The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!
He touched the spring of his
repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock.
Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.
``Why, it isn't possible,'' said Scrooge, ``that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!''
5.The
idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to
the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown
before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could
make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there
was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there
unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken
possession of the world. This was a great relief, because ``three days after
sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,''
and so forth, would have become a mere United States' security if there were
no days to count by. 
Scrooge went to be again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, ``Was it a dream or not?''
Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.
The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.
``Ding, dong!''
10.``A quarter past,'' said Scrooge, counting.
``Ding, dong!'' 
``Half past!'' said Scrooge.
``Ding, dong!''
``A quarter to it,'' said Scrooge.
``Ding, dong!''
``The hour itself,'' said Scrooge, triumphantly, ``and nothing else!''
He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.
The curtains of his bed were
drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the
curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed.
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a
half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor
who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the
spirit at your elbow.
It
was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a child as like an
old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance
of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with
age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was
on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as
if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest
white and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which
was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in
singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with
summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown
of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this
was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller
moments, a great extinguisher
for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
20Even
this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not
its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part
and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark,
so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with
one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without
a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would
be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder
of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
``Are you the Spirit, sir,
whose coming was foretold to me?'' asked Scrooge. 
``I am!''
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
``Who, and what are you?'' Scrooge demanded.
``I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.''
``Long past?'' inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
``No. Your past.''
Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.
``What!'' exclaimed the Ghost, ``would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!'' (7:05) Track 8 end
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