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Scrooge receives a visit from his dead partner. Second part of abridged and simplified version of classic Christmas tale. Edited extract from classic Dickens story for English language and literature students. Aimed at second language learners, reluctant readers and those looking for condensed version of story. Text lightly edited with key quotations unchanged. For learning activities and other extracts from the story go here: http://christmascarol.esolebooks.com/teaching/teaching/activities.html
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2. Marley’s Ghost
1. Humbug!
Scrooge has finally left his office on the evening of Christmas Eve. It is the seventh anniversary of the death of his business partner, Jacob Marley.
A Christmas Carolby Charles Dickens
Retold by Kieran McGovern
2
Home
Scrooge ate his melancholy dinner in his usual
melancholy tavern. After reading all the
newspapers, he spent the rest of the evening
working on his accounts. Then he went home to
bed.
He lived a gloomy suite of rooms, in a
gloomy old building that had once belonged to
his dead partner. Nobody lived there but
Scrooge. The other rooms were let out as offices
and there was also a wine cellar below
Fog and frost surrounded the black old
gateway of the house. The yard was very dark
and gloomy. Even Scrooge, who knew its every
stone, had to grope with his hands, to find his
way to the front door.
Scrooge put his key in the lock. As he did
so, the knocker suddenly became Marley's face.
3
Marley's face.
Marley’s face! There was a dismal light
about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar, but
was not angry or ferocious.
It looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look:
with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly
forehead. Though the eyes were wide open, they
were perfectly motionless
As Scrooge at this stared at this horrible
apparition, it became a knocker again.
Startled but resolute, Scrooge turned the
key firmly. He walked in, and lit his candle.
He did pause before he shut the door. And
he did look behind it first, as if half-expecting to
see Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.
4
But there was nothing on the back of the
door, except the screws and nuts that held the
knocker on.
'Bah!' said Scrooge and closed it with a
bang.
The sound echoed through the house like
thunder.
Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by
echoes. He walked across the hall and slowly
up the stairs.
Up Scrooge went, not caring about the poor
light given by his candle. 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.
Double Locked
He looked in the sitting-room and the bedroom.
Everything was normal. Nobody was under the
table. Nobody was under the sofa. A small fire
was in the grate.
5
On the table his spoon and basin were
ready. There was also a little saucepan of gruel
upon the hob.
Nobody was under the bed or in the closet.
Nobody was in his dressing-gown,
which was hanging up against the
wall. Everything was as usual.
Scrooge closed his door, and
double-locked himself in. Feeling
safer, he put on his dressing-
gown, slippers, and nightcap.
Then he sat down before the
fire to take his gruel.
It was a very small fire for
such a bitter night. He needed to sit close to it,
before he could extract any warmth from such a
handful of fuel.
He tried not to think about Marley.
A ghost?
'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the
room.
After several turns, he sat down again. As
he threw his head back in the chair, he glanced
6
at an old unused bell, which hung in the room.
To his great astonishment it began to swing.
It scarcely made a sound at first; but soon it
rang out loudly. 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.
It sounded like someone was
dragging a heavy chain over the
casks in the wine-merchant's
cellar below.
Then he heard the cellar-door fly open. This
was followed by a much louder sound; starting
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 it came on
through the heavy door, and passed into the
room before his eyes.
It was Marley's ghost.
7
I know him! Marley's ghost!
The same face: the very same. Marley in his
usual clothes. A long chain, made of cash-
boxes, keys and padlocks, wound about him
like a tail.
His body was transparent; so that
Scrooge, looking through his waistcoat, could
see the two buttons on his coat behind.
Was this really Marley? Scrooge saw him
standing there before him but did not want to
believe his eyes.
'What do you want with me?' said Scrooge,
cold as ever.
'Much.'
It was Marley's voice, no doubt about it.
'Who are you?'
'Ask me who I was.'
8
'Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising
his voice. '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.'
"Marley's Ghost."
The ghost sat down on the
opposite side of the fireplace.
'You don't believe in me,' said the
Ghost.
'I don't,' said Scrooge.
'Why do you doubt what you can see?'
'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a slight disorder of
the stomach can play with my mind. You may
be an undigested bit of beef or a crumb of
cheese. There's more of gravy than of grave
about you, whatever you are!'
Scrooge did not make many jokes. Nor did
he feel, in his heart, like joking now. He did it to
calm his terror.
'You see this toothpick.' said Scrooge.
9
'I do,' replied the Ghost.
'You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.
'But I see it,' said the Ghost.
'Humbug, I tell you,' said Scrooge 'Humbug!'
Why are you in chains?
At this the spirit shook its chain and made a
terrible noise. Scrooge held on tight to his chair.
To his horror, the ghost was taking off the
bandage round its head. Now its lower jaw
dropped down upon its breast.
Scrooge fell upon his knees,
and held his hands before his
face.
'Mercy!' he said. 'Why do you trouble me?'
Do you believe in me or not?' replied the
Ghost.
'I do,' said Scrooge. 'I must. But why are you
in chains?'
‘It was like this seven Christmas Eves ago.
'Jacob!' said Scrooge. 'Old Jacob Marley. Tell
me more! Speak comfort to me, Jacob.'
10
'I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. 'I
cannot stay. I cannot linger anywhere. I must
walk the earth.'
'Seven years dead,' said Scrooge. 'And
travelling all the time?'
'The whole time,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no
peace. Incessant torture of remorse.'
'You travel fast?' said Scrooge.
'Like the wind,' replied the Ghost.
'You might have travelled further in seven
years,' said Scrooge.
The Ghost made another cry in the dead
silence of the night.
Warning
'But you were always a good man of business,
Jacob,' said Scrooge.
'Business!' cried the Ghost. 'Mankind was
my business. Mercy was my business. The
common welfare was my business.’
It held up its chain and flung it heavily upon
the ground again.
11
'At this time of year,' the spectre said, 'I
suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down?'
Scrooge was very unhappy to hear the
spectre talking like this. He shivered, and wiped
the perspiration from his brow.
'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is
nearly gone.'
'I will,' said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon
me, Jacob!'
'I am here to-night to warn you,’ said the
ghost. ‘You still have a chance and hope of
escaping my fate.'
'You were always a good friend to me,' said
Scrooge. 'Thank you.'
'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost,
'by Three Spirits.'
Three Spirits
Scrooge's face fell.
'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,
Jacob?' he asked.
'It is.'
'I-I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.
12
'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you
cannot avoid the path I tread. Expect the first
tomorrow, when the clock strikes one.'
'Couldn't I take them all at once, Jacob?'
said Scrooge.
'Expect the second on the next night at the
same hour. The third will come the next night
on the last stroke of twelve. And remember
what has passed between us!'’
The spectre took its bandage from the table.
It bound it round its head, as before. Then it
walked backward from him.
At every step it took, the window raised itself
a little until it was wide open.
Marley departs
The spectre beckoned Scrooge to approach,
which he did. When he was within two paces, it
held up its hand, warning him to come no
nearer. Scrooge stopped.
A terrible wailing sound began. The spectre,
after listening for a moment floated out upon
the bleak, dark night.
Scrooge went to the window and looked out.
13
The air was filled with spectres. Every one of
them wore chains like
Marley's Ghost.
Eventually the spirit
voices faded together; and the
night became as it had
been.
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. The bolts were undisturbed.
He tried to say
'Humbug!' but stopped.
Instead he went straight
to bed, without
undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
End of Stave 1
Vocabulary
Accounts - financial documents
Bandage - cloth used to protect wound
Beckoned - gesture with hand
14
Casks - large containers for wine
Faded - grew softer
Flung - throw with force
Gloomy/dismal – dark, depressing
Gruel – thin poor quality porridge
Haunted - visited by a ghost
Humbug – rubbish, nonsense
Linger - not rush, wait in a place
Mercy - forgiveness/kindness
Melancholy – joyless, without cheer, gloomy
Remorse - regret for doing wrong
Resolute - determined to continue
Shivered - feel cold or fear
Spirit/Spectre/Apparition/Phantom – ghost
Startled - shocked, scared, very surprised
Strikes - hits, mechanical sound in clock
Wailing - like the sound of a baby crying
Welfare - looking after the needs of the poor
A glossary, comprehension exercises, key quotes and other learning activities related to this text here:
3: Ghost of Christmas Past