STAVE FIVE: The End Of It
Yes! And the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!
“I shall live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! O say it on y knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.
“They are not torn down,”” cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms. “They are not torn down, rings and all. They are here: I am here: the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will.”
His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo there! Whoop! Hallo!”
He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.
“There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried Scrooge, starting off again, and frisking around the fireplace. “There’s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There’s the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrous laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!
“I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge, “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo there!”
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer, ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding, hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!
Here’s a puzzle for the filmmaker. Scrooge has been reasonably cold and sedate much of the time up to this, bar a bit of dancing here and some weeping there. Now the hero has to bounce around, overcome by the fact that he is alive, and his bed curtains are NOT torn down, rings and all. The scene cannot be skipped in the least, so the most surprising actors are now found bouncing on beds. Often a character will be introduced to react to all this giddiness, acting on our behalf in befuddlement.
Hicks takes longer to accept his deliverance than most Scrooges; he stares at his window in disbelief, swallowing hard, only gradually realizing that he is, in fact, alive. Trembling, he wipes his face, covers it, and goes through the first speeches as his hands clutch each other, wash each other, and assume various positions of prayer. “I will live in the past, the Present, and the Future. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for this! On my knees I thank you, Jacob: on my knees!” At last taking it all in, he begins to laugh, tearing down the bed curtains himself in his glee. He dances a bit in his slippers and hurries to admit the charlady with his breakfast. “A merry Christmas!” he chucks her under the chin. “God bless ye!” he declares he is as giddy as a drunken man, and so forth, and then points out the different landmarks od the room before tottering across the floor with a shaky “Hooray!” This char is more [phlegmatic than others, but does appear dubious about these proceedings.
Owen is speechless and delighted. He bounces on the bed to assure himself of its reality, and pulls at the curtains for the same reason. Thrusting them wide, he jumps out of bed. To be sure he’s solid, he thumps and pinches himself; the sound of bells makes him giddier still.
Sim I is wakened by a knock at the door. He laughs to find himself alive and whole; his merriment increases as the scene goes on. Timidly, he opens the door to allow Mrs. Dilber with his breakfast; she frightens him at first but he realizes that the scene that she saw of her in the ragpicker’s den has not, of course, happened yet. He now swipes some of the dialogue from the next scene, asking her what day this is, and realizing that the Spirits have done It All in one night. “Are you quite yourself, sir?” asks Mrs. Dilber, taken aback when he replies that he hopes not. He turns to his bed and regards the curtains, exclaiming, “You didn’t tear them down and sell them!” Mrs. Dilber grows all the more uneasy as he proceeds through the light as a feather speech, points out the door Jacob Marley entered by, and declares that he doesn’t know anything. “But now I know that I don’t know.” He sings about not knowing anything, and is moved to try to stand on his head on the bed. As he is attired only in his nightshirt and dressing gown, Mrs. Dilber shrieks and runs, tossing her apron up over her face. Catching up with her on the stairs, Scrooge clutches her to him and tries to convince her he has not gone mad. This does not work. He forces a guinea on her, and she assumes this is a bribe to keep quiet about his fit of insanity. When she finally realizes he is not only just giving her a Christmas gift but also insisting on raising her salary four hundred percent, she still asks whether he wouldn’t like to see a doctor. He denies any wish to see a doctor or, for that matter, an undertaker. Finally convinced, she rushes off to spend the guinea. Scrooge goes back upstairs to consider himself in the mirror. He wishes his reflection a merry Christmas “as if you deserved it.”
March simply cries, “It’s my own bed! The whole thing was a dream! And I’m alive!”
Rathbone comes to on the floor of his bedroom, and rises to his knees, thrilled to see the bedcurtains still there, and to realize that he is still there. He thanks heaven and the Christmas Time for this, standing up. Glancing out the window, he throws off his dressing gown (he’s been wearing trousers and suspenders over a T-shirt this whole time.)
Magoo squints. “My bed!” He observes that the bedcurtains are still there, rings and all. “They are here and I am here!” The shadows of things that would have been may be dispelled, he declares, praising Heaven and the Christmas Time as he bounces around the room. He proclaims himself light as a feather and happy as an angel, and so on, and concludes by announcing that he doesn’t know anything, perfectly overjoyed about this.
Haddrick is on his hands and knees next to the bed. He remarks on the bedcurtains and then cries out the whole light as a feather speech. He dresses, plops down in his chair and then, at the sound of his clock, has to jump up again, and run to the window.
Sim II looks up in wonder at his bedcurtains. “They are not torn down! Look! Rings and all!” He announces that he will live in the past, the Present, and the Future, and praises Heaven and the Christmas Time on his knees. Rapturously hugging another bedpost, he admits he doesn’t know anything. He walks back and forth across the room, as id he doesn’t know where to go. For the first time, he sounds exactly like Sim I.
Finney wakes in a tangle of bedding. “Where am I? I’m in my own room! I’m nor in Hell at all! I haven’t got any chains! Perhaps it didn’t happen after all! Perhaps it did!” He hugs the bedpost. “But I’m alive! I’m alive! I’ve got a chance to change! And I’ll not be the man I was!” He breaks into a song called “Begin Again” as he races around the room opening curtains to let in the sunlight. Dancing, laughing uncontrollably, he moves around the huge bare room, committing mayhem on rolls of documents and legal records. He declares himself to be light as a feather and happy as an angel, and so on, through to “A merry Christas to everybody!” Then he slides down the banister, (revealing long red woolen underwear) and dashes outdoors.
Matthau wakes cowering in his bed, clutching his bedclothes. B.A.H. Humbug shouts, “Hey! Look!” Scrooge will not open his eyes. “No! Go away or you’ll be burned with me!” “Open your eyes and take a look!” Scrooge does, and exclaims, “Why, bless my soul! My very own room! My very own house!” He rushes to the window. “How long was I gone?” He throws up the sash. “It’s morning! I’m alive! It’s a wonderful, beautiful, magnificent morning!”
McDuck discovers, “I’m back in my own room!” Throwing his window open somehow convinces him, “It’s Christmas morning! I haven’t missed it! The Spirits have given me another chance!” He runs around getting dressed, becoming entangled with a hatrack.
Scott, weeping, rises to find, “My own room! I’m alive!” He vows to live in the Past, the Present, and the Future, and praises heaven and the Christmas Time on his knees. There is a blackout, during which he has apparently fallen asleep on his knees; he wakes again when a clock in a tower against a blue sky strikes nine. “Nine o’clock! And daylight! But what day?” he goes through the next speech and then, dressing, exclaims at the bedcurtains and declares himself as light as a feather and happy as an angel. Kicking off his slippers, he bounces joyfully (if ponderously) on the bed.
Caine exclaims, “I’m home!” Dickens returns now to tell us the bedpost was his own, the bed was his own, and so on. After convincing himself that he is really there, Scrooge vows to live in the Past, Present, and Future, and cries out to both Marleys that Heaven and the Christmas Time are to be praised, saying it on his knees. He marvels at the bedcurtains and their lesson, is dismayed by a glance in the mirror, and declares himself to be light as a feather and happy as an angel.
Curry is weeping, shaking his head on the bed. “I’m home! I’m home!” He cuddles Debit, who is startled by this change in the old man. “I’m home! I’ve been given another chance!” He praises heaven and the Christmas Time on his knees. Laughing merrily, he checks under the bed and finds his spoons are still there. He marvels at the bedcurtains, and sings a reprise of “A Christmas Carol”. Dancing around with Debit, who is still recovering from being kissed, he cries, “Whoop! Hallo!”
Stewart cries, “My room! My bed!” In a fervent whisper he praises Jacob, Heaven, and the Christmas Time. He marvels at the bedcurtains and stares in wonder at his hands. “I’m here!” he announces, in desperate relief and joy. “The shadows of things that may be CAN be dispelled! They will. I know they will!” He seems to choke, but this finally comes out as a splendid and illustrious laugh. He declares that he doesn’t know anything, and is quite a baby.
FUSS FUSS FUSS: Did It Happen?
Okay, let’s get down to cases. Scrooge spends a lot of time in bed in this narrative. So he COULD have dreamed the whole business. The March version, in fact, has him explain that everything was a dream, if a cautionary one he would do well to heed.
But wait a minute. When Scrooge returns to bed after each visit, he’s usually awak,e and sitting up. Now and then he wonders if he is dreaming, or has someone else to comment on the matter (Marley informs Finney that this is no dream; B.A.H. Humbug sees Scrooge disappear and reappear in the bedroom.) And that first visitation—Marley’s face in the doorknocker—comes when he isn’t even slightly drowsy.
Now, I know something about people who like ingenious plot devices. They would suggest that Scrooge, shocked by the visit of the charity solicitors, fell over in a faint, and dreamed everything from there on. But no, even better: he died of the very shock of his clerk letting two men in on such a mission, went through a sort of Purgatory to test his fitness for the afterlife, visiting visions of Past, Present, and Future. When these make him repent of his earlier ways, he is found worthy, and admitted to a Heaven in which he is ALLOWED to believe he saved Tiny Tim’s life and became a better man. Yeah, some people would be happier with THAT version.
If you’re more cheerful with baroque plot twists, you may have them. Aside from March, and a number of the early silent movies, which saved on props by having Scrooge fall asleep in his office and have dream visions right there, leave the interpretation up to you. If you want to believe Scrooge slept through the whole movie, you are at liberty to do so. If you want to believe he was visited and went visiting, why, that’s fine as well. Scrooge still acts on what he has seen and becomes a better man. That was Dickens’s intent, and he would have thought it more important than whether you believe in Ghosts (Which he tells us, over and over, are real. So there.)
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