Stave 1 Marley’s Ghost

开篇即写主人公Scrooge（以下简称S）的朋友，Marley（以下简称M）去世了。D写他死寂如门钉一样，但觉得还不满意，想拿棺材钉来作比。

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge,what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for.

D转而说

There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

什么意思？看一下这章的标题（注意"Stave"，和"Carol"相对应），Marley死了，下文会提到他的鬼魂出来作祟。

Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge,and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same tohim. 暗示两人十分相似。下文描写S今生即为M的前世。

那么S是怎么样一个人呢，我们俩看D是如何描述的！欣赏成段成段的比喻。GRE词汇大量出没。

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone (Note: Do you know the meaning of "keep your nose to the grindstone"? check it out!), Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, oldsinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck outgenerous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features,nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled hischeek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree atChristmas.

这一段写S的尖酸刻薄写得酣畅伶俐，别急。下一段更妙！

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, nopelting rain lessopen to entreaty. Foul weather didn’tknow where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet,could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often “came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

好了，我们基本上已经读出来S（以及M）是什么人了。接下来D直白的写道，

To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Scrooge. 注意长难句

OK，介绍完了主人公。现在故事正式开始。这一天是圣诞节...

The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpablebrownair. 注意长难句

天气十分恶劣...

To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Naturelived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

S还有个小员工，不过这完全不是霸气总裁和害羞下属的彩色基佬桥段...

Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was sovery much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room.

这时又出来一个龙套，S的外甥来给给他送祝福啦。但是S冷冷回了句，"Bah! Humbug!"

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. 注意长难句

经过数轮交锋，S要把他的外甥气死了。不过他外甥也不是省油的灯，也不忘来两句讽刺。