Name: 魔法師的禮物》，O.Henry著，由經典故事網提供。 (THE GIFT OF THE MAGI by O. Henry, presented by classic-tales.net)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:38:43.000Z
Duration: 15 min 25 s
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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

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

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

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 pierglass

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

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

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

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

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was

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

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

"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

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready

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: "Please

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

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

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,

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact