这几天的大暴雪，已经限制了出行，以至于把很多事情都往后推了推。在北方的家里温暖如春，那么你是否和我一样准备找点什么事情干。 一杯热茶，小狗依偎在怀里，窗外的雪景，手里就差一本书了。

读书是为了什么？读书的词条里写着：读书是指获取他人已准备好的符号、文字并加以辨认、理解、分析的过程。这些最常见的语言文字，还有其他音符、密码、图表构成读书的真个过程。人的追求因读书而有根据。

是的，知道大家学习工作都很忙，没有大段时间耐心看完一整本小说。

在此，为大家整理出了6篇英语短篇小说，篇篇经典，耐人寻味，值得细细品读。

每篇阅读时长都不超过10分钟！ 不超过10分钟！ 就10分钟！ 重要的事情说3遍

保证你找不到借口不读书……

一、《芒果的小屋》

The House on Mango Street

by桑德拉·希斯内罗丝

内容简介

《芒果街上的小屋》共由44个相对独立的短篇构成，所有故事发生在一条叫芒果街的芝加哥小街上。

作者桑德拉·希斯内罗丝用干净纯美的句子勾勒出了一个关于成长，关于在写作中追求现实和精神家园的故事。这是一部由诗句编织成的小书，语言清澈如水般流淌在精神的海洋里，这是一次充斥着梦想在书本上找寻希望和自我的旅程，情节像白色的棉絮轻柔飞扬……

精彩选段

You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it.

你永远不能拥有太多的天空。你可以在天空下睡去，醒来又沉醉。在你忧伤的时候，天空会给你安慰。可是忧伤太多，天空不够。蝴蝶也不够，花儿也不够。大多数美的东西都不够。于是，我们取我们所能取，好好地享用。

Darius, who doesn’t like school, who is sometimes stupid and mostly a fool, said something wise today, though most days he says nothing. Darius, who chases girls with firecrackers or a stick that touched a rat and thinks he’s tough, today pointed up because the world was full of clouds, the kind like pillows.

大流士 ，不喜欢上学的他，有时很傻，几乎是个笨人，今天却说了一句聪明的话，虽然大多数日子他什么都不说。大流士，喜欢用爆竹，用碰过老鼠的小棍子去追逐女孩，还以为自己很了不起的他，今天却指着天空，因为那里有满天的云朵，像枕头样的云朵。

You all see that cloud, that fat one there? Darius said, See that? Where? That one next to the one that look like popcorn. That one there. See that. That’s God, Darius said.God? somebody little asked. God, he said, and made it simple.

你们都看到那朵云了，那朵胖乎乎的云了？大流士说，看到了？哪里？那朵看起来像爆米花的旁边的那朵。那边那朵。看，那是上帝。大流士说。上帝？有个小点的问道。上帝。他说，简洁地说。

二、The Stories Of O.Henry欧亨利短篇小说集

After Twenty Years 二十年后

by O.Henry

阅读时长：5分钟

内容简介

一个冬日的雨夜，警官吉米在巡逻中遇到他20年前的朋友鲍勃。20年前，吉米留在纽约，而鲍勃去了西部，两人约好20年后老地方见。面对如期践约的通缉犯朋友，吉米最终选择将鲍勃绳之于法。

精彩选段

Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and artful movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown the pacific thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of the peace. The vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and then you might see the lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the majority of the doors belonged to business places that had long since been closed.

他一边走一边试着打开门，转动着他的俱乐部，转动着许多复杂而巧妙的动作，不时地转过身来，把他那警惕的目光投向太平洋的大街上，军官用他那坚定的姿势和轻微的昂扬的神气，描绘出一幅和平卫士的优美画面。附近是一个早睡早起的人。现在，你可能会看到雪茄店的灯光或通宵的午餐柜台;但是大部分的门都属于那些早已关闭的商业场所。

There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from its uncertain puffs into a steady blow. The few foot passengers astir in that quarter hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars turned high and pocketed hands. And in the door of the hardware store the man who had come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain almost to absurdity, with the friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and waited.

现在有一股细细的细雨在下降，风从它的不确定的气流中上升到一个稳定的打击。那四分之一的乘客在那一刻不停地乱跳，默默地跟着大衣领子转过身来，手里拿着口袋。在五金店的门口，那个千里之外的人，在他年轻的朋友的陪伴下，抽着雪茄，等待着。

三、The Stories Of O.Henry欧亨利短篇小说集

The Furnished Room带家具出租的房间

by O.Henry

阅读时长：5分钟

内容简介

《带家具出租的房间》，作者用神秘的气氛渲染了一对爱人先后在同一个房间里自尽的悲剧。作者在主人公不停追寻的过程中，将生活的残酷剥落展露在读者的面前。

生活中，我们甚至也时刻面临着年轻人和瓦希娜这样濒于绝望的困境。

A man searching for his lost love finds her ghost in a New York City tenement calling to him. This ghost story is a very unusual tale for O. Henry—longer than most and one of the few he wrote that dealt with the supernatural. The author tells a sad story of how two lovers have committed a suicide successively in the same room by heightening the air of mystery.

精彩选段

Restless, shifting, fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of the population of the red brick district of the lower West Side. Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to furnished room, transients forever–transients in abode, transients in heart and mind. They sing “Home, Sweet Home” in ragtime; they carry their lares et penates in a bandbox; their vine is entwined about a picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig tree.

随着时间的推移，不安分的、变化的、贪婪的，是西下西区红砖区的一大批人口。无家可归的人，他们有100户人家。他们从有家具的房间到有家具的房间，永远都是短暂的——暂住在住所，在心里和思想中短暂停留。他们在拉格的时候唱着“家，温馨的家”;他们带着他们的lares et钢笔在一个乐队里;他们的藤蔓缠绕在一顶帽子上;橡胶树是他们的无花果树。

He engaged the room, paying for a week in advance. He was tired, he said, and would take possession at once. He counted out the money. The room had been made ready, she said, even to towels and water. As the housekeeper moved away he put, for the thousandth time, the question that he carried at the end of his tongue.

他进了房间，提前一个星期付了钱。他说，他很累，而且马上就会占了。他数出了这笔钱。她说，房间已经准备好了，甚至连毛巾和水也准备好了。当管家搬走时，他第一千次把他的问题放在他的舌头的末端。

四、The Stories Of O.Henry欧亨利短篇小说集

The Last Leaf最后一片叶子

by O.Henry

阅读时长：5分钟

内容简介

美国著名短篇小说家欧·亨利《最后一片叶子》描写了一个已经濒于死亡的贫穷女画家乔安西因为一片永不凋落的常春藤叶而恢复健康的离奇故事，塑造了一个命运不济，但品德高尚的老画家贝尔门的形象，歌颂了他舍己为人的崇高精神，从而唱出了一曲生命与希望的赞歌，歌颂了人性的美与善。《最后一片叶子》作为欧·亨利的代表作，充分体现了这位“世界短篇小说之王”的创作特色。文中作者着力挖掘和赞美小人物的伟大人格和高尚品德，展示他们向往人性世界的美好愿望 The Novel “The Last Leaf” is about a young girl decides that she will die when the last leaf drops from a dying vine outside her window, as lingering pneumonia slowly takes her will to live. Her neighbor, Art Carney, is an elderly artist frustrated by his inability to paint what is in his heart. In an attempt to save the young girl, he creates the masterpiece he has been struggling to paint. A beautifully shot and moving story. This excellent short novel is my favorite story. Art Carney does a great job, although his character is French in this version, as opposed to the German character in the book. and just like the book,it truly touched the heart of its reader.

精彩选段

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These “places” make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account

在华盛顿广场西边的一个小街区里，街道上的街道已经疯了，他们把自己变成了一个叫做“地方”的小地方。这些“地方”形成了奇怪的角度和曲线。一条街过了一段时间。一位艺术家曾经在这条街上发现了一种有价值的可能性。假设一名有一份油漆、纸张和帆布账单的收藏家，在穿越这条路线时，突然发现自己回来了，而没有一分钱的收入。

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house. One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey eyebrow.

Pneumonia先生不是你所谓的骑士老绅士。加利福尼亚的一名小妇人，一名带着血的小妇人，对那只红发、呼吸短促的老笨蛋来说，简直是一场不公平的比赛。但约翰西他击杀;她躺在她涂漆的铁床上，几乎不动，在隔壁的砖房的空白边，透过荷兰的窗户看了看。一天早上，忙碌的医生用一种蓬松的灰色眉毛把苏带到走廊。

五、The Stories Of O.Henry欧亨利短篇小说集

The Cop and the Anthem警察与赞美诗

by O.Henry

阅读时长：5分钟

内容简介

he Cop and the Anthem is a December 1904 short story by the United States author O. Henry. It includes several of the classic elements of an O. Henry story, including a setting in New York City, an empathetic look at the state of mind of a member of the lower class, and an ironic ending. Soapy is homeless. He faces the urgent necessity of finding some sort of shelter for the winter. He is psychologically experienced in thinking of the local jail as a de facto homeless shelter. And the narrative shows him developing a series of tactics intended to encourage the police to classify him as a crimi

《警察与圣歌》是美国作家欧·亨利于1904年12月创作的短篇小说。它包含了欧·亨利故事的几个经典元素，包括纽约的一个场景，一个对下层阶级成员的心理状态的移情，以及一个具有讽刺意味的结局。肥皂是无家可归。他迫切需要在冬天找到某种栖身之所。他在心理上有经验，认为当地的监狱是一个事实上的收容所。叙述显示他正在制定一系列策略，以鼓励警方将他列为罪犯。

Soapy’s ploys include swindling a restaurant into serving him an expensive meal, vandalizing the plate-glass window of a luxury shop, repeating his eatery exploit at a humble diner, sexually harassing a young woman, pretending to be publicly intoxicated, and stealing another man’s umbrella. However, all of these attempts are quickly exposed as failures.

索比的伎俩包括欺骗一家餐馆为他提供一顿昂贵的饭菜，破坏一家奢侈品商店的玻璃橱窗，在一个简陋的小餐馆里重复他的饮食，性骚扰一个年轻女人，假装喝醉了，还偷了另一个男人的伞。然而，所有这些尝试都很快被暴露为失败。

精彩选段

dead leaf fell in Soapy’s lap. That was Jack Frost’s card. Jack is kind to the regular denizens of Madison Square, and gives fair warning of his annual call. At the corners of four streets he hands his pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of the mansion of All Outdoors, so that the inhabitants thereof may make ready.

一片枯叶落在苏比的膝上。那是杰克·弗罗斯特的名片。杰克对麦迪逊广场的常客很友善，并对他的年度电话给予了公正的警告。在四街的四角，他把他的纸板递给北风，这是所有户外住宅的仆人，这样，他的居民就可以准备好了。

Soapy had confidence in himself from the lowest button of his vest upward. He was shaven, and his coat was decent and his neat black, ready-tied four-in-hand had been presented to him by a lady missionary on Thanksgiving Day. If he could reach a table in the restaurant unsuspected success would be his. The portion of him that would show above the table would raise no doubt in the waiter’s mind. A roasted mallard duck, thought Soapy, would be about the thing–with a bottle of Chablis, and then Camembert, a demi-tasse and a cigar. One dollar for the cigar would be enough. The total would not be

索比从背心的最底层的钮扣上对自己有了信心。他刮了胡子，他的外套很体面，他那整洁的黑色，已经捆好了的四手包在感恩节的时候由一位女传教士送给他。如果他能在饭店里找到一张桌子，那他就不会成功了。在餐桌上摆出的他的那一部分，无疑会引起侍者的注意。一只烤野鸭，想起来了，就会是这个东西——带着一瓶夏布利酒，然后是卡姆伯特，一种半杯酒和一根雪茄。一美元的雪茄就够了。总数不会。