Un chant de Noël

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt at all about that. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. That is what people say about something that is completely dead, and it was true of Marley.

Scrooge and Marley had been business partners for many years. Scrooge was Marley's only friend. Seven years later, he had still not painted out Marley's name above the office door.

Oh, but he was a mean man, Scrooge! He was a greedy, grasping old man who never gave anything away. He was as hard and sharp as a stone, and as lonely as an oyster in its shell. The cold inside him froze his old face and made his thin lips blue. He carried his own cold weather with him everywhere. His office was cold in summer, and it was not one degree warmer at Christmas.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?" No beggars asked him for a coin. Even the dogs of blind men pulled their owners into doorways when they saw him coming. But what did Scrooge care? It was exactly what he liked.