先讀課文﹕
A Christmas Carol聖誕頌歌
by Charles Dickens
Chapter 1 - 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 grindstone, 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 blindmen'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 (=outside), 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 [them] 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 tomorrow.''
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, [=goodbye here]'' 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 greeting 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.
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous
word ``liberality'', Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the
credentials back.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,'' said the gentleman, taking
up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight
provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present
time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands
are in want of common comforts, sir.''
"Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?'
'
"They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `"I wish I could say they were
not.''
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir.''
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred
to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear
it.''
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind
or body to the multitude,'' returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.
We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly
felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
"Nothing!'' Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?''
"I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish,
gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and
I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments
I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go
there.''
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
"If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease
the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''
"But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.
"It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to understand
his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies
me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen
withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself,
and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with
flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages,
and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff
old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a gothic window
in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds,
with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in
its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at
the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and
had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men
and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before
the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings
sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the
shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp-heat of the windows,
made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became
a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible
to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to
do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the might Mansion House, gave orders
to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household
should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on
the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred
up tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied
out to buy the beef.
Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint
Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather
as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have
roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled
by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's
keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of God
bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay! Scrooge seized the ruler
with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole
to the fog and even more congenial frost.
At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will
Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the
expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put
on his hat.
"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?'' said Scrooge.
"If quite convenient, Sir.''
"It's not convenient,'' said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop
half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?''
The clerk smiled faintly.
"And yet,'' said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's
wages for no work.''
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!''
said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must
have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!''
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The
office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his
white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat),
went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times,
in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as
hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's buff.
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having
read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker'
s-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to
his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile
of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could
scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house,
playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out
again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it
but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was
so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with
his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house,
that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation
on the threshold.
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker
on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge
had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place;
also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any
man in the City of London, even including -- which is a bold word -- the
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge
had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven-year'
s dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he
can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,
saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change:
not a knocker, but Marley's face.
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in
the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a
dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley
used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead.
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air; and, though the
eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid
colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face
and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of
a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would
be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned
it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
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 be terrified
with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there
was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held
the knocker on, so he said ``Pooh, pooh!'' and closed it with a bang.
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and
every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate
peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened 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 old flight
of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say 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 locomotive hearse
going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street
wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was
pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that: darkness is cheap, and Scrooge
liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms
to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to
desire to do that.
Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under
the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin
ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge has a cold in his head)
upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his
dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the
wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets,
washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked
himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he
took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his night-cap;
and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged
to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least
sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old
one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint
Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and
Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers 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 up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank
at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed
fragments of his thoughts, 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 in the
chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung
in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber
in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and
with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin
to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound;
but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour.
The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking
noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over
the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have
heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise
much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming
straight towards his door.
"It's humbug still!'' said Scrooge. "I won't believe it.''
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the
heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in,
the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him! Marley's Ghost!''
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 his
coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about
his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made
(for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers,
deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that
Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the
two buttons on his coat behind.
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never
believed it until now.
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through
and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling
influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded
kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed
before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.
"How now!'' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. "What do you want with
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're particular,
for a shade.'' He was going to say "to a shade,'' but substituted this,
as more appropriate.
"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.''
"Can you -- can you sit down?'' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.
"I can.''
"Do it, then.''
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent
might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the
event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing
explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the 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 your senses?''
"I don't know,'' said Scrooge.
"Why do you doubt your senses?''
"Because,'' said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. A slight disorder
of 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 be
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his
terror; 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 something very awful,
too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its
own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for
though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, 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 the rest
of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,
I tell you; humbug!''
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such
a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to
save himself 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 too
warm to wear in-doors, 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 or
not?''
"I do,'' said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why
do they come to me?''
"It is required of every man,'' the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within
him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, 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 witness
what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!
''
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain, and wrung its shadowy
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
by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my
own free 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 the strong
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 a ponderous chain!'
'
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself
surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see
nothing.
"Jacob,'' he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort
to me, Jacob.''
"I have none to give,'' the Ghost replied. "It comes from other regions,
Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of
men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted
to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit
never walked beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my spirit never
roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys
lie before me!''
It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands
in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did 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 a
business-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 torture
of 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 so
hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been
justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,'' cried the phantom, "not to know,
that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must
pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.
Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere,
whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means
of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one
life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!''
"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,'' faultered Scrooge,
who now began to apply this to himself.
"Business!'' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my
business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but
a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!''
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its
unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
"At this time of the rolling year,'' the spectre said, "I suffer most. Why
did 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 poor abode
[denoting the story of the birth of Christ]? Were there no poor homes to
which its light would have conducted me!''
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate,
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 you can see, I may not
tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.''
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration
from his brow.
"That is no light part of my penance,'' pursued the Ghost. "I am here tonight
to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. 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 a faltering
voice.
"It is.''
"I -- I think I'd rather not,'' said Scrooge.
"Without their visits,'' said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path
I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One.''
"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?'' hinted Scrooge.
"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the
next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to
see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has
passed between us.''
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table,
and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart
sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage.
He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor
confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about
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 was
wide open.
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were 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 of
the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds
of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.
The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge;
and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless
haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's
Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together;
none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.
He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with
a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried 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 had lost the power for ever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could
not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night
became as it had been when he walked home.
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had
entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and
the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say ``Humbug!'' but stopped at the
first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, 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 in need of repose; went straight
to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
1) 自查字典。
2) 作者介紹﹕Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally
considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider
popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and
he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's
most iconic novels and characters. Many of his writings were originally published
serially, in monthly instalments or parts, a format of publication which
Dickens himself helped popularise at that time. Unlike other authors who
completed entire novels before serialisation, Dickens often created the
episodes as they were being serialised. The practice lent his stories a
particular rhythm, punctuated by cliffhangers to keep the public looking
forward to the next instalment. The continuing popularity of his novels and
short stories is such that they have never gone out of print.
A Christmas Carol is a novella first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December
1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological,
ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob
Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella
met with instant success and critical acclaim.
3) 聖誕頌歌也是有名的小說。每逢聖誕﹐紐約會演出該劇。有些教會活動中會演出
這章裡提到的耶穌誕生的小段子。從這一章﹐可以先看一下DICKENS的寫作風格。
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
