The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry
One dollar and eighty-ven cents. That was all. And
sixty cents of it was in pennies. Three times Della counted it.
shawn johnsonOne dollar and eighty-ven cents. And the next day would be
Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the
shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which
instigates(鼓动、煽动) the moral reflection that life is made up
distribution翻译
of sobs and smiles, with sobs predominating（支配、统治）.
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 gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow
would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which
to buy Jim a prent. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Only $1.87 to buy a prent 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.举行英语
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room.
会计行政法规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 conds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two posssions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took 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.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling(轻柔的起伏) and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itlf almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; 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.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking（彻底搜索）the stores for Jim's prent.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one el. It was a platinum fob chain（白金表链）simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 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（偷偷地，暗中地）on account of the old leather strap that he ud in place of a chain.
She got out her curling irons（卷发钳）.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with
tiny, clo-lying curls that made her look wonderfully
like a schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the
nanguomirror long, carefully, and critically.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in
her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door
that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the
stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white
for just a moment. She had a habit of saying a little
silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Plea God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and clod it. He looked thin and very rious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.2013北京中考分数线
董事长英文翻译
husband怎么读Jim stopped inside the door with his eyes fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surpri, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the ntiments（情感）that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar（特别的）expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold becau I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a prent. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice--what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously（艰难地、辛苦地）.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden rious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
leanEight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may e why you had me going a while at first."
length是什么意思
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic（狂喜地）scream of joy; and then, alas!
For there lay The Combs--the t of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoi shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair.
She hugged them to her bosom（胸口）, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet en his beautiful prent. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. "Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it.
You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now.
Give me your watch. I want to e how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch
（坐到沙发上）and put his hands under the back of his
head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas prents
away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to u just at prent. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppo you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wi men--wonderfully wi men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas prents. Being wi, their gifts were no doubt wi ones, possibly bearing the privilege（权利）of exchange in ca of duplication （重复）. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwily sacrificed（牺牲）for each other the greatest treasures of their hou. But in a last word to the wi of the days let it be said that of all who give gifts the two were the wist. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wist. Everywhere they are wist. They are the magi.
