The
Gift of the Magi es un cuento escrito por O. Henry (seudónimo de William Sydney
Porter). Se trata de una joven pareja y sus intentos de comprar regalos para
navidad con poca plata.
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 forcing 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 to do but fall down down on the shabby little couch and howl.
So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of
sobs, cries, and smiles, with cries 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 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 try a ring. Also belonging to that was a card bearing the name “Mr.
James Dillingham Young.”