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| 首页 >> 【北大学位英语官方网站】北京地区成人三级英语网论坛 >> 〓学员心声〓 >> ∞未名湖畔好读书∞ >> 查看帖子 | |
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| O Henry:The Gift Of The Magi 歐 亨利：麥琪的禮物 O.Henry The Gift of the Magi One dollar and eighty-seven cents.That was all.And sixty cents of it was in pennies.Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the bucher until one's cheek burned with silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.Three times Della counted it.One dollar and eighty-seven cents.And the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and bowl.So Della did it.Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs,sniffles,and smiles,with sniffles predominating. While the mistress of the home is gradually subsideing from the first stage to the second,take a look at the home.A furnished flat at eight dollars per week.It did not exactly beggar description,but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad. In the vestibule below was a letter box into which no letter would go,and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring.Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name"Mr.James Dillingham Yourg." Continue... |
| The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity shen its possessor was being paid thirty dollars per week.Now,when the income was shrunk to twenty dollars,the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred,as though they were thinking seriously James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs.James Dillingham Young,already introduced to you as Della.Which is all very good. Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a graw fence in a gray backgard.Tomorrow would be Christmas Day,and she had only one dollar and eight-seven cents with which to buy Jim a present.She had been saving every penny she could for months,with this result.Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far.Only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy a present for Jim,her Jim.Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him.Something fine and rare and sterling-something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim. There was a pier glass between the windows of the room.Perhaps you have seen a pier glass in an eight-seven flat.A very thin and very agile person may,by observing his reflection in a rapid sequedne of longitudinal strips,obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks.Della,being slender,had mastered the art. to be continue... |
| Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass.Her eyes were shining brilliantly,but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds.Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length. Now there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both look a mighty pride.One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's.The other was Della's hair.Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the air shaft,Della would have let her hair hang out the window someday to dry,just to depreciate her Majesty's jewels and gifts.Had King Solomon been the janitor,with all his treasures piled up in the basement,Jim would have puled out his watch every time he passed,just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her,rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters.It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her.And then she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet. On went her old brown jacked;on went her old brown hat.With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes,she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street. Where she stopped the sign read:"Mme,Sofronie.Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran-and collected herself, panting.Madame,large too white,chilly,hardly looked the "Sofronie." to be continued... |
| "Will you buy my hair?" asked Della. "I buy hair." said Madame."Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it." Down rippled the brown cascade. "Twenty dollars,"said Madame,lifting the mass with a practiced hand. "Give it to me quick."said Della. Oh,and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings.Forget the hashed metaphor.She was ransack ing the stores for Jim's present. She found it at last.It surely had been made for Jim and no one else.There was no otherlike it in any of the stores,and she had turned all of them inside out.It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design,properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation-as all good things should do.It was even worthy of The Watch.As soon as she waw it she knew that it must be Jim's.It was like him.Quietness and value-the decription applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it,and she hurried home with the eighty-seven cents.With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company.Grand as the watch was,he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain. When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason.She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love.Which is always a tremeddous task,dear friends-a mammoth task. Within forty minutes her head was coverded with tiny,close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy.She looked at her reflection in the mirror long,carefully,and critically. "If Jim doesn't kill me," She said to herself,"before he takes a second look at me,he'll say look like a Coney Island chorus girl.But what could I do-oh!What could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?" At seven o'clock the coffee was made and the frying pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops. Jim was never lates.Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the stair away down on the first flight;and she turned white for just a moment.She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things,and now she whispered,"please,God,make him think I am still pretty." The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it.He looked thin and very serious.Poor fellow,he was only twenty-two-and to be burdened with a family!He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves. |
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