Where she stopped the sign read |буквально – на знаке читалось|: “M-me Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran |взбежала на один пролет, а значит, на второй этаж|, and collected herself, panting |перевела дух|. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie |не выглядела сообразно своему имени|.”
“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.
“I buy hair,” said Madame. «Take yer |это не опечатка. О. Генри передает произношение мадам| hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”
Down rippled the brown cascade.
“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
“Give it to me quick” said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings |пролетели на розовых крыльях|. Forget the hashed metaphor |Буквально – забудьте грубую метафору. Лучше – простите за избитую метафору|. She was ransacking |рыскала| the stores for Jim’s present.
She found it at last |наконец|. It surely had been made |было сделано| 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 |вывернула их на изнанку в поисках|. It was a platinum fob chain |цепочка для часов| simple and chaste |строгая| in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation |ценная самим материалом, а не показушными орнаментами| – 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 |Это была его вещь|. Quietness and value – the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 78 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious |может переживать о времени| 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 |украдкой из-за кожаного ремешка…| that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication |тут О. Генри имеет в виду не интоксикацию в буквальном смысле, а нечто вроде воодушевления, на смену которому пришел разум| 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 |последствия великодушия и любви|. Which is always a tremendous task |огромная задача| dear friends —a mammoth |громадная| task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy |школьника, удравшего с уроков|. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
“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 |на хористку с Кони Айленда. Кони Айленд, кстати, у О. Генри будет часто появляться в рассказах. Не мудрено. Ранее на этой окраине Бруклина была куча развлечений: рестораны, кафе, парк аттракционов и пляж. Сейчас там остался только пляж и огромная община русскоязычных иммигрантов и палестинцев. Да, да, тот самый пресловутый Брайтон Бич находится именно на Кони Айленде|. But what could I do – oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”
At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops |ребрышки|.
Jim was never late. Della doubled |сложила вдвое| the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white |побледнела| for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please, God, make him think I am still pretty.”
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two – and to be burdened with |а уже с таким грузом…| a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail |как сеттер на запах перепела|. 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 – это частица “не” или “ни” при перечислении|, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared |внимательно смотрел| at her fixedly |неотрывно| with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off |соскочила со| the table and went for him.
“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn’t have lived through |не смогла бы встретить…| Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again – you won’t mind |ты не будешь сердиться|, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice – what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”
“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously |с трудом|, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet |как будто он еще не осознал…|, even after the hardest mental labour.
“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I |ain’t – жаргонное производное глагола to be, которое всегда используется в отрицании и без привязки к лицу: He ain’t good, they ain’t here…|?”
Jim looked about the room curiously.
“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you —sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you |это было сделано для тебя|. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake |опять инверсия и нестандартный порядок слов|. He enfolded |обнял| his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction |давайте будем скромны и посмотрим на что-нибудь другое, в другом направлении|. Eight dollars a week or a million a year – what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit |остряк | would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them |этого среди них не было|. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on |впрочем неясность этого утверждения будет разъяснена позже|.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “ about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less |нет ничего.., что заставит любить тебя меньше|. But if you’ll |вообще-то, по строгим правилам, will после if тут стоять не должно, и О. Генри об этом точно знает. Видимо, он тем самым он хочет сказать, что Джим – парень простой, в университетах не учился| unwrap that package you may see why you had me going |я так себя вел| a while at first.»
White fingers and nimble |проворно| tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating |требующие| the immediate employment |здесь это не трудоустройство, а вмешательство| of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs |гребни для волос| – the set of combs, side and back |задние и боковые|, that Della had worshipped |обожала| for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell |из панциря черепахи|, with jewelled rims —just the shade to wear |под цвет ее волос| in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned |изнывало и томилось| over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone |локонов… больше не было|.
But she hugged them to her bosom |к груди|, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes |глазами с поволокой| and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”
And then Della leaped up |прыгнула| like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”
Jim had not yet seen |еще пока не видел| his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly |воодушевленно| upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit |пылкой души|.
“Isn’t it a dandy |превосходна|, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”
Instead of obeying |Вместо того, чтобы подчиниться|, Jim tumbled down |рухнул| on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em |them. Разговорное сокращение| a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on |пора накладывать ребрышки|.”
