A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and the Spirits of Past and Present

Scrooge was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching old sinner! Cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, and stiffened his gait. 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.

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?' Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him, tugging their masters into doorways whenever the harsh old man walked past.

Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house in London. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, and the fog poured in through every chink and keyhole. The door of Scrooge's office was open so that he could keep an eye on his poor clerk, Bob Cratchit, who sat in a dismal little cell copying letters beside a tiny coal fire.

'A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, Fred, whose handsome face was ruddy and warm from walking through the snow.

'Bah!' said Scrooge. 'Humbug!' He glared at his nephew with icy disdain. 'What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough!' 'Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough!'

Scrooge had no answer ready on the spur of the moment and repeated, 'Humbug! If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!' After refusing Fred's warm dinner invitation and turning away two gentlemen collecting charity for the hungry, Scrooge closed up shop with a grudging scowl and retired to his lonely chambers.

Scrooge lived in a gloomy suite of rooms in a dreary pile of building up a dark courtyard. As Scrooge put his key into the heavy door lock, the brass knocker underwent a startling transformation—it became not a knocker, but the luminous, pale face of his dead partner, Jacob Marley! Scrooge stared in shock, but when he blinked, it was an ordinary knocker once more.

Uneasy, Scrooge double-locked his heavy oak door and sat beside a weak fireplace, sipping gruel. Suddenly, every bell in the house began to ring in eerie harmony! From the cellar beneath, the sound of dragging metal chains echoed up the stairs, drawing nearer and nearer.

Through the solid heavy door stepped the phantom of Jacob Marley! The ghost was transparent, and around his waist was bound a long, heavy chain forged of iron cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, and heavy steel purses. 'Who are you?' gasped Scrooge, trembling from head to foot.

'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley,' the phantom moaned in a voice like a winter wind. 'I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, prioritizing gold over human kindness!'

'You were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge. 'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its spectral hands. 'Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business!'

Marley's ghost warned Scrooge that a similar, heavier chain awaited him unless he changed his ways. 'You will be haunted by Three Spirits,' Marley proclaimed before fading into the foggy night. 'Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first when the clock strikes one!'

Scrooge fell into bed exhausted and awakened as the deep church bell chimed one in the morning. A flash of light illuminated the chamber, and the curtains of his bed were drawn aside by a strange, otherworldly figure. It was a phantom that looked both like a child and an old man, with hair white as snow and a luminous beam of light glowing from the crown of its head.

'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,' the spirit said with gentle authority, taking Scrooge by the hand. 'Rise, and walk with me.' In an instant, the bedroom walls dissolved into thin air.

Scrooge found himself standing on an open country road bordered by snowy fields. It was the village of his childhood! He saw his younger self, a lonely, forgotten schoolboy sitting by a dying fire with only storybooks for company. A solitary tear fell from Scrooge's eye as he remembered his lost youth.

The spirit showed him joyful memories of Fezziwig's warehouse, where Scrooge had worked as a young apprentice. He saw the warm-hearted master Fezziwig hosting a magnificent Christmas dance filled with music, laughter, and generous cheer, proving that a master could make his workers' lives rich and happy with little cost.

Next, the spirit showed a painful memory: a fair young woman named Belle, sitting weeping before young Scrooge. 'Another idol has displaced me,' she said softly. 'A golden one. You fear the world too much, and all your noble ambitions have been swallowed by the gain of wealth.' She released him from their engagement, and Scrooge saw her years later, surrounded by loving children in a home glowing with warmth.

'Spirit!' cried Scrooge, overcome with anguish and shame. 'Show me no more! Conduct me home! Why do you delight to torture me?' He seized the spirit's luminous extinguisher cap and pressed it down over its head, plunging the room into darkness as he collapsed onto his bed in heavy slumber.