Some Short Christmas Stories(圣诞故事)

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Some Short Christmas Stories

Some Short Christmas

Stories

by Charles Dickens

Some Short Christmas Stories

A CHRISTMAS TREE

I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children

assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was

planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their

heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and

everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-

cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches

(with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up)

dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables,

chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles

of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton),

perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy

housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more

agreeable in appearance than many real men--and no wonder, for their

heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were

fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-

boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there

were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and

jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns,

swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of

pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-

cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet-holders;

real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears,

and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me,

delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, "There

was everything, and more." This motley collection of odd objects,

clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks

directed towards it from every side--some of the diamond-eyes admiring it

were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid

wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses--made a lively

realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the

trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth,

Some Short Christmas Stories

have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time.

Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house

awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care

to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all

remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young

Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life.

Straight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its

growth by no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree

arises; and, looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top-- for I observe

in this tree the singular property that it appears to grow downward towards

the earth--I look into my youngest Christmas recollections!

All toys at first, I find. Up yonder, among the green holly and red

berries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn't lie

down, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling his fat

body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those lobster eyes of

his to bear upon me--when I affected to laugh very much, but in my heart

of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close beside him is that

infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal Counsellor in a

black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red cloth mouth, wide

open, who was not to be endured on any terms, but could not be put away

either; for he used suddenly, in a highly magnified state, to fly out of

Mammoth Snuff-boxes in dreams, when least expected. Nor is the frog

with cobbler's wax on his tail, far off; for there was no knowing where he

wouldn't jump; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one's

hand with that spotted back--red on a green ground--he was horrible.

The cardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the

candlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and

was beautiful; but I can't say as much for the larger cardboard man, who

used to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string; there was a sinister

expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round his neck

(which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to be alone

with.

When did that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and

why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a

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hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll, why then were its

stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's face.

An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred

even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely insupportable, like

the mask. Was it the immovability of the mask? The doll's face was

immovable, but I was not afraid of HER. Perhaps that fixed and set

change coming over a real face, infused into my quickened heart some

remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on

every face, and make it still? Nothing reconciled me to it. No

drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy chirping on the turning of

a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out of a box,

and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff and lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old

woman, made of wires and a brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie

for two small children; could give me a permanent comfort, for a long

time. Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it

was made of paper, or to have it locked up and be assured that no one

wore it. The mere recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of

its existence anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all

perspiration and horror, with, "O I know it's coming! O the mask!"

I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers--there he

is! was made of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And

the great black horse with the round red spots all over him--the horse that I

could even get upon--I never wondered what had brought him to that

strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly seen at

Newmarket. The four horses of no colour, next to him, that went into the

waggon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled under the piano,

appear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and other bits for their

manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs, but it was not so when they

were brought home for a Christmas present. They were all right, then;

neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests, as

appears to be the case now. The tinkling works of the music- cart, I DID

find out, to be made of quill tooth-picks and wire; and I always thought

that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up one side of

a wooden frame, and coming down, head foremost, on the other, rather a

Some Short Christmas Stories

weak-minded person--though good-natured; but the Jacob's Ladder, next

him, made of little squares of red wood, that went flapping and clattering

over one another, each developing a different picture, and the whole

enlivened by small bells, was a mighty marvel and a great delight.

Ah! The Doll's house!--of which I was not proprietor, but where I

visited. I don't admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that

stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, and door-steps, and a real

balcony--greener than I ever see now, except at watering places; and even

they afford but a poor imitation. And though it DID open all at once, the

entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit, as cancelling the fiction of

a staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and I could believe. Even open,

there were three distinct rooms in it: a sitting-room and bed-room,

elegantly furnished, and best of all, a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-

irons, a plentiful assortment of diminutive utensils--oh, the warming-pan!-

-and a tin man-cook in profile, who was always going to fry two fish.

What Barmecide justice have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of

wooden platters figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or

turkey, glued tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I

recollect as moss! Could all the Temperance Societies of these later days,

united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of

yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out

of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which

made tea, nectar. And if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar-tongs

did tumble over one another, and want purpose, like Punch's hands, what

does it matter? And if I did once shriek out, as a poisoned child, and

strike the fashionable company with consternation, by reason of having

drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently dissolved in too hot tea, I was never

the worse for it, except by a powder!

Upon the next branches of the tree, lower down, hard by the green

roller and miniature gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to hang.

Thin books, in themselves, at first, but many of them, and with deliciously

smooth covers of bright red or green. What fat black letters to begin with!

"A was an archer, and shot at a frog." Of course he was. He was an

apple-pie also, and there he is! He was a good many things in his time,

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was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so little

versatility, that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe--like

Y, who was always confined to a Yacht or a Yew Tree; and Z condemned

for ever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But, now, the very tree itself changes,

and becomes a bean-stalk--the marvellous bean-stalk up which Jack

climbed to the Giant's house! And now, those dreadfully interesting,

double-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to stride

along the boughs in a perfect throng, dragging knights and ladies home for

dinner by the hair of their heads. And Jack--how noble, with his sword

of sharpness, and his shoes of swiftness! Again those old meditations

come upon me as I gaze up at him; and I debate within myself whether

there was more than one Jack (which I am loth to believe possible), or

only one genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded

exploits.

Good for Christmas-time is the ruddy colour of the cloak, in which--

the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket--

Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me

information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate

her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then

ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first

love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should

have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for

it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the

procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the

wonderful Noah's Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a

washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to

have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there- -

and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door, which was

but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch--but what was THAT against it!

Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant: the lady-

bird, the butterfly--all triumphs of art! Consider the goose, whose feet

were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent, that he usually

tumbled forward, and knocked down all the animal creation. Consider

Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard

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stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the larger animals used

gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string!

Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree--not Robin Hood,

not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all Mother

Bunch's wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering

scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another,

looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree's foot, lies

the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a

lady's lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining

steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake. I see the

four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes signs to the two kings in the

tree, who softly descend. It is the setting-in of the bright Arabian Nights.

Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me.

All lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots

are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are for Ali

Baba to hide in; beef-steaks are to throw down into the Valley of

Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by

the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will scare

them. Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier's son of

Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers at

the gate of Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of

sewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken blind-fold.

Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits

for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make the

earth shake. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that

unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the

genie's invisible son. All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit,

concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy

conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant; all apples are

akin to the apple purchased (with two others) from the Sultan's gardener

for three sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the child. All

dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man, who jumped

upon the baker's counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad money. All

rice recalls the rice which the awful lady, who was a ghoule, could only

Some Short Christmas Stories

peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in the burial-place. My very

rocking-horse,--there he is, with his nostrils turned completely inside-out,

indicative of Blood!--should have a peg in his neck, by virtue thereof to

fly away with me, as the wooden horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the

sight of all his father's Court.

Yes, on every object that I recognise among those upper branches of

my Christmas Tree, I see this fairy light! When I wake in bed, at

daybreak, on the cold, dark, winter mornings, the white snow dimly

beheld, outside, through the frost on the window-pane, I hear Dinarzade.

"Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the

Young King of the Black Islands." Scheherazade replies, "If my lord the

Sultan will suffer me to live another day, sister, I will not only finish that,

but tell you a more wonderful story yet." Then, the gracious Sultan goes

out, giving no orders for the execution, and we all three breathe again.

At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves- -it

may be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these many

fancies, jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip Quarll

among the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr. Barlow, Mother

Bunch, and the Mask--or it may be the result of indigestion, assisted by

imagination and over-doctoring--a prodigious nightmare. It is so

exceedingly indistinct, that I don't know why it's frightful--but I know it is.

I can only make out that it is an immense array of shapeless things, which

appear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy-tongs that used to

bear the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming close to my eyes, and

receding to an immeasurable distance. When it comes closest, it is worse.

In connection with it I descry remembrances of winter nights incredibly

long; of being sent early to bed, as a punishment for some small offence,

and waking in two hours, with a sensation of having been asleep two

nights; of the laden hopelessness of morning ever dawning; and the

oppression of a weight of remorse.

And now, I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the

ground, before a vast green curtain. Now, a bell rings--a magic bell,

which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells--and music plays,

amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil.

Some Short Christmas Stories

Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and the great green

curtain rolls itself up majestically, and The Play begins! The devoted dog

of Montargis avenges the death of his master, foully murdered in the

Forest of Bondy; and a humorous Peasant with a red nose and a very little

hat, whom I take from this hour forth to my bosom as a friend (I think he

was a Waiter or an Hostler at a village Inn, but many years have passed

since he and I have met), remarks that the sassigassity of that dog is

indeed surprising; and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my

remembrance fresh and unfading, overtopping all possible jokes, unto the

end of time. Or now, I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shore,

dressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving

through the streets; or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle that

ever man had, and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to have

been let off. Comes swift to comfort me, the Pantomime--stupendous

Phenomenon!--when clowns are shot from loaded mortars into the great

chandelier, bright constellation that it is; when Harlequins, covered all

over with scales of pure gold, twist and sparkle, like amazing fish; when

Pantaloon (whom I deem it no irreverence to compare in my own mind to

my grandfather) puts red-hot pokers in his pocket, and cries "Here's

somebody coming!" or taxes the Clown with petty larceny, by saying,

"Now, I sawed you do it!" when Everything is capable, with the greatest

ease, of being changed into Anything; and "Nothing is, but thinking makes

it so." Now, too, I perceive my first experience of the dreary sensation--

often to return in after-life--of being unable, next day, to get back to the

dull, settled world; of wanting to live for ever in the bright atmosphere I

have quitted; of doting on the little Fairy, with the wand like a celestial

Barber's Pole, and pining for a Fairy immortality along with her. Ah, she

comes back, in many shapes, as my eye wanders down the branches of my

Christmas Tree, and goes as often, and has never yet stayed by me!

Out of this delight springs the toy-theatre,--there it is, with its familiar

proscenium, and ladies in feathers, in the boxes!--and all its attendant

occupation with paste and glue, and gum, and water colours, in the

getting-up of The Miller and his Men, and Elizabeth, or the Exile of

Siberia. In spite of a few besetting accidents and failures (particularly an

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unreasonable disposition in the respectable Kelmar, and some others, to

become faint in the legs, and double up, at exciting points of the drama), a

teeming world of fancies so suggestive and all-embracing, that, far below

it on my Christmas Tree, I see dark, dirty, real Theatres in the day-time,

adorned with these associations as with the freshest garlands of the rarest

flowers, and charming me yet.

But hark! The Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep!

What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set

forth on the Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far

apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel,

speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes

uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple,

talking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face,

raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son

of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the

opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on

a bed, with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship;

again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon

his knee, and other children round; again, restoring sight to the blind,

speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the

lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a Cross, watched by

armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake,

and only one voice heard, "Forgive them, for they know not what they

do."

Still, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas

associations cluster thick. School-books shut up; Ovid and Virgil

silenced; the Rule of Three, with its cool impertinent inquiries, long

disposed of; Terence and Plautus acted no more, in an arena of huddled

desks and forms, all chipped, and notched, and inked; cricket-bats, stumps,

and balls, left higher up, with the smell of trodden grass and the softened

noise of shouts in the evening air; the tree is still fresh, still gay. If I no

more come home at Christmas-time, there will be boys and girls (thank

Heaven! ) while the World lasts; and they do! Yonder they dance and

play upon the branches of my Tree, God bless them, merrily, and my heart

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SomeShortChristmasStories1SomeShortChristmasStoriesbyCharlesDickensSomeShortChristmasStories2ACHRISTMASTREEIhavebeenlookingon,thisevening,atamerrycompanyofchildrenassembledroundthatprettyGermantoy,aChristmasTree.Thetreewasplantedinthemiddleofagreatroundtable,andtoweredhighabovetheirheads.Itwasbrilli...

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