Faith Moore (0:01)

Hello and welcome to the Storytime for Grown Ups Christmas Spectacular. I'm Faith Moore and for the month of December, we'll be reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read one chapter from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea or a mug of hot chocolate, find a cozy chair, throw another log on the fire and settle in. It's story time. Hello. Welcome back. I am so excited to start reading this book with you today. I cannot tell you how much I've been waiting for this. I've been sort of giddily anticipating this moment when we get to come together to read this book, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. So this is episode two of the Story Time for Grown Ups Christmas Spectacular. If you missed episode one, it's still there in your podcast feed. That was an introduction to A Christmas Carol and Charles Dickens. I just gave a little bit of historical context and a little bit of biographical information about Charles Dickens. Not too much. I really think you can get bogged down in all of that stuff and it can make you feel like you're supposed to be looking for all these kind of secret, hidden details that you didn't even know were there. And that's terrible. That is not how we're supposed to be reading a book. We are supposed to be dropping into this world that has been created for us, meeting these characters that we wouldn't otherwise get to meet and wandering around in this story together. And that is what I hope that we're going to do. I talked about this much more when we were reading Jane Eyre because that was much more of a kind of metaphorical book with all these kind of deep ideas going on. But even so, the only reason to analyze or talk about a book like that is so that you can further experience the world of the book, the characters of the book, and maybe pull some universal ideas, universal truths out of them that help you find more joy, that help you understand life, live your life more, and think more deeply about what's going on. And that's the only reason why I want to talk about books. And so that's the kind of talking that we're going to be doing here on Storytime for Grown Ups all the time. But also here in the Christmas Spectacular, we're going to read this book and we're going to talk about it, but only insofar as that helps us to live in the world of A Christmas Carol, because this really is a world and Charles Dickens is such a master of character and plot and description. And I want us to spend December together in the world of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. So thank you for joining me. Thank you for being here with us, getting ready to start this journey. So normally at the beginning of the episode, I do a recap of what we've read so far, and then I take a question or two and we have a little discussion about what we've read so far and then we go into the next chapters. Of course, we haven't read any chapters yet, so I'm not going to talk too much here at the beginning. I do have one question that I got after the intro episode that I think is a really great comment that will help us to just jump in and dive into this. This world that I'm talking about, this story of A Christmas Carol. So I am going to do a question or comment in just a moment. And I've actually been getting so many questions and comments, so many emails from you guys, which is fantastic. And one of the things that I'm hearing a lot from people is that you've maybe watched a movie of A Christmas Carol or seen a stage adaptation or some other kind of adaptation, but never actually read the book. And I think that's a really common experience. And I'm sorry, so excited to share the actual source material with you because as I have said on here before, I often come to the classics via something else, a movie, a stage show, whatever it is, because I struggle with reading. And that's why I started this podcast, because I know a lot of people struggle to read these classics. And it can be embarrassing, it can be frustrating. And I want to make these books much more accessible in the ways that I've been able to figure out how to do that. And I wanted to share that with you. But coming to them via a movie movie or something like that is a completely acceptable way to get into these stories. It's the way that I often do it. And so many of you have been writing in to say that you've watched various movies and seen various adaptations, and now you're looking forward to reading the book with me. And I am looking forward to reading the book with you as well, because that was exactly what happened to me as well. My preferred movie, because I know you guys always want to know, my preferred movie is 100% the Alastair Sim version came out in the 1950s. It's in black and white. And this is the one that we watch every year. I know everybody has some other version, their version that they watch every year. This is mine. So if you haven't seen that one, do check it out. But maybe read the book first. Because also there are themes that are in this book that don't come up in the movies or that the movies kind of have to simplify in some way. And so I'm really excited to delve into that with you, into what it is that this book is really trying to tell us or what this world is really all about. So I'm so glad that you're coming here to read this book for the first time. And I know some of you also people have been writing to me to say actually they read this book every single year. And I'm thrilled to be a part of your tradition. I'm so excited and honored to be a part of your yearly tradition of reading this book. That makes me so happy. So wherever you are in this journey, however, you are coming to this book right now with us. Welcome. I am so glad that you are here. And so this is a good time to remind you that you should, can and definitely should write into me with questions and comments and thoughts as we go along. The best way to do that is via my website, which is faith k.moore.com and then there's a little tab at the top called Contact. You click on that and there's a form there. It goes straight to my email and. And I reply to you individually. So even if I don't feature your question or comment on the show, I will write back to you. It usually takes me within a week or so. I get a lot of. A lot of emails, which is fantastic. I love them. I'm always so happy when I see your emails in my inbox. But it may take me a little bit of time to get back to you, but I will get back to you. And then I pick one or two, as I say, each episode, to read aloud to you and to discuss for a little while. So again, you can click on that contact page on my website. There's also a link in the Show Notes. The show notes are the description of this episode. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, if you scroll down to the place where it says what this episode is about, then under that there are various links and one of them is just that link to that contact page. It'll take you right there. You can also find me on X. I'm Faith K. Moore. That's the only social media that I have at the moment. And I do answer my DMs there. And if you post and tag me, I'll see that you can reply to one of my posts. These are all great ways to get in touch with me, and I really hope that you do get in touch with me, because that is what makes this show what it is. It would be nothing without your questions and comments because that's what really makes us feel like we're all talking to each other. Because we are. We're having a conversation. We're living in this world together. So please do make sure that you get in touch. Also make sure that you're subscribed to the show, whatever it's called, in whichever podcast player you're listening to. Maybe subscribe, maybe follow whatever it is, tap that button because then the episodes will just drop right into your podcast feed when they are available and you won't have to think, oh wait, is there another storytime episode? It will just appear. So please make sure that you're doing that. That way you'll get all the chapters in order and it won't be confusing. And if there is someone that you know, a friend, family member, a colleague, a person on the street who you think might enjoy reading along with us this December, might enjoy reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, tell them or copy a link to the show and text it to them, or email it to them, or however you communicate with them and let them know that they might enjoy this. This is how the show grows and that's how we're able to do many more books to come. And as I've been saying, the January book is so good I cannot wait to drop a trailer for it. That'll happen a little bit later this month and then I cannot wait to share it with you. It is one of my all time favorites. So tell your friends about this show. Let's grow this amazing community together. Okay, so just a couple of housekeeping things. One is I always let you know if I've been on some other podcast and if I've been talking about this show or this book. So lately I was on a podcast called A Drink with a Friend which is hosted by Tish Oxenrider. I was on there once before and also Tish was on Storytime for Grown Ups during the summer session last summer when we were talking a great deal about Jane Eyre. So I went on that podcast again. I love that show. Tish is a wonderful person. She's doing amazing work over on her show and on her website and so I've just put a link in the show notes of today's episode to that podcast episode where Tish and I talked together. There are mild spoilers in the episode for A Christmas Carol. So if you know nothing about this story or you don't want to know yet how maybe the book is different from some movies and things like that, then maybe just save that episode or don't listen to it or whatever you choose. But if you'd like to, you know, join me for a little bit more time this week and talk a little bit more about this show and what I'm up to this holiday season, and A Christmas Carol as well, that's a fun listen and it was a really great time, so I hope you'll check that out. And then, just a quick reminder that I am giving away signed bookplates if you choose to buy a copy of my novel Christmas Carol, which is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol. And you can also be entered into a drawing to receive either your money back if you bought the book, or to receive an additional book that is signed. So not with a book plate, but actually signed in the book, which I would mail to you. And all of the information for how to do that, how to get a free book plate, how to be entered into the drawing, is in a link in the description of this video. And there's more information about that at the very end of the episode. And you can also find a link in the description of this episode to me reading a corresponding section of my book Christmas Carol, that goes along with the chapter that we're going to read today that's on YouTube. The link is there. So just scroll down and check out the various links that are in the show notes because there might be something there that you'd like to click on. Or maybe not. That's completely fine, too. Okay, so let's get to this comment for today. Today's comment comes to us from Patti. Patty writes, hi, Faith. Do you remember the line in the song it's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year that talks about scary ghost stories? I always puzzled over that, but now I get it. I asked my husband about it and he said Christmas can be a time to think about the afterlife as well, a time to focus on the spiritual over just the material. I'm looking forward to Thursday. It is Thursday. We made it. Okay, so I picked this one because in the intro episode, which, as I say, is still there if you missed it, you can just scroll down in your podcast feed and Find it. But in that episode, I talked about the concept of the Christmas ghost story and how we've kind of lost that tradition here in America, but that it was a very big part of Christmas in Victorian England, which is when this book was written. And A Christmas Carol falls very squarely within that tradition of the Christmas ghost story. And you can hear more about what that is and why that might be true and why that might have come to be in that intro episode that I was talking about. But Patty is very astutely pointing out in her comment that you can find a few remnants of this tradition of Christmas ghost stories kind of floating around in the Christmas traditions that we do have, like, little clues that this really did used to be a thing. And as Patti points out, the Christmas song the Most Wonderful Time of the Year is a perfect example of one of these little remnants. Okay, so excuse my voice here, but I'm gonna just sing you that little stanza in case you're not sure what we're talking about. Okay? So it goes. There'll be parties for hosting marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long. Etc, Etc, right? So here in the States, like I said before, we might wonder what on earth scary ghost stories are doing in that song. But now we know, right? Ghost stories were a big part of Christmas time, particularly in Victorian England. But in England still, I mean, if you're in England, you will get Christmas ghost stories, often airing on TV around Christmas time and things like that as the season approaches. And the reason I'm bringing this back up now is because that idea of kind of huddling in front of the fire on a cold, dark night with your hot drink and your blanket and your loved ones snuggled beside you, that's the mindset I want us all to get into. Now, even if you're not actually doing that, even if you're like, really, really far from doing that for whatever reason, I want this podcast for this time we're together to be that place for you, right? For all of us coming together to listen to this ghost story around the fire in the dark of winter. And remember, it's not a scary, horrific, disturbing kind of ghost story. It's a cozy, delightful Christmas sort of ghost story. So join me. Join all of us, right? We're all out there. We're all listening. Join us for this, the greatest Christmas ghost story ever told, Right? And don't forget to write to me after the episode with your questions and thoughts. And don't forget to request your signed book plate if you want one. All right, let's get started with Stave one of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Stave 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. Change is short for the Royal Exchange, which was the financial centre of London. So this means that Scrooge's credit will always be honoured. Old Marley was dead as a doornail. Mind, I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge what there is particularly dead about a doornail. 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 doornee. 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 solemnized it with an undoubted bargain. So Scrooge inherited everything that Marley left behind. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started. 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 St. 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 rhyme was on his head and on his eyebrows and his wiry chin. Rhyme is like a frozen mist. So Scrooge is metaphorically cold all over. But also his hair and eyebrows and beard stubble are what bite like frost. 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 blind men'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. So nuts here means sort of like good luck. So basically he likes the fact that everyone keeps their distance from him. Once upon a time, of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve, old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. So Scrooge is essentially a money lender. He loans out money and then charges interest on it. So his counting house is his office. 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 neighboring offices like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole and was so dense without that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. So the court is like the courtyard, the space between the buildings. So even though the courtyard is small, the fog is so thick you can't see the buildings on the other side of it. 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. So, if you're reading along, this is spelled clerk, and that's probably what we would say in America means Scrooge's assistant, or more like a secretary. But Dickens would have pronounced this Clark, so I will too, 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 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. So if the clerk tries to add more coal to the fire, Scrooge will fire him. 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. A humbug is a lie, so it means deceptive talk or behavior, so it amounts to meaning nonsense, basically. So he's saying nonsense about Merry Christmas. 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 so 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 them through a round dozen of months presented dead against you. If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes around 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, meaning things can be good even if you don't make money from them. Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time when it has come around, 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 forever. Let me hear another sound from you, said Scrooge, and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. So he's telling his clerk he'll fire him if he does anything like applauding. What? The nephew said again. 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, meaning he'd sooner see him in hell than at his dinner table at Christmas time. 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 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, 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 humor 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 greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scott, for he returned them cordially. There's another fellow, muttered Scrooge, who overheard him. My clerk, with 15 shillings a week and a wife and family talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam. Bedlam is a lunatic asylum. 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. Liberality means generosity. So they're saying. They're sure that Mr. Scrooge is just as generous as Mr. Marley was. 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 comfort, sir. So these men are here collecting financial donations for the poor. Are there no prisons? Asked Scrooge. Plenty of prisons, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. And the union work houses? 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. So the treadmill was a literal mill turned by people walking on steps attached to a large wheel. It was a form of hard labor punishment. And the poor law was a law in England at the time that sent people who couldn't pay their bills to the workhouse, which was a horrible sort of shelter where you had to work to earn their keep. So Scrooge is asking if these places are still available for the poor to go to. 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 am very glad to hear it. Under the impression that they scarcely furnace Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude, returned the gentleman. A few of us are endeavoring 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 gentleman withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors 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 and carriages and conduct them on their way. So links are like makeshift torches, so people are trying to make a bit of extra money by offering to light the way through the fog. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly 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 laborers were repairing the gas pipes and had lighted a 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. A brazier is a flat pan with lit coals inside, so these workmen are keeping warm this way while working in the cold. The water plug being left in solitude, its overflowing suddenly congealed and turning 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 grocer's 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 mighty mansion house, gave orders to his 50 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. So everyone, from the wealthiest and most important to the poorest and lowliest, are getting ready to celebrate Christmas 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. So there's a legend about Saint Dunstan pinching the devil's nose with hot pincers. So this is saying that it's so cold out that this cold would have been even worse for the devil than the hot pincers. 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 gentlemen, 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 to morrow, I suppose, said Scrooge. So he's asking if the clerk expects to get Christmas Day off. 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. Half a crown is money. So he's saying it's not fair that he should have to pay the clerk for a day when he doesn't work. 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 25th of December. Said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat 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 greatcoat, went down a slide on Cornhill at the end of a lane of boys 20 times in honor 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 buildings 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 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. The genius of the weather is a sort of guardian spirit of weather. 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, alderman and livery, meaning Scrooge has no imagination at all. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven years 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 an 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 on 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 color 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, meaning Scrooge is frightened. 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 rod wise, 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. A dip is a kind of candle. Up Scrooge went, not carrying 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, bedroom, lumber room, all as they should be. The lumber room is like a storage room. 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 had 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 nightcap, 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 Abel's, 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. So having no bowels can mean not being affectionate or compassionate. So this is a joke because Marley wasn't compassionate in his life, but also now he literally has no bowels. 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. A shade is a ghost. He was going to say to a shade, but substituted this as more appropriate. So to a shade would mean to a degree. But Marley is a ghost. So this is another joke. He's particular to a shade, to a degree, but also for a shade, because he is a shade. 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 waggish means playfully humorous. The truth is that he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror, for the specter'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 specters. 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 vapor 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're 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 hobgoblins 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 indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast. So dead bodies often had a cloth wrapped around the head under the chin to keep the chin from dropping and making the face look frightening. So Marley has this. But he took it off and his jaw dropped down as if the cloth had been holding his face together. 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 50 or 60 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. Meaning comfort comes from God, not from the ghosts of men who weren't good people in their lifetimes. 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 traveling 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. So the ward would be a sort of watchman of the neighborhood. O captive bound and double ironed. Cried the phantom. Not to know that ages of incessant labor 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 opportunity. Misused. Yet such was I. Oh, such was I. But you are always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered 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? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me? So he's saying. Why wasn't he kind and generous while he was alive, instead of miserly and uncaring? Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the specter 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 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 ye. 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 to morrow when the bell tolls 1. 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 12 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 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 specter 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 specter, 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 doorstep. The misery with them all was clearly that they sought to interfere for good in human matters and had lost the power forever. 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. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to check out my novel Christmas Carol. That's Carol with a K. Using the link in the Show Notes to hear me read an excerpt from the book tied to today's episode, click on the link in the Show Notes. I would be so grateful if you would consider buying a copy or a few copies for yourself or as a gift. If you buy a copy of the book and email me a screenshot of your receipt, you'll be entered into a drawing to receive your choice of either your money back or an additional signed copy. The email to send the receipt to is in the Show Notes. If you buy multiple copies, you can enter the drawing multiple times. The winner will be notified by email. Also, everyone who buys a copy of the book is entitled to a free signed book plate which you can stick into the book to make it a signed copy. If you'd like one. Just email the screenshot of your receipt to the email address listed in the Show Notes and let me know whom you'd like the book plate made out to and what address to mail it to. Thank you so much for supporting me and the work I do by buying my book this Christmas time. And of course, don't forget to get in touch with comments or questions about this episode. Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Alright everyone, storytime is over. To be continued. It.