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.

     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
     It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.
When they were within two paces of each other,
Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to
come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

     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.

     Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his
curiosity. He looked out.

     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's
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.

     Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mis
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.

     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 `Humbug!' 
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.

Stave 2:  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 darkness 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
with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up
in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed
were drawn.

     The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains
of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a
half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the
unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now