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
