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The Floating Press - Charles Dickens

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61 pages

English

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Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol under financial duress, but it became one of his most popular and enduring stories. The old miser Ebenezer Scrooge cares nothing for family, friends, love or Christmas. All he cares about is money. Then one Christmas Eve he is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. These encounters leave Scrooge deeply moved and forever changed. Historians believe that A Christmas Carol contributed greatly to the modern sentimental Christmas.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775410485
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL
A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS
* * *
CHARLES DICKENS

*

A Christmas Carol A Ghost Story of Christmas First published in 1843.
ISBN 978-1-775410-48-5
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Preface Stave I - Marley's Ghost Stave II - The First of the Three Spirits Stave III - The Second of the Three Spirits Stave IV - The Last of the Spirits Stave V - The End of It
Preface
*
I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put myreaders out of humour with themselves, with each other,with the season, or with me. May it haunt their housespleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant,
C. D. December, 1843.
Stave I - Marley's Ghost
*
MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubtwhatever about that. The register of his burial wassigned by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: andScrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything hechose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as adoor-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of myown knowledge, what there is particularly dead abouta door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, toregard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongeryin the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestorsis in the simile; and my unhallowed handsshall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. Youwill therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, thatMarley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he werepartners for I don't know how many years. Scroogewas his sole executor, his sole administrator, his soleassign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, andsole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfullycut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellentman 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 tothe point I started from. There is no doubt that Marleywas dead. This must be distinctly understood, ornothing wonderful can come of the story I am goingto relate. If we were not perfectly convinced thatHamlet's Father died before the play began, therewould be nothing more remarkable in his taking astroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,than there would be in any other middle-agedgentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezyspot—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 warehousedoor: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known asScrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to thebusiness called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,but he answered to both names. It was all thesame 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. Thecold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointednose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made hiseyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in hisgrating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on hiseyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own lowtemperature always about with him; he iced his office inthe dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence onScrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weatherchill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, nopelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn'tknow where to have him. The heaviest rain, andsnow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantageover him in only one respect. They often "came down"handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, withgladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?When will you come to see me?" No beggars imploredhim to bestow a trifle, no children asked himwhat it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in allhis life inquired the way to such and such a place, ofScrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared toknow him; and when they saw him coming on, wouldtug their owners into doorways and up courts; andthen would wag their tails as though they said, "Noeye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thinghe liked. To edge his way along the crowded pathsof 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 hiscounting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggywithal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,go wheezing up and down, beating their handsupon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon thepavement stones to warm them. The city clocks hadonly just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaringin the windows of the neighbouring offices, likeruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fogcame pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and wasso dense without, that although the court was of thenarrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuringeverything, one might have thought that Naturelived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was openthat he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in adismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copyingletters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk'sfire was so very much smaller that it looked like onecoal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge keptthe coal-box in his own room; and so surely as theclerk came in with the shovel, the master predictedthat it would be necessary for them to part. Whereforethe clerk put on his white comforter, and tried towarm himself at the candle; in which effort, not beinga man of a strong imagination, he failed.
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" crieda cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge'snephew, who came upon him so quickly that this wasthe first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in thefog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he wasall in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; hiseyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge'snephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! Whatright have you to be merry? What reason have youto be merry? You're poor enough."
"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "Whatright have you to be dismal? What reason have youto be morose? You're rich enough."
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spurof the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it upwith "Humbug."
"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.
"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when Ilive in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmastime to you but a time for paying bills withoutmoney; a time for finding yourself a year older, butnot an hour richer; a time for balancing your booksand having every item in 'em through a round dozenof months presented dead against you? If I couldwork my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiotwho goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips,should be boiled with his own pudding, and buriedwith a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmasin your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But youdon't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Muchgood may it do you! Much good it has ever doneyou!"
"There are many things from which I might havederived good, by which I have not profited, I daresay," returned the nephew. "Christmas among therest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round—apart from theveneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anythingbelonging to it can be apart from that—as agood time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasanttime; the only time I know of, in the long calendarof the year, when men and women seem by one consentto open their shut-up hearts freely, and to thinkof people below them as if they really werefellow-passengers to the grave, and not another raceof creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold orsilver in my pocket, I believe that it has done megood, 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 sparkfor ever.
"Let me hear another sound from you," saidScrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losingyour situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder youdon't go into Parliament."
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."
Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed hedid. 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