The gift of the Magi - Part 03

00:00

03:29

The Gift of the Magi (Part 3)

Della went to him.

“Jim, dear,” she cried, “don’t look at me like that. I had my hair cut off and sold it. I couldn’t live through Christmas without giving you a gift. My hair will grow again. You won’t care, will you? My hair grows very fast. It’s Christmas, Jim. Let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful nice gift I got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim slowly. He seemed to labor to understand what had happened. He seemed not to feel sure he knew.

Labor：这里等于“work hard”, 也就是说Jim在费力的要弄明白发生了什么。

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me now? I’m me, Jim. I’m the same without my hair.”

Jim looked around the room.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said.

“You don’t have to look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s the night before Christmas, boy. Be good to me, because I sold it for you. Maybe the hairs of my head could be counted,” she said, “but no one could ever count my love for you. Shall we eat dinner, Jim?”

Hairs：非常有趣的是，hair可以作为“集合名词”（collective noun），这时候它是不可数的，但是它也可以用来表示一根头发（individual strand of hair），这时候它就是可数的了，比如文章中的用法。这里Della做了一个对比：即使我的头发能数清，我对你的爱也是数不清的。

Jim put his arms around his Della. For ten seconds let us look in another direction. Eight dollars a week or a million dollars a year— how different are they? Someone may give you an answer, but it will be wrong. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. My meaning will be explained soon.

这里作者加入了点评，既点了题（The magi brought valuable gifts），又为结尾的总结埋下了伏笔。

From inside the coat, Jim took something tied in paper. He threw it upon the table.

“I want you to understand me, Dell,” he said. “Nothing like a haircut could make me love you any less. But if you’ll open that, you may know what I felt when I came in.”

White fingers pulled off the paper. And then a cry of joy; and then a change to tears.

For there lay The Combs—the combs that Della had seen in a shop window and loved for a long time. Beautiful combs, with jewels, perfect for her beautiful hair. She had known they cost too much for her to buy them. She had looked at them without the least hope of owning them. And now they were hers, but her hair was gone.

Combs：请注意这里是用的复数形式，因为指的是an assortment of combs （成套的梳子）。这里应该不是梳头的工具而是作为饰品。

But she held them to her heart, and at last was able to look up and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And then she jumped up and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful gift. She held it out to him in her open hand. The gold seemed to shine softly as if with her own warm and loving spirit.

“Isn’t it perfect, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at your watch a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how they look together.”

Jim sat down and smiled.

“Della,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They’re too nice to use now. I sold the watch to get the money to buy the combs. And now I think we should have our dinner.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men— who brought gifts to the newborn Christ-child. They were the first to give Christmas gifts. Being wise, their gifts were doubtless wise ones. And here I have told you the story of two children who were not wise. Each sold the most valuable thing he owned in order to buy a gift for the other. But let me speak a last word to the wise of these days: Of all who give gifts, these two were the most wise. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are the most wise. Everywhere they are the wise ones. They are the magi.

Children：我认为作者在这里特意用了children而不是people，有两个主要的原因：1. 在基督教义中，我们都是上帝的孩子（children），而Magi也是遵照上帝的旨意来给耶稣送的礼物；2. 把Jim和Della称作“孩子”，也体现了作者对这两个人物的怜爱之意。

Wise：在结尾wise这个词频繁出现，但是它的含义却是很微妙的。这里既有它本来的“聪明睿智”的含义，比如“wisemen””being wise, …..wise ones”等等，也有讽刺意义上的聪明，类似于自作聪明的意思，比如“let me speak a last word to the wise of these days”。在日常生活中，“wise guy”表面上看起来是“聪明的人”，其实是讽刺用语，指的是“someone who is always trying to seem more clever than anyone else in a way that is annoying？”，比如:
Okay, wise guy, if you're so damned smart, you can tell everyone how it's done!
Wiseass的意思与之类似。