The Gift of the Magi is a well-known but touching short story about a loving couple who live impoverished. The woman sells her long, beautiful hair in order to purchase a chain for her husband’s watch. He sells his watch to be magnificent hair combs for his wife. The two could have cried about it, but they reacted with resignation. The Last Leaf was also sorrowful. A young woman is ill with pneumonia and is waiting to die when the last leaf on the ivy tree leaves, but it doesn’t, and she recovers. The painter living below painted a fake leaf at the window but contracted pneumonia whilst doing so on a rainy day and dies. These twelve short stories are completely unique, funny, sad, trivial, but all have this kind of fluid narration and a little surprise ending. Delighted to have read this little book.
“Both of us are out of luck; and we had just potatoes and meat between us. They’re stewing now. But it ain’t got any soul. There’s something lacking to it. There’s certain things in life that are naturally intended to fit and belong together. One is pink cheese-cloth and green roses, and one is ham and eggs, and one is Irish and trouble. And the other one is beef and potatoes with onions. And still another one is people who are up against it and other people in the same fix.”
Content
The Gift of the Magi / Mammon and the Archer / The Cop and the Anthem / After Twenty Years / The Last Leaf / Conscience in Art / Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen / Transients in Arcadia / A Retrieved Reformation / The Third Ingredient / Hearts and Hands / A Chaparral Christmas Gift