Dateline NBC - A Christmas Carol: The Second of the Three Spirits

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge how Christmas should be celebrated – with joy and giving, even when you are poor, like Scrooge’s own kindly clerk Bob Cratchit.

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is episode three of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge is back in bed, weighed down by blankets and regret. He's reeling from all the ghosts of Christmas past has shown him. Memories of his boyhood and who he once was, visions of who he has become. Sour, greedy, unlovable, alone. He falls into a troubled sleep. And yes, Charles Dickens writes, he's snoring. But for how long?

And what terrifying specter waits to confront him now? Awakening in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains his new spectre would draw back,

he put every one of them aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp lookout all around the bed, for he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing. And consequently, when the bell struck one and no shape appeared, he was taken with

a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, and yet nothing came. All this time he lay upon his bed the very core and center of a blaze of ruddy light which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour. And which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at, and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion without ever having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room.

From whence on further tracing it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room. There was no doubt about that, but it had undergone a surprising transformation.

The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green that it looked a perfect grove. From every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there. And such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's. And for many and many a winter season gone, heaped up on the floor to form a kind of throne were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, great joints of meat, suckling pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings,

barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apple, juicy oranges, luscious pears, cheek to apple with juicy oranges, luscious pears, and seething bowls of punch that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state, upon his couch, there sat a jolly giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up high up to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door. Come in! exclaimed the ghost. Come in! And know me better, man! Scrooge entered timidly and hung his head before the Spirit. And though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

I am the ghost of Christmas presents, said the Spirit. Look upon me! Scrooge reverently did so. The Spirit was clothed in one simple green robe or mantle bordered with white fur. The garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice.

Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare. And on its head, it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free. Free is its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful hair. You have never seen the like of me before, exclaimed the Spirit.

Never! Scrooge made answer to it. The ghost of Christmas present rose. Spirit, said Scrooge submissively, conduct me where you will. Touch my robe! Scrooge did as he was told and held it fast. Hawley, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night.

And they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where, where the weather was severe, the people made a rough but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music and scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings and from the tops of their houses. Whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below and splitting into artificial little snowstorms. The house fronts looked black enough and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth

white sheet of snow upon the roofs and with the dirtier snow on the ground. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town. And yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad, that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavored to diffuse in vain. For the people who were shoveling away on the housetops were jovial, full of glee, calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball. Better-natured missile fire than any a wordy jest, laughing heartily if it went right by, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The polter shops were still half open, and the fruiterers were radiant in their glory.

There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids. There were bunches of grapes made in the shopkeeper's benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed. The grocers, oh, the grocers, nearly closed with perhaps two shutters down or one,

but through these gaps such glimpses. It was not just that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress, but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of like mistakes, in the best humor possible. But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes,

and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of by-streets and lanes and nameless turnings, innumerable people carrying their dinners. The sight of these poor revelers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humor was restored directly.

For they said it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas day. And so it was. God love it so it was. Is there a particular flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch, Askrooge? There is. By own. Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"

Ascruge. To any kindly given, to a poor one most. Why to a poor person most? Ascruge. Because that person needs it most. And they went on, invisible as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. And perhaps it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led the spirit straight to Scrooge's clerk.

But there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe. And that's where we'll leave Ebenezer Scrooge standing outside Bob Cratchit's door, the lowly clerk whom he had begraded just hours earlier for taking off Christmas Day. He has unexpectedly become Cratchit's invisible Christmas guest. It's a Christmas dinner he'll never forget. The Ghost of Christmas Present has spirited Scrooge to Bob Cratchit's home. The clerk Scrooge overworks and underpays, and regularly humiliates. Before they enter the house, the Spirit blesses it with His torch. Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap. And she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons, while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes.

And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the bakers they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own, and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table. What has ever got your precious father then? said Mrs. Cratchit, and your brother, Tiny Tim, and Martha wasn't as late last Christmas day by half an hour. Here's Martha, mother, said a girl, appearing as she spoke. Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are," said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times,

taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with a fissure's zeal. We'd a deal of work to finish up last night, replied the girl, and had to clear away this morning, mother. Well, never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm. Lord bless ye. No, no, there's father coming, cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once.

Hide, Martha, hide. So Martha hid herself, and in came Bob, the father, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame. Why, where's our Martha? cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. Not coming, said Mrs. Cratchit. Not coming, said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits, for he had been Tim's horse all the way from church. Not coming upon Christmas day?

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed if it were only a joke, so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim and bore him off to the wash house, that he might hear the Christmas pudding singing while it cooked. And how did little Tim behave? asked Mrs. Cratchit. As good as gold, said Bob, and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much

and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me coming home that he hoped the people saw him in the church because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see. Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire. And the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. Such a bustle ensued? You might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy, ready beforehand in a little saucepan, pissing hot. Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor. Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table. The two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves.

And mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, thus they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast. But when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight rose all around the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and cried feebly, Hurrah! Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its

tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. Doubt by applesauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room to take the pudding up and bring it in. In half a minute she entered flushed but smiling proudly with the pudding, like a speckled cannonball so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quart of ignited brandy, and delighted with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding, Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was a small pudding for a large family. It would have been heresy to do so. Any cratchet would have blushed to hint at such a thing. At last the dinner was all done. The cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. And then Bob proposed, A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us all.

Which all the family re-echoed. God bless us everyone, said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his as if he loved the child and wished to keep him by his side and dreaded that he might be taken from him. Spirit said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt before tell tell me if Tiny Tim will live. I see a vacant seat, replied the Ghost, in the poor chimney corner,

and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die. No, no, said Scrooge, no, no, kind spirit, say he will be spared. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my race, returned the ghost, will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Trude hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit and was overcome with penitence and grief. Man, said the Ghost, will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child." Scrooge bent before the ghosts' rebuke, and trembling, cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name. Mr. Scrooge, said Bob, I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the feast.

The founder of the feast indeed, cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it. Oh, my dear, said Bob, it, the children, is Christmas Day." "'It should be Christmas Day, I'm sure,' said she, on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. "'You know he is, Robert. Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.'" "'My dear,' was Bob's mild answer, Christmas Day.

I'll drink to his health for your sake in the days, said Mrs. Crouchett. Not for his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and happy New Year. You'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt. The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings, which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care too tuppence for it.

Scrooge was the ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow in the party, which was not dispelled for a full five minutes. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. And by and by, they had a song about a lost child traveling in the snow from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice and sang it very well indeed. There was nothing of high mark in this.

They were not a handsome family. They were not well dressed. Their shoes were far from being waterproof. Their clothes were scanty. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time. And when they faded and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting,

Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. And now, without a word of warning from the ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial place of giants. And nothing grew but moss and firs and coarse, rank grass.

Down in the west, the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant like a sullen eye. And frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. What place is this, asks Scrooge? MUSIC Ebenezer Scrooge is afraid, again.

He finds himself in a cold and desolate land he does not recognize, standing outside a miner's hut, its inhabitants strangers. And yet there is a lesson here for Scrooge, something the ghost of Christmas present wants him to see. Christmas cheer spilling from this most humble of places and humble of hearts. Here's Charles Dickens again. A light shone from the window of a hut,

and swiftly they advanced toward it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled around a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song. It had been a very old song when he was a boy, and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but Bates Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped with her. Not to see. To see. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks behind them, and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water as it rolled and roared and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. Until, being far away, as he told Scrooge from any shore, they lighted on a ship.

They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, to look out in the bow, the officers who had the watch, dark, ghostly figures in their several stations. But every man among them hummed the Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad,

had a kinder word for another on that day than any other in the year, and had shared to some extent in its festivities, and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize him as his own nephew, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the spirit standing smiling by his side and looking at that same nephew with approving affability. Ah, laughed Scrooge's nephew. If you should happen by any unlikely chance

to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me. I'll cultivate his acquaintance. It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things that while there is infection and disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions. Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as hardly as he,

and their assembled friends, being not a bit behind them, roared out lustily. He said that Christmas was a humbug as I live, cried Scrooge's nephew. He believed it, too. More shame for him, Fred, said Scrooge's niece indignantly. He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew. That's the truth.

And not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offenses carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him. I'm sure he's very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece. At least you always tell me so. Oh, what of that, my dear? said Scrooge's nephew. His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do anything good with it.

He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking that he's ever going to benefit us with it. I have no patience with him, observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's nieces, sisters, and all the other ladies expressed the same opinion. "'Oh, I have,' said Scrooge's nephew. "'I'm sorry for him. I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims?

Himself, always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? You don't lose much of a dinner. Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner, interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges because they just had dinner, and with the dessert upon the table were clustered around the fire by lamplight. I was only going to say, said Scrooge's nephew, that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us and not making merry with us is, I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which

could do him no harm. I'm sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his moldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas until he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it. I defy him if he finds me going there in good temper year after year and saying, Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something. I think I shook him yesterday. It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good natured and not much caring what they laughed at so long as they laughed, he encouraged them in

their merriment and passed the bottle joyously. After tea, they had some music. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp and played, among other tunes, a simple little air, a mere nothing. You might learn to whistle it in two minutes, which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding school, as he'd been reminded by the ghost of Christmas past. When this strain of music sounded,

all the things that the ghost had shown them came upon his mind, and he softened more and more. But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while, they played at forfeits, for it's good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at Blind Man's Buff.

Of course there was. Scrooge's niece was not one of the Blind Man's Buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits. Likewise, at the game of how, when, and where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew beat her sister's hollow.

There might have been 20 people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for, wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guests quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too. The ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood and looked on him with such favor, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this spirit said that could not be done. Here's a new game, said Scrooge. One half-hour spirit, only one.

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what. He only answered to their questions, Yes or No, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, a rather disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes and talked sometimes and lived in London. And at every fresh question that was put to him, his nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter and was so inexpressibly tickled

that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp his feet. At least one of the niece's sisters, falling into a similar state, cried out, I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know what it is. What is it? cried Fred. It's your Uncle Scrooge! Which it certainly was. He's given us plenty of merriment, I'm sure, said Fred.

And it would be ungrateful not to drink to his health. Here's a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment, and I say, Uncle Scrooge! Well, Uncle Scrooge, they cried. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man. Whatever he is, said Scrooge's nephew. He wouldn't take it from me, but he may have it nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart

that he would have thanked them all in an inaudible speech if the ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew, and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful, on foreign lands, and they were close at home. Stood by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope. By poverty, and it was rich. In almshouses, hospitals, and jails,

in miseries every refuge, where vain man in his little grief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his presets. It was a long night, if it were only a night, but Scrooge his presets. It was a long night, if it were only a night,

but Scrooge had his doubts of this. It was strange too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the ghosts grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it until they left at children's 12th night party. When looking out the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that his hair was gray. Are Spirit's lives so short? asked Scrooge.

My life upon this globe is very brief, replied the Ghost. It ends tonight. Tonight, cried Scrooge. Tonight at midnight. Hark, the time is drawing near. The chimes were ringing at 3 quarters past 11 at that moment. Forgive me if I'm not justified in what I ask, said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe.

But I see something strange and not belonging to yourself, I am justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe. But I see something strange and not belonging to yourself protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw? It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it, was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. Look here. From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet and clung upon the outside of its garment. Oh, man, look here.

Look, look down here, explained the ghost. They were a boy and a girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate too in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Spirit, are they yours?

Scrooge could say no more. They are man's, said the Spirit, looking down upon them. This boy is ignorance. This girl is want. Beware them both, at all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased." "'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge. "'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time?" cried Scrooge. Are there no prisons? said the spirit,

turning on him for the last time with Scrooge's own words. Are there no workhouses? The bell struck 12. Scrooge looked about him for the ghost and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground

towards him. And so this chapter ends, the words still ringing in screwed to the ears. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? For the first time new feelings wash over him. Empathy. And yet as this new phantom slinks toward him, he is consumed by dread. He's about to see the most terrifying thing of all. The future. you