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A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens

Once upon a time – of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve – old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already — it had not been light all day – and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

`A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!’ cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

`Bah!’ said Scrooge, `Humbug!’

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. `Christmas a humbug, uncle!’ said Scrooge’s nephew. `You don’t mean that, I am sure?’

`I do,’ said Scrooge. `Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.’

`Come, then,’ returned the nephew gaily. `What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.’

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said `Bah!’ again; and followed it up with `Humbug.’

`Don’t be cross, uncle!’ said the nephew.

`What else can I be,’ returned the uncle, `when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge indignantly, `every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’

`Uncle!’ pleaded the nephew.

`Nephew!’ returned the uncle sternly, `keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.’

Słownictwo

although – mimo, że

Bah! Humbug! – wyrażenie niechęci do okresu Bożego Narodzenia i tradycji świątecznych. ‘Bah’ to wykrzyknik, taki jak „Fu!” czy „Ech!”, natomiast ‘humbug’ to określenie oszusta z XIX-wiecznego slangu

bleak – lodowaty, mroźny

clerk – urzędnik, kancelista

coal – węgiel

counting-house – kantor

court – dziedziniec, podwórze

dense – gęsty, zwarty

dingy – obskurny

dismal – ponury

foggy – mglisty

gaily – wesoło

holly – ostrokrzew

intimation – ogłoszenie, zawiadomienie

mere phantoms – jakieś zjawy, po prostu zjawy

brewing – warzenie

drooping – zwisanie, wiszenie

flaring – jarzenie

morose – ponury, zasępiony

obscuring – zasłanianie, ukrywanie

on the spur of the moment – pod wpływem chwili, impulsywnie

once upon a time – dawno, dawno temu

palpable – namacalne, wyczuwalne

pavement – bruk

replenishing – zasilanie, uzupełnianie

ruddy smears – krwiste (rdzawe) smugi

smoke – dym

sternly – stanowczo, surowo

wheezing – oddychanie z trudem, świszczenie

withal – ponadto, jednakowoż