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| Master Fezziwig's Christmas Ball from "A Christmas Carol," 1843, John Leech illustrator. |
Editor’s note: Part
Two of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol,” offers modern readers a wonderful
glimpse into early Victorian England at yuletide. The writing is crisp and poignant in the vernacular
of the times. Reading this will drop you
into that time frame as if you were on the coattails of the spirit and Ebenezer
Scrooge as well.
PART TWO: THE FIRST OF THREE SPIRITS
When Scrooge awoke, it was
so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent
window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the
darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck
the four quarters. So he listened 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 must have got into the works. Twelve.
He touched the spring of
his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse
beat twelve: and stopped.
`Why, it isn’t possible,’
said Scrooge, `that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another
night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is
twelve at noon.’
The idea being an alarming
one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged
to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see
anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it
was still very foggy and extremely 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 night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world.
This was a great relief, because “Three days after sight of this First of
Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge on his order,” and so forth, would have
become a mere United States security if there were no days to count by.
Scrooge went to bed again,
and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing
of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he
endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.
Marley’s Ghost bothered him
exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry that
it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to
its first position, and presented the 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 had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He
resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could
no more go to sleep than go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution
in his power.
The quarter was so long,
that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze
unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.
“Ding, dong!”
“A quarter past,” said
Scrooge, counting.
“Ding, dong!”
“Half past,” said Scrooge.
“Ding, dong!”
“A quarter to it,” said
Scrooge. “Ding, dong!”
“The hour itself,” said
Scrooge triumphantly, “and nothing else!”
He spoke before the hour
bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light
flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were
drawn.
The curtains of his bed
were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the
curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains
of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent
attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them:
as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your
elbow.
It was a strange figure --
like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some
supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the
view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about
its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not
a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very
long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon
strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper
members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was
bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of
fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry
emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing
about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet
of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion
of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it
now held under its arm.
Even this, though, when
Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality.
For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and
what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself
fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one
leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head
without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the
dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would
be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
[text continues after sidebar below]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CAN’T GET ENOUGH DICKENS?
 |
| PBS' “Christmas Carol: The Concert” |
Wonderful New Dickens
musical based on “A Christmas Carol:”
“Christmas Carol: The
Concert”
Appeared on PBS during
the 2013 holidays
Duration: 1:26:46
Description:
"A Christmas Carol:
The Concert" is a unique musical and television event -- the first time
Dickens' classic tale has been adapted for a live orchestral concert with choir
and soloists, and performed for audiences in a concert setting. The stirring
score recalls Broadway classics, and is filled with memorable, haunting and
rousing songs.
The story, quite
faithfully and skillfully adapted by Broadway's Alisa Hauser, is dazzlingly
performed by leading lights from the Chicago and New York theater world, including
Michael Aaron Lindner and E. Faye Butler. Directed for the stage by Tony-Award
winning Lookingglass Theatre Company's David Kersnar, lit and designed by
4-time Emmy Award-winner Todd L. Clark, and produced for television by the 17-
time Emmy Award-winning creative team at HMS Media,
"A Christmas Carol:
The Concert" is a celebration of classic storytelling and ensemble
performances which provide audiences with both the comforts of a classic tale
and the thrill of seeing and hearing it told like never before.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
`Are you the Spirit, sir,
whose coming was foretold to me.’ asked Scrooge.
`I am.’
The voice was soft and
gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at
a distance.
`Who, and what are you.’
Scrooge demanded.
`I am the Ghost of
Christmas Past.’
`Long Past.’ inquired
Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
`No. Your past.’
Perhaps, Scrooge could not
have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special
desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.
`What.’ exclaimed the
Ghost, `would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give. Is it
not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me
through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow.’
Scrooge reverently
disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted
the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what
business brought him there.
`Your welfare.’ said the
Ghost.
Scrooge expressed himself
much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would
have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking,
for it said immediately:
`Your reclamation, then.
Take heed.’
It put out its strong hand
as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.
`Rise. and walk with me.’
It would have been in vain
for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to
pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and
nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though
gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the
Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.
`I am mortal,’ Scrooge
remonstrated, `and liable to fall.’
`Bear but a touch of my
hand there,’ said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart,’ and you shall be upheld
in more than this.’
As the words were spoken,
they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields
on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be
seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold,
winter day, with snow upon the ground.
`Good Heaven!’ said
Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. `I was bred in
this place. I was a boy here.’
The Spirit gazed upon him
mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared
still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand
odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and
hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.
`Your lip is trembling,’
said the Ghost. `And what is that upon your cheek.’
Scrooge muttered, with an
unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to
lead him where he would.
`You recollect the way.’
inquired the Spirit.
`Remember it.’ cried
Scrooge with fervour; `I could walk it blindfold.’
`Strange to have forgotten
it for so many years.’ observed the Ghost. `Let us go on.’
They walked along the road,
Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town
appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some
shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs,
who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All
these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad
fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.
`These are but shadows of
the things that have been,’ said the Ghost. `They have no consciousness of us.’
The jocund travellers came
on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he
rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and his
heart leap up as they went past. Why was he filled with gladness when he heard
them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and
bye-ways, for their several homes. What was merry Christmas to Scrooge. Out
upon merry Christmas. What good had it ever done to him.
`The school is not quite
deserted,’ said the Ghost. `A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left
there still.’
Scrooge said he knew it.
And he sobbed.
They left the high-road, by
a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a
little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It
was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were
little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their
gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses
and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient
state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open
doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There
was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which
associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too
much to eat.
They went, the Ghost and
Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before
them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of
plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a
feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor
forgotten self as he used to be.
Not a latent echo in the
house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip
from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the
leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty
store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of
Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.
The Spirit touched him on
the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a
man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood
outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an
ass laden with wood.
 |
| "Old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, 'Well done!'" by E. A. Abbey. American Household Edition (1876), fourth illustration for A Christmas Carol |
To hear Scrooge expending
all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary
voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face;
would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.
`There’s the Parrot.’ cried
Scrooge. `Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out
of the top of his head; there he is. Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he
came home again after sailing round the island. `Poor Robin Crusoe, where have
you been, Robin Crusoe.’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was
the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little
creek. Halloa. Hoop. Hallo.’
Then, with a rapidity of
transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former
self, `Poor boy.’ and cried again.
`I wish,’ Scrooge muttered,
putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes
with his cuff: `but it’s too late now.’
`What is the matter.’ asked
the Spirit.
`Nothing,’ said Scrooge.
`Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I
should like to have given him something: that’s all.’
The Ghost smiled
thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, `Let us see another
Christmas.’
Scrooge’s former self grew
larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The
panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the
ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought
about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite
correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when
all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.
He was not reading now, but
walking up and down despairingly.
Scrooge looked at the
Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the
door.
It opened; and a little
girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about
his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her `Dear, dear brother.’
`I have come to bring you
home, dear brother.’ said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down
to laugh. `To bring you home, home, home.’
`Home, little Fan.’
returned the boy.
`Yes.’ said the child,
brimful of glee. `Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so
much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven. He spoke so gently to
me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him
once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a
coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man.’ said the child, opening her eyes,’
and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the
Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.’
`You are quite a woman,
little Fan.’ exclaimed the boy.
She clapped her hands and
laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and
stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish
eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.
A terrible voice in the
hall cried. `Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there.’ and in the hall appeared
the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands
with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a
shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and
the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here
he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy
cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at
the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something to
the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same
tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s trunk being by
this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster
good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the
garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the
dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.
`Always a delicate
creature, whom a breath might have withered,’ said the Ghost. `But she had a
large heart.’
`So she had,’ cried
Scrooge. `You’re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.’
`She died a woman,’ said
the Ghost, `and had, as I think, children.’
`One child,’ Scrooge
returned.
`True,’ said the Ghost.
`Your nephew.’
Scrooge seemed uneasy in
his mind; and answered briefly, `Yes.’
Although they had but that
moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of
a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and
coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.
It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was
Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.
The Ghost stopped at a
certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.
`Know it.’ said Scrooge. `I
was apprenticed here.’
They went in. At sight of
an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he
had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling,
Scrooge cried in great excitement:
`Why, it’s old Fezziwig.
Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again.’
 |
| Wood engraving by Sol Eytinge from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Edition title: "A Christmas Carol in Prose: being a ghost story of Christmas", publisher: Ticknor and Fields (Boston), 1869, Diamond Edition. |
`Yo ho, there. Ebenezer.
Dick.’
Scrooge’s former self, now
grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice.
`Dick Wilkins, to be sure.’
said Scrooge to the Ghost. `Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much
attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear.’
`Yo ho, my boys.’ said Fezziwig.
`No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let’s have
the shutters up,’ cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands,’ before a
man can say Jack Robinson.’
You wouldn’t believe how
those two fellows went at it. They charged into the street with the shutters --
one, two, three -- had them up in their places -- four, five, six -- barred
them and pinned then -- seven, eight, nine -- and came back before you could
have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.
`Hilli-ho!’ cried old
Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. `Clear
away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Dick. Chirrup,
Ebenezer.’
Clear away. There was
nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with
old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off,
as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and
watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the
warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would
desire to see upon a winter’s night.
In came a fiddler with a
music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and
tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six
young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women
employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In
came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the
boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his
master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was
proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after
another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some
pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all
went, twenty couples at once; hands half round and back again the other way;
down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate
grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple
starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not
a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig,
clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out,’ Well done.’ and the fiddler
plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that
purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again,
though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried
home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him
out of sight, or perish.
There were more dances, and
there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus,
and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold
Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of
the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog,
mind. The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have
told it him.) struck up Sir Roger de Coverley.’ Then old Fezziwig stood out to
dance with Mrs Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut
out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to
be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been twice
as many -- ah, four times -- old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and
so would Mrs Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every
sense of the term. If that’s not high praise, tell me higher, and I’ll use it.
A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in every
part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t have predicted, at any given time,
what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had
gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow
and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place;
Fezziwig cut -- cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came
upon his feet again without a stagger.
When the clock struck
eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations,
one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person
individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When
everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did the same to them; and
thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which
were under a counter in the back-shop.
During the whole of this
time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in
the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered
everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was
not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned
from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was
looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.
`A small matter,’ said the
Ghost, `to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.’
`Small.’ echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to
listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of
Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,
`Why. Is it not. He has
spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so
much that he deserves this praise.’
 |
| Master Fezziwig's Christmas Ball |
`It isn’t that,’ said
Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not
his latter, self. `It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say
that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant
that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then. The happiness he
gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.’
He felt the Spirit’s
glance, and stopped.
`What is the matter.’ asked
the Ghost.
`Nothing in particular,’
said Scrooge.
`Something, I think.’ the
Ghost insisted.
`No,’ said Scrooge,’ No. I
should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That’s all.’
His former self turned down
the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again
stood side by side in the open air.
`My time grows short,’
observed the Spirit. `Quick.’
This was not addressed to
Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect.
For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life.
His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to
wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion
in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow
of the growing tree would fall.
He was not alone, but sat
by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were
tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas
Past.
`It matters little,’ she
said, softly. `To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it
can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have
no just cause to grieve.’
`What Idol has displaced
you.’ he rejoined.
`A golden one.’
`This is the even-handed
dealing of the world.’ he said. `There is nothing on which it is so hard as
poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the
pursuit of wealth.’
`You fear the world too
much,’ she answered, gently. `All your other hopes have merged into the hope of
being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler
aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.
Have I not.’
`What then.’ he retorted.
`Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then. I am not changed towards you.’
She shook her head.
`Am I.’
`Our contract is an old
one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good
season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are
changed. When it was made, you were another man.’
`I was a boy,’ he said
impatiently.
`Your own feeling tells you
that you were not what you are,’ she returned. `I am. That which promised
happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are
two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is
enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.’
`Have I ever sought
release.’
`In words. No. Never.’
`In what, then.’
 |
| Charles Dickens in 1860. He often read "A Christmas Carol" in public during his career. |
He seemed to yield to the
justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle,’
You think not.’
`I would gladly think otherwise
if I could,’ she answered, `Heaven knows. When I have learned a Truth like
this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free
to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a
dowerless girl -- you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything
by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one
guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would
surely follow. I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him
you once were.’
He was about to speak; but
with her head turned from him, she resumed.
`You may -- the memory of
what is past half makes me hope you will -- have pain in this. A very, very
brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an
unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be
happy in the life you have chosen.’
She left him, and they
parted.
`Spirit.’ said Scrooge,’
show me no more. Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me.’
`One shadow more.’
exclaimed the Ghost.
`No more.’ cried Scrooge.
`No more, I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more.’
But the relentless Ghost
pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.
They were in another scene
and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the
winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed
it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter.
The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children
there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the
celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves
like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the
mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter,
soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most
ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of them. Though I never could
have been so rude, no, no. I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have
crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe,
I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul. to save my life. As to
measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have
done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,
and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to
have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them;
to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush;
to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond
price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest
licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.
But now a knocking at the
door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face
and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous
group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden
with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the
onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter. The scaling him with chairs
for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold
on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his
legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of wonder and delight with which
the development of every package was received. The terrible announcement that
the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll’s frying-pan into his
mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey,
glued on a wooden platter. The immense relief of finding this a false alarm.
The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. It is
enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour,
and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed,
and so subsided.
And now Scrooge looked on
more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter
leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside;
and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full
of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard
winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.
`Belle,’ said the husband,
turning to his wife with a smile,’ I saw an old friend of yours this
afternoon.’
`Who was it.’
`Guess.’
`How can I. Tut, don’t I
know.’ she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. `Mr Scrooge.’
`Mr Scrooge it was. I
passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle
inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of
death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.’
`Spirit.’ said Scrooge in a
broken voice,’ remove me from this place.’
`I told you these were
shadows of the things that have been,’ said the Ghost. `That they are what they
are, do not blame me.’
`Remove me.’ Scrooge
exclaimed,’ I cannot bear it.’
He turned upon the Ghost,
and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way
there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.
`Leave me. Take me back.
Haunt me no longer.’
In the struggle, if that
can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its
own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that
its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its
influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action
pressed it down upon its head.
The Spirit dropped beneath
it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed
it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from
under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.
He was conscious of being
exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being
in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand
relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.
Source: Charles Dickens: “A Christmas Carol” is in
the public domain.
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