麥琪的禮物：Chapter 5

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.

她終于找到了,那準(zhǔn)是專為吉姆特制的,決非為別人。她找遍了各家商店,哪兒也沒有這樣的東西,一條樸素的白金表鏈,鏤刻著花紋。正如一切優(yōu)質(zhì)東西那樣,它只以貨色論長短,不以裝璜來炫耀。而且它正配得上那只金表。她一見這條表鏈,就知道一定屬于吉姆所有。它就像吉姆本人,文靜而有價值——這一形容對兩者都恰如其份。她花去二十一美元買下了,匆匆趕回家,只剩下八角七分錢。金表匹配這條鏈子,無論在任何場合,吉姆都可以毫無愧色地看時間了。

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.

盡管這只表華麗珍貴,因為用的是舊皮帶取代表鏈,他有時只偷偷地瞥上一眼。德拉回家之后,她的狂喜有點兒變得審慎和理智了。她找出燙發(fā)鐵鉗,點燃煤氣,著手修補因愛情加慷慨所造成的破壞,這永遠是件極其艱巨的任務(wù),親愛的朋友們——簡直是件了不起的任務(wù)呵。

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.

不出四十分鐘,她的頭上布滿了緊貼頭皮的一綹綹小卷發(fā),使她活像個逃學(xué)的小男孩。她在鏡子里老盯著自己瞧,小心地，苛刻地照來照去。

"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?"

“假如吉姆看我一眼不把我宰掉的話,"她自言自語,“他定會說我像個科尼島上合唱隊的賣唱姑娘。但是我能怎么辦呢——唉,只有一元八角七,我能干什么呢?"