{"id":31680,"date":"2020-11-28T21:22:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T04:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?page_id=31680"},"modified":"2020-11-28T22:55:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T05:55:33","slug":"humbug","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/dickens-in-days\/humbug\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 5 – Humbug"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dickens<\/a>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 Abels, Pharaoh\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s head on every one.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumbug!\u201d said Scrooge; and walked across the room.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s humbug still!\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cI won\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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, \u201cI know him; Marley\u2019s Ghost!\u201d and fell again.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow now!\u201d said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. \u201cWhat do you want with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch!\u201d\u2014Marley\u2019s voice, no doubt about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk me who I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho were you then?\u201d said Scrooge, raising his voice. \u201cYou\u2019re particular, for a shade.\u201d He was going to say \u201cto a shade,\u201d but substituted this, as more appropriate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you\u2014can you sit down?\u201d asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo it, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t believe in me,\u201d observed the Ghost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you doubt your senses?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause,\u201d said Scrooge, \u201ca 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\u2019s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre\u2019s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.<\/p>\n

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 spectre\u2019s 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 vapour from an oven.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see this toothpick?\u201d 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\u2019s stony gaze from himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d replied the Ghost.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not looking at it,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I see it,\u201d said the Ghost, \u201cnotwithstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell!\u201d returned Scrooge, \u201cI have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!\u201d<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cMercy!\u201d he said. \u201cDreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMan of the worldly mind!\u201d replied the Ghost, \u201cdo you believe in me or not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cI must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is required of every man,\u201d the Ghost returned, \u201cthat the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, 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\u2014oh, woe is me!\u2014and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!\u201d<\/p>\n

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are fettered,\u201d said Scrooge, trembling. \u201cTell me why?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wear the chain I forged in life,\u201d replied the Ghost. \u201cI 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge trembled more and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr would you know,\u201d pursued the Ghost, \u201cthe weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas<\/a> Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cJacob,\u201d he said, imploringly. \u201cOld Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have none to give,\u201d the Ghost replied. \u201cIt comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. 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\u2014mark me!\u2014in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must have been very slow about it, Jacob,\u201d Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.<\/p>\n

\u201cSlow!\u201d the Ghost repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeven years dead,\u201d mused Scrooge. \u201cAnd travelling all the time!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole time,\u201d said the Ghost. \u201cNo rest, no peace<\/a>. Incessant torture of remorse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou travel fast?\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the wings of the wind,\u201d replied the Ghost.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,\u201d cried the phantom, \u201cnot to know, that ages of incessant labour 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\u2019s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you were always a good man of business, Jacob,\u201d faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness!\u201d cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. \u201cMankind 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

It held up its chain at arm\u2019s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time of the rolling year,\u201d the spectre said, \u201cI 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHear me!\u201d cried the Ghost. \u201cMy time is nearly gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will,\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cBut don\u2019t be hard upon me! Don\u2019t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is no light part of my penance,\u201d pursued the Ghost. \u201cI am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were always a good friend to me,\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cThank\u2019ee!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will be haunted,\u201d resumed the Ghost, \u201cby Three Spirits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge\u2019s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost\u2019s had done.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?\u201d he demanded, in a faltering voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2014I think I\u2019d rather not,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout their visits,\u201d said the Ghost, \u201cyou cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCouldn\u2019t I take \u2019em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?\u201d hinted Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!\u201d<\/p>\n

When it had 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.<\/p>\n

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.<\/p>\n

It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley\u2019s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.<\/p>\n

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 spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.<\/p>\n

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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 door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cHumbug!\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"parent":31663,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"pageWithContainerAndSidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":17,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31680","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31680\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}