Ebenezer Scrooge (2:54)

Have I ever sought release?

Belle (2:56)

In words? No, never.

Ebenezer Scrooge (2:58)

In what, then?

Belle (2:59)

In a changed nature? In an altered spirit? In Another atmosphere of life, another hope as its great end in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no.

Ebenezer Scrooge (3:20)

You think not?

Belle (3:21)

I would gladly think otherwise if I could. Heaven knows when I have learned a truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free today, tomorrow, 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 or regret would surely follow? I do. And I release you with a full heart for the love of him you once were. You may the memory of what has passed 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.

Narrator (4:27)

Spirit, show me no more. Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?

Ebenezer Scrooge (4:33)

One shadow more.

Narrator (4:34)

No more. No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more.

Ebenezer Scrooge (4:38)

One shadow more. Look. They were in another scene. In place a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like the last that Scrooge believed it was the same. Until he saw Belle, now a comely matron, sitting opposite the young girl, 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 40 children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like 40. 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. 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 center 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.

Belle (5:52)

They have come to abscond with your packages, darling. There is no hope.

Narrator (5:56)

Hello. Whoa.

Ebenezer Scrooge (5:58)

Now then, the shouting and the struggling and the onslaught that was made on the Defenseless 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 the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection.

Narrator (6:15)

Not till Christmas.

Belle (6:17)

You.

Narrator (6:18)

You must wait till Christmas to open your presents.

Ebenezer Scrooge (6:20)

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 actual 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 parlor 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 in his fullest promise, might have called him father and been a springtime in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

Narrator (7:20)

Bell, I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.

Belle (7:24)

Who was it? Guess. How can I? Don't I know? Mr. Scrooge.

Narrator (7:31)

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, remove me from this place.

Ebenezer Scrooge (7:53)

I told you that these were shadows of things that have been. That they are what they are, do not blame me.

Narrator (8:02)

Remove me. I cannot bear it.

Ebenezer Scrooge (8:06)

Leave me.

Narrator (8:06)

Take me back. Haunt me no longer.

Ebenezer Scrooge (8:10)

He turned upon the ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, and in which, some strange way there were fragments of all the faces that had shown him, wrestled with it 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.

Narrator (9:31)

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