Simone
100 Selected Stories by O Henry was bought at Foreign Bookstore at Wangfujing last year. And then, a scheme of reading an article a day flew into my mind. It was a tremendous pity for me not to possess sufficient determination as before. Only one, the first one, was read one night. Its name is The Gift of Magi. I took great interest in walking excitedly through the short novel, The Gift of Magi which I had heard of, but never read. Not until next day when I talked with a collegue about it did I figure out its Chinese translation, which threw so much pleasantness and surprise on me. I got it out of my bookshelves last night ,and with magnificent admiration, walked throughout it as jealously as before. With Christmas coming, the girl, Della, cut off and sold her hair to buy a chain for Jim's watch as a gift, and Jim sold his watch to buy a comb as a gift for Della. That is the story! Love, in a confrontation with poorness, is pure and great, and means to sacrifice one's most valuable treasures for another. On ther other hand, however, everything means nothing if couples are in short of ample material conditions, such as money.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 honour of being owned by Jim. 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.
