WThe Gift of the Magi – O. Henry
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 butcher until one's
cheeks burned with the 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 howl. 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 subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look
at the home. A furnished flat at $8 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 Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its
possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they
were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. 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 gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be
Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 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. Expenses had
been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 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
$8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of
longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had
mastered the art.
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 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. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her
hair hang out the window some day 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
pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
www.ajarnjohn.com
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 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.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della
ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"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 practised 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
ransacking 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 other like 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 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 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 tremendous task, dear friends - a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered 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 I 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 7 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 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,
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and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer 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.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon
Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not
anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been
prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar 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 because I
couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. 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, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet
even after the hardest mental labor.
"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 serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops
on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard
with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight 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. This dark assertion will be
illuminated later on.
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 in the way of a
haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that
package you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then,
alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment
of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a
www.ajarnjohn.com
Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims - just the shade to wear
in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply
craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but
the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile
and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them
WThe ของขวัญของโหราจารย์ – โอเฮนรี หนึ่งดอลลาร์ และเอ้เซเว่นเซนต์ ที่ได้ทั้งหมด และหกสิบเซนต์ของมันอยู่ใน pennies บันทึก pennies หนึ่งและสองครั้งโดย bulldozing ชำ และมนุษย์ผัก และเขียงที่จนสุด แก้มเขียน ด้วย imputation เงียบของ parsimony เช่นปิดจัดการโดยนัย ครั้งที่สาม เดลลานับได้ หนึ่งดอลลาร์ และเอ้เซเว่นเซนต์ และในวันถัดไปจะเป็นวันคริสต์มาส มีได้ชัดเจนไม่มีอะไรจะทำ แต่ชาติลงบนโซฟาน้อย shabby และ howl ดังนั้น เดลลาไม่ได้ ซึ่ง instigates สะท้อนคุณธรรมที่ชีวิตถูกสร้างขึ้นจาก sobs, sniffles และรอย ยิ้ม มี sniffles predominating ในขณะที่เล็กในบ้านจะค่อย ๆ subsiding จากระยะแรกที่สอง มาดู ที่บ้าน A ตกแต่งแบนที่ $8 ต่อสัปดาห์ มันไม่ได้ไม่ว่าขอทานอธิบาย แต่แน่นอน มีคำนั้นในระวังสำหรับทีม mendicancy ใน vestibule ด้านล่างมีตัวอักษรเป็นกล่องที่จดหมายไม่ต้องไป มีปุ่มไฟฟ้าจาก นิ้วที่มนุษย์ไม่สามารถ coax แหวน Appertaining thereunto เป็นแต่ละบัตร "นาย James Dillingham ยัง" "Dillingham" มีส่วนใหญ่ไปสายลมในช่วงเวลาเดิมของความเจริญรุ่งเรืองเมื่อนั้น possessor ถูกถูกจ่าย $30 ต่อสัปดาห์ ตอนนี้ เมื่อรายได้ถูก shrunk ให้ $20 แม้ว่า พวกเขา มีความคิดอย่างจริงจังของการทำสัญญากับ D. เจียมเนื้อเจียมตัว และน่า แต่เมื่อใดก็ตามนาย 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 gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 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. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 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 $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art. 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 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. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day 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 pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. www.ajarnjohn.com 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 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. Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie." "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 practised 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 ransacking 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 other like 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 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 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 tremendous task, dear friends - a mammoth task. Within forty minutes her head was covered 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 I 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 7 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 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, www.ajarnjohn.com and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer 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. Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar 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 because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. 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, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet
even after the hardest mental labor.
"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 serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops
on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard
with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight 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. This dark assertion will be
illuminated later on.
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 in the way of a
haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that
package you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then,
alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment
of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a
www.ajarnjohn.com
Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims - just the shade to wear
in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply
craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but
the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile
and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them
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