By Charles Dickens
Level B2 Upper Intermediate British English
The man who hated Christmas * Marley's Ghost * The Spirit of Christmas Past * The Spirit of Christmas Present * The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come * God Bless Us, Every One!
This story begins just after Queen Victoria came to the throne. Jacob Marley had been dead for seven years. His business partner, Ebenezer Scrooge, was the meanest man in London.
Scrooge was so mean he would not even pay for a coat of paint to remove Marley's name from the office sign. It still read, "Scrooge and Marley."
It was a cold, foggy Christmas Eve, and a small boy with a bright red nose bent down to the keyhole to sing a carol:
"God rest you merry, gentlemen,
May nothing you dismay!"
Scrooge rushed out with a long wooden ruler, to take a crack at the boy's head, but he scurried off. Scrooge hated Christmas and everything to do with it. He was a mean, close-fisted old miser, who never did a kind action or gave a penny away.
He looked as if the cold had got right inside him. His thin lips were blue. His nose looked shrivelled and nipped. His eyebrows, wiry hair and stubbly chin looked silver with frost.
But his heart was the coldest of all. It made his office chilly, even in summer. At Christmas the temperature was freezing. He only had a tiny fire and kept the coal bucket by his desk. His clerk could not fetch a fresh piece of coal without asking.
His clerk's name was Bob Cratchit. He sat perched on a high stool in the outer office, writing in a huge account-book.
He wore mittens, but his fingers were so cold he could hardly hold his quill pen. The ink was freezing in his ink-well. He wore a long scarf he called his "comforter", wrapped three times round his neck for warmth. His wife had knitted it, for Bob could not afford an overcoat. Scrooge only paid him fifteen shillings a week.
Even Scrooge's name sounded mean — EBENEZER SCROOGE!
People were going past in the foggy London streets, coughing and wheezing. The air was smoky, so it was dark, even though it was only three o'clock in the afternoon. Scrooge could hardly see the houses opposite, and candles were lit in all the City offices. Bob Cratchit tried to warm his hands at his candle-flame, with little success.
Although it was so dark and foggy, everyone was cheerful. Tomorrow was Christmas Day and the shops were full of Christmas good cheer, and blazing with lights. There were turkeys and geese, piles of oranges and apples, nuts, cakes and sweets — but not everybody had the money to buy them.
Some ragged boys clustered round a roaring fire in an iron brazier, at the corner of the dark street. It had been lit by workmen.
Suddenly Scrooge's office door opened and a cheery voice cried, "Merry Christmas, Uncle!"
It was Scrooge's nephew, Fred. He was glowing red in the face, from walking quickly. His eyes sparkled, and his breath was like smoke in the cold air.
"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug! What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough!"
His nephew laughed. "What reason have you to be miserable? You're rich enough!"
"Merry Christmas!" growled Scrooge. "Down with Christmas! If I had my way, every idiot that goes about saying 'Merry Christmas' should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"
"You don't mean that, I'm sure, Uncle! Come and have Christmas dinner with us tomorrow and let's be friends!"
But Scrooge refused.
"I'm going to wish you a Merry Christmas in spite of your bed temper, Uncle. And a Happy New Year!"
"Bah!" Scrooge snapped as his nephew went out, with a friendly word to Bob Cratchit as he left.
As Fred went out of the door, he stood back to let in two plump, pleasant-faced gentlemen. They were collecting money for the poor: to give them a bit of comfort at Christmas time.
"Mr Marley?" asked one of them.
"Marley's dead. I'm Scrooge!" barked Ebenezer.
He refused to give anything to the collection. "Are there no prisons?" he demanded. "Are there no workhouses? I support those with my taxes. Let the poor go there!"
"Many can't go there, and many would rather die!"
"Let them die, then!" said Scrooge. "There are far too many poor people!"
The gentlemen went away, disappointed.
The fog got deeper and the afternoon darker. Soon it was time to shut the office. Bob put out his candle.
"I suppose you want the day off, tomorrow," grumbled Scrooge. "I shall have to pay you a whole day's wages for no work!"
"It's only once a year," said Bob, timidly.
"And that's once too often!" growled Scrooge, but he had to let the clerk go.
Bob ran off, like a lad let out of school, in his white comforter. He slid down a frozen hill twenty times, at the end of a line of boys. Then he hurried home to play Blind Man's Buff with his family.
Scrooge ate a lonely supper in a miserable inn, and read the financial papers.
Scrooge lived alone in rooms in a gloomy old house that had belonged to Jacob Marley, his old partner. It was so dark in the yard that Scrooge had to feel his way up to the gatepost. He was putting his key in the door when he noticed the knocker. It was a big old-fashioned one, with nothing special about it. But tonight it was different. It was not an ordinary knocker at all! It was MARLEY'S FACE!
Marley's face was a dismal shade of green, rather like bad fish glowing in the dark. Ghostly spectacles were perched on its ghostly forehead, and its hair moved gently, as if a breeze were stirring it. Its eyes had a fixed stare. As Scrooge looked hard at it, it turned back into a knocker again!
Scrooge was not frightened. He did not believe in ghosts. He entered the house, lighted his candle and looked at the inside of the door. He expected to see the back of Marley's head, with its old-fashioned pig-tail, but there were only screws and nuts.
He banged the door and went up the wide staircase. Was something going up ahead of him? He told himself firmly that Marley had been dead for seven years.
Upstairs everything was as usual. There was nothing under the bed, or under the table. A little saucepan of porridge was on the hob, by a small coal fire. Scrooge put on his slippers, dressing-gown and night-cap and sat down to eat his porridge. But first he made sure the door was locked.
There were pictures of Bible characters on the tiles around the fireplace — Cain and Abel, the Queen of Sheba, Abraham and Isaac. They all looked like Jacob Marley to him.
"Humbug!" said Scrooge.
Just then a bell high above the fireplace began to swing to and fro. It had not been used for years. Now it began to ring, and every bell in the house rang loudly for about a minute.
Then came a clanking noise, deep in the house, as if someone were dragging a heavy chain up from the cellar.
"It's humbug!" cried Scrooge. "I won't believe it!"
But the cellar door opened and the noise came up the stairs, through the heavy door and into the room, before his very eyes. The flame in the fire leaped up as if it cried; "I know him! MARLEY'S GHOST!"
And there was Marley, with his pig-tail, wearing his usual waistcoat, tight trousers and boots. The chain around his waist was very long and wound around him like a tail. It was made of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, account books and heavy metal purses. Scrooge could see right through his body to the two buttons on his coat behind.
"You don't believe in me, do you?" said the Ghost.
"I don't," said Scrooge. "You could be the result of an upset stomach. Perhaps you're an undigested bit of beef, or a crumb of cheese!"
The Ghost took no notice of Scrooge's feeble joke. Instead it gave a frightful cry and rattled its chain.
"What is that chain you are wearing?" asked Scrooge.
"I made this chain in life, link by link and yard by yard. You have one too, just as heavy and thick as mine. But you have had seven years more, so yours is much longer."
Scrooge looked down at himself, but could not see anything.
"I only thought about money. I lost so many chances to do good," sighed the Ghost.
"But you were a good business man, Jacob!"
"Business! Human beings were my business! I neglected them, and now I'm being punished for it!"
"Why have you come to me?" asked Scrooge.
"To warn you, so that you can escape my fate. You are going to be visited by three Spirits, who will come to you as the church clock strikes one."
"I'd much rather they didn't!" said Scrooge.
But the Ghost wrapped its tail round its arm and walked backwards towards the window, which began to open wide. The Ghost floated out into the night air. Scrooge heard sad cries, and saw that the sky was full of figures like Marley. They were crying out sadly and trying to reach the suffering human beings they had not helped while they were alive.
Suddenly Scrooge felt very tired. He crept into bed, and fell asleep right away.
Scrooge woke up with a start when the church bell chimed midnight. Was it a dream or was a spirit really going to appear to him at one o'clock? He lay awake listening, until at last the bell boomed out, "ONE".
The lights all flashed up in his room and the curtains on his four-poster bed were drawn.
There stood a strange small figure, with a smooth face like a child, but with long white hair, like an old man. It wore a white tunic and held a branch of holly in its hand. A bright clear light shone from the top of its head. It carried a cap like a fire extinguisher, which it could use to put out this light.
"Who or what are you?" asked Scrooge.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Long past?"
"No, your past."
"What brings you here?"
"To remind you. To help you. Get up and come with me!"
Scrooge got out of bed in his night-clothes and took the Spirit's hand.
They were suddenly in the country, in a small market town. Boys were riding along the road. Some were on ponies, some in farmers' carts, and they were all calling to one another excitedly. They were going home for the Christmas holidays. Scrooge knew who they were — his old school friends.
He began to cry. He remembered how he had been left behind that Christmas, in a cold cheerless schoolroom, forgotten by everybody. He could see himself as a boy, sitting reading. Behind him, outside the window, the people in the book came to life.
"There's Robinson Crusoe with his parrot, and Man Friday running along the Sandy beach!" Scrooge called out excitedly. But the pictures faded. He dried his eyes on his sleeve.
"I wish — " he said.
"What?" asked the Ghost.
"There was a boy singing carols outside my office tonight. I wish I'd given him something."
The Spirit waved its hand.
"Let's look at another Christmas."
It was the same schoolroom. The boy was older, alone again. Suddenly the door opened and a little girl rushed in and hugged him. It was his sister. She'd been sent to bring him home for Christmas.
"She was never strong. She died young," said Scrooge.
"And left one child, I believe," said the Spirit. "Your nephew."
"Yes," said Scrooge, thoughtfully.
Then they left the school behind, and found themselves in a huge city. It was Christmas Eve and the streets were lit up. They stopped at a warehouse door.
"Do you know it?"
"Know it! I was apprenticed here!" said Scrooge excitedly.
There was a jolly party in full swing. Old Fezziwig, Scrooge's employer, was celebrating Christmas with his family and work-people. There was a splendid supper: a great piece of Cold Roast, a great piece of Cold Boiled, mincepies, cake and beer. Best of all, there was a fiddler who played for country dancing!
Mr and Mrs Fezziwig were the "top couple" in Sir Roger de Coverley. Old Fezziwig seemed to be everywhere at once, winking with his legs, and Mrs Fezziwig kept up with him! Scrooge was delighted. He enjoyed it all as much as he had all those years ago. At the end, he looked up at the Spirit.
"Is anything the matter?"
"No," said Scrooge. "I just wished I could say a word to my clerk, that's all."
The next picture was not so cheerful. Scrooge was older and looked meaner. He was talking with his sweetheart. She told him he cared more about money than about her, and gave him back his engagement ring.
Scrooge was upset. Next, he saw his sweetheart happily married to someone else, while he sat alone in his office, with only a candle for company.
"Take me away!" he cried out, and struggled with the Spirit. He tried to press down the cap on the light of Memory that shone from its head. Suddenly, he was in his own bedroom. He fell on his bed, and sank into a deep sleep.
Scrooge woke again with a jump, just as the clock was striking One. A blaze of light seemed to be coming from the room next door.
He heard a voice calling him: "Come in, Scrooge!"
He put on his slippers and shuffled to the door. His room looked quite different. It was decorated with holly, ivy and mistletoe, and there was a huge crackling fire in the grate. Heaped up on the floor to make a kind of throne he saw turkeys, geese, chickens, joints of beef, strings of sausages, mincepies, Christmas puddings and pyramids of fruit.
On top of them sat a jolly Giant, holding a torch shaped like a Horn of Plenty. He held it up to shine its light on Scrooge as he came peering round the door.
"Come in, man, and get to know me!" said the Giant. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present!"
The Spirit was dressed in a deep green robe, edged with white fur and wore a holly wreath on its brown curly hair.
"Spirit," said Scrooge humbly, "I know you have come to do me good. Please take me with you!"
The Spirit took him out into the streets, where people were doing their last-minute shopping, getting ready for Christmas. The bells rang out for the services, from church and chapel, Poor people, who could not afford the fuel to cook at home, were carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The Spirit stood in a doorway and sprinkled a few drops from his torch, in blessing, on these poor folk's dinners.
They came to a very small house. It belonged to Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's clerk. He only earned fifteen shillings a week, yet the Ghost of Christmas Present gave his house a special blessing.
The Cratchits were all dressed up in honour of Christmas. Mrs Cratchit and her daughters had shabby dresses, but they had decked them up with gay ribbons. Young Peter was wearing his father's starched "wing" collar, a lot too big for him, and getting the corners in his mouth. He was sticking a fork into a bubbling saucepan of potatoes, while one of the girls was laying the table.
Two excited little Cratchits, a boy and a girl rushed in to say they were sure they could smell their goose cooking at the baker's!
"Where's your father and Tiny Tim?" asked Mrs Cratchit.
"Here they cone!" said the children. And Bob, with three feet of "comforter" around his neck and Tiny Tim on his shoulder, came round the door. Tiny Tim carried a crutch and had an iron frame on his leg.
Just then the young Cratchits came charging back, bearing the goose on a tray! Mrs Cratchit hotted up the gravy. Young Peter mashed the potatoes. The girls dished up the apple sauce and put out the hot plates. Everyone sat round the table, and Bob said grace. Then Mrs Cratchit plunged her long carving knife into the breast, and the smell of sage and onion stuffing gushed out!
They all said there never was such a tender, tasty goose! There was enough for everybody. The two young Cratchits, who were stepped in sage and onion to the eyebrows, couldn't have eaten any more anyway.
Next, it was the turn of the Christmas pudding, which had been boiling away in the kitchen copper. The room smelled like a wash-day and baking day combined! Mrs Cratchit carried in the pudding, blazing with brandy, and with a sprig of holly on top. It looked like a speckled football. (No one even dared to hint that it was rather a small pudding for such a big family!)
Then they all sat round the fire, eating roast chestnuts and drinking Christmas toasts.
Bob raised his glass (a custard cup without a handle.) "A Merry Christmas to us all, my dear! God bless us!" And Tiny Tim added: "God bless us, every one!" He sat close to his father, who held his thin little hand.
"Spirit," whispered Scrooge, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."
"I see an empty chair," said the Spirit, "and beside it a little crutch. If these shadows do not change, Tiny Tim will not see another Christmas. But why should you care? Let him die. There are too many poor people."
Scrooge heard his own words, and was silent with shame.
Then the Spirit showed Scrooge what Christmas meant in far-away, lonely places. To miners below the earth. To men in lighthouses, surrounded by sea and storm. To sailors on board ship in the dark night, singing carols as they worked.
Suddenly Scrooge heard a jolly laugh. It was Fred, his nephew. They were having a Christmas party. After a hilarious game of Blind Man's Buff, they were playing a guessing game, "Yes and No." Fred had to think of something, and could only answer "Yes" or "No" to questions.
Yes, he was thinking of an animal — a disagreeable, savage animal. Yes, it lived in London. No, it wasn't in a zoo. No, it wasn't a horse — or a donkey — or a cow — or a tiger — or a cat — or a bear. Scrooge's nephew laughed so much he almost fell off the sofa.
At last his plumb sister-in-law squealed out, "I know who it is! It's your Uncle Scroo-oo-ge!"
And so it was! They all drank a toast to Uncle Scrooge, who would have answered them, but the Spirit took him away again to see other people's Christmases in distant lands.
But gradually the Spirit grew smaller and smaller. Its brown hair turned to grey.
"Is your life so short?" asked Scrooge.
"Yes. It ends at midnight."
Then Scrooge noticed something hiding in the folds of the Spirit's robe. There were two children there, a boy and a girl, very thin, half starved and ragged.
"These are the children of the world who have no parents and no one to make a Christmas for them," said the Spirit sadly.
"Have they nowhere to go?" asked Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
The clock struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Spirit, but it was gone. Instead, he saw a solemn figure, clad in a dark hood and cloak, gliding like a mist over the ground towards him. It was the last of the Spirits.
The Spirit did not speak. All Scrooge could see of it in the gloom was one outstretched hand, pointing from its black garments. Scrooge was filled with fear.
"Are you the Spirit of the Future?" he asked, trembling. "Are you going to show me things that are going to happen in years to come?"
The Spirit seemed to bend its head.
"Will you not speak to me?" begged Scrooge.
Instead, the Spirit pointed straight ahead.
They were in the City. The business men were standing in groups, chinking the gold coins in their pockets. Scrooge and the Spirit stopped near enough to hear what some of them were saying.
"I don't know much about it. I only know he's dead," said one fat merchant.
"Who's he left all his money to?" asked another, taking snuff out of a large snuff-box.
"I don't know," said a red-faced banker with a wart on his nose. "He hasn't left it to me!" They all laughed.
"I wonder who'll go to his funeral," said the fat man. "He hadn't any friends!"
Scrooge wondered who they were talking about. He looked about for himself, but he was not in his usual place of business.
Next the Spirit took Scrooge to a dreadful slum in the poorest part of London. Under a low roof there stood a shabby old second-hand shop, full of rubbish. A rag-and-bone man was crouching by an evil-smelling stove, waiting for customers.
Two men and a woman came in out of the murky night, carrying bundles. They had some bedding, clothes and old curtains for sale.
"Where'd you get these, then?" croaked the rag-and-bone merchant, picking them over.
"The old chap we took them from won't want them again!" chuckled the woman.
"No, where he's gone, he won't want no sheets or night-shirt!" said the other man.
"If he hadn't been such a wicked old screw, he might have had somebody to look after him when he was dying," said the man, throwing down a pair of cuff-links. "It serves him right."
Scrooge watched while a few coins changed hands.
"Spirit," he said, "doesn't anyone feel sorry for this man's death? Show me someone with some feeling about it!"
The Ghost spread its dark robe out like a wing and then drew it back to show a room where a mother sat with her young children. Then her husband came in, looking ill and worried. Yet there was a look of joy on his face, too.
"We have more time to pay our debt," he said.
"Has the old man relented, then?" asked his wife eagerly.
"No," said her husband, "he is dead."
The wife's face brightened. This was the only feeling anyone had for the old man's death — it was relief.
Scrooge begged the Spirit to show him some kinder feeling connected with a death.
For an answer, the Spirit took him to Bob Cratchit's house.
The little Cratchits were quiet. Their mother was sewing.
"Is your father coming?" she said. "He's late."
"I think he walks slower in the evenings than he did with Tiny Tim on his shoulder," said Peter.
"Your father loved Tiny Tim, and he was so light to carry," said their mother.
Just then Bob came in, wearing his comforter, and his family hurried to get his tea. He had been to the cemetery.
"It's a lovely place," said Bob. "I promised Tiny Tim we'd go there every Sunday."
Bob had met Scrooge's nephew in the street. Fred had told him how sorry he was and asked what he could do to help.
"We must never forget Tiny Tim," said Bob to his family. "We must never quarrel with each other, for he was so patient and good."
They all hugged and kissed each other and made the promise.
"I am very happy," said Bob, looking round at his wife and children.
Scrooge said anxiously to the Spirit, "Show me myself as I shall be in years to come!"
The Spirit took him to his office, but another man sat at his desk. Scrooge began to feel a sense of dread.
The tall black figure led him on, still pointing, to an iron gateway. It led to a neglected churchyard, where the grass and nettles had grown high. The Spirit stood among the graves and its long finger pointed to one.
Scrooge said "Tell me, Spirit, are these things that will happen, or are they things that may happen? Can they not be changed?"
But the Spirit still pointed at the grave without speaking. One the stone, Scrooge read his own name —
EBENEZER SCROOGE.
"No, no," he cried, clutching the Spirit's robe. "I am not that man! I will not be that man! Isn't there any hope for me? Can I change what you have shown me?"
The Spirit's hand trembled.
"I promise to keep Christmas in my heart, all the year round! I promise to remember the lessons the Spirits have taught me — Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future! Please tell me I can change the writing on this stone!"
As he begged the Spirit, he saw an alteration in its hood and dress. It shrank, collapsed and changed — into a bedpost.
It was his own bedpost and his own bedroom! And it was his own time ahead to make up for the past.
He scrambled out of bed and clutched the bed-curtains. They had not been torn down and sold! He put on his clothes, inside out, upside down, any way, laughing and crying at the same time.
"A Merry Christmas, everybody," he shouted. "A Happy New Year to all the world!"
Then he heard the church bells ringing out. Clash, Clash, Hammer, Ding Dong Bell! The fog had cleared away. It was golden sunlight and fresh morning air. He flung open the window.
"What day is it?" he called to a boy in the street below.
"What day? Why, Christmas Day!"
He had not lost any time after all! The Spirits had shown him all their wonders in one night, and it was still Christmas morning. Scrooge took out some money.
"Go down to the butcher's in the next street," he said, "and bring back the biggest turkey in the shop. Yes, that's right, the Prize Turkey. Get the man to come back with you so that I can tell him where to take it — and I'll give you half a crown!"
The boy ran off down the street. Half a crown was a lot of money in those days.
"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit," chuckled Scrooge. "He won't know where it's come from. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim!"
After he had sent the man off with the turkey, he had a good look at the door knocker. "What an honest expression it has! It's a wonderful knocker!" he said.
After he had shaved and dressed up in his best suit, Scrooge went out. He smiled at all the people he met and wished them a Merry Christmas and they returned the greeting. Then he spotted the plump gentleman who had been collecting for the poor. He went up and whispered in his ear. The plump gentleman looked amazed and delighted.
"A great many back payments are included in that!" Scrooge said.
Next, he marched boldly up to his nephew's front door and rang the bell.
"It's your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?"
Of course he would! He nearly shook his hand off. They had the most wonderful party and Scrooge joined in it all — games, dancing, and singing carols.
Next morning, though, he was up early. He wanted to catch Bob Cratchit coming late to the office. Sure enough, poor Bob tried to sneak in unnoticed, quarter of an hour after his usual time. He got rid of his hat and comforter and jumped on his stool, writing away as if his life depended on it.
Scrooge growled at him, pretending to be his old horrible self.
"What do you mean by coming in at this time of day?" he snapped.
"I'm very sorry," said Bob meekly. "It's only once a year."
Scrooge said, "I'm not going to stand this sort of thing any longer," — giving Bob a dig in the waistcoat — "and therefore — " giving him another dig that pushed him right back into the outer office "- therefore — I am about to RAISE YOUR WAGES!"
Bob thought Scrooge had gone mad. He looked about for the long wooden ruler.
"A Merry Christmas, Bob," said Scrooge. "A Merrier Christmas than I have given you for many a year, my poor fellow! Make up the fire — let's have a real blaze — and fetch another bucket of coal! I'll look after your family and help Tiny Tim — and we'll brew up a hot toddy this afternoon to celebrate!"
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and more, and to Tiny Tim (who did not die) he was a second father.
He became as good a friend, as good a master and as good a man as the good old City of London knew, or any city in the good old world!
He saw no more Spirits. But it was said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas as well as any man alive.
May that be true of all of us! As Tiny Tim once said, "God Bless Us, Every One!"
THE END