[Special Week / English Theater] -Radio English Conversation-
【The Gift of the Magi】-Act One -by 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 left 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 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 look-out 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, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as 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 withe the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey 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.
【Question】
[How much money did Della have to buy a Christmas present for her husband, Jim?]
⇒A: One dollar and eighty-seven cents.
[What was their financial situation?]
⇒A: Jim made twenty dollars a week. The weekly rent was eight dollars.
【words and phrases】
-[The Gift of the Magi] 賢者の贈り物
-[the magi] (キリスト降誕の時贈り物を持ってきた)東方の三賢者(三博士)
⇒「メルキオール博士」Melchior (黄金=王権/王位の象徴、青年の姿の賢者)
⇒「バルタサール博士」Balthasar (乳香=神への供物/神性の象徴、壮年の姿の賢者)
⇒「カスパール博士」Casper (没薬=受難の死を象徴、老人の姿の賢者)
…(世界の罪を負い「神の子」として死ぬためにこの世に生まれ、やがて復活する)
-[the gift]
⇒[gold]=[King]
⇒[frankincense](乳香/カンラン科の乳香樹の樹脂が固まったもの)=「God]
⇒[myrrh](没薬/ミルラ精油/樹木から分泌される赤褐色の植物性ゴム樹脂)=[death]
