but stopped “when I live in such a world of fools as at the outer door to bestow the greeting this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry of the season on the clerk, who, cold as Christmas. What’s Christmas time to you he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he but a time for paying bills without returned them cordially. money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer. If I could “There’s another fellow,” muttered work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, Scrooge; who overheard him: “my clerk, “every idiot who goes about with “Merry with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled and family, talking about a merry with his own pudding, and buried with a Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.” stake of holly through his heart.” The clerk, in letting Scrooge’s nephew “Uncle!” pleaded the nephew. out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to “Nephew!” returned the uncle, sternly, behold, and now stood, with their hats “keep Christmas in your own way, and off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books let me keep it in mine.” and papers in their hands, and they bowed to him. 3 “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said “Under the impression that they scarcely one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. furnish Christian cheer of mind or body “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. to the multitude,” returned the Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?” gentleman, “a few of us, Mr. Scrooge, are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy “Mr. Marley has been dead these seven the Poor some meat and drink, and years,” said Scrooge. “He died seven means of warmth. We choose this time, years ago, this very night.” because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance “We have no doubt his liberality is well rejoices. What shall we put you down represented by his surviving partner,” for?” said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. “Nothing!” Scrooge replied. “At this festive season of the year, Mr. “You wish to be anonymous?” Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable “I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. that we should make some slight “Since you ask me what I wish, provision for the poor and destitute, who gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t suffer greatly at the present time. Many make merry myself at Christmas and I thousands are in want of common can’t afford to make idle people merry. I necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in help to support the establishments I have want of common comforts, sir.” mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.” “Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, “Many can’t go there, Mr. Scrooge; and laying down the pen again. many would rather die.” “And the Union workhouses?” “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in “they had better do it, and decrease the operation?” surplus population. Good afternoon, gentlemen!” “They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “ I wish I could say they were not.” Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors full vigor, then?” said Scrooge. with an improved opinion of himself, and the fog and the darkness thickened. “Both very busy, sir.” Thickened so, that people ran about “Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at with flaring links, proffering their first, that something had occurred to stop services to go before horses in carriages, them in their usual course,” said and conduct them on their way. The Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.” ancient tower of a church, whose gruff 4 old bell was always peeping slyly down “And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t at Scrooge out of a gothic window in the think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wall, became invisible, and struck the wages for no work.” hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head “Well, it’s only once a year,” the clerk up there. The cold became intense. In the observed. main street, at the corner of the court, some laborers were repairing the gas- “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a pocket every twenty-fifth of December. brazier, round which a party of ragged But I suppose you must have the whole men and boys were gathered: warming day. Be here all the earlier next their hands and winking their eyes before morning!” the blaze in rapture. Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, The clerk promised that he would; searching, biting cold.

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