In stave 1 of Dickens's classic story A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, who has been dead for seven years. Scrooge is startled and frightened by Marley's ghost, which wears heavy chains, padlocks, cashboxes, ledgers, and steel purses that weigh him down and restrict his movement. When Scrooge asks why the Ghost is fettered in heavy chains and links, Marley replies that he has been cursed to wander the earth for seven years while bearing the weight of his sins. As a living man, Marley was an unscrupulous, greedy businessman who lacked sympathy for others and was only concerned with acquiring wealth. Marley's hollow, uncharitable life resulted in a torturous afterlife, where he is destined to wander the earth in chains. After describing his fate, the Ghost informs Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits in the next three nights. Marley then disappears into a miserable crowd of tortured spirits that are each bound in chains.
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