STAVE II. The First of The Three Spirits. Page 17

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Charles Dickens
1812–1870

A Christmas Carol in Prose : Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.

Autograph manuscript signed, December 1843
Page 17
STAVE II

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1900

MA 97
Transcription: 

17

STAVE II.

The First of The Three Spirits.

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed he could scarcely distinguish, the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkess with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past Two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat Twelve; and stopped.

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!"

The idea being an alarming one he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out, was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been, if night had beaten off bright Day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because ""sixty days after sight pay to me or my order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States' security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought and thought; and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature enquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"

Scrooge lay in this uneasy state, until the chimes had gone three quarters more; when he remembered on a sudden, that the Ghost had