Lady, are you rich?

Lady, are you rich?

They huddled inside the storm door - two children in ragged outgrown coats.

"Any old papers, lady?"

I was busy. I wanted to say no - until I looked down at their feet. Thin little sandals, sopped with sleet. "Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa." There was no conversation. Their soggy sandals left marks upon the hearthstone.

Cocoa and toast with jam to fortify against the chill outside. I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget...

The silence in the front room struck through to me. I looked in.

The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in flat voice, "Lady... are you rich?"

"Am I rich? Mercy, no!" I looked at my shabby slipcovers.

The girl put her cup back in its saucer - carefully. "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was old with a hunger that was not of the stomach.

They left then, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn't said thank you. They didn't need to. They had done more than that. Plain blue pottery cups and saucers. But they matched. I tested the potatoes and stirred the gravy. Potatoes and brown gravy - a roof over our heads - my man with a good steady job - these things matched, too.

I moved the chairs back from the fire and tidied the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my hearth. I let them be. I want them there in case I ever forget again how very rich I am.

- Marion Doolan

If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more.

If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough.

- Oprah Winfrey

Hai d?a bé co mình trong chi?c áo bành tô quá kh?, rách ru?i d?ng nép vào nhau phía sau cánh c?a, run r?y m?i tôi: "Thua cô, cô mua báo cu không ??"

Tôi dang b?n, ch? mu?n t? ch?i m?t ti?ng cho xong, th? nhung khi nhìn xu?ng dôi chân c?a chúng, tôi th?t không dành lòng. Nh?ng dôi xang-dan bé xíu, u?t sung vì mua tuy?t. "Vào nhà di, cô s? làm cho m?i d?a m?t ly cacao nóng!" Chúng l?ng l? bu?c theo tôi. Hai dôi xang-dan sung nu?c du?c d?t trên b? lò su?i d? hong cho khô.

Cacao và bánh mì nu?ng an kèm m?t có th? làm ?m lòng tru?c cái l?nh bu?t giá bên ngoài. Ðua th?c an cho b?n tr? xong, tôi l?i vào b?p d? ti?p t?c v?i nh?ng con s? chi tiêu dau d?u.

Không khí yên ?ng trong phòng khách khi?n tôi c?m th?y hoi làm l?. Tôi nhìn vào trong phòng.

Cô bé dang c?m chi?c tách dã u?ng c?n trên tay, ng?m nhìn m?t cách say mê. C?u bé di cùng r?t rè: "Thua cô, cô giàu có ph?i không ??"

"Cô giàu có u? Không, không dâu cháu ?!" - V?a nói, tôi v?a ngao ngán nhìn t?m khan tr?i bàn dã s?n cu c?a mình.

Cô bé c?n th?n d?t chi?c tách vào dia. "Nh?ng chi?c tách c?a cô h?p v?i b? dia ghê!" Gi?ng nói c?a cô bé có v? thèm thu?ng.

Th? r?i chúng ra di, trên tay c?m theo gói báo cu, bang mình trong ng?n gió rét cam cam. Chúng không nói l?i c?m on. Nhung qu? th?t, chúng không c?n ph?i c?m on tôi. Nh?ng gì chúng dã làm cho tôi còn hon c? ti?ng c?m on. Nh?ng chi?c tách và dia b?ng g?m màu xanh tron c?a tôi là lo?i thu?ng thôi. Nhung chúng là m?t b? r?t h?p. Tôi n?m th? món khoai tây và khu?y n?i súp. Khoai tây và món súp, r?i mái nhà, c? ngu?i ch?ng c?a tôi v?i công vi?c ?n d?nh - t?t c? d?u r?t phù h?p v?i tôi.

Tôi d?t chi?c gh? dang ? tru?c lò su?i vào ch? cu và d?n d?p l?i can phòng cho g?n gàng. V?t bùn t? dôi xang-dan u?t sung c?a hai d?a bé v?n còn d?ng l?i trên m?t lò su?i, nhung tôi không lau di. Tôi mu?n gi? chúng l?i, d? l? dâu có ngày tôi l?i quên r?ng mình giàu có d?n m?c nào.

- Marion Doolana

N?u d? ý d?n nh?ng di?u b?n có trong cu?c s?ng, b?n s? nh?n du?c nhi?u hon th?.

Còn n?u ch? d? ý d?n nh?ng di?u b?n không có trong cu?c s?ng, b?n s? th?y mình không bao gi? có d?.

- Oprah Winfrey

The rules for being human

1. You will receive a body

You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period.

2. You will be presented with lessons

You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life. Each day in this school you will learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons

Growth is a process of trial and error: experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

4. A lesson is repeated until learned

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. Once learned, you then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end

There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better than "here"

When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."

7. Others are merely mirrors of you

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you

You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. The answers to Life's questions lie inside you

All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget all of this at birth

You can remember it if you want by unraveling the double helix of inner knowing.

- Cheárie Carter-Scott

Success in life isn't a given.

It's costs attitude, ambition and acceptance.

- Jennifer Leigh Youngs

Nh?ng nguyên t?c cu?c d?i

1. B?n du?c cu?c d?i trao t?ng m?t co th?

Dù b?n yêu hay ghét co th? mình, nó v?n s? là c?a b?n d?n su?t cu?c d?i.

2. B?n s? du?c trao t?ng nh?ng bài h?c quý giá

Ph?n l?n th?i gian b?n s? theo h?c ? m?t ngôi tru?ng không có nhi?u quy t?c g?i là Cu?c Ð?i. M?i ngày ? tru?ng h?c ?y, b?n s? du?c h?c nh?ng bài h?c khác nhau. Có th? b?n thích chúng, hay s? xem chúng là nh?ng bài h?c vô b? và bu?n t?.

3. Không h? có l?i l?m, t?t c? là nh?ng bài h?c

Tru?ng thành là k?t qu? c?a quá trình tr?i nghi?m nh?ng th? thách và sai l?m. "Th?t b?i" s? là m?t ph?n quan tr?ng trong quá trình dó quy?t d?nh s? tru?ng thành c?a b?n.

4. N?u b?n chua nh?n ra, bài h?c s? l?p l?i

M?t bài h?c s? d?n v?i b?n du?i nhi?u cách th?c ti?p c?n khác nhau d?n khi b?n th?u hi?u du?c. Khi ?y, b?n s? ti?p t?c chuy?n sang bài h?c ti?p theo.

5. Không có gi?i h?n c?a s? h?c h?i

M?i n?o du?ng c?a cu?c s?ng d?u ?n ch?a nh?ng bài h?c r?t riêng. N?u b?n còn hi?n h?u trên cu?c d?i này, b?n c?n ph?i h?c h?i liên t?c.

6. Hãy b?ng lòng v?i nh?ng di?u b?n dang có

Khi nh?ng di?u b?n mong mu?n dã tr? thành s? th?t, b?n s? ti?p t?c mong mu?n m?t di?u khác mà d?i v?i b?n, nó h?p d?n hon c? th? b?n dang có.

7. Nh?ng ngu?i xung quanh ch? là t?m guong ph?n chi?u chính b?n

B?n không th? yêu hay ghét di?u gì dó ? m?t ngu?i khác tr? khi di?u dó ph?n ánh di?u mà b?n yêu, ghét ? chính b?n thân mình.

8. B?n là ngu?i quy?t d?nh cu?c s?ng c?a mình

B?n có s?n m?i công c? cung nhu m?i ngu?n l?c mà b?n c?n. B?n có d? quy?n nang d? quy?t d?nh cách s? d?ng chúng. Quy?n l?a ch?n là ? chính b?n.

9. Câu tr? l?i v? cu?c d?i luôn n?m trong chính b?n thân b?n

T?t c? nh?ng di?u b?n c?n làm là ng?m nhìn, l?ng nghe và tin tu?ng.

10. Ngay t? khi m?i sinh ra, b?n s? quên t?t c? nh?ng di?u c?n ph?i nh?

N?u b?n mu?n, b?n v?n có th? nh? b?ng cách l?ng nghe s? hi?u bi?t t? bên trong.

- Chérie Carter-Scott

Thành công trong cu?c s?ng không t? nhiên mà d?n.

B?n c?n ph?i có thái d? s?ng, khát v?ng và c? s? ch?p nh?n.

- Jennifer Leigh Youngs

The gift of the magi

The gift of the magi

by O. Henry

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 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 coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during 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 introduced 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 dully 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 dull 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 duplication. 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 mag

Quà t?ng c?a nh?ng nhà thông thái

Thanh Bình d?ch

M?t d?ng tám muoi b?y xu, dúng nhu v?y. Hàng ngày, cô c? g?ng tiêu th?t ít ti?n khi di ch?. Cô di loanh quanh tìm mua th? th?t và rau r? nh?t cho b?a an hàng ngày, ngay c? lúc c?m th?y h?t s?c m?t m?i cô v?n c? tìm ki?m. Ti?t ki?m du?c d?ng nào hay d?ng dó.

Della d?m l?i s? ti?n ít ?i m?t l?n n?a. Không h? có s? nh?m l?n, ch? có m?t d?ng tám muoi b?y xu, và ngày mai s? là l? giáng sinh.

Cô s? không th? làm gì hon, ch? còn cách ng?i xu?ng và khóc mà thôi. ? dó, trong m?t can phòng nh?, t?i tàn, cô dang n?c n?.

Della s?ng trong can phòng nh? nghèo nàn này v?i ch?ng c?a cô, James Dillingham Young, ? thành ph? New York.

H? có m?t phòng ng?, m?t phòng t?m và m?t nhà b?p. James Dillingham Young may m?n hon cô vì anh ?y có vi?c làm. Tuy v?y dó không ph?i là m?t công vi?c ki?m du?c nhi?u ti?n. Ti?n thuê can phòng này chi?m g?n h?t luong c?a anh ?y. Della dã c? g?ng r?t nhi?u d? tìm m?t công vi?c nhung v?n may dã không m?m cu?i v?i cô. Tuy nhiên, cô r?t h?nh phúc khi ôm ''Jim'', James Dillingham Young, trong tay m?i khi anh tr? v?. Della dã ng?ng khóc. Cô lau khô m?t r?i d?ng nhìn m?t chú mèo xám trên b?c tu?ng d?ng màu v?i nó bên c?nh con du?ng t?i ngoài c?a s?.

Ngày mai là Noel và cô ch? còn m?t d?ng tám muoi b?y xu d? mua cho Jim, Jim c?a cô, m?t món qùa. Cô mu?n mua m?t món quà th?t s? có ý nghia, m?t th? có th? bi?u hi?n du?c t?t c? tình yêu cô dành cho anh.

Della ch?t xoay ngu?i ch?y d?n bên chi?c guong treo trên tu?ng. M?t cô sáng lên.

Cho d?n bây gi?, gia dình James Dillingham Young ch? có hai v?t quí giá nh?t. M?t th? là chi?c d?ng h? vàng c?a Jim. Chi?c d?ng h? này tru?c dây thu?c s? h?u c?a cha anh ta và tru?c n?a là ông n?i anh ta. Th? còn l?i là mái tóc c?a Della.

Della th? nhanh mái tóc dài óng mu?t xu?ng lung. Th?t tuy?t d?p, không khác nào nhu m?t chi?c áo khoác dang choàng qua ngu?i cô. Della cu?n tóc lên l?i. Cô d?ng l?ng di r?i thút thít m?t lát.

Della bu?c ch?m rãi qua các c?a hàng d?c hai bên du?ng r?i d?ng l?i tru?c b?ng hi?u "Madame Eloise". Ti?p cô là m?t ph? n? m?p m?p, bà ta ch?ng có m?t chút v? "Eloise" nào c?. Della c?t ti?ng h?i: "Bà mua tóc tôi không?"

"Tôi chuyên mua tóc mà", bà ta dáp và b?o: "Hãy b? nón ra cho tôi xem tóc c?a cô di".

Su?i tóc nâu d?p tuy?t v?i buông xu?ng.

''Hai muoi d?ng" bà ta d?nh giá, bàn tay nâng niu mái tóc óng ?.

"Hãy c?t nhanh di! và dua ti?n cho tôi" Della nói.

Hai gi? ti?p theo trôi qua nhanh chóng. Cô tìm mua quà cho Jim trong các c?a hi?u trong ni?m vui khôn t?. Cu?i cùng cô cung ch?n du?c m?t th?. Ðó là môt s?i dây d?ng h? b?ng vàng. Jim r?t quí chi?c d?ng h? c?a mình nhung r?t ti?c là nó không có dây. Khi Della trông th?y s?i dây này cô bi?t r?ng nó ph?i là c?a anh và cô ph?i mua nó.

Cô tr? hai muoi m?t d?ng d? mua và v?i vã tr? v? nhà v?i tám muoi b?y xu còn l?i.

Ð?n nhà, Della ng?m mái tóc c?c ng?n c?a mình trong guong và nghi th?m: "Mình có th? làm gì v?i nó dây?". N?a gi? ti?p theo cô nhanh chóng chu?n b? m?i th?. Xong Della l?i ng?m nghía mình trong guong l?n n?a. Tóc c?a cô bây gi? toàn nh?ng s?i quan quan kh?p d?u. "Chúa oi, mình trông nhu m?t con bé n? sinh ?y!". Cô t? nh?: "Jim s? nói gì khi th?y mình nhu th? này?".

B?y gi? t?i, b?a an du?c chu?n b? g?n xong. Della h?i h?p ch? d?i, hy v?ng r?ng mình v?n còn xinh d?p trong m?t Jim.

Th? r?i c?a m?, Jim bu?c vào. Anh ?y trông r?t g?y và c?n có m?t cát áo khoác m?i. Jim nhìn ch?m ch?m vào Della. Cô không th? hi?u du?c anh dang nghi gì, cô s?. Anh ta không gi?n d?, cung ch?ng ng?c nhiên. Anh d?ng dó, nhìn cô v?i ánh m?t k? l?. Della ch?y d?n bên Jim òa khóc: Ð?ng nhìn em nhu th?, anh yêu. Em bán tóc ch? d? mua cho anh m?t món quà. Tóc s? dài ra mà. Em ph?i bán nó thôi, Jim à. Hãy nói "Giáng sinh vui v?", em có m?t món quà r?t hay cho anh này!".

"Em dã c?t m?t tóc r?i à?. Jim h?i.

"Ðúng th?, em dã c?t và bán r?i, vì v?y mà anh không còn yêu em n?au? em v?n là em mà!", Della nói.

Jim nhìn quanh r?i h?i l?i nhu m?t k? ng? ng?n: "Em nói là em dã bán tóc à?"

"Ðúng, em dã nói v?y, vì em yêu anh! Chúng ta có th? an t?i du?c chua, Jim?"

Ch?t Jim vòng tay ôm l?y Della và rút t? túi áo ra m?t v?t gì d?y d?t lên bàn. Anh nói: "Anh yêu em, Della, dù cho tóc em ng?n hay dài. Hãy m? cái này ra em, s? hi?u t?i sao khi nãy anh s?ng s? d?n v?y".

Della xé b? l?p gi?y b?c ngoài và kêu lên sung su?ng, li?n sau dó nh?ng gi?t nu?c m?t h?nh phúc roi xu?ng. Trong dó là m?t b? k?p tóc, nh?ng chi?c k?p dành cho mái tóc óng ? c?a Della. Cô dã mo u?c có du?c nó khi trông th?y l?n d?u tiên qua c?a kính m?t gian hàng. Nh?ng cái k?p r?t d?p và r?t d?t ti?n. Bây gi? chúng dã thu?c v? cô nhung tóc cô thì không còn d? dài d? k?p n?a!

Della nâng niu món quà, m?t tràn d?y h?nh phúc. "Tóc em s? chóng dài ra thôi Jim", nói xong cô ch?t nh? d?n dây d?ng h? vàng d?nh t?ng cho Jim và ch?y di l?y.

Ð?p không anh? Em dã tìm ki?m kh?p noi d?y, gi? thì anh s? ph?i thích thú nhìn ng?m nó hàng tram l?n m?i ngày thôi. Nhanh lên, dua nó cho em, Jim, hãy nhìn nó v?i s?i dây m?i này".

Nhung Jim không làm theo l?i Della. Anh ng?i xu?ng vòng tay ra sau d?u m?m cu?i nói: "Della, hãy c?t nh?ng món quà này di. Chúng th?t dáng yêu. Em bi?t không, anh dã bán chi?c d?ng h? d? mua k?p cho em. Gi? thì chúng ta có th? b?t d?u b?a t?i du?c r?i em yêu".

A glass of milk

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry.

He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?" "You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness." He said..... "Then I thank you from my heart."

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Year's later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly ! was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to room. Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case. After a long struggle, the battle was won.

Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words..... "Paid in full with one glass of milk"

Signed Dr. Howard Kelly. Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: "Thank You, God, that Your love has spread abroad through human hearts and hands."

Now you have two choices. You can send this page on and spread a positive message or ignore it and pretend it never touched your heart.

Trua hôm dó, có m?t c?u bé nghèo bán hàng rong ? các khu nhà d? ki?m ti?n di h?c. B?ng dói c?n cào mà l?c túi ch? còn m?y d?ng ti?n ít ?i, c?u li?u xin m?t b?a an t?i m?t can nhà g?n dó. Nhung c?u gi?t mình x?u h? khi th?y m?t cô bé ra m? c?a. Và thay vì xin gì dó d? an, c?u dành xin m?t ly nu?c u?ng. Cô bé trông c?u có v? dang dói nên bung ra m?t ly s?a l?n.

C?u bé u?ng xong, h?i "Tôi n? b?n bao nhiêu?".

"B?n không n? tôi bao nhiêu c?. M? d?y r?ng chúng tôi không bao gi? nh?n ti?n khi làm m?t di?u t?t."

C?u bé cám on và di kh?i. Lúc này, Howard Kelly th?y t? tin hon nhi?u, m?nh m? hon nhi?u.

Nhi?u nam sau, cô gái dó b? can b?nh hi?m nghèo. Các bác si trong vùng bó tay và chuy?n cô lên b?nh vi?n trung tâm thành ph? d? các chuyên gia ch?a tr?. Ti?n si Howard Kelly du?c m?i khám. Khi nghe tên d?a ch? c?a b?nh nhân, m?t tia sáng loé lên trong m?t ông. Ông d?ng b?t d?y và di d?n phòng b?nh nhân và nh?n ra cô bé ngày nào ngay l?p t?c. Ông dã g?ng s?c c?u du?c cô gái này. Sau th?i gian dài, can b?nh c?a cô gái cung qua kh?i. Tru?c khi t? hoá don thanh toán vi?n phí du?c chuy?n d?n cô gái, ông dã vi?t gì dó lên bên c?nh.

Cô gái lo s? không dám m? ra, b?i vì cô ch?c ch?n r?ng cho d?n h?t d?i thì cô cung khó mà thanh toán h?t s? ti?n này.

Cu?i cùng cô can d?m nhìn, và chú ý d?n dòng ch? bên c?nh t? hoá don....

"Ðã thanh toán d? b?ng m?t ly s?a."

Sell Me an Hour of Your Time

Sell Me an Hour of Your Time

With a timid voice and idolizing eyes, the little boy greeted his father as he returned from work, "Daddy, how much do you make an hour?"

Greatly surprised, but giving his boy a glaring look, the father said, "Look, sonny, not even your mother knows that. Don't bother me now. I'm tired!"

"But, Daddy, just tell me please! How much do you make an hour?" the boy insisted.

The father, finally giving up, replied, "Twenty dollars per hour."

"Okay, Daddy. Could you loan me ten dollars?" the boy asked. Showing his restlessness and positively disturbed, the father yelled, "So that was the reason you asked how much I earn, right? Go to sleep and don't bother me anymore!"

It was already dark and the father was meditating on what he said and was feeling guilty. Maybe, he thought, his son wanted to buy something.

Finally, trying to ease his mind, the father went to his son's room. "Are you asleep, son?" asked the father.

"No, Daddy... why?" replied the boy, partially asleep.

"Here's the money you asked for earlier," the father said.

"Thanks, Daddy!" rejoiced the son, while putting his hand under his pillow and removing some money. "Now I have enough! Now I have twenty dollars!" the boy said.

The father was gazing at his son, confused at what his son had just said.

"Daddy, could you sell me one hour of your time?"

The father: !!!

M?t ông b? u? o?i bu?c vào nhà sau m?t ngày làm vi?c v?t v?; d?a con trai nhìn b? b?ng c?p m?t ngu?ng m? và r?i r?t rè lên ti?ng: "B? oi, m?t gi? làm vi?c b? ki?m du?c bao nhiêu ti?n?"

M?c d?u r?t ng?c nhiên, ông b? cung tr?n tr?ng c?p m?t nhìn th?ng con, lên gi?ng: "Nhóc con à, ngay c? m? mày cung ch?ng bi?t n?a là... Ð?ng qu?y n?a. B? m?t l?m!"

Th?ng bé v?n níu l?y b? g?ng h?i: "B? à... B? c? nói cho con bi?t di mà! M?i gi? b? ki?m du?c bao nhiêu ti?n?"

Cu?i cùng ông b? cung dành ch?u thua và tr? l?i cho xong chuy?n: "20 USD m?t gi?."

Th?ng bé reo lên: "D?, b?... B? cho con mu?n 10 USD du?c không?"

V?a m?t v?a khó ch?u, ông b? quát tu?ng lên: "À, th? ra t? nãy t?i gi? c? lèo nhèo h?i b? di làm du?c bao nhiêu ti?n là vì v?y, ph?i không? Ði ng? di, d?ng qu?y r?y b? n?a!"

T?i hôm dó, sau khi t?m r?a và com nu?c xong, ông b? nghi l?i chuy?n v?a x?y ra và c?m th?y h?i h?n. Ông nghi ch?c th?ng bé c?n ti?n d? mua m?t món gì dó... Ð? cho d?u óc du?c thanh th?n tru?c khi di ng?, ông l?ng l? bu?c vào phòng con, kh? g?i: "Con à... Ng? chua?"

M?c d?u dang ngái ng?, th?ng bé cung lên ti?ng: "D?, chua... Có gì không b??"

Ông b? tr? l?i: "B? cho con 10 USD lúc nãy con h?i mu?n b? dó."

Th?ng bé thò tay mò m?m du?i g?i, l?y ra m?t ít ti?n, r?i h?n h? lên ti?ng: "Cám on b?! Bây gi? thì con d? ti?n r?i. Con dã có 20 USD!"

Ông b? m? to m?t tr?ng tr?ng nhìn d?a con trong ng?c nhiên và h?i h?n khi nghe nó nói ti?p: "B? à... B? bán cho con m?t gi? c?a b? du?c không?"

L?i k?t: Tôi ch?t bàng hoàng! Tôi d?t mình vào hoàn c?nh này và t? nghi không bi?t ph?i tr? l?i con tôi nhu th? nào. Lúc nào tôi cung b?n r?n toan tính mà không nh?n ra ý nghia dích th?c nh?ng gì con cái mong d?i ? noi tôi.

Simon's Papa by Guy de Maupassant

Simon's Papa

by Guy de Maupassant

Noon had just struck. The school door opened and the youngsters darted out, jostling each other in their haste to get out quickly. But instead of promptly dispersing and going home to dinner as usual, they stopped a few paces off, broke up into knots, and began whispering.

The fact was that, that morning, Simon, the son of La Blanchotte, had, for the first time, attended school.

They had all of them in their families heard talk of La Blanchotte; and, although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves treated her with a somewhat disdainful compassion, which the children had imitated without in the least knowing why.

As for Simon himself, they did not know him, for he never went out, and did not run about with them in the streets of the village, or along the banks of the river. And they did not care for him; so it was with a certain delight, mingled with considerable astonishment, that they met and repeated to each other what had been said by a lad of fourteen or fifteen who appeared to know all about it, so sagaciously did he wink. "You know--Simon--well, he has no papa."

Just then La Blanchotte's son appeared in the doorway of the school.

He was seven or eight years old, rather pale, very neat, with a timid and almost awkward manner.

He was starting home to his mother's house when the groups of his schoolmates, whispering and watching him with the mischievous and heartless eyes of children bent upon playing a nasty trick, gradually closed in around him and ended by surrounding him altogether. There he stood in their midst, surprised and embarrassed, not understanding what they were going to do with him. But the lad who had brought the news, puffed up with the success he had met with already, demanded:

"What is your name, you?"

He answered: "Simon."

"Simon what?" retorted the other.

The child, altogether bewildered, repeated: "Simon."

The lad shouted at him: "One is named Simon something--that is not a name--Simon indeed."

The child, on the brink of tears, replied for the third time:

"My name is Simon."

The urchins began to laugh. The triumphant tormentor cried: "You can see plainly that he has no papa."

A deep silence ensued. The children were dumfounded by this extraordinary, impossible, monstrous thing--a boy who had not a papa; they looked upon him as a phenomenon, an unnatural being, and they felt that hitherto inexplicable contempt of their mothers for La Blanchotte growing upon them. As for Simon, he had leaned against a tree to avoid falling, and he remained as if prostrated by an irreparable disaster. He sought to explain, but could think of nothing-to say to refute this horrible charge that he had no papa. At last he shouted at them quite recklessly: "Yes, I have one."

"Where is he?" demanded the boy.

Simon was silent, he did not know. The children roared, tremendously excited; and those country boys, little more than animals, experienced that cruel craving which prompts the fowls of a farmyard to destroy one of their number as soon as it is wounded. Simon suddenly espied a little neighbor, the son of a widow, whom he had seen, as he himself was to be seen, always alone with his mother.

"And no more have you," he said; "no more have you a papa."

"Yes," replied the other, "I have one."

"Where is he?" rejoined Simon.

"He is dead," declared the brat, with superb dignity; "he is in the cemetery, is my papa."

A murmur of approval rose among the little wretches as if this fact of possessing a papa dead in a cemetery had caused their comrade to grow big enough to crush the other one who had no papa at all. And these boys, whose fathers were for the most part bad men, drunkards, thieves, and who beat their wives, jostled each other to press closer and closer, as though they, the legitimate ones, would smother by their pressure one who was illegitimate.

The boy who chanced to be next Simon suddenly put his tongue out at him with a mocking air and shouted at him:

"No papa! No papa!"

Simon seized him by the hair with both hands and set to work to disable his legs with kicks, while he bit his cheek ferociously. A tremendous struggle ensued between the two combatants, and Simon found himself beaten, torn, bruised, rolled on the ground in the midst of the ring of applauding schoolboys. As he arose, mechanically brushing with his hand his little blouse all covered with dust, some one shouted at him:

"Go and tell your papa."

Then he felt a great sinking at his heart. They were stronger than he was, they had beaten him, and he had no answer to give them, for he knew well that it was true that he had no papa. Full of pride, he attempted for some moments to struggle against the tears which were choking him. He had a feeling of suffocation, and then without any sound he commenced to weep, with great shaking sobs. A ferocious joy broke out among his enemies, and, with one accord, just like savages in their fearful festivals, they took each other by the hand and danced round him in a circle, repeating as a refrain:

"No papa! No papa!"

But suddenly Simon ceased sobbing. He became ferocious. There were stones under his feet; he picked them up and with all his strength hurled them at his tormentors. Two or three were struck and rushed off yelling, and so formidable did he appear that the rest became panic-stricken. Cowards, as the mob always is in presence of an exasperated man, they broke up and fled. Left alone, the little fellow without a father set off running toward the fields, for a recollection had been awakened in him which determined his soul to a great resolve. He made up his mind to drown himself in the river.

He remembered, in fact, that eight days before, a poor devil who begged for his livelihood had thrown himself into the water because he had no more money. Simon had been there when they fished him out again; and the wretched man, who usually seemed to him so miserable, and ugly, had then struck him as being so peaceful with his pale cheeks, his long drenched beard, and his open eyes full of calm. The bystanders had said:

"He is dead."

And some one had said:

"He is quite happy now."

And Simon wished to drown himself also, because he had no father, just like the wretched being who had no money.

He reached the water and watched it flowing. Some fish were sporting briskly in the clear stream and occasionally made a little bound and caught the flies flying on the surface. He stopped crying in order to watch them, for their maneuvers interested him greatly. But, at intervals, as in a tempest intervals of calm alternate suddenly with tremendous gusts of wind, which snap off the trees and then lose themselves in the horizon, this thought would return to him with intense pain:

"I am going to drown myself because I have no papa."

It was very warm, fine weather. The pleasant sunshine warmed the grass. The water shone like a mirror. And Simon enjoyed some minutes of happiness, of that languor which follows weeping, and felt inclined to fall asleep there upon the grass in the warm sunshine.

A little green frog leaped from under his feet. He endeavored to catch it. It escaped him. He followed it and lost it three times in succession. At last he caught it by one of its hind legs and began to laugh as he saw the efforts the creature made to escape. It gathered itself up on its hind legs and then with a violent spring suddenly stretched them out as stiff as two bars; while it beat the air with its front legs as though they were hands, its round eyes staring in their circle of yellow. It reminded him of a toy made of straight slips of wood nailed zigzag one on the other; which by a similar movement regulated the movements of the little soldiers fastened thereon. Then he thought of his home, and then of his mother, and, overcome by sorrow, he again began to weep. A shiver passed over him. He knelt down and said his prayers as before going to bed. But he was unable to finish them, for tumultuous, violent sobs shook his whole frame. He no longer thought, he no longer saw anything around him, and was wholly absorbed in crying.

Suddenly a heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder, and a rough voice asked him:

"What is it that causes you so much grief, my little man?"

Simon turned round. A tall workman with a beard and black curly hair was staring at him good-naturedly. He answered with his eyes and throat full of tears:

"They beat me--because--I--I have no--papa--no papa."

"What!" said the man, smiling; "why, everybody has one."

The child answered painfully amid his spasms of grief:

"But I--I--I have none."

Then the workman became serious. He had recognized La Blanchotte's son, and, although himself a new arrival in the neighborhood, he had a vague idea of her history.

"Well," said he, "console yourself, my boy, and come with me home to your mother. They will give you--a papa."

And so they started on the way, the big fellow holding the little fellow by the hand, and the man smiled, for he was not sorry to see this Blanchotte, who was, it was said, one of the prettiest girls of the countryside, and, perhaps, he was saying to himself, at the bottom of his heart, that a lass who had erred might very well err again.

They arrived in front of a very neat little white house.

"There it is," exclaimed the child, and he cried, "Mamma!"

A woman appeared, and the workman instantly left off smiling, for he saw at once that there was no fooling to be done with the tall pale girl who stood austerely at her door as though to defend from one man the threshold of that house where she had already been betrayed by another. Intimidated, his cap in his hand, he stammered out:

"See, madame, I have brought you back your little boy who had lost himself near the river."

But Simon flung his arms about his mother's neck and told her, as he again began to cry:

"No, mamma, I wished to drown myself, because the others had beaten me-- had beaten me--because I have no papa."

A burning redness covered the young woman's cheeks; and, hurt to the quick, she embraced her child passionately, while the tears coursed down her face. The man, much moved, stood there, not knowing how to get away.

But Simon suddenly ran to him and said:

"Will you be my papa?"

A deep silence ensued. La Blanchotte, dumb and tortured with shame, leaned herself against the wall, both her hands upon her heart. The child, seeing that no answer was made him, replied:

"If you will not, I shall go back and drown myself."

The workman took the matter as a jest and answered, laughing:

"Why, yes, certainly I will."

"What is your name," went on the child, "so that I may tell the others when they wish to know your name?"

"Philip," answered the man:

Simon was silent a moment so that he might get the name well into his head; then he stretched out his arms, quite consoled, as he said:

"Well, then, Philip, you are my papa."

The workman, lifting him from the ground, kissed him hastily on both cheeks, and then walked away very quickly with great strides. When the child returned to school next day he was received with a spiteful laugh, and at the end of school, when the lads were on the point of recommencing, Simon threw these words at their heads as he would have done a stone: "He is named Philip, my papa."

Yells of delight burst out from all sides.

"Philip who? Philip what? What on earth is Philip? Where did you pick up your Philip?"

Simon answered nothing; and, immovable in his faith, he defied them with his eye, ready to be martyred rather than fly before them. The school master came to his rescue and he returned home to his mother.

During three months, the tall workman, Philip, frequently passed by La Blanchotte's house, and sometimes he made bold to speak to her when he saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house. Notwithstanding, being, like all men, a bit of a coxcomb, he imagined that she was often rosier than usual when she chatted with him.

But a lost reputation is so difficult to regain and always remains so fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve of La Blanchotte, they already gossiped in the neighborhood.

As for Simon he loved his new papa very much, and walked with him nearly every evening when the day's work was done. He went regularly to school, and mixed with great dignity with his schoolfellows without ever answering them back.

One day, however, the lad who had first attacked him said to him:

"You have lied. You have not a papa named Philip."

"Why do you say that?" demanded Simon, much disturbed.

The youth rubbed his hands. He replied:

"Because if you had one he would be your mamma's husband."

Simon was confused by the truth of this reasoning; nevertheless, he retorted:

"He is my papa, all the same."

"That can very well be," exclaimed the urchin with a sneer, "but that is not being your papa altogether."

La Blanchotte's little one bowed his head and went off dreaming in the direction of the forge belonging to old Loizon, where Philip worked. This forge was as though buried beneath trees. It was very dark there; the red glare of a formidable furnace alone lit up with great flashes five blacksmiths; who hammered upon their anvils with a terrible din. They were standing enveloped in flame, like demons, their eyes fixed on the red-hot iron they were pounding; and their dull ideas rose and fell with their hammers.

Simon entered without being noticed, and went quietly to pluck his friend by the sleeve. The latter turned round. All at once the work came to a standstill, and all the men looked on, very attentive. Then, in the midst of this unaccustomed silence, rose the slender pipe of Simon:

"Say, Philip, the Michaude boy told me just now that you were not altogether my papa."

"Why not?" asked the blacksmith,

The child replied with all innocence:

"Because you are not my mamma's husband."

No one laughed. Philip remained standing, leaning his forehead upon the back of his great hands, which supported the handle of his hammer standing upright upon the anvil. He mused. His four companions watched him, and Simon, a tiny mite among these giants, anxiously waited. Suddenly, one of the smiths, answering to the sentiment of all, said to Philip:

"La Blanchotte is a good, honest girl, and upright and steady in spite of her misfortune, and would make a worthy wife for an honest man."

"That is true," remarked the three others.

The smith continued:

"Is it the girl's fault if she went wrong? She had been promised marriage; and I know more than one who is much respected to-day, and who sinned every bit as much."

"That is true," responded the three men in chorus.

He resumed:

"How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to bring up her child all alone, and how she has wept all these years she has never gone out except to church, God only knows."

"This is also true," said the others.

Then nothing was heard but the bellows which fanned the fire of the furnace. Philip hastily bent himself down to Simon:

"Go and tell your mother that I am coming to speak to her this evening." Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work, and with a single blow the five hammers again fell upon their anvils. Thus they wrought the iron until nightfall, strong, powerful, happy, like contented hammers. But just as the great bell of a cathedral resounds upon feast days above the jingling of the other bells, so Philip's hammer, sounding above the rest, clanged second after second with a deafening uproar. And he stood amid the flying sparks plying his trade vigorously.

The sky was full of stars as he knocked at La Blanchotte's door. He had on his Sunday blouse, a clean shirt, and his beard was trimmed. The young woman showed herself upon the threshold, and said in a grieved tone:

"It is ill to come thus when night has fallen, Mr. Philip."

He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her.

She resumed:

"You understand, do you not, that it will not do for me to be talked about again."

"What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!"

No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of the room the sound of a falling body. He entered quickly; and Simon, who had gone to bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that his mother murmured softly. Then, all at once, he found himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean arms, exclaimed:

"You will tell them, your schoolmates, that your papa is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you any harm."

On the morrow, when the school was full and lessons were about to begin, little Simon stood up, quite pale with trembling lips:

"My papa," said he in a clear voice, "is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and he has promised to pull the ears of all who does me any harm."

This time no one laughed, for he was very well known, was Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and was a papa of whom any one in the world would have been proud.

Guy de Maupassant

B? c?a Simon

D?ch gi? :Lê H?ng Sâm

Chuông báo trua v?a d?t. C?a tru?ng m?, và b?n tr? con chen l?n nhau ùa ra cho nhanh. Nhung chúng không mau t?n mát v? nhà an trua nhu m?i ngày mà còn d?ng l?i, cách dó vài bu?c, t? t?p thành nhóm, thì thào to nh?.

Ch?ng là sáng nay, Simon, th?ng con nhà ch? Blanchotte l?n d?u tiên d?n l?p h?c.

? nhà chúng d?u dã t?ng nghe nói d?n ch? Blanchotte; và m?c dù ngoài ch?n công chúng, ngu?i ta ni?m n? v?i ch? nhung riêng gi?a các bà m? v?i nhau thì cách các bà m? d?i dãi v?i ch? có cái v? ái ng?i hoi khinh mi?t, di?u này lan sang c? nh?ng d?a tr? tuy chúng ch?ng hi?u vì sao.

Còn v? Simon thì chúng không quen bi?t nó, vì nó không di choi bao gi?, và không lêu l?ng v?i chúng ngoài du?ng làng ho?c trên b? sông. B?i v?y chúng ch?ng ua nó cho l?m; và chúng v?a thinh thích v?a h?t s?c ng?c nhiên dón nghe và truy?n l?i cho nhau câu nói c?a m?t th?ng mu?i b?n mu?i lam tu?i, th?ng này xem ch?ng am hi?u nhi?u di?u vì nó c? nhay nháy m?t m?t cách tinh ranh:

-Chúng mày bi?t ch?...th?ng Simon......này, nó không có b? dâu nhé.

Ð?n lu?t th?ng bé con ch? Blanchotte xu?t hi?n trên th?m nhà tru?ng. Nó d? b?y tám tu?i, hoi xanh xao, r?t s?ch s? và nhút nhát, g?n nhu v?ng d?i.

Nó d?nh v? nhà thì t?p các b?n h?c c?a nó v?n c? thì thào v?a nhìn nó v?i c?p m?t ranh mãnh và tai ác c?a nh?ng d?a tr? dang nghi?n ng?m m?t v? gì x?u, xúm quanh nó d?n d?n và cu?i cùng thì vây h?n l?y nó. Nó d?ng ngây ra gi?a b?n chúng, ng?c nhiên và lúng túng không hi?u ngu?i ta s?p làm gì mình. Nhung cái th?ng v?a dua tin ra, hãnh di?n vì dã du?c hoan nghênh, h?i nó:

-Mày tên gì?

Nó tr? l?i:

-Simon.

-Simon gì? - Th?ng bé kia h?i ti?p.

Chú bé nh?c l?i, h?t s?c b?i r?i:

-Simon.

Th?ng kia hét lên v?i chú:

-Ngu?i ta tên là Simon gì kia....Simon... th? cóc ph?i là tên...

Và chú, s?p phát khóc tr? l?i l?n th? ba:

-T? tên là Simon.

T?i tr? cu?i. Th?ng kia d?c th?ng c?t cao gi?ng:

-Chúng mày th?y rõ là nó không có b? nhé.

T?t c? l?ng ng?t. Nh?ng d?a tr? kinh ng?c vì cái di?u k? d?, quái d?n, không th? có du?c ?y - m?t th?ng bé không có b?; chúng nhìn em nhu m?t hi?n tu?ng kì quái, m?t sinh v?t ngoài l? c?a t?o hoá và chúng c?m th?y l?n lên trong chúng ni?m khinh b? - cho d?n b?y gi? chua gi?i thích n?i - nhu m? c?a chúng d?i v?i ch? Blanchotte.

Còn Simon, em t?a mình vào m?t thân cây cho kh?i ngã và em nhu r?ng r?i vì m?t tai ho? không phuong c?u ch?a. Em tìm cách bày t?. Nhung em ch?ng ki?m n?i di?u gì d? tr? l?i chúng nó, d? c?i chính cái di?u ghê g?m là em không có b?. Cu?i cùng, ngu?i nh?t nh?t, em kêu hú ho? v?i chúng.

-Có, tao có b?.

Th?ng kia h?i:

-B? mày dâu?

Simon im b?t; em không bi?t. B?n tr? cu?i r?t kích d?ng; và nh?ng d?a con c?a ru?ng d?ng này, chúng g?n gui v?i súc v?t hon, chúng c?m th?y cái nhu c?u tàn ác thúc d?y nh?ng con gà trong sân chan nuôi k?t li?u h?n m?t con trong b?y khi con này v?a b? thuong. B?ng Simon ch?t th?y th?ng bé hàng xóm, con m?t bà goá, em v?n th?y th?ng này, y nhu em, lúc nào cung thui th?i m?t mình v?i m?. Em nói:

-Th? c? mày n?a, mày cung không có b?.

Th?ng kia dáp:

- Có ch?, tao có b?.

Simon v?n :

-B? mày dâu?

-B? tao ch?t r?i. - Th?ng bé kia tuyên b? h?t s?c t? hào. - B? tao ? ngoài nghia d?a ?y.

M?t ti?ng rì rào tán thu?ng n?i lên gi?a dám tr?, du?ng nhu cái s? ki?n có b? ch?t ? ngoài nghia d?a dã làm cho b?n chúng l?n cao lên d? dè b?p cái th?ng kia ch?ng có b? gì h?t. Và b?n lau nhau này, mà nh?ng ngu?i b? ph?n l?n d?u hung ác, ru?u chè, tr?m c?p, và nghi?t ngã v?i v?, chúng c? chen chúc xích g?n nhau thêm mãi du?ng nhu chúng, nh?ng k? h?p pháp mu?n bóp ngh?t cái d?a ? ngoài vòng lu?t l?.

B?t thình lình, m?t d?a ? sát Simon, b?ng thè lu?i ra m?t cách tinh quái và hét lên v?i em: "Không có b?! Không có b?!".

Simon túm l?y tóc nó b?ng c? hai tay và dá liên h?i vào chân nó, trong khi nó c?n nghi?n vào má chú. Có m?t s? v?t l?n kinh kh?ng. Hai d?u s? du?c lôi r?i nhau ra, và Simon b? dánh toi t?, ê ?m, lan lóc du?i d?t, ? gi?a t?i tr? d?ng quây tròn, reo hò hoan hô. Th?y em v?a d?y v?a l?y tay ph?i m?t cách máy móc chi?c áo khoác nh? l?m b?i bê b?t, m?t d?a nào dó hét lên b?o em:

-V? nói v?i b? mày ?y.

Th? là em c?m th?y trong lòng có m?t s? s?p d? ghê g?m. Chúng nó kh?e hon em, chúng dã dánh d?p em và em không th? nào ch?ng l?i chúng du?c vì em c?m th?y rõ là qu? th?t em không có b?. Ð?y kiêu hãnh, em c? tranh d?u vài giây v?i nh?ng gi?t nu?c m?t làm em ngh?n th?. Em ? lên m?t cái, r?i không gào thét, em khóc n?c lên t?ng h?i dài khi?n ngu?i rung lên n?c n? .

Th? là m?t ni?m thích thú d? t?n bung lên trong các d?ch th? c?a em, và t? nhiên, cung nhu nh?ng ngu?i man r? trong các con vui kinh kh?ng c?a h?, chúng n?m l?y tay nhau, v?a nh?y nhót vòng quanh em, v?a l?p di l?p l?i m?t di?p khúc: "Không có b?! Không có b?!".

Nhung b?t thình lình Simon nín khóc. M?t con diên khùng khi?n em cu?ng d?i. Du?i chân em có dá; em nh?t lên và l?y h?t s?c mình ném vào nh?ng k? hành h? em. Hai ba d?a gì dó b? ném trúng, v?a kêu v?a b? ch?y; và trông em d? d?i d?n m?c nh?ng d?a khác phát ho?ng. Hèn nhát, h?t nhu dám dông bao gi? cung hèn nhát tru?c m?t ngu?i ph?n n?, chúng b? tr?n toán lo?n.

Còn l?i m?t mình, em bé không có b? ch?y v? phía các cánh d?ng, vì em ch?t nh? m?t k? ni?m, khi?n trong óc em n?y ra m?t quy?t d?nh l?n. Em mu?n gieo mình xu?ng sông cho ch?t du?i.

Qu? th?c em nh? l?i cách dây tám ngày, m?t k? kh?n khó v?n di an xin dã tr?m mình ? sông vì không còn ti?n. Simon có m?t ? d?y lúc ngu?i ta v?t bác ta lên và cái nhà bác t?i nghi?p thu?ng ngày em v?n th?y thi?u não, b?n th?u và x?u xí, lúc dó dã khi?n em s?ng s?t vì cái v? an tinh c?a bác v?i b? m?t xanh tái, v?i chòm râu dài, u?t, và c?p m?t m?, r?t bình th?n. Xung quanh h? b?o : "H?n ch?t r?i". M?t ngu?i nào dó nói thêm: "Bây gi? h?n th?t sung su?ng". Và Simon cung mu?n tr?m mình vì em không có b?, cung nhu cái bác kh?n kh? kia, bác ta không có ti?n.

Em d?n sát bên m?t nu?c và nhìn nu?c ch?y. Vài con cá l?i loang quang, thoan tho?t, gi?a giòng nu?c trong, lúc lúc l?i kh? nh?y lên d?p nh?ng con ru?i lu?n trên m?t sông. Em nín khóc d? xem cá, vì em r?t thích cái trò c?a chúng. Nhung th?nh tho?ng cung nhu gi?a lúc bão l?ng b?ng d?i lên t?ng con gió m?nh rung chuy?n cây c?i r?i tan di mãi ch?n chân tr?i, cái ý nghi này l?i tr? v? v?i em, dau nhói: "Mình s? nh?y xu?ng sông cho ch?t du?i vì mình không có b?".

Tr?i r?t ?m , r?t d? ch?u. Ánh n?ng êm d?m su?i ?m c?. Nu?c l?p lánh nhu guong. Và Simon có nh?ng phút giây khoan khoái, có cái c?m giác u? o?i thu?ng theo sau khi khóc lóc, em r?t thèm du?c n?m ng? ? dây, trên m?t c?, du?i n?ng ?m.

M?t chú nhái con màu xanh l?c nh?y du?i chân em. Em d?nh b?t nó. Nó thoát du?c. Em du?i theo nó và v? h?t ba l?n li?n. Cu?i cùng em tóm l?y hai d?u chân sau c?a nó và em b?t cu?i nhìn con v?t c? gi?y gi?a thoát thân. Nó thu mình l?i trên dôi c?ng l?n, r?i b?t ph?t lên ......

Em ch?ng nghi n?a, em ch?ng nhìn th?y gì n?a và em ch? khóc mà thôi.

B?ng nhiên m?t bàn tay ch?c n?ch d?t lên vai em và m?t gi?ng ?m ?m h?i em:

- Có di?u gì làm chú bu?n phi?n nhi?u d?n th?, chú bé?

Simon quay l?i.M?t bác th? cao l?n, râu tóc den, quan dang nhìn chú v?i v? nhân h?u. Chú tr? l?i, m?t d?m l?, gi?ng d?y nu?c m?t:

-Chúng nó dánh cháu... vì.. cháu... cháu... không có.... b?... không có b?.

-Sao th? cháu - ngu?i dàn ông m?m cu?i b?o - ai mà ch?ng có b?.

Em bé nói ti?p m?t cách khó khan, gi?a nh?ng con n?c gi?t bu?n t?i:

-Cháu...cháu không có b?.

Bác th? b?ng nghiêm m?t l?i; bác nh?n ra th?ng bé con nhà ch? Blanchotte, và m?c dù m?i d?n vùng này, bác cung dã mong manh bi?t chuy?n ch?. Bác nói:

-Thôi nào, nguôi nào, cháu bé, r?i di v?i chú v? nhà m?. Ngu?i ta s? cho cháu... m?t ông b?.

H? lên du?ng, ngu?i l?n d?t tay ngu?i bé và bác dàn ông l?i m?m cu?i vì bác ch?ng h? ph?t ý d?n g?p ch? Blanchotte, nghe d?n ch? là m?t trong nh?ng cô gái d?p nh?t vùng, và trong thâm tâm bác cung t? nh? th?m r?ng m?t tu?i xuân dã l?m l? r?t có th? l? l?m n?a.

H? d?n tru?c m?t ngôi nhà nh?, quét vôi tr?ng, h?t s?c s?ch s?.

Ð?a tr? nói:

- Ðây r?i.- Và em g?i to : - M? oi!

M?t thi?u ph? xu?t hi?n và ngu?i th? b?ng t?t n? cu?i, vì bác hi?u ra ngay là không b?n c?t du?c n?a v?i cô gái cao l?n, xanh xao, d?ng nghiêm ngh? tru?c c?a nhà mình, nhu mu?n c?m dàn ông bu?c lên th?m ngôi nhà noi cô dã b? m?t k? khác l?a d?i. E dè, b? mu c?m tay, bác ?p úng:

-Ðây thua bà, tôi d?t v? tr? bà cháu bé b? l?c ? g?n sông.

Nhung Simon nh?y lên ôm l?y c? m? và v?a nói v?i m?, v?a khóc tr? l?i:

-Không m? ?, con mu?n nh?y xu?ng sông cho ch?t du?i, vì chúng nó dánh con... dánh con... t?i con không có b?.

Hai má thi?u ph? d? ?ng và tê tái d?n t?n xuong tu?, ch? ôm con hôn ?y hôn d?, trong khi nu?c m?t lã chã tuôn roi. Ngu?i dàn ông xúc d?ng v?n d?ng dó, không bi?t b? di th? nào cho ph?i. Nhung Simon b?ng ch?y d?n bên bác, nói v?i bác:

-Chú có mu?n làm b? cháu không ?.

Im b?t nhu t?. Ch? Blanchotte l?ng ng?t và qu?n qu?i vì h? th?n, d?a ngu?i vào tu?ng, hai tay ôm l?y ng?c. Th?y ngu?i ta không tr? l?i mình, em bé nói ti?p:

-N?u chú không mu?n, cháu quay tr? l?i sông cho ch?t du?i.

Bác th? coi nhu chuy?n dùa và cu?i dáp:

-Có ch?, chú mu?n v?y.

Em bé li?n h?i:

-Th? chú tên là gì, d? cháu tr? l?i chúng nó khi chúng nó mu?n bi?t tên chú.

-Philip.- Ngu?i dàn ông dáp.

Simon im l?ng m?t giây, d? ghi nh? cái tên ?y trong óc, r?i, hoàn toàn khuây kho?, em chìa hai tay nói:

-Th? nhé! Chú Philip, chú là b? cháu d?y.

Bác th? nh?c b?ng em lên, d?t ng?t hôn vào hai má em, r?i s?i t?ng bu?c dài, rút lui r?t nhanh.

Ngày hôm sau, khi em d?n tru?ng, m?t tràng cu?i ác ý dón em, và lúc tan h?c, khi th?ng kia mu?n l?p l?i chuy?n cu, Simon ném vào m?t nó nh?ng l?i nói này, nhu ném m?t hòn dá:

-B? tao ?y, b? tao tên là Philip.

T? phía b?t lên nh?ng ti?ng la hét thích thú:

- Philip là gì?... Philip nào? ... Philip là cái gì?...mày l?y ? dâu ra Philip c?a mày th??

Simon không tr? l?i gì h?t; và m?t m?c tin tu?ng s?t dá, em dua m?t thách th?c chúng, s?n sàng ch?u hành h? còn hon là tr?n ch?y chúng. Th?y giáo gi?i thoát cho em và em tr? v? v?i m?.

Su?t ba tháng ròng, bác th? cao l?n thu?ng t?t qua nhà ch? Blanchotte, và dôi khi bác dánh b?o nói chuy?n v?i ch?, khi th?y ch? ng?i khâu bên c?a s?. Ch? tr? l?i bác nhã nh?n, lúc nào cung nghiêm trang, ch?ng bao gi? cu?i v?i bác và không bao gi? d? bác vào nhà. Tuy nhiên, cung h?m mình dôi chút nhu m?i ngu?i dàn ông, bác c? tu?ng tu?ng r?ng ch? hay d? m?t hon thu?ng l?, m?i khi trò chuy?n v?i bác.

Nhung m?t thanh danh dã b? mai m?t th?t khó mà gây d?ng l?i và cung r?t d?i mong manh, d?n m?c, m?c dù ch? Blanchotte ng?i ngùng gi? gìn, trong vùng dã th?y d?n d?i.

Còn v? Simon thì em r?t yêu ông b? này và h?u nhu chi?u nào, xong vi?c em cung di choi v?i b?. Em d?n tru?ng d?u d?n và di qua gi?a các b?n h?c, h?t s?c dàng hoàng, không bao gi? dáp l?i chúng.

Th? mà m?t hôm cái th?ng kh?n n?n dã t?n công em d?u tiên b?o v?i em:

-Mày nói d?i, mày ch?ng có b? nào tên là Philip.

-Sao l?i th?? - Simon r?t xúc d?ng h?i.

Th?ng kia xoa hai tay vào nhau. Nó ti?p:

-B?i vì n?u mày có b? thì ông ?y ph?i là ch?ng c?a m? mày.

Simon m?t bình tinh tru?c tính chính xác c?a l?p lu?n ?y, tuy v?y em v?n tr? l?i:

-Nhung c? là b? c?a t?.

Th?ng kia cu?i kh?y b?o :

-Có th? l?m, nhung không ph?i b? c?a mày h?n hoi.

Chú bé con ch? Blanchotte cúi d?u xu?ng và v?a mo màng v?a di v? phía lò rèn c?a c? Loison, noi bác Philip làm vi?c.

Cái lò rèn này nhu ?n mình du?i bóng cây. Bên trong r?t t?i, ch? có ánh l?a d? c?a m?t cái lò c?c l?n b?p bùng chi?u sáng nam bác th? rèn d? cánh tay tr?n dang n?n xu?ng de ?m ?m d? d?i. H? d?ng, h?ng ánh sáng d? nhu qu? th?n, m?t nhìn cham cham vào thanh s?t nóng b?ng mình dang kh?o d?; và ni?m suy tu?ng n?ng n? c?a h? lên xu?ng theo nh?p búa.

Simon vào, không ai trông th?y, và em rón rén d?n kéo áo bác th?. Bác quay l?i. Công vi?c b?ng d?ng, c? m?y ngu?i dàn ông cùng nhìn, h?t s?c cham chú.

Th? là, gi?a s? im l?ng b?t thu?ng dó, c?t lên gi?ng nói nh? nh? c?a Simon:

-B? Philip này, lúc nãy th?ng con bác Michot b?o con r?ng b? không ph?i là b? c?a con h?n hoi.

Bác th? h?i:

-Sao l?i th??

Chú bé tr? l?i v?i t?t c? s? ngây tho c?a chú:

-Vì b? không ph?i là ch?ng c?a m?.

Không ai cu?i h?t. Philip v?n d?ng, trán úp vào mu nh?ng bàn tay to l?n t? ? cán búa d?ng trên de. Bác mo màng. B?n ngu?i b?n nhìn bác, và bé tí xíu gi?a nh?ng v? kh?ng l? này, Simon lo l?ng ch? d?i. Ð?t nhiên bác th? rèn l?n tu?i nh?t, dáp ?ng ý nghi c?a t?t c? m?i ngu?i nói v?i Philip:

-Dù th? nào, Blanchotte v?n là m?t cô gái t?t b?ng, trung h?u và m?c d?u g?p chuy?n không hay, v?n can d?m và n?n n?p, cô ?y s? là m?t ngu?i v? x?ng dáng, v?i m?t ngu?i dàn ông t? t?.

-Ðúng nhu v?y- Ba ngu?i kia nói.

Bác th? ti?p:

-Cái cô gái ?y, n?u có l?m l?, thì l?i ? cô chang? H? h?a s? cu?i cô, và tôi bi?t kh?i bà khác gi? dây r?t du?c coi tr?ng cung t?ng làm nhu th?.

-Ðúng nhu v?y. - Ba ngu?i dàn ông d?ng thanh dáp .

Bác l?i ti?p:

-Th?t t?i nghi?p, cô ta dã v?t v? bi?t bao nhiêu d? m?t mình nuôi d?y con và dã khóc bi?t bao nhiêu t? cái ngày ch? bu?c ra kh?i nhà d? d?n nhà th?, nh?ng di?u ?y ch? có riêng Chúa bi?t mà thôi.

-Cung l?i dúng nhu v?y - Nh?ng ngu?i khác nói .

Th? là ngu?i ta ch? còn nghe th?y ti?ng b? th?i l?a trong lò. Philip d?t ng?t cúi xu?ng v?i Simon:

- V? b?o v?i m? là t?i nay b? s? d?n nói chuy?n v?i m?.

R?i bác n?m vai em bé d?y ra ngoài.

Bác tr? l?i v?i công vi?c, và nam lu?i búa n?n xu?ng de cùng m?t nhát d?p. H? c? rèn nhu v?y cho d?n t?i, m?nh m?, tuoi vui, cung nhu nh?ng lu?i búa hài lòng tho? mãn. Và gi?ng qu? chuông l?n ti?ng tr?m c?a m?t ngôi nhà th?, trong các ngày l? vang d?i lên trên ti?ng reo c?a nh?ng qu? chuông khác, lu?i búa c?a Philip cung v?y , nó át ti?ng ?m ?m c?a nh?ng lu?i búa khác, và c? t?ng giây l?i giáng xu?ng r?n ràng inh ?i. Và bác, m?t sáng r?c, d?ng gi?a các tia l?a, rèn r?t say sua.

Tr?i d?y sao khi bác d?n gõ c?a nhà ch? Blanchotte. Bác m?c áo khoác ngày ch? nh?t, so mi m?i và râu tóc dã s?a sang. Thi?u ph? bu?c ra th?m và b?o bác v? phi?n mu?n:

-Thua ông Philip, ông d?n lúc dêm hôm th? này qu? th?c không ph?i l?m.

Bác mu?n tr? l?i, bác ?p úng và b?i r?i d?ng tru?c ch?. Ch? ti?p :

-Mà ông cung bi?t r?ng không nên d? ngu?i ta bàn tán v? tôi n?a.

Th? là bác nói, h?t s?c d?t ng?t:

-Thì có sao dâu n?u cô ch?u làm v? tôi!

Không ai tr? l?i bác, nhung bác tu?ng tu?ng nhu trong bóng t?i can phòng, có ngu?i g?c xu?ng. Bác bu?c vào th?t nhanh: và Simon n?m trên giu?ng, nghe th?y ti?ng hôn và m?y l?i m? thì th?m r?t kh?. R?i d?t nhiên, em th?y mình du?c b? b?ng lên trong tay bác và bác nh?c b?ng em trên hai cánh tay h? pháp, hét lên b?o em:

-Nói v?i các b?n h?c c?a con r?ng b? con là Philip Remy, bác th? rèn, và b? s? kéo tai t?t c? nh?ng d?a nào b?t n?t con.

Ngày hôm sau, th?y tru?ng dã dông ch?t và gi? h?c s?p b?t d?u, Simon d?ng d?y, m?t tái nh?t, môi run run: "B? t? ?y, - em nói rành r?t, - b? t? là Philip Remy, bác th? rèn, và b? t? h?a s? kéo tai t?t c? nh?ng d?a nào b?t n?t t?".

L?n này ch?ng ngu?i nào cu?i n?a, vì cái nhà bác Philip Remy, th? rèn, thì bi?t rõ l?m r?i, và d?y th?t là m?t ông b?, mà ai có du?c cung ph?i l?y làm t? hào

The Log - Guy De Maupassant

The Log

Guy De Maupassant

The drawing-room was small,full of heavy draperies and discreetly fragrant. A large fire burned in the grate and a solitary lamp at one end of the mantelpiece threw a soft light on the two persons who were talking.

She, the mistress of the house, was an old lady with white hair, but one of those old ladies whose unwrinkled skin is as smooth as the finest paper, and scented, impregnated with perfume, with the delicate essences which she had used in her bath for so many years.

He was a very old friend, who had never married, a constant friend, a companion in the journey of life, but nothing more.

They had not spoken for about a minute, and were both looking at the fire, dreaming of no matter what, in one of those moments of friendly silence between people who have no need to be constantly talking in order to be happy together, when suddenly a large log, a stump covered with burning roots, fell out. It fell over the firedogs into the drawing-room and rolled on to the carpet, scattering great sparks around it. The old lady, with a little scream, sprang to her feet to run away, while he kicked the log back on to the hearth and stamped out all the burning sparks with his boots.

When the disaster was remedied, there was a strong smell of burning, and, sitting down opposite to his friend, the man looked at her with a smile and said, as he pointed to the log:

"That is the reason why I never married."

She looked at him in astonishment, with the inquisitive gaze of women who wish to know everything, that eye which women have who are no longer very young,--in which a complex, and often roguish, curiosity is reflected, and she asked:

"How so?"

"Oh, it is a long story," he replied; "a rather sad and unpleasant story.

"My old friends were often surprised at the coldness which suddenly sprang up between one of my best friends whose Christian name was Julien, and myself. They could not understand how two such intimate and inseparable friends, as we had been, could suddenly become almost strangers to one another, and I will tell you the reason of it.

"He and I used to live together at one time. We were never apart, and the friendship that united us seemed so strong that nothing could break it.

"One evening when he came home, he told me that he was going to get married, and it gave me a shock as if he had robbed me or betrayed me. When a man's friend marries, it is all over between them. The jealous affection of a woman, that suspicious, uneasy and carnal affection, will not tolerate the sturdy and frank attachment, that attachment of the mind, of the heart, and that mutual confidence which exists between two men.

"You see, however great the love may be that unites them a man and a woman are always strangers in mind and intellect; they remain belligerents, they belong to different races. There must always be a conqueror and a conquered, a master and a slave; now the one, now the other--they are never two equals. They press each other's hands, those hands trembling with amorous passion; but they never press them with a long, strong, loyal pressure, with that pressure which seems to open hearts and to lay them bare in a burst of sincere, strong, manly affection. Philosophers of old, instead of marrying, and procreating as a consolation for their old age children, who would abandon them, sought for a good, reliable friend, and grew old with him in that communion of thought which can only exist between men.

"Well, my friend Julien married. His wife was pretty, charming, a little, curly-haired blonde, plump and lively, who seemed to worship him. At first I went but rarely to their house, feeling myself de trop. But, somehow, they attracted me to their home; they were constantly inviting me, and seemed very fond of me. Consequently, by degrees, I allowed myself to be allured by the charm of their life. I often dined with them, and frequently, when I returned home at night, thought that I would do as he had done, and get married, as my empty house now seemed very dull.

"They appeared to be very much in love, and were never apart.

"Well, one evening Julien wrote and asked me to go to dinner, and I naturally went.

"'My dear fellow,' he said, 'I must go out directly afterward on business, and I shall not be back until eleven o'clock; but I shall be back at eleven precisely, and I reckon on you to keep Bertha company.'

"The young woman smiled.

"'It was my idea,' she said, 'to send for you.'

"I held out my hand to her.

"'You are as nice as ever, I said, and I felt a long, friendly pressure of my fingers, but I paid no attention to it; so we sat down to dinner, and at eight o'clock Julien went out.

"As soon as he had gone, a kind of strange embarrassment immediately seemed to arise between his wife and me. We had never been alone together yet, and in spite of our daily increasing intimacy, this tete -a-tete placed us in a new position. At first I spoke vaguely of those indifferent matters with which one fills up an embarrassing silence, but she did not reply, and remained opposite to me with her head down in an undecided manner, as if she were thinking over some difficult subject, and as I was at a loss for small talk, I held my tongue. It is surprising how hard it is at times to find anything to say.

"And then also I felt something in the air, something I could not express, one of those mysterious premonitions that warn one of another person's secret intentions in regard to yourself, whether they be good or evil.

"That painful silence lasted some time, and then Bertha said to me:

"'Will you kindly put a log on the fire for it is going out.'

"So I opened the box where the wood was kept, which was placed just where yours is, took out the largest log and put it on top of the others, which were three parts burned, and then silence again reigned in the room.

"In a few minutes the log was burning so brightly that it scorched our faces, and the young woman raised her eyes to mine--eyes that had a strange look to me.

"'It is too hot now,' she said; 'let us go and sit on the sofa over there.'

"So we went and sat on the sofa, and then she said suddenly, looking me full in the face:

"'What would you do if a woman were to tell you that she was in love with you?'

"'Upon my word,' I replied, very much at a loss for an answer, 'I cannot foresee such a case; but it would depend very much upon the woman.'

"She gave a hard, nervous, vibrating laugh; one of those false laughs which seem as if they must break thin glass, and then she added: 'Men are never either venturesome or spiteful.' And, after a moment's silence, she continued: 'Have you ever been in love, Monsieur Paul?' I was obliged to acknowledge that I certainly had, and she asked me to tell her all about it. Whereupon I made up some story or other. She listened to me attentively, with frequent signs of disapproval and contempt, and then suddenly she said:

"'No, you understand nothing about the subject. It seems to me that real love must unsettle the mind, upset the nerves and distract the head; that it must--how shall I express it?--be dangerous, even terrible, almost criminal and sacrilegious; that it must be a kind of treason; I mean to say that it is bound to break laws, fraternal bonds, sacred obligations; when love is tranquil, easy, lawful and without dangers, is it really love?'

"I did not know what answer to give her, and I made this philosophical reflection to myself: 'Oh! female brain, here; indeed, you show yourself!'

"While speaking, she had assumed a demure saintly air; and, resting on the cushions, she stretched herself out at full length, with her head on my shoulder, and her dress pulled up a little so as to show her red stockings, which the firelight made look still brighter. In a minute or two she continued:

"'I suppose I have frightened you?' I protested against such a notion, and she leaned against my breast altogether, and without looking at me, she said: 'If I were to tell you that I love you, what would you do?'

"And before I could think of an answer, she had thrown her arms around my neck, had quickly drawn my head down, and put her lips to mine.

"Oh! My dear friend, I can tell you that I did not feel at all happy! What! deceive Julien? become the lover of this little, silly, wrong- headed, deceitful woman, who was, no doubt, terribly sensual, and whom her husband no longer satisfied.

To betray him continually, to deceive him, to play at being in love merely because I was attracted by forbidden fruit, by the danger incurred and the friendship betrayed! No, that did not suit me, but what was I to do? To imitate Joseph would be acting a very stupid and, moreover, difficult part, for this woman was enchanting in her perfidy, inflamed by audacity, palpitating and excited. Let the man who has never felt on his lips the warm kiss of a woman who is ready to give herself to him throw the first stone at me.

"Well, a minute more--you understand what I mean? A minute more, and--I should have been--no, she would have been!--I beg your pardon, he would have been--when a loud noise made us both jump up. The log had fallen into the room, knocking over the fire irons and the fender, and on to the carpet, which it had scorched, and had rolled under an armchair, which it would certainly set alight.

"I jumped up like a madman, and, as I was replacing on the fire that log which had saved me, the door opened hastily, and Julien came in.

"'I am free,' he said, with evident pleasure. 'The business was over two hours sooner than I expected!'

"Yes, my dear friend, without that log, I should have been caught in the very act, and you know what the consequences would have been!

"You may be sure that I took good care never to be found in a similar situation again, never, never. Soon afterward I saw that Julien was giving me the 'cold shoulder,' as they say. His wife was evidently undermining our friendship. By degrees he got rid of me, and we have altogether ceased to meet.

"I never married, which ought not to surprise you, I think."

Khúc c?i

Guy de Maupassant

Bu?ng khách nh?, chang kín nh?ng t?m rèm d?y, ph?ng ph?t mùi thom kín dáo. Trong lò su?i l?n, l?a cháy r?c, trong khi ch? có m?t ng?n dèn d?t ? góc lò su?i, che b?i m?t cái ch?p b?ng hàng ren cu, h?t m?t th? ánh sáng d?u nh?t xu?ng hai ngu?i dang ng?i nói chuy?n.

Bà ch? nhà, m?t ph? n? có tu?i, tóc b?c tr?ng, m?t ki?u bà già dáng m?n, da chua có m?t n?p nhan nào, m?n màng nhu m?t t? gi?y, và thom, th?m du?m mùi thom. Nh?ng tinh huong nhu?n nh? mà bà t?m g?i, nhu ng?m sâu vào da th?t t? r?t lâu r?i: m?t bà già mà khi ngu?i ta hôn tay bà, thì th?y ph? ngay vào mui m?t mùi thom nh? nhu khi m? m?t h?p ph?n u?p mùi hoa kim ngân v?y.

Ông khách, m?t ngu?i b?n cu ngày xua, d?c thân, m?t ngu?i b?n tu?n nào cung d?n, m?t ngu?i d?ng hành trong cu?c s?ng, ch? nhu th?, không có gì hon. Hai ngu?i dã ng?ng nói chuy?n du?c kho?ng m?t phút, và c? hai d?u nhìn ng?n l?a, mo màng d?n m?t chuy?n gì dó, m?t trong nh?ng kho?nh kh?c im l?ng b?n bè, gi?a nh?ng con ngu?i không c?n ph?i nói luôn d? cho vui khi ng?i bên nhau.

Ð?t nhiên m?t khúc c?i l?n, m?t cái g?c l?m ch?m nh?ng r? dang cháy ngùn ng?t, b?ng d? s?p xu?ng. Khúc c?i vang qua cái ch?n tàn tro và lan trên t?m th?m gi?a phòng khách, làm b?n ra chung quanh nh?ng tàn l?a d? r?c.

Bà ch? nhà, th?t m?t ti?ng kêu kh?, vùng d?ng lên nhu mu?n ch?y, trong khi ông b?n, dùng chân di ?ng h?t khúc c?i cháy vào trong lò su?i và dùng d? ?ng d?p t?t nh?ng v?n than h?ng vang ra chung quanh.

Khi vi?c tai h?i ?y dã qua, m?t mùi cháy khét l?t t?a kh?p phòng, ngu?i dàn ông l?i ng?i xu?ng tru?c m?t bà b?n mình, nhìn bà, m?m cu?i:

- Th? d?y, - ông v?a nói v?a ch? cái khúc c?i cháy v?a du?c h?t vào trong dám l?a, - chính vì th? mà tôi không bao gi? l?y v?.

Bà h?t s?c kinh ng?c, nhìn ông ta b?ng con m?t tò mò c?a nh?ng ngu?i dàn bà mu?n tìm hi?u, cái con m?t dàn bà không còn tr? trung n?a mà trong dó s? tò mò có suy tu, ph?c t?p nhi?u khi tinh quái, và bà h?i:

- T?i sao l?i th??

Ông nói ti?p:

- Ôi chao! Ðó là c? m?t câu chuy?n, m?t câu chuy?n khá r?c r?i và bu?n.

Nh?ng bè b?n cu c?a tôi thu?ng v?n r?t ng?c nhiên v? s? l?nh nh?t d?t ng?t x?y d?n gi?a m?t trong nh?ng ngu?i b?n r?t t?t tên là Duyliêng v?i tôi. H? không hi?u vì sao hai ngu?i thân thi?t nhau, không r?i nhau nhu chúng tôi, mà d?t nhiên, d?i v?i nhau l?i tr? thành g?n nhu xa l?. Ðây là cái di?u bí ?n c?a s? r?i xa nhau c?a chúng tôi.

Tru?c kia, anh ta v?i tôi cùng ? chung. Chúng tôi không r?i nhau bao gi?, và tình b?n ràng bu?c chúng tôi b?n ch?t d?n n?i tu?ng nhu ch?ng có gì làm cho tan v? du?c.

M?t bu?i t?i, v? nhà, anh báo v?i tôi v? các cu?c hôn nhân c?a anh.

Tôi b? m?t cú dánh vào gi?a ng?c, du?ng nhu anh ta dã dánh c?p c?a tôi, ho?c l?a d?i tôi. Khi m?t ngu?i b?n l?y v?, th? là h?t, th?t h?t. Cái tình yêu ghen tuông c?a ngu?i dàn bà, cái tình m?n yêu mù t?i, d?y uu tu và nh?c d?c ?y không tha th? cho m?t s? k?t b?n b?n ch?t, chân th?t, cái tình thân thi?t c?a tu duy, tình c?m và lòng tin c?y t?n t?i gi?a hai ngu?i dàn ông.

Bà xem d?y, thua bà b?n, dù cho m?i tình ràng bu?c ngu?i n? v?i ngu?i kia th? nào di n?a, ngu?i dàn ông và ngu?i dàn bà d?i v?i nhau v?n xa l? v? tâm h?n và trí tu? ; h? v?n là hai phía tuong tranh, h? v?n thu?c nh?ng ch?ng lo?i khác bi?t. Bao gi? cung ph?i có m?t ngu?i chinh ph?c và m?t ngu?i b? khu?t ph?c, m?t ông ch? và m?t ngu?i nô l? ; khi thì là ngu?i này, khi thì là ngu?i kia ; h? ch?ng bao gi? bình d?ng. H? si?t ch?t tay nhau, nh?ng bàn tay run r?y tình c?m sôi n?i ; ch?ng bao gi? h? si?t ch?t tay nhau trong cái si?t tay khoáng d?t, th?ng th?n ; t? trong cái si?t tay ?y du?ng nhu m? r?ng lòng mình, b?c l? trái tim h? trong ni?m tin yêu chân th?c và m?nh m? r?t dàn ông. Nh?ng ngu?i không ngoan, thay vì l?y v? d? t?o s?n cho mình cái ngu?n an ?i trong tu?i già là sinh sôi ra nh?ng d?a con mà sau này chúng s? b? m?c h?, thì h? tìm m?t ngu?i b?n t?t, tin c?y ch?c ch?n, s?ng nh?ng ngày tu?i già v?i b?n trong m?t s? c?ng d?ng v? tu tu?ng ch? có th? có du?c gi?a hai ngu?i dàn ông.

V?y là anh b?n Duyliêng c?a tôi l?y v?. Cô v? tr?ng tr?o xinh tuoi, ngu?i mum mim, có v? r?t yêu anh. Tho?t d?u, tôi r?t ít d?n nhà, s? làm tr? ng?i cho tình yêu n?ng nàn c?a h?, mà tôi cung c?m th?y mình là ngu?i quá th?a trong h?. Tuy v?y, du?ng nhu h? cung mu?n kéo tôi d?n g?n, m?i m?c tôi luôn và cung có v? m?n tôi.

D?n d?n tôi cung d? mình b? chinh ph?c b?i cái thú êm d?m c?a cu?c s?ng chung ?y. Tôi thu?ng an com t?i ? nhà h?, và cung thu?ng thu?ng tr? v? nhà riêng c?a tôi ban dêm, tôi dã nghi là d?n ph?i làm nhu anh b?n, ph?i l?y m?t ngu?i v?, vì th?y can nhà tr?ng tr?i c?a mình bây gi? tr? nên bu?n t? quá.

H? thì t? ra âu y?m nhau, không r?i nhau n?a. Th? r?i, m?t bu?i t?i, Duyliêng vi?t thu m?i tôi d?n an com. Tôi d?n.

- Này c?u, - anh nói - an xong mình ph?i di có vi?c. Mình s? không v? du?c tru?c 11 gi? khuya dâu, mà dúng 11 gi? mình m?i v?. Mình tin có c?u d? ng?i choi nói chuy?n v?i Bécto.

Ngu?i v? tr? m?m cu?i:

- Th? mà chính em có ý ki?n m?i anh d?n d?y. - ch? ti?p.

Tôi b?t tay ch?:

- Ch? th?t có nhã ý.

Và tôi c?m th?y nh?ng ngón tay mình du?c n?m gi? lâu và ch?t trong m?t cái b?t tay thân thi?t. Tôi không d? ý d?n di?u ?y, m?i ngu?i ng?i vào bàn an. Ð?n 8 gi?, Duyliêng t?m r?i chúng tôi, ra di.

Anh ta v?a di kh?i, m?t s? ngu?ng ng?p khác thu?ng d?t nhiên n?y sinh gi?a ch? v? anh ta và tôi. Chúng tôi chua bao gi? ch? ng?i hai ngu?i v?i nhau. Và m?c d?u, tình b?n m?i ngày có thân thi?t hon, nhung cái vi?c ng?i riêng v?i nhau nhu th? này, d?t chúng tôi vào m?t tình th? m?i.

Tho?t d?u, tôi nói nh?ng chuy?n dâu dâu, nh?ng chuy?n vô nghia mà ngu?i ta v?n l?p nh?ng kho?ng v?ng l?ng b?i r?i. Ch? không nói gì và ng?i tru?c m?t tôi, phía bên kia lò su?i, d?u cúi xu?ng nhìn lo dãng, m?t chân du?i v? phía ng?n l?a, nhu l?c trong nh?ng suy ng?m khó khan nào. Khi dã c?n nh?ng chuy?n lan man r?i, tôi cung nín thinh. Th?t l? lùng là dôi khi l?i r?t khó tìm du?c m?t chuy?n gì dó d? mà nói. Và r?i, tôi l?i c?m th?y trong b?u không khí, tôi c?m th?y cái vô hình, m?t cái gì không th? di?n gi?i du?c, nh?ng d? hi?u bí ?n nó báo tru?c cho anh nh?ng ý d? kín nh?m t?t ho?c x?u, c?a m?t ngu?i khác d?i v?i anh.

Cái im l?ng n?ng n? ?y kéo dài m?t kho?ng th?i gian. R?i sau, Bécto b?o tôi:

- Cho thêm m?t khúc c?i vào lò, anh b?n, anh cung th?y là l?a s?p t?t r?i.

Tôi m? cái thùng d?ng c?i - cái thùng cung d? dúng nhu ch? d? cái thùng c?i c?a bà dây - tôi l?y m?t khúc c?i l?n nh?t d?ng theo hình tháp trên nh?ng khúc khác dã cháy du?c d?n ba ph?n tu r?i.

Vài cái im l?ng l?i b?t d?u.

M?y phút sau, khúc c?i cháy r?ng r?c, d?n n?i làm nóng c? m?t.

Ngu?i thi?u ph? tr? ngu?c dôi m?t nhìn tôi, dôi m?t mà tôi th?y r?t l? lùng.

- Nóng quá, - ch? nói - chúng ta ra ch? cái gh? dài kia di.

V?y là chúng tôi ra ng?i trên cái gh? dài (1).

R?i d?t nhiên, nhìn th?ng vào m?t tôi:

- Anh s? làm gì n?u có m?t ngu?i dàn bà b?o anh là cô ta yêu anh?

Tôi r?t s?ng s?t tr? l?i:

- Ôi chao! Tru?ng h?p nhu th? d?t ng?t quá. V? l?i, cung ph?i tùy xem là ngu?i dàn bà th? nào ch?!

Th? là ch? ?y cu?i, m?t cái cu?i ròn khô, kích d?ng run r?y, m?t trong nh?ng cái cu?i l?c lõng, gi?ng nhu ti?ng v? c?a nh?ng c?c th?y tinh m?ng.

Và ch? nói ti?p:

- Ðàn ông ch?ng bao gi? táo b?o, cung không tinh khôn. - Ch? ng?ng l?i r?i ti?p - Anh dã t?ng yêu bao gi? chua, anh Pôn?

Tôi thú th?t:

- Có, tôi dã t?ng yêu.

- Anh k? l?i cho em nghe nào. - Ch? nói.

Tôi k? cho ch? nghe m?t chuy?n yêu duong nào dó, ch? cham chú l?ng nghe, luôn có nh?ng d?u hi?u t? v? không tán d?ng và khinh th?, r?i d?t nhiên, ch? nói:

- Không, anh không hi?u dúng tình yêu. Tình yêu th?m thi?t, em nghi, ph?i là cái tình yêu làm diên d?o trái tim, vò xé th?n kinh, tàn phá d?u óc, nó ph?i là ... nói th? nào nh??... nguy hi?m, ghê g?m n?a, g?n nhu là ph?m t?i ho?c vô luân ?y, nó ph?i nhu ki?u b?i ph?n, em mu?n nói là nó ph?i d?p d? m?i tr? ng?i thiêng liêng, m?i lu?t l?, m?i liên h? anh em ru?t th?t. Khi mà tình yêu còn ph?ng l?ng, d? dãi, không hi?m h?a, h?p pháp, thì có ph?i dúng là tình yêu không?

Tôi ch?ng bi?t tr? l?i th? nào, t? trong thâm tâm mình th?t lên cái l?i kêu than tri?t lý này: "Ôi! Trí óc dàn bà, các cô gi?i th?t".

Trong khi nói, ch? l?y v? th?n nhiên, làm b? ngây tho, và t?a mình trên g?i, ch? n?m dài, ng? d?u trên vai tôi, áo khoác ngoài vén hoi cao d? l? b?p chân v?i cái bít t?t l?a màu d?, ch?c ch?c l?i l?p loáng ph?n chi?u ánh l?a trong lò su?i.

Kho?ng ch?ng m?t phút.

- Em làm anh s? u? - Ch? h?i.

Tôi ch?i. Ch? áp ng?c, ng? h?n vào lòng tôi và không nhìn tôi :

- N?u em b?o anh là em yêu anh, anh làm th? nào?

Và tru?c khi tôi tìm du?c câu tr? l?i, hai cánh tay ch? dã ôm l?y c? tôi kéo d?u tôi xu?ng, và dôi môi ch? g?n ch?t vào môi tôi.

Ôi chao! Bà b?n thân m?n c?a tôi, tôi xin tr? l?i bà là tôi không dùa gi?n dâu. Sao? L?a d?i Duyliêng u? Tr? thành ngu?i yêu c?a cái cô nàng diên d?i, gian tà và qu? quy?t này, cô nàng dâm d?t m?t cách kh?ng khi?p, h?n th?, mà ngu?i ch?ng bây gi? không d? th?a mãn cho cô n?a.

Ti?p t?c l?a d?o, d?i trá, choi cái trò yêu du?ng ch? v?i m?i cái thú h?p d?n c?a cái qu? c?m, c?a nh?ng v? thoát hi?m, c?a m?t tình b?n ph?n phúc. Không! Ði?u ?y tôi không làm du?c. Nhung làm th? nào dây?

B?t chu?c vai trò Giôdép (2), dóng vai r?t ng?c và cung r?t khó khan ?y u? Vì ch? ta th?t là b?o li?t trong cái sa ngã c?a mình, ngu?i con gái ?y b?ng b?ng ng?n l?a ham mu?n, thèm khát, mê cu?ng, làm th? nào cu?ng l?i?

Ôi, ai chua t?ng bao gi? du?c c?m th?y trên mi?ng mình cái hôn d?m sâu c?a m?t ngu?i dàn bà s?n sàng hi?n thân cho mình thì d?ng ch?i r?a tôi.

Th? r?i, thêm m?t phút n?a... bà hi?u ch?? Ch? m?t phút n?a, là tôi dã... Không, ch? ?y dã... xin l?i, th?t chính là ch? ?y dã... ho?c có th? dã... thì b?ng nhiên m?t ti?ng d?ng kinh khi?p làm chúng tôi gi?t n?y ngu?i.

Cái khúc c?i, vâng cái khúc c?i, thua bà, vang ra ngoài phòng khách, h?t d? cái x?ng. làm s?p cái giàn ch?n than, lan tròn nhu m?t con bão l?a, làm cháy t?m th?m tr?i su?n nhà, r?i lan vào g?n m?t cái gh? bành, mà nh?t d?nh là nó s? làm b?c cháy.

Tôi vùng d?y nhu m?t th?ng diên, và trong khi tôi d?y vào trong lò su?i cái khúc c?i cháy d? c?u tinh ?y thì c?a ra vào x?ch m?.

Duyliêng r?t hoan h? tr? v?. Anh reo lên:

- Mình du?c ngh? r?i! Công vi?c xong s?m tru?c hai gi?!

Vâng, thua bà b?n, không có khúc c?i thì tôi b? tóm qu? tang r?i. Và bây gi? bà th?y h?u qu? c?a vi?c ?y d?y.

Vì r?ng ngày ?y tôi dã có cách x? s? d? không bao gi? roi vào m?t tình th? gi?ng nhu v?y n?a. Không bao gi?! Th? r?i, tôi nh?n th?y d?i v?i tôi, Duyliêng tr? nên nh?t nh?o, làm m?t l?nh nhu ki?u ngu?i ta nói. V? anh rõ ràng dã phá ho?i tình b?n gi?a chúng tôi. Và d?n d?n tôi xa lánh nhà anh, sau thì không nhìn m?t nhau n?a.

Tôi không bao gi? l?y v?. Bây gi? thì di?u ?y h?n không làm bà kinh ng?c n?a.

M?c M?c d?ch

(1) Canapé : m?t th? gh? dài có lung t?a và b?c n?m, có th? ng? ngu?i n?m.

(2) Joseph : nhân v?t trong Kinh Thánh. Sách Sáng Th? k? r?ng: Joseph r?t d?p trai, b? bán qua x? Ai C?p, làm nô l? cho quan th? v?. V? ông quan này ham mu?n Joseph, nên l?i d?ng lúc v?ng ngu?i, n?m áo chàng dòi h?i chuy?n yêu duong. Chàng bèn ch?i b?.

The False Gems by Guy de Maupassant

The False Gems by Guy de Maupassant

Monsieur Lantin had met the young girl at a reception at the house of the second head of his department, and had fallen head over heels in love with her.

She was the daughter of a provincial tax collector, who had been dead several years. She and her mother came to live in Paris, where the latter, who made the acquaintance of some of the families in her neighborhood, hoped to find a husband for her daughter.

They had very moderate means, and were honorable, gentle, and quiet.

The young girl was a perfect type of the virtuous woman in whose hands every sensible young man dreams of one day intrusting his happiness. Her simple beauty had the charm of angelic modesty, and the imperceptible smile which constantly hovered about the lips seemed to be the reflection of a pure and lovely soul. Her praises resounded on every side. People never tired of repeating: "Happy the man who wins her love! He could not find a better wife."

Monsieur Lantin, then chief clerk in the Department of the Interior, enjoyed a snug little salary of three thousand five hundred francs, and he proposed to this model young girl, and was accepted.

He was unspeakably happy with her. She governed his household with such clever economy that they seemed to live in luxury. She lavished the most delicate attentions on her husband, coaxed and fondled him; and so great was her charm that six years after their marriage, Monsieur Lantin discovered that he loved his wife even more than during the first days of their honeymoon.

He found fault with only two of her tastes: Her love for the theatre, and her taste for imitation jewelry. Her friends (the wives of some petty officials) frequently procured for her a box at the theatre, often for the first representations of the new plays; and her husband was obliged to accompany her, whether he wished it or not, to these entertainments which bored him excessively after his day's work at the office.

After a time, Monsieur Lantin begged his wife to request some lady of her acquaintance to accompany her, and to bring her home after the theatre. She opposed this arrangement, at first; but, after much persuasion, finally consented, to the infinite delight of her husband.

Now, with her love for the theatre, came also the desire for ornaments. Her costumes remained as before, simple, in good taste, and always modest; but she soon began to adorn her ears with huge rhinestones, which glittered and sparkled like real diamonds. Around her neck she wore strings of false pearls, on her arms bracelets of imitation gold, and combs set with glass jewels.

Her husband frequently remonstrated with her, saying:

"My dear, as you cannot afford to buy real jewelry, you ought to appear adorned with your beauty and modesty alone, which are the rarest ornaments of your sex."

But she would smile sweetly, and say:

"What can I do? I am so fond of jewelry. It is my only weakness. We cannot change our nature."

Then she would wind the pearl necklace round her fingers, make the facets of the crystal gems sparkle, and say:

"Look! are they not lovely? One would swear they were real."

Monsieur Lantin would then answer, smilingly:

"You have bohemian tastes, my dear."

Sometimes, of an evening, when they were enjoying a tete-a-tote by the fireside, she would place on the tea table the morocco leather box containing the "trash," as Monsieur Lantin called it. She would examine the false gems with a passionate attention, as though they imparted some deep and secret joy; and she often persisted in passing a necklace around her husband's neck, and, laughing heartily, would exclaim: "How droll you look!" Then she would throw herself into his arms, and kiss him affectionately.

One evening, in winter, she had been to the opera, and returned home chilled through and through. The next morning she coughed, and eight days later she died of inflammation of the lungs.

Monsieur Lantin's despair was so great that his hair became white in one month. He wept unceasingly; his heart was broken as he remembered her smile, her voice, every charm of his dead wife.

Time did not assuage his grief. Often, during office hours, while his colleagues were discussing the topics of the day, his eyes would suddenly fill with tears, and he would give vent to his grief in heartrending sobs. Everything in his wife's room remained as it was during her lifetime; all her furniture, even her clothing, being left as it was on the day of her death. Here he was wont to seclude himself daily and think of her who had been his treasure-the joy of his existence.

But life soon became a struggle. His income, which, in the hands of his wife, covered all household expenses, was now no longer sufficient for his own immediate wants; and he wondered how she could have managed to buy such excellent wine and the rare delicacies which he could no longer procure with his modest resources.

He incurred some debts, and was soon reduced to absolute poverty. One morning, finding himself without a cent in his pocket, he resolved to sell something, and immediately the thought occurred to him of disposing of his wife's paste jewels, for he cherished in his heart a sort of rancor against these "deceptions," which had always irritated him in the past. The very sight of them spoiled, somewhat, the memory of his lost darling.

To the last days of her life she had continued to make purchases, bringing home new gems almost every evening, and he turned them over some time before finally deciding to sell the heavy necklace, which she seemed to prefer, and which, he thought, ought to be worth about six or seven francs; for it was of very fine workmanship, though only imitation.

He put it in his pocket, and started out in search of what seemed a reliable jeweler's shop. At length he found one, and went in, feeling a little ashamed to expose his misery, and also to offer such a worthless article for sale.

"Sir," said he to the merchant, "I would like to know what this is worth."

The man took the necklace, examined it, called his clerk, and made some remarks in an undertone; he then put the ornament back on the counter, and looked at it from a distance to judge of the effect.

Monsieur Lantin, annoyed at all these ceremonies, was on the point of saying: "Oh! I know well 'enough it is not worth anything," when the jeweler said: "Sir, that necklace is worth from twelve to fifteen thousand francs; but I could not buy it, unless you can tell me exactly where it came from."

The widower opened his eyes wide and remained gaping, not comprehending the merchant's meaning. Finally he stammered: "You say--are you sure?' The other replied, drily: "You can try elsewhere and see if any one will offer you more. I consider it worth fifteen thousand at the most. Come back; here, if you cannot do better."

Monsieur Lantin, beside himself with astonishment, took up the necklace and left the store. He wished time for reflection.

Once outside, he felt inclined to laugh, and said to himself: "The fool! Oh, the fool! Had I only taken him at his word! That jeweler cannot distinguish real diamonds from the imitation article."

A few minutes after, he entered another store, in the Rue de la Paix. As soon as the proprietor glanced at the necklace, he cried out:

"Ah, parbleu! I know it well; it was bought here."

Monsieur Lantin, greatly disturbed, asked:

"How much is it worth?"

"Well, I sold it for twenty thousand francs. I am willing to take it back for eighteen thousand, when you inform me, according to our legal formality, how it came to be in your possession."

This time, Monsieur Lantin was dumfounded. He replied:

"But--but--examine it well. Until this moment I was under the impression that it was imitation."

The jeweler asked:

"What is your name, sir?"

"Lantin--I am in the employ of the Minister of the Interior. I live at number sixteen Rue des Martyrs."

The merchant looked through his books, found the entry, and said: "That necklace was sent to Madame Lantin's address, sixteen Rue des Martyrs, July 20, 1876."

The two men looked into each other's eyes--the widower speechless with astonishment; the jeweler scenting a thief. The latter broke the silence.

"Will you leave this necklace here for twenty-four hours?" said he; "I will give you a receipt."

Monsieur Lantin answered hastily: "Yes, certainly." Then, putting the ticket in his pocket, he left the store.

He wandered aimlessly through the streets, his mind in a state of dreadful confusion. He tried to reason, to understand. His wife could not afford to purchase such a costly ornament. Certainly not.

But, then, it must have been a present!--a present!--a present, from whom? Why was it given her?

He stopped, and remained standing in the middle of the street. A horrible doubt entered his mind--She? Then, all the other jewels must have been presents, too! The earth seemed to tremble beneath him--the tree before him to be falling; he threw up his arms, and fell to the ground, unconscious. He recovered his senses in a pharmacy, into which the passers-by had borne him. He asked to be taken home, and, when he reached the house, he shut himself up in his room, and wept until nightfall. Finally, overcome with fatigue, he went to bed and fell into a heavy sleep.

The sun awoke him next morning, and he began to dress slowly to go to the office. It was hard to work after such shocks. He sent a letter to his employer, requesting to be excused. Then he remembered that he had to return to the jeweler's. He did not like the idea; but he could not leave the necklace with that man. He dressed and went out.

It was a lovely day; a clear, blue sky smiled on the busy city below. Men of leisure were strolling about with their hands in their pockets.

Monsieur Lantin, observing them, said to himself: "The rich, indeed, are happy. With money it is possible to forget even the deepest sorrow. One can go where one pleases, and in travel find that distraction which is the surest cure for grief. Oh if I were only rich!"

He perceived that he was hungry, but his pocket was empty. He again remembered the necklace. Eighteen thousand francs! Eighteen thousand francs! What a sum!

He soon arrived in the Rue de la Paix, opposite the jeweler's. Eighteen thousand francs! Twenty times he resolved to go in, but shame kept him back. He was hungry, however--very hungry--and not a cent in his pocket. He decided quickly, ran across the street, in order not to have time for reflection, and rushed into the store.

The proprietor immediately came forward, and politely offered him a chair; the clerks glanced at him knowingly.

"I have made inquiries, Monsieur Lantin," said the jeweler, "and if you are still resolved to dispose of the gems, I am ready to pay you the price I offered."

"Certainly, sir," stammered Monsieur Lantin.

Whereupon the proprietor took from a drawer eighteen large bills, counted, and handed them to Monsieur Lantin, who signed a receipt; and, with trembling hand, put the money into his pocket.

As he was about to leave the store, he turned toward the merchant, who still wore the same knowing smile, and lowering his eyes, said:

"I have--I have other gems, which came from the same source. Will you buy them, also?"

The merchant bowed: "Certainly, sir."

Monsieur Lantin said gravely: "I will bring them to you." An hour later, he returned with the gems.

The large diamond earrings were worth twenty thousand francs; the bracelets, thirty-five thousand; the rings, sixteen thousand; a set of emeralds and sapphires, fourteen thousand; a gold chain with solitaire pendant, forty thousand--making the sum of one hundred and forty-three thousand francs.

The jeweler remarked, jokingly:

"There was a person who invested all her savings in precious stones."

Monsieur Lantin replied, seriously:

"It is only another way of investing one's money."

That day he lunched at Voisin's, and drank wine worth twenty francs a bottle. Then he hired a carriage and made a tour of the Bois. He gazed at the various turnouts with a kind of disdain, and could hardly refrain from crying out to the occupants:

"I, too, am rich!--I am worth two hundred thousand francs."

Suddenly he thought of his employer. He drove up to the bureau, and entered gaily, saying:

"Sir, I have come to resign my position. I have just inherited three hundred thousand francs."

He shook hands with his former colleagues, and confided to them some of his projects for the future; he then went off to dine at the Cafe Anglais.

He seated himself beside a gentleman of aristocratic bearing; and, during the meal, informed the latter confidentially that he had just inherited a fortune of four hundred thousand francs.

For the first time in his life, he was not bored at the theatre, and spent the remainder of the night in a gay frolic.

Six months afterward, he married again. His second wife was a very virtuous woman; but had a violent temper. She caused him much sorrow.

Món tu trang Guy de Maupassant

Ông Langtanh g?p cô ta trong m?t t?i vui t?i nhà viên phó ch? s?, li?n mê tít cô ta nhu cá m?c lu?i.

Cô ta là con gái m?t ngu?i thu thu? t?nh l? dã qua d?i nhi?u nam nay. Sau d?y cô ta d?n d?n ? Pari v?i m?, noi dây, bà m? thu?ng di l?i v?i vài gia dình tru?ng gi? trong khu ph? mong g? du?c ch?ng cho con. Hai ngu?i s?ng d?m b?c và d?ng d?n, yên tinh và hi?n h?u. Cô gái có v? là m?u m?c toàn v?n v? m?t ngu?i dàn bà d?c h?nh mà ngu?i thanh niên khôn ngoan nào cung mo u?c g?i g?m d?i mình. S?c d?p kín dáo c?a cô có m?t v? duyên dáng e l? c?a tiên n? và n? cu?i luôn luôn thoáng n? trên môi nhu ph?n chi?u n?i lòng cô v?y.

Ai cung h?t l?i khen ng?i cô. Nh?ng ngu?i quen bi?t cô d?u nh?c di nh?c l?i không chán: "Sung su?ng thay ngu?i nào l?y du?c cô. Ch?ng th? tìm dâu du?c ngu?i hon".

Ông Langtanh lúc dó làm tham bi?n ? B? N?i v?, luong h?ng nam là ba ngàn nam tram quan, h?i cô và l?y cô.

Ông s?ng v?i cô h?t s?c h?nh phúc. Cô trông nom nhà c?a, t?n ti?n khéo léo d?n m?c tu?ng nhu hai ngu?i s?ng trong c?nh xa hoa. Ð?i v?i ch?ng, cô h?t m?c cham sóc, chi?u chu?ng, âu y?m và nhan s?c, tính n?t cô có s?c quy?n ru m?nh m? d?n m?c sáu nam sau, ông Langtanh còn yêu cô hon c? nh?ng ngày d?u.

Ông ch? trách cô v? hai s? thích: di xem hát và choi d? n? trang gi?.

Các b?n cô (cô có quen bi?t v? vài công ch?c nh?) luôn luôn ki?m cho cô vé di xem nh?ng v? k?ch dang du?c hoan nghênh, ngay c? nh?ng bu?i công di?n d?u tiên ; và dù ông ta không mu?n, cô c? kéo ch?ng cô di d? nh?ng bu?i gi?i trí dó làm ông vô cùng m?t m?i sau m?t ngày làm vi?c. Th? là ông ta van v? cô di xem hát v?i m?t bà b?n quen thu?c nào dó, bà này s? dua cô v? sau bu?i bi?u di?n. Mãi mãi cô m?i d?ng ý, cho làm nhu th? là không nên. Nhung v? sau cô cung chi?u ch?ng và ông l?y làm on v?.

Nhung ch?ng bao lâu cái thú di xem hát ?y khi?n cô th?y c?n thi?t ph?i trang di?m . Cách an m?c c?a cô v?n gi?n d?, qu? có th?, v?n trang nhã nhung nhun nh?n, và v? ki?u di?m d?u dàng, v? ki?u di?m làm ai cung ph?i say d?m, v? ki?u di?m khiêm nhu?ng và tuoi t?n, hình nhu nh? cách an m?c gi?n d? mà l?i có m?t ý v? m?i. Nhung t? dó cô có thói quen deo hoa tai m?t dá vùng sông Ranh gi? kim cuong và nh?ng chu?i h?t ng?c trai gi?, nh?ng lu?c di?m h?t pha lê d? hình, d? ki?u gi? ng?c quý.

Ch?ng cô hoi khó ch?u v? cái chuy?n say mê nh?ng d? hào nhoáng dó, thu?ng nói: "Em ?, khi ta không có kh? nang mua nh?ng d? tu trang th?t s?, ta ch? có th? trang di?m b?ng s?c d?p và v? duyên dáng c?a ta, dó m?i là nh?ng d? châu báu quý giá nh?t".

Nhung cô d?u dàng m?m cu?i và tr? l?i: "Làm th? nào du?c h? anh? Em thích th?. Ðó là t?t x?u c?a em. Em bi?t rõ anh nói có lý nhung em không s?a du?c. Em thì em mê d? trang s?c quá th?!".

Và cô lan trong tay nh?ng chu?i h?t ng?c, soi nh?ng m?t dá có c?nh lóng lánh v?a nh?c di nh?c l?i: "Nhung mà anh th? xem h? làm m?i khéo ch?! Trông c? nhu d? th?t ?y!".

Ch?ng cô m?m cu?i tr? l?i: "Em có nh?ng s? thích c?a ngu?i Bôhêmiêng".

Ðôi khi, t?i d?n, khi hai ngu?i cùng ng?i bên lò su?i, cô dem d?t lên bàn u?ng trà chi?c h?p da dê thu?c d?ng nh?ng th? "v? v?n" dó - theo cách g?i c?a ông Langtanh ; r?i cô cham chú say mê ng?m nghía nh?ng d? trang s?c gi? ?y nhu thu?ng th?c m?t l?c thú th?m kín và sâu s?c nào dó và cô c? c? deo vào c? ch?ng cho du?c m?t chu?i h?t d? r?i v?a cu?i v?a nói r?t h?n nhiên: "Trông anh m?i ng? nghinh làm sao!". Sau dó cô ngã vào lòng ch?ng và hôn ch?ng t?i t?p.

M?t dêm dông, sau m?t bu?i di xem ? r?p ca k?ch, cô tr? v? nhà rét run c?m c?p. Sáng tr? d?y, cô ho và tám ngày sau, cô ch?t vì xung huy?t ph?i.

Ông Langtanh suýt ch?t theo. Ông dau kh? vô cùng, d?n n?i m?t tháng sau tóc ông b?c tr?ng. Ông khóc t? sáng d?n t?i, lòng dau nhu xé vì m?t n?i dau vô h?n, luôn luôn b? ám ?nh vì k? ni?m, vì n? cu?i, vì ti?ng nói, vì t?t c? s? duyên dáng c?a ngu?i v? dã qua d?i.

Th?i gian cung ch?ng làm nguôi du?c n?i dau d?n c?a ông. Nhi?u l?n, trong gi? làm vi?c, khi các b?n d?ng nghi?p bàn tán v? th?i cu?c, b?ng nhiên ngu?i ta th?y ông ph?ng má lên, mui ông nhan l?i, m?t ông giàn gi?a, m?t ông dúm dó và ông khóc n?c n?.

Ông gi? nguyên v?n can phòng c?a v? và h?ng ngày ông ng?i trong dó dóng c?a l?i d? tu?ng nh? d?n cô ; t?t c? d? d?c và ngay c? áo qu?n c?a cô v?n c? n?m nguyên ch? nhu ngày cô m?i ch?t.

Nhung cu?c s?ng c?a ông tr? nên khó khan. Luong b?ng ông xua kia ? trong tay ngu?i v?, dáp ?ng du?c m?i s? chi tiêu trong gia dình thì nay ch? còn m?t mình ông l?i tr? nên thi?u th?n. Và ông kinh ng?c t? h?i không hi?u cô dã thu vén th? nào mà ông v?n luôn luôn có ru?u t?t, có th?c an ngon, mà bây gi? ông không th? mua n?i n?a v?i d?ng luong ít ?i.

Ông m?c n? và tìm cách xoay s? ti?n nhu nh?ng k? g?p v?n b?. R?i m?t bu?i sáng, còn c? m?t tu?n m?i d?n cu?i tháng, ông không còn m?t d?ng dính túi, ông th?y ph?i bán di m?t v?t gì dó ; ông li?n nghi ngay d?n vi?c d?y cái món "v? v?n" c?a v? di vì trong thâm tâm ông v?n gi? m?t th? ác c?m d?i v?i nh?ng cái c?a gi? ?y dã làm ông xua kia b?c b?i. H?ng ngày ch? nhìn th?y nh?ng v?t dó cung làm t?n thuong d?n tình c?m c?a ông d?i v?i ngu?i v? yêu quý.

Ông tìm mãi trong cái m? hào quang gi? c?a v? d? l?i - vì d?n t?n nh?ng ngày cu?i cùng tru?c khi qua d?i, t?i nào cô cung c? mua b?ng du?c m?t d? n? trang m?i - và ông quy?t d?nh ch?n chu?i h?t l?n hình nhu xua kia v? ua thích hon c?, chu?i h?t ?y có th? dáng giá - theo ông nghi - sáu hay tám quan vì chu?i h?t này qu? th?t làm r?t công phu d?i v?i m?t d? n? trang gi?.

Ông b? chu?i h?t vào túi và di v? phía co quan B?, theo các d?i l?, tìm ki?m m?t c?a hi?u kim hoàn dáng tin c?y.

Cu?i cùng, ông tìm du?c m?t hi?u và bu?c vào, hoi h? th?n ph?i phô bày c?nh túng thi?u c?a mình, di bán m?t v?t dáng giá ch?ng là bao.

- Thua ông, - ông nói v?i ch? hi?u - tôi mu?n bi?t v?t này dáng giá bao nhiêu.

Ch? hi?u kim hoàn c?m l?y chu?i h?t, ng?m nghía, l?t di l?t l?i, nh?c lên xem n?ng nh?, l?y kính lúp soi, g?i ngu?i làm công, th?m thì nh?n xét r?i d?t chi?c vòng lên qu?y hàng và d?ng ra xa nhìn d? nh?n d?nh giá tr? cho rõ hon.

Ông Langtanh ngu?ng ngh?u vì t?t c? nh?ng ki?u cách ?y, s?p s?a bu?t mi?ng nói: " ?! Tôi bi?t là v?t dó ch?ng có giá tr? gì!" thì ngu?i ch? kim hoàn nói:

- Thua ông, chu?i h?t này giá dáng t? mu?i hai d?n mu?i lam ngàn quan, nhung tôi ch? có th? mua du?c v?i di?u ki?n là ông cho bi?t rõ ngu?n g?c chu?i h?t.

Ngu?i dàn ông góa v? tròn xoe m?t và há h?c mi?ng ra nhìn ; ch?ng hi?u gì c?, cu?i cùng l?p b?p nói:

- Ông b?o th? nào? ... Ông có ch?c không?

Ngu?i ch? hi?u hi?u l?m v? s? kinh ng?c c?a ông và tr? l?i x?ng:

- Ông có th? di n?i khác n?u du?c giá h?i hon. Ð?i v?i tôi, chu?i h?t dó dáng giá cùng l?m là mu?i lam ngàn. N?u ông không tìm dâu du?c giá cao hon thì m?i ông tr? l?i dây.

Ông Lagntanh ngây ngu?i ra, l?y l?i chu?i h?t và b? di, mo h? c?m th?y c?n ph?i suy nghi m?t mình.

Nhung ra d?n ngoài ph?, b?ng nhiên ông mu?n phá lên cu?i và nghi th?m : "Th?ng ng?c! ?, th?ng ng?c! Giá mà ta c? nh?n ngay xem sao! Th?t là ch? hi?u kim hoàn mà không bi?t phân bi?t th?t gi?".

Và ông l?i vào m?t c?a hi?u khác, ? d?u ph? Hòa Bình. Ngu?i ch? v?a th?y chu?i h?t dã th?t lên:

- A! Ðúng r?i, tôi bi?t chu?i h?t này l?m, ? c?a hàng tôi bán ra dây mà!

Ông Lang tanh vô cùng b?i r?i, h?i:

- Chu?i h?t này dáng giá bao nhiêu?

- Thua ông, tôi dã bán ra hai muoi lam ngàn. Tôi s?n sàng mua l?i v?i giá mu?i tám ngàn khi nào ông có th? cho tôi rõ, theo lu?t pháp hi?n hành, làm sao ông có du?c chu?i h?t này.

L?n này thì ông Langtanh ng?i ph?ch xu?ng, b?n r?n c? chân tay vì kinh ng?c. Ông nói ti?p:

- Nhung ... nhung ông hãy xem k? di dã, ông ?, cho d?n nay tôi v?n tu?ng là... d? gi?.

Ngu?i ch? hi?u l?i nói:

- Ông có th? cho bi?t quý danh?

- Ðu?c l?m. Tên tôi là Langtanh, công ch?c B? N?i v?, tôi ? nhà s? 16, ph? Macchia.

Ngu?i ch? hi?u m? s?, tra c?u và nói:

- Chu?i h?t này qu? th?c dã g?i t?i d?a ch? bà Langtanh, 16, ph? Macchia, ngày 20 tháng 7 nam 1876.

Và hai ngu?i nhìn nhau, ngu?i công ch?c ngây ra vì kinh ng?c. Ngu?i ch? hi?u dánh hoi th?y m?t tên k? c?p.

Ngu?i ch? hi?u nói:

- Ông có th? d? l?i dây cho tôi chu?i h?t này trong hai muoi b?n gi? du?c không, tôi xin dua ông gi?y biên nh?n.

Ông Langtanh ?p úng:

- Ðu?c ch?, t?t nhiên. - Và ông v?a bu?c ra v?a g?p t? gi?y biên nh?n r?i b? vào túi.

Ông di ngang qua du?ng, di ngu?c lên, nh?n th?y mình l?m, l?i di quay l?i ph? Tuylori, qua sông Xen. l?i th?y mình l?m, l?i tr? v? du?ng Sang Êlidê, ch?ng có ý nghi gì rõ r?t trong d?u. Ông c? suy lu?n, tìm hi?u. V? ông không có th? mua n?i m?t v?t giá tr? d?n th?. - Không, ch?c ch?n th?. - N?u th? thì là m?t t?ng ph?m! M?t t?ng ph?m! M?t t?ng ph?m c?a ai? T?i sao?

Ông d?ng l?i, và ông d?ng s?ng s?ng gi?a du?ng cái. M?t s? ng? v?c ghê r?n lu?t qua d?u ông. - Nàng u? - Th? thì t?t c? các d? n? trang khác cung d?u là t?ng ph?m. Ông th?y hình nhu qu? d?t chuy?n d?ng : cây tru?c m?t ông d? s?p xu?ng. Ông dang tay, ngã v?t ra b?t t?nh.

Ông t?nh d?y trong c?a hi?u du?c ph?m, nh?ng ngu?i khách qua du?ng dã dua ông vào d?y. Ông nh? ngu?i d?n v? nhà và ? lì trong nhà.

Ông khóc su?t mu?t cho d?n dêm, m?m c?n chi?c khan tay d? kh?i kêu lên. R?i ông di n?m, ngu?i m?i m?t và phi?n mu?n ; và ông ng?, m?t gi?c ng? n?ng n?.

M?t tia n?ng dánh th?c ông d?y và ông ch?m rãi di d?n co quan làm vi?c. Th?t khó mà làm vi?c n?i sau nh?ng con kích d?ng nhu th?. Ông nghi là ông có th? xin c?p trên cho ngh? và ông li?n vi?t don. R?i ông nghi có l? ph?i tr? l?i c?a hi?u kim hoàn ; ông x?u h? d? c? m?t. Ông suy nghi mãi. Nhung ông cung không th? d? chu?i h?t ? c?a hi?u kim hoàn du?c, ông li?n m?c áo vào và bu?c ra ph?.

Ngày hôm dó d?p tr?i, trên thành ph? tuoi vui là m?t d?i tr?i xanh bi?c. Ngu?i di du?ng qua l?i, tay dút túi.

Nhìn h? di qua m?t, ông Lang tanh nghi b?ng: "... Nh?ng ngu?i có c?a th?t sung su?ng. Có ti?n thì phi?n mu?n cung có th? xua di du?c, mu?n di dâu thì di, di du l?ch, di gi?i trí! Tr?i! Giá mà ta có nhi?u ti?n!".

Ông th?y dói b?ng, ông không an u?ng gì t? hôm kia. Nhung túi ông l?i r?ng không và ông l?i nh? t?i chu?i h?t. Mu?i tám ngàn quan! M?t món ti?n l?n d?y ch?!

Ông bu?c v? ph? Hòa Bình và di di l?i l?i trên hè, ngay tru?c c?a hi?u kim hoàn. Mu?i tám ngàn quan! Hai muoi l?n ông d?nh bu?c vào, nhung ông x?u h? c? chùn l?i.

Nhung ông dói b?ng, dói l?m mà m?t xu ch?ng có. B?ng ông quy?t d?nh, v?a di v?a ch?y ngang qua du?ng d? kh?i có th?i gian suy nghi, ông lao vào c?a hi?u kim hoàn.

V?a trông th?y ông, ngu?i ch? hi?u r?i rít kéo gh? m?i ông ng?i, mi?ng tuoi cu?i l? phép. Ngay c? nh?ng ngu?i làm công cung ch?y t?i. li?c nhìn ông Langtanh, m?t mui hân hoan.

Ngu?i ch? hi?u kim hoàn nói:

- Tôi dã di?u tra r?i, và n?u ông không thay d?i ý ki?n, tôi s?n sàng g?i ông s? ti?n tôi dã d? ngh?.

Ngu?i công ch?c tr? l?i:

- L? di nhiên là th?.

Ngu?i ch? hi?u kim hoàn rút trong ngan kéo ra mu?i tám t? gi?y l?n, d?m xong dua ra cho ông Langtanh. Langtanh ký vào t? gi?y biên nh?n và tay run run b? s? ti?n vào túi.

Ông s?p bu?c ra kh?i c?a thì quay l?i v? phía ngu?i ch? kim hoàn dang v?n tuoi cu?i, và m?t nhìn xu?ng h?i:

- Tôi... tôi còn nh?ng d? n? trang khác... c?a... cung c?a chính ngu?i ?y d? l?i. Ông có mua không?

Ngu?i ch? hi?u nghiêng ngu?i tr? l?i:

- Thua ông vâng, t?t nhiên du?c thôi.

M?t ngu?i làm công ch?y ra ngoài d? cu?i cho th?a, m?t ngu?i khác h? mui th?t m?nh.

Ông Langtanh không nao núng, d? m?t tía tai và nghiêm trang lên ti?ng :

- Tôi s? dem l?i cho ông.

Và ông g?i xe ng?a lên du?ng v? l?y d? n? trang.

M?t gi? sau, ông tr? l?i c?a hi?u, ông v?n chua an trua. Hai ngu?i xem xét cân nh?c h?t th? này d?n th? khác, dánh giá t?ng chi?c m?t. Ph?n l?n d?u ? c?a hàng này bán ra.

Gi? dây, ông Langtanh tranh cãi v? giá c?, phát khùng, dòi h?i dem s? sách, s? ti?n càng cao thì ti?ng nói càng l?n.

Ðôi hoa tai dáng giá hai muoi ngàn quan ; vòng deo tay ba muoi lam ngàn ; cài tóc, nh?n và khung deo ?nh nh? mu?i sáu ngàn ; b? ng?c bích và ng?c d? mu?i b?n ngàn. T?ng s? là m?t tram chín muoi sáu ngàn quan.

Ngu?i ch? hi?u nói, v? ân h?n l?n chút gi?u c?t:

- C?a c?i c?a m?t ngu?i dành d?m t?t c? vào d? n? trang.

Langtanh nghiêm trang tr? l?i:

- Ðó cung là m?t cách d? dành ti?n. - Và ông bu?c ra sau khi dã quy?t d?nh cùng ngu?i ch? hi?u là ngày hôm sau s? có m?t cu?c tái giám d?nh.

Ra d?n ngoài ph?, ông nhìn c?t Vangdôm nh?ng mu?n leo lên nhu leo c?t m?. Ông c?m th?y ngu?i nh? nhõm mu?n choi trò nh?y qua tu?ng Hoàng d? d?ng cheo leo trên d?nh c?t gi?a b?u tr?i.

Ông d?n an trua ? hi?u Voadanh và u?ng ru?u lo?i hai muoi quan m?t chai.

R?i ông lên xe ng?a d?o m?t vòng qua R?ng Bulônho, ng?i nhìn các xe c?, v? khinh mi?t ?m ?c mu?n thét vào tai nh?ng ngu?i qua du?ng "Ta dây cung giàu có. Ta có hai tram ngàn quan".

B?ng ông nghi d?n co quan làm vi?c. Ông cho xe ng?a dánh t?i dó, qu? quy?t vào g?p c?p trên d? báo:

- Thua ông, tôi d?n xin t? ch?c. Tôi v?a du?c th?a k? m?t kho?n ba tram ngàn quan.

Ông d?n b?t tay các b?n d?ng nghi?p cu, tâm s? v?i h? v? d? ki?n s?ng sau này, r?i d?n an chi?u ? quán cà phê Anglê.

Ng?i bên m?t v? có v? l?ch s?, ông không th? cu?ng l?i du?c cái mi?ng c? ng?a ngáy mu?n bày t? v?i ông ta, v?i m?t dáng di?u ki?u cách, là ông v?a th?a k? b?n tram ngàn quan.

L?n d?u tiên trong d?i, ông xem hát không th?y chán và dêm dó, ông chui vào nhà gái di?m.

Sáu tháng sau, ông tái giá. Ngu?i v? th? hai là m?t ngu?i dàn bà r?t ngay th?t nhung khó tính. Ngu?i dó làm ông dau kh? nhi?u.

One of These Days - M?t Ngày Bình Thu?ng by Garcia Marquez

One of These Days - M?t Ngày Bình Thu?ng

by Garcia Marquez

Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking.

M?t bu?i sáng th? hai tr?i không mua, bình minh ?m áp, Aurelio Escovar - m?t nha si không b?ng c?p, nhu thu?ng l?, d?y r?t s?m và m? c?a phòng khám c?a mình lúc 6 gi?. Ông nh?t m?t vài cái rang gi? v?n còn bám trên nh?ng chi?c khuôn nh?a ra kh?i cái t? kính và r?i lên m?t bàn m?t dãy nh?ng d?ng c? du?c s?p x?p m?t cách tu?n t? nhu th? chúng s?p s?a ra sân kh?u. Ông b?n m?t cái áo so mi k? ca rô có dính chi?c khuy m? vàng ? c? và m?t chi?c qu?n treo. Aurelio Escovar kh?ng khiu và g?y nhom, có cái nhìn vô c?m tru?c s? th?, y nhu cái nhìn c?a m?t ngu?i di?c.

When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn't need it.

Sau khi dã so?n các th? ra m?t bàn, ông tr?i m?t t?m v?i thô lên chi?c gh? khám b?nh và b?t d?u ng?i xu?ng, dánh bóng nh?ng cái rang gi?. Ông làm vi?c nhu m?t cái máy, mi?t mài, vô th?c, hai chân c? vào t?m v?i thô m?t cách lo dãng.

After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his elevenyear-old son interrupted his concentration.

Hon 8 gi?, Aurelio d?ng l?i m?t lúc và ng?m nhìn b?u tr?i qua khung c?a s? nh?, có hai con chim ó dang r?a ráy du?i ánh m?t tr?i trên nóc nhà hàng xóm bên c?nh, ông nghi có th? tr?i s? mua l?i tru?c gi? ngh? trua. Ti?ng g?i lanh l?nh c?a d?a con trai 11 tu?i c?t ngang dòng suy nghi c?a ông.

"Papa."

- B? oi.

"What?"

- Gì th??

"The Mayor wants to know if you'll pull his tooth."

- Ông th? tru?ng mu?n b? nh? rang cho ông ?y.

"Tell him I'm not here."

- B?o ông ?y là b? không có nhà.

He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm's length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room.

Aurelio l?i ti?p t?c c?m cúi dánh bóng m?y cái rang gi? b?ng vàng. Ông dua chúng ra xa, nheo m?t l?i và b?t d?u ng?m. Ti?ng d?a con trai l?i vang lên t? noi phòng d?i nh? h?p.

"He says you are, too, because he can hear you."

- Ông ?y b?o là b? có nhà vì ông ?y nghe th?y ti?ng b? r?i.

The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say:

Ông nha si ti?p t?c ki?m tra m?y cái rang gi? dã du?c dánh bóng. Cho t?i khi d?t chúng lên m?t bàn, ông m?i l?m b?m:

"So much the better."

- T?t hon r?i dây.

He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold.

Ông l?i b?t máy khoan, nh?t ra vài th? t? thùng các tông d?ng nh?ng th? c?n làm c?a ông r?i ti?p t?c dánh bóng nh?ng cái rang vàng.

"Papa."

- B??

"What?"

- Gì th??

He still hadn't changed his expression.

- Ông v?n không d?i gi?ng

"He says if you don't take out his tooth, he'll shoot you."

- Ông ?y b?o n?u b? không ch?u nh? rang, ông ?y s? b?n v? d?u b? d?y.

Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. "O.K.," he said. "Tell him to come and shoot me."

Không v?i vã, Aurelio nh? nhàng rút chân ra kh?i t?m v?i thô, tháo nó ra kh?i chi?c gh?, lôi cái ngan kéo phía du?i c?a chi?c bàn ra, ? dó có m?t chi?c súng l?c ? quay. "Ðu?c r?i, b?o ông ta vào dây mà b?n b?".

He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer. The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five-day-old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly:

Ông cu?n chi?c gh? l?i và d?t d?i di?n v?i cái c?a ra vào. Tay ông d?t c?nh g? c?a cái ngan kéo. Ngài th? tru?ng xu?t hi?n ? c?a. Khuôn m?t phía bên ph?i c?a ông khá nh?n nh?i nhung má trái sung vù lên, râu ria ph?i d?n 5 ngày không c?o. Ngu?i nha si d?c th?y s? tuy?t v?ng trong ánh m?t m? d?c c?a ông. Ông nhón d?u ngón tr? dóng cái ngan kéo l?i và nh? nh? nói:

"Sit down."

- M?i ng?i.

"Good morning," said the Mayor.

- Chào ông. - Ngài th? tru?ng nói.

"Morning," said the dentist.

- Xin chào

While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulder-high cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth.

Trong khi ch? d?i nha si dun nóng các d?ng c?, ông th? tru?ng ng? d?u lên gh? và c?m th?y dã khá hon. Hoi th? c?a ông ta l?nh giá. Ðây là m?t phòng khám nghèo nàn: m?t chi?c gh? b?ng g? cu rích, m?t ngan th?y tinh ch?a nh?ng chai l? b?ng g?m, d?i di?n v?i chi?c gh? là m?t c?a s? nh? v?i nh?ng t?m mành treo lo l?ng d?n ngang vai. Khi c?m th?y nha si dang bu?c d?n g?n, ngài th? tru?ng gi? ch?t bàn chân c?a mình và há r?ng mi?ng.

Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor's jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers.

Aurelio Escovar nghiêng d?u v? phía ánh dèn. Sau khi ki?m tra chi?c rang b? nhi?m trùng c?a ngài th? tru?ng, ông kh? ra hi?u cho th? tru?ng ng?m mi?ng l?i và nói:

"It has to be without anesthesia," he said.

- Tôi ph?i x? lý cái rang này mà không gây tê.

"Why?"

- T?i sao?

"Because you have an abscess."

- Vì ông dã b? áp xe.

The Mayor looked him in the eye. "All right," he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn't take his eyes off him.

Ngài th? tru?ng nhìn th?ng vào m?t ông nha si, c? g?ng m?m cu?i và nói: "Cung du?c". V? nha si không cu?i dáp l?i. Ông mang chi?c ch?u d?ng nh?ng d?ng c? kh? trùng ra bàn làm vi?c, ch?m rãi dùng k?p v?t nh?ng v?t d?ng này ra kh?i ch?u nu?c R?i ông d?y cái ?ng nh? v? phía ngài th? tru?ng b?ng d?u mui giày và di t?i b?n nu?c r?a tay. Ông c? th? làm, không h? nhìn ngài th? tru?ng còn ngài th? tru?ng thì du?ng nhu không r?i m?t kh?i kh?i ngu?i nha si.

It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn't make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said:

Ð?y là m?t chi?c rang khôn hàm du?i. Nha si d?ng d?ng hai chân, gi? ch?t cái rang b?ng m?t chi?c k?p. Ngài th? tru?ng n?m ch?t tay vào thành gh?, l?y h?t s?c l?c gi? ch?t hai chân c?a mình nhung ông không h? kêu la. Ngu?i nha si ch? c? d?ng m?i c? tay c?a mình. Ông nói v?i m?t chút chua xót:

"Now you'll pay for our twenty dead men."

- Bây gi? thì ông ph?i c?m on 20 b?nh nhân dã ch?t c?a tôi.

The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn't breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights.

Ngài th? tru?ng nghe rõ ti?ng l?o x?o bên trong quai hàm c?a mình. M?t mui ông nhòe nho?t nu?c, nhung ông c? g?ng nín th? cho t?i khi chi?c rang du?c lôi ra. R?i ông nhìn th?y nó qua hàng nu?c m?t. Trông nó th?t k? l? so v?i n?i dau kinh kh?ng dã hành h? ông trong su?t nam ngày v?a qua.

Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth.

Cúi g?p xu?ng cái ?ng nh?, m? hôi v?t vã, th? h?n h?n, ông c?i cái khuy áo ch?n c?a mình và qu? qu?ng tìm chi?c khan tay trong túi áo. Ngu?i nha si dua cho ông ta m?t mi?ng v?i s?ch.

"Dry your tears," he said.

- Lau nu?c m?t di, ông nói

The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider's eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands. "Go to bed," he said, "and gargle with salt water." The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walked toward the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning up his tunic.

Ngài th? tru?ng làm theo, run l?y b?y, trong lúc ngu?i nha si dang r?a m?t, ông nhìn lên m?ng tr?n nhà v? v?n ch?ng ch?t m?ng nh?n, tr?ng nh?n và nh?ng côn trùng dã ch?t. Ngu?i nha si quay l?i, lau khô tay và nói: "Ngh? ngoi và súc mi?ng b?ng nu?c mu?i". Ngài th? tru?ng d?ng d?y, chào nha si b?ng l?i chào c?a quân d?i và s?i chân v? phía c?a, quên c? cài l?i khuy áo ch?n c?a mình.

"Send the bill," he said.

- C? g?i hóa don nhé...

"To you or the town?"

- Cho ông hay cho thành ph??

The Mayor didn't look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen:

Ngài th? tru?ng không thèm nhìn ngu?i nha si. Ông dóng c?a và nói qua khung kính:

"It's the same damn thing."

- Nhu nhau c? thôi.

(Translated by Hà Linh)

Poor people

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered:

"I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!

Pass this on to friends and acquaintances and help them refresh their perspective and appreciation.

"Life is too short and friends are too few."

(Author Unknown)

Ngu?i nghèo

M?t ngày kia, m?t ngu?i b? cùng gia dình giàu có c?a ông ta d?n d?a con trai mình di du l?ch d?n m?t d?t nu?c v?i m?c dích là cho con trai mình th?y, ? noi dó ngu?i ta s?ng nghèo kh? ra sao. H? ? m?t ngày m?t dêm trong nông tr?i c?a m?t gia dình r?t nghèo kh?. Khi k?t thúc chuy?n di, ngu?i b? h?i con mình: "Con th?y chuy?n di nhu th? nào?"

"R?t t?t, thua b?!"

Ng?c nhiên tru?c câu tr? l?i c?a d?a con, ngu?i b? h?i l?i: "Con có nhìn th?y nh?ng ngu?i s?ng ? dó nghèo kh? d?n th? nào không?"

"Vâng, có!"

"V?y con dã h?c du?c nh?ng gì?"

C?u con trai tr? l?i: "Con nhìn th?y chúng ta nuôi m?t con chó, h? có b?n con. Chúng ta có m?t cái h? r?ng d?n gi?a khu vu?n, h? có m?t dòng su?i nh? không có noi k?t thúc. Chúng ta có nh?ng bóng dèn th?p sáng khu vu?n, h? có nh?ng vì sao. Sân trong nhà chúng ta kéo dài ra t?n d?n sân tru?c, h? có c? m?t chân tr?i".

Khi c?u con trai d?t l?i, ngu?i cha nín l?ng - không nói du?c gì.

C?u bé nói ti?p: "C?m on b? dã cho con th?y chúng ta nghèo kh? d?n th? nào!"

Có ph?i s? th?t là t?t c? m?i th? ph? thu?c vào cách b?n nhìn th?y chúng? N?u b?n có tình yêu, b?n bè, gia dình, s?c kho?, s? hài hu?c và m?t thái d? l?c quan hu?ng v? cu?c s?ng, b?n dã có t?t c? m?i th?!

(Suu t?m)

Whenever a Man Lies

Whenever a Man Lies

One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river, his axe fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "Why are you crying?"

The woodcutter replied that his axe has fallen into water. The Lord went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe.

"Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord again went down and came up with a silver axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

Again, the woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord went down again and came up with an iron axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "Yes."

The Lord was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all three axes to keep, and the woodcutter went home happily.

One day while he was walking with his wife along the riverbank, the woodcutter's wife fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?" "Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!"

The Lord went down into the water and came up with Jennifer Lopez. "Is this your wife?" the Lord asked.

"Yes," cried the woodcutter.

The Lord was furious. "You cheat! That is an untruth!"

The woodcutter replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I said 'no' to Jennifer Lopez, You will come up with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Then if I also say 'no' to her. You willthirdly come up with my wife, and I will say 'yes,' and then all three will be given to me. But Lord, I am a poor man and I will not be able to take care of all three wives, so that's why I said yes this time."

The moral of the story is whenever a man lies it is for an honorable and useful reason !!

25-04-2008, 07:15 PM Post: #2

handsome_boy2405

Chua dang ký

RE: Whenever a Man Lies

Khi dàn ông nói d?i

Ngày n?, m?t ngu?i ti?u phu lo d?n m?t nhánh cây l?n chìa ra dòng sông. Ch?ng may ông dánh roi cây búa xu?ng làn nu?c sâu th?m. Ông khóc vì ti?c d?n d? B?t hi?n ra, h?i lý do. Nghe xong, d?t nhiên B?t lao xu?ng sông, r?i n?i lên v?i m?t cây búa b?ng Vàng trong tay:

- Ph?i cái này c?a nguoi?

- Thua B?t không ph?i.

Thêm m?t l?n l?n h?p n?a, B?t l?i n?i lên v?i cây búa b?ng B?c, v?n không ph?i. L?n th? ba, B?t n?i v?i cây búa b?ng s?t, ngu?i ti?u phu h?n h?: "Ðó m?i là cây búa c?a con".

Xúc d?ng v?i s? chân th?t c?a ngu?i dàn ông, B?t cho ông c? hai cây búa Vàng, B?c. Vài ngày sau, ngu?i ti?u phu cùng bà v? di d?o ven sông. Không may bà v? l?t tõm xu?ng sông. B?t l?i hi?n ra c?u giúp ngu?i dàn ông khóc su?t ti?c v?. B?t n?i lên v?i nàng Jennifer Lopez:

- Ph?i dây là v? nguoi?

- D? dúng r?i!

- Này nguoi ch? xí g?t ta.

- Thua B?t cho con xin l?i. N?u con tr? l?i không ph?i, B?t l?i dem lên nàng Catherine Zeta Jones, n?u con l?i nói không ph?i, B?t s? dem lên v? con và con nh?n, B?t s? cho con c? Zones và Lopez. Vì th?, con ph?i g?t B?t ngay t? l?n d?u, ch? không con ch? còn có nu?c phá h?t cánh r?ng này m?i nuôi du?c c? ba v?.

Bài h?c: Ðàn ông thu?ng nói d?i vì nh?ng lý do h?t s?c chân th?c, hoàn toàn có th? hi?u du?c!

(Collect)

One of These Days

One of These Days - M?t Ngày Bình Thu?ng

by Garcia Marquez

Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking.

M?t bu?i sáng th? hai tr?i không mua, bình minh ?m áp, Aurelio Escovar - m?t nha si không b?ng c?p, nhu thu?ng l?, d?y r?t s?m và m? c?a phòng khám c?a mình lúc 6 gi?. Ông nh?t m?t vài cái rang gi? v?n còn bám trên nh?ng chi?c khuôn nh?a ra kh?i cái t? kính và r?i lên m?t bàn m?t dãy nh?ng d?ng c? du?c s?p x?p m?t cách tu?n t? nhu th? chúng s?p s?a ra sân kh?u. Ông b?n m?t cái áo so mi k? ca rô có dính chi?c khuy m? vàng ? c? và m?t chi?c qu?n treo. Aurelio Escovar kh?ng khiu và g?y nhom, có cái nhìn vô c?m tru?c s? th?, y nhu cái nhìn c?a m?t ngu?i di?c.

When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn't need it.

Sau khi dã so?n các th? ra m?t bàn, ông tr?i m?t t?m v?i thô lên chi?c gh? khám b?nh và b?t d?u ng?i xu?ng, dánh bóng nh?ng cái rang gi?. Ông làm vi?c nhu m?t cái máy, mi?t mài, vô th?c, hai chân c? vào t?m v?i thô m?t cách lo dãng.

After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his elevenyear-old son interrupted his concentration.

Hon 8 gi?, Aurelio d?ng l?i m?t lúc và ng?m nhìn b?u tr?i qua khung c?a s? nh?, có hai con chim ó dang r?a ráy du?i ánh m?t tr?i trên nóc nhà hàng xóm bên c?nh, ông nghi có th? tr?i s? mua l?i tru?c gi? ngh? trua. Ti?ng g?i lanh l?nh c?a d?a con trai 11 tu?i c?t ngang dòng suy nghi c?a ông.

"Papa."

- B? oi.

"What?"

- Gì th??

"The Mayor wants to know if you'll pull his tooth."

- Ông th? tru?ng mu?n b? nh? rang cho ông ?y.

"Tell him I'm not here."

- B?o ông ?y là b? không có nhà.

He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm's length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room.

Aurelio l?i ti?p t?c c?m cúi dánh bóng m?y cái rang gi? b?ng vàng. Ông dua chúng ra xa, nheo m?t l?i và b?t d?u ng?m. Ti?ng d?a con trai l?i vang lên t? noi phòng d?i nh? h?p.

"He says you are, too, because he can hear you."

- Ông ?y b?o là b? có nhà vì ông ?y nghe th?y ti?ng b? r?i.

The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say:

Ông nha si ti?p t?c ki?m tra m?y cái rang gi? dã du?c dánh bóng. Cho t?i khi d?t chúng lên m?t bàn, ông m?i l?m b?m:"So much the better."

- T?t hon r?i dây.

He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold.

Ông l?i b?t máy khoan, nh?t ra vài th? t? thùng các tông d?ng nh?ng th? c?n làm c?a ông r?i ti?p t?c dánh bóng nh?ng cái rang vàng."Papa."

- B??

"What?"

- Gì th??

He still hadn't changed his expression.

- Ông v?n không d?i gi?ng

"He says if you don't take out his tooth, he'll shoot you."

- Ông ?y b?o n?u b? không ch?u nh? rang, ông ?y s? b?n v? d?u b? d?y.

Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. "O.K.," he said. "Tell him to come and shoot me."

Không v?i vã, Aurelio nh? nhàng rút chân ra kh?i t?m v?i thô, tháo nó ra kh?i chi?c gh?, lôi cái ngan kéo phía du?i c?a chi?c bàn ra, ? dó có m?t chi?c súng l?c ? quay. "Ðu?c r?i, b?o ông ta vào dây mà b?n b?".

He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer. The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five-day-old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly:

Ông cu?n chi?c gh? l?i và d?t d?i di?n v?i cái c?a ra vào. Tay ông d?t c?nh g? c?a cái ngan kéo. Ngài th? tru?ng xu?t hi?n ? c?a. Khuôn m?t phía bên ph?i c?a ông khá nh?n nh?i nhung má trái sung vù lên, râu ria ph?i d?n 5 ngày không c?o. Ngu?i nha si d?c th?y s? tuy?t v?ng trong ánh m?t m? d?c c?a ông. Ông nhón d?u ngón tr? dóng cái ngan kéo l?i và nh? nh? nói:

"Sit down."

- M?i ng?i.

"Good morning," said the Mayor.

- Chào ông. - Ngài th? tru?ng nói.

"Morning," said the dentist.

- Xin chào

While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulder-high cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth.

Trong khi ch? d?i nha si dun nóng các d?ng c?, ông th? tru?ng ng? d?u lên gh? và c?m th?y dã khá hon. Hoi th? c?a ông ta l?nh giá. Ðây là m?t phòng khám nghèo nàn: m?t chi?c gh? b?ng g? cu rích, m?t ngan th?y tinh ch?a nh?ng chai l? b?ng g?m, d?i di?n v?i chi?c gh? là m?t c?a s? nh? v?i nh?ng t?m mành treo lo l?ng d?n ngang vai. Khi c?m th?y nha si dang bu?c d?n g?n, ngài th? tru?ng gi? ch?t bàn chân c?a mình và há r?ng mi?ng.

Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor's jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers.

Aurelio Escovar nghiêng d?u v? phía ánh dèn. Sau khi ki?m tra chi?c rang b? nhi?m trùng c?a ngài th? tru?ng, ông kh? ra hi?u cho th? tru?ng ng?m mi?ng l?i và nói:

"It has to be without anesthesia," he said.

- Tôi ph?i x? lý cái rang này mà không gây tê.

"Why?"

- T?i sao?

"Because you have an abscess."

- Vì ông dã b? áp xe.

The Mayor looked him in the eye. "All right," he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn't take his eyes off him.

Ngài th? tru?ng nhìn th?ng vào m?t ông nha si, c? g?ng m?m cu?i và nói: "Cung du?c". V? nha si không cu?i dáp l?i. Ông mang chi?c ch?u d?ng nh?ng d?ng c? kh? trùng ra bàn làm vi?c, ch?m rãi dùng k?p v?t nh?ng v?t d?ng này ra kh?i ch?u nu?c R?i ông d?y cái ?ng nh? v? phía ngài th? tru?ng b?ng d?u mui giày và di t?i b?n nu?c r?a tay. Ông c? th? làm, không h? nhìn ngài th? tru?ng còn ngài th? tru?ng thì du?ng nhu không r?i m?t kh?i kh?i ngu?i nha si.

It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn't make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said:

Ð?y là m?t chi?c rang khôn hàm du?i. Nha si d?ng d?ng hai chân, gi? ch?t cái rang b?ng m?t chi?c k?p. Ngài th? tru?ng n?m ch?t tay vào thành gh?, l?y h?t s?c l?c gi? ch?t hai chân c?a mình nhung ông không h? kêu la. Ngu?i nha si ch? c? d?ng m?i c? tay c?a mình. Ông nói v?i m?t chút chua xót:

"Now you'll pay for our twenty dead men."

- Bây gi? thì ông ph?i c?m on 20 b?nh nhân dã ch?t c?a tôi.

The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn't breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights.

Ngài th? tru?ng nghe rõ ti?ng l?o x?o bên trong quai hàm c?a mình. M?t mui ông nhòe nho?t nu?c, nhung ông c? g?ng nín th? cho t?i khi chi?c rang du?c lôi ra. R?i ông nhìn th?y nó qua hàng nu?c m?t. Trông nó th?t k? l? so v?i n?i dau kinh kh?ng dã hành h? ông trong su?t nam ngày v?a qua.

Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth.

Cúi g?p xu?ng cái ?ng nh?, m? hôi v?t vã, th? h?n h?n, ông c?i cái khuy áo ch?n c?a mình và qu? qu?ng tìm chi?c khan tay trong túi áo. Ngu?i nha si dua cho ông ta m?t mi?ng v?i s?ch.

"Dry your tears," he said.

- Lau nu?c m?t di, ông nói

The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider's eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands. "Go to bed," he said, "and gargle with salt water." The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walked toward the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning up his tunic.

Ngài th? tru?ng làm theo, run l?y b?y, trong lúc ngu?i nha si dang r?a m?t, ông nhìn lên m?ng tr?n nhà v? v?n ch?ng ch?t m?ng nh?n, tr?ng nh?n và nh?ng côn trùng dã ch?t. Ngu?i nha si quay l?i, lau khô tay và nói: "Ngh? ngoi và súc mi?ng b?ng nu?c mu?i". Ngài th? tru?ng d?ng d?y, chào nha si b?ng l?i chào c?a quân d?i và s?i chân v? phía c?a, quên c? cài l?i khuy áo ch?n c?a mình.

"Send the bill," he said.

- C? g?i hóa don nhé...

"To you or the town?"

- Cho ông hay cho thành ph??

The Mayor didn't look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen:

Ngài th? tru?ng không thèm nhìn ngu?i nha si. Ông dóng c?a và nói qua khung kính:

"It's the same damn thing."

- Nhu nhau c? thôi.

(Translated by Hà Linh)

A Sense of Geese - Bài h?c t? dàn ng?ng

A Sense of Geese

When you see geese flying along in "V" formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way . As each bird flaps its wings , it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.

People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone- and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.

If we has as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those people who are headed the same way we are.

When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.

It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs, whether with people or with geese flying south.

Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

What messages do we give when we honk behind ?

Finally- and this is important - when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies; and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their group.

If we have the sense of a geese, we will stand by each other like that.

Bài h?c t? dàn ng?ng

Khi nhìn dàn ng?ng luôn t?o thành hình ch? "V" m?i khi bay cùng nhau, b?n có th? s? th?c m?c r?ng khoa h?c dã khám phá ra di?u gì d? gi?i thích t?i sao chúng l?i bay v?i d?i hình nhu v?y. Khi m?t con ng?ng v?y cánh, nó s? t?o ra m?t l?c nâng cao con ng?ng bay phía sau nó. Khi bay theo d?i hình ch? "V" nhu th?, c? dàn s? du?c ti?p thêm ít nh?t 71% s?c m?nh hon là khi t?ng con bay riêng l?.

Nh?ng ai bi?t cùng nhau chia s? m?c tiêu chung và có tinh th?n doàn k?t thì s? d?n dích nhanh chóng và d? dàng hon vì h? dang di cùng hu?ng v?i nh?ng ngu?i xung quanh.

Khi m?t con ng?ng bay l?ch d?i hình, nó s? ph?i m?t mình ch?ng ch?i v?i s?c c?n c?a gió, và nó s? nhanh chóng tr? v? dúng v? trí d? nh?n l?c nâng t? con phía tru?c.

N?u chúng ra hi?u du?c ý nghia này, chúng ta s? luôn gi? v?ng d?i hình v?i nh?ng ai di cùng hu?ng v?i chúng ta.

Khi con ng?ng d?n d?u du?i s?c, nó s? quay tr? l?i phía sau d?i hình d? nhu?ng ch? cho con khác d?n d?u.

Cung nhu loài ng?ng, con ngu?i c?n ph?i luân phiên nhau th?c hi?n nh?ng công vi?c dòi h?i s? n? l?c cao.

Nh?ng con phía sau s? phát ra ti?ng kêu nh?m khuy?n khích nh?ng con phía tru?c gi? v?ng t?c d?.

Khi b?n lùi v? phía sau, b?n s? g?i nh?ng thông di?p gì cho ngu?i khác?

Ði?u cu?i cùng nhung vô cùng quan tr?ng là khi m?t con ng?ng b? ?m ho?c b? b?n tr?ng thuong, không theo k?p dàn, hai con khác s? l?p t?c tách kh?i d?i hình dìu nó xu?ng d?t d? giúp d? và b?o v? nó. Chúng s? ? l?i v?i con ng?ng b? thuong cho t?i khi nào nó có th? bay du?c. Và n?u con ng?ng dó ch?t, hai con ng?ng kia s? bay m?t mình ho?c gia nh?p v?i dàn ng?ng khác, d? b?t k?p dàn c?a mình.