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 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 forever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist 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 on 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.
So Scrooge and Marley are hardly unique: plenty of businessmen (and Dickens unsubtly hints, politicians) have the same problem afterlives. There seems to be no definite tradition on how to render this passage. That wretched woman and infant (often a beggar spurned by Scrooge on his way home) frequently appears as well. Scrooge’s response to it all is generally uniform as well: he’ll wind up in bed with the bedcurtains drawn and the blankets over his head.
About half these versions omit the wandering ghosts.
Hicks sees no spirits (and WE haven’t even seen Marley, of course). He seems terrified at Marley’s departure, and runs after the Spirit only he can see, crying “Marley! Marley!” He looks out the opened window into a thundering snowstorm, but doesn’t find his old partner. Turning away with a “Bah, hum….” He jumps as the window slams down. When he looks outside again, there is no storm.
Owen’s Marley simply vanishes. Scrooge closes the window curtains, jumps into bed, and draws the bedcurtains.
March’s Marley begins to turn transparent, bewailing his fate. He regards his account book with revulsion, and throws it from him just before going fully invisible. A dirge from unseen voices upsets Scrooge, who moves about the room as if seeking the sources of the sound. He finally collapses in a corner. Rising later, he realizes he has simply had a nightmare when he dozed off, and declares it all to be humbug. On his way toward his bed, he trips over the account book Marley threw on the floor, shrieks, leaps into bed, and draws the curtains.
Rathbone simply waves bye-bye and Marley vanishes. In a sudden panic, Scrooge leaps up to check the locks on the door. “Humbug!” he declares, and burps. “A slight disorder of the stomach.”
Haddrick’s Marley delivers the “Look to see me no more” speech and vanishes. Growling “Bah! Humbug!” Scrooge toddles off to bed, apparently unabashed.
McDuck, who seems to be the only Scrooge looking forward to the three spirits coming to do him a favor, watches Marley retreat carefully past the cane that tripped him up at first. As the Ghost vanishes through the door, Scrooge recalls that loose floorboard, and warns Marley too late. Giving the traditional Goofy-falling-into-disaster cry, Marley departs from our story forever. Scrooge, dressed for bed now, searches his room and goes to bed growling “Spirits! Humbug!”
Scott’s Marley backs to the window. “Look to see me no more! Look that you may remember what has passed between us.” The Ghost’s mouth closes with a click. The window shoots up, and Marley vanishes into a sky filled with wailing and screaming. When Scrooge reaches the window, he sees only his lonely lane. “Humbug!” He examines the locks, and is puzzled by them. He finally concludes, shaking his head, “Something I et.”
Caine’s Marley Brothers vanish behind the railing whence they came. The fireplace relights itself. Scrooge looks around as, below and outside, Dickens and Rizzo tell us the rest of the scene. Scrooge gets into bed, draws the curtains, and growls “Bah! Humbug!”
Other versions show us the wandering spirits; a few make much of them.
Marley tells Sim I “Look to see me no more.” The window shoots up. “But look here, so you may remember for your own sake what has passed between us.” Scrooge, proving he can grovel and run at the same time, hurries up to Marley. At the window he can see a circle of transparent chained figures “lamenting” around a starving woman and child. (They are sort of wailing and waving their arms as a chorus.) Scrooge asks why they lament, and is told about trying to interfere for good in the affairs of humankind. Marley then vanishes, only to reappear among the lamenters. Scrooge, horrified, covers his ears. He runs sobbing to bed, pulls the curtains, and draws the covers up over his head.
Magoo follows the wailing Marley to the window. Earlier, he saw hapless ghosts, well-dressed men burdened with chains, wailing on the wind; now he sees only snow. Putting out one hand, he catches some of the falling snow in his hand, peers at it, and declares “Humbug!” Theorizing that he dozed off and had a nightmare, he retreats to bed, pulls the covers over his head, and, trembling violently, emits one more querulous “Humbug!”
Sim II’s Marley backs to the window, closing his dangling mouth with a click. Wailing, he is sucked out into the night. The narrator tells us that the air is filled with moaning phantoms; we see faces gaunt with despair, and long, fleshless hands being extended to a freezing woman. The narrator explains about them lacking the power to interfere for good in human matters. The vision utterly devastates Scrooge, who slams the windows, runs to bed, leaps in, and closes the curtains.
Finney is taken on a wild ride through the skies, where Marley sings to him about the disfigured corpselike figures he sees around him. Later (as explained previously) when Marley is reunited with Scrooge, Marley backs out to the door through which he entered, using the same shambling gait. Just before the door closes behind him, one ghostly hand comes back into the room to wave. “Farewell, Scrooge!” Scrooge runs to look, and finds the door closed and locked. “Three ghosts? Ha! Three humbugs!” He goes to bed, pursuing his usual routine: hiding his pocket watch in a secret spot beneath the chamberpot, transferring something else from a coin purse to a pouch he wears around his neck. He seems unmoved by the whole episode.
Matthau’s Marley vanishes but reappears at the window, which has opened of itself. He beckons to Scrooge, who shakes his head vehemently. Marley beckons again, and Scrooge is lifted from his bed and brought to the window. Marley shows him the suffering spirits below, all well-dressed men hung with chains. “And I must with them. Observe and know our misery, O Scrooge: how we seek to do good in human matters but have lost the power forever.” The ghosts, who stand in rows and all look kind of like Marley, call “Repent!’ Scrooge replies, “No! No!” He shuts the window, leaps back into bed, and yanks the bedcurtains shut. B.A.H. Humbug looks out and sees that the ghosts are gone.
Curry’s vision is of two ghosts trying to give food to a freezing woman. “When we are dead,” Marley tells him, “We can no longer do any earthly good.” Marley vanishes in flame. Scrooge looks for him under the bed, thumps the floor, and cries “No ghosts!” Debit licks his face and receives a “Bah humbug!” as reward.
Stewart’s Marley, saying “Look to see me no more, and, for your own sake, remember what has passed between us,” walks to the window. The shutters fold open on their own, and the sash rises. Marley points outside, his expression one of “See? I told you!” Scrooge steps to the window to see white transparent figures sailing throughout the night sky. One white-haired man encumbered by a safe reaches imploringly toward a freezing woman and child. “These spirits try to interfere for good in human affairs but have lost the power forever. That is the curse we bear.” Scrooge looks as if he is being forced against his will to take all this seriously, but Marley has moved on. Scrooge slams the shutters without closing the window, and sets his back against them, worried and confused.
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