世界经典感人短篇小说

A. 世界著名短篇小说

THE GIFT OF THE
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 bulldozing 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 flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is graally 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 coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze ring a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out lly at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. 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 honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer 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. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made 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. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--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. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious 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 that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication 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. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. 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. 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.

Jim was never late. Della doubled 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 for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer 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 a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. 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.

Della wriggled off 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 because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, 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, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"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?"

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. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with 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. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

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. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble 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 the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned 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.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The ll precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, 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, Jim tumbled down 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 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."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of plication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

B. 世界上最著名的短篇小说目录

世界文学宝库中，短篇小说以其独特的魅力吸引了无数读者。以下是一些最著名的短篇小说目录，它们各自以其深刻的主题和精湛的艺术手法留下了不可磨灭的印记。

首先，美国作家厄内斯特·海明威的《印第安营地》和《大二心河》展现了他对生活与战争的独特洞察，展现了人性的坚韧与挑战。英国作家托马斯·哈代的《彼特利克夫人》则揭示了爱情与社会阶级的冲突，引人深思。

爱伦·坡的《泄密的心》和《一桶白葡萄酒》通过神秘的氛围，探讨了道德与欲望的纠缠。而《厄谢尔府的倒塌》则呈现了权力的衰落与人性的崩溃。爱尔兰作家詹姆斯·乔伊斯的《伊芙琳》则以其复杂的人物关系，展现了人性的多面性。

凯特·肖邦的《一小时的故事》和赛珍珠的《圣诞节的清晨》则以细腻的情感描绘了生活中的瞬间与感动。萨基的《敞开的落地窗》和欧·亨利的《带家具出租的房间》则以幽默和意外的结局，让人回味无穷。

阿伦·马歇尔的《能言树》和马克·吐温的《竞选州长》与《加利维拉县有名的跳蛙》则展示了作家对于社会现象和人性的辛辣讽刺。日格蒙德·莫里兹的《七个铜板》和杰克·伦敦的《命的法则》则通过生动的故事探讨了生存的艰难与人生的意义。

罗杰·泽拉兹尼的《特斯普林中心的阴谋》和厄尼斯特·海明威的《一个干净明亮的地方》揭示了权力与孤独的交织，而莫泊桑的《项链》和《我的叔叔于勒》则刻画了社会阶级与人性的冲突，蒂姆·温顿的《邻居》则展现了邻里之间的微妙关系。

克里丝蒂娜·斯特德的《雷德施尔兹城堡的客》作为压轴之作，以其细腻的叙事和深刻的主题，为读者留下深刻的印象。这些短篇小说犹如文学的瑰宝，值得一一品味。

C. 世界著名短篇小说有哪些

001.《指环王》约翰·罗纳德·瑞尔·托尔金其他作品 《精灵宝钻》、《未完成的故事》
002.《荒原》T.S.艾略特
003.《傲慢与偏见》简·奥斯汀 作家其他作品： 《理智与情感》《爱玛》
004.《罗密欧与朱丽叶》莎士比亚 作家其他作品： 《奥赛罗》《李尔王》《麦克白》《哈姆雷特》（四大悲剧）《仲夏夜之梦》、《威尼斯商人》、《第十二夜》、《皆大欢喜》（四大喜剧）
005.《论人生》培根
006.《失乐园》弥尔顿
007.《鲁滨逊漂流记》笛福
008.《格列佛游记》斯威夫特
009.《拜伦诗选》拜伦 作家其他作品：《唐璜》
010.《雪莱诗选》雪莱
011.《简·爱》 夏洛蒂·勃朗特 作家其他作品：《教师》、《维莱特》、《雪莉》、《艾玛》（未完成）
012.《呼啸山庄》艾米莉·勃朗特
013.《大卫·科波菲尔》狄更斯 作家其他作品：《双城记》《匹克威克先生外传》《远大前程》.《雾都孤儿》、《董贝父子》《马丁·瞿述伟》、《荒凉山庄》、《圣诞故事集》
014.《福尔摩斯探案集》阿瑟·柯南·道尔 作家其他作品： 《遗失的世界》
015.《道连·葛雷的画像》奥斯卡·王尔德
016.《苔丝》托马斯·哈代 作家其他作品： 《远离尘嚣》、《还乡》
017.《华伦夫人的职业》萧伯纳 作家其他作品：《圣女贞德》
018.《牛虻》伏尼契
019.《月亮与六便士》 毛姆 作家其他作品：《刀锋》
020. 《艾凡赫》司各特 作家其他作品：《城堡风云》
021. 《汤姆琼斯史》 菲尔丁
022. 《东方快车谋杀案》阿加莎·克里斯蒂 作家其他作品：《阳光下的罪恶》、《三幕悲剧》、《国际学舍谋杀案》、《尼罗河上的惨案》、《罗杰疑案》、《无人生还》
024. 《时间机器》 威尔斯 作家：其他作品《莫罗博士岛》、《隐身人》
025. 《坎德伯雷故事集》 乔叟
026. 《1984》 乔治·奥威尔
027. 《查泰莱夫人的情人》 劳伦斯 作家其他作品：《儿子与情人》，《虹》、《恋爱中的女人》
028. 《蝴蝶梦》 达夫妮·杜穆里埃其他作品《牙买加旅店》
029. 《名利场》 萨克雷其他作品 《潘登尼斯》、《亨利·埃斯蒙德》、《纽克姆一家》、《弗吉尼亚人》
030. 《蝇王》戈尔丁
031. 《爱丽丝漫游仙境》 查尔斯·勒特维奇 ·道奇森 其他作品《爱丽丝镜中奇缘》
032. 《白衣女人》 威廉·威尔基·柯林斯
033. 《金银岛》 罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森 作家其他作品：《化身博士》
034. 《天路历程》 约翰·班扬
035. 《卢宫秘史》 安东尼·霍普
036. 《阿格尼丝·格雷》 安妮·勃朗特其他作品《怀尔德菲尔山庄的房客》
037.《福尔赛世家》高尔斯华绥
038.《愤怒的回顾》奥斯本
039.《尤利西斯》詹姆斯·乔伊斯
040.《德拉库拉》布拉姆·斯托克